A Throne of Blood and Stars

Chapter Twenty-Three

He turns and stomps out much as he stomped in, and Madame Pomfrey hurries out when the door swings open to allow passage to the sac of flour that goes through.

She harrumphs at him and slams the door, ignoring the grunt the official releases at it hitting his back, instead opting to rush to the bed with a loopy Harry Potter.

"What did they do," Ron asks hastily. "I've never seen someone come out this bad after being Evaluated."

Madame Pomfrey shakes her head. "Those buffoons mixed too many potions in one dosage and attempted thorough magic on him. For two hours. They wouldn't let me touch him until it was over."

The two boys shake their head while the Medi-Witch starts waving her hand over him, chanting spells.

*******

Hermione is sitting in the public section of the library, a huge tome in her lap and reading about the Magical Properties of Ambrosia.

It's fascinating, really.

She moves the book up, where it's resting on her leg, and lifts it with a huff. Her leg is falling asleep and she can feel fire ants crawling all over her thigh. When she looks up to see where she puts the book down, she finds a familiar lithe figure browsing over the Amare Verum section with a thoughtful finger tapping on his chin.

The Gryffindor's blood boils for some inexplicable reason and she stands, the book long forgotten as she marches over to Blaise.

"What are you doing," she hisses at him.

He turns slowly, regards her impassively and turns back to the shelves. "I am looking for a book, what does it look like I'm doing?"

"It looks," she pushes his shoulder to get him to look at her. "Like you're looking to poison someone. Which, with your history, I wouldn't put it past you."

Blaise feels hurt, he feels his chest cave in and his heart freeze, but all he does is narrow his eyes at her. "Do you know what classes I take on Tuesdays?"

"No, and I don't care. What I do care about is..."

"Arithmancy at eight. Double Advanced Potions at ten, and Advanced Muggle Studies at twelve. Do you know what that means?"

Hermione huffs and crosses her arms. "No, but I bet you'll tell me."

"That means that for Double Advanced Potions I have to look for the book that's assigned for me to read. In this case, for today's lesson, it's The Theory of Ancient Love Potions."

The way the bushy-haired girl tries to hide her blush behind her unruly curls makes Blaise's heart sing with confidence.

"Now, if you'll be so kind. I was doing what I am supposed to."

She looks away, embarrassed, and after a second she turns and walks back to her table and opens her book again.

Merlin, that was completely unnecessary, she thinks to herself. He clearly wasn't doing anything wrong.

There is just something about Blaise Zabini that raises a red flag in Hermione's head. Is it the fact that he's a Slytherin? Or because he's Draco Malfoy's best friend. Maybe Hermione sees him as dangerous.

The kind of spells Blaise is capable of is unbelievable. If Hermione thinks she takes too many advanced classes, Blaise is worse, and he does it without a Time Turner. He's been attending doubles and advanced classes since third year, that's two years before Hermione started. Which means that not only is Blaise smarter than her, he's also faster, wittier and a hell of a lot wiser.