Chapter Text
Mary had thought a lot about how she would react when (if) Snape came back from wherever he was. Sometimes, she thought she would yell at him, or else give him the cold shoulder. Other times, she thought she’d completely collapse with relief, just to see that he was alright, that he hadn’t been sent back to Death Eating behind her back.
What happened instead was that her mind went entirely, one-hundred-percent blank.
Snape looked—well, the same as ever, except maybe even more tired. Whatever he’d been off doing, there was no sign of it in his face or choice of clothes. She wasn’t sure why that surprised her, why she’d expected him to come back missing a limb or something, robes all shredded by some great beast—anything to give her a hint as to what had kept him from writing for an entire month.
And she was—she was standing there in front of him, in dress robes, her hair all done up and her glasses gone, and all of a sudden she felt ridiculous and wasn’t sure why. Except that Snape belonged to the other, serious world, the world where she’d fought and suffered and killed, and seeing him now made her acutely aware of just how frivolous and unreal all of this was, getting dressed up and having everyone make a big deal out of the fact that she’d been born. A birthday party? What had she been thinking?!
“Traditionally,” Snape said, and she’d been staring at him so long that she almost jumped in surprise, as though she’d forgotten he could make noise and wasn’t just a Snape-shaped statue standing on her doorstep, “one invites guests inside, rather than simply staring at them indefinitely.”
Mary blushed, and then, for some bloody reason, said, “You’re here.”
“Yes.”
“…Why are you here?”
Snape’s mouth twitched, like he was trying not to laugh. “I was informed that your birthday party was tonight, and seeing as I just arrived back in the country, I thought that I might make a short appearance.”
Back in the country. So he’d really been gone, like Dumbledore had said—but where? And how had he known about her party? For a dizzying moment, she thought irrationally of the last letter she’d written him and then burned, wondered if somehow the sheer force of her wanting to talk to him had magically sent the words straight to his head.
But then there were people at her back, startling her again—she’d been so fixated on Snape that she’d allowed herself to be snuck up on—and someone was saying, “What are you doing here?”
Sirius.
Before Mary could turn around and argue, though, someone else spoke. “I invited him. I thought that perhaps Mary would appreciate seeing for herself that Severus is fine, just as I told her.”
She turned to see Dumbledore twinkling down at her. Bastard. He could have told her Snape would be here, but no, he’d ambushed her, probably just to amuse himself. Ever since that night in the hospital wing, he’d been acting all knowing and Dumbledore-y about the fact that she cared about Snape.
Before Sirius could protest, Dumbledore continued, “Come in, Severus—Minerva and I were just talking about your return.”
Oh, sure, he’d told McGonagall, but not her. At her own party! Before Mary could say anything more, Dumbledore was pulling Snape away from her, steering him off towards the refreshments table, and Snape went without another glance at her, leaving her with something burning in her gut. Frustration, maybe.
“Did you know he was coming?” Sirius asked, sounding irritated. Whatever tentative truce he’d formed with Snape when trying to protect Mary from Moody’s killer had evaporated That Night, when she’d clung to Snape in front of him and Snape had threatened Sirius to keep him from separating them. Maybe earlier in the summer, he would’ve still felt guilty about Crouch enough to play nice, but now…
Mary, though, had no patience for Sirius’s petty dragonshit, not when she was still reeling at Snape’s return herself. “Not now, Sirius,” she said flatly, and walked away without another word.
With Dumbledore monopolizing Snape, though, she couldn’t approach him—there was no way she could say anything she wanted to say to him in front of the Headmaster, even if she didn’t know yet what she wanted to say. Actually, she realized, she probably couldn’t say it at all. Not here, not with the way everyone was staring at Snape. After That Night, and what had happened on the Quidditch pitch, people would be watching the two of them. At the very least, she’d need to wait until the shock of his appearance had worn off.
Instead, she let herself be pulled aside by Sadie, who looked, to her surprise, no happier than Sirius at the appearance of the unexpected guest. “Potter!” hissed the Slytherin Quidditch captain. “Why didn’t you tell me Professor Snape would be here?”
“I didn’t know,” Mary said. “I thought he was—away.” Behind Sadie, Simran and Rachel were looking similarly alarmed. They, at least, were only going into their second year, so it made sense that they’d still be frightened of their Head of House, but why was Sadie upset?
Sadie, for her part, had now turned her wand on herself and seemed to be attempting to… spell the neckline of her robes higher? “If I’d known he would be here, I wouldn’t have worn something so low cut!”
Oh. Mary was surprised, somehow, that she wasn’t the only one feeling odd about being in her dress robes in front of Snape, though she had the impression that Sadie’s distress was more about feeling like she had to uphold Slytherin decorum or something now that their Head of House was at the party. Similarly, Mary spotted Ron, Neville, Hannah, and Gin clustered together, looking very nervous.
“Oh, honestly,” Mary snapped, rolling her eyes. “It’s only Professor Snape.” Not that she herself hadn’t been freaking out a bit at seeing him again, but at least she had a good reason to! As for everyone else, what, did they think that Snape was going to dock House points from them if he saw them having fun over the summer?
“Of course she’d say that,” Rachel muttered to Simran under her breath, probably not intending Mary to hear—but she did. Mary paused for a moment, considering whether she wanted to dignify that with a response, before deciding they were all idiots and storming off to talk to Hermione instead.
“Back me up, Maia,” she said, approaching her friend and the twins. “It’s not that strange for Professor Snape to come to my birthday party, is it?”
“It’s not, really,” Hermione said unconvincingly. “I mean, Lupin and Vance are here, and they were both our professors, too.”
“Are you mental?” asked one of the twins. “It’s Snape. At a party.”
“He’s probably just here because it’s basically an Order meeting,” Mary pointed out, looking over at Snape, who was now surrounded by not only Dumbledore and McGonagall, but also Aurors Tonks and Vance.
“Please,” said the other twin. “We all know why he’s here.”
“It’s cause you’re his favorite.”
Oh, bugger, she’d all but forgotten that after the Yule Ball, they basically knew that she fancied him. Or that she had, anyway—for all they should know, she’d gotten over it by now! “Your boyfriends are idiots,” she informed Hermione, who only smiled.
“Yeah, I’m aware,” she said. “Unfortunately, they’ve got a lot of other good qualities.”
“Excuse you! Who was it that brewed Veritaserum with you when we were just fourth years?”
“Fred! Not in public!” Hermione cast a frantic look over her shoulder, even though Snape, Dumbledore, and her parents all already knew what they’d done.
Annoyed, Mary moved on, finding Lilian, Blaise, Daphne, and Tori instead—they, at least, weren’t losing their minds over Snape’s presence, even if Lilian seemed surprised by it.
It was another forty-five minutes before Mary got an opportunity to talk to Snape. It took the Headmaster and the other Order members that long to leave him alone, and the rest of the party-goers nearly as long to stop shooting him nervous looks when they thought he wasn’t watching.
Finally, though, she decided that it would be inconspicuous enough for her to go up and talk to him. After all, it was her party, and he was her Head of House. Of course, they couldn’t talk about anything important, but she could at least… she wasn’t sure. She didn’t know what she wanted, what she had expected from him upon his return—only that it hadn’t happened yet.
She had the absurd urge to fix her robes or hair or something, but resisted it. Instead, standing up straight and folding her hands together behind her back, she took a deep breath and approached Snape at a normal, measured pace, keeping a polite but not overly eager expression on her face. There were people watching, after all, and after that night on the Quidditch pitch and her talk with McGonagall afterward, she was more aware than ever of how they might be perceived.
As she got closer, Snape’s eyes snapped to her. He didn’t smile, but there was something in his face that suggested he was pleased to see her; at least, he looked more pleased than he had been when Dumbledore was talking to him.
“Professor Snape,” she greeted, stopping a couple of feet in front of him.
“Miss Potter,” he responded with a nod.
Part of her hated having to do this—the ‘Professor Snape’ and ‘Miss Potter’ routine, like they weren’t so far beyond that now, the way she’d cradled his head in her lap and poured potions down his throat on the floor of his office. The way they’d taken care of Crouch and hidden the truth from everyone. And if it weren’t for the hint of irony in Snape’s voice, she might be more worried, after the way he’d disappeared without telling her a thing. She might think that he was shutting her out again, like he’d done back in May.
She might have, except that there was a certain undercurrent to the way he spoke to her that somehow told her they were fine. His voice was just slightly sardonic, as though letting her know that the awkward formality was just for show, a little joke only the two of them were in on, meant to fool everyone else who was outside their little circle and couldn’t read between the lines.
This conspiratorial air to him gave her the courage to say, “I have to say, I wasn’t expecting you. I sent a letter a few weeks ago that came back unopened, and Professor Dumbledore said you were away.” A hint of reproach in her tone, but only a hint. She was angry with him, yes, but she wasn’t going to yell at him here, in front of outsiders. (By which she meant anyone who wasn’t them.)
“I was.”
“Couldn’t have warned me you’d be gone so long?” Mary hoped her tone came off as a sort of teasing reprimand, rather than needy, but wasn’t sure. Maybe it was better that she couldn’t yell at him here, because honestly, she didn’t trust herself not to break down if she did.
“The end of term was… a busy time. And some things are best not discussed in writing, particularly in our current times.”
“Well, we’re not writing now. Where were you?”
“America.”
“Doing?”
“Not here.” But Snape didn’t look annoyed at her nosiness, and he’d leaned in slightly. She’d felt him cast some sort of spell, too, maybe to make it harder for others to hear them. Not Muffliato. Something… subtler?
Suspecting that they wouldn’t be overheard now, Mary found the courage to say, “Well, if you won’t put it in a letter, and you won’t tell me here, then I suppose I’ll just have to have you over for tea. How’s Tuesday?”
She knew she was being rather bold—a year ago, she’d only dared to invite him to the Manor after her dream of the Dark Lord and Barty Crouch Jr.—but that was in line with the promise she’d made to herself in the graveyard. There was no more time for games.
“I’m sure I’ll be by Grimmauld before long. It’s the headquarters, after all.” Which wasn’t really a yes or a no.
Damn. If he only came by for Order meetings, it would be just like this—all ‘Miss Potter’ and coded conversations while everyone hovered around, watching them out of the corner of their eyes. No, she needed an excuse to get him to herself so they could actually talk. She felt like she’d explode if she had to wait until September to have a real conversation with him about—well, any of it. Any of the things that, as he’d pointed out, couldn’t be put in writing.
“I’m sure you will be,” she said. “For my training. So you might as well come by Tuesday, and we can plan out a schedule.”
At that, Snape arched an eyebrow. “I was told you’ve been training with Black at a rather aggressive pace, and the Aurors as well.”
So he’d asked Dumbledore or McGonagall about her already. He’d wanted to know what she’d been up to while he was gone. Mary suppressed a smile.
“I have,” she said. “But there might be some gaps in my knowledge. I’ve had to practice my wandless magic and silent casting almost entirely on my own. And,” lowering her voice, just in case, “did you know Sirius can’t do Dark magic at all? Like, not that he just doesn’t want to—he can’t.” She hadn’t realized until the summer that her godfather was so strongly Light-polarized that he found it physically painful to cast Dark spells.
“I did.” Snape inclined his head.
“Leave me alone with him too long, and I’ll be a Light witch when I come back to school. Imagine the scandal in Slytherin.” Of course, they both knew it would take longer than two months for her magic to become polarized (if it even could, considering the weirdly ambipolar magic she’d inherited from Lily), but that wasn’t the point. The point was, she needed to give him an excuse.
Anyway, his lips seemed to be twitching again, so she was pretty sure she wasn’t being too much of a pest. “We wouldn’t want that,” he said.
“So, then, we’re agreed?” she asked, pressing her advantage. “You’ll continue training me this summer?”
She fought the urge to cross her fingers behind her back. She wasn’t sure he’d agree to continue her lessons over the summer, since there wouldn’t really be a way to hide it from everyone. But now that they weren’t cheating on an international wizarding competition and he wasn’t planning on going back to spying, it didn’t seem like there was any reason it needed to be a huge secret. And she genuinely didn’t want to wait until September to continue working on not only her Dark battlemagic but also her nonverbal and wandless magic (with a decent instructor, that was).
And, okay, maybe she just wanted to see him. Alone, that was.
As if reading her mind (though she was certain he wasn’t), Snape raised an eyebrow and said, “How do you intend to convince Black to let you alone with me?”
“I’m fifteen,” Mary said, exasperated. The benefit of living with Sirius was supposed to be that she didn’t have to do the whole propriety song and dance anymore. “He’ll cope.” Leaning in, she added, in a near-whisper, “If he complains too much, I’ll just call him a ‘bad dog’ again.”
That got an actual smirk from him. “Handily enough, Dumbledore has already begun haranguing me to spend more time at Headquarters in the few hours I’ve been back. Some nonsense about unity and putting old grudges behind us. I’d been fending him off, but if you can truly convince Black to allow it, I should be able to stop by now and then.”
Snape sounded doubtful, and following his gaze to Sirius, she could see why. Her godfather looked rather worked up, probably at her whispering jokes to Snape, and Remus seemed to be trying to convince him not to come over and start a fight. Honestly.
Mary rolled her eyes. “I’ll deal with him.”
“I’ll have a look at my schedule. But for the moment, I ought to be going. I only stopped by to wish you a happy birthday, and I am certain from his glaring that Black would like me off his property as soon as possible.”
“He said I should consider the Black properties to be as much mine as they are his,” she said. “And I say you’re welcome. Besides, you haven’t even given me my present yet.”
Snape looked at her blankly. “Present? I have never in my life given you a birthday present, and I certainly do not intend to start now. You must have me confused with someone else.”
“Right, sorry, I forgot. Maybe I confused you for Sirius; he buys me the best presents. Definitely my favorite godfather.”
“Indeed.” Despite her best attempts at stalling, however, Snape still said, “I really had best be going. I’ll contact you once I know when I will be free. Do tell me if your favorite dogfather has been brought to heel before I stop by and find myself held at wandpoint. Not that I’m worried, of course, but I would hate to have to hurt him, seeing as you’re so very fond.”
He hadn’t said yes or no about tea on Tuesday, she realized, but this was probably the best she was going to get for now. Actually, as she watched him go, she found herself feeling a bit lightheaded at her own behavior. Almost like the Yule Ball, except that she was sober and therefore had no excuse. She’d intended just to find out what he’d been up to, maybe quietly scold him a bit for disappearing, but then somehow, she’d found herself joking around with him. Teasing him. She wasn’t sure what had come over her, except that it was the most she’d enjoyed herself all day.
Glancing at the gift table, she spotted an unmarked white box that had not been there when he arrived and smiled to herself, unconsciously raising a hand to cover her mouth. You know, I’m pretty sure some of that was flirting. And he’d left as soon as they’d talked, too, making it obvious that he’d only come to see her.
Or maybe it was all in her head, but she’d let herself believe it, despite the rational part of her brain telling her that he’d never see her that way. She was a woman now, at least magically speaking. It wasn’t impossible. Catherine had said that it wasn’t that unusual for noble girls to marry men much older than themselves.
And, well, it was just that she felt something, in the aftermath of their conversation, that she hadn’t felt since before That Night. Happy, maybe, though that wasn’t all. There was a sort of giddy excitement that made her feel like a real teenage girl again, instead of whatever it was she’d become. She didn’t really care if it wasn’t real—she just wanted to feel something other than fear and dread.
High on the feeling, she turned and made her way over to Sirius, who pasted on a clearly fake smile the moment he saw her coming.
“Fawn!” he said, too loudly, and Remus let go of his arm. “Enjoying your party?”
“Yep!” she said brightly, pretending she hadn’t noticed his agitation.
She wondered if he’d let it go, but after a moment, entirely too casually, he said, “So, uh, what were you and Snape whispering about over there?”
Mary smiled innocently up at him. “That would be telling. By the way, Professor Snape is probably swinging by in a few days to have tea and catch up a bit.” She’d let him stew on that before dropping the news that she’d be training with him. Before Sirius could protest, she added, “That’s fine, isn’t it? I know I didn’t ask first, but you did say that I should make myself at home.”
Remus’s mouth twitched, and Mary shot him a conspiratorial grin before interrupting whatever Sirius was going to say with a, “Thanks so much, godfather!” and flouncing away.
Maybe this party wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Once the evening grew later, as planned, the party split into two. Sirius would be entertaining the adults on the ground floor, while Mary and her friends were granted free reign of the upper floor of the house. There was another living room up there where they could hang out, because the ‘cottage’ was really more of a small manor by anyone’s standards but the Blacks. Sirius had brought his magical record player out from Grimmauld and put up sound palings so they could talk and play music as loud as they wanted.
Not all the kids stayed. Dan volunteered to escort the two younger girls, Rachel and Simran, back to their homes, while Dave’s mother collected him and his friends, and Mrs. Weasley dragged Gin and Ron away—apparently it wasn’t appropriate for them to stay late at an unsupervised party with students of both genders, especially when some of those students were from Dark families, horror of horrors. Gin was spitting mad, especially since the twins were allowed to stay (and by ‘allowed,’ Mary really meant that they were seventeen and their parents seemed to have given up on telling them what to do). Ron, for his part, had seemed happy to leave.
Luna, to Mary’s surprise, announced that she would be leaving with ‘Ginevra Phyllis’ for their own sleepover. Mary got the impression she had formulated the plan on the spot to cheer Gin up. That, or she found it awkward to be around Mary now too, even if she was better at hiding it.
Left behind were all the guests in Mary’s year and up, plus Tori Greengrass, who was so quiet Mary barely noticed she was there. When they went upstairs, they found on the table several bottles of mead and elderflower wine, a single bottle of firewhiskey, a large quantity of glasses, and a note reading Happy birthday, Fawn.
Mary snorted and wondered if Remus knew that Sirius was giving them alcohol. In any case, since her godfather had insisted the teens be given privacy for their party, it was possible he would never find out. Mary certainly wouldn’t snitch.
She watched as her friends eagerly opened the bottles and began pouring out drinks. Mary herself firmly turned down the firewhiskey, but after a moment of consideration, accepted a glass of elderflower wine. If she drank it slowly enough, she should, she thought, be able to catch herself before she got too silly.
The others didn’t restrain themselves nearly as much. Neville was soon bright red and stumbling around, to the resigned amusement of Hannah, chatting politely on the sofa with Lilian and Sadie. Hermione, looking a bit pink herself, somehow ended up embroiled in a vigorous discussion of politics with Tori, of all people. The twins were jokingly (she thought, anyway) flirting with Blaise while his fiancée Daphne danced with Aerin Moon, the two of them spinning in a waltz that absolutely did not match the music (one of Sirius’s muggle records, she was pretty sure it was called Bowie or something).
Mary hadn’t been sure about this party, but she’d warmed to it after Snape’s visit, and even more so now that she saw all of her friends having fun. Maybe Sirius had been right that everyone needed this.
With the end of year parties canceled due to Viktor’s murder and everything that had come with it, they hadn’t been able to let loose like this since, well, she wasn’t sure when. Probably Walpurgis, she figured, even though she didn’t actually remember much of it.
Anyway, the point was, it was kind of fun. Mary still didn’t feel entirely like part of the scene, and she was more comfortable if she let herself imagine that this was Neville’s birthday party and she was just another guest, but she didn’t sulk in the corner the way she had been earlier, and after finishing her glass of wine, she found that her smiles weren’t as forced as they had been.
Still, she restrained herself, which meant that after a few hours, all of the guests who hadn’t gone home already were passed out on various pieces of furniture or in the several empty bedrooms, all but her… and Blaise.
She supposed that shouldn’t be a surprise—Blaise had told her that he didn’t like to drink too much, as it made his empathic abilities harder to control. Which was more or less the same reason she didn’t drink, other than just generally not wanting to make an arse of herself (again). But anyway, she found herself suddenly nervous. In truth, she’d been avoiding him much of the evening. Their whole friendship, after all, had been based on sharing their secrets, seeing directly into each others’ minds. Only now, she had a big enough secret that she couldn’t tell him, and she somehow felt that he just knew. Not what she was keeping from him, she meant, but just that there was something.
Still, when Blaise asked if she wanted to get some fresh air, gesturing to the balcony outside, she didn’t say no. Nor did she object when he nicked one of the bottles of wine to take with them.
The two of them sat side by side in silence for awhile, Blaise drinking elderflower wine straight from the bottle. Mary, after some hesitation, joined in, though she made sure to pace herself, given how embarrassing it would be if she managed to fall off the balcony. Beyond the garden, the Hogsmeade neighborhood was quiet, but she knew there were sound wards on the whole place, so even if they talked, they wouldn’t disturb anyone.
Still, she didn’t much feel like talking right now. If nothing else, sitting quietly like this made it easier to keep her secret. And Blaise was calming, sometimes, though not quite in the same way as Luna. He didn’t expect too much from her, didn’t get upset if she didn’t paste on a happy face for him. When he threw an arm around her shoulders, she not only allowed it but leaned into him—over the past year, he had become one of the few people she’d tolerate physical affection from.
That, unfortunately, made her think about other things that were unspoken between them.
The one time they’d talked about it, she’d gotten the impression that something had happened between the two of them at the Walpurgis Revel, but she hadn’t had the nerve to ask for details, assuming that it was probably embarrassing enough that she’d rather not know. Now, though, she found herself a bit curious. It was just weird, not actually knowing how far she’d gone with someone. Like, had the snogging and bit of groping with Luna been the extent of her experience, or was there… something else?
Mary thought of asking, but wasn’t sure how. And yet, she knew that despite her occlumency, Blaise would have picked up on her feelings by now, if not the thoughts behind them. His empathy was far stronger than his legilimency. Sure enough, after a moment, he said, “Whatcha thinking about?”
She blushed, but somehow found in herself the courage, maybe thanks to the wine, to say, “Back in the spring, you asked if I wanted to know what happened at Walpurgis, and I said no.”
A flash of warm amusement from Blaise, and a bit of interest too. “You did,” he agreed. “Changed your mind?”
Mary instinctively looked back over her shoulder, trying to see if any of their friends were awake and watching them from inside the house, but they were just as they’d left them. Even little Tori, who honestly should not have been drinking, being thirteen and all, was red-faced and snoring against her big sister’s shoulder.
She turned back to Blaise, steeled herself. “Maybe I did.”
When he responded, it wasn’t out loud, but with a thought slipped into her head—her occlumency was designed to keep him from her innermost thoughts, not to prevent the wordless communication he liked to use with her.
“Show, or tell?”
Mary quickly replied, “Just tell me!” She might be curious, but that didn’t mean she wanted to know what she looked like when she was doing… whatever she’d done with him.
“Well, we snogged,” Blaise informed her, and she relaxed slightly. That wasn’t so bad. But then he added, “And I put my hand under your knickers and—” He stopped himself at the wordless response from Mary, a projected desire for him to just stop talking. Or thinking. Whatever.
“I get the idea,” she replied, her face burning. So Blaise’s hand had been… there. Okay, that wasn’t too bad, but she wasn’t that comfortable thinking about the details just yet. Not even about whether anything had been—whether he’d just touched the outside, or put anything—oh, she couldn’t think it. But there was another feeling she picked up from Blaise, like there was something else he wanted to tell her, and reluctantly, she sent him a sort of mental nod, gesturing for him to continue.
“You called me Snape’s name,” he added, a mix of hesitance and amusement coming along with the words, and Mary went completely blank for a second. “His first name.”
Forgetting to respond silently, she whined, covering her face with both hands. “Oh Merlin,” she gasped. “Oh no.” Something smooth and solid nudged the back of her hand, and she peeked, seeing that it was the neck of the wine bottle, which Blaise was offering to her. Mary immediately grabbed it and took a much larger sip than she had before, then turned to him with a glare.
“Don’t say another word, Zabini,” she threatened, but he only looked more amused.
“Technically, I wasn’t saying any words,” he said, tapping his temple.
“You know what I mean! I can feel you being all… smug at me.”
Holding up his hands, Blaise said, “Okay, okay, sorry. You know I don’t judge. Everyone’s into something. I like pretty girls and boys, you like grumpy old—”
“Stop,” Mary whined, shoving him a bit clumsily, and he laughed, dipping in to press a kiss to her hair.
“But you’re so cute when you’re embarrassed,” Blaise told her, the incorrigible flirt, and Mary turned even more red, which she hadn’t thought was possible.
“I swear to the Powers, Zabini, I will hex you off this bloody balcony if you don’t stop making fun of me.”
“Alright!” Blaise yielded with a pout, and Mary turned to look out over the rows of houses again, mostly so she wouldn’t have to look at him. After a moment, he added slyly, “The last bit wasn’t making fun, though. You are cute.”
Mary snorted. “Okay.”
“Seriously. Full marks, would snog again.” She had to laugh at that, even though she could tell he was actually serious. “If you want. Wouldn’t have to do anything else, I know you’re not ready.”
Mary was sure he did; he’d certainly spent enough time in her mind, and knew all about her and Luna. To her surprise, she felt herself considering it. She glanced over her shoulder once last time, double-checking that no one was watching.
“Yeah, alright,” she said, mostly because, she thought, she didn’t like knowing that she’d snogged someone without actually being able to remember what it was like. And because they were all alone, and the stars were out, and the elderflower wine was quite nice, and… she felt like doing something, though she didn’t quite know what.
Maybe this would make her feel like she was actually living inside of her life for a change, like she had after talking to Snape, instead of watching it happen from a distance, like she had all the rest of the day.
Blaise, the arrogant arse, didn’t seem surprised by her easy agreement, but then, he knew her almost as well as she knew herself. He turned her around to face him with a gentle nudge of his hand, leaned in, and kissed her.
It wasn’t so bad—especially, somehow, because she knew they’d already done it. Blaise was a good kisser, which wasn’t surprising, given all the practice she knew he’d had. And his lips were soft. But he was restrained with her, keeping his hands to himself and letting her take the lead, even though, by the way his breathing sped up, he wasn’t wholly unaffected.
Despite his restraint, there was still an underlying feeling of… Mary wasn’t sure what. Not danger, exactly, but excitement? Sensuality? She wasn’t sure if it was because of the wine, or because she knew now that they’d already done more than this, or if it was just something about Blaise himself.
Whatever it was, it was too easy to get swept up in, and Mary felt flushed by the time he broke the kiss. She let out a quiet noise of protest before she could stop herself, and Blaise chuckled.
“That’s enough of that,” he told her, sounding as collected as always. “If we keep this up, you’ll be too embarrassed to look at me for months.”
Damn it, but Mary had to admit he was right. It was irritating how well he knew her sometimes.
Blaise regarded her for a moment, and she made an effort to school her expression into something a little less thoroughly snogged. Then, without warning, he took her face in both hands and planted a firm kiss on her forehead.
“What was that?” Mary complained, pulling away and wiping at her forehead, which felt disconcertingly wet.
“Happy birthday, Mary Potter,” Blaise told her, sounding very pleased with himself. “You’re a good one.”
Mary was pretty sure that was Blaise-speak for ‘You’re my friend and I care about you,’ but of course he was too cool to say it straight out. He gave her a slight grin at that, so he’d probably heard that thought—she hadn’t been bothering to occlude as strongly for the past while, confident that anything he shouldn’t see was buried deeply enough.
Slipping his arm around her shoulder again, Blaise pulled her against his side and said, “It’s been a long year, huh?” Mary laughed, because that was an understatement if she’d ever heard one, and his hand tightened for a moment, squeezing her against him. “You’ll be alright,” he told her.
“Oh yeah?” Mary tried to sound teasing, despite the sudden lump in her throat. “How do you know?”
“Cause I know you, Mary,” Blaise said, no amusement in his tone now. “You’re strong as all hell. They’re not gonna break you.”
Mary leaned into her friend’s shoulder and stared out over the darkened neighborhood, wishing she could believe him.