Chapter Text
Blaise was watching Potter again. Much as he had been since school had returned a few short weeks ago. Potter was different. Obviously, everyone was different since the war, Draco was less of a prat and more inclined to think before he spoke, though he was still witty and caustic. Pansy gossiped less and was more intense about her studies than perhaps even Granger. Theo was happy, his father had died in the war leaving Theo the Head of their House and free at last. Longbottom had finally gotten his lion’s courage and was dating the Ravenclaw oddball, who was, well she was unchanged. Blaise rather thought that everyone’s skin could turn pink and she would simply exclaim “pretty!” before digging into the night’s pudding. The girl seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with dessert, perhaps all the sugar was what addled her.
Granger and Weasley were almost sickening to look at. Thankfully, not as puke-inducing as Weasley’s relationship with the Brown girl had been, but the hearts in their eyes whenever they looked at each other was surely enough to rot even their own teeth, and Blaise had heard that Granger’s parents were some kind of muggle tooth doctors.
Yes, there were many changes in his peers and he could sit here and list them all, or he could get to the bottom of what had changed for Potter. Whenever Blaise observed him, he was a constant contradiction. Laughing wildly with his friends in one moment and looking morose in the next. Eventually, Blaise’s mother’s words came to him.
“ If you want to know the why of someone, observe them when they think no-one else is.”
So that was what Blaise did. He watched. He was watching whenever Potter’s friends turned away, whenever he was sat quietly in the classroom working alone because his friends were paired off, whenever he snuck out of the castle to fly on his own. Blaise watched. And the more he saw, the more he realised that Potter was lonely. That even surrounded by people as he was. He was alone. And what made things worse. He was in pain.
How his friends didn’t see it, Blaise was unaware, though it made him all the more determined to rescue Potter from that well of loneliness. He himself was all too aware of that dark shadow and how heavy it could be. Striding across the grounds as he watched Potter begin his circling descent, as always, stretching out the flight to the last possible second. Blaise reached him just as he landed.
Potter cocked his head at him as he shouldered his broom and Blaise was overcome with a new realisation, he wanted Potter. Quirking an eyebrow at the sudden swing in his internal thoughts and quickly realising the exact reason he had been watching Potter so closely, his plan changed. He extended his hand and when Potter held his own out to reciprocate what he had thought was going to be a handshake. Blaise bowed and kissed the back of his knuckles.
His eyes never left Potter’s as he lowered his voice and said, “Hullo, Lonesome. Fancy accompanying me to Hogsmeade this weekend?”
Blaise didn’t move a muscle as he waited for Potter to reply. He kept a firm grip on the wind-frozen fingers and he watched as Potter’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped open for his mouth to form a small ‘o’.
The silence stretched between them and Blaise felt his bottom lip catch between his teeth. Potter’s eyes flicked to the movement and he cursed himself for looking so vulnerable. Though the moment their eyes met again, he wondered if it hadn’t been such a bad thing.
“Okay,” Potter breathed softly and Blaise smiled a smile he didn’t grace anyone but his mother with. Another surprise for the Slytherin. He raised Harry’s hand to his lips again and they walked back to the castle together.