– EXCELSIOR

I GOT MY HEART’S DESIRE, AND THERE MY TROUBLES BEGAN—

𝖖 𝖚 𝖔 𝖙 𝖊 𝖘

“He wasn't in a safe little story where wrongs were automatically righted; he was still in the real world, where bad bitter things happened for no reason, and people paid for things that weren't their fault.” ― Lev Grossman, The Magicians

“It was a nice shirt.” His hand trailed up Blaise’s un-injured and un-healed arm, making a permanent note in his mind of just how soft his friend’s skin was. The burns had been jarring to see in person. Not just due to how phased Blaise was about their night at Club Raven ending in tragedy. (For he hadn’t jotted down high pain tolerance under the Blaise section of his head. The word found there was whining.) More so because imperfection wasn’t something he saw on Blaise. Only heard from him. Often.

“My elf.” Unwilling to remove his hand from the shoulder now keeping him from sinking to the floor as the powerful mixture of lavender, crocodile heart, and peppermint worked its magic through his body. “Madame Primp…Primper…Blanche is my step-mother.” Theo looked to the side at Blaise and raised a brow in question. He had wanted to go home. To curl up in his bed and lock himself away from the entire world except for his fiancée and forget all the twists and turns of Rabastan Lestrange’s game and Cavalier Avery’s fun house. The calming draught, heavy handed on the lavender, wasn’t his brew. If it was Theodore would have been able to do a bit more than lean against Blaise as his own head drooped. Staying in the shop wasn’t too bad now.

A cordon sounded serious. As did the aurors insistent that they go to St. Mungo’s. Nose wrinkling in dissatisfaction, Theo spoke his refusal. “No.” Only Blaise had been injured, caught up in the flames that had burst from the fireplace’s mouth like the displays of shimmering embers on Yule. “Thank you.” And he was fine now. Healed. “We’re fine.” All thanks to Jwi who was looking more worried than when Theo had first summoned him. “We’ll stay here. Right, Blaise?” 

He pulled Blaise’s hand off the doorknob, taking it for his own. “Have a good night.” And closed it in the auror’s face, blinking to fight off the heavy feeling that seemed to be pressing into him on all sides. “You broke the wards.” Another yawn escaped him. Theo stopped fighting the soft whispers of sleep beckoning him. He rested his forehead on Blaise’s shoulder and sighed loudly before his head popped back up and he looked towards the door that clearly showed Auror Shacklebolt on the other side. “Did I just…is that bad?”

“It was a nice shirt,” Blaise agreed solemnly, only distracted from his mourning by the soothing path of a hand on his unharmed arm and the hand that settled, eventually, upon his shoulder. He should be paying better attention to the auror, he imagined his mama would be terribly disappointed in him, but there was a lazy blanket descending heavily over him that seemed to insist that nothing was nearly so important as finding somewhere to go and take a nap. Preferably somewhere warmer than right here. Preferably his own bed, because as much as he liked Theo’s stepmother in theory, he did not like the idea of sleeping in her store-room.

“We’ll stay here,” he agreed belatedly at Theo’s prompting, because years of not paying attention in class had taught him that Theo usually had the right answer. He glanced back at the auror again, forehead furrowing faintly as something occurred to him from a distance, murmuring in the back of his head that he should be paying attention to what was happening, but Theo was carefully removing his hand from the doorknob and pushing the door shut decisively. Blaise offered a helpful, “Good night,” at the summary dismissal, that was caught by a yawn halfway though.

The man on the other side of the doorway stared back at them through the pane of glass, but Blaise payed little attention to the odd expression on his face because the steadily increasing weight Theo had been introducing to his side was followed by the soft thunk of his forehead. “Wasn’t keyed into them,” he replied around another yawn, as if that was a perfectly reasonable explanation for breaking them. He blinked once, then again, at the stern face staring back at them with decided concern as the door began to creak back open without the mechanism to keep it closed. There was a familiar snap of magic and the door slammed back into place, a soft snick of a lock returning into place.

Jwi stared up at him from his diminutive height with a look that made Blaise’s spine crawl. “I don’t think he minds,” Blaise replied absently, reaching up to rub at his eyes. 

If there was a cordon maybe they couldn’t leave, but Jwi had taken them through it to come here so maybe he would —

Millicent considered his objection, weighing the points he made thoughtfully. Clear deliberation was written on her face (as though she were genuinely thinking about what it would take to cook a human just so), and decidedly replied, “Then we’ll have just have to settle for your firstborn,” with an unusual amount of cheer.

Hopping onward and after him into “Cambridge’s best launderette” (as the cracked and leaning chalkboard out front claimed). Blaise appeared all too comfortable stepping into the building; Millicent grew suspicious he’d been here before. The image of him in a place such as this was ill-fitting; he did not belong in dim, flickering lights, nor did the dank aroma of mildew and sitting water do anything to further an aesthetic he had so carefully created over the years. She practically clung to the back of him as they advanced; surely he provided some amount of human shield factor to the hard …stink? eye from the man at the entrance. 

“Blaise.” Please, please hear her. Was the soft tugging at his shirt not enough to warrant him turning around and acknowledging her? It was in both their best interests, Millicent felt, for them to turn around and leave without another thought of this place. Her attention grabs were to no avail.

As they walked, she leaned over the gaping jaws of one of the big metal machines, which resembled the one the older woman was pouring a soft, creamy blue liquid into now. All it was inside was a cylindrical bowl with grater holes about the entirety of it, and one tall, thick pole jutting up and out of the middle. “How do they wash their clothes? Where are their clothes?” As if on cue, a young boy on the far wall slammed a different machine door shut and pushed a couple of coins through a small opening. It came to life, sudden and loud, roaring over the music playing over the loudspeakers. A window into the beast displayed many different dark fabrics being turned heavily in clockwise circles. How in Merlin’s name would spinning clothes do anything to clean them? They looked wet, too, and you couldn’t have clean clothes if you had wet clothes. 

“Blaise, this is weird,” she whined, not at the same volume he’d been speaking with. This caused several more eyes to turn on them, namely the boy who’d just finished feeding a machine his muggle money. Millicent snarled at him before returning to her companion. “I’m sorry for taking you away from your boots. Now that I’ve apologized, let’s leave. Grab brunch - mimosas? D’you like mimosas?” He was fruity enough; he had to have liked mimosas. 

This, Blaise had determined long ago, was precisely why he liked Millicent. She was strange and often offputting and he sometimes wondered if she was entirely serious about the grim things that trickled so cheerfully off her tongue. He kind of hoped he’d never have to find out. “A deal,” he offered, like the strangled grip she’d had on his hand constituted shaking on it.

There was a great deal of whining and tugging at his shirt to contend with, but Blaise paid it little mind as he found himself immersed in the strangest little banal theatre, the aggressive roaring and rattling of the machines offset by the pounding music floating overhead and the whispers of the patrons, awash in a pale unflattering light that flickered every so often, the glaring lights humming.

“It’s not weird,” he replied absently, glancing sidelong at Millicent for the first time since they’d wandered inside. Over her shoulder he caught a glimpse of the strange man at the front of the store, staring back at him. “Okay, so it’s a little weird but Millie,” he lowered his voice to a decided not-whisper that prevented precisely nobody from listening in, “You said you were bored, right?”

Blaise certainly was. He doubted Millie was really sorry about dragging him away from those boots.

Admittedly, brunch did sound much better than marinating in this strange, fragrant damp air with a bunch of muggles, but there was perhaps a point of pride here. “Of course I like mimosas,” he replied with a wrinkle of his nose as if to question who didn’t enjoy a mimosa, “We can go after. I want to try one of these machines.”

He hadn’t actually expected Blaise to follow. It was silly, short-sighted of him, to assume his friend wasn’t his friend anymore as though one two nights of rash decisions that led to the three people falling into a mess of touch and want between acromantula silk sheets instead of the two that usually slept their clothed would destroy a years long friendship. If the way he had been avoiding Pansy was any sign there was always a chance it could. There was no obligation here. Theo could easily fade from their friend group, leave everyone else to Pansy and Blaise in the amicable non-break up break up that followed stupid ideas and throw himself into his work until everyone took the hint.

The soft footfalls that followed him, the creak and slam of the old pub door as the long past needing replacing hinges did nothing to protect the wooden frame as it shook with impact, had Theo looking over his shoulder to confirm it was indeed Blaise following and not a different patron. Disregarding the chairs, stained and tainted by whatever regular usually occupied them, Theo leaned against the pub’s brick exterior and lit the smoke between his fingers. He made a gesture, starting extending the case in Blaise’s direction, but stopped. Shaking his head in apology as the silver holder made its way back into his pocket.

A shrug was given to the question, gaze caught on the smile his friend wore that rubbed Theodore the wrong way. Was it put on? Performative? Or was he simply reading too much into it? Protecting himself from unseen, and unreal, dangers like he had been conditioned to. “A while.” He was drifting from the stunted conversation he had decided to instigate, looking everywhere else but at the grin that had to be a taunt at his very existence when he landed on the ridiculously fruity concoction his friend(?) had ordered from inside. “You’re still mid-season.” And the sugar content in Peacock’s Feather was far too high even for him. 

“Hi.” Pointed and short. An obvious defense to a question he had no business answering when it wasn’t his place to make the choice of what they did and didn’t do anymore. “I didn’t see you either.” His hands fiddled with his smoke, tapping non-existence ash off the end over and over, as he took a large sip of liquid courage and kept his eyes off where he wanted to look. Where he wanted to take note of Blaise’s appearance and review the wrong and different until it made, at least, some sense. Knotgrass mead. Daphne popping up into his thoughts once more as honeyed tinged bitterness flooded his palate. That was Blaise’s fault, that he was overlooking every interaction with his ex. Examining their interactions for signs of carrying about some long lasting affection he wasn’t privy to. 

“I shouldn’t have…it was just a joke. You didn’t have to go.”

Blaise’s fingers flexed compulsively, grazing the condensation dripping down the side of his obnoxious glass at the pointed observation. There was a point to be made there, about conspiracy theories about bad service or how every pub in Wixen London seemed to have it in for him lately, but instead he lifted the drink to take another long, pointed sip from the straw. It was far too sweet. Sugar made him jittery, set his skin buzzing and left him tired and grumpy on the comedown. He didn’t care. 

“Hi,” he replied instead, holding steady on the eyes that evaded contact, lest they drift back to the cigarette in Theo’s fingers which was just another prop to keep the world at bay and the drink in the other. Blaise wondered just why he’d resigned himself to this particular punishment. This wasn’t his place, was it? Theo wasn’t given to hanging around pubs by himself. For drinking alone. Like most of Blaise’s problems lately, this was entirely of his own making — sometimes the truth was better off left to hide in its dark little corners, unacknowledged. 

He didn’t know why Theo was .. well, not apologising, but it sounded a lot like an apology. “So I was supposed to move in?” He wanted to laugh it off, to pretend there hadn’t been a moment there, that he didn’t have feelings that could possibly be hurt by anything so banal, but he didn’t have the props on hand to sell the emotion, not with that sugary nightmare of a drink and Theo huddled up against the wall over there. Instead he gestured for the cigarette in Theo’s hand, like he’d give in like he always did. “I have a home, Theo, I’m not a stray dog.”

ofgreengrcss​:​

“I’ve been told he was once a very good auror. Thought maybe with that ugly eye whizzing around it would be easier for him to spot any pink bejeweled staplers that aren’t where they’re supposed to be.” She explained everything very calmly, as if this logic was completely sound. To be honest she could have asked anyone to be on the lookout, had actually already owled every auror in the department that this should be at the top of their priority list. Speaking to Mad Eye directly had just been an excuse to get a story or some gossip for the secretaries, she could hardly remember the time the former teacher had turned one of her closest friends into a tiny animal.

Though thinking back on it now Draco had been a pretty cute ferret.

“Now what excuse would Mamillan have for a pink stapler? I think blue would suit him much better honestly. Matches his aura.” A wave of her hand dismissed any further explanation on the subject as she zipped through the conversation topics. She picked up her ice cream spoon, thankful that at least she could eat something delicious as the discussion was steering towards less romantic subjects. Honestly couldn’t the mood stay there without her having to wrangle between the men in front of her? 

With reluctance she slid out from the booth, letting Blaise pass by her and only offering, “Flourish and Blotts sounds nice,” before he was gone again. She took the spot he left, this time facing Theo by himself. “I think this is going well, should we plan for a spring wedding?” She was entirely joking though by her tone of voice and mannerisms it would be hard to tell. This day wasn’t a bust yet but she needed to get everything back under control.

And then it hit her. “Theo!” she hissed, launching herself towards him and bumping into the table. “I have the perfect plan! Blaise of course will never kiss me in this circumstance, he’s too much of a gentleman to have a first kiss with an audience. Do you think we could get him to choke on something? Perhaps distract him while he eats and then I can perform CPR! That’s like a kiss right?”

@nottheoretical​

“It’s earl grey.” Flavored. “Lavender as well, I believe.” Theo tried his best to stay neutral, hardly glancing at Blaise as he set his sights on the veritable tower stacked in the children sized cup his friends had chosen from him. “You ordered tea. What did you expect?” His gaze followed Blaise out of the booth again as though compelled by whoever made quidditch practice clothes had imbued them with a notice-me charm. 

Daphne, however, was more direct with her need for intention. “Will you be telling him he’s getting married or will I have to sit here and watch as you lie to our friend?” It came out a bit meaner than he intended. “Daph, I didn’t…I could have said it another way.” Though that would have required a different situation leading them to Fortescue’s entirely. 

As was her way, Daphne managed to shock him after a lifetime of friendship and a minimum of seeing her four times a week at her insistence. “Tell me you’re joking.” There was slight lurch in his stomach, one that set Theo to take a spoonful of her ice cream and push his kid’s cup serving across the table to her in exchange. “I’m not doing that. If you want him to kiss you, ask him. He’s not a gentlemen…I don’t even know how I would go about that and that was not me asking you for suggestions. Just– you don’t think this entire day would go smoother if you told him what we were doing here? And no. It’s not.”

@ofsolipsism​

A very good auror was perhaps the largest part of his mother’s problem with having someone like Moody poking around in her business, though he supposed Daphne had far fewer skeletons in her closets (if any) to care about him finding. He was still shaking off that particular revelation as he slipped out of the booth, filled with purpose and vigour and a highly regulated dietary intake that did not involve copious amounts of cream and sugar being waved under his nose. Fortescue, however, seemed intent on avoiding him if the way he shuffled off down the counter upon Blaise’s approach was any indication.

It was lucky, Blaise supposed, that he was a Chaser.

Entirely oblivious to the whispered conversation taking place at the booth next to the window, Blaise stalked Florean down the counter, politely reminding him of the importance of every decision that was made about what would fuel his body, of the hours upon hours upon hours of training that dictated his schedule and that if he had the tea on hand in order to create that Earl Grey and Lavender monstrosity that had appeared at his table, surely he had the hot water necessary—

His mama had always taught him not to settle.

It was almost five minutes before he wandered back to the booth and piped in with a curious, “What are you guys talking about?” as he blew lightly across the steaming liquid in the slightly misshapen mug in his hand with the soothing scent of (ugh, lavender) tea, Blaise settled down to perch on the outside of the booth next to Daphne, eyeing Theo with interest as yet again the whispering tapered off upon his reappearance. They were getting awfully cosy. “Florean found some tea out the back.”

With how long the old man had disappeared for Blaise suspected he may have ducked out the backdoor to the apothecary down the road, but he felt remarkably relaxed about the whole situation after just one scalding sip of the brew. It was much better than Gilderoy’s lavender tea. His eyes drifted to the murky, pink liquid absently before dismissing the thought as unimportant. “Do you want to try some?”

ofgreengrcss​:

Daphne shot Theo a look. It was unnecessary for him to include that information even though Daphne wasn’t trying to keep it a secret. She just didn’t think it was necessary to mention, Blaise surely didn’t care that the whole group wasn’t here? They hung out without her sometimes and she hung out without all of them at others. They weren’t all attached at the hip even if she did make time in her schedule to hang out with Theo or Pansy at least 4 times a week. 

“It’s raining?” she questioned, momentarily lifting her head from Blaise’s arm to look out the window. In that time Theo disappeared, going for the ice cream and refreshments they had ordered earlier. Now she was left alone with Blaise, which was nice for their date but completely inappropriate that their chaperone had left them alone. The scandal! She’d have to give Theo some reference books on what a good chaperone did. It was entirely plausible she’d need his assistance again for future dates since this one was obviously going so well.

Even if Blaise for some reason thought something was wrong. He just cared about her of course! Blaise was a good boyfriend. “Hmmm nothing unexpected.” She sighed. “My pink stapler went missing again. I’ve been trying to convince Moody that he should put it at the top of his todo list. You have to stop Ministry thieves early!”

With a start she jerked up again, though she still kept herself close. “No do you have it? I’ve been so stuck on the thief I didn’t have a chance to grab one!”

@nottheoretical

Unperturbed by Daphne’s silent communication, Theo made his escape. It was tempting to turn to the right, the glass door providing a view of the storming outside. It’s occasional streaks of lighting not foreboding or ominous enough for him to throw away the idea of leaving. The only thing that kept Theo making a left was the threat of dealing with Daphne’s tears if he did choose to leave. That and the promise of ice cream. (His sweet tooth was a terrible weakness he indulged in rather too much but there was much to be said about childhood forbidden treats being overindulged in once adulthood was reached.) 

Eyes set now on the three ice creams in front of him, Theo dared a grin. A dish of strawberry and birthday cake topped with chocolate fudge, a kid’s cup towering with vanilla and sticky toffee pudding topped with caramel, and the final order. Blaise’s tea, a kid’s cup of early grey and lavender. 

Wand extended, he floated their orders along with spoons and napkins back to the too small and too crowded booth. Once safely levitate down in front of their respective customers, Theo slid back into his seat. His own knees knocking into Blaise’s in a petty move of mockery of his friend’s earlier actions. 

“Have you asked Macmillan? He works in your old office, doesn’t he?” 

@ofsolipsism​

Blaise’s instincts were usually fairly reliable — if something was off about this whole encounter than clearly it had to do with the weird energy radiating off of Daphne. It didn’t sound like she was terribly upset, though he’d heard enough white noise about stapler thieves to know that it was a pressing issue on her agenda, the more concerning part of that statement was, however— 

“Moody? As in Mad-Eye Moody. You asked that nutjob who was our — supposed to be our — you know, that guy, to find your stapler?” The complicated story of stolen identities and Death Eaters and whatever that had been the case of yet another failed Defence Against the Dark Arts professor all kind of blurred together into unimportance in his memory, save for that shining memory of the Ferret incident that had been replayed many a time on pensieve nights, but his mother’s natural suspicion towards Aurors always won out. 

Thankfully there were better things to consider than warning Daphne against welcoming someone like Moody into her life, though he was down a copy to show off. “It came out yesterday — I haven’t got a copy yet. Maybe we could pick one up from Flourish and Blotts after.”

The thought brought a smile to his face in the way that few things reliably did, a smile that swiftly slid away as Theo dropped back into his seat, knocking their knees together, and a dish of icecream plopped down in front of him, a spoon dropping into the dish with a rattle and sliding around so the handle faced him. Like it was mocking him. “What is that?” he leaned back into the cushions of the booth behind him, eyes narrowed suspiciously as if it might somehow infect him, and his arms folded together across his chest. “That’s not what I ordered.”

In truth, there were very few things in life that Blaise took seriously enough to be bothered by — his quidditch season diet was one of them. He made to shuffle back out of the booth, eyes narrowing in on the kindly old man and his open mockery of the institution of the game of Quidditch. If his godfather had taught him anything it was that you couldn’t allow such offences to slide by. “Excuse me, Daph — I need to talk to Fortescue.”

ofgreengrcss​:​

As they slid into the booth Daphne pressed herself against Blaise, thinking the hint was subtle enough to let him know that this is what they should be doing on a date. She wasn’t concerned with him having enough room ,even as he stretched out and his arm blocked off the part of the table that was in front of her. Maybe if he didn’t move and she couldn’t reach the ice cream itself he would feed it to her. That would be romantic!

“It’s just us!” Daphne chirped. She leaned her head against Blaise’s forearm. “I thought that this would be nice. Just the three of us. Theo and I usually do these types of things together but why not invite you as well?” She didn’t even pause to consider why Blaise had asked why the whole group wasn’t on their date. Perhaps he was wondering if Pansy should have joined for Theo, which Daphne had previously thought would be a good idea. A double date! But ultimately she’d decided that could be done another time in the future. 

“Hmm is there anything you two want to do after this? We could go take a stroll and see the wildflowers.”

@nottheoretical​

There was an instant reminder that these booths were built with children in mind. Or dates between two people and not between three people. Theo slid over, across from Daphne where Blaise’s long legs couldn’t tangle with or knock into his own. He was sure the move was purposeful so he ignored it, eyes trailing to look outside instead of be present for the date between his two friends.

“Meaning she didn’t invite them.” Because this was, like all of Daphne’s ideas, a mess. A secret plot with nefarious goals that would never be accomplished because she didn’t say them outright. Out of all two of her exes, Theo couldn’t understand why he was the one forced on this adventure. Draco would have been more keen. Sure, he may have spilled the secret nature of the secret date immediately but he was far more talented at keeping conversation going than Theodore ever would be.  His head swiveled back to Daphne, a creasing line appearing between his brows at the sight of her cuddled up to Blaise when their friend had no idea what the true nature of this ice cream social was about. “It’s still raining. Something indoors, Daph. Please.” He didn’t want to be expected to maintain an umbrella charm over her the whole rest of the day while he got poured on. He also wanted to go home but before he could voice this wish they were interrupted by the dinging of a bell signalling their orders. Theo nearly jumped at the chance to leave the booth, half tripping on Blaise’s foot that really should stay on the other side of the booth. “I’ll get them.”

@ofsolipsism​

There was something ominous about the cheerful insistence that, “It’s just us!” ringing chirpily in his ears that Blaise probably should have taken note of as Daphne slid into the booth after him and kept on sliding, settling right up against his side. That wasn’t weird. Daphne had always been, by far, the most affectionate of all their friends — largely, he suspected, because she forged through the array of weird personal space issues the rest of their group seemed to project out into the world. Blaise could relate.

Maybe she was having a tough day? It would explain the emergency need for ice cream and Theo did seem even quieter than usual, except to pitch in the occasional comment on why the rest of their friends were missing. His forehead furrowed faintly, turning back around from his inspection of the alley outside to consider what that was supposed to mean as Daphne’s head settled against his arm. This wasn’t weird. “Are you okay, Daph? Did something happen?”

Was she really so down that she wanted to go for walks in the rain?

It wasn’t that Blaise was incapable of noticing other people’s problems, it was that they so rarely impacted upon his day, and people of importance were so rare, that he didn’t deem them necessary of his acknowledgement. Theo, the traitor, had already made a break for it out of the other side of the booth to retrieve their order and now he was left with this. Maybe he could cheer her up? “Did you see the new Quidditch Quarterly cover?”

Daphne had always been the most enthusiastic of his friends when it came to his press coverage.

- @ofsolipsism​​

Cho Chang has two favourite workdays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesday because it’s the only day of the week when St. Mungo’s cafeteria serves their absolutely delicious and heavenly salted caramel apple pie. Thursday because it’s the one day of week she’s not stationed at the hospital and spends time, instead, with the Puddlemere United as their Healer at practice. It’s a fun gig that a senior Healer had offered her a few months ago, enticing her to accept by telling her the perks free Quidditch tickets of the job and promising her that the hospital would sign off on fairly quickly with little fuss.

Though it has only been a few moments, Cho can say that she likes the job. It’s a nice change of scenery from the usual fluorescent lights and the white sheets of hospital beds. She has also always liked Quidditch. Watching professional Quidditch practice from the bench has certainly been fun and enlightening. It’s fascinating how drills and tricks are practiced differently in a professional setting. At Hogwarts, she just did whatever Roger Davies thought was the best practice to do. Here, everything is calculated and no practice time is wasted.

Today, the team was polishing their moves in the air it seemed. She’d watched them carefully from her seat, wand in hand just in case something goes wrong, and made sure that nothing was up with their vitals. When the coach finally decided to wrap up and the team went to their locker room, Cho had cleaned up her station. She’d looked through the other Healers’ recommendations from throughout the week, making adjustments to prescriptions and regiments and preparing the potions for a few of the players to take.

Now she stands to the side, waiting for the players to come out, several potions and potion prescriptions in hand. When she spots Blaise Zabini, she waves at him. “Zabini?” she calls out, “Sorry but can you come over here for a few seconds? There’s some potions that have to be added to your regiment.” Cho smiles apologetically and looks through the labels on the potions, taking two blue and purple bottles from the line up. “I’ll explain the potions to you quickly.”  

.

Blaise had always had a remarkable talent for ignoring the things that didn’t involve him. The machiavellian coup that Viktor Krum had been trying to unleash from inside the locker room by undermining Oliver’s leadership? Not his problem. Oliver’s increasing fanaticism as a result, leading to longer and less productive practices and that unnerving glint to return to his eyes that Blaise had only seen reflected in his eyes when they were caught by passing headlights at night? Not his problem. The adverse effect it was having on both the performance on the pitch during practice and, consequently, as an additional and unnecessary stresser on his own steadily unravelling personal life which did not need the extra help? Not his .. Well. Possibly his problem. But acknowledging anything as a problem required, at the very least, admitting that anything could get in beneath his rather impressively cool exterior.

Nobody needed to know what happened inside of his own brain except for him.

The team roster of healers that rotated through the locker rooms were an enigma to Blaise, one he often did his best to stay on the good side of because they seemed to have nothing but repressed rage in their hearts when it came to realigning broken bones and the questionable art of physiotherapy. Cho was .. well, she was one of them. That was about as far as his opinions had formed around her.

“More potions?” he questioned suspiciously, easing around a crying Beater (messy) to approach the door that led to the equally suspicious treatment room where nothing good had ever happened ever. He slid a toe inside, like he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to go any further. “I’m willing to sacrifice all of those,” there was nothing wrong with him, he was doing just fine and anyone who said otherwise was projecting their own issues onto him, “If you’ll dose Wood and Krum with Calming Draughts. Our locker room smells like it’s going through a divorce.”

who: @ofsolipsism​ when: 15th of june, 2003 where: the siren’s tail

The irony of the name of the pub Theodore had wandered into was lost on him. Until he looked up from his second bottle of Knotgrass (and didn’t that brand give him a strange pang of regret when it came to the way he had been treating Daphne lately?) to order another and caught sight of a broad set of shoulders draped in expensive, and wrinkled, fabric sitting far away from his tucked away corner where it seemed every barmaid and busser and barback couldn’t peer into the shadows to see the Nott heir steadily drinking himself to a state where he could forget just exactly why his step-mother had invited him over for lunch that afternoon. 

He was tired of it. The wedding planning that seemed to go on forever and still couldn’t take long enough. The invasion of his friends into his home that had Theo changing his wards until they could respect his privacy. The Blaise of it all that was staring him in the face and mocking his inability to navigate the planned course his life was on. Loyalty, discipline, nunchi. He had mastered the first two. The third had never stuck. Having to be always aware, reading between lines of social interactions for hidden meanings, was impossible when your brain supplied only negative connotations for what people could mean.

Theo needed another drink. Approaching the bar with less than usual skill of staying unassuming and out of sight, he procured his third bottle of mead. His cigarette case already out as he strolled to the back of the pub to find a better spot in the little patio. He just hadn’t anticipated his way being blocked. Maybe he should have turned around before Blaise could see him, gone back to his little ill-lit corner. The one without the window to the street where he could focus his attention on something other than the bar stool Blaise had taken residence on (because the little ill-lit corner with the window to the street where he could have focused his attention on people watching had been taken upon arrival). Where he still should be so an escape outdoors wasn’t an impossibility. Blaise loved ruining his chances at retreat, throwing him under the night bus that was Pansy or Daphne or Draco. Why should that change if they were the only two who found themselves here? 

This was untread territory. He was stuck in a place of apprehension. Waiting for Blaise to set the tone of this interaction where that was positive or negative. Or he planned to be. The mead was setting him forward, brushing past his friend and out back with a shake of the cigarette case as invitation.

Regret did not live in Blaise’s emotional wheelhouse — he acted, he did what he had to do, he did not dwell in emotional disasters, he was present and didn’t get mired in the mistakes of the past (his or anyone elses). None of these things felt true, the longer he ruminated on them, and with the distinct lack of assistance or clarity he’d been gaining from the array of over-sweet and over-decorated drinks that had been sliding across the bar in lieu of what he actually wanted (perhaps he’d been here too many times, lately, if they were watering his drinks down so early in the night) it became apparent that whatever he’d been looking for at the Siren’s Tail was not there. 

Another sip from another absurd, twirly straw that tasted like nothing he should be ingesting in the middle of the season and he turned in his seat, eyes catching distractedly on a familiar head ducked against the crowd, trying to slink through it with decidedly less stealth than usual. Blaise shouldn’t notice him, he should go back to flirting with the bartender or his neighbours in an attempt to dispose of the saccharine drink in front of him in favour of something stronger, but his feet and then his legs and then the rest of him seemed to have other thoughts on the matter. 

Blocking Theo’s exit strategy was muscle memory, by now, a play so ingrained in the back of his head that he may as well have been in the air. Theo had the unacceptable advantage of a real drink in his hand and judging by the warmth of his cheeks and the wordless brush past, a cigarette invitation to follow, it wasn’t his first. Blaise hesitated, between the warmth of the bar, how much work it would take to break through whatever moral obligations were keeping him from an actual drink, and the cool air outside, the path to ruin he was sure lay in Theo’s footsteps outside, he didn’t need cool rationalism in his ear tonight. His feet, again, made the decision for him, night air spilling across his skin as he followed the waft of smoke around the corner to potted plants and weeds growing up between the pavers, Theo finding a corner to retreat into as per usual.

Pushing the chilli around her plate with a fork, Anastasia frowned down at the unappetising meal. Every time she had made it to the ministry canteen, she remembered precisely why she didn’t come to the ministry canteen. Perhaps next time she would simply apparate up to Madam Puddifoots. Did lemon drizzle cake count as a substantial lunch? Surely it had to be better than this slop. Would the elves at Malfoy Manor make her a packed lunch? These were all important questions that Anastasia would be able to mull over later, when she was not being watched.

Ana set her fork down as the man sat opposite her, eyebrow quirking at the look that he gave her meal. His judgement prompted her to take another forkful of food, swallowing the chilli down as if it were the most delicious meal on the planet. Regardless of whoever the hell this man was, regardless of how tasteless the chilli was, she wasn’t going to sit here and be judged for her choices. 

Anastasia shovelled the last bit of chilli into her mouth as he spoke. Taking her time, Ana fished her wand from out of her sleeve and levitated the tray over to the self-clean area. “Anastasia, though it appears you already knew that. He is my acquaintance, yes,” Ana nodded, a smirk on her lips. “I have met him once or twice - though I did not believe that was enough for rumours to get around. It seems all you English have to do is gossip - it appears to be a flaw of your culture.”

.

“I’m not English,” Blaise replied around a broad smile, taking another bite of his apple and chewing slowly as she seemed to make a point of forcing down her meal to the very last bite. It was impressive, if stubbornness was an impressive trait. “I’m Italian — we’re far better at gossip.” 

Blaise wasn’t entirely sure why he’d always appreciated the sharp edges of abrasive personalities, or inflicting his company upon them, but the girl across from him already seemed miles too good for a life spent amidst the chaos of the Malfoy family. Blaise was never more grateful for his mother’s less traditional approach to Pureblood ideals than when confronted with the evidence of parental meddling. He suspected he’d greatly enjoy watching Draco try to deal with her. “Only acquaintances?”

He blinked at the sudden light, taking shelter behind his friend and looking down to stop the bright light from invading his vision. “You don’t work here.” It felt important to repeat himself, the pulling of the wards on the back of his hand rising to an itch Theo had to rub away as Blaise tried the door. He stepped up to open it himself– No. To pull Blaise away from the door and back into the storeroom to sit down.  Except he couldn’t. He stared, mouth falling open as the magical warning crawled up his arm and demanded attention that the calming draught wouldn’t let Theo give. “You just…I could have. If you waited.” He hadn’t and now a man his father often cursed about was standing in the doorway like Theo should be grateful to see him. This wasn’t good, was it?

Alright was most definitely what they weren’t. He glanced between the pair and the door now unwarded. He’d have to fix that tonight before they left. What time was it? It was still dark outside but Pansy would be home and he shouldn’t get home too late but he hadn’t mentioned he was leaving, had he? He hadn’t seen her since before his night had taken a ridiculous turn for the worst. 

This wasn’t good. “No. We’re fine? We’re…my elf healed him when the fireplace…It was orange.” That was too much information to give. Jwi was staring up at him with an expression he couldn’t place though the word concerned came to mind and Theo found himself rubbing his hand more aggressively as he mused on what Auror Shacklebolt (not one of the faces he saw in the apothecary when the Ministry came to visit) could be so worked up over. He had been just as worked up, perhaps even more so, until Jwi had give them the– “Calming draughts.“ What was he trying to say? “Do you need one?” His question was followed by a long yawn and a silence that gave Theo just enough time to realize what he had done. “I mean, my elf gave us some. We were trapped and the fireplace exploded.”

Blaise hadn’t anticipated Theo being right behind him, in the way that he often seemed to just appear from thin air, but rather than the usual jump and complaint a smile spilled across his face. Theo seemed annoyed at him, if the hand that drifted away from his arm that had seemed like it intended to pull him elsewhere was any indication, but Theo was often annoyed at him for one reason or another and Blaise had come to accept that it was just their perpetual state of being. Perhaps Theo just liked being annoyed.

“Orange,” he agreed absently, turning his head back towards the suspicious stare being levelled upon them by Auror Shacklebolt. He’d been a little preoccupied at the time, but he remembered the odd shade the room had turned and a distant rumbling before he’d been thrown off his feet. “It ruined my shirt.”

The scraps of which he’d left behind in that strange, cursed room which was a shame because he’d liked that shirt. And apparently Auror Shacklebolt didn’t have much to say on the subject of his shirt, or Theo’s offer of a calming draught beyond an incredulous raise of his eyebrows and a polite, “No, thank you,” in a steady, smooth voice that made Blaise suspect that he’d never consumed a calming draught in his life. “The streets are in lockdown. How did you get in here? You’ll need to stay inside until the cordon is lifted.”

ofpansy​:​

Though it had been her decision to apparate, Pansy still found herself stumbling in the dark, tightening her grip on the two wix. She didn’t have to spend too long gaining her balance, finding her footing in her heels, before Theo pulled her towards him. Her breath caught in her throat as he leaned into kiss her. It felt like relief, of realizing that this is what she had been wanting, of what had been slowly building underneath it all. She barely registered his whisper, her lips chasing the movement of his - too busy threading her fingers through his hair, too busy turning her head slightly to give Blaise better access. 

It was only until she felt a puff of air on her neck, a slight rocking of their bodies, that Pansy realized she needed to lead them. Her hands moved from their necks to their chests, pushing and pulling their way through the dark, staying connected with every step. Fingertips trailed gently down her spine, pulling a zipper along its way and she felt her head tilt back, hitting Blaise’s shoulder, her mouth leaving Theo’s for the first time since he bent down. Her fingers trailed to the buttons on their shirt, one hand helping Blaise on his mission and the other beginning to pop open his. 

Every touch felt like fire against her skin, the building of anticipation growing to be too much. She helped move the straps off her shoulders, allowing the fabric to fall in the floor between them. Her legs bumped into the bed as she pushed Theo’s shirt off his shoulders, kissing his throat and turning her attention to repeat the actions on Blaise. Pansy had made her mind up - about this, about them - at least for tonight. It allowed her to hush any of the growing concern that their situation raised, to quiet the wondering of what it would mean for them the next day. She knew what she wanted, what they wanted, and they were going to get it.

@nottheoretical

They were in the bedroom before he realized it. This, much like life, moving far too quickly for Theodore to keep up. He would chalk the heady thrill running through him to the wine that had made Draco’s birthday bearable but that had been earlier in the evening. There was a startling sober clarity in which he looked at Pansy and Blaise, felt their hands running along his skin and leaving a heat he had never experienced before behind. 

He wasn’t going to interrupt the moment with his thinking, was he? At least he could tell them how even in the shadowed bedroom they were stunning. That would require some type of intelligent thought. With lips on his or making their mark his neck and pulling soft gasps from him, hands determined to tear his shirt off his body or the expanses of newly revealed skin that called for Theo to honor with reverence, there was no intelligent thought to be found. 

His shirt was tossed aside, no worry on his part of revealing long healed and more recent scars to his friends’ eyes for the first time. Blaise’s was next in a hurry to match Pansy’s state of undress. Theo found himself bending, pressing lightly against Pansy’s hip and Blaise’s side as he kneeled to remove his shoes so the three of them would stop overlooking the bed right beside them. The brief concern over shoes in the house was pushed aside as his fingers fumbled with his own laces then socks and he watched with an unguarded desire he never felt the right to be so overt about before. 

This worked. In the strangest way. Even through awkward frantic hallway stumbling and the orchestration of where to place three pairs of hands or three lips– three bodies and so much skin needing equal attention, it didn’t feel like an overstep. Had this been on the horizon for years or was it a newly formed idea? Theo couldn’t help but feel like something had been exchanged between his two friends during the spin the bottle kiss. The one that had forced him to walk away before he did something stupid like admit how seeing them put a pause to their constant mutual antagonizing was more attractive than their need to verbally spar at every possible opportunity. His belt had never been so troublesome, nor had stepping out of pants without tripping himself. His wand forgotten in his pants pocket and any spells that may have been necessary for the night unremembered and unimportant. Theo had been on the sidelines for far too long. Sliding behind Blaise, getting his friend into a similar state of undress was a necessity. Especially when that smooth expanse of unmarked muscle was begging to be explored. Meeting Pansy’s gaze over Blaise’s shoulder while he worked on removing just one more belt and his mouth left lasting marks on skin too dark to easily show their shared handiwork without effort, Theo realized she felt it too. 

He wouldn’t be able to confirm. After tonight, or perhaps sooner when this all came to an end, he’d question his every action. Review the missteps his mind created as he played back this experience again and again to carefully pick out which embarrassing moment would be remembered from this night. But grinning unconsciously at his fiancée as he slid the expensive fabric of Blaise’s pants down his hips, hands teasing the promise of future touches with more intent. As he left the heat of Blaise’s body behind with a final press of his lips to the bruise now adorning the side of his throat to join her on the bed, Theo understood that the hesitant dance they had been playing at for months was finally broken. He didn’t know what it had meant before. The displays of trust that felt unsafe on the best days. The whispered compliments in the dark, his arms always needing to curl around her for sleep to come easy on nights when his brain just wouldn’t stop. 

When he collapsed next to her, personal space not a concern for once as he considered the straps left on her shoulders and how easy it was to slide them down and down and down her shoulders to reveal hidden parts of Pansy he was desperate to explore and for Blaise to explore. His gaze slid to their guest. “No shoes on the bed.”

@ofsolipsism​

It was curious how easily they fell together, a domino effect that took piece after piece of reservations and doubts until their clothes were discarded across the floor and Pansy and Theo were sprawled upon their bed and he was being chided about his shoes and his brain, quite happily, disengaged from the night and the threat of a friendship under siege in favour of instinct. All of the commotion and white noise that had been building in his head as the night, the month, wore on and was replaced by the immediacy of shattering some boundary that he hadn’t been aware they’d been pressing up against for months.

If this was a game, he thought he might be winning.

Until his pulse began to settle, until arms and legs coiled around his and their breathing slowed and softened and everything turned warm and hazy and soft and comfortable and his mind, that had never resisted the lull of sleep before, continued to buzz because soft and comfortable wasn’t what that churning feeling in his chest wanted. It wanted destruction and mess and to break something, not to be appeased by this softness, by the absent press of lips against his skin that seemed designed to quiet his apparently too loud thoughts. 

Blaise’s skin hummed with misplaced energy, with the pull of an impending escape attempt, but there was nowhere to escape to, nothing to escape from. His home had been overrun and acting on the tension that had been layered in beneath the surface of every interaction, lately, should have felt stranger than it actually did. Maybe this was their normal. There was so much hiding behind Pansy and Theo’s calm and private exteriors. Should he go? He could wander the night or find somewhere still open because the idea of being left alone with his own thoughts was suddenly a terrifying burden with the wreckage lying all around him.

The restless energy that refused to still was given into and he shifted, easing out from beneath tandem limbs to the edge of their bed, not entirely sure what he was doing except that he wanted something from this. A reaction. He tugged at the bedside drawer, rattling through the contents with the same curiosity that had driven him every other time he’d snooped around their room, that same sense of being stuck on the outside of something he didn’t understand. There was no answers to be found in that drawer, however, nor the one below it — just a notebook full of scribblings and notes on potions or ingredients, stock-takes from the store and annotated adjustments to recipes and scrawled lists of cake shops and flavours and flowers and wedding planning, which made the buzzing in his head that much louder and —

Daphne.

Blaise squinted against the dark, nose wrinkling in bemusement at the incongruent list of events that ran down the page and his mind tried, valiantly, to make sense of it. It was Theo’s writing — he’d know it anywhere from the feverish note-taking he’d used to watch with faint bemusement through their Alchemy classes — but what was Daphne doing there. Endless notes that seemed focused around Theo’s once upon a time romance that now, if he thought about it, made him question just why he’d been called away from practice to sit in on a strange ice-cream date between the pair of them and why all these ruminations on her were sandwiched between Theo’s wedding planning. 

ofgreengrcss​:​​

“Well Blaise isn’t going to drink hot cocoa either.” Daphne scrunched up her nose in the predicament. How was she supposed to make this at all romantic if Theo wasn’t going to help her set the mood? She’d thought her ex-boyfriend was going to be a better chaperone than this. “He’ll have vanilla, spread a little caramel on it. Just one of those kiddie scoops,” Daphne found herself responding, then turning back to see if Theo approved of the order.

She’d done her best to reign herself in for the day, try and not overshadow Theo’s wants completely to order him something else. Her choice for him would have been cookies and cream and a scoop of NY cheesecake but she had a feeling that would just cause Theo to formally pack up and leave. Now that would be a disaster, what would her reputation be if her chaperone abandoned her on her date? The scandal of her being alone with a man? Daphne would never live it down.

Not one to dwell on the horror, she twirled back away from Theo and towards Blaise. Her position of clinging to his arm once again returning. “Do you have any heart shaped biscuits for the tea?” she asked Fortescue. That should be good enough, even if she did have her heart set on the heart shaped glitter idea. She turned to Blaise. “Are you done ordering? We should go back to the table.”

@nottheoretical​ 

“He’s not?” That’s right. He wouldn’t. Hot chocolate didn’t mesh with…well, it was something about peek physical fitness for broom riding and something to do with the way that Blaise filled out his uniform that had his own gaze looking back over to confirm. Slowly his eyes slid up, stopping at Blaise’s face that was staring back at his and guilt and embarrassment at being utterly caught in the act and being complicit in Daphne’s scheme had Theo dropping his head as his ex filled in whatever question he had missed in the fog of musing on the diet of professional quidditch players and the ethics of chaperoning a date one person didn’t know about. “I wanted cheesecake and cookies and cream.” Or sticky toffee pudding. Even the apple crumble would be better than vanilla. But Daphne had left and Theo was stuck speaking to the air or, more correctly, the table. Leaning back in his chair, he watched his two unfortunately attractive friends harass poor Florean when the menu was right above their heads. “He sells ice cream.” Not tea. Not cookies or edible glitter. 

@ofsolipsism​

Blaise was never entirely sure what went on in Daphne’s brain, so the faintly smug expression on his face didn’t falter at her request for heart-shaped biscuits (it was often better to just let these things happen) and instead chose to focus on why Theo’s sweet tooth had disappeared for the day. Perhaps he wasn’t very hungry? “Add another scoop to that one, your pick,” he added to Florean, trying to slide a couple of galleons out of his pocket — their uniforms weren’t built with storage in mind — against the opposing force of Daphne's patented death-grip when she had a goal in mind, triumphantly sliding them onto the counter before letting himself be pulled away towards the table by the arm.

“This is England,” he offered pointedly as he slid into the booth, scooching over to allow room for Daphne to slide in and knocking knees with Theo as he stretched out his legs in the process, “Everywhere sells tea.” Or they certainly should. Blaise shifted to try and make himself more comfortable in the booth, elbows settling upon the edge of the table as with a sneaking suspicion he asked, “What’s the emergency then? Is everyone else running late?” His head craned towards the window at his back, as if he might catch a glimpse of one of their other friends hurrying in out of the rain. When Daphne started co-ercing Theo into doing something it was .. a day ending in y, but it also usually involved more people. Three felt like a curiously charged number.

Perhaps his methods as captain were unconventional, but history said that they would work. If Zabini wasn’t the way he was in the mornings, he wouldn’t have needed this necessary intervention. He’d thank him for it later, Ollie was sure. There was a brief pang of concern that struck deep in Oliver’s gut that this might twist Blaise towards supporting Krum’s apparent bid for leadership, and might actually be shooting himself in the foot - but Oliver was still convinced that this was best for the team.

Perhaps that was where strength in leadership lay - knowing where to step back for the good of the team, rather than the good of the self. He wasn’t willing to let the team get ripped apart simply for his own insecurities. Even if Blaise now detested him and would support whatever the hell this coup turned out to be, Oliver knew that Blaise still needed to get into better morning shape. With that refreshed thought, Oliver sped up his jog - but not quite quick enough for Blaise.

A cheeky grin played on Oliver’s lips at Blaise’s jab, and Oliver picked up the pace even more until he was matching with Blaise. “Then I’ll wear my nickname of slug with pride, because if a slug moves like this then they’re pretty damn good,” he chuckled.

When their laps of the gardens came to a stop, Ollie glanced across to Blaise. “Push ups until we fail now,” he instructed, dropping down to the ground.

.

"A good slug is still a slug,” Blaise replied grimly, slowing to a halt near the patio where they’d started and eyeing Oliver suspiciously. Even for Oliver, who seemed to thrive on finding new and inventive ways of insinuating himself into his team’s personal lives with every passing week, breaking and entering seemed like a steep curve. It wasn’t as if morning games were about to become a thing he had to account for and while the looming threat of the World Cup hovered over their heads, Blaise knew better than to assume he had a chance at the national team. Not with only one season of consistent airtime under his belt. Whatever was driving Wood’s increasingly manic energy of late (and he had a fairly good idea of what that might be) he didn’t want to be doing push-ups and laps of his garden in the pre-dawn hours for the foreseeable future.