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The first time, Harry isn’t looking for anything but a bit of peace and quiet.
He loves the idea of a combined common room for all of the 8th years. He really does. It’s just....the staring. He’s known it since he was eleven years old, and he learned to ignore it, accept it, even. It became normal, and most people - people at Hogwarts, at least - got used to him being around. They stopped looking at him like he was something incredible.
And then the war. And that fucking battle, and the article that came out afterwards.
Harry didn’t know how Skeeter found out that he’d died, literally died, in the forest that night.
But now everyone knows and the staring is back with a vengeance, and this time it doesn’t die down. No, this time it comes with whispers, and stammering, and no peace, none at all.
It grates on him, the tension building until he feels the need to break something, or scream, or throw himself from the fucking astronomy tower.
That tension is what brings him to the quidditch stands. It’s nearly dusk on a Thursday, there’s a chill in the air, and the pitch is blissfully empty of players practicing for upcoming tryouts.
It’s a haunting feeling, Harry realizes as he sits on a bench in the Ravenclaw section, being the only person in a space meant for a crowd. He shivers like a ghost has passed through him, and pulls his robes a little tighter against the chill.
At least it’s peaceful. At least it’s quiet.
That’s when he notices it. Blue smoke, hazy and glittering in the distance. It seems like a mirage, a trick of the setting sun, until another puff rises to join it, a clear stream of smoke from the Hufflepuff stands, steady for a moment, then gone.
Never let it be said that Harry Potter isn’t curious, because he’s on his feet in a moment, trekking around the pitch to investigate. The wooden boards creak beneath him, the fabric coverings of the stands rippling in the light breeze.
It takes him a few moments to get there, he sees another puff of smoke, then another by the time he finds himself creeping along the front row of the Hufflepuff stands, the furthest point from the castle.
There’s a figure lying there, robes discarded, shirtsleeves rolled to their elbows and Slytherin tie hanging loosely from their neck. He recognizes the thick black hair and smooth dark skin of Blaise Zabini, even at this strange angle.
From his fingers dangles a joint; thin paper wrapped around something that glows faintly blue. Harry’s never actually seen a joint before, but he knows what it is on sight.
When his eyes return to Blaise’s face, he realizes he’s been spotted. Blaise just gazes at him calmly, then flashes him a bright smile and takes another hit, the end of his joint glows brightly, a moment’s pause, then another cloud of blue smoke rises, shimmering in the fading light.
Blase sits up slowly, taking a moment to get his bearings, then looks at Harry with a slow blink. “Hullo.”
“What are you doing?” Harry blurts out, realizing he sounds like a bit of a narc and biting his lip.
Blaise just lets out a good natured laugh, “I’m dancing with the Blue Fairy, Potter.”
Harry notices a blue sparkle in his usually caramel colored eyes and moves closer, intrigued. “Blue Fairy?”
“Got it from some delightful 6th year Hufflepuffs, quite a mellow ride.” He offers the joint to Harry who looks at it dubiously.
He’s vaguely aware that doing drugs is a thing that normal-ish teenagers do. Like many other things that normal teenagers do, it never particularly occurred to him. Other things on his mind, and all.
“Oi, Harry ,” the name falls from his lips with teasing disdain, “You literally died this year, mate. Live a little.”
From anyone else, such a blatant reference to his, well, death, would be shocking. Infuriating, even. From Blaise, it isn’t.
After a month of living in close quarters with not just his usual roommates, but all the returning boys in his year, Harry learned about their personalities in ways that he’d never expected.
Blasie Zabini, he’d discovered, was easy-going, mischievous, and irreverent to a fault. It was refreshing, really, to be treated like a regular person, to be poked and prodded about the things no one else mentioned unless it was in a whisper behind his back.
For some reason, Harry finds it easy to lay down a brick of trust there, something to build on. He sits on the bench next to Zabini and looks at him, “I’ve never…I don’t know how to...?”
Blaise laughs and it’s melodic and soothing instead of grating, then a wicked smile breaks out over his face, “I can help with that.”
Harry wonders for a moment if he’s making a mistake, but the words from moments ago resonate with him.
You died this year, live a little.
He nods determinedly, and that’s all the encouragement Blaise needs.
“Exhale, nice and slow, relax your shoulders.”
His tone is soft and comforting, and Harry suspects it’s one he’s practiced a lot over years of scheming to get his way, but he gives into it and complies.
Wide green eyes watch Blaise bring the joint to his own lips, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply. His hand falls away and his eyes flutter back open, and for a moment it’s just eye contact, warm and intimate.
Harry allows his eyes to stray to Blaise’s high cheekbones, his strong jaw, not realizing until too late that Blaise is swaying forward, steadying Harry with a hand on the back of his neck, and pressing their lips together.
He gasps at the connection, inadvertently stealing the smoke from Blaise’s lungs into his own. The taste is bittersweet and something else he can’t define, and he feels a rush of pleasure, though he’s not sure if he can accredit that to the drug, or to Blaise, whose lips move against his for a moment before retreating and giving way to a self-satisfied smirk.
“Hold it, then exhale, “ he instructs quietly, his face still very close, eyes hazy with blue but trained on Harry.
Harry holds in the smoke until his lungs start to burn then breathes out slowly, gasping in fresh air as his eyes water and a coughing fit wracks his chest.
“You could have warned me,” he mutters when his breathing evens out.
“Your eyes have gone blue,” is all the response he gets before Blaise stretches back out on the bench to gaze up at the sky where the sunset has begun to saturate the sky with vibrant colors.
It’s all Harry can do to follow suit as his body begins to tingle and the world around him sparkles.
*****
The second time, Harry isn’t looking for anything, but he sees Blaise anyway.
Sees him linger at the common room door, hands in his pockets, and an innocent look on his face. Their eyes meet for a moment, and Blaise offers only the quirk of an eyebrow before disappearing out the door.
Naturally, Harry follows.
It’s a Sunday afternoon this time, unseasonably warm for October, but Harry’s glad to have a thick jumper on anyway, because as he trails a safe distance behind his unlikely companion, Blaise forges a train directly into the forest.
It’s colder here, and darker, but clear blue sky still peeks through the trees, leaving patches of sun on the forest floor. Harry shivers being here, wondering why Blaise would choose the forest of all places.
He jogs to catch up and walk beside him, now that the forest gives them cover. Neither of them were eager, it seemed, to be seen together, to face those questions and whispers of where they’re going.
“Where are we going?” Harry wonders aloud, breaking the silence between them. Blaise just gives him a flash of a grin and keeps walking, picking his way gracefully through the knobby roots and other detritus beneath their feet.
As they walk, Harry takes the opportunity to look Blaise up and down. Like Harry, he’s wearing a thick jumper, though his is paired with tight trousers that make Harry feel lightheaded already. He thinks of their not-quite-kiss in the quidditch stands and flushes, scrubbing his hand over his face and through his hair.
A few long minutes later, Blaise stops at the edge of a clearing in the forest, and Harry nearly runs into his back before stopping to gaze in awe at the scene in front of them.
It’s not that it looks anything special at first glance, it just a clearing, a rare parting of the trees, a patch of grassy floor, but a closer look reveals the circle of mushrooms, and Harry feels the magic, ancient and strong, somewhere between inviting and maleficent.
“A fairy circle,” he breathes quietly, and Blaise’s eyes glitter with mischief.
“Where better for our dance?”
Dancing with the Blue Fairy.
The words echo in Harry’s mind.
He wonders for a moment if his tentative trust has been misplaced. If he’s learned anything in school, it's that some types of magic aren’t to be messed with, Fae magic prominent among them.
Perhaps Blaise has not learned this, because he keeps walking into the clearing, long legs carefully stepping around the large mushroom in his path, and gracefully settles down in the grass. He looks up at Harry with an expectant gaze.
Harry takes a moment to curse his reputation, his pride, Blaise Zabini, and Godric Gryffindor himself, then bolsters his courage and steps into the fairy circle.
Blaise has a fresh joint in his hand by the time Harry sits down, and he lights it with his wand, taking a large hit with no hesitation. Harry watches him closely, his lips, pursed around the paper, his eyes fluttering shut at the first flood of smoke into his lungs, the way he delicately pinches the joint between his finger and thumb.
The joint falls away, he exhales, and for a moment they’re surrounded by shimmering blue smoke and that bittersweet smell that Harry thinks he could now place anywhere.
Brown eyes fall open and Harry reaches out to him, two fingers on his chin, turning Blaise’s face just so, giving himself the perfect view of his eyes. He watches, entranced, as the first fleck of blue winks into existence, followed by another and another, until it looks as though his irises have been dusted with sapphires and aquamarine.
Blaise smiles lazily at him, content to be watched, and holds out the joint.
Harry tries it for himself this time, repeating Blaise’s actions, taking a drag of the joint and letting it rush into his lungs, invade his capillaries, live there in his chest for a moment, then releases it to shimmer prettily around them and dissipate to the sky.
He’s too busy watching the smoke rise to notice when Blaise reaches out for him, cupping his cheek and turning his face so he too can watch the drug sparkle into Harry’s eyes. They’re still for a moment, Harry letting himself revel in the onset of his high, a pleasant tingle that seems to start at his heart and work its way out to his fingers and toes until everything buzzes with it, Blaise’s hand on his face in particular.
The hand falls a moment later, or maybe an hour, Harry isn’t sure, but Blaise plucks the joint from his hand and reclines in the grass, stretching out long limbs and pillowing one hand under his head while the other brings the joint to his lips again, his eyes on the sky.
Thinking that seems like the best idea, Harry does the same, leaving a scant few inches between them as they lay in the grass.
“The fairies are gone, you know.”
The sentence floats between them for a second before Harry understands it, looking over at Blaise to see that he’s still gazing at the clouds, but holding the joint out to Harry.
He takes it.
“Gone? Why?”
Harry takes another hit, crossing his eyes to watch the smoke leave his lips this time. It’s quiet between them long enough that Harry wonders if he spoke out loud at all.
He hands the joint back. Blaise takes a hit.
“There’s too much dark magic here now. It’s been scrubbed from the castle brick by brick, but the forest is different. It’s alive, the trees are imbued with it, the grass, the bugs.”
“Oh.”
Inhale, exhale.
“But there was dark magic here before. Voldemort hunted unicorns in this forest our first year.”
Blaise sputters at that, coughing on his exhale for the first time that Harry’s seen. “What?!”
Harry shrugs, “I saw him.”
Another long silence, then a rustle of grass as Blaise turns on his side to face Harry, “Okay, I’m impressed now. I wasn’t before, but I concede to it now. The Dark Lord in the fucking forest first year . You win, Harry.”
It’s so absurd to hear that Harry giggles softly, still watching the clouds above them, it bubbles through him like he’s moving in slow motion.
Blaise passes the joint over and Harry settles down enough to smoke it.
“The fae can live with a little dark magic, they need it, even. But they need light magic too. And earth magic. They’re a mix of it all, that’s what makes them so dangerous.”
“Hmm.”
The joint is burnt to a roach and Blaise stubs it out in the grass.
Harry can feel the eyes still on his face and looks over to see Blaise watching him.
“Why did you follow me out here?”
There’s no hesitation before Harry’s response, “You treat me like I'm the same as everyone else.”
“And if I didn’t?”
Harry doesn’t know what that means. His brow furrows in confusion, though it doesn’t last very long, because Blaise has pushed himself up with one arm to lean over him, and without the slightest hesitation, he leans down to kiss him.
It’s as shocking as the first time, and Harry notes absently that the unexpected rush of pleasure returns. Not the drug, then.
It takes only a moment for him to react, pressing up into Blaise, parting his lips and tasting the bittersweet of his mouth. His high multiplies the thrill that runs through his body as Blaise’s hand tugs lightly at his hair, and he sighs in pleasure.
The kiss is over too soon, far too soon, and Harry feels cold with the loss as Blaise retreats and lays on his back again, but the space between them is gone.
They lay shoulder to shoulder for a long time, watching puffy clouds drift lazily by.
“You can treat me like that.”
*****
The third time, Harry is looking for caramel eyes, and it’s his eyebrow that quirks when he finds them.
Blaise is sitting the common room with Pansy Parkinson, Terry Boot, the Patil twins, and Neville of all people. They’re in the middle of some heated discussion, but Blaise moves to excuse himself the moment he sees Harry.
If his companions protest, Harry doesn’t hear it, because he’s already in the corridor, lingering at the end of it until he hears the common room open again and footsteps behind him.
Blaise keeps a careful distance just as Harry had the last time, following him through the corridors and up to the astronomy tower. The night is cold, but Harry braces against it and casts a warming charm just as Blaise reaches the top of the stairs, then a ward to deter anyone from following them up here.
Satisfied, he leans against the stone wall and looks at Blaize expectantly.
“Are you looking to get blazed...or Blaised?” he waggles his eyebrows at the latter and Harry groans, not allowing himself to laugh at the ridiculousness.
“I’m regretting this already.”
A predatory smile warms Harry to his core, “I can fix that.”
He stalks over and caresses Harry’s neck, then pulls him up for a searing kiss. Harry abandons all pretense and loops his arms around him, his stomach erupting with snitches as Blaise leverages his height advantage to press Harry back against the wall, kissing him thoroughly on the lips, cheek, jaw, and neck, then back to his lips again.
Harry’s fists clench in the soft fabric of his cloak, anchoring himself and pulling Blaise closer.
Eventually they part, but don’t separate, resting their foreheads together.
“I’ve been thinking about this since the forest,” Harry admits, feeling vulnerable without the drug to bolster him this time.
Blaise smiles, though a hint of nervousness lingers, uncharacteristic, from what Harry knows.
“I have too. I don’t uh, I don’t have any more Blue Fairy though.”
And Harry understands, he is nervous. Nervous that this was about the high. He smiles and shrugs, “Just Blaised, then.”
A sigh of relief and a giddy laugh, and then Harry shows him a much better thing to do with his mouth.