Song Out of Tune

Fandom: Harry Potter

Title: Song Out of Tune

Author: Morte206

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: None really, mention of Hermione/f

Disclaimers: Clearly I am not the great JK Rowlings, therefor equally obviously these are not my characters. No profit made and no foul intended.

Summary: Sure Blaise thinks a girlfriend would be nice but a friend would be better.

Archive: ask and ye shall most likely receive.

Author’s Note: This is my first foray into the fandom and is due entirely to a thread I read on the LJ community, hp_girlslash. Someone (I do not recall just who) posted about wanting to read the angst of being in school, being gay and not being able to find a girlfriend etc. Well so this is my attempt. It’s not particularly angsty and it may or may not be finished but it isn’t one of those fics where girl realizes she’s gay, girl likes girl, gets girl and lives happily ever after. It’s more like girl knows she’s gay, feels isolated and wants a friend to change that. After all girlfriends come and go but girl friends can last forever. I’m babbling sorry. Also I’d post this onto LJ except that I have absolutely no clue as to how to do that. If you know and are willing to share that info with me that would be lovely and muchly appreciated.

Feedback: I would love to know what you think so feedback the good, the bad and the ugly can be sent to me at Morte206@aol.com

I can’t be the only one. Statistically it’s got to be impossible. I’ve read Muggle books about it, One in Ten or Two in Twenty, something like that. Besides look at old McGonagall and Hooch, obviously there are others like me in the Wizarding world. So why can’t I meet someone? Anyone, even a chap. I just want to be able to talk to someone about it. I just want to be myself with someone.

Not that a girlfriend wouldn’t be nice, a girlfriend would be fantastic really. But a friend, someone to confide in, someone to speak openly with, that’s what I really want. That is what I really crave.

You’d think Draco, he’s such a priss, vain as any girl; he gives that Hufflepuff, Hannah Abbott, a run for her money in that department. But no Draco Malfoy is the undisputed cocksman of our year. Having been with damn near every female fourth year and older in our house at the rate he is going he will have to start plundering the other House’s common rooms before the end of term. So Draco is out and not the way I am. Not that I am really, except to myself. Anyway, Draco may be a friend of sorts but, unfortunately, he is not the sort of ‘friend’ I desire.

Sometimes I think maybe Bulstrode. I really thought she had a thing for Pansy there for a while but Millicent’s recent acquisition of an engagement ring has mostly negated that idea. I’m sure she’d be okay with it, me being gay and all but it’s not the same.

Sometimes I think that maybe I should post a notice in the common rooms? Or in the new school paper the Creavey brothers started. But what would I say. Wanted…

"Blaise?"

Granger, now Granger would know what to say. She’s clever and socially progressive. And if the rumors are to be trusted she’s thoroughly hetero but I’ve also seen the way her eyes follow Angelina Johnson and the new Muggle Studies instructor, Professor Humana.

"Something I can do for you Granger?" I close my journal and turn to look up at Gryffindor’s brightest standing behind me looking vaguely nervous and somewhat frantic.

"Are you still using Advanced Theories of Spatial Arithmancy Madame Pince said you took it out last week."

"Actually I’m done with it for my paper. If you need it for research fine but if you just want it for some "light reading" could I give it to you later this week? It really is fascinating and I’m almost done reading it."

"I really do need it. I’ll give it back to you when I’m done right away."

"It’s in my room. I’ll bring it down for dinner."

"Could we maybe go to your room and get it now."

"I’m working here Granger. An hour or so won’t make a difference. I thought you were always on top of things. What’s happened?"

"Oh fine. Really Blaise is it all of your house or just you." She sounds frustrated beyond belief and a small part of me is taking perverse pleasure in it. "Of course I know it’s not just you. Statistically it’s impossible…at least according to this book I read."

What is she talking about? Is she talking about what I think she’s talking about.

"Did you lose something on the Hogwart’s Express last month?"

My magazine. Dammit I’d hoped I’d left it at home tucked under my mattress where, hopefully, my mother wouldn’t find it. I sneak a look at her through my eyelashes only to find her smirking down at me. I’d like to wipe that snotty look off her face but as I am distinctly lacking the upper hand here I concede.

"Why don’t we go get that book from my room?"

Granger waits patiently while I gather up my journal and other books. Slinging my satchel over my shoulder I follow the follicly gifted Gryffindork’s bushy head out of the library. Once in the hallways she starts talking again.

"I’m sorry I didn’t return it sooner."

"Do you really need the Arithmancy book?" Or did you really just bring me out here to play cat and mouse games?

"Please don’t be mad with me."

"I’m not." Yet.

"Really I do need the Arithmancy book but more importantly I wanted to speak with you in private." Here we go.

"Well then…"

"Really you’re sure you’re not mad at me, because I would understand if you were. I mean I should have returned it sooner." She pulls out my battered copy of On Our Backs. "I really liked it…a lot."

"Yes well I only buy it for the articles." Grangers answering smirk speaks volumes as to her belief in that statement.

"Father says the same thing about Playboy."

"Playboy?"

"A Muggle girlie magazine. Have you ever read Annie on My Mind?"

"Gra…" Perhaps I shouldn’t be so quick to rebuke her, she has the upper hand at the moment. "No."

"Here then take mine," she reaches into her satchel and pulls out a battered book. "It’s rather good, sweet really. I think you’ll like it." I take both, the magazine and the book, quickly stuffing them into my own satchel.

"Thanks…and thank you for not…for your discretion."

"You know the rumors about me and Harry and Ron. They’re not true. Not in the least."

"Not even a tiny bit."

"Well once but it was just kissing."

By now we’ve reached the entryway to Slytherin House so I ask Granger to wait while I get her book from my room. I’d invite her in but I’m not socially suicidal and though my fellow Snakes may gather around to protect me from the outside. They’d inevitably turn the arrows inward at some later time.

"Here you go." I give Granger the book and then we stand there awkwardly.

"Blaise" "Granger"

"You first"

"No you"

"Fine. Firstly my name is Hermione."

I stare at her blankly.

"Try saying it you might not find it as difficult as some of your housemates."

I smile and hold off on saying anything until she begins to huff a little. "Hermione"

"Secondly, when I said I liked your magazine a lot I wasn’t talking about the articles."

"Oh."

Granger gives me a withering look that conveys her doubts as to my intelligence.

"OH!"

"I see you’ve caught on to my meaning."

"Those rumors really are off base aren’t they?"

"Quite."

I guess I was right about Granger after all. Professor Lupin was onto something when he said we should always trust our instincts.

"You know Gra…Hermione earlier in the library I was just thinking about how wonderful it would be to have a friend with similar interests."

"Exactly."

Several Weeks Later

"Mione!" Breaking away from a group of my fellow snakes I make my way across the Great Hall to talk to Hermione.

"B"

"You’ll never guess what happened yesterday."

"Do I need to be sitting for this one?"

"Don’t bother you’d only fall out of it with laughter. Anyway you’ll never guess what Susan Bones said to me yesterday after Charms."

"Not another stupid rumor."

"Of course."

"Let’s see me, Harry and Ron in the Dueling Room with…"

"Nope"

"In the Restricted section…"

"No"

"Me, Ha…"

"No"

"Then what already. C’mon Blaise I don’t have all day."

"Sure you do it’s the first Hogsmeade Weekend. Or did you forget we’re supposed to go to the public post office to empty our box."

"I told the boys I’d spend the day with them too."

"Are they going to want to spend the day with me is the real question."

"Harry and Ron would if I asked them."

"You sure because we could just go into town together, hit the post, then go have a spot of tea and check out the mail." We’d taken an owl post box to let for the term and subscribed to more than a dozen different magazines and book clubs. Also Hermione has a girlfriend, a girl she’d met last holiday, whose letters came there too.

"I suppose we could do that and meet up with the boys later."

"The ice cream shop at say half past two."

"Here they come now. I’ll just ask them, hold on." Hermione’s hand on my arm stops me from leaving. "Harry Ron I was wondering if..."

"Hello Hermione. Zabini."

Potter at least has the decency to address me directly. Weasley, the redheaded simpleton, simply grunts.

"Potter."

"Stop it you three behave. Really we should be setting an example for the younger forms about intrahouse relations, especially you and I Ron, we’re Prefects."

"But Hermione."

"Ron." She shoots him the look and like an obedient child he shuts up. "I was going to say why don’t Blaise and I meet you in Hogsmeade at the ice cream shop at around 2:30PM we have an errand to run before then."

"But ‘Mione," Potter protests. "You said you’d spend the day with us."

"Don’t worry Potter I can make myself scarce."

"No Blaise." Again her hand on my arm stops me from leaving. "Harry Ron I want to spend the day with you. I also want to spend the day with Blaise. I was hoping we could all be mature about this and spend the day together."

"You already spend all your time with her as it is. Next thing I know you’ll be telling us all the talk in the halls is true." Potter gives Weasley a jab with his elbow and the Weasel’s mouth snaps shut.

"What talk?" I wonder if he’s talking about the same rumors I’ve heard.

"Nevermind that. Ron doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut." Potter has a gift for understatement.

"Look Hermione why don’t we just…"

"What sort of errand do you have to run with Zabini here anyway?"

"Girl stuff."

" ‘Mione!" Ron squeaks out no doubt visions of dress shopping running through his head.

"Well he asked."

"Fine we’ll meet you at 2:30 at the ice cream parlor. Do yourself a favor Zabini and don’t let her get into the bookshop until after you’ve run your errands or you’ll never have enough time." Potter grins fondly at Hermione and nudges Weasley in the direction of breakfast.

"I’ll keep that in mind."

Hermione smiles awkwardly at me and I feel a rush of fondness for her. In these last weeks we’ve become good friends. She is someone I trust implicitly. I respect her intellect of course but I’d always been blinded by our house colors to see past the ferocious intelligence to the heart underneath. I’m gladder than glad that she found my magazine.

"We should probably eat something before we go into town."

"Tea and toast is all I really want right now. I feel bloated."

"Got your period did you?"

"The Curse, the Vex of Venus whatever you want to call it."

"Oh for Merlin’s sake why do you call it that? Menstruation is not a curse."

"Says you. Do me a favor and don’t go getting all, what’s that Muggle phrase, ‘Hippy Dippy’ on me. "

"Bite me Blaise."

"What and start another rumor."

"Well you know what they say works for cramps?"

"What?"

"Orgasm of course."

"Spoken like someone who has a girlfriend."

"Oh please you have two perfectly functioning hands not to mention that catalog from Wanda’s Pleasure Wands."

"That’s just gross under the circumstances."

"It’s so obvious you’ve never had sex B."

"Meaning."

"Meaning just that. Sex isn’t soft and dewy and pristine. I mean it can be but it usually isn’t. At least not the really good kind."

"Which I suppose you’ve had."

"You mean the sweaty, salty slick messy hot passionate all my muscles, known and unknown, hurt afterwards kind of sex."

I nod mutely my jaw hanging open.

"Yep," Hermione turns and walks towards her table. Towards Harry and Ron who have saved her a seat and what appears to be the last orange scone at their table. She throws me a cheeky grin over her shoulder, "If your lucky I’ll tell you about it later."

Sure. Right. If I’m lucky.