Worse than Regret
“Why do you always do that?” Blaise quirked his eyebrow, secretly thankful for the distraction from his wandering thoughts and looked his sister in the eye.
“What, may I ask, is it that I always do, Celeste?”
“Well, every time I’ve managed to get rid of that ugly frown you go and start thinking about that war again.”
“Leave it; even though you are practically a Muggle, you know how important and serious it is.”
“You’re going to live a miserable life,” her face was the very image of resigned honesty.
“No, no, no, my dear sister,” he didn’t even try to suppress the smirk creeping across his face, “You’ll want to raise an eyebrow, keep your face impassive, and I thought I already taught you the right tone to use in these situations- completely un-Slytherin of you, I’m very disappointed.”
He didn’t mention how proud he was three seconds later when a very Slytherin triumphant smirk crossed her face. Little things like this, which allowed him to pretend that he didn’t think his sister was a Hufflepuff at heart, almost made up for the fact that she had indeed succeeded in making him lose his (rather important) train of thought. As he followed her through the now familiar doorway, he couldn’t bring himself to think about any of the problems that seemed to lie ahead.
He noticed that one of the small Muggles was eyeing him with a mixture of curiosity and awe. Giving the boy his most frightening glare he settled himself down on one of the chairs and took to watching his sister glide around the room cheerfully, cleaning up for the day. He thought, fleetingly, that if he had been a Gryffindor or a Hufflepuff he might have felt compelled to actually help the girl a little, but he wasn’t. And it was rather stupid anyhow because she seemed to be enjoying it, why bother her with inexperienced and unwanted help?
He shook his head. He must be going mad, Blaise thought, to even think of it. He most definitely was not going to help.
It was when the blasted curtain fell down (again) that Blaise knew he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. One look and he found himself on his feet and walking towards the battered thing. He pulled up a chair, picked the curtain up, and hoisted himself up on the chair.
And then he paused and eyed the hand hanging limply before him with a mixture of awe and disgust. It was his own hand. And he was about to use it to fix a Muggle curtain the Muggle way.
The one thing worse than regret, Blaise decided, was not being able to regret when you knew you should. It was unnatural, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to care. It was as if he was slowly (and quite painlessly) losing his identity. But it would make a great story one day. He resolved to tell it to Draco (just for the kick he would get out of seeing the expression on the boy’s face) one day after the war, when they were all…
He shook his head and opened his eyes, wondering when he had closed them, and forced himself to take in a deep, calming breath. It was not enough to expel the mental image he had unwittingly managed to draw in his head every single time he attempted to think about the ‘future’ or ‘after the war’.
Quickly looking around he made sure no one, especially Celeste, was looking and quickly pulled his wand out of his pocket and hid it up his sleeve. It only took a few simple spells to get the thing back up and he added a quick sticking charm before jumping down off the chair.
The boy was still there. Everyone had already left the room and Celeste had gone to help the old woman put the youngest ones to bed, but this boy was still standing there staring at him in what he thought was a rather frightening manner for a child. Blaise decided to ignore the boy and took a seat on the dusty couch by the fire.
The setting sun reminded him of what he had been trying not to think about all day now. Tomorrow was the firs day back at Hogwarts. Tomorrow he would feel the magnitude of the choices he had made this summer. Tomorrow…
Something warm had just settled itself on the floor before him, leaning on his leg. He looked down, a little startled, and found himself face to face with a small mop of brown hair. Baise felt his face harden into that look his sister hated and remained sitting there, rather stiffly, trying to avoid the fact that the warmth had made its way up to his chest and settled there begging his limbs to relax.
When she came back, Celeste gave him a rather impish look before settling herself down beside him. The silence was long and comfortable, and that was one thing he was thankful for. At least silence was something normal for a respectable Slytherin to enjoy.
“I promised him you would help him make a snowman in the winter,” Celeste said in a half-whisper.
“And why would you make such a terrible promise?”
“I figured you’d prefer it over helping him catch a frog, he asked me a week ago if you would.”
“That’s disgusting,” Blaise said rather softly as she suppressed her laughter and lifted the now sleeping boy off the ground to take him up to bed.
She came back in with the fat woman behind her and he silently cursed nosy old women. Pulling a small notebook out of his pocket he faced his sister.
“You’ll write everyday, do you understand?” the least he could do after losing so much of his personality was to keep a commanding tone right now.
“Is it magic?” she asked nonchalantly, “Will it be like writing letters?”
“Yes, exactly, I can’t have bloody owls following me around, they draw too much attention. And you’ll go to mum if anything happens.”
“Nothing’s going to happen Blaise,” she said embracing him for the second time since they had met, “Don’t worry.”
……………
“Goodbye, son,” was all his mother said, but Blaise hadn’t expected her to come to the stations with him in the first place, and he could tell by the way she lifted his chin, just a little bit, with her hand that his mother was a little worried. He might have made his decision, and time may have passed, but she had never agreed to his decision and she never would. He was just glad she was calling him ‘son’ again. She had gone back to using his name for a couple of days after the initiation.
As the train whistle sounded Blaise realized that he was straightening his mother’s shawl and let his hands drop to his sides.
“Goodbye, mother,” he said. Walking over to the platform Blaise took special care to keep his head held high and he didn’t allow any of his misgivings about the coming year to affect his expression.
He had to stop in the queue outside the train doors and resisted the urge to look back at his mother while he watched the boy in front of him (a rather irritating Ravenclaw that played on the Quidditch team) being searched with secrecy sensors and various other silly instruments.
“Your left forearm, son!” Blaise’s head snapped to his side and he looked at the red-headed man with fiery eyes. He didn’t know, at that moment which made him more upset, the open accusation or the use of the word son. He reached out his hand and dragged Corner back by the collar.
“You forgot to show him your arm, Corner, make it quick!” Corner’s back stiffened a little and he didn’t utter a word or make a move. Blaise looked over at the man’s crimson face and then walked onto the train with his chin held rather higher than he would have thought decent had he not been this upset. He hadn’t even reached the blasted school yet and it was becoming rather unbearable.
