Unsurprisingly, Blake woke up in a horrible mood.
He laid there for a moment staring at the ceiling, trying to decide how he felt about everything, and, as expected, he had no idea.
Right, he thought, staring at a crack in the stone above his bed. There it is.
He got up, got dressed, and went to breakfast.
/
Daphne was already at the Slytherin table when he arrived. She looked up when he sat down.
"Morning," she said, smiling.
"Morning," he replied, trying to match it.
He poured himself some pumpkin juice, feeling her eyes on him, while his own were staring straight at his cup. By the time he had looked back up, she'd went back to her toast. Blake held back a sigh. Across the table, Tracey's eyes moved between the two of them carefully, analysing. He did his best to pretend he didn't notice.
Nothing is wrong. Everything is completely fine.
/
By Wednesday, it was obvious to everyone at the table that everything was not, in fact, completely fine.
The issue, Blake had decided, wasn't that he was avoiding her - he wasn't avoiding her. They had Potions five times a week and he showed up to all lessons, present and functional, and answered every question she asked him, and contributed useful things to the conversation, just like always. He was a perfectly adequate Potions partner, both in the classroom, and in the Room of Requirement.
He just wasn't anything else.
Daphne, for her part, was immaculate about it - notes perfect, voice even. She always asked, "Same time next week?" at the end of each session, and he would always reply, "Yeah,". They would go in their own separate directions, and that was that.
You're avoiding her, said a voice from the back of his head.
I'm not avoiding her, he convinced himself. I literally speak to her all the time!
You talked about extraction rates and ratios for two hours!
Extraction rates are important!
Instead of continuing arguing with itself like a maniac, his brain just started radiating a low-level disappointment instead.
Later that week, he looked up at one point during Wednesday's session, mid-sentence about the Murtlap timing window, and caught something in Daphne's expression for just a half second, before she'd looked straight back down at her notes.
Neither of them said anything, and Blake felt as they he could cut the tension in the room with a butter knife.
I'm overthinking it, he thought, on the walk back to the common room. It's all completely fine.
It was not completely fine.
/
As he expected, Tracey came for him on Thursday evening, knocking on their bedroom door like she was possessed. What he hadn't expected, however, was Charlotte sitting beside her on his bed looking like she wasn't entirely sure which side she was on.
Blake groaned internally. This is spilling over into everyone's business.
"You're avoiding her," Tracey said accusingly.
"No, I'm-"
"Cut the bullsh*t!"
"Tracey, we literally talk about stuff all the time!"
"You talk only about Potions!" Tracey retorted angrily, "And then you pack up so fast you forgot your own notebook! She told me!"
"Relax, Tracey," Zabini interjected on Blake's behalf. "It's not our business - they're both grown, they can handle their own problems."
"Shut up, Blaise! He's the one that-"
"I've been busy," Blake said, starting to get annoyed. "Connor's training, the Moody thing, readings-"
"You don't have readings this week," Tracey interrupted. "Same timetable, Blake!"
He looked at Charlotte for support. Charlotte gave him a very small, very honest shrug.
"She didn't do anything wrong," Blake said, after a moment of silence.
"I know!" Tracey said, in the tone of someone who would quite like to shake him. "That's exactly my point! She didn't do anything wrong, and she knows you know she didn't do anything wrong, and she still has to sit there watching you be weird at her, and that's not-"
"I'm not being weird!" Blake said, which came out more defensively than he'd intended. "The ki- everything was mutual - I didn't force anyone's hand there, and I don't owe anyone anything!"
Blake regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth, and Tracey's annoyed face turned angry.
"I know it was mutual," Tracey said, surprisingly. "But if you think you don't owe her anything, you shouldn't have kissed her. You shouldn't have asked her to dance either, or flirted with her ever since we came to Hogwarts!"
Blake had no reply to that.
"Let me ask you something, Blake," Tracey said, unrelenting. "Do you think the kiss was a mistake?"
"Of course not!" he said immediately, as if it was a stupid question.
"Then what-"
"I said I don't know what I'm doing, Tracey!" Blake said, finally raising his voice in exasperation. "That's different from thinking it was a mistake!"
"Is it? Because from where I'm standing-"
"And besides, if it means that much to her, then-"
Blake stopped himself suddenly, exhaling deeply.
"Then what? Then what, Blake? At least tell her what's going on! She deserves to know!"
Blake was silent for a few moments.
"Give it some time," he said shortly. "I'm not talking about this anymore."
Everyone in the room looked at each other for a few painfully long moments.
"Fine," Tracey said, just as shortly. "But she's not going to wait forever. She doesn't have to."
He doubted very much that Daphne Greengrass was waiting for anything from anyone, but he kept his mouth shut.
Tracey left abruptly, and Charlotte gave him one last look on the way out that managed to be both sympathetic and pointed at the same time.
Blake lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling.
All these years, I thought that she would do for me what I would do for her. But looking back, when has she ever risked her life for me?
In first year, she hid, while I fought Voldemort. In second year, I was the one that killed the Basilisk, risking my life - she wasn't there. In third year, almost every time we went out into the Forest, it was with me and Lupin, and even then, when the Dementors attacked we were in a group, and it's not like she did it just to help me. And now, in the World Cup, she didn't come to help me.
Blake knew Daphne cared about him - he wasn't an idiot. But the question of how much she cared - the question of if she cared about him as much as he cared about her - was one he hated to answer.
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