Title: As Lovers Go

Author: Tegan

Rating: G

"She said, 'I've got to be honest, you're wasting your time if you fishin' around here.'
"And I said, 'You must be mistaken, I'm not foolin', this feelin' is real.'
"She said, 'You've gotta be crazy! What do you take me for? Some kind of easy mark?' "
- "As Lovers Go" Dashboard Confessional

“I’ve been waiting for a girl like you all my life.”

Hermione Granger rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. He was so melodramatic sometimes. “Oh honestly.”

“It’s true you know.” Blaise Zabini replied easily and casually, waving his hand through the air. His arm was slung gracefully over the back of a chair in the Prefects’ Lounge.

“You’re wasting your time.” She said simply.

“You must be mistaken.”

Hermione stamped her foot on the floor as she stood in front of him. “You’re crazy! I’m not some easy chit of a girl for you to have some fun with.”

Zabini raised an eyebrow. He stood up slowly and perfectly, using his full height. “No, you’re not.” She glared up at him.

“Then what is this all about Zabini? We’ve hardly been more than tolerable to each other.”

He looked down at the short, but still formidable Head Girl. “Look: you’ve got wits, you’ve got looks- don’t interrupt, it’s true you know- and you’ve got passion.”

She squinted at him. “You’re one of the most passionate people I know.” He continued.

“And you think you love me for it?” She said, confused. Hermione just simply didn’t understand love and the complications it imposed on people.

She always wanted everything perfectly logical and able to be understood. However, for as long as she could remember, love was an intangible philosophy and idea she could never define, calculate into a quantified amount, or explain to a university Admission’s Board if they asked her on an admission’s essay “What is love and what impact has it had on your life?”

And, of course, romantic love was quite possibly, the hardest kind to figure out. Perhaps she had the tiniest of crush on Zabini. But could it hardly be love? So what if he had never called her crude names or taunted her mercilessly? So what if he was practically brilliant without even trying as hard as she always forced herself to? So what if he looked at her like there was no one else in the room?

“Just because things have started off roughly doesn’t mean they can’t end happily.” Zabini said, and looked down at her with his light hazel eyes that made Hermione’s insides turn all gooey and unstable. She always made eye contact with him and then had the uncontrollable urge to take a potion to relieve indigestion.

Hermione uncrossed her arms and looked down at her fingernails. She felt scrutinzed, uncomfortable, and small.

Why couldn’t she just let herself give in? He was, she admitted to herself reluctantly, everything she could hope for.

“And here I thought Gryffindors’ were courageous.” She looked up at him sharply, and his smirked at her. The mood lightened and Hermione knew her fortress has fallen.

Zabini’s face was open and raw. She had never seen him as so before, and Hermione’s heart twisted.

“Are you brave enough to be with me tonight?” He asked.

Hermione’s life slowed down for a few timeless moments, and suddenly she knew her decision had already been made. She looked at him with more meaning than words could convey. She reached up and brushed a few curls behind his ear

“I suppose.”

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