BEHIND LOCKED DOORS

WARNING: Rated R for profanity and homosexual relations of the incestuous kind. But this actually a story with a plot, not plotless homosexual porn. Flames only keep me warm in winter.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Back again, and it didn't take as long as I thought it would!!! In fact, I actually managed to write this chapter in about one hour, and I hope you all like it. I've been through quite a few changes in my life since the last chapter!!! I've now officially finished my HSC and High School, my course starts next March, I've moved in with my Dad (Poor Mum was upset on the day, but I still see her as often as I can), and Xmas is in less than two weeks (Then a month after that, I'm finally 18!!! Yay!!!)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Contemplations of the Slytherin Pariah

Blaise Zabini lay flat on his back on his large bed in the Slytherin dorm, deep in thought. It was a Wednesday afternoon, four days since he had spied on Draco and his Father meeting up at the Hogshead, hopeful to find a weakness in Draco that could be used to his own advantage.

He shifted to sit up against the back of his bed, and winced as he rubbed the scars on his back a little too roughly against the bedclothes. He reached a hand behind his back to rub some of the many scars in a comforting gesture, and not for one of the first times, he found himself wondering how he got them in the first place. He had racked his memory repeatedly, trying to remember but found himself unable to remember anything apart from a whip cracking across his back. No person holding the whip, nothing else.

What he also found a little strange was that nobody else in his dorm seemed to pay heed to his wounds, even when he had walked into the large, communal bathroom without a shirt on about two weeks after he first received them. Sometimes he thought he had seen his ex, Draco, looking at his back with what may have been a sadistic gleam in his eyes and the faintest of smirks on his lips, but when he had looked again the expression always seemed to have vanished and he found himself almost convinced that the suspicion had been nothing but a paranoia. Almost, but not quite. After all, they both hated each other with a white-hot passion, and Draco was the kind of person who took pleasure in the pain and suffering of those he hated.

Blaise growled almost inaudibly, deep in his throat. Gods, he despised Draco. It was all because of Draco, – And that little slut, Pansy… he mentally noted – that he seemed to have become the official Slytherin outcast. Nobody in his year spoke to him or acknowledged his presence unless they had to, let alone invited him to come out with them on Hogsmeade trips. If any of them sat next to him during classes, it was because of seating arrangements that had been initiated at the beginning of year.

Of course, Blaise knew he wasn't innocent of anything. Hell, he knew that playing Slytherin's unofficial Prince and Princess had been not only stupid but also downright wrong, but it had been kind of fun until Draco found out…

But since when did Slytherin's believe in doing the right thing? He paused to roll his eyes. Okay, so that was a bit of a stereotypical thought. It's not like we don't have feelings just because we're Slytherins.

But still, he did think that Draco had acted a bit dramatically. They had only been 'together' for about two months, and Draco seemed to have attempted suicide after they broke up (Though he did remember overhearing Pansy saying something about it not really being a suicide attempt), landing himself in the care of Madam Pomfrey for about a week. Still, he had felt a tinge of remorse when he found Draco in the Prefect's bathroom, nearly unconscious from blood loss. The remorse, however, pretty much evaporated on the day that he had become the laughing stock of the school; something which he heavily suspected had been the doing of Draco and Pansy although he lacked sufficient evidence to actually prove it. And the anger that he had felt for them that day had managed to bloom into outright hatred and a thirst for revenge when he realized that he had become an Outcast in his own house.

But how to seek this revenge was still something that Blaise was trying to put together in his mind. He didn't particularly want to humiliate them like he suspected they had planned to humiliate him. They would have been onto him in five seconds flat, and humiliation was – in his opinion at least – too amateur for older Slytherins, even if it was particularly effective. No, Blaise wanted his revenge to be something that would hit hard and strike deep at a particular weakness. Something that would burrow right underneath their skins and cause a severe amount of emotional and/or psychological damage for a long time to come. He knew that this particular type of revenge would take time to plan and put into action, but that wasn't of concern to him, as Blaise understood that sometimes a person had to be particularly patient in order to do or have something done absolutely perfect, and patience happened to be one of his strengths.

Blaise often thought of these kind of maneuvers akin to re-opening and infecting a wound. It had to be found, slowly and gradually picked at to open up before it was eventually ripped wide open and bleeding heavily before it was rubbed with vinegar. He smirked to himself. He'd always found himself rather fond of that symbolization.

Letting out a yawn, Blaise stretched his arms above his head and got to thinking about the previous Saturday at Hogsmeade when he had spent his day spying on Draco and Pansy separately. The earlier part of the day on Pansy while she wandered around Hogsmeade with her now-fiancé Marcus Flint, and the latter on Draco when he had left the group of friends at The Three Broomsticks.

A malicious gleam appeared in Blaise's dark eyes when he realized he may have very well found the weak spot that he had been looking for on Pansy. Re-playing the memory through his mind, he paused it on the very moment in The Three Broomsticks when Pansy and Marcus had announced their engagement, remembering the smiles – Real smiles of genuine happiness, not the phony kind so many people he knew normally plastered on in order to 'keep up appearances' – on their faces.

Marcus Flint. The one person that she would trust with her life...

At an almost breath-taking, dizzying speed, the first plan of revenge began to assemble itself within Blaise's mind like a twisted jigsaw puzzle. It was so easy, so simple that it seemed almost elementary, but it would still take time and patience to pull it off with absolute perfection.

But that's alright. Blaise thought to himself with a smirk, interlacing the fingers of each hand behind his head. After all, patience is one of my strengths. I can wait as long as is required to pull this off with absolute perfection, and I can wait even longer to formulate and enact my revenge upon Draco if that is how fate says it shall be. Oh yes, I may have to wait, but when it does finally come to me and it has finally been put into action, I know thatit will havedefinitely been worth the wait...