Disclaimer: I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.

Warnings: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers. Please exercise understanding of personal boundaries before and during reading.

Author's Note (Generic Note for the Houses Competition): All my works should be considered to be Not Epilogue Compliant and I treat everything that is not the HP books and the Hogwarts Library Collection as apocrypha (supplementary to canon but still outside of it) and treat it as such (meaning that I can pick & choose what I want from it). I also make a policy of not ignoring abusive and distasteful actions/decisions of characters and not handwaving the effects of trauma experienced by characters. If you feel that a character isn't acting like their "canon self", chances are good that it's because of one of these two things and they are merely displaying a more realistic response than they did in canon. This is also true if you think I've gotten some basic information incorrect.

Author's Note(s): It should be noted that I am actively using the headcanon that since one type of fairy exists in the HPverse, then other types do as well. Since the greater Fae have a tendency to interbreed with humans in fairy lore, it is a logical extension that there would be descendants of those matches just as there are from veela.

Challenge/Competition Block:
House: Hufflepuff
Year: 6th
Category: Short (1500 – 3000 words)
Additional Requirement: Overcoming the Odds
Prompt: Harry Potter & Blaise Zabini (pairing)
Intrahouse Challenge: Black (color) or Yellow (color)
Stacked with: Houses Competition (Term 03); Not Commonwealth; Sky's the Limit; Terms of Service; Fem Power Challenge
Representation: Blaise Zabini; Harry Potter/Blaise Zabini; Hero; Luna Lovegood
Bonus Challenge(s): Second Verse (Not a Lamp); Second Verse (Wabi Sabi); Second Verse (Tomorrow's Shade); Second Verse (Unwanted Advice); Second Verse (Unicorn); Verse (Brooms Only); Second Verse (Lock & Key); Second Verse (Zucchini Bread)
Word Count: 2622

AO3 Tagging Block:

Fandom Tag(s): Harry Potter – JK Rowling

Relationship Tag(s): Luna Lovegood & Harry Potter; Blaise Zabini/Harry Potter

Character Tag(s): Blaise Zabini; Harry Potter

Additional Tag(s): Book 5 – Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix; Not Epilogue Compliant; Implied/Referenced Obsessive Behavior; Implied/Reference Child Abuse; fairy Blaise Zabini; Pansexual Harry Potter; Platonic Cuddling; Referenced Canon Character Death; Implied Wolfstar; Lunar Lion Zucchini; Getting Together; Mild Suicidal Thoughts

-= LP =-
The Meeting
-= LP =-
Standing on the cliff face
Highest foe you'll ever grace
It scares me half to death
Look out to the future
But it tells you nothing
So take another breath
– Bastille, "Icarus"
-= LP =-

Blaise Zabini was his mother's son. He was calmly collected even when facing down certain death. He was unstoppably titanic when pursuing his goals. He was the shadow no one saw coming, the overlooked snake that struck without warning. He thought his way through problems, instead of attempting to barrel through them and wasting resources.

Blaise Zabini was his mother's son. Even dormant due to his youth, he knew that the aura he inherited from her drew in people's attention. A faery aura wasn't anything as crass as a veela's allure. It was subtler, an added weight to anything he said, instead a demand for worship. As other children learned nursery rhymes, he had learned to mind his words, to hold them back unless he was very sure of what he wanted. He learned the value of silence and how to communicate a thousand things without saying even a single word.

Blaise Zabini was his mother's son. Unlike most of the wizards among the British magi, he was not bound by any contract or betrothal. He was completely unclaimed, his power unpromised to anyone. The lure of that possibility was something he also learned on his mother's lap, watching how many suitors sought the spider only to be unprepared to deal with the strands of the web.

Power never comes without a price.

As his mother's son, Blaise already knew what awaited any lovers he took without knowing for absolutely certain that they were worthy of the privilege. He had seen more than enough men and women court his mother only to have the magic in her veins turn against them when they betrayed her trust. He had heard how the world had blamed her, giving her the sobriquet of black widow because of how all of them died for what Magic viewed as the ultimate crime. Blaise had watched her mourn too many times to not learn that sometimes being alone was better than loving wrongly, and better for everyone.

He would have been content to be alone, in that sense. He had Tracey and Daphne, and even in friendship, they would have been more than enough for any man, fae-blooded or not. The pair had been inseparable since meeting on the train their first year, figuratively at first and then literally when they bonded just weeks before their third year. Blaise would have been content to bask in the secondhand affection they radiated, free from any directed urge to hunt for someone of his own.

He would have been except for Harry Potter and his Hestia-cursed habit of attracting danger. The scent of blood and pain lingered around the boy like a perfume, growing stronger with each year. Blaise wasn't nearly strong-willed enough to just ignore the temptation completely. So, he constrained himself to only watching from the shadows.

And Blaise saw where others apparently were blind.

He saw a boy already pushed into adulthood and crumbling under the pressure, melting in the heat of the spotlight placed upon him. He saw aborted attempts to reach for help, dropped glances filled with longing. He had cautioned Daphne against her plan to steal Tracey, but after watching the callous handling of the boy in the wake of the Diggory boy's death, Blaise finally understood how desperation could override logic.

He understood how protecting a single person could become an obsession.

-= LP =-

"He likes to watch you," Luna announced, apropos to nothing.

Harry didn't regret deciding to form a friendship with her, even if they were hiding it from others, but that didn't mean that he always understood where she was going with the things she said. However, instead of scorning her for it like he had seen other people doing, Harry just accepted it as something that Luna did. She usually explained somewhere along the line or whatever it was would eventually become clear. Either way, Harry gave a hum of acknowledgement of her words but didn't bother stirring from his reclining position with his head on her stomach.

"He thinks he's being subtle," she continued. Luna scratched lightly at his scalp as she continued to run her fingers through his hair. "Though I guess he might actually be, since I don't think many other people have noticed how much he watches you. I only noticed three people, including myself. I doubt you've noticed either, despite how much attention you usually pay to the people around you."

"Haven't noticed anyone new," Harry commented. He felt too relaxed to be overly concerned with the idea that he may actually have a stalker beyond Colin Creevey. Four and a half years were more than enough time for him to have adapted to the concept of most people seeing him as a celebrity instead of an actual person. It really wasn't that different from the entirety of Little Whinging seeing him as an insane criminal. Who cared what strangers thought of him when he had his friends and Luna? As if rewarding his unspoken thought, Luna rubbed the ridge behind his ear, making him groan as a chunk of tension he hadn't noticed lingering disappeared.

"That's because he's not," Luna returned. She switched to humming the tune she favored when she was thinking. Harry didn't push, knowing that she would get around to explaining better eventually. Unlike Hermione or Ron, Harry had learned patience. Though considering that he had learned it because of the Dursleys, Harry wasn't upset with the way his friends pushed for things constantly. He wouldn't wish the Dursleys on anyone, let alone his best friends. He especially couldn't summon the energy to be impatient when Luna was letting him use her as a pillow while she finger-combed his hair.

"I think he'll figure out that he needs more than watching soon."

"Should I be worried?" Harry mustered himself enough to ask. Luna gave a few reflexive scratches as she thought about that.

"Probably," she finally said, though she didn't sound worried herself. "The course of love is never easy."

Harry hummed again, just to acknowledge her words. Maybe he should be surprised that Luna had picked up on that part of him, but given that she had already shown how much she observed about him, why wouldn't she have noticed that he wasn't exclusively into girls? The unspoken support in her actions was surprising, though. Harry had always expected everyone to be upset if they figured it out or discovered it. He had planned on just never attempting another relationship, especially after the way things went with first Parvati and then Cho. No relationships meant never having to deal with how people might explode if he dated another guy instead of a girl. He really didn't like the odds on how Ron would react.

But at the same time, he wanted something like what he had heard his parents having. He wanted something that made his friends get the same soft look that Sirius had when his brilliant counter to Harry's declaration of his mother hating his father was 'nah, she didn't' instead of his usual flippancy. He wanted someone to look at him the same way Sirius looked at Lupin, or the way Lupin looked at Sirius, both when they thought that no one could see them. He wanted someone who liked to watch him.

"Do you think it would be that?" Harry dared to ask, pressing his face into the folds of Luna's blouse immediately afterwards. Luna's hand stilled completely. "Do you really think someone could love me?"

"I think the odds are not as insurmountable as you've been led to believe," she whispered eventually. Her voice sounded like the buildup in the air before a storm, vaguely threatening with suppressed violence. He couldn't stop the shiver that went through his entire body. "I think he is more than willing to spend a lifetime convincing you of it and making those who convinced you of its impossibility wish for mercy."

"Sounds like a fairy tale," he whispered as her fingers returned to their petting.

"Oh, you have no idea."

-= LP =-

Blaise was his mother's son. He knew that actions had consequences. Inaction did, too. If someone did not intercede on Harry's behalf, there was no way he would survive to graduation. Harry's friends seemed content with the status quo. Even worse, they appeared to be enabling the slow crushing of their friend by dragging him into confrontations Harry had already successfully avoided or turning away in a crucial moment. It filled Blaise with the desire to rip them apart and bathe in the spilt blood, which he knew would have been counterproductive to what he wanted.

If he wanted to claim Harry, he couldn't murder those Harry saw as innocent. He had witnessed just how often Harry would avoid conflicts and confrontations despite being thrown into them so frustratingly often. Watching him maneuver around obstacles was sometimes akin to watching his mother work, like watching a ballerina dance. Blaise refused to think about what Harry's home life must be like that he had such skill in defusing situations along with the reflex of just accepting any attacks that couldn't be prevented; it would only feed the desire for violence.

Blaise might have been able to ride out his obsession with the Boy Savior, to let things go through their natural progression despite knowing that Harry would die, if he hadn't stumbled across Harry in an empty classroom in the pre-dawn hours of the morning after they had finished their OWLs.

Blaise was his mother's son and she never was one to let the perfect opportunity pass without use.

-= LP =-

Harry twisted his body as he conjured and banished another cup. The yellow teacup shattered against the far wall, raining ceramic shards onto the multi-colored pile already laying beneath it. Rage still pounded through him. He couldn't process fully what had his magic whipping around him and demanding destruction. He could have sworn that destroying Dumbledore's office earlier would been enough. It had helped, but only enough to get him through the old man's latest bombshell. Harry had been on his way to see Madam Pomfrey for treatment when it had surged again.

He had barely had enough time to duck into an abandoned classroom before his magic had started lashing out. Most of the furniture in the room had been rendered to ash and lumps of melted metal within moments. He had banished the metal, leaving bright scrapes against the aged stonework of the room. Then he began conjuring cups and plates to let his magic throw as well.

That had been at least an hour ago and his magic showed no sign of returning to peace.

Harry began to turn in a circle in the center of the room. As he did, he conjured a series of tiny saucers, all of them the exact shade of amber that Lupin's eyes turned when his wolf was close to the surface, and banished them to the walls a foot apart from each other. With each explosion of shards, he pictured a stolen glance between his godfather and the werewolf. Had they ever acted upon their mutual attraction? Or had they just watched without daring to risk their friendship?

Had they calculated the odds of surviving the war and decided that it was better to lessen the potential pain for those left behind?

After all, what was love but pain? Shouldn't he be grateful to feel such pain? What other destiny did he have beyond dying when Voldemort finally caught up with him?

Maybe he should just turn himself over to the Dark Lord; maybe it would prevent another bout of idiocy like the one last night which had ended with Sirius' death.

God, Sirius really was dead, wasn't he?

And it was Harry's fault.

Harry screamed as he fell to his knees in the center of the room. This time his magic exploded out from him in a hot press instead of a violent wind. The remains of his conjurations blackened before crumbling into dust. The magical protection imbued in the castle flared into visibility as they absorbed the offensive accidental magic, shining too brightly to distinguish whether it was yellow or white. He pounded his fists uselessly against the flagstones, feeling ripped to pieces as the grief-fueled rage turned inward. He screamed again, hoping to bleed off the agony threatening to unmake him.

A tendril of foreign magic caressed his cheek before stroking through his hair and down his back. Like a cat, his magic arched into the touch before relaxing into a distant ache. It was comforting in the same way that touches from Luna always were. That was his only excuse why he let the still-unseen stranger's magic push him into a complete bow: it felt so much like hers despite being distinctively different. Only when he was laying curled over his knees did Harry finally sense a physical presence behind him.

"Finally decided you were tired of watching?" Harry asked, because who else could this be than the person Luna had told him about? Suddenly, he felt every hour it had been since he had last slept beyond catnaps. He didn't have the energy to sort out whatever drama the newcomer was bringing into his life. He just wanted to sleep, and maybe if he was very, very lucky, he just wouldn't wake up. With Harry out of the way, Voldemort could become someone else's problem. Harry's breath hitched before he spoke again, as evenly as possible. "You'd be better off finding someone else to watch. Safer, you know? People around me tend to wind up hurt or d-dead."

"Who?" came the soft question as someone settled behind him. The single syllable was a caress on its own. Harry shivered despite the residual warmth in the room. The fingers that followed the shiver down Harry's back were stronger than Luna's but just as gentle. With the same instinct that helped him decipher Luna's non sequiturs, Harry knew that the question was only for the most recent disaster and not his entire ledger of destruction.

Harry let his mind wander through his memories of his friends in danger that they had only been in because of him. He thought of trolls and cerberuses, of basilisks and hippogriffs. He thought of fingers combing through his hair and old friends too afraid to take the risk of broken hearts for a few months of bliss. He thought of Sirius' soft 'nah, she didn't' and Luna's harder 'the odds are not insurmountable'.

Then he decided that the odds didn't matter and took a risk on a stranger's sympathetic nature to talk about losing Sirius, which broke the seal on all the hurt from Harry's life. Somewhere in the midst of the cathartic sharing, the stranger became Blaise and just as trusted as Luna. Blaise was everything that Luna had said he was: watchful, protective, and above all, undeniably loving.

It was a fairy tale but better.

It was real.

-= LP =-

Blaise was his mother's son. He knew only one way to love someone: without any reserve. To love someone was to protect them from all enemies. Enemies were met without mercy and put down without wasting resources. He was the shadow that no one saw coming, the snake that struck without warning. He thought through his problems before acting. He was calm while facing down certain death.

Even while defeating self-styled Dark Lords, he was a titanic force.

He was, after all, his mother's son.

-= LP =-
An Ending
-= LP =-