#to hear every brilliant line falling from her lips putting another nail in her coffin

[anaid-queen]

via @cbrownjc

Armand orchestrated Madeleine’s death because she so easily outcunted him. Absolutely no effort just laughed him in the face at his questions “yeah I can live and be mentally stable for eternity. what, like it’s hard?” she said skill issue if you can’t handle killing as a vampire. Every night Armand has seven different existential crisis and Madeleine sleeps soundly without a shred of guilt WHILE ALSO looking dead drop gorgeous and being funnier than everyone around her. Armand had to take her out early. He never stood a chance

[seductresses-temple]

Fuck

So, this is actually a little something I cooked up for my best friend @50shades-of-truth it’s my first time writing ANY content for this paring and it’s un-betaed and probably sucks SO bad but I love him so much and my bb deserves nice (adjacent) things! Soooo without further adieu

Lessons From Mother

Pairing: Blaise Zabini and Neville Longbottom

Rating: Teen

Warnings: None

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Growing up, his mother Selina was all Blaise had ever had. His father -whom his mother never spoke about- had died when he was young. Blaise remembered very little about him. He remembered the smell of sandalwood, a rich, deep laugh that filled up a room, and being held, but as time went on - as it is wont to do- those memories faded into a vague, fuzzy thing. The one thing Blaise did know about his father, with an absolute certainty, was that his death absolutely gutted his mother.

Boyfriends came and went.

Husbands came and went.

Every single man paled in comparison to the bittersweet memories of a long gone ghost.

Blaise adored his mother, he admired her strength and tenacity, sought to emulate her grace and beauty, and he lived his life by the lessons she’d instilled in him. She’d taught him manners, maths, how to dress with style, banking, she had a rule for everything, especially love, especially how to avoid love and Blaise had been doing a damn good job of it for seventeen years...until Neville.

Rule Number One: Don’t let them talk you into anything

It had all started with fucking Slughorn.

Classes at Hogwarts had resumed session over a year after the war and Blaise’s mother had - in no uncertain terms - made it quite clear that he was to continue his education if given the opportunity.

Of course McGonagall just had to give him an opportunity.

Two weeks before term was to begin, his letter came during Sunday breakfast and his mother had fixed him with a happy, expectant stare. They’d gone shopping in Diagon Alley the same day.

Summer passed by all too quickly after that and before Blaise knew it, he was sitting in Slughorn’s potion’s class, getting paired with Neville fucking Longbottom on a three month long potions assignment. All in the name of Interhouse Unity or whatever nonsensical prattle the faculty seemed content to spew about.

As if being back at Hogwarts wasn’t enough of a chore, being paired with the absolute worst potion’s partner on the face of the planet was just salt in the wound, wasn’t it? The only silver lining Blaise could find in the situation was that Draco had gotten paired with Potter and had turned nearly as read as Weasley’s hair.

“You will need to meet with your partner at least twice a week outside of class to conduct research, all of which will be recorded in these journals,” Slughorn waved a small, black, leather bound journal in the air before flicking his wand and sending a pile of them floating through the room.

“You will each share a journal to make the process as collaborative as possible and they will be collected the same day as your potion. Now, everyone switch seats so that you are sitting with your partner, you’ll have the rest of class to have a friendly debate over which potion you’ll be crafting for this assignment.” Slughorn clapped his hands and shuffled behind his desk, seeming all too pleased with himself.

Blaise refused to move from his seat. It wasn’t like he wanted to be there in the first place. To his credit, Blaise’s stubbornness seemed to have no effect on Longbottom whatsoever.

“I had an idea already,” Longbottom plopped down in the seat beside him, journal clutched in his fist.

“You let me do all the work and we actually pass?” Blaise raised an eyebrow at him. It was the only idea that had any merit, after all, Longbottom was rubbish at potions and Blaise Zabini had never failed a class in his life. He certainly didn’t plan on starting just because he’d been paired with an accident waiting to happen.

“Ha,” Longbottom rolled his eyes before leaning in conspiratorially, a wide, mischievous grin splitting his face and making his eyes absolutely sparkle.

“I’ve got something big I’m working on. It’s a risk, but that’s what you lot are all about, yeah? Ambition, cunning, pride. Think you’re in for the ride, Zabini?”

If Blaise had been a smart man, he would have known it was the beginning of the end in that moment. He would have ran away and never looked back. Better to run away than be a fool in love. But having never fallen before Blaise was too blind to know…

Rule Number Two: Don’t fall for their doe-eyed stares

Neville Longbottom, against all odds, was actually quite brilliant. His grand master plan -if they could pull it off- would be even more powerful than dittany. It would effectively have the power to heal wounds left behind by Dark Magic and Magical Creatures alike. Even old scars.

“I’m making it for Bill,” Longbottom told him one day while they were working out on the front lawn, the journal sitting between them as they got settled on top of a large blanket in tacky Gryffindor colors.

“And Bill is?” Blaise asked, twirling a bit of dittany between his fingers, having no issues whatsoever showcasing his boredom.

It seemed to have no ill effect on Longbottom, however, who propelled himself into explaining far more of the Weasley family tree than Blaise could ever bring himself to care about. He didn’t care, not in the slightest, but something about the way Longbottom looked as he spoke made Blaise pause. Made him listen. Made him stare deeply into Longbottom’s eyes, which were impossibly brown with small flecks of hazel and hang onto his every word. There was a fire in his eyes as he talked about healing, his eyes warm and bright, his voice strong and sure, and his face just a little bit flushed, lips moving a mile a minute.

Blaise certainly didn’t think about what those lips would feel like against his own.

That would be preposterous.

Rule Number Three: Don’t become smitten with their little habits.

Neville Longbottom was something of an artist and apparently brilliant at charms.

It was a small fact Blaise had learned by happenstance. The first time the two of them had sat down in the library to research the potion they were creating, Blaise had been reading aloud from some of their research material while Longbottom scribbled notes in the journal. It wasn’t until later that night, when Blaise was leafing through the journal before bed -out of sheer boredom, mind- that he spotted the most gorgeous picture of an English Rose in the margins. It was charmed to bloom, over and over, and looked so fantastically detailed, Blaise would have sworn he could nearly smell it.

They passed the journal off periodically and every time Blaise received it back there was always some new little drawing that caught his eye. Without thought, Blaise took to scribbling the name under each new addition. It got to the point where Longbottom would start drawing less common plants, testing Blaise’s knowledge, and it had turned into a game of sorts.

Their little plant trivia was how Blaise found out that Neville fucking Longbottom was a bit of a bastard underneath that shy, unassuming disposition. Blaise also found out he didn’t care to lose their little game. Every time Blaise couldn’t identify a picture before their next hand off, Longbottom was nothing but smug grins and little jabs.

“I thought part of being cunning was being resourceful, Zabini?” Or something like, “well, I see why you weren’t sorted into Ravenclaw.” Or a little shove and a “you’re allowed to use a book, you know?” All of which just made Blaise scowl and grumble and try all the harder to the point that Longbottom started leaving little words of encouragement under each drawing.

Blaise found a “you’ve got this” under a doodle of a ‘shy plant’ and there was a rush of vindication when he was able to scribble mimosa pudica underneath. He got a very enthusiastic “show me what you’ve got!” under an incredibly graphic drawing of Hydnellum peckii and he wrote a disgruntled “you’re gross” underneath his answer.

What really put the final nail in Blaise’s coffin was reading the words “I believe in you,” under a drawing of a tulip, its petals charmed to turn yellow ever so slowly.

Blaise didn’t write an answer.

Rule Number Four: Don’t give them the power to make you jealous

Jealousy was an ugly, foul little thing. After the incident with the tulips, Blaise couldn’t bring himself to speak to Longbottom afterward. Every time he tried those damnable yellow twinged tulips flashed in his mind and he heard his mother’s voice in the back of his head. “Be careful with your heart, my darling boy.”

So Blaise was careful, which meant working on their potion -two nights a week- in a terse silence while silently counting down the minutes until he didn’t have to be in such close proximity to Longbottom because it was all becoming too maddening. What was a boy to do when the object of his affection was so close? Their breath mingling together, faces mere inches apart as both of them hovered intently over their potion. They watched the surface suspiciously, anticipation coiled tightly in their chest, and Blaise did everything in his power not to lean over and steal a kiss.

So lost in his own little word of trying to fight his stupid, selfish impulses, Blaise almost didn’t hear Longbottom who was mumbling something at his side. Alright, so he didn’t hear him at all.

“Hm?” Blaise hoped he sounded distracted instead of incredibly flustered. The heat of the potion and the fire in his belly didn’t seem to be agreeing with one another and it was all a bit too much.

“I was wondering if you could watch the potion this evening, just this once. I sort of, well I,” Longbottom cleared his throat, a hand coming up to rub the back of his neck as he sat back in his chair, away from Blaise.

“I sort of have a date, I suppose,” he said at last and something vicious ripped through Blaise.

“A date,” Blaise had to pull the word from his throat. His voice must have sounded odd or strained or too much of something because it made Longbottom wince just to look at him.

“You’re right,” Longbottom gulped.

“I shouldn’t go, we’re supposed to be, well, partners. I can’t just l-leave you to go it alone,” with a nod, Longbottom pulled their journal into his lap and scribbled something down, staring at the table, the potion, anywhere but at Blaise really.

Fuck.

Blaise understood now, why they called Jealousy a ‘little green monster’ because his was currently stomping around his heart, throwing things, and having the world’s most Apocalyptic meltdown.

“Go on your date, Longbottom, for pity’s sake. Have fun,” Blaise waved a dismissive hand, building a wall around his heart brick-by-brick because it was the only thing saving the useless thing from crumbling to pieces.

Rule Number Five: Love with your whole heart or don’t love at all

It was, Blaise liked to think, quite hard to get under his skin. That’s what he thought, anyway, until the day Neville walked into the library, eyes puffy and raw, the tip of his little nose just a little bit red, and the tracks of his tears down his cheeks as visible as the sun in a clear blue sky. Blaise felt instantaneously livid, his emotions flaring hot and intense like a bonfire.

“What’s wrong?” he snapped his book shut and put all of his attention on the boy in front of him, silently wondering how long of a prison sentence he’d get for killing whoever dared to make Neville cry. He was sure to get some leniency, if any member of the Wizengamot took one look at Neville, spoke with him just once, and saw how good and pure and sweet he was.

“It’s nothing,” Neville pulled out their journal, his trembling hands causing it to drop onto the table which caused two things to happen.

The first was that the page just so happen to open on the page where Neville’s tulip was slowly filling with yellow. The second was that a spare bit of parchment came tumbling out of it, falling -ironically- into Blaise’s lap. Without meaning to, Blaise couldn’t help but catch it and he couldn’t help it if a few of the words seemed to jump off the page. The words someone else and break up may as well have been written in red ink.

“He’s an idiot,” Blaise muttered, handing Neville the parchment back, trying to pretend as though he didn’t feel his magic jump beneath his skin as their fingers brushed together.

“He isn’t the only one,” Neville fixed him with a pointed stare and Blaise could only sit and stare back at him.

The boy has a point, some logical part of him whispered but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. Their potion was so close to being done and Neville seemed content to through his heartbreak on the backburner in favor of getting down to work.

It was astounding to see him in his element. Blaise couldn’t help but steal glances out the corner of his eye, watching Neville hunched over the potion with a book in his lap, brow furrowed in concentration, and his bottom lip held loosely between his teeth. A strand of his hair fell over his eyes and Blaise’s heart fluttered so hard he thought the damned thing would fly away.

Tucking away every lesson his mother had ever taught him, Blaise reached over for the journal, scribbling down what he should have written over a month ago.

Yellow tulip- Hopeless love- Neville, will you go to Hogsmeade with me this weekend?

The smile that spread across Neville’s face as Blaise caught him reading the note over his shoulder nearly stopped his heart.

Fuck.

There was no denying it.

Love seemed to give no fucks about the rules.