Ruminations

Title: Ruminations
Author: cate (absolutcate @ gmail.com)
Pairing: Blaise Zabini/Neville Longbottom
Summary: Blaise Zabini is gay – everybody knows it. Neville ponders.
Rating: NC17
Warnings: Slash, dubious consent, AU
Disclaimer: Harry Potter & co. are owned by JKR and other various copyright holders. This is for entertainment purposes only; no money is being exchanged.


---------


Blaise Zabini is gay. Everybody knows it, and he doesn\'t hide it; I couldn\'t help but to think about it, being stuck in that small room with him, unable to see anyone else for nearly thirteen weeks.

Perhaps I should start at the beginning...

It was nearly the end of my fifth year at Hogwarts. Things had been going awfully since the start of the year, when Professor Umbridge was hired to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. I knew things would be bad right from the start; we weren\'t to learn how to actually cast any defensive spells, just the theory behind them. I\'m not very good with medium-difficulty spells, even with practice – how was I to learn anything from this class?

The nasty woman must have had Minister Fudge in her pocket. Every other week, it seemed, she was posting new rules throughout the school: first, she became this High Inquisitor and started sticking her nose into every class to see how the teachers were doing (this was after the decree saying Umbridge had to teach Defence because no one wanted the job); then teachers couldn\'t talk about anything that wasn\'t part of class; after that, she became Headmistress! Everyone in the Ministry is mad...

Harry was banned from Quidditch for life, all groups (including Quidditch, of course) had to be disbanded and couldn\'t get back together again until they got permission from Umbridge... Really, she made everyone absolutely miserable – even the teachers didn\'t like her and were ready to gang up against her. How anyone survived is a mystery...

Harry had to take these special lessons with Snape, and he started having weird dreams... predictions, almost. He knew Mr Weasley was being attacked, and we visited him in hospital during Christmas. And closer to the end of the year was when things truly exploded with insanity...

After having another dream, Harry thought his godfather, Sirius Black, was being attacked inside the Ministry. A group of us all rode thestrals from the Forbidden Forest right into London. Sirius wasn\'t being attacked at all, at least, not when we got there.

There was a huge fight – I had my nose broken – Dumbledore was there, some others that Dumbledore brought with him, and Death Eaters, too. Draco Malfoy\'s dad was the leader of that group, that night. Bellatrix Lestrange, she\'s the one who got my parents sent to St Mungo\'s, was there and she\'s a raving lunatic. She was fighting with Sirius, they\'re cousins I think I heard, and Sirius was sent through this veil thing... everyone said he was dead... but Harry didn\'t want to believe that.

I\'m not a very good storyteller, am I?

Anyway, things were quiet at school for a bit. It was nearly the end of term, after all. Harry was upset, which is understandable, and everyone was somber and quiet.

Then all bloody hell broke loose.

---

The word was that Lucius Malfoy was sent to Azkaban after the attack at the Ministry of Magic. Harry said that You-Know-Who was at the Ministry, and that Dumbledore fought him. I expect he had the Dementors on his side at the end, You-Know-Who, I mean, and they just... let Malfoy out, under You-Know-Who\'s orders. The day before we were going to take the train home, the castle itself was surrounded by wizards and witches in black robes, some of them coming inside. Everyone was panicking – that is, almost everyone. Most of the Slytherins (those that could be found anywhere) seemed awfully smug.

So much happened so quickly... it was so very confusing: students screaming and running about, professors trying to keep the students and themselves calm, trying to keep the Death Eaters out, but in the end, they couldn\'t...

There was a group of us that was dragged out of the castle and portkeyed away. There were probably many, many more taken away, but I have no way of knowing. I didn\'t see anyone from my own House taken. I didn\'t know what they were planning to do, but I was, and am, surprised at how we were being treated. Blaise and I were in the room alone, but we got three meals a day, there was a small bathroom, and we had beds to sleep on. It\'s just rather lonely, being stuck with someone I didn\'t know. Though we did get books, sometimes... It was almost as if we weren\'t really prisoners of Death Eaters.

---

\"Neville Longbottom.\" Blaise\'s voice startled me so much: I nearly fell out of my chair. \"You have been staring at me,\" he continued, \"almost constantly since we got here. Would you kindly find something else to stare at, and leave me out of your line of vision?\"

I felt my face grow red, very red; I hadn\'t realized I was staring at him all the time. I suppose I should have realized it... I turned away and picked up one of the books that were dropped off that morning, and tried to read.

I couldn\'t, though, and ended up just staring at the pages, turning them once in a while to make it look like I actually was reading. I couldn\'t stop thinking about gay Blaise Zabini.

Who does he think about when he\'s wanking at night? I knew he was wanking – I could hear it since we didn\'t have wands to cast silencing charms, or cleaning charms, or any other kinds of charms. We didn\'t even have four-poster beds with hangings like we did at school, just simple single beds. He was usually quiet, except for the sound of slapping flesh, and of his breathing getting heavier. Who was he thinking about? His boyfriends? I\'d have imagined so... I\'d think about my boyfriends, too, if I\'d had any.

I\'d never told anyone, but I\'m gay, too.

---

\"Neville Longbottom, will you please quite jumping about?\"

I stopped jogging in place and looked at Blaise. \"I\'m just trying to exercise a bit,\" I told him. \"We don\'t get to exercise otherwise...\"

He made a face and looked back to his writing (we had been given paper and quills a few days earlier). \"Stop. It\'s rather distracting, and you look fine the way you are.\"

I just stood there for a bit. Did he just say I looked fine? \"Ehm, thanks,\" I said. I would have blushed, probably, but after you\'ve been stuck in a room with only one person as any sort of companion, you just stop being shy after a while.

Jogging in place again, I said, \"I\'d really rather continue. I like it, oddly enough... it gives me energy; I don\'t want to become a lazy lump. If we ever-\"

\"Stop,\" he said. \"Just stop, and be quiet.\"

I sat down on the foot of my bed.

\"Did you mean it, when you said I looked fine and didn\'t need exercise?\"

Licking his finger, he turned over the parchment he was writing on, and continued writing.

He didn\'t answer me.

---

There was one window in our room, looking out over the garden of wherever we were being kept. Some days, I would look out the window for hours... I\'d see the sun rise, see it set, watch the moon rise... Flowers were always in bloom, making me ache to go out there and stick my fingers into the dark soil. The grass was always so green. It never needed mowing, and the flowers never died. Every day was bright and sunny, and every night was total blackness. No stars, no moon, just pitch black.

\"I wish it\'d rain,\" I said to Blaise one day. \"For a bit of variety.\"

He ignored me, as usual, and went into the bathroom for a shower.

---

Most nights, when Blaise was in bed touching himself, I just lay still and quiet, trying to ignore him; I usually ended up with a stiffie in the morning and had to take care of it in the shower. One night, though, maybe four weeks after we\'d been secreted away into this room, my hand found its way to my own prick. I wondered, how does Blaise touch himself at night? It\'s pitch dark, so I couldn\'t see him. Does he use just the tips of his fingers, or does he wrap his whole hand around it? Does he touch himself in other places, or just his prick?

Using just the pads of my fingers, and my thumb, I stroked myself slowly, picturing Blaise in my mind, sprawled out in his bed, totally naked. If any moonlight could ever make its way through the one window in our room, I imagined it would dance over his skin, shiny with sweat.

He moaned, a short, quiet sound as though it was accidental, and I felt my prick twitch in my hand. I pinched my foreskin over the head and felt warm liquid dribble over the tips of my fingers. Now my fingertips weren\'t enough; I wrapped all of my fingers around my prick and started stroking faster, firmer. I could tell by Blaise\'s breathing that he wasn\'t very far from finishing, and maybe if I was quiet and finished at the same time as him, he wouldn\'t even notice what I was doing.

I closed my eyes tight, biting my lip, trying my hardest not to make a single sound. I felt a tingle low in my belly and stroked myself faster. I heard Blaise whimper and I knew he\'d just come... the thought of his semen spilling over himself was enough to bring me to my own climax. My chest hurt with the effort of breathing quietly, and once I could move again, I used my pyjama shirt to wipe myself clean.

I fell asleep almost immediately.

----

During dinner one night, I felt myself grow warm as I pictured Blaise with another man\'s prick in his mouth. Would he close his eyes as he did it? Or would he keep his eyes open, trying to watch what he was doing? I\'d never had a blowjob before, but I knew what they were, of course, I\'d heard stories the other boys told, about dark corners inside the castle with their girlfriends. It had sounded nice. I\'d like to know what they\'re like, someday.

\"Neville Longbottom, I asked you several times to not stare at me. Knock it off, already!\"

Startled once again, I stared at my plate as I finished eating, focusing on my disappearing dinner rather than the only other person I\'ve had any sort of contact with for the past five or so weeks.

It was hard to keep track of the days as they passed; it was easier, once we were allowed to write, but I still had no idea what day it actually was.

\"Do you think we\'ll ever get out of here?\"

Blaise looked up at me, a dark, angry look. He didn\'t answer; instead, he pushed his half-finished plate away, grabbed a book, and sat on his bed to read.

I turned towards him. \"We\'ve been here for nearly seven weeks,\" I said, \"At least, I think so. It\'s hard to tell. What do you think they\'ll do with us? What do you think is going on outside?\"

\"Well,\" Blaise began, \"I imagine the Death Eaters captured whomever it was they were looking for, and slaughtered the rest. I don\'t know how long we\'re going to be locked up here, I don\'t know what is going on outside. There\'s no door leading outside, the window is fake; we\'re stuck here. Suck it up and stop snivelling.\"

I wish he hadn\'t mentioned sucking, not with the fantasy of him doing just that still fresh in my mind from when it popped up there not long before.

I also hoped that what he\'d said wasn\'t true about everyone either being captured or slaughtered.

---

\"My birthday was the thirtieth of July.\" I had no idea what day it actually was, but I knew my birthday had come and gone.

\"That\'s nice.\"

I curled up on my bed, on my side, looking (not staring!) at Blaise. \"When\'s your birthday?\" I asked.

\"Why?\"

\"Just curious. We\'ve been here for, I think, about nine weeks now. We could be here for a long time; I thought it\'d be nice if we actually knew each other a little.\"

Blaise didn\'t say anything. I rolled onto my back and stared at the stone above. The stones reminded me of the kind that made up some of the walls at Hogwarts. \"My Gran said she\'d build me a small greenhouse for my birthday. So I\'d have something to do during the holidays.\"

\"November the seventeenth.\"

I turned my head to look at him again. \"That\'s not terribly far off.\"

\"No.\"

He obviously wasn\'t going to do much talking. I decided not to push him.

---

I was thoroughly engrossed in one of the books that I had pulled from the growing stacks in the corner of our room, lying on my stomach, wiggling my feet around in the air.

The book had my complete attention; Eugenia McKorckle was surrounded by angry erumpets, in grave danger of being trampled, or torn apart, and I felt hands grab hold of my ankles. The hands slid down my calves, pulling my legs against a smooth chest. I turned a bit to look over my shoulder and found Blaise staring at my face. I couldn\'t decipher the look on his own face, as it wasn\'t a look I\'d ever seen before. He stroked my calves, which did feel rather nice, and then turned to go into the bathroom to take a shower.

I had no idea what had just happened; all I did know was that I wanted Blaise to touch me again. One of the things I had begun to miss the most was physical contact.

---

I felt the bed shift a bit. Opening my eyes, I saw that it was still totally dark in our room. I felt a body pressing close to mine; there wasn\'t much room since it was a small bed, but the touch was oddly comforting.

An arm wrapped around me, holding me close. I knew it was Blaise – who else could it be? I hadn\'t seen another living being for over ten weeks. His hand slid down my chest and I felt the room grow warmer. Blaise continued to slide his hand down further, and I shivered when I felt it wriggle beneath the waistband of my pyjamas. My breath quickened; my heart started racing.

His fingers wrapped around my prick and it was the most amazing feeling I\'d ever felt before. He started stroking me, slowly but not too softly, and I couldn\'t help but to moan a little.

\"It\'s okay to make noise,\" he whispered in my ear; his voice sounded deeper than it normally did when he spoke. I moaned again at his words, and his fingers tightened the tiniest bit around my prick. I reached a hand behind me and grabbed his hip, wanting to touch him, but our position, with him spooned close behind me, made it hard to touch him anyplace else.

\"Merlin, don\'t stop,\" I whimpered in a rather pathetic way, but I didn\'t care how it sounded. I thrust my hips forward with each stroke of his hand, clawing my fingers into the sheets in front of me. He did stop, though, just briefly, to tickle his fingers between my thighs. I whimpered again, pushing back against him, just wanting his hand on my prick again, and I felt a hardness press into my backside. He was hard, too, and it the thought of it made me moan.

He started stroking again, and I felt him rub himself against me as he did; his breath was warm and moist at the back of my neck, and before I knew it, I was coming, spilling over his hand and messing the inside of my pyjamas. I lay still afterwards, trying to catch my breath, and suddenly Blaise was groaning behind me, jabbing his hips sharply into my backside. I felt a warm spot grow through the thin fabric, but didn\'t feel any wetness. Even so, I knew that Blaise had just come, too.

I turned to face him, but he was already getting up and moving back to his own bed.

---

Blaise didn\'t say anything about the previous night at breakfast, so I decided not to say anything, either. He wasn\'t much of a talker, really, and to be honest, I didn\'t want to destroy the chance of repeating what we\'d done. The thought of it alone made my whole body tingle.

After breakfast, I decided to take a bath, instead of a shower like I normally did. At school there were only showers, unless you were a prefect, and the bath here had more taps than what I was used to at home.

First was the dial that you could turn to point to a small picture of a showerhead or a bath tub. There was only one tap for water – for the shower as well, and the water always came out at the perfect temperature; hot, but not enough to scald.

There were two other taps next to the one for the water. Turning their handles, I found that one spouted a thick foam that smelled like springtime, and the other spouted bubbles of clear blue, purple, and green that looked so much like little glass spheres I was surprised they didn\'t clink together.

Closest to the wall were two tiny taps, one which squirted shampoo, and the other, soap.

After filling the large tub with water and foam, I slipped into it, sighing softly. It felt so wonderful; I thought I could stay there for hours. I settled back for a nice soak, closing my eyes and letting my mind blank out the tiny room, Blaise, and the fact that we\'d been locked up and kept hidden for so long.

I heard the door open and looked up to see Blaise coming in. \"Don\'t stop on my account,\" he said, heading for the toilet.

\"I\'m in the bath.\"

He looked at me, brows drawn together. \"I can quite see that, Neville Longbottom, you don\'t need to point out the obvious.\"

I tried to watch out of the corner of my eye as he pissed; I wanted to see his prick. But I didn\'t want him to catch me staring, or he\'d yell at me again, I thought.

When he was finished he stepped closer to the tub. I looked up at him, and he was just standing there, looking at me. He didn\'t say anything, just looked for several long moments before leaving. I know he couldn\'t see me through the foam, which was good, because I got very stiff. His eyes were so dark as he looked at me; I thought I could feel the weight of his gaze on me.

There was no way I was going to walk back out of the bathroom with my trousers tented, so the only thing to do was to take care of my erection before I finished the bath.

---

\"I was starting to wonder if you\'d fallen asleep, Neville Longbottom, and whether I should go in and stop you from drowning or not.\"

I gave Blaise a quick look, then grabbed the book I\'d been reading and flopped onto my bed. \"Why do you always call me by my full name? You could just call me Neville, you know.\"

Blaise shrugged, didn\'t say anything, so I found the place where I\'d left off and resumed reading, only to be interrupted.

\"Alright then. Neville. It doesn\'t change the fact, though, that you were in the bath for quite a long time.\"

\"I was having a soak.\"

I could hear the smirk in his voice. \"A soak. I see.\"

Frowning to myself, I went back to my book only to feel Blaise\'s hands on my ankles again, stilling my feet before sliding down my calves.

\"I\'d have become awfully lonely, if you did drown in there, you know.\"

I didn\'t know what to say to that, and the hands pushing my legs gently apart didn\'t help me think at all. I felt him step closer to the bed, felt his hands slide up my hips and under the hem of my shirt. I felt a little dizzy; no one had ever touched me in such a way before, and this was so much different than when he slipped into my bed at night, with the room pitch dark around us, making it impossible for us to see each other. It wasn\'t dark then, though, it was late morning and the room was probably the brightest it would be all day. I turned a little to look back at him, and he put his hands back on my hips to turn me so that I was lying on my back.

The way Blaise looked at me, the way he was standing over me, made me feel warm all over, like the temperature in the room had gone up several degrees. My heart started to pound hard in my chest, and all I could do was lie there and look up at him.

He slid his hands under my shirt again, tickling slightly and making me squirm. He smoothed his palms over my belly and sides before pushing my shirt up to my chin and bending forward to place kisses just above the waist of my trousers. If I thought I was warm before his lips touched my skin, I was positively hot afterwards. Even though I\'d just had a wank not too long before, I felt my prick begin to stiffen again in anticipation of what could possibly happen next.

Wriggling more, I managed to get my shirt completely off, as it was quite uncomfortable, bunched up in my armpits. \"I told you I needed to exercise,\" I said, my voice lower than it usually was. He was so focused on my belly, feeling how soft it was after my being inactive for so long.

\"Hush... it\'s lovely...\" He placed more kisses around my navel, tugged down on my trousers to kiss lower, and I closed my eyes, just concentrating on the wonderful sensations. But soon his kisses were travelling upwards, up the middle of my chest, and before I knew it his lips were alternating between my nipples, licking and sucking and nibbling at them. They were so sensitive, more so than I\'d ever noticed them being, and I was moaning, writhing beneath him, fully hard and feeling uncomfortably confined in my pants.

He must have known, because I felt his lips leave my chest as his hand pressed against my erection. I gasped; that one touch, even through layers of denim and cotton, sent lightning up and down my spine. Just when I thought I couldn\'t bear it anymore, Blaise opened my trousers and pulled them down, along with my pants, freeing my prick and making it twitch as he blew gently across the tip of it.

\"I knew that would be lovely, too,\" I heard him say as he threw my clothes to the floor. Does one usually say \'thanks\' to such a compliment? I didn\'t. I was too busy watching him crawl up next to me on my bed. I was too busy watching his hand as he slid a palm over my hip and up my side. I was too busy trying to keep my heart from bursting out of my chest with nervousness as I reached forward to push up his shirt.

I had no idea what I was supposed to do. My mind was going in several different directions at once, while my prick only wanted one thing. This was all totally new territory for me, and seeing as how Blaise and I never had a single real conversation, and the only time he ever showed any true interest was that night he crawled into my bed, I didn\'t want to do anything wrong. I didn\'t want him to stop.

He set his hands to work opening his trousers and pulling them off, and all I\'d managed to do was to push his shirt up into his armpits. \"You\'re thinking too much,\" he murmured, finishing the poor work I\'d made of his shirt. \"I can tell.\"

I opened my mouth to apologize, to say I\'d never done anything like this before, but he put a finger to my lips to stop me before I could make a sound.
I looked up into his face, noticing how dark his eyes were, and the slight blush that spread from his throat up to his cheeks and ears. I reached out to touch his chest, admiring how firm his muscles were beneath the skin and how different his body was from my own; where I had softness and curves, he had flatness and bony joints. His own belly was slightly concave and twitched as I trailed my fingertips over it. When I looked at his face again, he was leaning closer to kiss my neck and my throat. Electric sparks travelled along my spine again.

His hands began to slide down my chest, over my stomach, and I followed their course with my eyes. He was dark, like the night, and I liked seeing the contrast between the skin of his hand and the skin of my belly.

His touch was feather-light as his fingertips moved across my abdomen, tickling as they moved, setting my nerves on fire, making me squirm and sigh and, before long, moan.

I put my hand on his chest. His hand had felt cool on my belly, but his chest was warm beneath my fingers.

\"What do you want, Neville?\"

It took me a moment to realize that that soft, deep voice was directed at me, waiting for a response.

\"What do I want?\"

Blaise nodded. I hesitated, then told him as I studied his face, \"I want to kiss you.\"

He brought his hand up to my face, stroking my cheek and softly shaking his head. I felt awful, and silly for feeling awful.

\"Save your kisses for someone special,\" he whispered, nibbling my neck, just below my ear.

You are special, I wanted to say, but kept quiet. Instead, I leaned closer so that I could echo the moves he was making. I slid my hand down his chest, stopping at his hip. I licked his neck, noting first the saltiness of his skin, then the underlying taste of him.

Soon I was lost in his touches, his teasing; I didn\'t know up from down, nor did I care. Every move felt so good, I just wanted more. My hands and lips and legs were moving just as much as his. I felt a hot tension in my belly, spreading throughout the rest of me and the next thing I knew, without warning, I was flipped onto my stomach, my face pressed into the mattress.

I had only one thought repeating through my mind, then: This is it. He\'s going to take me. We\'re going to have sex.

So much happened so quickly. The mattress shifted as Blaise got up. What was going on? Why was he leaving? He created a breeze as he walked by on his way to the toilet, and then I finally felt the rapidly cooling stickiness splotching across my lower back.

Sitting up, I called his name as I wiped myself off, using the corner of my sheet. He came out a few moments later and went straight to bed.

\"Blaise?\"

\"I\'m tired. I\'m taking a nap.\"

Just my luck; I finally get to have sex, only I don\'t.

---

Blaise was in the bathroom when I woke, so I tucked into breakfast. I said nothing when he came out; he didn\'t, either, though he kept looking at me, as though he was waiting for me to say something.

After eating, I went to the bathroom to wash. Neither of us said a word at breakfast. Honestly, I was okay with that, considering what we\'d done... no, what he\'d done...

He came bursting into the bathroom while I was in the middle of brushing my teeth.

\"Alright, give. What\'s going on? Why am I, all of a sudden, getting the silent treatment?\"

I looked at him and waved my toothbrush around a bit to say that I couldn\'t speak, but he stood there, waiting, arms crossed over his chest.

I rolled my eyes, turned, spat, rinsed.

\"Look, Blaise... I know it\'s too small here for us to have bad feelings between us... I thought it wouldn\'t be as bad if I just kept quiet, and not take the risk of starting a fight.\"

He looked puzzled. \"A fight? What about?\"

What about? Was he serious? \"Last night.\"

He blinked at me. I don\'t think he had any idea what I was talking about.

\"Give me a few minutes. I\'ll be out to talk, alright?\"

I wasn\'t looking forward to having this conversation, but it was proving to be unavoidable.

----

Blaise was sitting up on his bed, looking eager. Did he really have no idea what was wrong?

I sat on my own bed, facing him. He watched me fidget, but I didn\'t know what to say, how to begin.

\"Neville, what is it?\"

I took a deep breath. May as well just say it and get it over with... \"I felt hurt by what you did last night.\"

Those eyes of his, those piercing eyes that I had seen smouldering with arousal studied my face, looking for more meaning behind my words.

\"Blaise, don\'t you remember what happened?\" I was quickly growing tired of... whatever it was that he was playing at.

\"Of course I remember, don\'t be daft, Neville. What I don\'t understand is why you\'re upset.\"

I could feel the anger redden my face. \"You used, me, Blaise! I was nothing more than a means to an end, and then you were all \'I\'m tired, I\'m taking a nap\', with no concern for me whatsoever.\" My voice grew louder, I grew bolder, with each word that I spoke.

\"You got what you wanted, Blaise Zabini. You got what you wanted, left your evidence on me, then went to bed without so much as an \'Oh, Neville, would you like to come, too?\' \"

I had to calm myself down. I moved to stare out the (fake!) window at the imaginary flowers.

\"That\'s what this is about?\"

I was so angry, still, that I didn\'t respond. Not even did I notice that he\'d moved to stand behind me, until he spoke.

\"Do you want to come, Neville?\"

Slowly, I turned around. His eyes were studying my face again. I was studying his, in turn, trying to find the true meaning behind his words.

Before I could say anything, he\'d grabbed my shoulders and flung me back onto my bed. He pulled at my clothes as he growled, which I realized a few moments later were actual words.

\"Do you want to come, Neville? I\'ll make you come...\"

Once again things were happening so fast. He had me naked in a matter of moments, and I realized I didn\'t want to come. I didn\'t want this, whatever he was doing... He seemed overcome by a total change; he wasn\'t gentle, he wasn\'t slow.

I was afraid. I started to push against him, but by then it was too late. I was face down again on my bed, with him pushing my face into the mattress, making it hard for me to breathe. He spat on me, several times, smearing his saliva around and in my anus. I tried to get away, to roll over and push him aside, but whenever I moved he tightened his grip.

Then he was pushing, forcing his way inside me, and I wanted to scream at him, make him stop, but I was frozen as though hit with Petrificus Totalis.

As quickly as it had all started, it seemed to stop. I pushed myself up a bit, so that I could breathe, and felt Blaise still deep inside me.

\"Get off me.\"

The room was silent; Blaise didn\'t move. I struggled, but he held me still before leaning down to whisper in my ear.

\"I didn\'t want it to be this way, Neville, but I can still make it right... we can do this, it can be nice... good... great...\"

He\'d gone mad, being locked up here for however many weeks it had been. That was the only explanation I could come up with. I felt his lips along my neck, causing me to shiver, and I tried to move away again, without success. It burned and itched and ached where he penetrated me, and all I wanted was for him to get away.

\"Get off me,\" I said again, with anger. He pulled back, though not out, and as I pushed myself up on my arms, one of his own, dark, strong, wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my body and pulling me closer to his own. His other hand moved to pet my hair, like I was some animal or toy for him to play with, and it only made me angrier.

\"Stop, Neville... it\'s alright. I\'m sorry, I shouldn\'t have acted such a way... I was inconsiderate, you\'re right.\" He kissed at my neck, his hand sliding from my head down my chest. \"I\'ll show you. It can be good.\"

\"You\'re hurting me!\"

\"I\'m sorry,\" he repeated, his voice softer, more like the night before. \"Forgive me?\"

Forgive him? How the bloody hell could I forgive him after this? I could have, for what happened the night before, but I most certainly couldn\'t now.

He held me tight, not moving except for his hand that found its way to my prick which, to my horror, reacted positively to Blaise\'s touch. A tingling sensation ran down my back, and I began to grow hard beneath his fingers.

He murmured in my ear, kissing and nibbling the skin below, and I realized that he was making me feel good again. It confused me, and I didn\'t know whether I wanted to continue, or stop altogether. I both hated and liked him, I wanted this, but I didn\'t want to continue what he\'d started, knowing his anger and his... hate, or whatever it was, towards me.

After a short while, though, the fingers that I had imagined dancing along his prick in the middle of the night were now dancing along my own prick, making it twitch and weep, making me shiver and moan. He released his tight hold on me, his now free hand sliding across my chest to tease my already sensitive nipples. To my surprise, I wanted more, and began rocking my hips to feel him move inside me.

I felt Blaise\'s breath puff across my ear. \"Yes, Neville... yes, that\'s it...\" His voice had a slightly constrained whine to it, and I could feel him shift so that he could thrust his hips.

I covered his hand, the one on my prick, with my own, not wanting him to stop. It still burned as he moved inside me, but I knew neither one of us was far from coming.

Blaise moaned, his hand faltering in its stroking; the sound he made went straight to my prick, and I felt a tightening throughout my body. \"Don’t stop... please...\"

My voice sounded like a whimper in my own ears, but I didn\'t care. I pushed back against him, harder, the fingers of my left hand clenching the sheets as tightly as my eyes were squeezed shut. Then suddenly, the coil that was tightening inside me snapped; I came, crying out, oblivious to the mess splattering across my thighs and on the bed. As my pounding heart slowed towards a more normal rhythm, I felt every muscle in my body go slack and I wanted nothing more than to fall to the bed.

Blaise held me upright, close to him, until he came. I felt warmth spread inside me before the strange feeling of his softening prick slipping out of me. His hands fell away, and I sank to the bed, achy in spots, tingling in others.

Pushing me slightly, Blaise curled up behind me, once again holding me, my back pressed to his chest. I couldn\'t keep my eyes open any longer.

\"I told you it could be great,\" I heard Blaise say, his voice soft as if to not disturb the calm that fell over the room. I didn\'t reply.

-----

When I woke the next morning, I guessed it to be late, but before noon, judging by where the sun was in the sky outside our \"window\". The tingling I felt the night before had passed, though the more painful aches had dulled to the point where they could be easily ignored. I felt sticky, but overall more calm than I\'d felt in many days, having relieved so much tension.

Blaise was still asleep, so I took the opportunity to look at him without his snapping at me to stop staring. He looked peaceful, his mouth slightly open, his sheets bunched up beneath him, baring him to the room. The sunlight played off his high cheekbones, the planes of his shoulder blades, the ridges along his spine.

We had sex last night.

Part of me wanted to instantly forgive him, to love him despite what he\'d done. But part of me didn\'t want to love or forgive him, remembering how he pulled my clothes from me, pressed me into the bed, forced his way into me... He hurt me, yet... he was good to me. Gentle, like the time before, making me feel things I\'d not felt by anyone\'s hand, whispering, murmuring, placing kisses along my skin.

I laid there for quite a while, looking, watching, and decided that yes, I could forgive him, and I would. My stomach grumbled for the food that was laid out on our table, but I decided the food could wait a few minutes, until after I\'d had a shower.

---

Blaise was awake and eating when I emerged from the bathroom. He looked up at me as I made my way over to the table, but he didn\'t say anything. As he turned his eyes back to his plate, the thought struck me again; What does he look like, when he\'s having sex? I hadn\'t been able to see him yet, as he\'s always been behind me.

\"Neville Longbottom, you\'re staring again. I thought you\'d broken yourself of that habit.\"

Looking at my own plate of food, which was probably now cold, I sat at the small table, not saying a word. When I did look up, I saw a smile curving Blaise\'s lips, and couldn’t help but smile in return.

As I ate, I couldn\'t help but begin to reconsider the decision I\'d made. For all intents and purposes, Blaise raped me. I should hate him. I shouldn\'t forgive him. But it was so good, after that... and he made me feel so good... and there really wasn\'t enough room in our prison for hate. And that smile, that small smile he gave me made it hard to not forgive him.

When he was finished, before making his way to the bathroom he stopped and placed a kiss to the top of my head. \"I\'m sorry for last night,\" he said softly, and I could tell he was being honest when I turned and looked up into his face.

I had to forgive him.

---

We lounged around, reading or writing, for many long, quiet hours. Even after the intimacy of the previous night, Blaise still didn\'t talk much; I found that it no longer bothered me.

I stared off into space, wondering what had happened to Hogwarts. Surely it as well into September; had the school opened for the new year? Was there even a school left? What had happened to my friends, students in other houses, the teachers? The Headmaster? I\'m surprised that I never had nightmares after that horrible, terrifying day, seeing everyone running around, screaming, hiding from the flashes of lights cast by hexes and curses and who-knows-what.

\"Blaise, do you ever-\"

I went silent; both of us looked towards the door. Something had made a sound behind it, though I couldn\'t tell what; I\'d never heard anything from outside the room before.

There was a click. I got to my feet. Blaise did the same.

We waited, the room thick with tension and anticipation. Minutes passed, though nothing happened. I was suddenly frightened.

Just as I was ready to sit down on the edge of my bed, the door slowly swung open on its silent hinges.

---

I was right in my guess that it was around the middle of September. As it turned out, we weren\'t being kept prisoner by Death Eaters, but were held in a \'safe house\' of sorts, while battles raged outside between those of the good side and those on Voldemort\'s side. A lot of my friends from school were also held in this safe place, though none of us knew where we were, or that others were there as well.

Blaise and I were Apparated away from where we were kept, and we arrived separately at the Ministry of Magic, and were each taken to a different office. I was asked how I coped with being \'locked up\' with someone whom I didn\'t know, for so many weeks. I was also told of what happened on the outside – Voldemort was defeated, nearly all of his followers were killed or captured... They wouldn’t tell me who, though. Who killed Voldemort? I still don\'t know.

Much of Hogwarts was reduced to rubble, though it is being rebuilt, and may be ready in time to open for the first of January. All there was to do, for me, was to relax, take the time to visit friends, put the whole ordeal behind me, and wait for a letter saying when the school would open for my sixth year.

It\'s just the end of November, now, and though I haven\'t received my letter from Hogwarts, there is talk that letters will be received any day now, along with lists of books and supplies needed for the new year.

I haven\'t seen or heard from Blaise since we were freed from our \'prison\'. I thought it would have bothered me to not hear from him at least once, but I was surprised that I wasn\'t bothered at all. I\'m sure we\'ll see each other once or twice in school.

Perhaps one day, I will finally get to see what he looks like, while he\'s having sex.

~End~