auribus teneo lupum
Penelope had to leave eventually, but Blaise still couldn’t sleep.
The tiredness had seeped into his bones, but still - no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t sleep.
He and Astoria had talked about it, how they both knew that Blaise could never do it. But here he was. Despite his efforts, he was still a suspect. Despite his efforts, Theo -
He’d already decided that he would leave, but he couldn’t do it until daybreak.
Blaise had very little to bring with him. Clothes, a few personal items. The exhausted restlessness itched and he wondered if liquor would help, so he stood up and headed out of his room, on his way to the cellar. The halls lit up with his footsteps, as they did every day, every night, but this time, a faint glint caught his eye. On his left was a door that he wasn’t always sure existed. Often, it disappeared when Blaise tried to look at it. So he passed by, continuing onwards. He grabbed the handle, and turned towards it. The door remained where it was. He’d done this before, but the room had never let him in once. It was a night full of first times, and he lost nothing by trying. He twisted the doorknob, and stepped inside.
A few times he managed to open it, but upon attempting to step in he would bounce back, the door would slam shut. He would blink or look away and it would be gone again. This time, it didn’t care, letting him in. Despite never having stepped inside in his three, four years of residence, the interior was pristine. Everything was ivory and gold - the desk, the chairs, the tables, up to the bookshelves and the sconces, the intricate carvings on the wall and the ceiling, the sconces for the candles. A small, but slowly brightening fire flickered in the hearth. A large bookshelf from floor to ceiling, filled completely with books, all old and filled with personality. Now the books that he had purchased over the months at Flourish and Blotts to build up a library of his own seemed redundant. Blaise blinked, ran his fingers along the wall. It was real. It felt real, and looked real, so what else could it be? Upon closer inspection, various surfaces in the room bore proudly the crest and name she had put so much effort into erasing every trace of - Rosier.
He walked over to the desk. He half-expected the desk to reject him, even though the rest of the house had welcomed him, but the drawers yielded without complaint, allowing Blaise to open them. There were parchment and envelope and quills and ink, wax and seal and twine, all old, all marked with a name that wasn’t his. It didn’t matter, he supposed. He sat down.
He closed his eyes. A room with hundreds and hundreds of minds. He’d been tempted to sense them all, count them all, using a bastardised application of legilimency he’d been developing over the course of years. Of course, some minds were quieter, subtler than others. Some minds he wouldn’t be able to detect, even if they were right in front of him. Several hours before, when he sat with Draco, he’d been thinking about minds again. He wondered if he could tune just to one - one he knew well. Not read it, not enter it, but just check to see if he could recognise this one particular soul amongst a sea of hundreds, to know it from hundreds of metres away and know where to look, know where to walk towards. His magic had shorted before he even began to try, and for the rest of the night it remained useless.
Now, it worked. He had told the truth, after all. He didn’t know if he regretted it. Their answer had - put him down, had grounded him, but it was nonetheless unpleasant, still it had clawed at his chest. He had meant what he said. It wasn’t avoiding Theo, it was avoiding everyone.
He had been planning on writing letters when he woke up, but if he wouldn’t go to sleep in the first place, there was no better time. He retrieved his own seals and working inkwell from his own study with a quick flick of his wrist. He wrote several letters: to the Office of the Minister of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, declaring his disappearance; to Marcus Flint, that he could keep his house, if he wanted, and the wards would answer to him now; and apologies to Draco Malfoy, Astoria Greengrass, and Daphne Greengrass. He tried to write a letter to Theodore Nott, but couldn’t find anything to say. Instead he wrote down peculiar details he had discovered about the mind, in half-burnt scrolls and passed down stories, in magical libraries across the world, from a thin, frail boy on top of a mountain whose name he didn’t know, that he thought might entertain them, that they might one day find relevant, and sealed it in an unmarked envelope with a crest that wasn’t his.
He stood up, headed to the fireplace. There was floo powder in the container beside it. He wondered how old it was. He threw some into the fire. He didn’t care that it was, what, three, four? She would answer. She always did.
“Mamma,” he greeted.
“I heard about the Ministry, darling,” she said, although if one didn’t know her, they wouldn’t be able to tell by her tone or expression that she was concerned. “Are you all right?”
“I’m all right,” he replied.
“No, you’re not.”
Blaise laughed. “You know me too well.”
“You are my son,” she said, eyebrow lifting. “My, I haven’t had a floo from this fireplace in a very long time. I thought it had disappeared?”
“It returned, it seems. It was a lie, wasn’t it? Evan Rosier - ”
“Why did you floo, darling?”
“I’m running away.”
There was silence, for a moment. “A wise decision. Italy would be the easiest choice.”
“I know,” he said. It was the very first thought, followed by France. And then Bulgaria. Bansko was only a dream, it wasn’t real, but still. It was the best place to start looking. But he didn’t care. Not anymore. He would go to Italy, where he would live in luxury with his crest - “I’m not looking to be difficult. I just wanted your permission.” He was twenty-three. He no longer needed her permission for anything. Yet - he still asked, always.
“How long?”
Blaise closed his eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe a few days. Maybe a few weeks. Maybe - longer.”
“And your career?”
“I’ve asked for leave with permission. If they choose to reject it, then so be it.”
“Do you intend to return?”
He paused. “Yes. I don’t know when, mamma.”
“Very well. How soon?”
“Today,” he said.
“Today,” she repeated. She seemed to be thinking. “Is it that urgent?”
“I tried - I’ve been trying, and they still - took me,” he said.
“You wouldn’t leave because of that.” she said. “It would only make you try harder.”
“Maybe I’ve changed.”
“You haven’t.”
“I’ll drop by before I head to Italy.”
“Very good. I’ll be waiting.”
And in the fire’s flickers, the face disappeared.
Blaise stood up, walked out of the room. The previous month rang wide and clear in his head. It had been filled with friends - Draco and Theo and Astoria and Daphne and Marcus and Pansy; with strangers, some of whom had shared his opinions and sparked the tiniest bit of hope that neither side would win, or simply shared a drink with him, and made everything more tolerable for the slightest of moments, all of them and all of Wizarding Britain and its problems - he would leave them behind until further notice. Even if just for a short amount of time, he would no longer deal with the Minister’s deepeningly scary sentiments, nor the threats of whomever was sending the letters. He would just run away.
And he tried to stifle down the fear for his friends, tried to pretend he was entirely selfish and didn’t care and only wanted for his own safety, but he knew anyway that Marcus would take care of Draco, and vice versa. He knew that Cho would take care of Theo. He made sure of that. Everyone else was - well. Perhaps he wasn’t pretending. Perhaps he was selfish.
(It was, perhaps the most impulsive thing he’s ever brought upon himself, but he was hurt and exhausted and no longer knew what to do. Blaise never did figure out how to deal with failure, except run in shame, like a kicked puppy.)
Blaise had found himself holding a wolf by the ears. If he held it, it would thrash until it could shred him to bits. If he let it go, it would have attacked him just as harshly. As impossible as the decision was, he would have had to make it eventually. Except he didn’t. Instead, he threw it into the room he had left behind.
