After a particularly long week, the Saturday that Blaine and Cooper arranged to meet up finally came along. It was about time as well. Blaine desperately needed to talk to his brother. Despite that the fact Cooper could be a bit of an idiot at times, and wasted no time at all to tease Blaine at any given opportunity, Blaine knew that it was best to talk to him, rather than Rachel or Quinn. He loved the two girls, he really did, but they weren't his brother. And though his brother had only been in his life for two years now, Blaine knew he could tell him anything without being judged, unless it was something awful. Like "murdering someone brutally" levels of awful.

Blaine woke up fairly early on Saturday morning, to make sure that he was ready in plenty of time for meeting his brother. As they were meeting in the mountain on the edge of the village, it was going to take him a while to actually get there, and their curfew restricted the amount of time he could talk. Blaine had his morning shower, and dressed for his day out in record time, taking just under fifteen minutes. After smoothing his hair down, and tucking his wand into the inside pocket of his robes, Blaine took a deep breath, and walked down to the Great Hall.

There was only a handful of students there - despite the Hogsmeade visit, not many students got up early during the weekend - most of them being in either Blaine's own house or Slytherin. Luckily, the two Slytherins Blaine had been avoiding - both for different reasons - were absent, so Blaine didn't have to worry for his own life too much. He was more scared of Sebastian than Kurt though. Actually, his life was probably safe with Kurt. Things were just going to be awkward, but if Sebastian found out what happened with him and Kurt in that room, Blaine was sure that he was going to die. Or at least, get himself seriously injured.

Blaine was about to take his seat at the Gryffindor table, before he notices Rachel sitting alone at her own house's table. There were a few other 'Puffs, but they were further down the table, and none of them were Rachel's friends. Smiling softly to himself, Blaine slides into the seat across from her, tapping her hand gently.

"Hey, Rach," He says, smiling softly.

"Oh, hey Blaine" Rachel looks up returning the smile, before directing her attention back to her food "I didn't see you at all this week apart from in classes...Is everything okay.?"

"Everything's fine, Rach. I've just had a lot on my mind" Blaine looks at Rachel reassuringly. He knew that it was pointless, though. Rachel was going to panic about him regardless of what he said. "Anyway, I don't know if you had anything planned for us today, but I've arranged to meet up with someone at Hogsmeade today, and I want to bring you and Quinn with me. You know...for additional support."

Rachel looks at him with a raised eyebrow "It depends on who it is...Who are we meeting up with?"

Taking a deep breath, Blaine looks around him, making sure that no-one was listening into their conversation. "Cooper. We're meeting with him at that mountain."

Rachel's face fell immediately "You're meeting with Cooper? Blaine.." She places her hand on top of his looking at him seriously "You need to be really careful with what you're doing here."

Giving a quick eye roll, Blaine shakes his head as Rachel speaks. "I am being careful. That's why I'm just bringing you and Quinn."

Rachel bites her lip, seemingly in thought, before looking back up at Blaine, the look on her face causing Blaine's stomach to swirl uncontrollably.

"Then..I don't think we should bring Quinn along." She said finally.

Furrowing his brow in confusion, Blaine tilts his head as he holds Rachel's gaze "But why?" He starts "You and Quinn are probably my closest friends here. I can trust you both with my life. I know you won't go around telling the wrong person."

"I know that!" Rachel said, her voice starting to become increasingly more hysterical, the pitch gradually getting higher and higher "And it's not that I don't trust Quinn..But she's popular amongst the Slytherins, and they're already not happy with the time she's spending with you, and I'm scared that they might torture or use Veritaserum on her to get the answer about where she was going with you today out! It's going to be suspicious if she goes up to the mountains with us two. And then Cooper will be found out! I'm sorry, Blaine, but as much as I love you and Quinn, I don't want Cooper to get thrown into Azkaban...He's the only family you've got." Rachel sniffs, as she'd started crying half way through her mini-rant.

Blaine felt awful. He didn't even think about what could've happened with Cooper. He didn't think for a second that Quinn was more likely to be questioned about going all the way into the mountains with him. He didn't think about his brother's safety. God.. He really needed to think things through more. This was just ridiculous.

Frowning a little, Blaine looks at Rachel. "I...I didn't even think about that."

"It's..okay" Rachel shakes her head "I know you were just excited about meeting up with Coop. It's been a while."

"No..I should've been more careful." Blaine takes a deep breath. "It's too late to cancel on him now, but luckily, I've not told Quinn. We can just go...Just the two of us."

Giving her eyes a wipe, Rachel smiles up at him, nodding. "Okay...I'm really sorry that we can't bring Quinn, but it's for the better."

"Hey...Don't worry so much about it, Rach." Blaine shakes his head giving a small smile "I understand." Remembering his promise to Cooper about bringing food for him, Blaine begins taking a pile of food, wrapping it up in an old, unused piece of parchment he had lying around in his bag, ignoring the strange look Rachel was throwing at him.

Rachel nods, propping her head up on her chin as she looks at Blaine "So, when are we going...?"

"Whenever you've finished. I'm already to go" Blaine gives a slight shrug.

"I'm nearly done" Rachel smiles, shaking her head "I'll be about two minutes...Actually, never mind."

Rachel then stands up from her seat, picking up the slice of toast that she was eating, taking a bite before looking at Blaine "I'll just eat this on the way there. It'll save us some time anyways."

Blaine smiles widely at her "Brilliant. Let's go just now then" he nods, before standing up, walking round to where Rachel was. Holding his arm out to Rachel, they link arms, walking all the way to Hogsmeade arm in arm, talking in hushed voices about what they were going to discuss to Cooper.

On their way to Hogsmeade, Blaine had told Rachel about what exactly happened with him and Kurt. Predictably, Rachel wasn't pleased, and scolded him for not pushing Kurt away as soon as he kissed him. Though, she did stop that line of questioning when he brought up the fact that she would've done exactly the same to Finn if he'd kissed her during the time he was with Quinn. It was exactly the same thing, except Quinn was far less psychotic that Sebastian. Or at least, Quinn didn't hate Rachel as much as Sebastian hated Blaine back then. That was probably the only reason why Sebastian seemed as crazy as he did to Blaine. Because of how much he was hated by the Slytherin boy.

After realizing that chastising Blaine about not pushing Kurt away after he was kissed by the other boy was nothing but a wild goose chase, Rachel began talking about how Cooper wasn't going to say anything different for him, and how Blaine should think about ways to apologize to Kurt.

"I really don't see why you're bothering to talk to Cooper about this" Rachel begins. "As...irresponsible as Cooper is at times, I really doubt that he's going to be supportive of this."

"Rachel, you don't know Cooper that well" Blaine frowns, shaking his head "I'm not saying that he's going to be supportive of me kissing Kurt when he's still with Sebastian, but he's not going to go on about how I should apologize to Kurt and how awful I am."

"And how do you know that? I spent more time with him this summer than you did, Blaine."

"Because," Blaine says, probably a little more snappily than intended. He still wasn't at all happy with what happened during the summer, and how they'd pretty much him off from the Wizarding World "Even though you spent almost all of the summer with him, I write to him every week near enough since we met. I don't do it so much now because of how things are these days, but trust me. I know him more than you do."

"Yes. You speak to him through letters.You can't see his face. You don't know if he's hiding anything. You sure know him well" Rachel says dryly, a slight eye roll.

"Rachel, if you're just going to spend the entire time being sarcastic – "

"I'm sorry! I just.." Rachel shakes her head "You can't just say you know him really well because you speak to him through letters. I just want you to be prepared that you might not know him that well, you know..?"

Taking a deep breath, Blaine shakes his head "It's okay.. I know what you're meaning, Rach. But.." Blaine sighs heavily, looking at her "Why would he make things up when writing to me? It makes no sense at all. So you don't need to worry about it, alright?"

"Okay.." Rachel says after a fairly long pause "But only because it's you, okay?"

Blaine just grins at Rachel, bringing a hand up to ruffle her hair "Thanks. You should really listen to me more often."

"Don't get too hopeful, Anderson" Rachel glowers at him, swatting his hands away, before gasping out as she stumbles forwards, the back of her robes slightly singed.

"What the - ?"

"Stupid Mudblood!" A loud, gruff voice came chuckling out from somewhere behind Rachel.

Hearing the voice, Blaine looks over Rachel's shoulder as she turns around, frowning when seeing the group of Slytherins in their year sans Kurt and Noah, Sebastian proudly smirking in the middle of them, twirling his wand in between his fingers, raising his eyebrows and nodding towards Rachel.

Yeah, because it wasn't obvious enough that was you. Blaine thought, rolling his eyes.

"Figures..." Rachel mumbles, wiping the ash off the back of her robes, glaring right at Sebastian.

"What do you even want Sebastian?" Blaine asks, rolling his eyes.

"Well, we're just curious as to why you two are so far out from the village," Sebastian says, not taking the smirk off his face "You two planning a little bit of fun?"

"Lay off, Sebastian. Just because you and Kurt use all the time not dedicated to school work to satisfy your sick sexual desires doesn't mean that Blaine and I are doing the same." Rachel snaps before Blaine could speak.

At the mention of Kurt, Blaine frowns a little at Rachel before feeling a hell of a lot more mischievous, a slight smirk on his face as Sebastian opens his mouth to speak before he cuts him off, "Speaking of Kurt...where is he, Sebastian? Has he finally realized what a complete ass you are and found someone that'll actually treat him right?"

He ignores Rachel as she gawps at him, letting his smirk widen as Sebastian's leaves his face, turning into a frown instead.

"Actually, he decided to skip this trip to get studying down." Sebastian said slowly "You see..unlike you and Berry, Kurt actually has the intellectual ability to take twelve O.W.L.s and needs as much time as he needs to make sure he doesn't fail them."

"So, why aren't you taking twelve O.W.L.s as well then, Sebastian?" Blaine raises his eyebrows in question "I guess me and Rachel aren't the only ones that lack the 'intellectual ability' to take twelve O.W.L.S!"

"Blaine – Please stop – !" Rachel looks at him with wide eyes, clutching onto his arm, seeing how Sebastian was just growing more and more irritated.

But Blaine? He was finding it way too hard to stop right now. He usually just let everything Sebastian said or did roll off his shoulder, but now that he had something that he knew Sebastian wouldn't be happy about, he felt as though he had the upper hand here.

"Actually.." Blaine continues, angling his head slightly as he crosses his arm "I haven't seen you and Kurt together for about a week now.. What's going on with that? I don't think Kurt would've spent that much time studying. He'll need a break. Has something really not happened between you two?"

"He said that he just wants to make sure he's getting everything done – "

"Is that what he told you?" Blaine's eyebrows raise further, trying to stop his smirk from widening "Because I can think of a pretty good reason why he's not spending that much time with you. I think it might just be because of – "

"He doesn't want the idiocy of you or your friends to rub off on himh Rachel cuts Blaine off hastily "As much as I hate to admit it, Kurt actually is smart. And I can only imagine what hanging around with these...Neanderthals must do to a person."

"Watch who you're taking to, Mudblood!" One of the Slytherins lumbering behind Sebastian spits out at Rachel.

"You really should watch that mouth of yours, Berry" Sebastian speaks slowly, walking closer to her and Blaine, towering over them both "It might just land you into trouble one day."

Blaine watches as Rachel and Sebastian hold each others glares, waiting to see which would break away first. Feeling Rachel tugs on his arm, Blaine looks at the Hufflepuff.

"Come on, Blaine." She mutters "Let's leave these baby childish jerks alone.." She tugs on his arm again, leading him to the direction of the mountain.

"That actually works out perfectly for us!"Sebastian chuckles "I was always told never to hang around filth for too long, and this small little run in is enough to make my blood feel dirtier."

"Just shut the hell up, Smythe!" Rachel turns around, snapping loudly at Sebastian as he walks away with the other Slytherins, cackling loudly. Huffing, Rachel turns around again, holding tighter onto Blaine's arm as she practically pulls him along.

"Ignore him, Rachel" Blaine shakes his head frowning slightly "He isn't worth it."

Rachel stops and glares at Blaine, ignoring the look of shock on his face as she walks closer to him "And you!"

Blaine swallows back taking a few steps away from her. "W-what?"

"You are a complete arse, Blaine Anderson!" She snaps again, slapping the top of his arm firmly between each syllable "Why the hell did you say all of that? You'd be lucky for Sebastian to kill you if you told him about you-know-what like that!"

"Ow! Rachel - ! Stop slapping me for a second, okay!" He takes a deep breath once Rachel backs away, still keep her hand raised "Look... I'm sorry. He was just.. making me so angry that I couldn't even think straight. I'm sick of him always talking down to us like that, okay? I'm just.. I'm sick of always being the one that just walks away from the fight. Why can't we be the ones that play dirty for a change?"

"Because we're better than them, Blaine" Rachel speaks softly "That's why. We don't need to play dirty to prove that we're better than them." She then shrugs, chuckling softly "Not to mention that it really wouldn't win you any points over with Kurt if you told his boyfriend that you kissed. That should be something Kurt needs to tell Sebastian himself."

"Why do you always make sense?" Blaine asks, laughing a little.

"Because.." Rachel starts slowly "One of us needs to be the voice of reason."

They continue to walk for a while, up until they see a small path leading up into one of the caves a little further up in the mountain.

"Where is he...?" Rachel whispers softly "Isn't he usually here by now..?"

"Sshh... He'll be here somewhere. He's probably just hiding somewhere...and making sure no one's following us or something." Blaine mutters in Rachel's ear

Just as Blaine finishes speaking, a fully grown cat with sleek, dark brown fur runs down from Cooper's hiding place, and stops a little in front of Blaine and Rachel, staring up at them, unblinking.

"Ugh...I hate when he does that..." Rachel mutters looking away from the cat.

The cat glowers at Rachel before turning it's head looking up at Blaine with wide eyes. Blaine laughs softly shaking his head before bending down, scratching under the cat's chin, a light chuckle coming from his lips as the cat leans into his touch, before he stands fully up, looking down at the cat.

"Hey, Cooper."