“Are you seriously trying to give me the same crap again, Rachel? Come on, no, I’m not buying it” Santana shook her head at the Gryffindor and Kurt laughed quietly, leaning on the dark-haired girl’s shoulder.

Blaine shook his head at the conversation that had been going on for the past fifteen minutes, willing himself not to take part. Santana, Brittany and Kurt had been more or less harassing Rachel and Finn, interrogating them about their on and off long distance relationship that had taken place for the last year. With the exception of shooting Kurt a few disapproving looks between their more inappropriate questionings, he wanted nothing to do with it. Rachel wanted to talk about herself anyway, so although she wouldn’t admit it the interrogation taking place didn’t bother her in the slightest. Sam, on the other hand, didn’t quite feel the same.

He tried to focus on listening to Blaine explain the Herbology basics from last year to him, but after a while he just couldn’t deal with the background noise anymore.

“Hey guys, do you mind?” He turned towards the lot sitting in a circle on the ground, all signs of patience long gone. “If your babbling keeps me from learning what I need to about these bloody Snargaluffs, I promise I’ll go all out Snargaluff on you.”

The five stared at Sam for a moment in silence before collectively nodding, Santana ever so gracefully sticking out her tongue at the boy before Rachel continued their discussion in a whisper; “Honestly Santana, I don’t think that my affairs have anything to do with-“

Sam sighed and accepted that that was what he had to work with.

“No problem, man. You can do this. Just listen” Blaine encouraged him with a small smile and pulled out some more of his notes from Herbology last year.

The originally intended study group worked on the Hufflepuffs’ part for about twenty minutes from then on. Once the trio finally decided to stop harassing the two, Rachel and Finn took out their potions books and Santana and Brittany continued procrastinating, wrapped in each other’s arms on the floor. Kurt got up and walked to Blaine, seating himself wordlessly on his lap and distracting him from the task at hand tremendously.

“Kuuuuurt, what are you doing?”

“Well, I kind of need your help too, If you wouldn’t mind.”

“Oh, no” Blaine told him, smiling up at him playfully. “Just because you practically passed my Transfiguration class for me once doesn’t mean that I will start doing your homework for you.”

Little did he know that about four weeks later he had absolutely no time to do anything but return assignment after assignment to a professor after another and practice some advanced level spells that were totally unheard of, completely consuming not only all of his possible time to sleep but also the time he could spend with his friends, not to mention Kurt.

He had zero energy, zero time and thus, zero social life and school had somehow managed to do that to him in a month.

School itself had never really been a problem for Blaine. He had always enjoyed it and especially when he was smaller, because every new thing he learned was so utterly mind blowing. Every day he’d come home from school and gush endlessly to his mother about some history of literature facts that were perhaps pointless in the big picture but so important to little Blaine.

Being half-blooded he grew up being well aware of both the Muggle and the Wizarding world and the quirks and specialties of both, but despite the newspapers with moving, living pictures lying around his house, he always found the most mundane things around him the most interesting.
That never really changed until he came to Hogwarts and got to know how truly magical the Wizarding world was compared to what his previous knowledge of it had been and he just wanted to discover all of it in about one night.

Still to this day the problem with school for Blaine was certainly much less the learning and going to class part – as he still found it fairly enjoyable most of the time, and much, much more the way that it was capable of making him feel. While years ago it had only caused him extreme excitement, it now gave him his share of anxiety and stress unlike anything else.

Living with anxiety could get hard enough as it was, but when school was added to the mix, that’s how Blaine had reached some of his deepest lows regarding his mental health. It was with no warning whatsoever that he’d so many times gone from being mostly okay to finding himself having mental breakdowns more often than not that at some point he’d just learned to accept that that’s how his academic career was going to be like.

There had been a point the previous year that he’d thought that maybe, just perhaps, the way he dealt with all of it would change considering how happy he was being with Kurt and everything, but now he just wanted to scold himself for ever even letting himself think so. Kurt had completely changed his life for the better, but something like this that was rooted so deep within him wasn’t to be removed by any grand gesture of love like in Disney movies.

So now with just about five weeks into his last year at Hogwarts Blaine was already on the very edge of burning out completely. Luckily he was also living in the same space with his best friend of five years, so there was no way for him not to see that. And of course Sam did and the second he did he knew he had to do something about it.

One day he stormed through the boys' dormitory door like some force of nature with his hands on his hips and a decisive yet worried look on his face.

“Dude, you’ve been like this for like three weeks!”

The boy's voice startled Blaine out of his thoughts, causing him to drop his quill and splatter a generous amount ink on the parchment in front of him. He sighed, looking up at his best friend all the while trying to wipe the stain off.

“Like what, Sam?” He snapped at him without the intention to, crossing his arms against his chest in an automatic defensive gesture.

Of course he knew what Sam was talking about. And yes it was wildly unsettling how the amount of time he was capable of spending with his friends as well as his boyfriend was practically nonexistent in the moment. It was like with more time that passed, the more assignments were thrust upon him and the more he would be pushed away from the people that had come to be the ones that mattered the most to him in the world. Blaine couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen Brittany or Santana and when he’d tried to make plans to spend an entire day with Rachel just last week, they had been assigned so much research work for their potions class they just couldn’t go through with it. They’d settled on a rain check, but Blaine wasn’t sure if that was ever going to happen. At least not in another two months if his calendar was anything to go by.
But he had everything totally under control. He was fine. He would be fine.

Sam dropped down heavily at the end of Blaine’s bed, focusing his visibly concerned eyes on him. “You know like what. And I’m ending it now. All this crap is not as important as you make it out to be.”

Blaine stopped trying to do damage control on the parchment that he’d ruined. He bit his lower lip and looked up at Sam. “What do you mean?”

“You just, dude- you need to not be this stressed out all the time. I know all this means a lot to you but you really don’t need to work so hard. This is not even hard, this is crazy and it’s not even the N.E.W.Ts yet! Not eating, not sleeping…”

“I’m not stressed out, Sam” He cut the boy off quickly. ”I’m fine" He said, voice barely above a whisper.

The blond shook his head sternly. “No, you’re not. I know it’s the hardest thing for you to do – to let go, to relax, and I understand! But you need to try.”

“Sam, I have all this stuff-“

It was Sam’s turn to sigh. “When’s the last time you saw Rachel?”

Blaine’s eyes darted around the room as he tried to come up with an answer to Sam’s question that didn’t sound as horrible as the truth was - and failing horribly. “I- uh, last week.”

“Yeah. What about Kurt? When’s the last time you spent more than five minutes talking about something other than some school related stuff with your boyfriend?”

“I-“ Blaine ducked his head. He didn’t even want to think about it. The sudden wave of panic that made him have to find his breath before opening his mouth again was not the only indication that he had been neglecting not only important people in his life but also at the same time his very own well-being.

Sam wasn’t wrong - he was often eating at the weirdest times and sometimes he completely forgot lunch even existed, but it wasn't like he was going to give up that easily. He could take care of himself.

“It has definitely been a while, but I’ve just been really busy” He tried, but Sam was having absolutely none of it.

“You know what man, that’s it” The blond got up and carefully closed the book and stacked the parchments in front of Blaine as he just stared helplessly. “I keep saying this – I can be kinda stupid, but I’m not blind. I’m your best friend and you haven’t been taking care of yourself the way that you should” He set the books on his own bed and pointed a finger at Blaine. “Fact!”

Or maybe he couldn’t.

“So what are you doing?” Blaine asked tiredly although he had a very good idea about his plan.

“I’m clearing your schedule for tomorrow. No buts, no nothing. You don’t have class and now you have none of that nonsense that is driving you out of your mind.”

Blaine glanced at his workload now resting on top of Sam’s mess of an unmade bed and then back at his best friend.

“I care about you and I know how hard you take this stuff, whether there’s need to do so or not. I don’t want you to burn out before you’ve even made a start for your badass career.”

This got the smallest smile out of Blaine. “Thanks” Was all he found himself saying through his mixed anxieties and gratitude, but Sam didn’t need any more than that.

“Of course. I love you man. I want you to be okay… And Kurt. We share Herbology somehow, so he’s been bugging me endlessly about talking to you. Just promise me that you will try not to be so hard on yourself, okay?” Sam reached over to squeeze Blaine’s shoulder. “Now, I’m going to make sure that you sleep before I even think about it myself” The boy shot him a look and switched off his bedside lamp, jumping on his own bed with a thump. Moments later Blaine could hear him mutter a quiet Lumos, the tip of his wand lighting up and illuminating the room with a soft white glow.

With that Blaine got under his duvet, the feeling of the feather-soft pillow under his heavy head so soothing. Being as exhausted as he was it didn’t take him long to drift off, but before he did his thoughts wandered back to Sam’s words and especially the ones about Kurt, and for the first time in the longest time he fell asleep with a smile softly tugging at his lips, letting him know that maybe he would be okay.

-

When Blaine woke up on Saturday morning and the time seemed to be nearing ten his first instinct was to start frantically looking for his books, cold sweat creeping up the back of his neck – before he remembered what had just happened last night.

He allowed himself to take a deep breath in, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily before giving himself a small pep talk. “You can do this, Blaine. You need the free time. You need to relax” He muttered to himself as he and changed into his uniform and made it his first task for the day to find and talk with Rachel.

The Hufflepuff wasn’t sure why he was so surprised to find that the Gryffindor was so much ahead of him, already leaning on the wall just outside the Hufflepuff common room entrance waiting for him when he entered the corridor. He was almost one hundred percent certain that Sam had already had a word with Rachel before he’d even talked to Blaine.

When she spotted Blaine, a gigantic smile bloomed on her lips.

“Hi!” The brunette greeted him, throwing her arms around his neck in a tight embrace.

Blaine couldn’t help smiling, too. “Hi.”

“You up to me talking your ear off about what I’ve learned as my first month as Head Girl?” She grinned, hooking her arm through Blaine’s.

“Absolutely” He grinned right back, for once actually not minding the slightest bit that he was going to be listening to Rachel talk for hours. He was just happy to finally get a longer moment to spend with her.

And that’s exactly what she did. They went up to the Prefect’s bathroom and just sat on one of the windowsills, Blaine mostly listening to Rachel, sneaking a word in every now and then. This was mostly because Rachel’s life had been far more eventful than Blaine’s the last five weeks.

“It’s been crazy being Head Girl. No wonder you didn’t want the Head Boy badge” She breathed out with a shake of her head, reaching out to grab the Hufflepuff’s hand. She looked him in the eyes with a soft but somehow sad smile. “You’re okay, right? You’re not drowning yourself in responsibilities? Because that’s what I’ve heard, and that’s what I’m afraid you’ll do.”

Blaine swallowed thickly, shaking his head. “No. At least now I’m trying not to. It’s a little challenging, but I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Not if you don’t take time for yourself, you won’t. My dad – the muggle one” She smiled a little. “He’s always talking about self-care. It seems like such an obvious thing but it really isn’t. You need to take care of yourself, Blaine. And your relationships, too. You’re a good enough student as it is, always have been. You don’t need to get crazy. There’s time for everything.”

The Hufflepuff chewed on his lower lip, squeezing back at Rachel’s hand.

“Speaking of which, I’m not going to want to keep you here for any longer. You should be getting to Kurt” She continued before the boy even had time to think about what to say. “A relationship as precious as the one you two have should be cherished to the max, you know” Rachel just kept on smiling, inching a little closer to Blaine to hug him.

This time it was Blaine who was quicker. He got up and hugged Rachel as tight as he could, pressing a kiss o her cheek once he let go. “I love you a lot, you know.”

“So you keep telling me” She winked and sent him on his way with a small wave.

Blaine wasn’t sure how, but he somehow remembered to stop by the Great Hall to grab something for lunch on his way to the Slytherin dungeon and called it progress.
It felt so odd not sitting in the common room with his every limb cramping, neck threatening to snap at any given moment, surrounded by parchments waiting to be covered in words and textbook pages expecting to be read as soon as possible. It was almost like he had been detached from society for a while, cramming for exam after exam and only going out of his room for class and a quidditch practice every now and then.

Just that was what made Blaine really realize that what he had been doing so far was truly not the way to do things, and made the note to actually really thank Sam for his persistence later.

He turned to his left and found himself in the corridor where he was supposed to be, in front of the entrance to the Slytherin dungeon.
“Pure-blood” The Hufflepuff said clearly, rolling his eyes at how the password was sill the exact same one as it always had been. He wasn’t sure if he was surprised or not that despite rumored numerous complaints nobody had done anything about it.

All his thoughts about some stupid password melted away instantly at the sight of Kurt, though.

The Slytherin was seated at the stairs at the end of the passage but bounced up and turned around immediately upon hearing someone come in, his whole face lighting up when he saw the Hufflepuff standing there.

“Blaine” He just breathed out, leaping up the few stairs between them and placing his hands on both sides of Blaine’s face. “About time.”
Before Blaine got the opportunity to speak at all, Kurt’s lips were on his and he really couldn’t complain. He sighed happily and circled his arms around Kurt’s waist.

Kurt leaned back, his hands never leaving Blaine’s face as he proceeded to scatter light kisses everywhere on the boy’s face that he could.

“I missed you” The Slytherin said with a grinning smile as a form of explanation, which to Blaine just answered with a chuckle.
“Me, too, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen you plenty of times this and last week.”

Kurt let go of Blaine’s face and grabbed his hand instead, guiding them on one of the uncomfortable looking leather sofas in the room.
“Don’t worry” Kurt sat down and winced, looking up at his boyfriend with a crunched up nose. “They don’t just look the part, these are really uncomfortable, but we’ve kind of just come to accept and get used to that.”

Blaine didn’t really care that much because he ended up sitting on the couch with most of his weight leaning completely on Kurt anyway. “Just like the password?” He questioned, burying his face in the Slytherin’s chest.

“What password?” Kurt asked with his eyebrows furrowed as he wrapped his arms around Blaine.

“The one to this common room” Blaine clarified, although most of it muffled into Kurt’s robes.

“Oh” Kurt breathed in recognition. “Yeah, that. Even I’ve complained about it” The boy shook his head and ran his fingers through Blaine’s hair. “They just can’t change it because it represents the history of the house so well and it's always been the same” He rolled his eyes. “They still fail to recognize that it has been a while since these houses were first founded and that they have evolved through the years.”

“Not Hufflepuff. I mean, not really” Blaine pondered.

“Yeah. No badger would be sitting in this room if it was the 10th century.”

“That’s true. No badger *should* be sitting here even now. This place is kind of creepy” It was Blaine’s turn to crunch up his nose as he detached himself enough from Kurt to look at the lamps glowing green above them.

Kurt chuckled, looking at the boy in his arms fondly. “If you’re used to being surrounded by sunlight and soft yellow cushions and houseplants then yes.”

Blaine just hummed his agreement and snuggled back into Kurt’s chest while Kurt continued to smile down at him.

It was completely quiet for a moment, Blaine just steadying his breath and basking in the comfort of Kurt’s heartbeat and the rise and fall of his chest before the Slytherin spoke up again.

“Sam told me everything, by the way.”

“He told me you’d been prompting him to talk to me.”

“Yeah, but we worked together.”

“Thank you.”

“What do you mean thank you? Me getting you out of your head and your dormitory was totally selfish” Kurt declared with a small laugh.

“Well, either way, I owe you.”

“Yeah, no. You owe me nothing. You’re here and frankly that’s all I care about.”

Blaine smiled into Kurt’s chest. “Me, too.”

“Is it not cool if I say that I hate that you have to deal with all that?” Kurt asked quietly, somehow pulling Blaine even more into his chest in the process.

Blaine let out a weak chuckle. “What’s not cool is you using the word ‘hate’ so freely” He looked up at the boy’s blue eyes and smiled in that way that made his own eyes sparkle. “It’s a very strong word, Mr. Hummel.”

Kurt quirked an eyebrow and grinned ever so slightly. “Yeah, that’s why I’m using it.”

The Hufflepuff shook his head and laced his fingers with the other boy’s. “Well, I guess it isn’t” He finally said thoughtfully. “I don’t love it myself, but-“

“No, that’s not what I mean. Of course you don’t. It’s just-“ Kurt searched for the exact words he wanted to use to allow Blaine to understand that his hatred wasn’t really targeted toward Blaine at all and much more at himself. “I wish I knew how to do something about it, that’s it. I feel really useless sometimes.”

Blaine’s heart skipped a beat. He sat slightly more upright in the belief that it would help Kurt take his words more seriously. “Well first off, you really can't. Which is why there’s no need for you to feel that way. You’re so far from that. Do you know how many times I would’ve been more than a little lost if it wasn’t for you supporting me?”

The Slytherin just shook his head. “Not really. I try, but I-“

“Let me tell you” Blaine squeezed Kurt’s hand. “Right now is a good example. I’m falling asleep on you, yes, but if it wasn’t for you I would be falling asleep on my books, probably forgetting about both eating and Quidditch.”

Kurt’s eyes widened, shock starting to be written all over his face. “You were not-“

“No, hush” Blaine shot him a look, smiling slightly in amusement. “I’m doing both of those things again, let me tell you this.
You’re amazing, and the fact that you want to be here for me is absurd. It’s crazy.”

It was the same warm feeling that only Blaine had been capable of making Kurt feel returning to his chest with those words. “Maybe it’s just you” He smirked, kissing the top of the Hufflepuff’s head with an obnoxious smack – that was if it had come from anyone else but him. Because it was Kurt, Blaine just laughed, grabbing the front of Kurt’s robes lazily and looking him in the eyes.

“Considering everything - yeah, possibly.”

“Well” Kurt started, leaning in so close that their noses were touching. “At least your crazy goes well with my lack of morals.”

This time Blaine didn’t bother trying to silence the other boy with words, but chose to wipe the smirk off of his face in the best way he knew how and closed the barely-there gap between their lips.

“I’m not sure you can talk about lacking morals while you’re dating me – someone you should despise.”

“Oh but can’t you see, I do despise you, big time” Kurt smiled, failing to commit to his words. Blaine smiled too, and the Slytherin kissed the top of his nose lightly before letting him actually fall asleep on him, right there where there were surely going to be Slytherins of all ages swarming sooner or later. The thing was that with the way Kurt felt like he was going to burst with love just watching the boy softly snoring into his chest, he just couldn’t care less about anything else in the world.