It's really almost impossible not to notice Kurt Hummel, when it comes right down to it. At least Blaine has always used that as his excuse.

They have Charms and Transfiguration with the Slytherins, so it's not like the two Houses can completely ignore each other. Blaine is proud to be in Gryffindor, but their rivalry with Slytherin is so deeply ingrained that it's almost a foregone conclusion. He's heard too many horror stories about Slytherins baiting other Gryffindors, jinxing other students in the halls between classes, or outright cheating at Quidditch -- and he's familiar enough with Puckerman and Lopez to believe every last horror story.

Kurt Hummel just oozes Slytherin, anyway -- always cool and smugly superior, green-striped tie ruthlessly sharp. Blaine's comfortable in his school robes, but Hummel has flair, even when he's wearing the same robes as everyone else. It's in the way he carries himself, the way he tilts one hip as he lifts a condescending eyebrow, and the way he looks right through you with those odd, light eyes, his expression faintly mocking.

Slytherins and Gryffindors don't mix, everyone knows that -- so Blaine is understandably shocked the first time Hummel deigns to speak to him.

“Blaine, isn't it?” Kurt asks after class one day, his voice high and vaguely bored. Blaine misses a step, blinking in confusion at the mild expression on Kurt's face.

He doesn't wait for an answer. “Tell Finn he needs to stop being such a guy and send his mom an owl,” Kurt scowls. “I'm tired of running interference for him, and she thinks he's dying from some horrible Muggle disease.” Kurt rolls his eyes expressively. His tone is almost affectionate, though, and it takes Blaine a second to remember why that shouldn't surprise him: Kurt is Finn's stepbrother now, his dad married Finn's mom over the summer holidays, and the other sixth-year Gryffindor boys had given Finn hell for weeks about having a step-sibling in green and silver. As weird as it is, it actually does make sense for Kurt to be checking up on Finn, since he's been laid up with a nasty case of spattergroit for the past three days.

It doesn't make it any less bizarre, though, and it doesn't explain why Kurt chose Blaine to play owl for him.

“I'll pass it along,” Blaine answers, amused in spite of himself. “He's going a little stir-crazy in the dorms anyway, even if it's better than the hospital wing, so writing home will give him something to do.”

“Be prepared to sit on him and shove a quill into his hand,” Kurt sniffs. “Finn's disgustingly well-intentioned, I've found, but he's a little lacking on his follow-through, especially when it comes to reliable correspondence. Tell him I'll even let him borrow Pavarotti, if he needs him.” Kurt refocuses, and this time he actually looks at Blaine. It's disconcerting, to say the least. “You seem to be the least flighty of his Gryffindor year-mates, at least, so try not to drop the ball on this one,” he adds, and then he's walking away, sailing off to his next class in a swirl of black robes.

It takes a minute for Blaine to register the odd little tilt of Kurt's mouth as he leaves, and he's halfway to Potions before he realizes that Kurt Hummel -- a Slytherin through and through -- had actually smiled at him.

---

Finn is pathetic when he's sick. He hasn't been contagious since Madame Pillsbury sent him back to the dorms (mostly to get him out of her hair, Blaine is certain), but the spots haven't faded yet either, and he's woefully self-conscious of what people will say when they see him. Blaine and Sam have been taking turns bringing Finn food from the Great Hall, but they're both getting tired of humoring his teenage vanity, so he's going to have to venture out beyond the Common Room before too much longer.

“Your stepbrother stopped me after Charms today,” Blaine tells him as soon as he gets back into the dorm. Wes is there, too, and his brow furrows at this bit of news. “He says, and I quote: ‘tell Finn to quit being such a guy and send his mother an owl.'” Blaine grins at him. “You've got a Slytherin prompting you to be a good son, Hudson, there's something wrong with this picture.”

Finn shoots him a glare over his Herbology text. “Kurt's not that bad,” he says defensively, and hunches his shoulders. “It's just that he thinks he's my mom sometimes, and I've already got one of those.”

Blaine's eyebrows creep upwards at that. “Slytherins have maternal instincts?” he asks, incredulous.

“Kurt does,” Finn sighs. “It's kind of weird, since he's younger than me and... you know, shorter than me. But he has a bad habit of reminding me when it's my turn to do the dishes.” Finn looks affronted. “I keep telling him I'd remember better if we were allowed to use magic.”

Blaine and Wes are both staring at Finn now, equally perplexed. “He does chores?” Wes asks carefully. “Voluntarily?”

Finn frowns. “Yes?” He sounds uncertain. “We have to take turns. Except for with laundry, Kurt won't let me touch his dress robes. He's picky about starching spells or bleaching charms or -- something, I forget.” Finn rolls his shoulders in an approximation of a shrug. “Don't ask, man, Kurt's picky about lots of stuff.”

“He's a Slytherin, of course he is,” Wes mutters, but Blaine is too busy picturing Kurt Hummel up to his elbows in laundry detergent, his sleeves rolled up and that usually perfect hair falling across his forehead. He blinks, surprised by just how attractive a mental image that is, and shoots Finn a disturbed look.

“Yeah, right -- tell us another one, Finn,” Blaine says dryly, his face hot as he busies himself with putting away his schoolbooks.

---

It's not that Blaine's roommates don't already know that he's gay -- it's just that it's never really been an issue. By the time Blaine admitted he liked other boys, they were third years and had already been sharing a room far too long for anyone to voice any complaints. Sam and Wes had been pretty cool with the announcement, and David swore he'd known all along, but Finn had been a little weird about it at first -- which makes Blaine wonder a little, since Kurt is a lot more obvious about his orientation.

There's no question in his mind that Kurt Hummel is gay. The boy accessorizes meticulously, his voice is as high and clear as a bell, and Blaine is pretty sure he crosses his legs and perches on his chair primly in class, in spite of the camouflaging drape of school robes. He'd gotten all the confirmation he needed from Finn just after the start of the school year, when he walked into the dormitory to hear the taller boy complaining about Sam's unhealthy fixation on Muggle science-fiction films, and he went so far as to equate it with his stepbrother's obsession withWizarding Vogue.

“Hey, don't hate,” Blaine had said mildly. “The August issue was fabulous.”

Finn doesn't tease Sam about Avatar anymore, after that.

Still, Blaine's found himself watching Kurt more after passing along his message to Finn, despite the fact that he knows it's a really, really bad idea. He's trying to reconcile the normal, teenage boy image Finn painted with the carefully coiffed, impeccably dressed Slytherin boy he sees in class, but the bored expression Kurt habitually wears is making it difficult.

Blaine does notice something else, though -- Kurt doesn't seem to get along with his own Housemates much better than he does anyone outside of Slytherin. Puckerman and Lopez are equal-opportunity insult machines, and Kurt tends to fire back at them with just as much venom, even if his retorts are more sly witticisms than actual verbal daggers. He and Berry are ridiculously competitive, each trying to outdo the other in class, and on more than one occasion Blaine can't help but wonder if they'd get along much better if they weren't so much alike. (The idea of Kurt Hummel and Rachel Berry joining forces for anything is kind of frightening and awe-inspiring at the same time, though, so he tries not to think about it.)

Kurt and Karofsky, however, completely hate each other.

Karofsky is an absolute Beater of a boy, tall and broad and barrel-chested, and he knows how to use his size to intimidate. The older Gryffindors always make a point of warning the first year students about Karofsky and his buddy Azimio on the first day -- stay out of their way if you can help it, unless you want to get jinxed in the corridors without warning. Azimio and Kurt don't much like one another, either, but there's something particularly vicious about the way Karofsky looks at Kurt.

Blaine isn't sure what the story is behind that particular bit of animosity, but the first time he hears a bang and sees Kurt on the floor in the Charms corridor, cradling one shoulder with a pained grimace, Karofskys the first person he looks for as a potential culprit.

---

He stops by the hospital wing later that afternoon with a flimsy excuse, and Kurt's just leaving.

“You okay?” Blaine asks, and freezes as he realized that the words actually left his mouth, despite his better judgment.

Kurt glances up at him, his eyes shuttering. “Just caught a stray jinx in the halls, nothing serious,” he mutters. “You can tell Finn to relax, he didn't have to send you to check up on me.”

Blaine doesn't bother to correct him -- Finn could just have as easily come down himself, after all -- but he can't quite leave it alone, either.

"Karofskys aim sucks, anyway," he says, and Kurt stiffens immediately. It's all the confirmation Blaine needs about the source of the jinx, and he's pretty certain it wasn't an accident, either.

“He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, much less a first year,” Kurt answers, after a very slight hesitation. “The little rug rats are tiny, after all.”

Blaine's not buying it, but he lets it slide. “I'll let Finn know you're alive, at least,” he promises, and beats a hasty retreat before he said something else incriminating.

---

Blaine manages to avoid getting caught up in watching Kurt again, until the next Quidditch match. It's Slytherin vs. Hufflepuff, and he can't help but notice the jaunty angle of Kurt's green-and-silver scarf as he watches the match play out in the skies over the pitch. He's so distracted by the pale line of Kurt's throat vanishing into the wool that it takes him a moment to realize -- he's sitting with a Hufflepuff.

Mercedes Jones has her arm threaded companionably through Kurt's, her own scarf decidedly less pristine than his. Blaine leans forward a bit in spite of himself, and mutters an amplification charm under his breath.

“--Really need to call me before you dress yourself,” Kurt is saying with a sniff, and shoots a baleful look at Mercedes' scarf. “You look like a deranged bumblebee.”

“Blame the house colors,” Mercedes answers with a roll of her eyes. “Not all of us get to work with colors that compliment our skin tones like you do.”

“Silver is universally flattering,” Kurt answers smugly. “And I can rock most shades of green, that's very true.”

“You'd have been screwed if you'd gone to Gryffindor,” Mercedes tells him. “It's a good thing the Hat let you choose.”

“I'd have made it work,” Kurt sniffs. “But red does tend to wash me out, so I'll consider that a bullet dodged.”

Blaine releases the spell in shock, his eyes glazed. He doesn't manage to concentrate on the match again after that, despite being an avid Quidditch fan, so damned if he could say who eventually won.

---

Blaine mentions Mercedes to Finn later that night, and is surprised when the taller boy grins at him.

“Did she have to hex any of her Housemates? They tend to give her a hard time when she sits with Kurt, especially when they're playing Slytherin,” Finn observes. “Those two have been joined at the hip since they were really young, though, and Hufflepuffs are loyal.”

“None of the Slytherins have a problem with it?” Blaine asks, incredulous. Slytherins were even more fanatically exclusive than the rest of the Houses combined, and Hufflepuff was considered to be almost as bad as Gryffindor, in their eyes.

“I think Kurt had to throw around a few nasty little hexes of his own before they quit giving him hell about it,” Finn says with a shrug. “Hes kind of scary when hes pissed,” he adds earnestly.

Blaine cant ask about how Kurt ended up in Slytherin, though, because it would be obvious that he was eavesdropping. Besides, that was long before Kurt and Finns parents had hooked up, chances were Finn wouldnt know about it, anyway.

Sorting aside, though, Kurt Hummel is a Slytherin with a Gryffindor for a stepbrother and a Hufflepuff for a best friend, and he actually acknowledges both of them in public.

Curiouser and curiouser.

---

When it comes right down to it, if Blaine had managed to rein in his compulsive study of Kurt, maybe he could have avoided drawing Karofskys attention himself. He just had a little trouble focusing when Kurt was nearby, and that meant he sometimes forgot to be fully aware of his surroundings.

Kurt is laughing at something Rachel Berry said to him as they left Transfiguration -- actually laughing, not the smug, sarcastic little chuckles he usually uses around Berry -- and it's distracting enough that Blaine actually turns toward the sound before he catches himself.

Karofsky catches it, though.

“Looks like Hummel has an admirer,” Karofsky jeers, jostling closer to Blaine. “And a Gryffindor -- hope youre not holding your breath for St. Hummel to go slumming anytime soon,” he mocks.

Blaine looks up at him -- way up, alas, he really hates being so short -- and schools his expression into mild interest. “Im not allowed to wonder what the joke was?” he asks. “Most Slytherins dont have a sense of humor, call me curious.”

Karofsky towers over him, and Blaine spares a moment to wonder exactly when hed completely lost his mind. Intelligent, sane people didnt baitKarofsky -- but then again, he was a Gryffindor, not a Ravenclaw, so maybe it was inevitable.

“Mouthy little fag, arent you?” Karofsky growls.

“Not particularly mouthy, usually,” Blaine notes. “But Ill cop to the rest of it.” He lifts an eyebrow at Karofsky, and figures he may as well sign his own death warrant with a flourish. “Why -- jealous?”

Karofsky turns purple at that, and Blaine doesn't even notice that hes pulled his wand until it's leveled at his forehead, and by that point it's too late to do anything except cross his eyes stupidly in an attempt to focus on the smoothly rounded end of the length of wood--

There's a flash of light, so bright Blaine sees stars, and Karofsky yelps in pain and fury. Blaine blinks rapidly, trying to focus through watering eyes, and feels someone seize his arms and propel him forcibly away from Karofskys howls. He vaguely hears Kurts voice, high and cold as he tears into the bigger Slytherin boy -- something about Professor Sylvester expelling him if he's stupid enough to hex another student at point-blank range -- but before Blaine can protest, hed been bundled out of the corridor.

He doesnt manage to clear his head enough to recognize Finns hands steering him until theyve neared the Fat Ladys portrait, and Blaine digs in his heels.

“What the hell was that?” Blaine asks, bewildered.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Finn says. “You just mouthed off to Karofsky -- youre either stupidly brave, even for a Gryffindor, or youre just insane.”

Blaine shakes his head quickly. “Momentarily lapse of sanity, wont happen again,” he assures Finn. “No, I meant the—“ He pantomimes an explosion with his hands, fingers bursting outward to indicate whatever had temporarily blinded him.

“Oh -- Kurt Disarmed him,” Finn answers, his brow furrowing. “I think he did, at least -- I didnt recognize the spell, and Expelliarmus isnt usually that, ah, vicious.” His frown deepens. “Youre really lucky Kurts got awesome aim, man, he could have hexed off your face, it was that close.”

Blaine stiffens suddenly, and blinks up at Finn in alarm. “Your stepbrothers gay, right?” he demands.

“Uh, yeah,” Finn answers. “Pretty sure thats not a secret.”

Blaine groans. “Karofsky just tried to hex me in the middle of the hallway for being a mouthy little fag, Finn. What exactly do you think hes likely to do to your brother for stopping him?”

Finn opens his mouth in surprise, and closes it as alarm creeps into his eyes. “But Kurts a Slytherin,” he protests.

“So? Karofskys jinxed him in the corridors before,” Blaine says. “Wouldnt be the first time hes sent Hummel to the Hospital Wing.”

Finn looks horrified, but he doesnt stop to ask how Blaine knows all of this, at least. Instead, he turns on his heel, marching back the way theyd come.

“Go back to the common room,” Finn mutters when Blaine hurries to catch up with him. Blaine just shoots him a disbelieving look, and lengthens his stride to keep up with the taller boy.

Their assistance isn't needed, though, as they discover when the reach the Transfiguration corridor -- Professor Holiday already has the matter well in hand, and Blaine and Finn arrive just in time to hear her handing out detentions to Kurt and Karofsky. Blaine has to bite back a protest at that; the only reason Kurt had been tossing around spells in the hallway was to keep Karofsky from cursing Blaine into next week, but the fact remains that Kurt had cast the spell, so arguing the point won't change the verdict.

At least they've been given separate detentions -- and Professor Holiday is notoriously lenient, so it could have been much worse. Blaine bites his lip as Karofsky stalks off, and Kurt just sniffs derisively as he turns to leave. He brushes past Finn without a backward glance, supremely unconcerned by his stepbrother's dismay -- so Blaine is understandably startled when Kurt's eyes lock briefly with his own.

It's just the briefest of looks, barely more than a clash of glances, but Blaine realizes that he's holding his breath, even as Kurt sweeps past and continues on to his next class, head held high.

Blaine is so, so screwed.

---

It isn't hard to get past Professor Holiday. Of all the teachers, she's the most half-hearted in her punishments, and Blaine's always had a knack for talking his way through most situations. When he stops by her classroom to ask about the last Numerology lesson a few days later, it's carefully timed -- Kurt is already installed at one of the low tables, organizing scrying stones for his detention.

After a few minutes of Blaine's very best imitation of sincere interest, Professor Holiday excuses herself to go retrieve a few books from her office for him to borrow. She shoots him a sly wink as she leaves, though, so Blaine's sense of accomplishment is dampened.

There's a long moment of silence after the door closes behind her, and Blaine watches Kurt separate the gemstones from common river rocks, organizing by cut and color.

“I don't suppose you're actually here about single-digit summations?” Kurt drawls without looking up.

Blaine grins slightly. “Can't blame me for trying,” he shrugs. “I didn't get a chance to thank you, the other day. For the assist.”

Kurt looks up at that, his expression disdainful. "Karofskys a Neanderthal and a bully," he scoffs. “I question your intelligence for baiting him, but he's going to get himself expelled if he keeps making tragically unfortunate decisions like that.”

Blaine lifts one eyebrow. “I fail to see how this would be a bad thing,” he answered. “And I wouldn't think you'd have a problem with it, either.”

To his surprise, Kurt's eyes drop at that, and he's suddenly very interested in the pile of scrying stones in front of him. “I don't know what you're talking about,” he mutters.

“Funny, since you seem to end up on the wrong end of his jinxes more often than not,” Blaine says mildly. “I mean, I know he's a Slytherin and all, but hexing his own Housemates is just mean.”

Kurt flushes, and he glances up mutinously. “He's an ass, but he's got his reasons for being an ass,” he counters. “And we aren't all sociopathic Dark Wizards-in-training just because we're in Slytherin, you know.”

“I'll take your word for it, on Karofsky,” Blaine concedes. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back against one of the tables, watching Kurt intently. “But you've got to admit that Slytherin has a certain... reputation.”

Kurt snorts at that, and arches one delicate eyebrow. “Sly, cunning, morally reprehensible? Sure, because being ambitious automatically makes us evil,” he scoffs. “Most of us just want to make something of ourselves, and I don't see anything wrong with that.”

“Is that why you chose Slytherin?” It's out of Blaine's mouth before he can stop himself, and he can't take it back even if he wanted to.

Kurt stares at him for a moment, frowning slightly. “I chose Slytherin because I refuse to be a nobody,” he finally answers. “Slytherin gives me the best shot at avoiding obscurity.” He gives Blaine a pointed look. “Why are you in Gryffindor?”

Blaine shrugs. “Courage,” he answers somberly, and that's the only explanation he can give. He doesn't really feel particularly brave most of the time, after all, but he wants to be -- and it occurs to him if he can be half as strong as the boy sitting in front of him, he'll be a credit to his House.

He shakes himself slightly, and gives Kurt a sheepish smile. “Are you going to teach me that hex you used on Karofsky, then?” he asks, his voice light.

Kurt laughs -- it's fascinating to see, his mouth wide and appreciative as he grins back unabashedly -- and goes back to sorting stones. “Depends on what's in it for me,” he answers, and shoots Blaine an arch look that could almost -- almost -- be called flirtatious. He dumps another box of scrying stones out on the table, and nudges one of the other chairs back from the table with one foot. “Make yourself useful, and I'll think about it.”

---

It's really almost impossible not to notice Kurt Hummel, when it comes right down to it. And, Blaine is coming to realize, that's the entire point.