Stammerer

Prologue

"Where have all the good men gone ,

And where are all the gods?

Where's the street-wise Hercules to fight the rising odds?

Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?

Late at night, I toss and I turn and I dream of what I need."

"Holding Out for a Hero"

It was a wet and dreary night. The kind of dark, rainy night that you would want to call- "wet and dreary." Water flooded down from the sky, wind howled through the trees, and the screams of the recently-married Loletta Zabini could be heard in China, though she herself was in Britain. The pains of giving birth could do that to a person

She rather wondered how she got to this state. Then she remembered a certain steamy evening nine months ago and it all became quite clear. Count Stefano Zabini, a wizard, had barely stepped off the boat arriving from Italy when she first glimpsed him. She could see his proud dark figure through the dirty glass windows of the pub she served in, standing straight and tall, cape billowing around him as the wind tossed his coal-black hair. It was love at first sight. For her part at least. The Count was, unfortunately, not able to see Loletta in such a romantic light, what with there being very little light in the bar to begin with, not to mention that her clothes were a mess, she hadn't washed her hair in a several days (weeks?), and she reeked of beer and vomit (damn that Oswald Baker! He absolutely refused to puke on anyone else, even when she asked nicely!), but Zabini eventually came around. He didn't speak English very well, either, which did impede things a bit, but Loletta was persistent and persevered through it all. She later blamed all her efforts on his dark brooding brown eyes. She would soon blame everything on dark brooding brown eyes.

Loletta herself was an American witch, born and bred in the heart of Texas, in a small town where they had both kinds of music- country and western. There were no dark and brooding men, however, in Small Town, so she booked a plane to the nearest foreign country that still spoke her language and didn't have an excessive number of mooses running around. Men in the UK were attractive, some dark, some brooding, and even a few with adorable Scottish accents. However, they were always either not enough dark and too brooding, or too dark and not enough brooding, or either just too drunk to count for anything, and most weren't all that exotic. The dark and brooding Count Stefano Zabini was the most exotic thing she had ever laid eyes on, and was just the right amount of dark and the perfect amount of brooding; she had to have him. This goal wasn't really that hard to achieve, either. All she had to do was agree to bear his child.

While it had been an odd request at the time (she barely had known him a week), she found herself not very shocked. This was a dark and brooding Italian man, after all, and surely they did odd and shocking things on a regular basis. She, of course, had been ready to agree immediately, but she let him tell her his sad, sad story first so that she might not seem like a hussy.

His tale began on another wet and dreary night, but this time in southern Italy. A dark wizard, who went by the name of The Rabbit, had been terrorizing his village. Loletta snorted at this, but Zabini explained that rabbits were believed to bring very bad luck and be quite ominous furry buggers where he came from. Quickly suppressing her giggles, she begged that he would continue. The Rabbit came to the villa of his great-great-great-great-great-great (she lost count shortly, but continued to listen interestedly) grandfather, demanding that he marry The Rabbit's daughter, or else he would put a terrible curse on the family. The Zabini name had been growing in renown and fortune for many years now, and The Rabbit wanted his piece of the pie (Loletta's words, not Zabini's). The girl in question, besides being the daughter of an evil, evil wizard, was squat, missing a few teeth, suffering a horrible case of acne, and had a squint. Not that the old Zabini was superficial, but... he was, actually. He point blank refused.

Thus the fury of The Rabbit was brought upon the Zabini household. The Rabbit first cursed that every heir to the Zabini name would be born with such incredible good looks that women would be constantly chasing them and hounding them. Realizing that this was not such a bad thing, The Rabbit reconsidered. He then cursed that every Zabini heir would fall madly in love with any girl whom the old Zabini would have considered inappropriate. Loletta's back went up at the implied meaning. The Count assured here, however, that the old Zabini was a snob, a bigot, utterly narcissistic, proud, arrogant, and anything and everything else that would have stuck his nose up at most the decent women in the world. Somewhat appeased, she let him continue. Finally, The Rabbit declared that if any Zabini heir did not bear a child by the time he turned twenty-three, he would become sterile, and the Zabini name would be lost forever.

"But what about younger brothers? Wouldn't they have carried on the name?" questioned Loletta.

The Count smirked. "Zabinis never had more children than they had to," he assured her.

The dark wizard performed his dark magic, and the curse was set in place.

The Rabbit was later caught and burned at the stake, roasted like road kill on a sticky summer day (Loletta's words), but even his death could not end the curse. It still remained to this day.

"When do you turn twenty-three?" asked a curious Loletta.

"Next Tuesday," he responded in his delicious Italian accent. "Best get cracking, eh?"

He had informed her later, shortly after they were married and she was sufficiently knocked-up, that the story about the curse had been complete bullshit. It had been just a pickup line that he had used on several women in the past, all of whom had not believed a word of it. He also told her that he never had a title, but he was wealthy, and he wouldn't have been surprised if there was a title somewhere in his family tree. Loletta had been appropriately miffed for all of two hours, but had then been able to laugh it off and say that it would make a wonderful story to tell the grandkids.

But if she ever wanted grandkids, she was going to have to get this nuisance in her belly out first. Stefano, prat that he was, had passed out at the first glimpse of baby-head emerging from the womb. No help at all at the moment, though he had been very instrumental in the creation of The Nuisance.

"Push, Ms. Zabini! Come on now, push!" cried the mediwitch over Loletta's moans.

"What do you think I'm doing, you ridiculous bint?!?" screamed Loletta in response. "Oh, Merlin! Stefano Zabini, you are never getting laid ever again!!!"

"You're almost finished, come now, Loletta, just a few more big pushes!" shouted the mediwitch, smirking to herself.

Suddenly, the wails of an infant were heard amongst the bloody mess. A snip and a wipe later, the baby was presented to his mother.

"You have a boy, Loletta," said the attendant softly, passing the precious article.

Loletta snorted. "So this is the little blighter." Looking into his tiny face, however, she found it was becoming hard to be angry with him for putting her through so much pain. "Well, little one," she began, rocking the baby in her arms, "your father wants a 'strong English name for his strong English son' and was insisting on calling you 'Henry'. I'm not incredibly fond of 'Henry', and your father is currently unconscious, so I shall name you 'Blaise'. Your middle name can be 'Henry'. And you know what your father can do if he doesn't like it. That's right, sweetheart, he can just shove it up his-"

"Ms. Zabini, your husband's waking up," interposed the mediwitch, firmly suppressing her laughter.

"Well, fuck," Ms. Zabini replied succinctly.

This is the tale of how Blaise Henry Zabini entered the world.