The Undoing of Blaise Zabini

The Undoing of Blaise Zabini

By George

For The Princess

From quite a young age Blaise Zabini had known that he was different. It wasn't his fair skin, dark hair or dark eyes that had made him so. Nor was it his medium build, average height or trained posture that had set him apart from other wizards his age. Outwardly Blaise was quite unremarkable.

Underneath the layers of fine clothing and carefully cleansed skin, Blaise's mind worked constantly. He had learned with other students his age, at the same rate and with similar results. He had done his homework as often as he really needed to and wrote his essays the night before they were due. Blaise Zabini had an average mind.

It was somewhere in the depths of his mind that Blaise was different. There he had decided, though he wasn't so sure when, that there was no need for him to speak. And he didn't speak to anyone, nor did he show his emotions or make eye contact with anyone. Blaise just didn't do it.

At first his parents had been concerned, as any parent would, had their son suddenly stopped talking. They had taken him to see many, many different medi-wizards over the years and the results had all been the same; Blaise was capable to speech, he just lacked the will. No amount of expensive therapy did the slightest bit of difference. Blaise had chosen to remain silent and remained that way.

When the Hogwarts letter arrived Blaise's parents had been unsurprised but concerned about Hogwarts would do to a child as different as he. An eleven-year-old Blaise had listened to his parent's various 'discussions' with him, and had let them know his decision by way of a letter.

On the first of September the Zabinis had a brief meeting with the school's Headmaster before Blaise had been bid farewell at the castle doors. Dumbledore removed his hand from Blaise's should when the boy relaxed, finally out of sight of his parents. Very carefully Dumbledore went over the school rules and the exceptions that would be in place for Blaise's schooling life.

Blaise liked the fairness of the rules and wrote a thank-you note to Dumbledore after his first week as a Slytherin.

No one teased Blaise in his first year at Hogwarts. The Slytherins made sure of that, or so the Head of House said. Blaise knew differently, however. He knew that he had an unremarkable face, and that people would forget it as soon as he was gone. He was thankful for that many a time.

Along with the school rules, Blaise's exceptions and the First-Year rules, Blaise leant a lot about the Syltherin Hierarchy. Slytherins did not socialise with Gryffindors; without exception. Ravenclaw was the only house that was even worth mentioning, and Hufflepuff wasn't worth a first thought, let alone a second. The Prefects were treated almost as seriously as the teacher and woe befall you if they found that you had lost any House points; Prefects could think up nasty punishments.

In his first year, Blaise also encountered Harry Potter. There was something odd about that boy that Blaise couldn't place, although he followed Draco Malfoy's lead in blaming it on Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley; Potter's friends. Blaise had little time for Draco Malfoy other than that. Many of the other Slytherins adored Draco Malfoy, but Blaise certainly did not.

Blaise passed his classes and retuned to Hogwarts for another two years before he saw through the crystal façade of Draco Malfoy's. At thirteen, Blaise saw past the sharp tongue and arrogance to see the scared, abused and disillusioned child that was the so-called Prince of Slytherin. Harry Potter and his strange presence was still a mystery to Blaise, however.

At the end of Blaise's fourth year his life change dramatically and he retreated even further into himself. The Dark Lord had again risen and the students of Slytherin began to prepare themselves accordingly. Blaise was one of the seventeen students that had not had a family member involved with the Dark Lord during his last gathering of power, but they all knew that there were going to be very different times ahead of them.

At the beginning of his fifth year, Blaise had been given a silver pendant with a basilisk scale and three drops of his own blood concealed in its crystal centre. He had kept it in his pocket until Draco Malfoy began to strut around the common room. Then Blaise knew that things were about to get worse and tied the pendant securely around his neck, uncaring as to who saw it poking over the top of his collar. It seemed that all of the students of Slytherin House wore ancient charms like Blaise's soon after that.

During his fifth year Blaise kept to himself, cutting what little ties of communication had with other wizards. It really wasn't that much of a change for him.

When the memorable Quibbler article came out telling of Harry Potter's ordeal, Blaise kept a copy of the article from the almost thorough searches, and tried to figure out what made Potter tick. Even with this piece of insight into that boy's mind, Blaise was still at a loss. Potter's mind seemed an insurmountable puzzle.

Before Blaise left Hogwarts for the summer, he was a pale shell of his former self. The entire wizard population knew of the Dark Lord's presence, and of the Death Eater raid that had caught many of the Slytherin students' fathers. Even Blaise's own father was missing from their home, although Blaise wasn't quite sure why, and hoped that it was for a good reason. With the lack of his father's presence, Blaise's mother had become a very unstable woman, spending most of her time on the balcony of her boudoir drinking colourful drinks, which she insisted on having little umbrellas perched in them.

After only a few weeks of locking himself away from the increasingly boisterous woman he knew as his mother, Blaise took to the streets after dark. He would wander aimlessly, yet never unarmed, around under the pitch coloured sky and tried to regain the sanity that was slipping through his pale fingers.

It was on one of those wanderings that Blaise first ran into Ginevra Weasley, quite literally. He had been turning a corner when she had ploughed into him, knocking him to the ground. Unfortunately she had apologised to him before sprinting off, and she had also glanced over her shoulder at him while she was under a street lamp. For a while after that Blaise sat on the curb and stared at his feet.

Blaise returned to his sixth year at Hogwarts with a silver band around his wrist. It had been impressed on him by his mother; rather, she had attached it to him before he got onto the train and he hadn't figured out how to remove it. Greatly annoyed, Blaise had skipped the Welcoming Feast for the silence of the Prefects' Bathroom.

A pale reflection peered back at him from the mirror that hung over the sink. Blaise sucked air into his mouth in an effort to fill out his cheeks but only succeeded in making him look like an aggravated blowfish. He had lost a serious amount of weight, he realised. In all honesty, he just looked sick

The door to the Prefects bathroom opened and Blaise froze. Ginevra Weasley skirted past him, around the giant bathtub and locked herself in one of the toilet cubicles. It took a few moments before Blaise realised that the witch had had tears pouring down her face. Not knowing what to do, Blaise sat down on the rim of the bath and waited. The sound of sniffling came from the cubicle and then the door was yanked open again and the youngest Weasley stood with a wad of toilet paper folded in her hand. She dabbed her eyes and stared with confusion at Blaise.

"You stayed," she said as he stared in the general direction of the sink.

Blaise felt the atmosphere of the room tighten and he rose to his feet.

"I didn't think that anyone would want to be near me," the witch said, walking quickly past him to a basin. She made a small disgusted noise as she looked at her reflection and then looked past herself to the reflection of Blaise.

"You're the one who doesn't talk, aren't you?" Ginevra asked as Blaise stared unseeing at her left shoe.

Everyday Blaise was the one to avoid eye contact, but in this case he just couldn't look directly at her. His mind mulled over this strange discovery. Perhaps he had gotten used to not looking at people and with this particular witch his just physically couldn't.

"I didn't really believe Hermione when she said that there was someone in her year that didn't talk, but here you are." Ginevra's hand gripped the sink tightly as her voice wavered in a way that made Blaise wonder what it was in relation to.

"And you're still here," the witch said, her voice once again settled. "I thought that you would be running for the hills. I am a Gryffindor, after all."

Suddenly Ginevra smashed her hand into the mirror, dark cracks skittering out to the edge of the glass. Shakily, she lifted her hand away and stared at her blanched complexion. Blaise stared as she sank to the floor and huddled under the sink, all the while shivering uncontrollably. Ginevra made a weak effort to haul herself back to her feet using the basin as a hand hold, but she soon gave up.

Blaise took in the wide smear of red that now adorned the lip of the sink and stood up. He raised his wand making cracks in the mirror erase and the sink became spotless porcelain again. He could feel the witch's eyes on him as he then exited the bathroom.

She was a Gryffindor, after all.