The Undoing of Blaise Zabini

Blaise gripped his arms, fingers digging into the sinewy flesh until it throbbed. He shoved himself backward into the wall causing his head to crack heavily against the stone and make his vision blur and spin. He released his arms to grip the window ledge and swung his legs out of it so that he sat precariously before a dark drop. There were a thousand things that danced before his eyes, drawing him ever closer to the darkness of the night beyond the hard stone sill.

He had spoken; his voice sounding different once it had left the confines of his head. He had actually kissed her, and she had not been thrown across the room as his mother had been when his wards were strong enough to stop a mothering peck on the cheek. The girl had sat there with an expression that Blaise couldn't even explain to himself. There was something there that had taken the witch a lot farther aback than even she had thought.

The wizard cupped his hand under his chin and wiped at the warm drizzle that was escaping from the edge of his mouth to run down his neck. His tongue ran over the metallic stream, and he stood up on the tiny stone ledge.

An icy draft breezed through his hair, making it whip cold tentacles against his exposed neck. Blaise shrugged off his cloak and held it out of the window. One by one he released each of his fingers' hold on the material until it fluttered sadly downward into the darkness. The corner of his mouth twitched. He wondered if his body would do the same thing if he took another step forward. It was very likely, considering the state that it was in.

The wizard looked down at his hands, moving them up to his neck. Carefully he unclasped the chain and his pendant. The metal slid down into Blaise's open hand and pooled in his palm. The blood in the centre of the pendant washed from side to side in its crystal chamber, leaving the stone with a pink glaze. Blaise leaned forward slightly, tilted his hand and watched as the silver slipped across his pale skin, slithering about in the wind as it quickly swallowed.

Blaise paused, fingers clinging haphazardly to the smooth stone, and pressed his forehead against his knuckles. There was little to do now but to let his body join his possessions in the new snow. The wind lapped against the tower, pressing the dark fabric of his shirt closer to Blaise's chest. He shivered. There was breath still lingering his lungs. There was a skittering head beat that thundered against his ears. There was still too much life inside his starved body for him to give it back to the earth.

"I wasn't sure that I was going to see you again."

The quiet voice worked its way into the burned mind of the wizard lying motionless in a sea of white. The corner of his lip twitched and the witch standing by the end of his bed seated herself in the bedside chair, her face blank.

"I've been here for hours," the witch said. "You look like hell, Zabini."

Millicent Bulstrode paused and smoothed out a wrinkle in the skirt that pooled about her legs without looking up.

"That Weasley girl has been in here a lot," she said and shook her head. "The professors have stopped asking me why you were at the top of the North Tower." She smiled before continuing, "I suppose that they assume that you were up there doing something important. They always think that you're doing something important, Zabini. I've never seen any proof that you don't just wander around, but who am I to be your judge?" Millicent laughed; her voice a dark wind to mar the pristine silence of the room.

Her ever omni-sided conversation ceased as the Nurse drew near to the bed and poured a thick liquid down the semi-conscious wizard's throat. Blaise choked a little before sinking back into his pillows. Millicent set her jaw and folded her hands neatly in her lap as the Nurse retreated away into the rest of her ward.

Blaise opened his eyes and watched as Millicent got to her feet, her hands disappearing into her robe. "I'll come and see you tomorrow, Zabini," she said and was gone.

Blaise lay in his Infirmary bed for an entire week, slipping in and out of sleep as exhaustion took him. Occasionally he would wake to find Millicent seated in the bedside chair with a sketch book propped open in her lap as she let her mind wander over the page with a pencil. The witch would still her hand whenever Blaise stirred, making a witty comment that the wizard would not understand until he had let his drained mind muddle over her words for a few minutes.

"You just missed her," Millicent said as Blaise awoke to find her standing at the foot of his bed. "That Weasley Girl was here just a moment ago."

Blaise frowned as the words sunk in, and closed his eyes again.

"Bulstrode," he said quietly, "her name is Ginevra."

The wizard didn't need to open his eyes to know that Millicent had missed her chair as she went to sit down. There was a moment of silence before the witch next spoke, her voice issuing from the region of the floor.

"Yes." she said, regaining her composure and sliding back up into her seat. "Yes, her name is Ginevra."

After that, Blaise often found himself contributing to the conversation. Mostly he would lie in his bed, allowing his mind to absorb whatever thought that had prompted his housemate to open her mouth. But he would share his own thoughts when the urge fell on him.

"It's harder to talk this way," he said in his newly found voice, interrupting Millicent's spiel of polite one-sided small talk with a random comment.

"Well of course," Millicent agreed, plastering over the mental gap that she was having in the privacy of her own mind on the third occasion that Blaise had spoken to her. "Bu speech is unfortunately a common convention." The witch lamented and reached into her bag to retrieve a replacement for the pencil that she had dropped on the floor in her surprise. "'Better to remain in silence and to let the world think you a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.' And, Zabini, there is never enough silence around here."

The corner of Blaise's mouth twitched as Millicent's sombre face turned back to her sketches.

Another week drew to a close before Blaise found himself in the company of someone other than Millicent Bulstrode. The nurse had ordered him to bathe that morning, allowing him to get up and walk stiffly about for a moment before leading him to the Infirmary bathroom.

"You're well enough now to clean yourself without magic," Madame Pomfrey had said as she closed the door. "I want you sparkling clean, Mr. Zabini."

Wearily, Blaise had complied and was on his way back to the sectioned-off part of the Infirmary when he came across an unexpected guest.

The witch was sitting in the bedside chair with her cloak pulled firmly around her. She didn't look up when Blaise sat down, but when she did raise her eyes to him, Blaise could see the line of sunburn that ran across her nose. Her skin was browner than usual, browner than one would have expected for the season and in someone so naturally pale.

"You look well," she said quietly, a tendril of auburn hair sliding across her face as she looked down at her hands and fell into silence.

"You're shaking," Blaise observed. "Are you ill?"

Ginevra looked up at him, her dark eyes shining. "No," she replied in a bare whisper. "No, Blaise, not at all." She pulled her cloak tighter around her with trembling fingers.

The silence grew until it pervaded the comfort zone of Blaise, but he made no move to change it. Ginevra twisted her hands in her lap before shoving them deep inside her cloak pockets.

"I think," the witch said uneasily. "I think that I'm going to go now." She rose to her feet and bound a scarf about her neck. "Yes, I'm going to go." She pulled her hood down so that only the bright ends of her hair and the watery glow of her eyes could be seen.

"Good-bye Blaise," she said and fled the Infirmary.

Blaise stared after her for a few moments. He wondered how often the witch had come to see him without his knowledge. She looked as if she had been greatly surprised to find him there, to find him up and about, and to have him ask a question of her. Ginevra did not look well, despite what she said. And oddly, Blaise found himself wishing for her company.

He did not have to wait long before Ginevra found her way back to the infirmary to see him. She had wedged herself into the small bedside chair, pulling the many layers of clothing tightly around her so that she could bring her legs up and wrap her arms about them.

"You're eating properly," she said quietly as Blaise finished the last of his cold roast lunch. Blaise nodded at her and speared more peas onto his fork.

They sat in silence for a while until Blaise pushed away his meal and pulled his sheets around him.

"You're quiet," he commented.

"I don't have much to say," Ginevra replied.

"Why come, if not to talk?" Blaise asked.

The witch looked at him. "Do you not want me to see you?" she asked in reply.

Blaise contemplated his answer before speaking. "You waited this year for me to talk, and now that I do, you do not."

"I waited," she countered simply.

"You find the silence," Blaise struggled for the word, "comfortable?"

Ginevra gave him a shy smile and nodded. The corner of Blaise's mouth twitched into a smile and the witch beamed at him. She was very pretty when she smiled like that, Blaise noted.

"Are you serious?" Millicent Bulstrode asked, her fine eyebrows rising into the unbound hair that had fallen into her face on her next visit to see Blaise.

The wizard nodded at her. "Yes."

"Zabini," she shook her head, sending more of her sleek dark hair sliding across her face, "Ginevra has some serious problems."

"I have problems too," Blaise replied indignantly.

Millicent sighed. "I know," she said softly. "That's why I don't want you to get involved with her."

"I'm too weak?" Blaise asked almost in anger.

"No," the witch soothed. "You aren't weak."

"Then why do you object to my pursuit in the affections of Ginevra?" Blaise frowned at her. "Are you objecting because of your own interest in my affections?"

Millicent looked as if she had been slapped. "Zabini, I'm not interested in you romantically and I have never been." Her dark eyes blazed with hurt. She snatched up her bag. "I want you to be safe, Blaise. I don't want you getting hurt so soon after coming this far, which is why I'm warning you away from Ginevra. I don't want to lose the only friend that I have."

Millicent dragged her cloak from the back of her chair, causing it to tip and clatter on the cold floor. And without looking back, she fled.

Blaise stared at the infirmary door for a long time. He hadn't ever seen Millicent that emotional. She had always masked her emotions well, just as most Slytherins did. Her voice was always calm or mono-tonal. Millicent Bulstrode had seemed incapable of making a scene, incapable of being hurt, and in a moment had changed almost everything that Blaise had believed about her. He had hurt the untouchable Millicent Bulstrode, and he was very unsure of how he had managed it.

The wizard sat in his solitude for only three days before the nurse ushered him back into the hub of the school. She insisted that he was well enough to rejoin his classes, but was to return daily to take the various potions and pills that he has been directed to continue.

Blaise glanced at his reflection after taking his shower in the Prefects' bathroom. He had gained back a lot of the weight that he had lost over the summer. There was nothing more than fat that he had gained, but it was interesting to be able to see his cheekbones without the deep hollows beneath them, and to be able to see his eyes without their dark, sunken look.

"This is yours."

Blaise glanced away from his reflection to see Ginevra leaning against the rim of the bath. She smiled up at him from beneath the thick layers of her clothing and held up the silver chain and pendant that Blaise had dropped from the window in the North Tower weeks before.

"I have the rest of the stuff in my dorm," she said quietly, "but I thought that you might want this now."

Blaise accepted his pendant gratefully and slipped it into his pocket. He wasn't going to wear it until he had examined it properly, preferably in the solitude of his bedroom. Absently he ran a comb through his hair.

"Blaise," Ginevra asked quietly, "why did you kiss me?"

The wizard moved to retrieve his fallen comb and did not reply. The witch wrapped her arms tightly about herself and Blaise could feel her watching him.

"I don't know," he said after a long pause. "I just did."

The pair fell into an awkward silence as Blaise continued his toilet. The wizard shaved and pulled his robes over the top of his uniform, all the while being watching from the bath rim. Ginevra rose to her feet when Blaise picked up his belongings.

"If you had the chance, would you do it again?" she asked as he opened the door.

Blaise let the door shut between them without a reply.