Glass Dragon

Prologue

At fifteen, Blaise Zabini was petite and dark haired, with very pale skin. Her most intriguing feature were her eyes, which, for unknown reasons (supposedly a birth defect) changed color along with her mood. But, Blaise was no ordinary Hogwarts student. She was a manipulative and ambitious young woman, who had lived in Malfoy Manor since the age of four. It wasn´t at all like the rumours that were spread about the other Hogwarts Houses. Lucius Malfoy wasn´t cruel at all, definitely not to his own son, and not to Blaise, his sort of adopted niece and a fellow pure-blood.

The only mystery to Blaise was her true identity. Of course, she knew that she was Blaise Zabini. But she also knew that Zabini had been her mother´s surname, not her father´s. Perhaps part of the reason that Blaise could be such a cold and distant person was because she had never known her father. He was the one thing that made her eyes blaze (forgive the pun) red, a sure sign that she was angry. She hated the way that he had run off after he had heard that his wife was pregnant. Although Blaise´s mother, Adrias, had forgiven him, Blaise herself could not. The coward hadn´t even known her! Why had he run? To this day Blaise did not know her father´s name. It was a well kept Malfoy family secret.

One day, Blaise had tried to ask Narcissa, her mother´s old best friend about her father. But Narcissa had suddenly hardened and refused to speak of the matter. After that Blaise hadn´t even tried talking about it to anyone. Now Blaise had two ultimate goals. The first was to become the first Headmistress of Durmstrang, which she had attended for summer "camp" and for magical training at age eight before Hogwarts. The second, was to find her coward of a father, and kill him.

Chapter 1

"Draco," Blaise purred, smiling wickedly atop her `perch´ which just happened to be in mid-air above the bed in which Draco was sleeping, in the Slytherin Commons at 6 o´clock on an early Saturday in November.

Draco opened his eyes and swiped at her but he was too late. Blaise turned a somersault in midair and landed neatly on the edge of his bed, which only made him glare at her.

"Blaise darling, I really do love you, but just because you´re obsessed with me doesn´t give you the right to stalk me," he drawled lazily and smirked when her eyes gleamed black, the color that meant she was annoyed, and then changed back to their `normal´ dark brown.

It was Blaise´s turn to smirk. "Au contraire, mon cher, you fell asleep in her bed again." Blaise said, pointing to the lump beside him that was Pansy Parkinson. Blaise rolled her eyes, temporarily hiding them, and their color, from Draco´s view.

"Why do you insist on sleeping with that slut? She´s not pretty, and she´s the most annoying bitch I´ve ever met," Blaise went on calmly, while looking at her fingernails which were coloured the patriotic Slytherin green and silver.

"I only do it to make you jealous," he said smoothly

"Of course Draco baby, whatever you say." Blaise said, leaping off the bed.

Draco crept out of bed, although it didn´t really matter, as Pansy could sleep through a herd of rampaging Hippogriffs (obviously) and once they were out of earshot, Draco sighed.

"You know that she´s the only one my parent´s will let me have my way with, excepting yourself of course. It turns out that she´s the only one of pure enough blood. There´s a rumour about that those friends of hers, the twins. Apparently they had a father who wasn´t their mother´s husband, so who knows where they came from! Basically that leaves you, Pansy, and Millicent. Since Millicent is built like a female version Crabbe and Goyle, the only one left is Pansy.

At that Blaise smirked again, but didn´t comment.

After deciding to breakfast without Crabbe and Goyle, Malfoy´s two goons, Draco and Blaise wandered down to the Great Hall. It was there that Blaise was presented with a luminous gold envelope as well as another plain envelope both transported to her by her faithful owl Rangi. She chose to read the plain one first. It was from her friend Anna at Durmstrang.

Blaise,

I´m writing to you with troubling news. Remember Madrigal the girl I´m always writing to you about? The slut that rolls around with half the guys here? Well thank god for me the slimy little temptress is moving. Unfortunately for you, she´s coming to Hogwarts. Good luck holding any guy around her. Watch your dragon friend´s back (or whatever else) around her. I´m sooo sorry for you! Anyway have you found out any more about your family? I hope so. Oh, and did you hear? Viktor (not Krum) asked me to this year´s Masquerade Ball! I´m so happy! Write me back soon!

-Anna

Blaise smiled. Anna might not exactly be the Slytherin aloof type like she was, but she could turn sadistic. Munching on her toast Blaise turned her attention to the second parcel.

Blaise´s golden letter read the following,

Ms. Blaise Zabini-Malfoy,

Seeing as you are a faithful and most gifted participant of our Summer Academy, it would be our pleasure to have you attend our annual Masquerade Ball this Christmas Eve at the Durmstrang School for the Dark Arts as the guest of our new Headmaster Soriesis Snape. Temporary rooming will be provided for both you and your date for the nights of December 23rd thru the 28th.

Blaise flipped it over but there was nothing on the back. With a carefree wave of her hand she nonchalantly handed the letter over to Draco to read. When he had finished Blaise´s eyes turned purple, meaning she was excited. Her look gave Draco the shivers. She was going to taunt him now.

"So Draco, I suppose you´re very upset now that you have not been a "faithful and gifted participant of Durmstrang´s Summer Academy, are you not?"

Draco only snorted, and although Blaise shot him a `look´ her eyes still stayed purple, without a hint of red in them.

"Luckily for you, I am graciously permitting you to accompany me as my date," she smiled primly.

"According to that letter I´m related to you," he said prissily back, "so that rules me out."

Blaise sighed in impatience. "You know as well as I that your father needed to enroll me under his name instead of mine, seeing as my bastard of a father ran off leaving me with no way to enroll into the damned place!"

Her eyes had turned blood red by now. "When I am Headmistress of that place, there will be no cursed rule that says that only your paternal lineage must check out! She hissed.

Draco squeezed her hand tightly for a moment, then let go. Blaise was so startled that her eyes changed abruptly from red to their passive dark brown. Even though she and Draco were close friends, even by Slytherin standards, neither of them were exactly the touchy-feely type.

She looked up to the Head table to see if any of the teachers had seen the little incident, but the only teacher who seemed to have noticed was Snape, who now walked towards them. But Blaise wasn´t worried. Although Snape had never really seemed to care one way or the other about her, he seemed to put Draco on a pedestal, and it was common fact that he always favored the Slytherins.

She was right, there was nothing to fear. Snape actually smiled, a look that made his face look twisted and said, "It´s good to see my two Sixth year prefects conferring about important matters, ten points to Slytherin!" And he walked away.

Suddenly noticing the time, Draco said "Blaise, it´s seven, come on!"

It had become a weekly thing. Every Saturday, no later than 7:15, Blaise and Draco could be found in the library, racking through the shelves once again for any book that might show Slytherin or pureblooded lineage, which might solve the mystery as to Blaise´s family. A project that they had started that summer at Malfoy Manor. Usually hardly anyone was there at that early hour, but today Pansy Parkinson had found her way down there, whilst looking for Draco.

"Draco!" She whined, "Where were you this morning? When I got up you were gone! Didn´t you have fun last night?..."

At this point Blaise decided to leave. seeing Pansy trying to act "sexy" was just sickening.

A little while later Blaise found herself back near the Great Hall.

As Blaise turned to go in to see if anyone interesting was there, she ran right into Snape and a petite girl with dark hair and bright green eyes. Surprisingly the girl looked rather like Blaise.

"Ah, Zabini. I´ve been looking for you. This is Madrigal, she´s just been sorted into Slytherin. She´ll be a Sixth year, and share your dormitory."

Blaise felt a color change come on and quickly pretended to sneeze so that she could hide her eyes. She didn´t particularly feel like telling the new girl or Snape for that matter, why her eyes had turned color.

Blaise smiled up an Snape. "Don´t worry, I´ll show her everything she needs to know about the best house in the school." she said, knowing it would please him. Even Blaise wasn´t above sucking up. Especially to someone who awarded points freely.

"Now now Miss Zabini, every house has their particular er...traits. And supposedly all of them are," he sneered. "Good."

Blaise smirked back "Yes Sir, of course."

"Well that´ll be 20 points to Slytherin for your excellent role modeling Zabini." Snape said, as he walked away.

"Whoa," said Madrigal, smiling prettily "You really know how to play him!"

"No," Blaise said. "He just uses any excuse to give we Slytherins house points."

As they walked down the corridor, Blaise couldn´t help but think that Anna might be wrong about Madrigal. She seemed nice enough anyway. And she was sharper than the twins, Millicent, or Pansy who currently shared Blaise´s dorm.

They continued to the dorms, Blaise pointing out certain objects or passages to Madrigal. She stopped when they came to Moaning Myrtle´s bathroom. It had been Blaise´s misfortune to end up there on her first day of class, she didn´t want Madrigal to make the same mistake.

As they approached the bathroom, Blaise pointed to it and said,

"This is Moaning Myrtle´s bathroom. She´s a ghost. She was cry-baby Hogwarts student fifty years ago when the Chamber of Secrets was first opened. She died at the hands of the monster within. Don´t be fooled though, she really is a fright."

They cautiously entered the bathroom and approached the stall from which voices sounds of weeping could be clearly heard.

"You´re so cruel Peeves! What a nasty creature you are! Shouldn´t ghosts ally together? Just because I happened to be in the Prefects bathroom while Harry Potter was taking a bath doesn´t mean I fancy him!"

At this Blaise snickered, and even Madrigal snorted, knowing full well who Harry Potter was.

"What´s that who´s there?" Peeves erupted from Myrtle´s stall with a crash, while Myrtle herself it seemed, had again fled to her quiet home in the U-bend of her toilet.

"Er hullo Peeves it´s Blaise, the Slytherin?" She told him. The Slytherin house and Peeves were on quite good terms seeing as their house ghost was the Bloody Baron. "This is Madrigal, another Slytherin," she informed him.

"Peeves?" inquired Madrigal, looking thoughtful, "You wouldn´t happen to know a Peevers in Bulgaria would you?"

Peeves´ eyes widened, he looked astonished. "Yes, yes that´s my brother Ma´am! We both died the same year. Him from the cold up there, or so they claim, and me, well that´s another story!"

Madrigal left the encounter quite triumphant, though Blaise couldn´t imagine why. They finally found their way into the commons and through to the Sixth Year Girls dormitory, where Pansy seemed to be shouting at one of the twins for stealing some sort of cosmetics. Apparently neither seemed intelligent enough to remember the charm for it.

Blaise tried to yell over the shouting to introduce Madrigal, but soon gave up. She sighed and decided instead to point out the girls to Madrigal from the doorway.

"The one who just threw the hurling hex is Pansy, The first twin, the one on the right is Poinsettia, and the one on the left is Holly. Their mother´s an Herbologist, and their birthday´s on Christmas if you hadn´t figured that out. They´re all right I guess, just kind of stupid. Pansy´s snotty though. Sort of a bitch. And the other girl, Millicent, she´s not here right now, but she´s more male than female and doesn´t really talk to anyone so you can ignore her," Blaise promptly shut the door just as a HUFO (heavy unidentified flying object) crashed into it.

"So," Madrigal said, turning to Blaise, seemingly unaffected by the scene in the dormitory. "It seems as if you don´t care for any of them, she jerked her head back to the room, "So who are your friends? Older girls?"

Blaise shrugged. "I really have only one friend, we grew up together. His name´s Draco. He´ll be in the boy´s dorm. I´m assuming he´s returned because Pansy´s back.

"Oh," said Madrigal "Are they together?"

"No," Blaise said, unaffected, "she might like him, but he´s only sleeping with her."

By this point the two girls were about to knock at the door of Draco´s room when they heard a grunt, then another.

Blaise sighed, and started to pull at the knob "I´d better make sure everything´s alri-" Blaise stopped short and quickly closed the door behind her.

"Draco´s not there," Blaise said shortly and hurried down the hall towards the library leaving Madrigal running to catch up and wondering what had jolted Blaise so badly.

The introduction went well for Draco and Madrigal, but Blaise felt her eyes turn a jealous green color when she first saw Draco look at Madrigal. It was true, Madrigal was a beauty, and not unlike Blaise herself, she was petite and dark-haired. But Draco and Madrigal seemed to get along a little too well. Even though, Blaise admitted, he did have a right to someone besides Pansy. But why did Madrigal have to be so pretty?

The next 24 hours went by pleasantly enough. Madrigal didn´t submit to any behavior which Blaise could use to validate what she´d heard about Madrigal´s reputation at Durmstrang.

Madrigal proved to be an average student. She barely managed to transform her fish into a rock (it still had gills) and she dehydrated her Anheuro plant in Herbology (but they only had an hours lifespan anyway) Potions it seemed, was her best subject. She didn´t quite meet what Blaise could do, but she coped quite well all the same.

When Snape announced that Blaise and Madrigal were to work together, Draco looked to Blaise so desperately that it almost made Blaise smile. Although Draco was praised by their Head of House for his adept skill in the art of potions making, in truth it was Blaise who was the genius behind these well-formulated concoctions.

Of course Draco most likely would have gotten along without Blaise´s help, needless to say he was relieved when Neville was chosen to be his partner. It was so much easier to not work and make Neville take the blame.

The days went on and the hours went by quickly for Blaise who, as a Prefect had certain duties to attend to other than her schoolwork. It seemed that with two other friends to turn to she was never alone. Although she was frightened one day by an owl from her Godfather Lucius.

Blaise,

Please remember that as a member of this household you are entitled to certain privileges. My son is as well, but do not forget, nor fail your duty above all to me, your lineage, and your noble house of Slytherin.

I look forward to seeing you and your date at the Durmstrang occasion held partially in your honor . No doubt my employer will arrange to meet you this summer, so make sure you prepare for the interview,

Always,

Lucius.

Although the letter was coded, Blaise understood the underlying meaning. As a safety precaution, neither Draco nor Blaise had thought it prudent to inform Madrigal with their current standing according to the Dark Lord.

One evening in late November, while roaming the dungeons as part of her Prefect duties, Blaise heard voices. She followed them to a statue of a humped witch, where, it seemed, a person had just crawled out of.

Whomever it was, they were clearly with Professor Snape. Seeing as it was under control, Blaise went back to pacing the corridors.

About twenty minutes later Blaise heard a scream. Rushing out to the source of the anguished cry, the abandoned room near where she attended Potions class. Staring, her black eyes wide with shock, Blaise saw her a woman look as if she was about to be beaten to death by Snape who was menacingly holding a club right above her head. The woman screamed again, blind with panic. Here stood Blaise´s Godmother, Narcissa Malfoy.