The Life and Times of a Girl Named Blaise Zabini

Chapter 10

Notation: [...] means the words are being spoken in Elvish

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"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!!! WHY DIDN’T ANYBODY WAKE ME UP?!? I’M GONNA BE SO LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE!!!"

This delightful deluge of deafening disharmony was brought to the Slytherin dormitories by the letters "O" and "W".

Even as she seemed to blur in her speeding dash out of bed, through the sixth-year girls’ dorm room, and into the common girls’ bathroom, Blaise had the time to think ‘Is it just me, or did I sound disturbingly like the dubbed version of Tsukino Usagi? I need to cut back on my Anime intake during the summers...’

Shortly after the passage of the mini-cyclone that was better known as Blaise, several sleepy heads poked out of the seven rooms that held varying quantities of occupants. One of said persons stomped out of her room, down the hall, and yelled into the bathroom, "Damnit, Zabini, it’s *Saturday*! Cork it before I hex you six ways from Sunday!"

There was a sheepish pause, and then a muttered "Byte me, pug-butt. And the name's GREEN! *grumble-mumble* Nitwit."

Silence reigned again in the Slytherin dormitories for all of five minutes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sighing, Blaise leaned back on the main door into the bathroom. It was hardly remarkable that she had forgotten what day it was, considering both how late she had returned to her bed, as well as how wired she had been after the discussions both with Draco and Ginny, and the later one with Haldir.

She really needed to use the lack of exams this year to her advantage and find a solution to her elven friend’s problem...

No matter how tiring her stint as a wall decoration had been, she generally felt an increase in energy whenever she dropped her glamour for short periods of time. This she attributed to the sudden freeing of previously in-use magicks, and her lack of long-time exposure to those changes. Her father had assured her that she would get used to it in a few more years, but until then...fidgeting Blaise with the heebie- jeebies that left her itching to do something with her hands, so she had ended up crocheting a neckerchief for Delai in Slytherin green that really brought out the blue in the cat’s eyes.

Pushing herself upright and off the door, Blaise walked in the general direction of the shower stalls, then changed her mind and headed for the bathtubs because, now that she thought about it, her muscles seemed to be a bit more achy than usual, which she supposed wasn’t surprising considering the exercise she had gotten the night before. Oddly enough, her pajama pants and t-shirt seemed to be awkward that morning, and her... er, chest extensions (Breasts. Boobs. Knock yourself out) were bothering her more than was precedented. However, her sudden change in direction had her facing a bank of floor-to-ceiling mirrors along one of the walls, which was usually used by overly-snooty girls for primping.

Blaise stopped in her tracks.

She stared.

And then, for the second time since the sun had risen, she screamed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco ignored the blaring sirens that had gone off upon his entrance of the corridor leading to the girls’ dorms, pushing and shoving his way through the crowd of gossipy females choking the hallway. Once having gained entrance to the lavatory (after plenty of yelling and smacking the hand of the overly-grabby cow that was better known as Pansy Parkinson, who, by the way, looked horrid first thing in the morning), the young man sometimes called (behind his back, by Gryffindors) the Slytherin Prince stopped and stared at his life-long friend.

After cautiously making his way across the room, he noticed in the mirror that her lips were moving slightly, and managed to here the steady but quiet mutterings of "It’s not me...It’s not me..."

Draco paused, trying to figure out how best to approach this. While doing so, he took note of the changes in the eleth’s appearance.

First off, even with her slumped kneeling on the ground, he could tell she had gotten taller, as in she had gained at *least* a foot in height, meaning they were now about the same height, though she might well have achieved something she had been threatening him with since he had gone through his first growth spurts of puberty: she could be taller than him.

Second, her hair, which had before been about down to her knees, was now about mid-thigh, which looked rather nice on her. Blaise was not, however, likely to appreciate this, considering how long she had worked to get her hair that long.

Third, well...To put it delicately, she had gone from looking pretty and cute, in a pixyish sort of way, to looking like a muggle super model. ...Correction, she looked like what even the most lovely of those anorexic twits *wished* they looked like.

To put it indelicately, umm, YOW.

What Blaise would look like without the glamour which Draco now knew was there was not something the Malfoy heir really wanted to think about.

...

Yes, she was drop-dead gorgeous, but she was also his best friend and sister figure. He did not want to be thinking less-than-platonic thoughts about someone he had known since they had both been in diapers.

Cleanthoughtscleanthoughtscleanthoughts...

Well, there was always that nice dream he’d had last night that involved Ginny in a rather lovely, if old-fashioned, gown...

...

Ah, he felt much better now.

Having decided upon a suitable approach when dealing with an emotionally distraught practically-a-sister best friend, Draco finally knelt down on the tiled floor in front of Blaise, sitting up a bit taller just to make sure she couldn’t see much, if any, of her reflection. Leaning forward into her personal space, she stared into her chocolate-brown eyes, normally warm and resembling that particular sweet treat in melted form, but now still and emotionless, except for the look of shock buried deep in their depths. Bumping his forehead lightly against hers, he continued staring into her eyes as she finally came out of her stupor.

"Hey," Draco offered, smiling slightly at the first signs of consciousness on her face as she came to herself.

Blaise smiled weakly and whispered hoarsely, "hey..." She frowned, than said, her voice a touch stronger now, "What are you doing in here?"

"Well," Draco drawled, leaning back slightly so she didn’t have to smell too much of his morning breath, which he absently noticed, though irritably, that she did not possess (morning breath, not a lack of ability to smell...Oh, you know what I meant...), continuing with "There was something with a certain inconsiderate ninny screaming like a bloody banshee at eight in the morning on a Saturday, and I happen to consider said ninny a friend, so I was contractually obligated to see to it that she be brought to her senses." Here he gave an overly-dramatic sniff, and said, "You do realize you owe me for braving that hoard of raging hormones you call dorm mates, do you not?"

This last comment earned him a sarcastic smirk, a playful whap upside the head, and a cooing, "Aw, poor baby! Did ickle Drakie-dums get gwope-ed? Let Bwaisie kiss ums and make oo feel better!"

What followed was a playful and hyperactive game of tag on the floor, Blaise giving Draco loud, wet zerbits on any exposed skin she could reach every time she caught him, which would be reciprocated by Draco mussing her hair.

(A. N.: For those poor deprived souls out there who do not know what a zerbit is (pronounced as spelled: ZER-BIT), a zerbit is when you press your open, or at least half-open, mouth against exposed skin on another person, and blow. It should sound like either an elephant trumpeting, blowing a raspberry, or a mixture of the two. Popular zerbitting places are the belly, or the side of a person’s neck. Zerbitting a person’s neck has the added appeal of looking like you’re necking the person, but in actuality you’re just being silly.)

Their antics were finally interrupted by the not overly-loud clearing of a Potion Master’s throat.

...

Yeah, it sounded pretty much like that...

"Mister Malfoy, Miss Green," Severus Snape, Head of Slytherin House, drawled in that way that was somewhere between murmuring and purring and, well, there really wasn’t a word for the tone of voice he was using, but it was quite effective for making rule-breakers feel sheepish and/or embarrassed out of their minds.

This particular tone of voice usually simply amused Blaise and Draco, because they were rarely (or in Blaise’s case, never) on the receiving end. Draco wasn’t looking particularly amused at the moment, but Blaise was still slightly buzzed from their happy frolic into what was left of their childhood and didn’t seem to give a flying fit of flatulence, cheerfully humming the English dubbed version of the Sailor Moon theme song.

Professor Snape finally noticed that the female contingent within the room was apparently not paying attention, and said in an even more silky tone, "Miss Green, I do hope you have been listening..."

Blaise nodded perkily and chirped, "You said that Draco shouldn’t have entered the girls’ section of the dorms, and that we were acting silly in a manner that did not befit people our age- which is rather fatuous, really, considering we’re still children and should be getting the most out of our childhood and good stuff like that -and you mentioned that Parkinson’s getting all cranky and possessive about Draco, which isn’t healthy, by the by, and I rather suspect that she is acting like a total bi-"

"That is quite enough, Miss Green," Snape finally interjected, sweatdropping at his star pupil’s apparent ability to rant on and on and on without stopping to breathe.

That, and he felt a distinct urge to run and find a dictionary so he would know what the word "fatuous" meant.

(A. N.: "Fatuous" means "to display a complete lack of forethought". Blaise knows her thesaurus quite well, doesn’t she? =^_^;=)

Shortly thereafter, after Professor Snape finally cleared the crowds away, Draco and Blaise got up off the floor, confirming the fact that, yes, Blaise was now taller than Draco, by about two inches.

(Draco’s Note: "DAMNIT!!!" >_<* )

(Blaise’s Note: "Yippee, I’m all tall and Elf-like now!" ^_^ )

Shortly thereafter, Draco pointed out that Blaise’s previously-comfy- and-loose pajamas were now, well, not. Then he made a comment about how he did not understand her previous reputation for potential evil, when she slept in such ridiculous clothes.

This was followed by a whap upside the head from Blaise to Draco, the former hissing at the latter the phrase, "I *know* you didn’t just mock my kitty jammies!"

Shortly thereafter, Blaise was directed to the seventh-year girls’ dorm to ask to borrow some clothes until she could acquire some new ones of her own, Draco firmly maneuvered back to the boys’ dormitories. After coming to the conclusion that all of the seventh-year girls were either too short or too skinny, Blaise ended up borrowing a t-shirt, socks and a pair of jeans from Millicent, though the shirt was a bit shorter than Blaise would have preferred (Ah, the curse of being tall...Darnit, why couldn’t the stupid uber-growth spurt have shown up during the summer?!) and she ended up conceding defeat and wearing the pants low on her hips, a style she found silly, though it was that or...well, they just wouldn’t go up any higher, really. Millicent was shorter than her now, though not by too much, but enough for sharing clothes to be inconvenient. Shoes were taken care of with a minor growth charm on Blaise’s beloved ankle-boots, an issue that had Blaise near tears because the footwear were new, and she rather liked the style.

Undergarments...were awkward. Let’s just say that the elven princess had a wedgie up her royal rear, and she had to settle for an ill-fitting sports bra.

Now to get permission from Dumbledore to go into Hogsmeade on a unscheduled day...

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Blaise had made it from her shared room in the Slytherin dormitories to the gargoyle that watched over the entrance to the Headmaster’s office miraculously unseen, though it had been a bit of a close call when she had almost run smack-dab into a cluster of gossiping Ravenclaws. She had barely escaped by jumping up ten feet and latching onto the outside of the main staircase leading up from the Entrance Hall.

That was fun, actually, but the little twits made her reevaluate her assumption that she would have done better in Ravenclaw. She wouldn’t want to be *that* oblivious. And, for all that Hufflepuffs had the bad reputation for gossiping, what she overheard those Ravenclaws said that clearly, brains didn’t make you immune to hormone-driven inanity.

Anyway, here she was, outside Dumbledore’s office and rattling off the names of every sweet she could think of, rocking back and forth on her feet idly. She had already gotten all the way through the various wizarding treats, and was now sing-songing out more mundane goodies.

"Lemon drops...Milky Way...Three Musketeers...brownies...nougat (Mmm, nougat)...Ding-Dongs...Ho-Hos...cup cakes...chocolate-covered pretzels ...ice cream...Umm...Twizlers Pull-and-Peal...?"

She blinked as the gargoyle moved, revealing the moving staircase behind.

"Huh."

Shrugging, Blaise lightly hopped onto the in-motion steps, bouncing idly in place, then leapt across that last few feet between the top of the stairs and the doorway. On any day before this, she probably would have run the risk of having a klutz attack and falling back down the stairs, but it seemed her sudden growth had helped cut that back. Therefore, she only over-balanced and had to pinwheel her arms for a few seconds before regaining her footing. That settled, she tugged down on her loaned shirt one last time to try to get it down to her waist, then opened the door.

Sashaying into the room, she did a little twirl and then gracefully plunked herself down in one of the comfy chairs situated in front of the Headmaster’s desk. She directed an amused smirk at the equally amused twinkly blue eyes set behind gold-rimmed half-moon spectacles.

"Twizlers, Albus?"

Dumbledore’s Twinkle Factor jumped up a few more notches as he chuckled, then reprimanded her with, "I do recall asking you to refer to me in a more formal manner when here at the school, Miss Green."

"Pft," Blaise said, waving her hand dismissively even as she re-situated herself so she was seated a bit more properly, as all good little princesses are taught to do. "Albus, let me remind you of something. My sister was one of your teachers, and I’ve known you since the day I was born. As long as nobody who doesn’t already know those little tidbits of information is in the room, I could call you Rainbow Santa if I wanted." She paused here, looking a bit wary. "Not that I would, of course, because my sister would smack me upside the head the next time we see each other if I did, and you can be damn scary when you want to be."

Albus merely smiled.

Blaise fidgeted a bit.

Dumbledore finally cleared his throat and said, "What can I do for you, Blaise?"

The girl immediately perked up and said, "Oh! Could you just sign some little doohicky-paper-thing that says I can do magic outside of school and that the Ministry can go stuff themselves, because that would be really cool...And you meant something legal, didn’t you? ...Damnit. Umm, well, you know, ‘hello growth spurt’ and that sort of thing, and I sorta-kinda really *need* to get some new clothes, so a pass to go to Hogsmeade would be neat...Please. ...Okay, I’m shutting up..."

Blaise slumped down in her chair, her face red in embarrassment.

Dumbledore merely smiled at her, then took a blank slip of parchment from a small stack on his desk, dipped a quill into a pot of his habitual green ink, and the room was filled with the quiet skritch- scratch of a quill writing on parchment, along with the quiet whirring of the various unidentified doohickeys scattered around the chamber.

After about a minute of this, Blaise finally got over her embarrassment and sat up in her chair, curious. The Headmaster finally finished whatever he was writing, cast a small charm to quickly dry the ink, and handed it over to Blaise, who perked up considerably at the sight of the requested pass into the village. She was confused, however, by the amendment that *two* students could leave school grounds.

She looked up, eyes questioning.

Albus nodded slightly at the parchment, and said, "I thought you might prefer to take Miss Weasley along to help carry back your no doubt numerous packages."

This was answered with a high-pitched squeal of happiness, a hug, and a victorious whoop as Blaise tore around the room, culminating with her leaping from the open office doorway, to the foot of the steps, whereupon she tore off down the corridor, heading for the Great Hall to collect some breakfast and the youngest Weasley.

Dumbledore shook his head in bemusement even as he automatically straightened his hat back into place and smoothed his beard down.

Elessario was most assuredly her mother’s daughter, if a tad more energetic than the anthropomorphic manifestation of death.

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Silence slowly crept across the Great Hall upon Blaise’s entrance until the only sounds were that of occasional whispers. There were a whole host of expressions on the various faces. Blaise ignored it all as she strolled down the Slytherin side of the room, finally stopping near her usual seat just long enough to chug back some milk, snag a blueberry muffin with some bacon, then lean over and whisper something to Draco, to which he responded by simply nodding and turning back to his own breakfast. It was about then that the eleth realized that the vast majority of the hall was staring at her.

"What the bloody-flippin’-heck are you all staring at?!" she snarled in a tone of voice that carried throughout the hall without straining her throat (all hail voice lessons!), which sent her schoolmates scurrying back to their food and conversations, although there was still the occasional furtive glance at her.

Shaking her head in annoyance, Blaise set to work demolishing her food as she made her way over to the Gryffindor table, which got her even more looks, many of them hostile. Oddly enough, the Gryffindor boys didn’t seem to mind her sudden presence in their midst. Of course, that was likely because they were male and she looked like something out of a teen fashion magazine, but we can hope that they were better than that.

Not bloody likely, but we can hope.

"Good morning, Weasel-boy, Scarhead and Curlytop! I was going to ask if I could borrow Virginia, but, since she’s my friend and you don’t own her, I think I’ll just kidnap her and be off! Ta-ta!" Blaise waved cheerfully as Ginny curiously got up from her seat at the table. The Dream Team looked positively confused, which was amusing in its way.

"Blaise, where are we going?" Ginny finally voiced as the two girls headed for the main doors out of the hall.

"Shopping! There’s this whole thing with an uber-annoying magical growth spurt and me not wanting to go around in Millicent’s clothes longer than necessary, and Dumbledore gave me a permission slip. Come on, it’ll be fun! I can spoil you rotten with some spiffy new things, and you can help me fit some colors that aren’t blue or green into my wardrobe!"

Ginny froze in shock for about a minute, trying to absorb the new information, then tore off out of the Hall to catch up with Blaise. The older girl was already out the main door and halfway down the steps by the time the redhead pulled even.

"Blaise, I can’t accept your charity. It goes against everything my parents have taught me!"

Blaise stopped half-way down the path to the school’s gate, sighed, and turned around to face her friend.

"And those are very good lessons, but Gin, I grew up thinking my sister was my mother. I essentially, for the majority of my life, have never had *any* siblings, or cousins, or anything like that. All of my nephews died a long time ago. Until I find a way to Valinor, the only family I have are my parents, my aunts and uncles on Mum’s side, and my cousin Orpheus, none of which I see all that often. Because I don’t have any little brothers or sisters to spoil, I generally treat my friends to things every once in a while. Ask Draco; we’ve done that for each other dozens of times. The same goes for my friend Lina from school before Hogwarts." Blaise smiled slightly, then continued.

"I see this as a way for us to get to know each other, just us girls. As for money...Well, let’s just say Dalla had enough stashed away to keep me well-off for a few centuries, and that is if I don’t work and spend a whole lot."

At Ginny’s incredulous look, Blaise shrugged and said, "Dalla and Daddy have never been much of big spenders; with Dad, he usually only buys things if he can’t harvest or make it himself just as well or better."

Ginny’s incredulous _expression now more resembled the face of a dying carp. "Where in the world did they *get* that sort of money?!"

Blaise smiled wryly and said, "Absent-minded collecting of coins and trinkets over ten millennia, along with investing in some of the earlier banks on a lark. Though you will have to remind me to tell you about this one time when Dalla and her sons tricked a Sheik into giving them a hundred bags of gold coins some time."

Blaise then strolled down the path to the village, whistling the melody to "Dancing Queen" as she dragged her Gryffindor gal-pal along after her.

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Author’s Notes: *squeal of hyperactive fangirl joy!*

I got this entire thing written in less than two days! Go me! *does Happy Fish on Tuesday Dance* And just in time for my birthday on the sixth, too!

*twirls about like a loon*

Happy Early Birthday to me, Happy Early Birthday to me, Happy Early Birthday to me~~e, Happy Early Birthday to me!

*huggle-glomps her muse, teary-eyed*

I love you so much! *sniffle!*

Aaaaaaaaaaanyhoot, thanks go out to you, the readers, for keeping me smiling with your reviews and such.

*hint-hint!*

Special thanks go to Rhonda-sensei, as always, for keeping my spirits up when I’m stuck in the Quagmire of Writer’s Block, as well as keeping me grounded in my logic with your utter lack of it at times. *Hug!*

Forever and always, thanks also go out to you, the readers and webmasters/ webmistresses who read and host my stories. Specific thanks go out to my wonderful reviewers for this chapter:

Jaya- Naturally. Besides, what fun is the easy path, anyway? Easy is for puny addle-pated twits.

=~_^=

Thank you, I thought chapter nine was rather nice myself, particularly the "Fallen" scene, although I find it hard to believe that you almost forgot about my story in only a little over two months.

As for your final comment: No to the first, and yes, quite, to the third. Oh, and an evil smirk because I know something you don’t know, although you’re picking up hints far better than some people.

*playful ribbing at a certain Potter-obsessed someone named Sushinase*

horse head- Thank you! I like Elessi-chan too!

As for the story being confusing at times, well, the majority of it so far *has been* directed towards explaining what has happened before the story began, as well as various relationships between the characters, and giving hints at how they might develop. I don’t find it confusing, but that might just be me. Or maybe you should try reading the stories this one is based upon; have you read Neil Gaiman’s "The Sandman" series? If not, maybe that’s what has you confused. Otherwise, I can’t think of anything.

La loba- Thanks for reviewing again, loba-san, and yes, I knew about that other name for good-ole Mama Earth; Blaise’s comment on Arda and Middle-Earth were mainly a way to reiterate the fact that, for this story at least, Middle-Earth, the War of the Rings, and all that good stuff, are a part of the characters’ past. For them, it happened, even though most of them don’t know it.

Definition to the random Elvish term that showed up this chapter: Eleth= Elf Lady. I think... I’m reasonably certain. That’s the context I’ve seen others use it in.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ve got an idea for another one-shot to explain some more of Blaise and her family’s past, but it will focus on Dalla and her sons more than anything, so sorry for all of my fellow Legolas fans out there.

Ja mata ne!

-- Rosy the Cat ([email protected])

10-2-03

P.S.: Squee! This chapter’s 3685 words long, and that’s not including the Author’s Notes! *sniff!* I feel so accomplished!