Resolving

Chapter Four

A Life Changing Occurrence

August went by quickly, and Blaise woke up the day before he was due to go to Hogwarts, only to have it hit him all of a sudden that he had not packed. He jumped out of bed and started to rummage through his dresser drawers, throwing clothing and undergarments onto his bed, as another realization hit him.

"Oh shit," Blaise said, staring at the large mound of clothing. "I have no trunks."

When he had left England five years ago, it was with as much money as he could carry and a small duffel bag of clothing. Over the years, he'd had to abandon several apartments and wardrobes as he either pursued a Death Eater or was pursued himself. He'd left his belongings where they had been at Hogwarts and he assumed they were still there, unless they'd let students back in those rooms. The memory of first getting into those chambers washed over him and then it was gone, fleeting as the breeze that brushed his hair from his brow.

He kicked his nightstand and then hopped for a moment, having jammed his toe. "Where do you even get trunks?" he muttered. He'd never bought his own things. When his parents had bought his school supplies all he had done was go to get measured for clothing and the rest had just appeared--as if by magic--in his room the day before he'd had to leave.

Grabbing a pair of pants and a shirt, he went to the kitchen and maneuvered around his new table and chairs to make a quick breakfast sandwich. He ate it quickly and guzzled a cup of coffee before grabbing his coat and some money and Apparating to Zabini Manor.

As soon as he appeared there, something small and smelling of potato peelings rammed into his legs and he fell right onto his back. Soon after that, he heard running steps and someone came into the room, yelling.

"Atton if you do not get back here with that peeler I swear you are going to - oh, hello Blaise." His sister smiled at him and swept her slightly sweat-soaked bangs from out of her eyes. She peeled his small nephew--who was squealing, "Noooo! I don't wanna give it back! Uncle Blaise, save me!"--off of him and gave him a glare that caused the small boy's mouth to snap shut and his eyes to widen. Zel looked back at Blaise. "So what brings you back to our neck of the woods?"

"I just wanted to know if you know where it is you buy trunks," he replied. "I've got to pack to go to Hogwarts and I realized I don't have any luggage."

"What about all your things from New York?" Zel asked. "Didn't you bring those over?"

He shrugged. "Sold most of them, or gave them to Goodwill. Kept my favorite clothing items, some of the other things. Muggles, I might add, have the best aftershave I have ever encountered. Trunks, Zel. Trunks."

She laughed. "Right. Madame Malkin's has them."

Blaise grinned. "Thanks Zel, you're a lifesaver." He leaned over and kissed her cheek, ruffled Atton's hair and Apparated to Diagon Alley.

Appearing in the Leaky Cauldron, he stumbled a bit and an arm appeared to steady him. "Thank you," he said, turning to see who it was.

Hannah Abbott stood there, smiling at him. "Hi, Blaise."

Blaise coughed nervously and tugged his collar. "Hi, Hannah. It's, uh, been a while."

She laughed. "Yes. Five years is a long time, Blaise."

"Yes. Yes, it is. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to write to you, Hannah. Really, I am, and I hope you will forgive me." He felt his skin heat up mildly and then fade back to his normal cool countenance.

Hannah patted his arm gently. "Blaise, it's all right. I forgave you years ago. I realized you had to go, because otherwise you would've stayed. You're just that kind of a guy." She blushed suddenly and giggled nervously. "Besides, if you had stayed I'd never have gotten to know Dean as well as I did." She held out her left hand and with her right, drew aside her cloak to show her very swollen stomach. "We've been married for two and a half years now, and I'm due in three months."

Blaise grinned at her. "Congratulations," he said to her. He leaned over and hugged her quickly. "It was great to catch up, Hannah, and I'm sorry to rush but I'm in a great hurry. I'll write to you sometime, all right?"

"All right, Blaise." She smiled at him and returned his hug. "See you!"

He waved to her and made his way back to the room of trash cans. Tapping the bricks impatiently, he tapped his foot as he waited for the entrance to form. As soon as it did, he proceeded through it and wove his way through the crowd towards Madame Malkin's.

A bell rang over the top of the doorway when he went in. The place seemed smaller than it had before, dingier even. The large woman behind the counter bustled over to him and smiled widely. "Hello! What can I do for you? I'm Madame Malkin, at your service."

Blaise smiled back. "Blaise Zabini. I'm here to get a trunk or two. Probably two, depending on the size of your largest trunk, of course. I'm hoping to get 'Professor B. Zabini' embossed on the side, also, if you don't mind."

"Oh of course not," Madame Malkin said, her sharp eyes taking in every inch of him. "Though embossing is, of course, extra. Gertrude!" The head of a younger-than-middle-age woman appeared from the back room. "Please bring one of the largest trunks out so Mr. Zabini can assess it." Gertrude's head nodded and disappeared for a few minutes as Blaise stood awkwardly in the store, looking at the robes.

Belatedly, he realized he would need wizard's robes for teaching. Mentioning this to Madame Malkin, she called another of her assistants in and they took his measurements. He was assured that he would have three sets of robes right away, with the rest--he'd ordered twenty sets--arriving at Hogwarts within the fortnight. He chose the black robes that had discreet dark grey embroidery, the forest green robes that had golden brocade trim and a pair of robes that had a scarlet shirt and black pants with a black overrobe that was trimmed with sparse silver embroidery to be the ones he took with him and he took a seat while they were bringing the trunk out.

The trunk turned out to be too small to hold all his things, but Blaise examined it carefully and decided two of them would hold his clothes and books. He ordered two of them.

After being ushered to the counter and filled out the bills, he wrote out several instruction notes to the Gringotts goblins about paying Madame Malkin. He left the store towing both freshly-embossed trunks and holding his rush-made robes. Seeing that Florean Fortescue's was open again, he stopped in and sat down to have a sundae.

A flash of bright blonde hair caught his eye and he saw Lavender Brown rushing by only to stop at almost colliding with a person who had long black hair. "Parvati!" He heard Lavender say. He turned quickly so that his back was facing them, but so he could still hear them. "Parvati, of all the luck. I was just in Madame Malkin's and just guess who she said had just left not two seconds before I got there!"

"Ooh, who, Lavender?"

"Guess!" Lavender almost whined.

He heard Parvati dither around for a minute until finally saying, "I don't know. Who?"

Lavender took a deep breath, clearly relishing the moment. "None other that Himself!" He heard Parvati take in a sharp breath. "That's right. Blaise Zabini is back in town! He was just in there, ordering a ton of robes and two trunks." Parvati squealed.

"Oh my God! It's been five years!" She paused. "I wonder if Hermione knows...."

Blaise held his breath, waiting for Lavender's response. He didn't have to wait long. "Of course she does," Lavender said in a dismissing tone. "Question is, what have they been doing since he got back?" They giggled and their voices began to fade into the distance. Deciding he'd been in Diagon Alley long enough, he dug into his pockets and left a few Sickles on the table before grasping his new trunks and Apparating back to his apartment.

Once he was back, he pulled arranged the trunks so that he could easily pack. He put all his Muggle clothes on the bottom and carefully draped his robes over top the Muggle clothing.

After his clothing had all been packed, he went into the living room and packed all of his books, parchment, quills and ink up. Coincidentally, as he closed and locked the trunk, there was a knock on his door. Opening it, he saw Louise standing there.

"C'mon," she said grinning widely. "We're going out. Get your coat and keys." As soon as he did, she pulled him out of his apartment and they were down the hall and out of the door.

******

The next morning he woke up with a raging headache. He raised his left hand to his forehead and felt a cool substance. Lowering it, he saw a gold wedding ring on his third finger. He felt his mouth drop open a bit. Staring at Louise's sleeping form next to him, he saw a piece of paper on the nightstand on the other side of Louise. He reached over her and picked it up. The top of it read 'Marriage License'.

Looking around, he saw that the covers had been torn off the bed and clothes were strewn everywhere. He shifted slightly and Louise stretched out, yawning. He felt her hand on his bare back and turned to see her smiling sleepily at him.

"Good morning, darling. You were great," she said. "Really. Went on forever. Haven't had so much fun in ages."

"Louise," he said, surveying his room and seeing that his trunks were, in fact, still packed, "Did we get married?

The sleep left her eyes and she said, slowly, "I- I don't remember." She glanced down at her left hand. "I... I guess we did. I mean, we did have a lot to drink."

Blaise leaned back against the headboard. "Oh shit. I'm assuming we consummated it, due to the state of my room. Another question: are you on birth control?"

"No," Louise said, sitting up, giving him a puzzled look. "Why?"

Blaise gulped. "I'm not really well-versed in the male end of contraceptives," he said. "I've not had a very great deal of experience and I think last night I was drunk enough to forget everything I knew. Besides that, and I hate to ask this, even having had three sisters, but how long ago did you start your period?"

Louise stared at him, and her eyes unfocused for a moment as she thought. "Two weeks ago. Why?"

He clenched his hands to stop them shaking. "I don't really remember much about the female anatomy that I studied years ago, but from what I remember, ovulation takes place about two weeks after you start your period."

She leaned back against the headboard. "Oh shit."

"Yes." Blaise moved off the bed and picked up his underwear, pulling them on. He was about to say something else when there was a knock on the bedroom door. He walked over and opened it, surprised that someone would be there so early. "Zel? What are you doing here?"

Zel rubbed her temples for a moment before answering. "Fuck. So it wasn't a dream."

He felt any sort of gladness that came with his sister's arrival evaporate. "Zel, what's wrong?"

"Last night I got a Floo call from... someone, I forget who at the moment, who works with the district who said she saw you greasing the palm of some sort of crooked superintendent and being issued with a marriage license at four in the morning, whilst you were dead drunk. I Apparated over to stop you, but you'd already gone through the proper procedures. I got there in time to make sure you and your new bride got home without you giving her any... unpleasant surprises." She raised her eyebrows.

"I was that drunk?" he asked, feeling very, very shaken.

"You were drunker than Mum was at the family reunion in eighty-nine," she informed her. "Is Louise in there?"

"Yes, she's still in bed. Zel, what do I do? I can't tell her, I can't be married to her! I have to go to Hogwarts this afternoon, I can't handle this!" Blaise said, feeling the pinpoints of stress pricking into his neck and shoulders. "Why am I such an idiot? Why did I do this? When did I become so, so... irresponsible?"

Zel patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, brother dear, I'll take care of everything, okay?" She gave him a reassuring smile. "You will go back to Hogwarts and I'll take care of Louise. We'll find out what's the situation and then we'll resolve it, all right?"

He sighed deeply. "Thank you, thank you, thank you Zel." He hugged her tightly. "Have I told you how much I love you?"

"No. And by the way, you do owe me a lot now. I don't think you'll ever work through it," she told him, voice muffled. "Now let me go, I must speak to your wife."

He did, and she moved past him to go sit with Louise, who was now fully dressed. "Now, Louise," she said, "you understand Blaise cannot be married right now, it's just not possible."

Louise stared at her. "How can you say that? We were consenting, both of us! We signed the paper!" She looked at Blaise. "Is this what you were planning? Get married to me and then have your sister 'take care' of me and the whole thing?"

Blaise stared at her in shock. "No! It's just... well, I never planned on getting married to you. To anyone, really." He heard Zel snort. "Shut up. The point is, I'm not, well, I'm not ready!"

Louise glared at him. "And you think I am? I'm only twenty-six you know! What makes you think that I'm ready to be a mother? That is so typical of men, always assuming-"

"Both of you, shut up!" Zel said, giving them both glares. "Now, we don't know if your situation is that serious yet, Louise. Until we can be sure that you're... pregnant, let's not jump to conclusions. I am going to stay here with you and we will talk things over until we can really have suspicions that you are pregnant."

"Why can't we go to the doctor's now?" Louise asked frantically. "I mean, wouldn't it be best if we knew right away?"

Zel sighed. "Because you can't really tell if someone's pregnant until after they've missed their period and because the egg and sperm haven't fertilized until it's been at least twenty-four hours. Now, I will stay with you for two months and then we will go to the doctor's once we can have a very firm suspicion that you are, in fact, pregnant. If you are, we'll pay for anything you need." Blaise nodded as she gave them both a firm, level look. "Can we all agree on that?"

"Yes," Blaise and Louise replied.

"Good. But, hypothetically speaking, if you are, indeed, pregnant, Louise, what do you want to do? Are you going to keep it or are you going to have an abortion?" Blaise started to object at the last, but Zel gave him a look. "You got drunk, married her and slept with her," she told him. "This is her choice."

Louise looked uncomfortable as they both looked at her. "I don't want to have the baby if it's going to be born into a family that doesn't want it," she said.

"But I do want it!" Blaise exclaimed. Both Louise and Zel stared at him, vastly surprised.

"You do?" Louise asked him, while Zel just stared.

"I don't want to be married, but I do want this baby," he said, fidgeting a bit. Louise's expression changed a bit and she nodded after a moment.

"Well, then. I don't want this baby, but you do. You said you'd be willing to pay for everything?" Louise asked Zel.

Zel nodded. "Our family will pay for all the doctor's bills, everything. Anything you want us to pay for."

Louise's hand fluttered a bit as she placed it on her lower stomach. "Then, I'll have this baby. But I'm not going to keep it. I'm not ready to be a mother. It's yours, Blaise, but one other condition."

"Name it," he said, a bit eagerly.

She looked at him and she seemed a bit scared, nervous even. "I don't want a child now, but, if I ever want to see it, I'd like to be able to spend time with it."

Blaise nodded. "Absolutely, anytime."

Louise nodded slowly. "All right then. I'll be downstairs then." She stood up and walked out.

Back pressed up against the wall, he slid down and sat on the floorboards, face pressed into his hands. "I'm going to be a dad," he said, voice muffled.

"You don't know that," Zel told him.

"No, I don't," he replied, eyes appearing over the edge, "but I do sort of wish it."

She laughed. "You were always a very paternal sort." Her mouth twisted into a wry little smile. "Except, of course, with Georgio Vittornelli's son, Santino."

He groaned. "Don't remind me."

"You kicked that kid so hard he flew across the room," she went on, laughing. "Thank God he wasn't hurt, otherwise we'd be broke for how much Georgio would've sued us for."

"Oh shut up," Blaise said, laughing a bit himself. "You will write to me the instant you know, won't you?"

"Of course," Zel replied, smiling. "Unless of course I come to visit you instead."