Roommates

Twenty Five

During lunch the next day, Blaise looked around for Oddsbreath as the owls flew in, bearing mail for their owners. He spotted the barn owl amongst the last of the birds and hastily reached up for her as she came swooping in to settle on his arm. He fed her some scraps of lunchmeat as he took the letter from her and she pecked his fingers playfully for a moment before taking off.

He saw that the writing was his father's handwriting and ripped the envelope open carefully, making sure not to tear the contents, and unfolded the letter, reading quickly.

Dear Blaise,

I'm glad school's been good. It's only to be expected everyone would gossip about you and Hermione; I remember when I was a teenager and the "news to be heard" was that Arthur Weasley and Molly Prewett had avoided the groundskeeper once again. Clever boy, to be sure. Your mother and I always got caught.

I've heard the same rumors myself, though probably not from the same sources as yours. My sources (as you know) are a wee bit more reliable with their flow and content of information; housemates are more often just gossip mills--the juicier, the better, eh? I am curious about what you have to tell me that you can't repeat in a letter. But then, you are my son: paranoia runs rampant in this family, for some reason. And not for the worse, either, with the possibility of the Ministry searching everyone's mail. Face-to-face contact is best when sharing news that could be 'important'.

I can indeed tear myself from my latest project--Signor Montelli has hired me to discover why gnomes are so irritable and the historical reason for it. I wonder why his family allows him access to their vault anymore, with the ways he wastes their money (a coat woven entirely from the Veela hair, for instance), but I suppose because they have so much of it that it hardly matters.

I will see you tomorrow, one o'clock, at The Three Broomsticks. I will probably be sitting at the bar, but feel free to tear me away from Rosemerta to talk.

Say hello to Hermione and Severus for me.

Your father,

Zachary Zabini

Blaise folded his letter and walked over to Hermione as the bell rang for the start of classes. "He's coming tomorrow," he said quickly, before walking off to his first class, feeling better about what was in his head--for the time being, that is.

Classes went by in a blur, except for Potions, which seemed to take an age to end. At the end of the class, he relayed his father's greetings to Professor Snape, who glowered at Blaise and told him to hurry up and get out. But Blaise had not expected anything less from his teacher and he hurried along to his next class, thoughts swirling through his head about how he should relate to his father the details that were so painful and yet satisfying to know, after years of doubt and disguised hatred and barely veiled animosity.

He was sitting on a couch, absently sucking on the end of a Sugar Quill when Hermione came into their chambers.

"Blaise. Blaise? Blaise!" Hermione said, finally waving a hand in front of his face to get his attention.

"What?" He shook his head, blinking. "Oh. Sorry, Hermione. Lost in thought, you see."

"I saw," she said, smiling at him and sitting on a chair opposite him. "So...you lost me this morning. Who's coming tomorrow?"

"I didn't tell you?" Blaise frowned. "I wrote to my dad yesterday, telling him I had to tell him something--about Lilithe, you see--and that I couldn't do it through a letter. So I got a letter back from him and he said he's coming tomorrow and we can talk then. I'm going to meet him at The Three Broomstick tomorrow to talk."

Hermione leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. "Have I ever told you that you have the most twisted family dynamics of anyone I know? Even more so than the Weasleys, and that's saying something."

"Ach, but you love me anyway," Blaise said, reaching out with his foot to nudge her leg.

Hermione laughed. "No, I'm just in this for the payload down the line." She opened one eye to look at him and grinned wickedly.

Blaise sighed theatrically. "That's too bad; I've already left all my money to my pet gerbil."

"You don't have a pet gerbil!" Hermione exclaimed.

"I could have a pet gerbil, though." He grinned. "Anything to keep you on your toes, my dear."

"And I love every minute of it," she said, sighing. Then she stood up, gathering up her things and came over to kiss Blaise on the top of his head. "G'night, Blaise, I'm going to bed; it's been a long day."

"G'night, Hermione," Blaise replied, his eyes still closed. He didn't know if he'd get any sleep that night, waiting for the dawn and itching to talk to his father, the one man who had always been certain of everything, his confidant and protector when all was lost. As Blaise stood up and went to his room to try and sleep, he knew everything would be all right once he talked to his father.

~*~

The next morning dawned to see Blaise up, dressed and ready, pacing from the one end of the living-room to the other. While he thought, he fiddled with his robes and muttered to himself until Hermione, still in her pajamas and with a bad case of bedhead, marched out of her room half-asleep and shoved a thick book in Blaise's hands, forcing him to sit down.

"Here," she said, sleep cracking in her voice. "Read War and Peace. Maybe then you'll stop being so noisy and let me sleep." Then she turned around and went back into her room. He heard her climb back under the covers and then there was silence from her room.

He didn't read War and Peace, but he did stop pacing, opting instead to read from on of the Potions text he had left on the coffee table. That kept him occupied until ten o'clock, when Hermione came back out of her room, looking much more cheerful than she had four hours before. He let her get showered and dressed before saying anything.

By the time she was finished, they had completely missed breakfast and they rushed down to the Great Hall to get some lunch before going off to Hogsmeade.

As they walked into Hogsmeade a quarter of an hour before the meeting with Blaise's father, Blaise turned to Hermione and said, "Hermione, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but...I'd rather talk to my father on my own. If you don't mind."

Hermione nodded. "That's all right, Blaise. I know that telling him about your sister may not be something that you want me around for. How about I meet you for a butterbeer later on? I was thinking about spending some time with Ron and Harry, too, since I didn't spend too much time with them last term." She laughed. "I think they may feel neglected."

"Have fun," he said, hugging her around the shoulders before he set out for The Three Broomsticks and she for Honeydukes.

Blaise entered the pub and looked around before spotting his father, who had been true to his word and was chatting animatedly with Madam Rosemerta by the bar, sipping from a glass of Firewhiskey. He walked over and tapped him on the shoulder.

Zachary turned and smiled at his son. "Blaise," he said warmly. "What'll you have before we get down to business?"

"A butterbeer, please, Rosie," Blaise said to the bar mistress, using the nickname he'd heard his father use over the years. He waited for his drink before motioning for his father to a more secluded table.

As they settled down his father said, "Now, Blaise, what's this all about? Something really important I hope, not some rabbit trail."

Blaise cleared his throat. "This may be hard for you to hear; when I first heard, I couldn't accept the truth until a month or two ago--but what I'm going to say to you is completely true and I have evidence. Dad." He cleared his throat again. "What I'm about to tell you.... There's no easy what to say it, but-"

"Hermione's pregnant?" Zachary guessed, Firewhiskey apparently getting to his head. Blaise frowned.

"Better cast a Sobering Charm, Dad. This is important."

"Sorry, son." Zachary muttered an incantation and then nodded. "Go ahead."

"It's hard to even believe it, Dad, but Lilithe is...well, she's a Death Eater." Blaise watched his father carefully.

To everyone else in the pub, Zachary Zabini looked completely calm and put together. To his son, who knew him better than most, he was barely containing an enormous amount of rage. "A...Death Eater?" he asked quietly. But Blaise had no reason to lie; he rarely did so, anyway, since he felt it was unnecessary and would only hinder one's path to the end goal.

Blaise nodded and put his hand on his father's, sending to him some images of Lilithe in Death Eater garb that he had obtained from Snape. "It's true," he said, when he pulled away from his father, severing the mental link. "Lilithe's been a Death Eater for years...about sixteen or seventeen, according to the memories I absorbed by accident. She's participated in so many - well, the only word for it really is 'atrocities'. Mass Muggle killings and some wizard killings - she even helped with the murders of Fabian and Gideon Prewett, Dad." At this, Zachary shuddered; Blaise knew Gideon and Fabian had been friends of his father and longtime aids with his research before they were killed so many years before. To know that his daughter--his daughter--had been a part in the murder of two men who had been his friends could only have unnerved him on many levels, fueling his rage towards Death Eaters and their actions.

"That's not it, though, is it?" Zachary said, looking at his son. "Go on, Blaise. I can take it." He gave his son a grim smile. "I'm not that old, yet."

"Lilithe's been doing something, though I'm not sure what," Blaise went on. "Her trip to Hogwarts as a 'guest speaker' can't have been entirely for educational purposes. I think she might've been there to scope out the castle's weaknesses or something. I don't know what she's up to, but if the Dark Lord knows about anything that could get him in..." He trailed off weakly for a moment and shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, not everything he wants to know could've been gotten through me, even if I knew anything. He's got followers among my Housemates - Crabbe and Goyle, Malfoy--he's been after Potter's blood since his father was thrown in prison and God knows how Lucius got out--and a couple other of my yearmates, including Pansy Parkinson, but her mother's been a Death Eater for years, everyone knows that...." He went on, detailing to his father what he knew, including the possibility of Snape and Lilithe's spells on each other and all the other things he and Hermione had discovered.

With every word he knew his father was getting madder and madder at his firstborn. The straw that broke the camel's back had been Lilithe's involvement with the Prewett brothers' murder, however. Years of Lilithe's wrongdoing against "his" part of the family were already weighing against her in Zachary's mind.

He finished, trailing off and waiting for his father to speak. He did not have to wait long.

"Blaise, in light of what you have just told me, I have some things to let your sister know," Zachary said, his face dark with rage. "I'll see you soon. Goodbye son; have a good weekend." He Disapparated and Blaise panicked. What would his father do? Surely he wouldn't kill Lilithe. He didn't know.... She was much more powerful than she let on. He ran past Hermione, who had just come over to talk to him, saying quickly, "No time! Be back later!" and running towards the fire, grabbing a handful of Floo powder and throwing it to the flames, saying, "Zabini Manor!" and jumping into the fireplace, eyes closed.

He arrived in the foyer and grabbed a passing house-elf. "Quick, where're my father and my mother?"

"In the garden," squeaked the scared creature. "Can Gelly get Master anything?"

"No," he called over his shoulder. "Thanks, though!" He ran through corridors, twisting and turning, trying to keep his wind, and drew his wand as he went into the garden. He walked to the middle of it, where the gazebo was and saw his father shouting at Lilithe, who was white-faced and angry, standing beside her mother who was slowly drawing back from her.

"Death Eater scum!" spat Zachary. "In my house! I fed you, clothed you! You're my daughter! I did not raise you to be like this! I never gave you these values!"

"You didn't raise me at all!" screeched Lilithe. "She did!" Her head flicked towards her mother. "She raised me right. Those people--if you can call them that--are less than us, father. Below us. You call me scum? Those people are the scum that feeds upon it. The lowest of the low. Parasites that deserve to be exterminated. I am only helping in that cause, only furthering the purification of the planet, ensuring the survival of the purest of the pure, and guaranteeing the endurance of Wizardkind!" Blaise looked into her eyes, though she didn't see him, half hidden by a lilac tree, and saw depths of madness that he had never seen before. "Why defend them? Let them defend themselves, if they can. Defend themselves from the power and majesty of the Dark Lord!" She laughed, and her father's expression turned from rage to a mixture of loathing and disgust.

"Parasites?" he asked, sneering at her. "Your mother taught you that Muggles are parasites? Let me tell you something about your 'pure' blood, girl. Your mother's family were Muggleborns from France who came here to escape Grindelwald's reign of terror. Your mother is only half-blood, essentially. It's from me---me, your so-called parasite-loving father--that you get your pureblood label. If not for me and my generations of 'pure' blood, you'd be nothing but half-blood--at best. Even now you're only three-quarters. So don't think you can bring her up in value because she's taught you all you know. Your mother has a short memory if she thinks because she married me her blood changed. I suppose she's woven a tangle of lies for you about me, hasn't she? That I hate and despise you, that I think Zel and Blaise are better? Until this moment, Lilithenial, I never thought that. But for you to believe so blindly in such a despicable cause--for you to ally yourself with the so-called 'Dark Lord' is something I cannot forgive-"

Lilithe cut him off. "For the revelation that mother is only half-blood I will only Stun you instead of killing you," she said calmly. But Blaise looked into her eyes again and saw even more madness. She rounded on her mother, who was now cowering from her daughter, pressed up against the wall of the gazebo. "But you," she said to Frances in a low voice that almost sounded like Snape's most dangerous tone. "You, who deceived me, who led me to believe you were better than I thought.... You, who caused me to defend you to my Lord, to give away some precious treasures to ensure your survival when I could have let you die in the end and profited more. You, I shall kill." She raised her wand. "Goodbye, Mother."

"No!" Zachary said, trying to stop Lilithe. She Stunned him and turned back to her mother, who was weeping.

"Lilithenial," Frances said, holding out her hand. "It's me. It's Mummy.... Put your wand down, Lili. Put it down. Give it to me. No- No, Lilithe!"

"No, Mother," Lilithe said calmly, as if she was just asking for the salt at the dinner table. "No. I'm afraid that you must die." She raised her wand again.

"No!" Blaise croaked, but Lilithe didn't hear him. He didn't seem to be able to move. He looked down at his legs to see five house-elves holding him back. The one that was holding on the tightest was Lyttie. "No, Lyttie, leg go," he said hoarsely. "I have to save Mother."

"Lyttie is sorry to disobey Master, and she will punish herself later," Lyttie squeaked. "But Lyttie has seen this before, and Lyttie won't let Master go to his death. No, and neither will Dripy, Hort, Gelly or Telly." The Elves tightened their hold.

Blaise turned back to Lilithe, tears dripping down his face. He saw his mother on her knees, still begging for her life. Lilithe stared down at her mother, face dead calm.

Suddenly, her eyes closed. Her chest rose and fell with several deep breaths. Her eyes opened and she opened her mouth and spoke. "I knew eventually one of my parents would have to die, Mother. This is something I knew the Dark Lord would demand, but I never thought I would have to kill you. Now it matters little. Either way I will be the most powerful ally of my Lord. And either way...I will only have one parent. So why not destroy the one who is inferior? Father deserves to have a chance to hear the Dark Lord's point of view. You don't. You are little more than the dirt that my shoes tread on. And what's more, you deserve this. I will enjoy it." A twisted smile appeared on her face as she raised her wand and pointed it at her mother, who was trembling, eyes closed. "Avada Kedavra."

Blaise closed his eyes for a second, then they snapped open and he tried to scream, but nothing would come out. So he tried not to listen to his mother's dying scream as more tears rolled down his face and dripped onto the heads of his tiny protectors. When the reverberation from Lilithe's Disapparation sounded, and he was free. He ran to his mother's body and fell to his knees beside her, taking her limp hands. Many tiny little bodies pressed against his as he wept - the house-elves who had helped raise him were comforting him at his mother's death.

He didn't know how long he sat there, by his mother's body, but at some point someone woke his father up and he was joined in his mourning. They sat there until night came upon them and a small house-elf tapped Blaise's shoulder and said, "Masters have a visitor."

Blaise glanced at his weeping father, took his handkerchief from his pocket and said, "I'll go with you. Make sure any visitors come through me, all right?" The house-elf nodded and started up the pathway. Lyttie followed Blaise as he went into the house and walked towards the Receiving room. He entered the room to see Severus Snape lounging a couch.

"Zabini, may I ask why, after your father left this afternoon, you felt the need to follow him here? Without telling anyone where you were going, I might add?" Snape asked. "I had to be informed by Miss Granger--Granger, of all people--that one of my students was missing. Please, enlighten me."

Blaise glared at his Head of House, who glared back. "I told my father about Lilithe being a Death Eater," he said. "He got mad when I told him about Lilithe's involvement with the murders of the Prewett brothers." Snape hissed at him, as if he'd done something stupid. "It had to be done," Blaise told him stubbornly. "After I told him what I knew, he came back here to...talk...with Lilithe. She spouted all this nonsense about purification of the planet and he told her the only reason she herself was so damned 'pure' was because of him. That without his blood, she'd only be a half-blood. She told him that she was grateful for telling her that and so she was only going to Stun him instead of killing him. She turned to my mother-" He broke off, biting off a sob, and waited a few moments before continuing. "She turned to my mother and was about to kill her when Dad tried to stop her. She Stunned him and- and-" He couldn't hold it back and new tears fell from his eyes again. Lyttie attached herself to his leg again and hugged him harder than before. "I tried to go and stop her- I tried. But the House Elves- they- they stopped me, saying I'd only die if I went. So I stood there and I heard her kill my mother--our mother. I couldn't stop her. I couldn't stop her." He sank onto a couch as Snape rose. Before Snape could open his mouth, the tiny House Elf looked up at him, glaring with every inch of her face.

"You is a bad man, coming here and upsetting Lyttie's family!" she said hotly, shaking her hand at Snape. "Grieving, they are. You is only upsetting them more, being mean and stupid to them. You is going away now, and not coming back! Go!" She raised her pointed finger at Snape, who didn't even manage a Body-Bind before the house-elf sent him back to wherever he had Apparated from.

The only two human occupants at Zabini Manor spent their night mourning over their loss in a gazebo, surrounded by twenty loyal house-elves who were draped over them in comfort.