Prologue Celestial Intervention
Aveline stared into the hollow eyes the mirror reflected. The running water flowed through her open palms, singed her skin, but they were still there. They would always be there. The stains of guilt would remain forever no matter how much water she used. She stared back at the beautiful eyes, her dark hair fell around her face at just the right angle, everything was perfect, but it no longer had any meaning.
Tearing herself away from the mirror, she strode out of the bathroom and headed straight for the couch by the window. She looked around the room, he gaze passing over all the new things she had bought since then: the lavish new dress-robes hanging in the open wardrobe, the magnificent painting that filled half the opposite wall. Yet Aveline Zabini was not a stupid woman.
She knew that she had been trying desperately to fill the gap she had created in those mere seconds. She knew it was futile, she had known it from the start, but there was nothing else to do except let her mind wander back to that fateful day, and that she did not want to do.
A loud tapping at the window mercifully interrupted her train of thought. She raised the wand from the table by her side and swished it in the air muttering the charm automatically. She gasped and dropped the wand to the floor as if it had caught fire. The only thing she could see before her were those eerie hollow eyes. She could see no blood, or flesh, or any of the other things she knew had been present. Just those empty eyes staring back at her as if they could pierce her soul and see right through.
She finally noticed the owl fluttering at the edge of her vision. Picking the letter up she read the neat scroll in which her name was written and stared at the seal for a fraction of a second before throwing the whole thing into the crackling flames.
She had no more reason to go there, or anywhere. She was hollow just like those eyes had been. She had robbed them of their soul, and now they were taking their revenge. She looked down at her smooth hands. Not a single wrinkle, not a single visible stain. But then there couldn’t be one since she had used the wand. She had touched nothing with her hands. Yet she had felt the soul leaving those eyes slowly, painfully. She had felt it die with her very skin.
She let out a hollow laugh. How ironic, she thought to herself, that after so many years of murder she would feel so guilty for this small act that could only be called a mercy by any sane, self-respecting witch.
Suddenly a strong need to breathe overcame her. Her lungs seemed to be clamped together with glue. She stood rapidly and walked to the open window. Letting the fresh air engulf her and whip her hair around in all directions, she tried hard to really breathe it, just as she had been able to do two months ago. There was no explanation for it except that she was dead. She was hollow.
“Missus is not going out today?” a small shaky voice said from behind her, nearly making her jump.
“No,” she answered stiffly, “Leave now!”
“Yes, ma’am but they is waiting for Miss Zabini outside again,” the elf said in a rush.
Aveline turned on the unfortunate creature with anger flashing in her dark eyes. “I. Said. Leave!” she articulated slowly, trying desperately not to let her mind ponder why she had a sudden urge to strangle every single one of “them” instead of just hexing the elf like she usually did.
She watched the miserable creature scuttle out of the room hurriedly to deal with it. Summoning her wand to her she flinched once more, but kept it firmly in hand this time. She waved it above her head and stalked out of the room, now richly dressed in elegant red dress-robes. She walked out to the garden slowly, panting nonetheless.
Something had to be done about it. Her anger had replaced all the emptiness that she had felt for the past couple of months. She would not be broken by a mere child, it was ludicrous to say the least. She had never before so much as twitched after a murder and now was not the time to begin.
Even after an hour of walking her pace was the quick, purposeful step of one who knows exactly where they are going. The fact that she couldn’t even really see her surroundings was completely lost upon the short plump woman standing before the run-down cottage.
“Ahhhh, Mrs. Acton I am honored that you came, come in from the cold, we can have a hot cup of tea and take a look at….”
Aveline’s eyes unfocused as she stared at the woman before her. She could not concentrate on anything but the eyes. They were so alive, almost dancing in their sockets. She wondered which was the best hex to use to rid them of that particular quality, and although many ideas came to mind she allowed herself to be led into the miserable hole by the short Muggle woman.
She did not make any effort to contain the look of pure disgust that had become plastered on her face the moment she set eyes on the filthy-blooded thing. The feelings were clearly reciprocated in the honest face before her. And yet they managed to go through two cups of tea and several biscuits.
By this time Aveline had sensed it. There was magic under this roof, and she was certain that it could not possibly have anything to do with the fat lump before her. She saw the woman stand up and followed her, chin upturned. They were getting closer.
Later on Aveline would insist that it was due to Celestial intervention that she did not hex the woman from the start. The same reason she would use to explain the woman’s sheer genius as she made the next remark:
“She will grow into a beautiful one, Mrs. Acton, she’ll be just like you someday,” the woman bobbed her head up and down emphatically as Aveline stared at the two small tags with unfocused eyes. The first one read Celeste.
“She’ll be just like you someday,” the words echoed in Aveline Zabini’s head as her breath was pushed out of her lungs once again and she succumbed to the memories.
The images flashed through her mind quickly, merging with each other, intertwining. She could see all the events in her life from the school days to the relaxing summers and extravagant balls to the day she left Italy for the first time, but she did not see them from her own eyes, she saw them from somewhere above, as if she was looking down into a Pensieve. More like a dying witch, she told herself with a smirk, taking her last breaths, reliving her days for the last time.
“She will grow into a beautiful one, Mrs. Acton, she’ll be just like you someday,” Aveline shook her head violently. That had nothing to do with her. It had nothing to do with her school days and her mansion, nothing to do with the pictures and memories in her mind.
As she tried to shake herself back to reality, to concentrate on the woman before her, the voice that was addressing her, all she could see before her were images of a little girl. A little girl on her way to school. A young woman at her graduation. A white dress. And another, and one more. Beautiful dresses, a beautiful woman with long silky hair that curled just at the tips to frame her face. Her head tossing, her lips curving into a fake smile, eyes calculating and cold.
Suddenly the cries of a newborn baby brought her out of her dream-like state into the small room. They filled the air and struck her ears like venomous arrows. Bounced off the walls and came back again. She read the name on the tag once more. Celeste.
And then she saw them once again. Floating between her and the small crib. Hollow, haunting eyes.
She waddled into the room in a fit of rage, stepping over the cursed house-elf and past the issue of the Daily Prophet. The one that showed her picture with the abnormally large stomach, the one that said: The Beautiful Aveline Zabini Pregnant after Tragic and Mysterious Death of her late Husband. She raised her wand and muttered a charm to lock and seal the door. She did not cast a silencing charm, she didn’t think it would be necessary.
The spell was muttered in a few seconds. Mere seconds. It was so simple, one of the simplest spells she had ever preformed. A second Pain killing spell followed quickly, and then it came. The blood. The small bony form: limp, broken, hollow. It was dead, gone, but it would always haunt her. The large bloodstained eyes of the child. Hollow, haunting eyes.
Celeste. She read. Celeste. …beautiful, just like you.
She turned away abruptly her eyes flashing with anger, ready to kill once more, to do anything rather than admit the reason she would not take the small magical child that had shoved itself under her nose. The small thing that could fill the hole she had created. She could make up for it, drive away the guilt, and not be alone, not be hollow, if not for the damn woman and her words she could do it.
But she could never admit that the woman was right, and that she did not want it to happen. She did not want to see the little girl tossing her head, the young woman twirling in the elegant robes, not again.
Her wand was raised in the air pointed directly at the miserable Muggle’s heart. The curse was about to make it’s way out of her parted lips when she saw the second one. Her eyes lighted on the second small bundle, a small blue bundle with a similar tag to the first. This one said Blaise.
“Blaise,” the name rolled off her tongue easily. It was French, but it would go well with Zabini, it had a sense of power and magic about it. And she would never have to see it happen. She would never have to watch as the beautiful eyes dimmed slowly but surely and became hollow. A boy would be different. The hollow eyes had belonged to a boy, the eyes she had killed, but she would erase it, she would make him live once more.
She let the wand arm drop to her side and approached the bundle carefully, taking in the handsome features and the rhythmic rise and fall of the tiny chest. Blaise Zabini. She decided. Blaise Zabini.
Aveline barely noticed the arm that was out of the blanket and entwined with another’s, hand clamped around something in a tight grip. She was avoiding the other small bundle that lay beside him. Picking him up gently she allowed her eyes to settle on his face.
She could barely hear the screams from behind her as she walked out the door with the sleeping bundle. The broken protests: “Twins…Mrs. Acton…please…separate them…. paperwork…”
Aveline smirked to herself. She had been right in assuming the fat lump would not need a memory charm. She was still going on about Mrs. Acton, and her thick mind seemed to have instantaneously wiped the memories of the outstretched wand. Muggles really were stupid.
Mrs. Acton showed up an hour later in a long polished car, only to leave ten minutes afterwards in a huff. By that time Blaise Zabini was lying comfortably in an expensive crib, a small golden locket in the vice-like grip of his tiny hand, with a tall, slender witch watching over him, her eyes shimmering for the first time in years.
