The Letter
Blaise stared down at the roll of parchment before him in a state of shock. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t been expecting this. And he knew that Dumbledore’s magical protection, or rather his mere presence, was no longer going to scare off the Death Eaters. No, Dumbledore was dead. He had seen the Dark Mark hovering over the tower in the night sky with his own eyes, yet for some reason it was still a shock to be sitting in a compartment on the Hogwarts Express and staring down at this letter that had just been delivered to him by owl. A letter sealed with a Dark Mark. A letter from Voldemort.
Perhaps from Voldemort, he told himself, if he was important enough. He smiled a wry smile. If his few days of musing and thinking had led him to the right conclusion he was definitely important enough. If Hogwarts were to reopen, a spy would be needed. He was one of the few still available anyway after half the Slytherin students had joined up with the Death Eaters that night, and he knew that he was the only likely candidate. He wasn’t sure whether he liked the notion or not, but he had to admit that he fit the role of spy. He had the ability to pull it off if he saw fit, or rather, if necessary.
“Draco,” he whispered to the empty compartment as if just remembering. No matter what he had felt for Draco earlier in the year he now only felt pity. For all he knew the miserable boy could be dead by now, or worse.
At first Blaise had resented the boy’s decision, his gloating, his immature attitude. He had watched Draco fade out of his normal life slowly under the strain of the mysterious task like he usually did. It had reached a point, however, when Blaise realized that although he wasn’t close to his classmate he had to a least offer him his help. He realized the day he first saw Draco Malfoy’s eyes cloud over with the promise of tears that he did hold some respect for him, and a respectable man crying was just not decent.
After offering his help numerous times, and very artfully so after the manner of a true Slytherin, and being pushed away more often than he’d even offered help, Blaise had decided to return to his observatory position. It had not been because he gave up. Blaise was very patient as Slytherins went, and when he wanted to get to the bottom of something he did, but Draco had committed what was in his book unforgivable.
“Blaise Zabini!” mother sounded infuriated, and she had used his full name, something must be wrong. He set off at a mad dash to the living room, hoping everything was all right, not for one second suspecting that he was indeed the object of his mother’s wrath.
“Yes mum,” he managed to say between strained breaths.
“What is this?” her tone commanded instant obedience. Blaise followed her finger until his eyes settled on the house-elf lying prostrate on the floor. He stared at his mother quizzically; surely she didn’t think that was any sort of question to ask a seven-year-old wizard.
“A house-elf of course mother,” he answered brightly.
“What is it doing cowering with those hideous boils all over its flesh Blaise?” her tone was still quite un-amused, and somewhat tired.
“Will they put me in Azkaban for using magic mother?” he asked beginning to understand her attitude. It was a frightening thought indeed.
“No Blaise, they will not, now answer my question and we’ll see what I am to do with you.”
“My hot chocolate was too hot and it burned my tongue right out,” he gulped, inwardly debating whether to stick his tongue out in confirmation of his honesty.
“And you see that as good enough reason to hex the house-elf Blaise?” she knelt before him and gripped his shoulders, “You not only broke a law, but-”
“But it hurt mummy, and I haven’t been out of the house in ages because of the storm, and I couldn’t control it.”
“If you are upset with my decision to remain indoors then you speak with me Blaise, that is no excuse to perform hexes and curses on unsuspecting house-elves-”
“My tongue is all burnt I won’t be able to taste anything for a week mummy,” it was a final attempt, but he knew his cause was a lost one. He was still too ashamed to show her his poor tongue.
“You are a wizard Blaise,” she gripped his shoulders a little more tightly than necessary, but he wasn’t about to voice his complaint when she was in this mood.
“A very powerful wizard and I know very well that had you wished to control your anger you could have. A powerful, respectable wizard never uses his magic on someone that can’t defend themselves, do you understand?”
He nodded solemnly hoping that the punishment wouldn’t be too difficult. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen his mother this angry, and he dearly wanted to play outside.
“I had hoped that you wouldn’t need this sort of reminder, that we wouldn’t even need to discuss it, you’ve never seen me do such a thing, and you will never abuse your power like that again, do I have your word Blaise?”
“Yes mum.”
“Good now, you will reverse the hex and then spend the rest of the day indoors,” he couldn’t help staring at his beautiful mother like she was some sort of strange ogre. Reverse what? He didn’t even know how he did the magic, how was he meant to reverse it?
“Don’t look a me like that we are staying here till you fix it Blaise.”
“But the ministry will come after me,” he tried.
“Fix it.”
Seventeen-year-old Blaise couldn’t help a small chuckle. It had been a very long afternoon before he had succeeded in making a single large green boil on the House-Elf’s nose disappear. His mother, by now very tired and impatient, had deemed that enough of a success and told him he’d need to work much harder to become a proper wizard when he was eleven. She had, however, still succeeded in making her point, and not just by punishment (those had been very few due to his eagerness to please his only parent and live up to her expectations), but more so by her own behavior and the way she stuck to her rule even though she clearly believed herself better than the creatures.
Draco Malfoy had committed the unforgivable in Blaise’s book, and he had watched the boy with loathing throughout the rest of the year. Until that night. Blaise had forgiven the boy the moment he heard that Snape had done it instead. That Draco had been unable to hurt the weakened old man. He knew that Draco now understood, and he felt too sorry for the boy to hold a grudge. Draco was in a tight fix. You just didn’t fail the Dark Lord. It was never an option.
He looked down at the now crumpled parchment, at the green mark. There really wasn’t too much of a choice. He was as stuck as Draco must have been. He was as a stuck as a fly in a spider’s web. There was nowhere to go.
Blaise was nearly thrown off his seat by the sudden halt of the train. Looking out the window he realized that everything was perfectly normal, they had arrived at the station. He had, uncharacteristically, been paying so little attention to his surroundings that he’d been caught off guard.
He settled for watching out the window a while. Mainly to compose himself and partly out of habit. He never saw a need to partake in the pushing and shoving that accompanied hundreds of students trying to squeeze themselves out the train at once.
A large sea of redheads caught his eye. The matriarch of the Weasley family was dealing out bone-crushing, and rather embarrassing, hugs not only to her daughter and son, but also to the remaining members of the Gryffindor trio. He scrunched his nose unconsciously and looked at the fat simple-looking woman.
“Yeah, at posing…”
He swallowed and tried to look away from the small form of the littlest Weasley. Her words rang in his ears to this day, and he felt his old anger and determination returning. He realized, albeit rather grudgingly, that he would rather prefer his mother being just as unsophisticated as the Weasleys’ than find out that certain scenarios playing in his head were remotely true. Scenarios that had been unleashed by the damned man Slughorn and the miserable little Gryffindor. He would get answers.
His mother was not waiting for him. So much the better, he thought, more time to remember his anger from beginning of term and practice a few well-placed cutting remarks.
“Wouldn’t want to disappoint dear mum,” he smiled wryly.
It turned out that dear mum was not at home either. He found a note on his bed indicating that she would not be back till very late. He knew why, and he knew what the second note said. It was a letter, not addressed to him, but it provided a few things to think about.
“Dearest Dark Lord,” he read in a mock-sweet voice, his artfully recalled anger still bottled up and demanding release.
“I have watched my son eagerly awaiting your letter of invitation to his ranks. Eager to prove himself to you and show his loyalty. I can only say that I am thrilled that his talents come up to your standards and he will have a chance to fulfill the dream that I was never able to fulfill.”
“Bloody hell,” he scoffed, “She’d lower herself to this, just to buy me a few months.”
He threw the letter aside, not bothering to read the rest. His eyes had picked up on enough to get the gist of the letter. She wanted to buy him time. She ‘feared he would fail in his eagerness to prove himself and end up no better than the Maloy boy.’
Needless to say he did not last in the house for too long afterwards. Upon entering the stable he realized that his horse, Thunder, was nowhere to be found.
He muttered darkly under his breath, his anger reaching a dangerous level. It wasn’t new, but he was not in the mood to go looking for a bloody horse right now. All he wanted was a nice long refreshing ride to clear his head. A tantrum sounded like a good idea about now, but it wasn’t like there was anyone to watch him throw it, and he was not Draco.
At least he hoped he wouldn’t end up like Draco. Stupid boy. If he hadn’t failed Snape would still be teaching and spying and there would be no need for Blaise’s ‘services’ in the first place. And it wasn’t as if Draco’s fate hadn’t been sealed from day he was born. He would become a murderer before the Dark Lord disposed of him whether he liked it or not. That was just the way the snake operated.
I was an hour before he came upon anything. His long walk had not helped improve his mood in the slightest. In fact he had more time to think and feed his anger. What he saw before him was an old tumbledown house. There was an excessive amount of noise coming from inside, especially taking the small size of the place into account, and the door was wide open.
Blaise fingered his wand in his pocket and allowed his curiosity to replace all of his other thoughts. He entered quietly, though it probably wouldn’t have made a difference, and stood in the doorway surveying the scene before him.
Two women, one young and one fat and quite old, were attempting to feed over twenty completely wild ‘children’ and keep the place clean at the same time. Blaise had never been alone with one child at any time in his life, but even he knew it was impossible. The problem was, the two women seemed to take it all in stride. They acted as if the curtain falling in the middle of dinner was completely normal, and didn’t blink an eye when a little boy came into the room from a back door with muddy shoes and a large box of what looked to be slugs.
They acted as if the world was coming to its untimely end, however, when two little miserable Muggles, he was sure they were Muggles, bean to whimper. The older woman picked one of them up and began to rock it gently cooing nonsense that Blaise thankfully couldn’t hear, and the young one attempted to feed the other in hopes of distracting it from crying.
The infant would not keep quiet, however, and only seemed to be crying louder and louder. It was looking directly at Blaise. The young woman followed its gaze and her eyes landed on Blaise. She called out and a boy of about eleven came to take her place in feeding the infant. She strode straight over to Blaise and grabbed his arm without so much as a word.
“What are you doing Muggle?” he extracted his arm from her grip and attempted to glare that very familiar face down.
“Mug- what?” she looked a him with a raised eyebrow, “You were scaring them, it’s not Halloween you know, and that scowl on your face isn’t helping matters.”
“I don’t give a damn if they’re scared, and I can’t see why you do either,” he said rather haughtily. He expected a retort, probably along the lines of what the Weasley girl would say before hexing someone, but the Muggle girl remained silent and began to walk slowly. He fell into stride with her without even thinking about it and they continued to walk around while she occasionally pointed out certain landmarks like a small tree house and the mud puddle the dirty little boy had undoubtedly been in.
After a while she re-entered the tumbledown house without so much as a word or a glance. Blaise had no idea why he had even followed her up until now, but as he saw her walk through the doorway and realized that he was not welcome he knew exactly why he was going to go in. Blaise Zabini did not just get dismissed by lowly Muggles. Only one person had the right to even attempt to order him about. He would enjoy putting this little Muggle girl in her place.
He walked through the doorway in his usual way, quietly. The room was now deserted and he realized that night was beginning to fall. They must all be going to sleep. He allowed his gaze to wander away form the stairs and back to the only other person in the room. She walked around the room expertly dodging the various chairs, cushions, and globs of food littered all over the floor, sometimes picking them up and sometimes just leaving them be.
All thoughts of annoying her had flown out the nearest window. She had passed him several times and acknowledged his presence with nothing more than raising an eyebrow. Some people, it seemed, just didn’t know when they were supposed to be annoyed. After being ignored for several minutes Blaise pulled up the nearest chair and sat down staring at the girl while she calmly went about her business.
He had never in his life seen a person quite like this girl. There was nothing very special about her looks, she seemed weak to Blaise because she had not fought back at all and seemed to be intimidated by him, but yet she did not fit into any of the categories he had been filing people into for years. For no one he had seen had ever done work so willingly, almost cheerfully. He had seen Professor McGonagall herself on the verge of a nervous breakdown just a few months ago. What’s more, this girl was clearly a teenager, shouldn’t she want to go out and see the world? Shouldn’t she complain or grumble? Even Hufflepuffs grumbled when they worked too long.
The Muggle girl seemed to be getting more and more comfortable the more work she did. She didn’t miss a beat when she slipped over the small mud puddle near the table and just went back to work with a small wry smile. The thing that would have infuriated Blaise even more, had he been in the proper mindset, was that he was beginning to feel calmer and calmer. His thoughts turned to his mother, but this time he could only recall her making him hot chocolate and staying by his side when it stormed. Telling him stories about great wizards and witches to get him to sleep.
He was suddenly brought back to reality when the mug was thrust unceremoniously before his face. It took him a while to recover from the dream-like state he had been in, and even after he regained his senses he still felt extremely comfortable and – warm.
The hot chocolate must be the reason, he thought to himself. Suddenly he realized that he should be very angry. How dare the stupid girl offer him anything? How dare she smile at him from behind another steaming mug of the intoxicating stuff? The problem was that he still couldn’t find it in him to be angry. Deciding that it had been a very long day and he must be tired out from all the thinking he had been doing he stood up and knocked the mug over with a smirk. That should do. He didn’t have time to try and irritate Muggles right now anyway.
He turned on his heel and fixed his mind on his chair before the fire. For a moment Blaise thought he would be splinched for sure, but it soon passed and he found himself in the armchair staring at the dying embers. She would be back eventually, and when she was finished slandering Slughorn’s name and explaining the truth his mother would help him make a decision. Blaise was not stupid enough to think he’d be able to make that choice alone.
