Fan Fiction ❯ The Life and Times of a Girl Named Blaise Zabini ❯ Chapter Eight ( Chapter 8 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Chapter 8

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

*************************

Blaise Green nee Zabini, aka Elessario, loved school. She liked learning
new things. She was also a major morning person, provided she hadn't been
going without sleep for too long. This meant that Pansy Parkinson, lazy
slug whether she'd been sleeping good, bad, little, or a butt-load, was
even more annoyed by her presence.

Now, mind you, that was in Blaise's Ice Queen days, when she was playing
a part in her day-to-day life. Now that Blaise was determined to be herself
and damn the consequences, because, well, life sucked as it was with
Voldemort and the Death Eaters on the loose, her attitude was 'why give
them the satisfaction of knowing they were making people's days worse by
dampening the mood?'.

As a result, the Perky Meter jumped up to ten times normal, aka what was
normal for Blaise during the holidays, and Pansy was miserable. Millicent
Bulstrode seemed torn between disturbed shock and wanting to join in on
the perkiness at seeing Blaise acting so...well, human. Which was really
ironic, considering the fact that Blaise was just about the most non-human
person in the school outside of the house elves.

Blaise had gotten up extra early for three reasons: less of a crowd in the
bathroom, minimizing Pansy whining time, and because she woke up at four in
the morning, having replenished her need for REM sleep. And she got an
excellent recipe for twice-baked potatoes from Abel.

Mmm, cheese...

Anyway, Blaise had forgone her usual high bun of hair in favor of something
a bit more comfy, which could be altered to get it out of her way quickly and
easily. Considering just how long Blaise's hair was (down to a few inches
below her waist), that achievement was rather impressive.

She wore it down, with the front locks of hair woven into braids and pulled
back to keep it out of her face, and a random lock of hair woven into small
braids here and there within her wavy/curly mane, green glass pony beads
covering the small elastic bands that tied them off. Pull it all back and
weave a loose braid, and it not only would keep stray hair from getting into
her potions, but it would also serve as a fail-safe for covering the most
obvious of her elven attributes should the unlikely occur and her glamour
spell fail.

Add her school uniform and robes, black ankle-boots replacing her black Mary-
Janes from last year, and she was feeling pretty darn Elf-spiffy. ~_^

Of course, this was all after her habitual morning run around the lake that
she took just after waking up every day that she didn't feel a driving need
to sleep a lot. Wouldn't want to become the world's first pudgy Elf, after all!

"Good mornin', good mor-nin'! It's great to stay up late good mornin', good
mornin', to you!"

Blaise's impromptu bout of singing broke through Pansy's last defenses as she
woke up snarling, her thrown pillow belting Millicent in the face as Blaise
dodged it and skipped out their dorm's door, the larger Slytherin girl having
just stepped back in after her shower.

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

"Dee-dee-duh-dee! How the heck are ya this lovely September morning, oh bestest
of best bosom buddy of mine!" Blaise chirped as she tackled Draco from behind,
her arms going around his shoulders and her legs around his waist, piggy-back
style.

"B! Get your bloody great lump of an arse off of me! It's too damn early!"
Draco snarled sleepily at his friend, doing his best to dislodge her, but
she'd spent the summer training, and was holding on like a...tight-holding
clingy-thing.

"Nope! You're all muscle-y and tall, and I'm gonna take advantage of it as
long as I can. Mush! Onward to brekkus!"

They spent the walk to the dining hall like that, squabbling playfully and
alternating between Draco trying to dislodge Blaise, Draco knocking Blaise
off, and Blaise walking calmly beside him until she had a chance to jump up
again. The high point in the trip was when Draco got fed up and tried to
make Blaise piggy-back *him*, but she ended up flipping him around and
tossing him up on her shoulder, carrying him the rest of the way, and that
was what the few teachers who were already in the hall saw as they entered.

"B, put me down, damnit! Everybody'll see!"

"What everybody? 'S only the profs, you ninny; we're early. Hi Professor
Snape! Will we be having oodles of fun-ness in class today, or tomorrow?"
Blaise inquired of her favorite teacher, who seemed to be stuck between
laughing outright at their antics and questioning his star pupil's sanity.
If Lucius Malfoy got wind of this sort of thing, there would be hell to pay,
most likely.

What had happened over the summer to make the calm and collected Blaise
Zabini, now Blaise Green, to shatter her well-kept persona of calm
collectiveness so openly and cheerfully? The mere fact that she'd disowned
her father was enough to make Severus Snape hope that the brightest and
most talented of his pupils could well make it through life without being
sucked into the darkness that was claiming so many of her classmates. Her
continued mutual friendship with Draco Malfoy also let him hope that the
boy might well escape his father's grasping hold on his life. They could
prove to be the beginning of a new breed of Snakes, that would restore
the honor and reputation of House Slytherin to it's one-time glory, before
Voldemort had tainted what it was to be Slytherin.

Meanwhile, Blaise had finally set Draco back on the ground, and they'd
settled into their customary seats at Slytherin house's table.

Already making headway on devouring their breakfast, both picked up their
time-tables from the stack in the middle of the table, perusing them so
they would know what books to retrieve from their dorm rooms before heading
off to classes.

Blaise's sudden outburst startled the teachers who were at-table,
including Severus.

"YES! S-LEVEL POTIONS AND CHARMS! LIFE IS GOOD!"

Snape smiled slightly to himself. Yes, this year would most certainly
be interesting.

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

Ten hours later...

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

"..." Blaise was staring at the sheet of parchment in front of her,
contemplating the half-finished mini essay that was her Charms homework,
due on Wednesday.

Ginny, who had joined Blaise and Draco in doing what homework they
could before dinner in the library, looked up at her new friend. Both
Blaise and Draco had offered their more advanced knowledge to the young
Gryffindor to help her with her work, and, after a few quick discussions
regarding the assignments and the holes in Ginny's knowledge, they had
settled into quiet work, only occasionally punctuated by a quiet murmur
from one or the other regarding questions and their answers. Blaise had
been staring at her essay for a good ten minutes, and Ginny was a bit
worried. The first half of the essay had been written with relative ease
on the older girl's part, but now Ginny wondered what had stopped her
friend's progress.

Draco, having noticed Ginny's lack of progress within the last few minutes,
looked up to see what was wrong. Frowning, he reached across the table and
prodded Blaise with one finger.

"B? You awake in there?"

Blinking, Blaise looked up from her paper, stared into each of her friends'
eyes, and said, "This whole no technology thing this school has sucks."

Seeing confusion on the others' faces, she explained, "Well, if tech worked
here, then we could use computers, and I'd get my papers written a heck
of a lot faster, what with me being a faster typist than a writer."

Understanding dawned in both faces across from her, and Ginny said, "I've
heard my dad talking about those computer things, but why would it be
faster to write your papers with one of those then by hand, Blaise?"

Blaise sighed, then said, "Well, think about it. When you write, it takes
time to write each letter in each word, even if it's only a fraction
of a second, right?"

Nods from the others.

"So, with a computer, all you have to do to make a letter appear is
push a little button. That takes a lot less time and effort than
writing out each letter, and it takes less effort to correct mistakes,
too. Not to mention that if something happens and your essay or
whatever gets trashed, instead of having to re-write the entire thing,
all you have to do is go back into the computer, open the right file,
and print up a new copy!" Blaise then looked back at her sheet of
parchment, scowled, and said, "I swear, before I graduate I'll figure
out a way to make my lap-top computer run on magic so I can use it here!"

That said, Blaise returned to writing her essay, and the silence was
only occasionally broken by questions, answers, and random statements
that developed into animated conversations, until dinner time.

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

It was round about mid October, and life was good. Blaise and Draco
were both doing well in their classes, despite Draco's various
encounters with Gryffindor's Dream Team. Ginny was pointedly ignoring
Ron's efforts to make her stop spending time with her new friends, and
was staying remarkably afloat despite the increased workload her
professors were burdening her with, as she would be taking her O.W.L.s
this year, a state which she happily attributed to Blaise and Draco's
efforts.

Meanwhile, Blaise was taking S-classes, or Specialty (AN: I think that's
what it stands for. I'm a Californian, I'm basing a lot of this part
on what I learned after reading book five, though I'm not including it
in my cannon, and on a particular fic that was written by a British
person, so I figure they would know. Bai-bai!) classes, in Potions,
Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Arithmancy. She was planning,
however, on only writing S-papers for Potions and Defense in Seventh
Year for her N.E.W.T.s. Blaise's already-planned main point for her
D.A.D.A. paper would be that it took more than wand-waving and a butt-
load of power to vanquish the forces of Darkness, and that unarmed self-
defense should be a required course for magical institutions. Fencing
would be good, too.

Draco was taking S-classes in Potions, D.A.D.A., and Ancient Runes, with
S-papers for Potions and D.A.D.A. planed for as well. Both friends were
planning on becoming Aurors, but Blaise thought that being a teacher might
be interesting as well. But only after Voldemort's arse had been thoroughly
kicked, of course.

Ah, yes: good classes, good friends, good times. Now all Blaise needed was
to get Draco to get his arse into gear about asking Ginny out.

Unfortunately, fate intervened regarding Blaise's ever-so-neat-and-tidy
plans...

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

Blaise and Draco were walking down the Charms corridor, having been forced
to take a detour on their way from DADA to dinner by a randomly-shifted
staircase. Their conversation was rather animated, and were cheerfully
debating which charms, curses, hexes, and jinxes would serve an Auror
best in certain situations. Their progress was halted, however, by the
sudden exodus of Gryffindor's Fifth Year Charms class into the hall. The
two Slytherins waited, having noted which class it was, and hoping to get
their redheaded friend's opinion on their topic of discussion.

They didn't have to wait long.

"Blaise! Malfoy! Professor Flitwick just showed us the neatest thing!"

"If it's a severed head, I'm going to be rather upset," Draco drawled in
an oddly quipping sort of manner. Blaise snickered, knowing that there
was one severed head in particular she wouldn't mind seeing. Orpheus had
been writing lately, though they usually wrote to each other in Greek. It
wasn't that he couldn't speak English, which would be rather pathetic,
considering her cousin was more than two thousand years old, but rather
that it would take anybody who intercepted their missives a bit longer to
understand them, thus discouraging idle pranksters and mail-thieves, most
of which probably resided in the Slytherin dormitories.

"Bite me, Malfoy," Ginny quipped back sweetly, though she faltered slightly
at the slight glimpse she caught of Draco's rather disturbingly hungry look
in her direction, and barely shoved down her impulse to blush when she
managed to hear him murmur, "Oh, there's nothing I'd like to do better at
the moment." Neither of them saw the happy look on Blaise's face, her
quick eyes having caught the mutual looks and reactions, as well as her
elf-sharp ears having picked up Draco's comment, despite the fact that
Ginny was in between her and Draco at the moment.

Blaise coughed into her hand. "You were saying, Ginji?"

Ginny collected herself, then beamed at her friends, saying, "Professor
Flitwick taught us about glamour magic; you know, for disguising things?"

Draco nodded slightly, "I think he mentioned something about it last year,
but he got sick and he ended up not having enough time to cover it and
still get in all of our O.W.L.-required work, so we ended up having to
skip it, because it's not required. Something about not many people having
an aptitude for it."

Blaise nodded, smiling slightly. "Yeah, I ended up going to a family
member to learn how to do that," she said. She knew why glamour magic,
or glamourie, or whatever you wanted to call it (A.N.: My theory is that
Sailor Moon's Disguise Pen works with glamourie. "MOON DISGUISE MAGIC
POWER! Turn me into a witch!" *pow!* "...NOT GLENDA, DANGIT!") was such
a rare talent among humans. You had to have a certain amount of Elf blood
in your family tree, close enough to you. People with only a drop or two
(this is a figure of speech, naturally) of Elven blood couldn't cast
glamourie, but they could see through it. Like calls out to like, and all
that jazz. Legolas theorized that in a few more generations there wouldn't
be any more mostly-human spellcasters who could use glamourie. Still plenty
who could see through it, but none who could use it themselves. This meant
that, somewhere way back when before the Sundering, as Blaise's father
referred to when the world changed, the different continents forming, some
ancestor to the Weasley family had a bit of Elfy hanky-panky-ness.

Eew...

Ginny looked at the older girl, delighted surprise on her face. "You can
cast glamour too, Blaise? That is so cool! I mean, what are the odds of
two of us being so close in age, much less living in the same country!
Professor Flitwick says he was the only one at Hogwarts all of his seven
years when he was a student."

Blaise smiled. She knew there was a reason beyond Tiny Person Initial
Cuteness that made her feel at home around the diminutive professor.
Maybe he was part Hobbit or something, too. She knew the Shire had been
placed under magical protection by Gandalf, only accessible by those who
knew of its existence and meant no harm. Unfortunately, her father had
long since lost track of the entrance, so he didn't know if there were
still Hobbits in the world. Blaise hoped there were. But, now that she
was thinking about it, if Flitwick were part Hobbit, which would attest
to his lack of stature (though he could, she supposed, simply be a run-
of-the-mill midget), and he was definitely part Elf, did he have
particularly hairy feet? Because she was pretty sure they weren't unusually
large, especially when compared to his body.

Ick! Fuzzy Furry Flitwick Feet! The image, it burns! BURNS! KYAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

...Whatever.

"Anyway, apparently Merope Casterton's mum can cast it, because when I
used the Seeing True charm, I found out that Merope's got this massive,
hairy mole on her chin. Oh, and I made everybody think Colin's hair had
turned mauve."

The trio having moved into the main part of the castle as they walked
and talked, Draco smirked upon spying several small groups of their
classmates, either making their way into the Hall for dinner, or standing
around, chatting. Waving his hand in the general direction of the other
groups, he said, "See if anybody else is hiding something, Weasley. This
could be amusing."

Blaise snickered at the idea. She already knew that Pansy Parkinson wore
a glamour medallion to hide her occasional break-out of pimples, having
checked during the summer when they ran into each other in Diagon Alley.

Ginny brought out her wand, pointing at herself and saying some sort
of spell that sounded to Blaise like a bastardization of ancient Elvish
and Latin. If there were two languages that were never meant to mingle,
it was most certainly those two. Rotten Romans...

As Ginny's gaze began absent-mindedly roaming over their classmates,
picking out the occasional signature for a glamour medallion and the
like, as well as whatever the magic was supposed to hide, relaying the
information in quiet murmurs to her friends to keep others from overhearing,
Blaise felt a sudden jolt of realization.

With Ginny's spell in effect, the redhead's Elven blood was being brought
to the forefront, which meant that she would be able to see through Blaise's
own disguise ridiculously easily. Which meant that Blaise's cover would
be blown, particularly if Ginny and Draco didn't feel like keeping it a
secret. One word to the Ministry, and she'd be expelled and her wand
snapped, because she counted as a magical creature rather than a human,
which was retarded in her mind. Sure, she wasn't human, but that didn't
make her less of a sentient being. She was half Endless, dangit! Her
father was one of the First-born! She had seniority, damnit! Not that
having her wand snapped would effect her ability to use magic, but it was
the principle of the thing...

If Ginny and Draco couldn't keep a secret, the Balrog dooky would
*REALLY* hit the proverbial fan.

Keeping her back to her friends, Blaise started forward. "You know,
guys, we really could do this later," 'How about never?' "And, I'm a
hit bungry- I mean, a bit hungry! So, umm, yeah, dinner! Dinner is good!
And I really need to do some studying for my Arithmancy test that's on
Friday, so I guess after dinner I'll see you tomorrow, so, umm, bye!"

Blaise had *almost* made it to the door when she heard Ginny gasp ever-
so-lightly. The Slytherin froze, turning her head just enough to see
her friends' faces.

Ginny had a look of utter shock, on her face, with a bit of awe as
well. Draco was just confused, and was already trying to pester Ginny
into telling him what she could see.

Sighing, Blaise turned around, facing her rather distant kinswoman
directly, and raised one eyebrow questioningly. Would Ginny tell?

The Gryffindor shook her head a tiny bit. No, she wouldn't tell. For
now, at least.

Blaise nodded, then strode up beside her friends with a confidence she
wasn't quite certain of, and whispered in their ears, "I'll tell you
tomorrow night. Meet me halfway down the Charms corridor at Midnight;
there're lots of statues and stuff to hide behind, and Filch doesn't
patrol it often. I promise I'll answer any questions either of you
have, if I can."

Ginny opened her mouth to protest, but Blaise interrupted with,
"Look, your curiosity and my continued scholastic career aren't the
only things at stake. There are other people who have to be consulted
before I let out any of my deep-dark secrets."

Draco snorted, and retorted, "Like you'd have any deep-dark secrets,
Stoat."

Blaise just stared at him, her dark eyes borring into his silver-
gray ones. He finally blinked, and she said, "You wouldn't believe
how deep, though not really all that dark. My secrets are only ever
given out on a need-to-know basis, Ferret. *I* only entered the need-
to-know category this summer. Now," she said, her face taking on a
more cheerful visage, "I really am hungry, and I really do need to
study for that Arithmancy test, particularly if I want top score for
my class."

*************************

Author's Notes: Yay! Another chapter done, another chapter closer to
Middle Earth! Yay again!

Merope Casterton: Merope was a character from Greek mythology. I picked
the name at random from my copy of "Exploring Harry Potter," a book that
saves me time and effort, because I can check most cannon references in
there, like character name spelling. I figure Merope can be one of the
random un-named students in Ginny's year. Casterton happens to be my
maternal grandma's maiden name. Anybody ever heard of Eda Nemode Casterton?
She was my great-grandma, and a famous artist. Go Grammy!

Thanks, as always, go out to Rhonda-sensei, who puts up with my crazy
ideas when we really should be working on my singing. Eh, I can sing
any time, but I only get to bounce ideas off of her once a week. Go
Rhonda! =^_^;=

My profound 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:

Jaya: What fun is wussy!Ginny anyway? To play Harry's Damsel in Distress?
That stinks. And it's cliché. And retarded.

Girl Power!

Ahem...Anyway, the debate wasn't about whether Legolas was a better person/
character/etc. than Aragorn, but which of them would win in a fight.
Ginny's point was that, despite Legolas and Aragorn being all royal and
butt-kicking, Frodo had a much more important role to play in the story,
and was challenged and changed the most by the experience.

silverblaze: Thank you! I think it's rather funny myself.

Lady Velvet: Yup, Fyre rocks da casbah. I've told her so, though in many
more words.

I personally favor stories that paint Ginny and/or Narcissa as more than
simple one-dimensional characters, or cranky whiners, or having "Oh, look
at me, I'm so tragic because the guy I love hates/ignores/uses/beats me!"
attitudes throughout the story.

Grr.

Anyway, I'm glad you liked the conversation/debate between Blaise and Lina
in the beginning. I think I originally planned the starting debate to be
between Blaise and Draco, but I figured nah, and besides, Draco would have
only been able to gain exposure to whatever Anime and manga that Blaise
would have been able to show him during summer breaks over the years,
whereas Lord of the Rings would be easy for him to get ahold of (say
Blaise gave him the books for a birthday or something), and the books
don't need anything special for him to use them, like Anime videos and
DVDs would, which would also make it easier for him to smuggle past his
dad.

AthenasFire: Ah, the wonder that is the Happy Fish on Tuesday Dance.

I love my fic too. It would be a rather thin and sad little fic if its
mommy didn't love it, don't'cha know?

As for looking at your work, I'd be happy to. If you want me to look at
a specific story of yours, please e-mail me the title, and maybe a link
to save time, and I'll get back to you on it. *BIG blush!* Aw, shucks,
I'm not all that wise, though. I just have crazy ideas, a good sense of
word order, and a nice spelling checker.

Avia: Thank you! But actually, having Ginny be friends with Blaise and
Draco isn't an original idea of mine. I actually got that from the author
of "The Hospital Wing and the Astronomy Tower," whose name escapes me,
but she reviewed my Sleeping Beauty fic.

At least, I *think* that's the story's title... I could be mistaken...

kurleyhawk2: *tosses off a jaunty salute* Hai, Kurleyhawk-sama! Arigato!

Striker: You really shouldn't have worried just over a few weeks or so
worth of a pause. *stops, checks her wording* Okay, that was a bit odd,
but it says what it meant.

Anyway, of course there's debates regarding Blaise's cannon gender.
I've seen Blaise written well either way, though when a guy he tends
to be written as a moron/weenie/wannabe Draco. And there're all sorts
of ways girl Blaise has been written, but I think I'm being pretty
original.

At least, I hope so.

Anyway, yes, of course I keep my loyal readers in mind! I'd most likely
keep on posting the stories even if nobody were reading them, but having
fans is nice. Don't think I'll ever get used to you guys, though.

fantasyangel: Thankamals. I'm glad you like the story so far. But what
I want to know is how you've gotten so far in the story without at least
a basic knowledge of Lord of the Rings. And the fact that I was reading
Ranma 1/2 fics long before I ever bothered going out and buying the manga
and Anime is beside the point.

Well, by mellow 'mallow Peeps, thanks oodles of noodles and bunches
of oats for sticking with me this far. I'm gonna try and get another
chapter out soon, but I'd really like to finish chapter five of my
Sailor Moon/DBZ fic before the month is over. I've already got chapter
six of that done, just to show you how pathetic I'm being about this
one dinky chapter. But I think it's an important chapter, so I'm not
gonna put out something that's all half-arsed and retarded.

Ja mata ne!

-- Rosy the Cat (rosythecat@yahoo.com)

7-7-03

P.S.: Broke the record I set last chapter for length! Woot!