Fan Fiction ❯ The Life and Times of a Girl Named Blaise Zabini ❯ Chapter Six ( Chapter 6 )

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

The Life and Times of a Girl Named Blaise Zabini

By Rosy the Cat

Summary: Blaise Zabini isn't your average Slytherin. She's smart, she's loyal, and
she wants to kick Voldemort's arse. Oh, and she's not human. LotR (movie cannon)
/Harry Potter fusion with elements from "The Sandman."

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by
J. K. Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books,
Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made
and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

The Lord of the Rings belongs to J. R. R. Tolkien, probably his family, New Line
Cinemas, and probably a bunch of other people.

The Sandman belongs to Neil Gaiman, and DC Comics/Vertigo.

Author's Notes: Sindarin is the elvish dialect Legolas probably spoke the most
often, since he is a Sindarin Elf.

Chapter 6

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

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

Meeting Orpheus had been interesting. (So had meeting her Aunt Calliope, who was
cool.) Blaise had learned that they had the same opinion regarding Brittney Spears.
She should be given a clue, a life, and a few extra brain cells to join the one
that controlled her ability to dance. Not necessarily in that order.

The girl might be a great dancer, but that and blond hair shouldn't qualify her
as a pop star. Sound technology should only carry a career so much.

Ahem. Anyway, after that Blaise promised her cousin that she would write regularly,
and would send a Quick QuotesTM quill with the first letter so he could write back.
Then it was back home for lessons in elven glamour from her father, and to bed once
she had stopped playing and seeing how she would look as a blond (she came to the
conclusion that it made her look like a cross between an albino using fake tan goop
and a Betazoid from Star Trek. She's a sunshine girl come summer, though a school
year spent mostly in the dungeons at Hogwarts faded it quite a bit) and managed to
figure out how to reset it so she looked the way she was used to looking before her
father had removed it.

The summer was spent exploring the woods near the house with her father, practicing
archery, gymnastics and martial arts, and hanging out with Lina.

In other words, same old, same old, only no more Dalla, and she hadn't seen hide nor
hair of Lorenzo, who was still on the run, the brat dastard.

And now it was time for that one time of the year that about every schoolchild hates,
because it is a sign of the impending school year.

School Supply Shopping.

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

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOO!!! I DON'T WANNA!!! I WANNA STAY HOME AND BAKE
COOKIES WIV YOU!!!"

Legolas sighed in a manner that his daughter would have pointed out would have
developed a sweatdrop if they were Anime characters. He looked down at the
determined sixteen-year-old who was clinging to the oak railing of the house's
main staircase, who was decidedly bent on not moving toward the large stone
fireplace that was down the entryway and in the living room. There were times
when he wondered how he could have lived for over ten millennia, raised a daughter
on his own, and yet was stumped by his younger child.

He had a feeling he owed a great many apologies to his parents. His childhood had
lasted *centuries,* and here he was complaining about his daughter who, by all
rights, should still be a *baby*.

Gah.

How did mortals manage it?!

Legolas sighed again. "Elessi, I thought you *liked* school? Don't you wish to see
young Draco?"

The half elf, half Endless gave an indignant sniff, and retorted, "Duh! But I'm
debating whether spending the next nine months seeing my bestest buddy on a daily
basis is worth having to stay in the same room as Pansy Parkinson and Millicent
Bulstrode. They're always snooping about, trying to get into my things! And it doesn't
help that both of them are taller than me!" she concluded, pouting at her father.
"By the by, Da, when is that famed elven height supposed to kick in? I'm sixteen,
and I'm only five-foot-two!"

Her paternal parental unit smiled and said, "Everyone is different, sweetheart. Be
patient. Now," he continued, changing subjects, "Shall we be off? I believe a certain
someone has been asking for a pet of her own..."

Blaise was on her feet nigh-instantaneously, squealing in delight at the prospect.
She had been using Dalla's personal owl for sending mail for the past five years,
and, though she planned to continue doing so, she wanted a familiar that was completely
her own.

"Let's go let's go let's go!"

And, with some tosses of Floo Powder, and two shouts of "Diagon Alley," they were
on their way.

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

"Kitties!"

Upon entering the Magical Menagerie, Blaise had made a direct bee-line for the
kitten pens.

Legolas, decked out in conservative clothing that ran high on greens, grays and
browns, his glamour disguise of old age firmly in place, smiled in amusement at
his youngest child's antics.

There was such an exuberance to her, such life, that you could not help but smile
in her presence. It was something he had noticed about her mother on the few
occasions they had spoken. This newness, this wide-eyed view of life, was what had
kept him from moving on to Valinor when he had the chance; back then, it had been
Dallandra who had re-awakened his inner child, and such feelings drove him to want
to show his children all the beauty and wonders this world had to offer, before
leaving it. For all that he, at times, regretted not leaving when he had the chance,
it was the joy of the children that kept the regret away.

It was worth everything. As much as he missed his wife, parents, siblings, grandchildren,
and now his eldest child, he felt he would have grown to regret far more if he had
denied this world to Dallandra, and denied the world Elessario, for that matter.

'*She* is worth everything,' Legolas mentally reiterated as Elessario picked up a
little chocolate brown kitten that sported big cornflower blue eyes, cooing
affectionately over it.

"Granda, can I have this one?"

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

"Granda, can I have this one?"

It's almost scary how quickly I can switch mental gears from being Da's (Daddy,
Dad; she's a sixteen-year-old: she's allowed to change her affectionate titles
once in a while, ya know!) daughter to his granddaughter. Da says it's safer to
keep pretending as far as our relationship goes until I graduate.

Bleh.

Even so, I'm probably going to have much more of a problem referring to Dalla
as my mother again; I've grown used to Mum, who I adore. Not that Dalla wasn't
a great mother too, but, well, she is/was/whatever my sister.

Tenses stink when it comes to referring to Elves who have died. They're not
around here and now, but, if you went to Valinor, there they would be, all
living and breathing and saying "What took you so long?".

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, the ever-so-kawaii (cute in Japanese) kitten!

Mind you, I've always been rather partial to cats. I used to play with Lina's
pet cats all the time when we were still going to the same school (She's got
*four* cats! How lucky can you get?!). Here you're probably asking why I didn't
get one for myself before first year, instead of sticking to borrowing Dalla's
owl, Verde. The reason is quite simple, really.

Lorenzo Zabini is allergic to cats.

Run in fear, little "Muggles": the big, bad Death Eater's coming!

Too bad nobody ever tried shoving their pet cat in his face; that man breaks out
into hives faster than you can say "Atchoo!"

Go on, try it!

Too late.

You can see why I am so gosh-darn eager to get a cat of my own now, huh? ~_^

My father has made his way across the store to look at the kitten that has curled
so nicely up in my arms. She (yes, I checked; stop whispering, you perverts! I
didn't want a tomcat because then Bulstrode's cat, Belinda (poor furball) would
be hitting on it every chance she got as soon as mine was old enough. Hence my
checking of the gender...) looked up at Daddy, blinked, and let out the cutest
little squeak of a mew. It was absolutely adorable.

"Aww! How cute!"

In stereo! ^_^

Anyway, he bought her for me, and some cat food, and some treats, and a collar
(royal blue with baby-blue rhinestones) and dishes (silver-plated with "food"
and "water" engraved on them), and, as we were leaving the shop, he asked me a
rather important question.

"So, what are you going to name her?"

I paused, taking this very seriously, because naming a pet is like naming a child:
naming it off the bat and ending up with something stupid is bad, and could lead
to resentment on the name-ee's part.

"Dellai."

Daddy raised an eyebrow, and said, "Dellai?"

I nodded happily, and explained, "It's short for Delight; I decided that Mum's
family needs another one, since Auntie Del's name was changed from that to
Delirium. And Auntie once said that she likes kitties, too."

I swear Daddy almost actually sweatdropped. I don't know why; I think it's a
cute name.

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

Three hours of shopping later...

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

'Mmm...Ice cream. Daddy says that he wonders why Hobbits never figured it out.
I suppose that makes sense; supposedly they were almost always eating, so you
would have thought that they would have thought of freezing cream mixed with
sweetenings and fruit. Then again, they would only be able to have some during
the winter, because they didn't have refrigerators,' Blaise thought as she set
half of her bags of school supplies down on the ground near her as she sat in
one of the chairs around one of the numerous tables in the patio area around
Florean Fortescue's Ice-Cream Parlour. The other half of her purchases quickly
joined their mates as her father set them down, then placed their glass dishes
of "sugary, creamy goodness" on the table, stainless steel spoons sticking out
of the piles of dessert jauntily.

"Yes! Triple scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough, peanut butter cups, and mint
chip! You rock the casbah!"

Legolas shook his head in amusement as he gracefully (Is it possible for an Elf
*not* to move gracefully?) slipped into his chosen seat at the table, a small
smile quirking the corner of his mouth and revealing glamour-induced smiley lines.
He absently dipped his first spoonful of ice cream for the day out, leaving it
hovering in the air for a few minutes as he remarked, "I still say that you will
be up all night if you eat that much sugar, dear. And please slow down; you will
get a ice cream headache if you keep going at that pace!" A blissful smile graced
his face as he inserted the spoonful of triple fudge brownie ice cream into his
mouth.

Yep. Legolas, called Greenleaf, former Prince of Mirkwood, is a chocolate freak.

Hey, the stuff is quite possibly the most addictive never-been-illegal substance
known to man. And it was only developed, what, two centuries ago, if that? The guy
is millennia old; he's allowed a favorite sweet!

Swallowing her tenth mouthful, having decided to start with the scoop of cookie
dough, Blaise reached over to the glass of water she had procured in the event of
over-sticky sugar mouth, which she was also prone to if she drank too much soda,
took a quick swallow, waited for her stomach to settle a bit, and grinned at the
older Elf. Leaning in, she murmured to avoid eavesdroppers hearing something that
wasn't common knowledge, "Since when was my inability to sleep a full night a new
thing, Granda? The way I hear it, it's a racial characteristic."

The main deciding factor when Legolas and Dallandra ended up spilling part of the
beans about their family's history had been the fact that, as Blaise had grown
older, not needing as much sleep as she had as a baby, she was sleeping less and
less, much like an elf (because she actually did sleep, which Elves don't do;
they just rest, their minds wandering the realm of Waking Dreams, rather than
the Dreaming proper, which is why Elves "sleep" with their eyes open), and her
subconscious had discovered how to have waking dreams, and Dalla had found her
sleeping with her eyes open one night when she had gone in to check on her. Her
lack of needing to sleep or rest had been the major component that led her to
skip several grades of conventional schooling, which had led her to meet Lina
(who is, at this point, nineteen), and subsequently become a happy little Tolkienite.

Essentially, she had to keep her head covered when she slept, in case she switched
to a more elven mode of recuperation, so she had taken to sleeping burrowed up
under a pile of sheets, blankets and a bedspread, and she did not appreciate being
woken before she was ready, which led to snarling at the unfortunate waker-upper,
which led to one of her nick-names being Cranky the Stoat, which led to, after
Fourth Year, her ever-so-devious turnabout of hers and Draco's hated rodenty nick-
names into something they only called each other. Draco was, naturally, Ferret, and
she was Stoat.

Legolas rolled his eyes, and would have continued, had their conversation not been
annoyingly highjacked by the appearance of a particularly pug-faced house mate of
Blaise's: Pansy Parkinson.

Boo! Hiss!

"Hello, Zabini! How is that Mudblood mother of yours? Oops, I'm *so* *sorry!*
How insensitive of me!"

Blaise slowly turned, Ice Queen face firmly back in place for the first time in
months, and gave the other girl her "You are so below me, it isn't worth the effort
of squishing you like the insignificant anthropoid you are, you spineless insect"
look. She was rather proud of that look, which had reduced many a dim-witted school-
mate to a shame-face, if not tears.

Apparently either Parkinson had grown a spine over the summer, or she was in
oblivious mode again.

Note to self: improve evil glare of DOOM!TM; it seems to have lost its potency.
Also, find a way to kick Parkinson's arse for insulting Dalla, the ignoramus.
Make sure that I can't be caught.

"I wonder what Drakie will say when he finds out that your mother wasn't pure-
blood? You certainly won't be able to steal him from me now, you know. Oh, you
poor thing!" Pansy concluded with her best effort at a nasty grin.

Nasty it wasn't, but it gave Blaise some rather disturbing mental images of
Parkinson and Draco standing at the altar, the Pug casting the Imperious on
Draco and making him say "I do."

Now, that was just *wrong!* That little skanky so-and-so wasn't getting her
claws into *her* bestest friend! Kicking her arse was out of the question; best
make sure she's in traction until she's thirty!

Then, a thought struck her. She dropped the Ice Queen persona, a positively evil
idea having taken root in her mind.

Oh, this would be good!

"First of all, Parkinson, if anything ever dirtied my mother, it was solely due
to being married to Zabini; second, at least I'm not so inbred I look like a pug;
third, while I'm not romantically interested in Draco, as his friend I cannot allow
you to get your stinky paws on him, so forget it and try for someone with a face
uglier than yours; fourth, I've disowned Lorenzo Zabini, and as such my last name
is Green, so stop calling me Zabini; and last of all..." she smirked, having
shifted her weight for a fast stand up and maneuvered her hand so that it was
cradling her dish of ice cream, ready to be lifted. Oh, this is one of the few
times she was glad so many people thought she was evil: they would be expecting
something more subtle.

"...You have stupid hair."

Before Pansy could react, much less absorb the enormity of what had been said,
Blaise had stood, dumped her desert upside-down on the other girl's head, and
let the smirk evolve into a triumphant grin.

"My work here is done!"

Scooping up her bags, she proudly glided out of the patio area of the ice cream
parlor, her father following shortly after, having ignored his own advice and
inhaled his ice cream before leaving, shaking his head.

"That was not very nice, dearest. And here I thought you were mature."

Blaise tossed over her shoulder, "Neither is she, and I'm rather sick of being
the mature one all of the time." She would have continued, except she suddenly
found herself being enveloped in a hug, a kiss on each cheek following shortly
after, and she found herself staring into the silver-gray eyes of her bestest of
best buddies, Draco Malfoy.

"Thank you! You have no idea how grateful I am! She's been following me about
all day, whining. Mother ended up having to shove me back into the men's dressing
rooms in Madam Malkin's to get that nutty tart away from me!"

Blaise grinned at her friend, returning the hug cheerfully, stepped back, and said,
"Eh, she had it coming, and I've been wanting to do something like that for ages.
So, how was your summer?"

He winced, and replied, "Father found out about your mother being muggle-born, and
has officially forbidden me from associating with you."

Blaise paused, seeming to be pondering the problem, then said with an utterly
serious face, "Well then, I guess we will just have to continue being friends, then;
particularly since I am determined that you will be best man if I ever get married."

Draco gave a mock gasp, one hand going to the corresponding cheek, and said,
"Why, Miss Green! Are you suggesting that we blatantly ignore a direct order from
my paternal parental unit, risking Howlers and Glares of DOOM!TM?"

Blaise grinned. "Why of course we shall, Mister Malfoy, for aren't true friends
the ones that you would choose before your bigoted arse of a father? Besides, my
Glare of DOOM!TM is much scarier than his, the lightweight of a pansy!"

They paused, silent as that last statement worked its way through their brains.
Finally, Draco smirked.

"How Apropos."

Blaise pondered that thought, then nodded her agreement. "Disturbingly so."

"So," Draco started, "Are you up to spending time keeping me from going batty
from all the required shopping?"

"Sorry, Ferret," Blaise said, pouting cutely in disappointment. "Granda and I
already got all of my things; we had so much stuff that he had to go back home
to drop off my new kitten. I guess we'll have to wait 'till the train. Meet at
the usual compartment?"

Sighing, Draco nodded. "We'll have to find a new way to ditch Vince and Greg with
Pansy though, Stoat. The silly bint is getting disturbingly smarter and more
determined these days."

"All-righty then! Puggalicious Parkinson can never defeat Team Rodent-like Mammal!"
She paused, then said, "D, we need a new group nick-name. The one we have stinks."

Draco nodded. "That we do, but it will have to wait until later. Your grandfather
is starting to look a bit bored over there, B."

"Gotcha. See you in a week!"

"Bye!"

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

Author's Notes: Only two people have, at the point that I am finishing writing
this chapter, reviewed since chapter five went up.

I feel sad.

I guess I was getting a bit too used to reader responses after the first four
chapters, not to mention all of the feedback I got on my one shot funny fic,
Sleeping Beauty, or "Get Your Hands Off My Princess, You Damn Dirty Gryffindor!"

*sigh* Yes, I've been reduced to shameless plugging. If I'd been planning this
story already when I finished Sleeping Beauty, I'd probably have plugged this
there.

Anyhoo, for my two loyal reviewers:

Lady Velvet- Jeebus, girl! You have to be the only person at Fiction Alley who
has reviewed for every chapter! *thumbs up!* Go team you!

Anyhoot, yup, Neil Gaiman kicks literary butt. I've only read his comics, but
I'm thinking about borrowing my older brother's copy of "American Gods," also
written by the esteemed Mister Gaiman.

Yuppers, Death of the Endless is absolutely spiffing. If I had to be a fictional
character, I'd like to have her for a mom. Her or... Hmm, I dunno. Someone cool,
though!

TASAKAPEOTKAUU- Thank you! You have been so gosh-darn silent these days, I thought
you had dropped off the end of the Earth. Or Media Miner, at least.

Darn tootin' it's an original idea! Although, you might notice, after the first
few chapters came out on Fiction Alley, there was suddenly an up-surging of Blaise
Zabini-centered fan fics. I started a trend! Who knew?

The Astral projection stuff I borrowed from Katharine Kerr's Books of Deverry.
She's so cool! As for the whole Drag Queen Galadriel thing, and how you think
Haldir was a bit OOC for that: remember, Haldir's been dead for about ten THOUSAND
years. You would mellow out too, after that long. Besides, he's been hanging
around Blaise for almost five years. He knows her sense of humor, and he knows
she was kidding.

Okay, unless there's a sudden up-surging of reviews after today, that's it for
my responses.

I give Fyre (darkfyre81@hotmail.com) full credit for coming up with the dumping
of delicious dairy product on the hair of annoying Slytherins. In her story, "The
Daughter of Malfoy," a pregnant Harry dumped strawberry yogurt that had dried
pickled onions in it on Draco's head after aforementioned Slytherin insulted
Harry's parents. I found that particular passage rather amusing, and, just at
random, decided to adapt it to my story. Prior to writing it, the idea had never
occurred to me, but, then again, some of my funniest (in my opinion) jokes and
gags and such pop up that way. Thanks again, Fyre!

Now, if you all would excuse me, I have a smidgen over two days to write two essays
that count as my finals for my two English classes this semester. And I've only
barely started the one that's not due until Wednesday (It's currently Sunday, for
those who are curious).

Gah. The trials of an English Major.

E-mail anything you don't want on the review board to me at rosythecat@yahoo.com ;
I'm going to have to rustle up a wiffle bat soon to beat my muse into submission
with if it won't shut up about my stories and help me with my essays!

As always, thanks for reading.

-- Rosy the Cat

5-25-03

Ohmygawd! This is my longest chapter *ever!* Go me! =~_^=