The child was a strange mix and blend of his parents. He possessed the darker skin of his mother, but it was lighter, a tone more like cream, that indicated his father's genetic influence. Where the baby's father had glassy blue eyes and his mother sported mysterious black, the baby looked upon the world with stormy slate blue eyes…once they could focus at least. But only the few characteristics pointed to his father, for in all else he was his mother in miniature.
Zehera Zabini looked over the child in the cot with her artic eyes. One might have thought that the sight of her first born son would melt the ice around her heart in a way that even her husband had not. That a fond, even warm, smile would grace her full lips and her eyes would sparkle with maternal joy as she gazed upon the one she brought into the world. No, instead that moment passed and door closed as Zehera walked out of the nursery and figuratively out of her son's life. Still behind, quiet and almost always overlooked next to his glamorous wife, Byron Zabini smiled down on his son and stroked one soft, downy cheek.
In light of the neglect of his wife, Byron Zabini managed to secure a wet nurse. The woman was kindly and motherly, but had a passel of her own and could not live and stay to care for the infant. She worked days and left milk for feedings at night. Unfortunately, Byron Zabini also worked nights at the ministry. Perhaps he knew what would go on in his absence, or perhaps he naively believed that his wife would care after the child in his absence out of a sense of duty.
The first few nights, Blaise cried. He cried and wailed and carried on until he exhausted his little baby lungs. No one came to tend to him. The third week saw the same treatment, and after that the child cried no more.
He grew into a quiet and solemn child. Greeting his father in the morning when he came back from work always brought a brilliant smile to his pinched face and light to his tired eyes. His father remained his source of happiness in an otherwise dreary world. When Blaise was six, his father didn't return at five in the morning as was his habit. Blaise waited by the door, clutching his floppy, cotton filled rabbit. An hour passed, and still the child waited, well past the attention spans of other children his age. Two hours, Blaise twisted the fur of his rabbit, managing to pull out chunks that fell to the polished marble floor unnoticed. Three hour into the wait and the ground around the young boy was littered with fake fur and fluffs of cotton. Silent tears worked twisted paths down his face. They crept over his high cheek bones and swept down cheeks rounded with baby fat before dangling from his chin, seemingly unwilling to ruin the pristine white shirt. He never made a noise.
Blaise would have waited all day, but he didn't have to. Six hours after his father was to be home, someone rapped on the door. It couldn't be his father; he always quietly opened the door as if unwilling to bother the household. He would slink in though the cracked open door before kneeling to gather up Blaise in his arms. Then Byron Zabini would twirl around the foyer with the boy in his arms both laughing, having forgotten about everyone else in the world. One thing was for sure, he never knocked. Haunted eyes stared at the door. Whoever it was continued to knock each knock growing more and more insistent. They knocked for a decent length of time; until Zehera came down to see to the commotion.