Amor Vincit Omnia
Arania watched as her wife bustled around their bedroom, donning robes of plum edged with gold. Beneath, Mila wore an ivory silk tunic with the Zabini crest embroidered on the pocket, black dragon-skin trousers, and an emerald pendant set upon a gold chain that nestled in the base of her neck.
"Must you go to another of those councils, Mila? This is our honeymoon, after all."
"Nia, darling, this is the one council to which it is essential that I go. With my votes, we can finally make a change. The International Confederation of Wizards is a slow-moving body. For it to acknowledge that we must allow wizards of all descent to represent our respective countries—we'll be making waves. I have no choice."
"I know, I know," Arania murmured. "But it is so early. I wish you could stay in bed a little longer."
"So do I, but alas, I cannot," Mila said. With a final flick of her wand, her chocolate-brown curls piled on top of her head in an elegant bun. She swooped over to Arania, ghosting a kiss across her lips. "See you in a few hours, Signora Zabini."
"I look forward to it, Signora Zabini," Arania responded. "I love you."
"Love you too."
An hour passed, and then another. Arania dozed in bed, finally jolting awake when Mila's butler entered the room. He was a slight man with eyes created from the smiles he bestowed on the Zabini family. Today, Vincent was paler than his olive skin normally allowed, not a single smile in sight.
Arania stretched, glancing out the window, then frowned. The sun was high in the sky, much higher than it should have been. Mila ought to have been back by now.
"Signora, my utmost apologies for disturbing you. We have received some terrible news."
Hands shaking, Arania pushed herself upright. She felt as if she were in a dream.
"What's happened?"
"There has been an explosion at the ICW. An Auror is here to see you." Vincent ducked his head, a tear trickling down his cheek. "I'm so sorry, Signora. The beloved Mila Zabini is dead."
Three years passed. The first, Arania spent in a daze, unable to comprehend her grief. The second, she spent weeping, barely able to function. The third, she spent in a quiet, curious fury, anger building in her chest like a spell that would soon burn the world to ashes.
There was only one thing that Arania Zabini cared about now. She had only one passion left to her, the only thing that mattered now that her love had been ripped away: revenge.
Her wedding with Mila had been a quiet one, but Arania had inherited everything. The Zabinis were a wealthy family, with many offshoots in residence across Italy. Like the Blacks or the Smiths of Great Britain, different branches of the family had fingers in many different pies. When Arania returned to high society as Madam Zabini, it was not hard to convince the world she was the widower of one of Mila's lesser cousins, one that had died of dragon pox only six weeks ago.
At formal events, Arania sobbed into handkerchiefs and cried on men's shoulders. Men did not know what to do when a woman cried, so they patted her hair and promised her the world. Meanwhile, Arania got to work. Before she had married Mila, Arania had been a passable potioneer, although she'd given up her career to be with her wife. A few drops of watered down Amortentia, the odd suggestive comment, an insinuation of what lay between her legs, and men were eating out of the palm of her hand.
It took a few months of flirting, faux smiles, and sultry winks, but Arania had six names. Six members of a pureblood society that was so uptight that they were currently in the midst of a war over the purity of blood. The men who had conspired to kill Mila were British aristocrats that had been born with a silver spoon in their mouths: Phineas Burke, Alfred Rowle, Ramacus Lestrange, Memphias Smith, Septimus Jones, and Brutus Carrow.
They had plotted Mila's death. Perhaps they had not cast the spell, but they were the responsible party.
She would watch them burn.
Phineas Burke was the first, the easiest. Arania was not unaware of her charms: of her sultry Italian accent, of the hourglass figure she displayed in the finest of silks, of the shine of her mocha skin, of the glossiness in the curls of her dark hair.
If he found her unattractive, she'd drug and marry him regardless, but he did not. All it took was a whisper—perhaps his children were plotting to kill him and take their inheritance early. Soon they were married, and Arania spent a long year entertaining him, biding her time.
One evening, when she could stand it no more, she fixed him his scotch as she tended to do when he returned from his meetings at the Ministry.
"Here, my darling," she purred. She watched in glee as Phineas swallowed a mouthful then froze, a rictus of pain upon his face. He croaked, gasping for breath, but his body was rigid, unable to move. As he suffocated, she pushed him into his armchair and leaned over him.
"Don't like it?" She chuckled as he glared up at her in fury and anger. "Such a shame. Some guys just can't hold their nightshade."
As he died, Arania smiled. The passion for revenge still burned in Arania's breast.
And so, she became Madam Zabini, the widower, once more.
Arania took solace in Ramacus Lestrange. He was an unusually kind man, for a prejudiced, cold-hearted murderer. She wept on his shoulder for the loss of yet another partner, proclaiming herself to be cursed. He comforted her, brought her flowers, wooed her with sweet words and clever wit.
Perhaps, in another world, in another life, she could have loved him. They married, and when Arania discovered that she was pregnant, she decided to keep it. It was thus that she began her campaign of whispers again, this time to the wives, the shopkeepers, the kind strangers on the street.
"How I fear for my child," Arania whispered. "Ramacus has become quite mad with jealousy and anger. He believes me to be unfaithful. You know what his brothers are like… whatever will I do? My poor child, how can I bring him into such a life?"
When Ramacus eventually caught wind of the whispers, he confronted her. She stood, facing the flickering fire in their lounge.
"What lies are these?" he spat.
Arania did not look at him.
"Dear husband, I know not of what you say."
"I haven't laid a single hand on you!"
Then she turned and saw the horror on his face as he gasped, stumbling back. Blood dripped down the side of her face, her eye blackened, lip split and bruised.
"Help!" Arania screamed. "Protego! Expelliarmus!"
"Stop this at once!" he bellowed, drawing his wand.
"Accio!" The wooden chest of drawers behind Ramacus rocketed toward her, catching Ramacus in the middle of his back. His spine snapped with a sickening crack.
Arania turned to the fire and threw in a handful of Floo Powder.
"The DMLE."
As she sobbed onto the shoulder of Brutus Carrow, claiming she'd only been trying to Summon the divorce papers that lay within the chest of drawers, Arania had to bury her face in his robe in order to hide her smile.
Brutus Carrow was easy, boring. Like Ramacus, he comforted her, looked after her throughout her pregnancy, married her despite it. When she gave birth, she fawned over her darling boy. So small and yet so perfect.
"Blaise, for my father," Arania said. "My precious Blaise Zabini."
As she looked down at him, she thought for the first time about giving up her mad quest for revenge. But even as she cooed over his cherubic expression and silky soft skin, she found that she could not. Without her passion for revenge, the fire burning in her soul might sputter and flicker out.
Instead, she would teach him to be like steel, tempered in fire and as untouchable as the water that cooled it.
Three weeks later, Brutus died at the hands of the criminals he'd tried to arrest, having had the misfortune to have forgotten his wand while on patrol in Knockturn Alley. In the Zabini household, another log was added to embers in the fireplace as a wand of oak and unicorn hair burned merrily on the fire.
Rowle was a hard man, with steel grey eyes and a moustache the quivered when he spoke. No matter how much cleavage Arania exposed, how high she wore the slit in her dress, how sweetly she spoke with him in a low sultry voice, he refused to be seduced.
Arania returned to her faithful friend Amortentia. Clad in a Disillusionment Charm, she crept into his office in the Ministry and laced his hidden stash of gin. While she might not have been able to seduce Rowle, his assistant was not half so inured to her charms.
"Come, lover, let us have dinner together," she said, calling in on Rowle after one particularly arduous Wizengamot meeting. He was sipping thoughtfully at his gin and tonic, a curl of lemon garnish floating on the ice.
"I think I shall," he said. "I don't know what kept me from you for so long. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
Arania extended a hand and let him sweep her off her feet. Their romance took the wizarding world by storm; Rowle's icy heart finally melted by the mysterious Madam Zabini. A whirlwind marriage had them honeymooning in under a month.
When Rowle fell from a magic carpet as they explored the Persian Gulf, no one had to know that he'd tried to fly when Arania had suggested it, to see if he could reach the moon and bring it back for her to keep.
Memphias Smith was an odious fellow with a tendency toward cruelty. Arania did not like the way that he looked at Blaise, and she did not like the way he spoke to her, and she did not like how he presumed to speak for her in the Wizengamot.
All this, however, she allowed in order to find her revenge. She sent Blaise away to spend some time with her uncle in Italy over the summer, claiming that at the tender age of twelve he was getting underfoot. She swooned when Memphias draped her in jewels and laughed when he told his distasteful jokes. To her surprise, he had courted her, and she was so delighted by this turn of events she had forgotten to be suspicious.
When she tasted aconite in her wine, she met his gaze and smiled across the dinner table. He was sweating, the pig, pink and chubby.
"I am Madam Arania Zabini, formerly of the Santiago family. Even the women in our famiglia are experienced enough in poisons to develop resistance to them."
Silently, she Summoned a bezoar from her stores, and then quick as a snake, cast a Body-Bind. She swallowed the bezoar, then poured the wine into his motionless mouth.
"Sadly, I only have one bezoar, my dear. Do try not to choke on your aspirations."
She rose from the table, striding to the Floo. She watched and waited as his heart beat slower and slower, until finally he was dead. Then she called for the Aurors and wondered if finally her reputation had preceded her.
The passion drove Arania on, even as Blaise aged, becoming a man himself. He would watch her with silent, brooding eyes. He never asked her what drove her to kill, but if he did, she'd tell him in a heartbeat. Perhaps she would tell him anyway, once it was all over.
Only Septimus Jones was left now. He was a sly man, with golden hair and a charming smile.
"What could the Black Widow want with me?" He'd teased when she'd first approached him. It hadn't taken her long to tease him back, to encourage him to play along with the game. He'd married her, eyes wide open, fully aware of who she was, what she might do.
For some reason, he'd thought himself the exception to the rule.
But then again, they all did.
Septimus was sitting at their table when she entered the restaurant. It was the middle of the day, and he'd agreed to meet her for lunch at The Golden Goose, one of Diagon Alley's finer eateries.
She looked at him, and thought of Mila, beautiful, kind, strong Mila, who no doubt had never wanted Arania to take this path. Still, as she looked at him, all she could feel was hatred, all she wanted was revenge.
But Arania was tired, too. So she laced her lips with poison and kissed the corner of his mouth in greeting when he stood to welcome her to the table.
"Why are we here, my sweet? Don't tell me you've suddenly found time for me in the middle of your busy schedule."
"To discuss some of our mutual friends, of course," she said. She pressed a napkin to her lips, cleaning them of the poison and slipping herself the antidote. "Five of them, precisely."
Septimus tilted his head to one side, eyes narrowed.
"I wasn't aware we had any."
"Phineas Burke, Ramacus Lestrange, Brutus Carrow, Alfred Rowle, and Memphias Smith," she said.
"Your husbands. Not my friends," Septimus clarified. "Your dead husbands, I should say."
Arania smiled. "Such a tragedy. It's funny, you know. I was married before even Phineas."
"Yes, yes, the Zabini boy."
"No. Her name was Mila Zabini, and everything I've done since I've done for her."
Septimus's jaw dropped; he obviously recognised the name. He paled, gazing first at the drink he'd already ordered, then touching trembling fingertips to the place she'd kissed him on the corner of his lips. He tried to speak, but choked on his words.
"Goodbye, Septimus Jones. The poison takes from you first your speech, then your sight, then your sanity."
Arania stood, sweeping away from the table and the chaos she'd left behind.
Still, the passion for revenge burned in her chest, but she'd slaked the monster within her, finally laid to rest the men who'd murdered her wife.
Perhaps Mila would not be proud. But although Arania still loved her with every inch of her being, she had Blaise now.
Any further revenge she took, she'd take against those who dared to wrong him.
She was a Zabini and they were forged in fire, their passions an all-consuming love.
Word Count: 2456
QLFC Round 3 Captain Prompt: centre the story about something the character is passionate about.
Please note that Amor Vincit Omnia is Latin for Love Conquers All.