Mother Dearest
Summary: She tapped her lips with long, well-manicured nails as she waited for his response. For some reason, Blaise had always thought of them as claws. At times, when the light hit them right, he could almost see blood gleaming under them.
Pairings: Mentioned Blaise/Daphne.
Warnings: I'm issuing a warning for Lust. For obvious reasons.
A/N: This revolves around the idea that Lust was somehow reborn, or something of that sort, into the Harry Potter universe as Blaise Zabini's mother. It's not that far-fetched. I mean, think about it. A woman who is able to attract men then kill them off must be someone seductive, intelligent, and cruel. And who do we know that is all those things? Lust, of course.
Blaise's mother was beautiful.
When he was younger, he used to watch her dress up in her fine robes and brush her black hair until it glowed, falling in silky waves down her back.
It was too bad that her beauty couldn't hide the cruel iciness of her true personality.
One of her husbands – Number Four, if he remembered correctly – had described her as a cold beauty. The man had been dead a few weeks later and his mother was the new owner of a large amount of property.
What the Wizarding World thought of her, whatever rumors flew around about that woman whose husbands keep dying, didn't change the fact that she was rich. She was beautiful and self-confident and had enough money to make that very obvious.
Currently, his mother was lounging on the couch, sheathed in a long red dress with slits up the leg. She was stretched out on her stomach, kicking her legs above her. She fingered a golden chain, drawing attention to the shadow between her breasts.
He looked away. He had homework to do and if she was going to play this game again, then he wouldn't indulge her. Dark eyes watched him intently from across the room.
"Was there something you wanted, Mother?"
She pouted, but the predatory look in her eyes didn't lessen. "Such a rude tone to take with your mother. I just wanted to know when I'd be meeting that girl of yours." He stiffened.
"What's her name? Daphne Greengrass?"
"I wasn't aware that you knew about her."
"There are many things that you aren't aware of."
That much, at least, was true. He knew her more than most, but he also knew that he wasn't even close to understanding the real her.
She tapped her lips with long, well-manicured nails as she waited for his response. For some reason, Blaise had always thought of them as claws. At times, when the light hit them right, he could almost see blood gleaming under them.
"I have homework to do," he said. She wasn't actually interested in meeting Daphne; she just wanted to catch him off balance.
She raised an immaculate eyebrow. "It's your first day of Winter Holidays. Surely you don't have so much work that you can't spare a few minutes to talk to your mother?"
He sighed. She was so difficult when she got like this. "Fine. What do you want to talk about?"
"What is Truth?" she asked.
He didn't show any surprise at the abrupt change of topic, but instead he contemplated her question. "What do you mean?"
"If Truth were to take a form, what form would it be?"
His mother had a strange fascination with the truth, yet she also seemed to view it with some kind of fearful contempt. Certainly, she didn't seem to have any problem lying to the Aurors about the trail of deaths that her marriages had left.
"Probably an old man," he said, thinking of the Headmaster. There was a man who told the truth, no matter what the Daily Prophet said about him.
"Oh?" One corner of her mouth quirked upwards. Damn her. He was being judged, and once again, his answer had fallen short of her expectations.
One red strap slipped off of a shoulder, revealing smooth, chocolaty skin. His eyes were drawn of their own accord to the tattoo located just above the centre of her chest. She had it for as long as he could remember. He had never learned what its meaning was. Glancing at her smoldering eyes, he didn't think that he would learn anytime soon.
"Well, how about reincarnation?" she asked.
"What about it?"
"Do you believe in it?"
"No. Do you?"
"Yes, I do."
"Why?"
"It's…just a feeling I get." There was that secretive smile again, amused and disdainful.
"Ah, that explains it," he said sarcastically. His mother was odd like that. She was of the finest pedigree, a Pureblood through and through, yet she still believed in such silly Muggle superstitions.
She huffed. "So rude. Young people are so uncouth these days. I can't imagine what kind of education you're getting at Hogwarts if this is how you behave."
"A substandard one," he muttered.
"That's to be expected of course. But soon it won't be a problem, am I right?"
He nodded shortly. Draco had been quite vocal in the Common Room for the past few weeks. The blonde prat had been dropping broad hints that the Headmaster was going to be dead by the end of the year. Blaise wasn't sure of how he felt about that.
Pushing confusing thoughts about twinkling-eyed Headmasters out of his head, he wracked his brain for a new topic. "So, has anyone caught your eye recently?"
Only a few years ago, he would have been horrified to have this kind of conversation with her, but after Number Five, he had stopped caring. He wasn't responsible for curbing her feral impulses.
"Of course." She tilted her head, letting a lock of hair hang in front of her face. "But they think that they'll mysteriously die if we get married.
"They will."
"Yes, but that's not the point," she said. "Besides, I'll find some idiot to marry me eventually. Humans are so foolish that way."
This time it was Blaise's turn to raise an eyebrow. It was at times like this when he believed that his mother must have some kind of creature blood in her. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing – better a creature than a Mudblood, or worse, a Muggle – but when a witch or wizard with creature blood let their baser instincts control them, they were no better than a creature themselves.
"What?" she asked. "We are."
"I suspect that it's not so much the 'we' as the 'you'."
"Well aren't you the sharp little boy?" She leaned forward, her hair hiding her eyes. He was grateful for that. He didn't want to see the bloodlust in them.
For a moment, she just lay there, unmoving, before something seemed to pass. She shivered, then fluidly stood up. "You're so boring sometimes, Blaise." She stretched before heading to her bedroom.
He hadn't realized how tense he had been until he forced his muscles to relax. He started on his homework, not because he wanted to, but because he had a reputation to uphold. Yes, his mother was rich enough to buy him his grades, but he didn't want anything to do with her money. He would not allow his education to be paid for by blood.
He still remembered the day that he realized just how cold his mother was. She had come home with her second husband and Blaise had innocently asked if this was his father. Her expression had twisted into something that he couldn't quite name, before it hardened. Three days later, her new husband had started choking at the dinner table, his eyes bulging out, feebly gasping for air. She had continued to eat as his head hit the table and stayed there. Blaise had been four.
"Don't tell me you're actually bothering with that?" His quill paused and he sighed imperceptibly before looking up.
His mother stood in the doorway, wearing a lacy nightgown that bordered on indecent. Of course winter wouldn't stop her from wearing the least amount of clothes possible. A quick heating charm later and she was curled up on the couch, wearing a contented look.
"What are you thinking about?"
That time that you murdered a man in front of me.
He didn't say that though. His mother tolerated a lot, but he knew that there was a line that he could not cross. Making any explicit judgment on her lifestyle qualified as too much. "How you should be wearing something underneath that."
She rolled her eyes. "You have no sense of self-worth, Blaise. I'm confident in my body. I'll show it off if I want."
"You don't need to display it for your son."
Too far.
Her eyes narrowed, before smug superiority crossed her regal features. "What's the matter, darling?" she purred. "Does it make you uncomfortable?"
She leaned forward, offering him a view of her ample cleavage. It was the tattoo that caught his gaze though. The winged-snake ate its own tail, eternally locked in a hopeless battle. That was their relationship. Neither would submit to the other. Though it seemed that Blaise conceded to his mother's wishes, in reality, he only made it look like he did. They had been playing this game since before he knew what it was.
He let his fingers trace his own snake tattoo.
She had trained him to be like this, and one day, it was all going to come to a head. Sometime soon, he was going to break away from her and start his own life. They would have it no other way.
A/N: Feedback would be appreciated for this one. Please and thank you!