Writing Challenge #16 Prompt: Write a story or drabble with an unreliable narrator.

Unreliable Witness

Blaise Zabini

My name is Blaise Zabini and I'm ten years old. My Mama's the most beautiful witch in the world. She's had five husbands so far. I've had four Step-Fathers. All of them have died.

It's very sad. But some people feed on sadness, Mama says. They see it as an opportunity to be nasty to us. They spread dirty rumours. They lie. They say my Mama killed her husbands.

My Mama is not a murderess. She's just been unlucky that's all.

Daddy died when I was a baby. Attacked and stabbed by a Muggle on the street. We don't know what he wanted. All we know is he left my Father dying on the street for a bag of Galleons. He must have been so annoyed when he saw the wizard money. It would have been useless to him. A useless mugging. Pointless. Like my Father's death.

I don't know if that makes it better or worse. The fact that it was pointless. Is it better that the Muggle got nothing out of my Father's death. Or is it worse that my Father died for nothing.

They took him to that Muggle building. The one with all the Muggle Healers. They couldn't save him.

"He lost too much blood."

That's what we have blood replenishing potions for.

If only he'd gone to St Mungos... If only there'd been a wizard in the area... Maybe I'd have a Daddy.

Mama was devastated. She still is. There's a big picture over our mantelpiece of them on their wedding day. She's gazing into his eyes and he's gazing into hers. They really loved each other. She says he loved me too.

He looks so handsome in the picture. A big strong man. I hope I look like him when I'm grown up. Mama insists I look like him. But everyone else says I look like her. I have her eyes and her nose and her hair. Mama says they talk rot. I think I look like my Daddy.

Six months after my Daddy died Mama married again.

His name was Daniel and I was nine months old. I don't really remember him. I know he was thirty, I know he was from a very rich family and I have one clear memory of him.

I was sitting on his lap and he was making the tip of his wand glow red. Mama was out. He thought she wouldn't be back for hours. He rolled up my sleeves and pressed his wand against my arm. There were tiny circular marks on my arm. When his wand touched my arm it hurt and made more marks and I cried. He told me to shut up. Mama wouldn't love me if I was a little crybaby.

Mama stood in the door. She screamed.

She whisked me upstairs and healed my burns and put me to bed and sang me to sleep.

When I woke up Daniel was dead.

He'd had a heart attack.

I was two.

The Auror man patted Mama on the back as she cried.

"Why my Daniel! Why did he have to die!"

A year later she married again.

He was called Marius and I was three.

Marius was very old. He couldn't play dragons or give me piggy backs or take me out on a broom like my friends Daddys. All he really liked to do was sleep beside the fire. He was very boring. I told Mama this.

The next day he keeled over at lunch.

He'd died of old age.

I was still three.

The Auror man handed Mama a cup of tea as she cried.

"I never thought of him as old. It was just such a shock."

I found Mama's cauldron in the basement. It had been scrubbed clean.

She didn't marry again for two years.

We met Guido on holiday in France when I was five.

"Please, Madame. A rose for you."

She giggled as he kissed her hand.

" And some chocolat for your leetle boy."

She smiled as he ruffled my hair. Mama is very pretty when she smiles.

They got married on the beech. It was fun. I got to play in the sand afterwards. And Mama said I was such a big boy, I could stay up late and drink as much pumpkin juice as I wanted. I stuck my tongue out at my older cousins when they had to go to bed.

I thought Guido would be fun too. He was alot younger than Marius and could play with me.

But he didn't want to. He would snap at me to go away and drink that nasty smelling stuff that grown ups drink.

Mama likes drinking it too, but it makes Mama giggly and happy and it smells nice when it mixes with her perfume.

It didn't smell nice at all on Guido. His breath smelt nasty anyway and the grown up drink made it worse. And he became nasty too, not giggly and happy like Mama. He would glare at me with bloodshot eyes and tell me to bugger off.

Then he told Mama to bugger off. Only he didn't say bugger. And he called her alot of other horrid names. I told some of them to Draco later.

That night, when she tucked me in Mama asked

"Do you like Guido Bambino."

Solemnly I shook my head.

"No Mama."

The next morning I was woken up by Mama screaming. When I ran down stairs she wouldn't let me into the breakfast room. Guido was in there. With a note.

He'd slit his wrists.

I was seven.

The Auror man handed Mama a tissue as she cried.

I sat on her lap and cried too this time.

"Why! Why!" she cried. "What could have made him so unhappy he would- do something like this!"

"Where's Guido?" I asked the Auror man. "I want Guido," I sobbed.

He patted me on the head. I learned his name was Lawrence.

Mama and I cried and cried until the Aurors left.

When I was eight a reporter came to our house to interview Mama.

He was called Oscar.

I liked him straight away. He winked at me and said "Hello Scamp."

I'd never been called "Scamp" before.

He was my favourite Step-Father.

He played with me all the time. He didn't snap at me like Guido. He didn't get tired like Marius. And he didn't hurt me like Daniel.

He was just like a Daddy. But he never tried to replace my real Daddy. He would lift me up to see the picture of my real Daddy up close and tell me my real Daddy was looking down on me from heaven and he was proud of me.

"Are you proud of me Oscar?" I asked.

"Very proud Scamp."

Oscar was brilliant. I wanted him to stay with us forever.

One day I came downstairs with a Quaffle. Oscar said he was going to teach me to aim right.

I was about to go into the drawing room when I heard raised voices.

"You killed them!"

"Oscar please calm down."

"You did! You killed them you-!"

"You're being ridiculous!"

"Am I! Am I? How long before you turn on me hmm?"

"Oh for Merlin's sake!"

"How long before you turn on Blaise!"

"Don't you drag my Bambino into this!"

"I won't let you! I won't let you hurt Blaise!"

"I Would never hurt-!"

"I'm taking him away! You'll never get your claws into him you bitch!"

Terrified I burst into the room and ran straight into Mama's arms.

"Don't let him take me Mama! Don't let him take me away from you!"

"I won't Bambino, I won't- Petrificous Totalus!"

Oscar fell to the ground inches away from us. He'd tried to grab me.

I glared at him.

"I liked you."

We discovered him cold in his chair the next morning. He was surrounded by empty bottles.

He died of alcohol poisoning.

I was ten.

Lawrence the Auror man murmured he was sorry as Mama cried.

"I knew he liked to drink! I never thought it was this bad!"

I hugged her and tried to blink back my own tears. A few escaped down my cheek. I was the perfect grieving step-son. Trying to be a man.

Poor Mama. She's been so terribly unlucky with her husbands. I hope her next one's better.