A Fine Day to Die

His daughter's hand was a comforting weight in his. A life-line to the present as an old, half-forgotten memory of the first time he was here began to lap at his brain.

"Mummy, why's it got words on it?"

"So people who see it know Papa is buried beneath."

"Does it say nice things about him?"

"…Yes."

Staring at the ornate marble stone, Blaise Zabini read the inscription aloud for her:

"Bernardo Zabini, September 2nd, 1951 to March 17th, 1984."

His daughter looked up at him, dusky features troubled. "That's all?" she asked, tone as disbelieving as he remembers his own being once he realized just how little his father's stone actually said.

Blaise dipped his chin in confirmation. There was nothing to say. Its inscription had never been his to choose.

"How old were you when he died?"

"A little younger than you are now," Blaise said, hedging (though, he's not sure why, it really didn't matter).

She stamped her little feet, the tips of her boots leaving indents in the soft ground beneath them. He wondered if his papa could sense the tiny feet of his granddaughter stomping on his grave somehow. Blaise hoped it didn't upset him if he could. Dominique was too young to understand how disrespectful it was and he was too tightly wound from being here to even begin to explain to her.

"Papa, how old?" Dominique demanded.

He sighed. Something he couldn't quite place began to gnaw at his stomach. "I was just about to turn four."

His daughter made a noise that sounded torn between sympathy and surprise. "That's little."

Blaise pinpointed the feeling. It was worry. He didn't like this line of conversation. He'd just wanted his daughter to meet her grandfather, now they were talking about Blaise. He hated talking about himself – especially about his childhood. It had been a miserable time, with a mother more concerned with climbing the social ladder than making sure he was happy, and constant talk about the untimeliness of her husbands' deaths going on behind his back (and later, when he started Hogwarts, to his face).

"You were that little not too long ago," he told her, trying to throw their chat in a different direction, as he fondly gave one of her dozen-plus braids a tug.

The girl glared. "No, I wasn't. I'm six. Four was two years ago. Plus, I've been six for five months and in seven I'll be seven!"

"You've been working on your maths," Blaise remarked. "Good job, Dominique."

She began to preen, but then abruptly stopped. Dominique turned her eyes on him once more and Blaise tried not to recoil at the inquisitiveness he saw burning in her dark gaze. "Daddy, how'd he die?"

The worry gnawing at his stomach stopped only long enough for the sharp knife of panic to gut him. He'd lied before. He should lie again. Yet…

"Grandmother–" he stopped. Getting down on his knees, Blaise searched his daughter's face. It was scrunched in confusion, she didn't understand why he'd paused or dropped to his knees. She didn't have a clue that he was about to reveal his most closely guarded secret.

"Papa?" she asked.

Blaise's mouth went dry. Dominique was so small. So naive to the evils of the world. Blaise just didn't have the heart to taint it so soon. It hadn't helped him any as a boy, so why would it help her? His hands curled into fists where they rested on his thighs. He said, "I wasn't there. Grandmother was. She says he just fell out of his chair and didn't get up. I've never asked exactly what it was that killed him. I doubt anyone even knows."

She blinked. "Oh."

Blaise looked at the grave once more. 'Someday, Dominique, I'll tell you the truth,' he thought.

-v-v-v-

Blaise padded through the narrow hallway of his home. He was careful to keep to the shadows, as he knew his parents were still awake and if Mummy found him, she'd be awfully cross with him for being out of bed. If he made it to Papa, though, he'd take Blaise into his lap and tell him stories until he fell asleep. Blaise loved listening to Papa, he talked differently from everyone else he knew and sometimes used words that were from a whole nother language called Italian.

Successfully reaching his Papa's study, Blaise grinned, pleased at his sneakiness. Though he should still be careful 'cause Mummy could be with Papa instead of sitting in her bedroom brushing out her hair. Turning the knob centimeter by centimeter, Blaise eased it open. Stifling a giggle behind his elbow as he pushed forward, Blaise prepared himself to run across the room.

But, before he even took a step, he froze. Mummy was standing behind Papa's chair, one of her arms was hidden by the back of the chair and Papa. Blaise knew she probably had it resting across Papa because she had one leg crossed behind the other and her head was bent low. She was whispering her secrets to him, the ones Blaise wasn't supposed to know til he was big and grown like them. He was about to duck back, go to his room to hide for a while, when out of the corner of his eye he noticed a slight movement.

His mummy dropped something into Papa's teacup. He didn't know what it was, and he was curious. What could it be? Was she playing some kind of joke on Papa? Hovering in the doorway, Blaise watched as Papa's hand drifted out from behind the chair and took the cup. A moment later, he set it back down and Mummy and he laughed at something.

Blaise sorely wished he could be in front of them at that moment, thinking the joke Mummy played on him had happened. But, just as quick as he wished for it, he thanked Merlin he wasn't because Papa was groaning and then, toppling out of his chair.

Mummy started to scream. She screamed and screamed until her tan face was as dark as his and Papa's and Blaise could only stand in the doorway, feet rooted to the spot. Mummy ran to the fireplace and threw Floo powder down. She thrust her head into the flames and started to yell for St. Mungo's.

When she pulled back, a witch's head came to life in the flames. "What's your emergency?" she asked.

"My husband collapsed!" Mummy wailed.

Blaise pulled back. Centimeter by centimeter he closed the door. Then he walked back to his bedroom, careful to stick to the shadows. Slipping into his bed, he pulled the covers over his head and stuck his thumb in his mouth. Something was wrong with Papa. He hoped the Healers at St. Mungo's could fix him. He didn't know what he would do without his Papa. Tears spilling down his cheek, Blaise curled in on himself and cried himself to sleep.

When he woke the next morning, he went to the kitchen. Mummy stood by the stove, a cup of tea in hand. "Where's Papa?" he asked.

Mummy's eyes flashed with something he couldn't quite pinpoint. "Blaise, lovely, something happened to your Papa last night…"

She told him about how they'd been talking together when he fell out of his chair. How he wouldn't wake up. How she called St. Mungo's and the healers did everything they could to fix him, but they just couldn't. He passed away while you were sleeping. Papa's dead. Do you understand, Blaise?

Blaise understood. Blaise also understood that before Papa died, he drank from the teacup that Mummy put stuff in.

"Uh-huh," Blaise murmured between sniffles when Mummy asked again if he understood. "Uh-huh."

She pulled him into her arms and cradled him like he was a little baby. "Oh, lovely…" she cooed, tone far too cake-icing sweet for Blaise's liking. In that moment, he warred with the urge to push her away, to tell her he saw. But he didn't. He was scared. He was sad. He was confused. He felt loved by Mummy in her arms. He even loved her back.

(But, now, he hated her a little too).

-v-v-v-

"Why are you telling me this, Papa?" asked Dominique, voice strained. He looked at his daughter. The angry set of her brows, the tears welling in the corners of her eyes. It dawned on Blaise that she may never forgive him. If he'd known…

Throat constricting around the words that were about to rise out of it, he turned his gaze to his papa's grave. Staring at it, he thought of the graves of the other men his mother married over the years. They were scattered across England, Papa's was the only one that rested on foreign soil. He was glad for it. His mother took enough care to find his father a plot in Italy, to Blaise it made Papa feel more loved than all the other men his mother had (even if it was not the truth).

His daughter was seventeen today. She would start her last year at Hogwarts next week. He thought of when he last brought her here. Dominique was just hip-high and so, so curious to hear about her grandfather. Now, she was disinterested in him and everything else Blaise had to say. She had a mouth on her too, now. When she was not being smart, she was snogging her latest boyfriend. Blaise tried not to let it bother him, but it made his hackles rise every time he heard about her latest break up and hook up.

She was a bit too much like her grandmother in some ways.

Rolling back his shoulders, Blaise met the woman's gaze head on. "You're old enough for it now."

His daughter's lips twisted. "How am I ever going to look Grandmum in the eyes again?" she demanded.

"I do it."

Dominique snorted. "Thanks, Father, that helps a lot."

Blaise watched her turn away. He followed her with his eyes as she retraced the path they took to his papa's grave and disappeared from sight. He knew a different father would have run after her, but not him. Blaise doubted she would appreciate it should he even try.

Instead of following after her, he walked further into the cemetery. He took in the graves of men, women, and children. Read the inscriptions and pondered having more added to his father's. Then, after a while, he decided against it. His mother would likely find out somehow and Blaise greatly disliked the idea of her reading the message he would have inscribed in the marble.

Dusk now on the horizon, Blaise began the walk back to the hotel he and his daughter had a pair of jointed suites at. Along the way, he chose to take a shortcut through an alleyway. Thoughts on his daughter once more, he noticed too late the footsteps from behind. In the ensuing struggle, Blaise staggered back when a knife struck him through the chest.

His attacker ran, leaving Blaise to bleed out alone. He managed to roll over and get to his knees, but the pain became so great that he fell forward, causing the knife to dig deeper into his chest. Spitting up blood on the cobbled streets of a no-consequence village in Italy, Blaise's last living thought was for his father.

'Did dying hurt this much for you, Papa?'

-v-v-v-

Later, when Dominique finished fuming in the silence of her room, she went to the front desk of the hotel and asked if her father had returned. The little old woman working it told her he hadn't. When Dominique made to leave on her own to find him, the woman fussed and insisted she stay. Young women shouldn't go out alone into the night! Dominique promised to acquiesce, as long as someone went looking for her father in her place. It was not like him to be gone so long. The old woman called for a couple of young men, they soon left, promising with big smiles to bring her father back to her. Likely hoping to win her favor and more, as well. Dominique was quite the looker.

An hour later, no longer smiling, they returned. They walked right past Dominique and whispered to the grandmotherly woman behind the front desk. She gasped and looked to Dominique, who lounged on a couch, pretending to pick at a loose thread on her shirt. The woman came out from behind the counter as the men hung back.

Wrinkled face distraught, the old woman sat down beside Dominique and told her what the men found. Dominique refused to believe it. She shouted and cried and called them all liars until a Muggle Auror came and took her away to identify her father's body.

When she saw it was her father, she collapsed and sobbed into her hands. A kindly Muggle Auror helped her get in contact with her grandmother. Not even an hour later, the aged beauty was beside Dominique. Dark eyes dewy, she took hold of Dominique's hand and swore:

"I'll take care of you. You won't have to grieve alone."

Dominique saw through her grandmother. She saw things that no one before her or ever after would. She was brave. She said the one thing to her Blaise never dared to.

"Don't you talk to me about grief! I bet you've never felt it before. You killed my grandfather!"

How did you like this chapter about Blaise (and his daughter, and his mother)?

Thank you for reading :)