Blaise Zabini was his mother's only child, a product of her second marriage. Blaise's mother was never particularly interested in being a mother. A child of great wealth, Blaise spent his early childhood with nannies, sometimes not seeing his own mother for weeks at a time as she went to the Italian countryside with her newest beau, or recovered from her most recent breakup in the privacy of a darkened room that Blaise wasn't allowed near. Around the time he turned eight years old, his mother's guilt overcame her desire for freedom and she began to introduce Blaise to the men in her life, holding him around the shoulders in an attempt at maternal affection, and carting him to their houses. Blaise frequently could not distinguish between them, but nodded each time his mother had him do up the back of another white dress. "This time, Blaise." He would look her in the eyes in her reflection in the mirror. "I can feel it this time, can't you, Blaise?"
Blaise Zabini, now, was 16 years old, a tad older than the rest of the boys in his year. Perhaps it would be easy to credit Blaise's lackadaisical attitude to relationships to the lackluster examples of his youth. His mother could easily be blamed for his smoking habit, his drinking habit, his lying habit, and his relationships with girls. Blaise, in fact, never blamed his mother for any of it. He was who he was, the boy who listened to samba and read the autobiography of Casonova and took it too seriously. Blaise was unapologetically Blaise.
When, at the beginning of his fourth year at Hogwarts, Blaise became friends with Terence Higgs, he found an outlet and a community for his general apathetic demeanor. They did nothing, these boys, in reality. They kissed girls and read books and smoked cigarettes, but nothing mattered - at least, nothing that they'd let on.
Blaise reckoned that his best mate, should he really have to choose, was Rorke Rooke. Higgs was a laugh and all, but he was a bit of a dirty bastard. Adrian never really talked about anything and Marcus was too obsessed with Quidditch to be truly compelling. No, of all of them, Blaise reckoned, Rorke was by far the best and most interesting. The one true (and it was very true) drawback to Rorke Rooke's character, as far as Blaise was concerned, was his frequent disapproval of Blaise's extracurricular activities. And so what, Blaise would reason. So what if he had kissed Tracey and Zoe and Daphne on different occasions? He knew they had and would fight about it, not out of affection for him, but out of the catty territorialism he loved to inspire in girls his age. He didn't give a single shite, as he would say, about their romantic feelings because he didn't have any. Why should their romantic feelings concern him?
Rorke Rooke, on the other hand, was raised by Susette and Clarence Rooke - conservative wizard parents who taught him to read latin when he was a child. Rorke Rooke grew up in a modest house with his parents near Shoreditch, in London. He was taught the value of money, the value of education, and the value of personal relationships. This is not to say Rorke Rooke was a perfect and at all times respectful sixteen year old boy - if he was, he would never spend any time with Blaise Zabini. But Rorke Rooke, even when he smoked cigarettes with the other boys, had a hard time taking everything they said completely seriously. He had spent summers working in his father's book store. He preferred Allen Ginsberg to any writings by Casonova, and most importantly, Rorke Rooke had been in love. Still was in love, many would wager and he would deny.
That was the biggest difference between Blaise Zabini and Rorke Rooke, really, when it came down to it. Blaise talked a big talk about big ideas and womanizing and understanding all of life, and Rorke had actually felt the things he had read about in Pablo Neruda poems.
Nonetheless, were you to ask him, Rorke would probably reply that, yes, Blaise Zabini was also his best mate - because Adrian didn't know what iambic pentameter was, Marcus once flirted with Carolina Dawes too much a Christmas Party, and Higgs was...Higgs.
It was this very friendship that found, on a Sunday night one week into their fifth year, Blaise and Rorke sitting in opposite armchairs in front of the fire in Slytherin Common Room, without speaking to each other. While Rorke was frequently happy with silence, Blaise struggled without the winter banter and chastising comments with just about everyone but his best mate. They sat in silence for a long while, Rorke thumbing through a novel and Blaise at first staring silently into the fire, playing with a zippo lighter with his thumb and pointer finger, his gaze steadily migrating to Daphne Greengrass and Abigail Macbeth, who sat in the corner across the common room from the boys.
Eventually, Blaise broke. "Abby Macbeth, then," he muttered.
Rorke looked up, eyebrows raised. 'What?"
"She seems right up your alley."
Rorke sighed, closing the book. "What?" he repeated.
"She's...quiet. Kind of weird. She probably likes to read."
"Blaise, as much as I appreciate your constant and always unnecessary interest in finding birds who are 'right up my alley' I'm just fine at the moment." Rooke paused, turning to look at Daphne and Abby, who were absorbed in their own conversation. "Besides, you've already kissed Tracey and Zoe and Daphne, I'm surprised you aren't over there already."
"No I mean it, mate," Blaise protested. "You haven't even so much looked a girl all summer and I could...let this one slide for you."
"As if Blaise Zabini could get any girl he wanted. Any girl in the world. Or at least in the Slytherin common room."
Blaise raised his eyebrow. "As if there's any sincere doubt."
This prompted another hefty sigh from Rooke. "Blaise, I'm not challenging you."
Blaise stood up. "Rooke," He started, crossing over to his best friend's chair, placing his hands on the armrests and leaning in. "If you are going to sit here in the common room reading poetry and waiting for Carolina Dawes to appear out of thin air then I'm going to take you up on this little challenge," Rorke glowered, "Before Higgs beats me to it."
With that, Blaise walked away from his friend and approached the girls.
Rorke, who skipped dinner saying he wasn't feeling well, went the dormitory and wrote three drafts of a letter without sending any of them, and fell asleep with his glasses still on.
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