Soulmates a Grindelwald/Zabini fanfic chapter 4.

All characters belong to JKR other than Sabra and Geo Zabini, Blaise's parents, and Bramble, the Zabini house elf.
Chapter IV

Blaise dashed inside, heart racing as he darted to the large web shaped wall clock in the sitting room. Bramble had about 3 more minutes before he would return to meet him in Knockturn alley. If in a minute after that the elf hadn't come home, Blaise supposed he would have to go back and look for him. Hopefully the dementors would've shoved off by then.

"What ever is the matter with you?"" Blaise's father asked, lowering the news paper he was reading with a rustling of pages.

Blaise turned to the short muscular Italian and took a deep breath. "Um...I sort of sneaked out to book shop and dementors decided to visit Knockturn alley for whatever reason and they laid hands on me before I could escape. They asked me where stupid Harry Potter was for some reason as if I'd bloody know," he sneered.

"And they knew my name," he ended carefully. "Again for some reason that I don't know."

"They knew what," his father thundered.

Somehow from the tone and glowering rageful expression, Blaise concluded that his father didn't need his words repeated. As Geo Zabini continued to shout, his Italian accent became thicker.

"Did your mother and I not work obsessively to keep us all safe? Using my metamorphing abilities to keep everyone thinking she was marrying different men and killing all her husbands? Didn't we sacrifice for you?"

Blaise struggled not to sigh, knowing where this was going...and for how long. At least a good five minutes.

"Didn't we do everything we could to appear dark enough to be ignored by the dark lord and not seen as a threat? And did you appreciate any of that enough to even stay bloody home when such was requested?!"

Blaise opened his mouth to protest that he had gone with Bramble so should be safe. But he didn't say that. He didn't say that he was tired of being kept in a box all summer because of stupid Voldemort either. He merely opened his mouth, became wise, and shut it again.

His mother entered the room then, wearing a black dress of flowing summer silk. Her face was pinched into an expression that said clearer than words that she'd heard their conversation.

"Tell us everything from beginning to end. No summarizing," Sabra Zabini bit out.

And he did. As he spoke, the anger momentarily faded from his mother's youthful features and her face became thoughtful then excited.

"You didn't become too depressed to act! You handled the situation brilliantly! Good boy. Granted you are still in a heap of trouble but you did do well and Mummy is proud!"

Blaise blinked. "Depressed? No I don't suppose I was. I was busy. I was unsettled when I felt the change of their presence but not depressed."

People were supposed to be extremely depressed around dementors to the point they couldn't recall a single happy incident in their whole lives. He had been distracted with his new books, but could that have been enough? Likely not.

"That is amazing! It would've still been brilliant if you'd struggled through the depression but you didn't even feel it somehow," Sabra gushed.

"I suppose I felt unsettled," Blaise said.

"Well that's still not depressed. It's amazing. You are a brilliant boy."

His father looked mildly impressed but not nearly as much as his mother so Blaise doubted it would do him any good.

"But how did they recognize him, Geo," his mother demanded of his father, worry returning to her face to pinch her features.

"I don't feel safe," she concluded. "I don't feel that he is safe."

Her blue eyes became nearly wild with panic as she gazed at his father.

"Those creatures have never been known to recognize people and they don't need to start with my boy!"

"What if the dark lord heard of him through the Malfoys," Geo asked. "We did tell him to be polite to Draco to stay on the right end of not being in his radar. Though that should have nothing to do with Potter," he concluded doubtfully.

Being polite to Malfoy had been nearly impossible and had it not been a direct parental order, Blaise likely wouldn't have. He was boring and stupid and a git who thought he was way better than he actually was. And he looked like a rodent.

"That's it. We're going to Hogwarts. It's the safest place right now,"Sabra decided. "Everyone go pack. Where is Bramble?"

Hogwarts? Before term began? Blaise opened his mouth to violently protest when Bramble apparated in.

"Bramble got Master Blaise's message on the outside of the shop. What happened," the elf asked, then his face fell when he registered Blaise's parents.

Blaise sighed as his mother recounted the dementor encounter before he could do so.

"And don't believe for a minute that you aren't in for it for taking him," Sabra told the elf. "We didn't order you not to, but you know when we give him an order you aren't to help him out of it."

"But he makes Bramble," the elf protested, shooting Blaise a dark look of resentment. Sabra only glared.

"Go and pack for Hogwarts, the both of you," she said briskly.

"I don't want to go to Hogwarts," Blaise protested. He was feeling the depression set in even though the dementors were gone. The thought of being stuck in Hogwarts during the last month of summer, such a rubbish school compared to the likes of Durmstrang, could do that to one.