Six months and two days into term
He was late as he ran up the stairs. Too late, and to the worst possible lesson. Dark Arts with Amycus Carrow. The damn addiction had hit hard and fast during breakfast and he'd had to duck away from his fellow Slytherins when the shaking started. He hadn't found anything to kill, and, when a frantic look at his watch had warned him of his lateness, he'd had to give up the search. Now he was running full pelt up the stairs, aware of the biting craving still not satisfied in his bones and the gnawing hunger reminding him that he couldn't remember when he'd last eaten. The Great Hall wasn't exactly safe anymore and he was too busy scrounging rats these days to go to the kitchens after hours.
He reached the door fifteen minutes after class started and took a moment outside the doors to collect himself and prepare himself for the clawing stench of Dark magic and the cruciatus that he knew he would receive on opening the door. Then he pushed the door open.
Carrow's eyes swivelled to his the moment he entered. The rest of the class barely even looked up from their desks. Seventh year Dark Arts was a constant battle over the addiction. It was the only lesson where the Slytherins did not keep their wands up their sleeves. They simply couldn't afford the temptation.
'You're late Zabini' Carrow spat. Blaise was vaguely shocked that the man remembered his name.
'Yes sir.' There was no point in excuses. No point in anything really. All he could do now was try and avoid saying anything to make it worse. That was the lesson that had taken the longest to learn. There was nothing he could do or say that would stop it. Some of the Ravenclaws were still trying, relying on reason where it didn't belong.
'Crucio' Just because he'd been expecting it didn't make it hurt any less. Pain raced through his limbs. It ignited the dark fire already ripping through his veins and he drowned in it. Dark magic ebbed and thrummed around him as he screamed and convulsed on the floor and he did the unthinkable. He opened his eyes and his mind and his magic and accepted it. The craving for darkness in his veins reached out, hungrily drinking in the ample darkness splintering his skin.
And then it was gone and he breathed again. He'd expected the blessed relief. He'd expected the residual ache. He'd even expected the shaking running through his finger. He hadn't expected the feeling of loss.
He lay on the floor for a minute, panting and confused. Arms pulled him up and dragged him to the nearest seat, one that had been left empty since the first time someone was late, dropping him into it. Daphne Greengrass, who the arms belonged to, was studiously ignoring him from the seat next to him, hands fisted in the hem of her robe. Carrow had forgotten him and turned back to the class.
He didn't notice he'd bitten through his lip until the blood dripped onto the desk in front of him; he was too busy trying to understand what had just happened and what it might mean, for him, for Theo, and for everybody else.