A/N: Ack! Chapter 50!

WARNING: violent scene at this mark #

To recap, Blaise went to Gia's parent's house and a big, long talk was had. They told him that Gia is with the Lombardi family in Pisa. She's due to marry their son. And Blaise wants to find out what's going on. As do we all...


Pisa, Italy

Armed with the knowledge that Tomaso and Giamotta Rossi had given him, Blaise promptly made his way to the bustling city of Wizarding Pisa. There, instead of storming the Lombardi's establishment like a one-man military siege battalion, he skulked up and down the street across the road in disillusionment mode, watching the traffic that tramped in and out of their door.

A few hours later, his patience was rewarded. And just as well, Blaise winced. He really needed to take a piss.

Giorgia stepped out of the front door, a basket looped over her arm. It looked like she was heading to the marketplace located in the disused underground train station that served as Wizarding central.

Blaise followed her, waiting for an appropriate time. Then, just as they were passing a rather dilapidated brick wall, he grabbed her by the arm and swiftly propelled her around the other side.

Stumbling, Gia opened her mouth to scream, but Blaise cut her off by wrapping his hand over her mouth. Her eyes widened in surprise, then horror, as the face of her captor became clear.

'If I move my hand away,' Blaise whispered against her ear, 'will you scream?'

She gulped, but shook her head.

'Okay.' Blaise removed his hand, but kept his wand on her. 'Gia,' he spat. 'What the bloody hell is going on?'

She leaned against the wall, taking fortifying breaths. 'I never thought I would see you again,' she whispered.

'Obviously, if you're going to be marrying someone else,' Blaise snapped.

She slumped. 'You saw the announcement,' she said in a small voice.

'Yup. Got me asking all sorts of questions, too. Like 'why did you leave me with no warning, no goodbye, no anything at all and disappear, only for me to discover that when you re-enter society, it's as fiancée to Giuseppe bloody Lombardi?'

Blaise's voice was growing in strength, despite his best efforts to keep it down. He felt like a shook-up fizzy bottle, ready to pop.

Gia's eyes slid to the left. 'It's a match approved by both families...'

But Blaise was having none of that bullshit. He leaned in close to her. 'Is that a fact?' he sneered. 'So, all those times we fucked, all those times you told me you loved me, all those times you seemed genuinely, honestly happy to be in my company – are you telling me that you lied, every single time?'

She didn't reply.

'Did you lie?' he hissed angrily.

'Please, just leave me alone!' she gasped.

'Tell me!' he yelled. His temper was a few degrees away from rocketing off into the ether, so he cast disillusioning and silencing spells around himself and the shaking girl.

'Giorgia, for the love of Merlin, I swear' –

'I did not lie!' She took the words and flung them angrily in Blaise's face. 'Are you happy now?' she snapped. 'Is that what you want to hear?'

'Is it the truth?' Blaise demanded. 'Because that's all I'm interested in.'

There was a silence; then a sigh. 'Yes. It is the truth.'

Blaise tried to centre himself. 'Then why,' he asked between gritted teeth, 'did you leave me and get engaged to Lombardi?'

'I – I' – Gia wrung her hands. 'I can't say. Not here.'

'Fine,' Blaise snapped. Then, without a word of warning, he grabbed Gia by the arm and spun them around.


Stumbling from the unexpected apparition, Gia got her bearings and looked around. They were back in Lucca, in Blaise's stepdad's house. She stood in the vast, empty living area.

This place had too many memories.

She dug her fingernails into her palms in an effort to hold the tears back, and shakily walked to the large windows that commanded such a majestic view over the region.

Blaise silently appeared by her side (after having answered his urgent call of nature), holding out a generous slug of grappa. Avoiding his eyes, she took it and drank, feeling the liquor trickle through and warm her body.

'You owe me an explanation,' he said quietly.

She couldn't argue that. She could well imagine how hurt he must have felt when he realised she had gone; and of all her problems, that guilt weighed on her most of all.

But which of her sins should she confess?

She could feel his eyes on her.

'I don't love Giuseppe,' she said. 'But I have to marry him.'

Blaise boggled at her, then turned and slumped down on the nearest settee. 'Why?' he asked, suddenly feeling very weary. This was not turning out the way he thought it would.

Then again, could he have honestly expected Gia to run to his arms if all he's done is manhandle her, interrogate her and side-apparate her without giving notice or getting her permission?

'I just want to try to understand,' he said in a low voice.

'I'm so sorry,' she whispered, feeling absolutely wretched. 'Giuseppe is an old, dear friend. I love him very much in that way. And he needs me, to help him... with his parents.'

'What do you mean?'

Gia let out a long breath. 'Senor e Senora Lombardi are very conservative. Very traditional. Giuseppe is nearly twenty-five. They think the only reason he's waited so long to get married is because he was waiting for his only love – me – to come of age. But, in fact...'

For Blaise, light dawned. 'He's gay.'

'Si,' Gia said sadly. 'All they want is to see him settled down and 'happy,' which, to them, is to have a good wife and lots of children. If they find out he's gay, it will crush them.'

Blaise looked sceptical. 'Aren't they going to wonder what's wrong when the children don't materialise?'

'There are other ways to have children,' Gia murmured. 'Muggle ways.'

Blaise gazed at the sad young lady standing by the windows, tension stiffening every limb.

'And what about you, cara?' he asked softly, getting to his feet and standing behind her. 'You're a passionate witch. Can you live the rest of your life without touching a man intimately again? Without a man touching you, the way you want to be touched?'

His soft breath rustled the dark hair the tumbled over her shoulder. Goosebumps rose on her flesh, and he ached to touch her skin.

Gia angled her head slightly away. 'We agreed that if each of us were discreet...'

'You'll both take lovers.'

She nodded tersely.

Blaise's hand ghosted to the ring on her left finger. 'And this will make you happy?' he whispered in her ear.

Had he not been standing so close, he would not have heard her words.

'I don't deserve to be happy.'


The Giorgia Rossi Blaise knew before was happy, vivacious and full of life. This sad young woman was almost another person entirely. Sadness and tension wracked her face. Her body was gaunt; her hair was limp and lifeless. Even allowing for the fact that she'd signed herself up to a platonic marriage; and, yes, even allowing for her disappearing act with him – there was something else eating her up inside. Something she was plainly too scared to talk about. He could see it in her haunted eyes.

But he had to know, all the same.

He turned her around – gently this time – and grasped her shoulders. 'What else happened?' he asked gently. 'What else has transformed you from a beautiful woman, full of life and without a care in the world, to a tense, brittle shadow of her former self?'

Fear ignited in her eyes. 'I – I cannot say,' she whispered.

'You're hurting, cara mia. It's breaking my heart just to look at you.'

Tears pricked at her eyes, but she blinked them away. 'Mio caro,' she whispered, 'please, I cannot tell you.'

With an effort she shouldn't have needed, Gia wrenched herself out of his hold and strode towards the door.

'I still want to be with you!' Blaise burst out, the Slytherin side of him outraged that he's stooped to begging.

Gia stopped, but didn't turn around.

'I'll be your lover,' he clarified, 'after you're married. 'We'll be happy. I promise.'

'You'll deny yourself a proper relationship with another woman?' she ground out. 'Deny yourself children? Or were you planning to find someone who's happy to fuck you just long enough to get pregnant, then spend your money whoring herself around Europe, making you a laughingstock?' Her voice cracked, and she whirled around, tears marking her face. 'I deserve this fate!' she snapped, jabbing herself in her chest with her finger. 'You don't! I love you, and I won't bring you down with me! So please, Blaise, please, leave me alone and forget about me!'

'I can't!' he cried out. 'I can't be without you! I've gone through hell, not knowing where you were, or what's happened to you! You look like you've been through the Veil and back! You're breaking my heart, Gia. Just tell me what the hell is wrong and I will help you!'

'I can't!' she wailed. 'Just leave me alone!'

'I will not!' Blaise snapped, storming up to her.

Frightened, Gia took a step back, her hand fumbling for her wand.

But she wasn't quick enough. With Blaise's wand in his hand, he stared into her terrified eyes and whispered 'Legilimens.'


Blaise felt himself tumbling through time, landing in the terracotta courtyard of a secluded apartment block. Looking up and around, he spied Gia walking up the stairs, so he hastened to fall in behind her.

On the fourth floor, Gia stopped outside an apartment door. She nervously straightened a crease in her dress, and tucked a loose lock of black hair behind her ear. She was nervous; he could tell.

Then she appeared to gird up her loins and knocked on the door.

When Blaise saw who answered it, he nearly lost his shit.


Maybe he even blacked out for a moment, because the next thing he remembered was gasping for breath and blinking his eyes. Now, in accordance with Gia's memory, he was inside the apartment, watching in utter fucking disbelief while the bitch who ruined his school career and was responsible for the near-death of his best mate, brought his lover to a hard orgasm up against the bloody wall, for fuck's sake.

'Soaking wet already, you little bitch,' Pansy said indulgently while her fingers stabbed and wriggled away at Gia's pussy. 'Is that for me, or for your boyfriend?'

'Y-you, only you, oh my gods,' Gia moaned, kneading hard at her breasts.

Okay. He couldn't deny that hearing those words hurt like a bitch.

He could tell Gia was going to come on this filthy bitch's fingers. He knew every sign. The expressions on her face. Each jerk and tremble of her body. He wished he could look away, but the spell had him transfixed, and all he could was watch while the girl he loved broke and wailed in ecstasy, liquid pouring down her legs and puddling on the terracotta tiles below.

He wondered if it was possible to vomit in this state. Because that's exactly what he felt like doing.

But even worse things were to come.


#

Initially, he was forced to watch the pair of cavort with each other, tonguing pussies, kneading breasts and sucking faces; feeling angry, revolted and aroused; all at the same time. With Pansy, Gia was very much the subordinate; Blaise noted. And Parkinson, of course, loved to fuck people over. Gia's arse and breasts were rosy red from the slaps Pansy doled out.

But then it changed.

The rough fucking degenerated into sexual torture in front of Blaise's horrified eyes.

Not content with bringing the blood to Gia's skin with her slaps, she made it break through, bruising and tearing at Gia's flesh with her teeth and fingers.

'STOP IT, YOU PSYCHOTIC BITCH!' Blaise screamed, but Pansy couldn't hear, of course. She continued to rent claw marks across Gia's breasts, leaving angry, bloody welts behind.

In disbelief, Blaise watched his lover's torture unfold, never having felt so pathetically useless in his life. He raged at Pansy, calling her every filthy name he knew when shackles clamped Gia's ankles and she started to choke from some unseen force pressing down on her throat.

And when Pansy violently raped Gia with her fist, his mind left him.

#


Gia's next memory was when she woke up, or roused herself from consciousness, the next day, so that's where Blaise joined her. Looking around, he could see that Pansy had already left, hot on the trail of that crazy bastard Weasley. They're welcome to each other, Blaise thought murderously.

He looked at Gia's battered body. It was hard to find any part of her that wasn't bruised or lacerated. All his rage and revulsion were gone. Yeah, so, she trapped him, thinking she was doing Pansy a favour; she even told that bitch that she preferred her to him while Pansy fucked her against the wall. These things hurt, that much was true.

But he was still certain that she loved him.

As he loved her, Salazar help him.

She got suckered in by Pansy. As he, and so many of his fellow students had.

But by Merlin's grace, she's given up her pound of flesh.

Gia read a letter; he couldn't see the contents, but when her face crumpled up, he could take a reasonable guess – a final, taunting missive from a woman whose heart and soul were blacker than Snape's greasy hair.

And when Gia stared at her broken wand, his heart broke – then melded with hers.


When Blaise wrenched himself out Gia's mind, he stumbled backwards, starting at her in shock and disbelief. Then, to his utter shame, he was violently sick.


Blaise found himself on the living room floor, leaning against one of the settees. A cooling charm had been applied to his forehead and wrists, the mess he'd made had been scourgified away, and his mouth was clear of revolting bits of upchuck.

In alarm, Blaise looked around for Gia. She was still there, sitting stiffly at the other end of the settee, staring sightlessly at the panoramic view.

Blaise got to his knees and slowly shuffled towards her. 'I thought you'd be gone,' he croaked.

Gia didn't move. 'I should have,' she said tonelessly. 'But I waited to receive your punishment.'

Blaise screwed up his forehead. 'Punishment?'

Gia turned her pale, gaunt face to his. 'I lied to you! I used you to get information! I passed that information on to a hideous, horrible person to do who knows what with! I cheated on you! and then, like a coward, I ran away from you, too ashamed to look you in the eye and tell you what I'd done!'

Overcome, she buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

Blaise pulled himself onto the settee and sat next to her.

'Are you sorry?' he asked mildly.

'Yes!' came her muffled response. 'A thousand times over.'

'Do you still love me?'

Incredulously, she raised her tear-stained head and stared at him. 'I have never stopped!' she said passionately. 'But how could you possibly love me, after everything I've done? After everything you've seen?'

Blaise raised a hand to gently brush her cheek. 'Because that's what love does,' he said simply. 'Pansy is an expert manipulator, Gia. She's made many lives miserable. But what she did to you' – his throat closed up.

Her hand fluttered to her chest before she brought it under control.

'I believe you've atoned for your wrongdoing,' Blaise eventually continued. 'There's no need to punish yourself for the rest of your life. By marrying Giuseppe, for example.'

Startled, she looked up at him.

'Everything will be okay,' he murmured, taking her hands in his. 'I promise.'

Her face crumpled. 'Oh, Blaise...'

He leaned towards her. 'No more tears, carissima,' he whispered.

She nodded, and their lips met.


As much as Blaise would have loved to have carried her up to her room to ravish her, he knew that would be a dick thing to do in her current state. Besides...

'Did she scar you?' he murmured to Gia, as she lay in his arms on the settee.

She swallowed, and he felt her body tense. Then, reluctantly, she sat up and undid the buttons of her shirt. When she pulled the material free of her arms, she faced him, staring at a point somewhere in the distance.

Blaise brought a hand to his mouth. The tracks of Pansy's vicious claw marks criss-crossed her breasts, bisecting the nipples. the scars formed deep, ugly, puckered seams. Her breasts could not be called anything but ugly.

'She broke my wand,' Gia whispered. '...And I was too ashamed afterwards' –

Blaise folded her into his embrace once more.

'I'll take you to the best healers there are,' he promised. 'If you want. But I need you to know: they mean nothing to me.'

As Gia put her shirt back on, a boiling, black rage began to build inside him.

Pansy Fucking Parkinson, he vowed to himself. Your days on this earth are numbered.


A/N: I'll be interested to hear your thoughts. I know Gia's not a popular character, considering what she did to Blaise. But all things (in this story, anyway) happen for a reason...