"Well, truthfully..." The dark-haired girl corrected after a
thoughtful pause, completely ignoring the fact Harry had practically
collapsed, and was now only supported by clinging to a desk for dear life.
"Half-human, half-shifter, but close enough, right?" She turned with a
'yeah life gave me a royal fuck' smile and looked almost mockingly at Harry
with raised eyebrows. Said Boy who Lived was attempting to collect himself,
and failing rather badly. "Something wrong, Harry Potter?" She asked,
almost amused, he thought.
Her eyes danced as he merely gave a vague mewl of 'I'm fine' and struggled back to his feet. Shifters themselves were nearly all gone on Earth, and those who remained were a great power when they showed themselves, and they were the reason why any wilderness was left in the wizarding world, and why that 'any' meant a decent amount, just look at Canada.
"Shifter..."He gasped at last. She nodded. "Half shifter..." He gasped soon following. She nodded. "Which...Which..."
"Yes, half witch as well." She acknowledged, knowing this was far from what he was asking. He shook his head violently, mostly, she assumed, to clear it.
"Which...one..." He managed.
"My mother was the shifter." Amusement left her. "My bastard father was the human, he's a deatheater, Mordred Zambini." This caused Harry to again loose his balance. "Perhaps I should explain." She suggested. Harry held up a finger to signal he needed a moment. She felt a flicker of amusement as he retrieved a chair and fell into it, facing her with a grim, 'ready, go ahead and shock me.'
"Your father's a deatheater..." He half asked. Blaise nodded. "He knew you were a shifter-"
"Half shifter, yes. Killed my mother, whom he had tricked into having me." Her eyes turned distant, and her entire aura changed, she became suddenly powerfully angry, the emotion peeling off her in cold waves. Icy strength made her suddenly terrifying, he supposed that was an effect of her shifter blood. "I will tell you my story, Harry Potter, just as I have read yours." Harry nodded, she could be very frightening, but it made her all the more beautiful.
"One thing about shifters, we don't have to stay anywhere we don't want to, we just happen to like Earth, what's left of how it used to be, the powerful ancient magic it still holds, buried in time. A few small groups of us are all we have, here, and we hold fierce loyalty of a sort to us, my mother was to become a leader of the larger of these groups. Then she meets my father, she watched him grow from a young student here, but she couldn't read his mind, even in her strongest forms. Mordred, my 'father' has no spirit, no soul, such creatures are rarer than shifters in this galaxy, and we are very rare here, we prefer the further reaches of this group of galaxies, where magic is stronger, and eve there groups are small."
"So he could trick her, because he along couldn't be read." Harry sighed. Blaise gave a nod, her eyes still distant, her image seemed to blur faintly between herself and a woman he didn't recognize, she was tall, long and slender, like Blaise, and the eyes were almost the same, almost, and her long hair fell in smooth bloody waves lined with earthy brown.
"She finally found out his plan, shortly after my birth, from another deatheater whose mind slipped. She could not flee by then, Voldemort had caught her, as had all of his deatheaters. My 'father'" She spat the word "Had taken of her blood, and had bound her. Shifters are bound by their blood, or blood is our power, it is all we have, the tiniest drop can be the most powerful spell, or can be captured for our damnation. My blood was different, she had tried to save me, when I was young she locked away a great deal of her own mind deep in the back of my own, so she could help Voldie and his fellows no more. For this she was killed, when I was three, for her blood could have saved Voldie, but"
"I'm sorry, Voldie?" Harry asked awkwardly.
"Charming little name, isn't it?" She pretended to be calling a dog. "Here, Voldie! Come here boy, good little Voldie!" Harry found himself snickering despite himself. Blaise smiled slightly as well.
"So, your mother had no control over her blood's power anymore and couldn't help Voldemort if she tried." Harry said. Blaise nodded. "And she was killed for it."
"Yes, and shortly after my fourth birthday, Voldemort reached my father, and possessed him long enough to burn the dark mark into me, and instruct Mordred." She rolled up her sleeve, showing an ugly mark Harry had become so familiar with, but it was blurry, sloppy, and shiny like a scar, making it look blue.
"It isn't as powerful as the rest of the deatheaters' marks, shoddy work. It woke up my mother's mind in my head, so when it bled, and Voldie tried to take the blood for strength, it threw him into a horror he will never admit to. The horror that really kept him in hiding so long. I had no childhood, not even a bad one, no childhood, my mind grew rapidly, even for that of a shifters, it grew beyond my mother's, it grew on knowledge that merged onto primal instinct, knowledge came wherever I tossed questions. I learned enough of life itself, of humanity, of this world. I became dangerous; my father spotted it, as it erupted over a mere few years after the mark. He took a vial of my blood. He could not control it, but it tells him exactly where I am when I shift, and if he's close enough he can disable me, or kill me." She paused and looked up when she realized the window was rattling from her aura, and that power was flowing off her like a small hurricane.
"Blaise..." Harry asked. She turned to him and momentarily looked almost confused, as though she forgot everything that had just happened. "Are you okay?" He asked, she shivered, he found himself wishing to pull her to him, to shield her, but if she could not protect herself, what could he do?
"When Voldie rose again in fourth year, I had to run, and run fast. One year in Hogwarts, that was all, and I had been dragged off to Durmstrang. Mordred had powerful friends there, who could keep their collective eyes on me, but he didn't see the powerful enemies he had there as well." He could see that she couldn't stop herself now, she had to talk, she had never done so before, but now she had to, he could see the human part of her now, the human part that only existed in blood had suddenly awoken. "I couldn't shift, I still can't, or I'll be found, that bastard." The human part died again, her voice was made of fire.
"Because I can't die, I've tried, what's left of my mother's mind won't let me, but she won't say why. I can only take so much pain, I've taken a lot of it, enough to have a lot of resistance, but when it finally builds over that peak, it really, really hurts!" The cat was back, it had its claws in his leg, and he knew suddenly, he had to stop her.
"Blaise..."
"I can't...I can't..." She began again; Harry vaulted from his seat and grabbed her shoulders, giving her a light shake.
"BLAISE!" He snapped, she returned immediately to normal, all composure, all lack of humanity, all her emotion gone. He relaxed. She shut her eyes and leaned back against the wall. How could she do it? His mind gasped in exasperation she was too strong, how could she be so strong, damn it? How do you do it? Harry of course didn't realize he'd spoken that last question rather loudly.
"Pain either breaks you, or makes you stronger, and each time you mend you make your fix a bit stronger. Either way, you get stronger and stronger the more pain is tossed your way, you can either acknowledge it, or never notice it's there. You're only as strong as you're consciously aware of." Harry only partially understood it, but it was all the understanding he needed.
"I can't compare..." Harry murmured, eyes dull. Blaise looked at him, her gaze dominant and even, daring him. He looked back at her, she deserved to be the hero tot he world, not him.
"I am not a heroine, Harry Potter. I am merely another who has a destiny, I think." Harry became slightly confused. "I know who I am, but nothing else, I know a lot about life, and am good at things when the moment comes, I take things as they come and take them well. You Harry Potter, you only know what you have to do."
"I can't do it, though."
"Not yet. She growled. He looked up at her again; she had figured something out, he saw.
"The war is coming, Harry Potter." She whispered. "It has already begun, the first battle has come and gone, and more are brewing. You are not ready now." She stood and lifted his face, pulling him from his seat; he was a bit shorter than Draco, she could tell, even though she would not let him stand up strait, keeping his face ye-to-eye with hers. Her familiar had spoken with her in her mind, as had part of her mother. She had many thoughts of how her life would go, but a new road had shown up, and just as she was good at, she had no clue what would come.
'I will not love in this life, so that I will not be taught, as I told Draco. S.S. is wrong, he isn't here. I have to teach this boy, I have to teach The Boy Who Lived. I should have known the rest of dear Mother had gone into the threads of time itself, who else would have created Harry's prophecy, and left her own daughter's untold but created still. You won't tell me my prophecy, mother but I'll wing it.'
"Meet me in the room of requirement in one weeks time. I will be in there a full day, I'll need to, but you must come when you will not be missed. Until then, Harry Potter." And she left.
Harry Potter collapsed again into the chair. His head hurt, very badly. He suspected he would not sleep. The Boy Who Lived also suspected he would need a good sleep, and a couple good fucks before he could think about any of this without his head exploding.
~*~
"Blaise, help me, I'm really, really, really confused." Draco whispered in her ear, despite this close proximity, had she normal human hearing she'd have found him rather difficult to hear. Though along with having inhuman hearing, she had a very, very bad headache and every sound made her head throb painfully. This was likely why she was curled up in a dark corner of the Slytherin common room, a silencing charm to block all sounds not within three feet of her head and also so no one would hear her pained obscenities.
"Got a headache potion?" She half-whimpered half-growled. Draco pulled a small vial from an inside pocket of his robes. She thanked him a dozen times and guzzled it.
"You know, half the vial would have-"
"I still think that vial wouldn't be enough, Draco." She sighed and handed him the emptied vial. Draco shrugged and returned it to his pocket. Blaise pulled him forward by his collar to speak directly into his ear, so her spell would cover them, as well as if said spell didn't work would keep them safe
"Let me take a guess as to your problem, you've found a girl, whom is my complete and total opposite, but you find yourself, to put in a way you'd never admit, falling for her. You also are feeling guilty that just after confessing your heart to me, you're diving headlong after someone else." She pulled back, the potion had begun taking effect and she was right, it didn't work very well, but it dulled it a bit.
She only half-watched Draco's mouth working silently for a full half a minute as she rubbed her temples, growling softly to herself. Confession might be good for the soul, she acknowledged what she knew of that muggle faith, but it was not by any means good for my skull. She felt as though she were going to explode, she had told Harry Potter because all else fails she could blackmail him, but now the door closing off her story had rusty hinges and a broken lock.
"Y-yes..." Draco finally managed. "H-how...how?" he sounded almost indignant. She felt much better, shocking the crap out of two guys in two days in a row, mm shiny silver lining!
"Don't worry about it, Dragon." She said, falling into character easily, thanking every deity she knew and some she didn't know that she was a fine actress. She had to be. "I am not meant to be yours. Let what will happen, happen."
"B-but she's...and you're..." He argued, one thing about him, even when he was confused, perplexed out of his skull and rather perturbed he could still look so regal and sound dignified. She stood and bent down to whisper in his ear.
"Ginny Weasley is perfect for you, and you know it." She left him to his utter and complete confusion, striding elegantly from the common room, raven perched on her shoulder, eyes and face as emotionless and cold as that of a face carved from ice. The dragon snorted angrily, and was quite tempted to follow her, when her familiar, as he knew it was one, turned one starling green eye to him and clicked its beak, sending a clear warning to catch her later.
~*~
"Blaise, help me, I'm so confused!" confessed the tall red-haired girl urgently into Blaise's ear. Blaise herself looked over the edge of her book to the raven who stood directly before her on the table. The bird's eyes gave her a mocking smirk, the dark girl's eyes narrowing at him. Ginny was the picture of agitation, chewing the pad of her thumb nervously, glancing around as if everyone could read her like a book, when really the only person in the room who could was glaring at a bird. Said person sighed and shut her book, or rather she book she'd had hidden in the sleeve of a potions text, that book being a muggle one titled "The Talisman".
~*~
Albus Dumbledore scanned his mind for the memory, he knew he had one, where was it. He sighed and turned to his penesieve, turning his wand in it lazily. The face of Blaise Zambini flashed across it. Her voice flowed from it, from various occasions.
"I have no information you do not already have. I cannot aid you without harming you and myself, I am refugee of Voldemort if ever there were one, and a danger to you in every way, but I seek help."
"The war has begun, and the only possible end to it is in your hands, Albus, what are you doing about it?"
"I am thankful for your help and your care, but that won't shut me up."
Several more meaningless comments escaped its depths. No, it wasn't something she herself had said, or was it?
"I don't believe in destiny, Albus! There are simply some things life decides to stick you with." 'What are you stuck with, Blaise?' "All I know, Albus, is who I am, and a bit about life. I take things as they come and handle them like a Slytherin, for all I know I've already lived all I need to, but there is still the fact you have crap you have to do, and so does a boy named Harry Potter, and they are both closely related!"
Close...useful maybe, but that still wasn't it. Albus sat back in his chair, gazing at the silvery pool. Bright blue eyes sparkled now with frustration. Maybe it wasn't about Blaise, maybe she had just reminded him of it. No, he felt sure it had to do with Blaise, and life, no, destiny, no...prophecy?
Harry Potter's prophecy played idly in the silvery pool, the prophecy of himself defeating Grindlewald played as well, two others danced half-heartedly across the surface. Then something clicked partially. Blaise, sitting across from him in his office, she changed. Blaise had changed, he leaned over the pool again, amazed, slipping into it easily, diving into his own memory.
Blaise was in mid-sentence, as he fell, Dumbledore couldn't hear a word of it, but he could see a hidden passion ignited, then hidden, then flared, then hidden, she was fighting it. He watched, not listening to a word while his self from that time took in every word under deep consideration. She was a magnificent young woman of steel and ice, but how could she hide this passionate side, even now it seemed to be more powerful than Albus himself.
Just as it seemed she'd beaten down the furnace within, she froze, Albus, past and present watched intently, almost worried. Her eyes, such beautiful things, changed slightly, became slightly deeper blue near the center, the black line around the irises thickening, spiking in, the crystalline quality that made her irises so deep and haunting faded, leaving a smooth smoky swirling of colors. She stood differently, not the scarred young woman wise beyond her years, no a woman old beyond years, but still remarkably young.
The image of the rest of this woman was like a mist around Blaise's body, far taller, but of the same elegant slenderness, smoother somehow, with long waving hair of blood and earth hues.
"Albus Dumbledore." Spoke the mist, and Blaise's lips; the voice was like a silk python, cool and smooth around your neck but ready to strangle at a moment's notice. This would be the time when people notice the wings from her back, and the inhuman quality of her every action, from breathing to speech. The wings were like the insides of oyster shells crossed with ravens' feathers, black but reflecting color in odd patterns like oil on water.
"Merlin..."The past Dumbledore whispered. Blaise's mother smiled lightly, a coy slight upturning of the left side of her lips that suddenly made her catlike. As if signaled by such a comparison, her ears, hidden by her hair, grew through it from the top of her head like those of a lynx.
"I am Niniane, Blaise's mother..." Spoke the misty creature. "What's left of her, the part of her that I left in her mind, doing this will likely take most of me out, I will only be the faint ghost of a whisper's whisper. I need someone to know this..."
Albus, past and future, were speechless, so she continued.
"The four are two souls,
None the same
Four poles
All tinted dark
The storm will come
The four will launch The storm will pass One set of lovers Will pass with it" The mist faded, Blaise snapped on as though nothing had passed.
"Albus, were you even listening?"
A/N: DAMN that one took a long time coming! SHEESH But I'm glad I finally got it out, WHOOT!
PLEASE REVIEW THIS POOR LITTLE AUTHOR WHO SUFFERS RECURRING WRITER'S BLOCK!
Sorry, terribly sorry but my beta reader is mostly dead, and had no time to proofread, I'm lazy and I want to post this ASAP, I'll fix the typo's I'm sure are there later.
Her eyes danced as he merely gave a vague mewl of 'I'm fine' and struggled back to his feet. Shifters themselves were nearly all gone on Earth, and those who remained were a great power when they showed themselves, and they were the reason why any wilderness was left in the wizarding world, and why that 'any' meant a decent amount, just look at Canada.
"Shifter..."He gasped at last. She nodded. "Half shifter..." He gasped soon following. She nodded. "Which...Which..."
"Yes, half witch as well." She acknowledged, knowing this was far from what he was asking. He shook his head violently, mostly, she assumed, to clear it.
"Which...one..." He managed.
"My mother was the shifter." Amusement left her. "My bastard father was the human, he's a deatheater, Mordred Zambini." This caused Harry to again loose his balance. "Perhaps I should explain." She suggested. Harry held up a finger to signal he needed a moment. She felt a flicker of amusement as he retrieved a chair and fell into it, facing her with a grim, 'ready, go ahead and shock me.'
"Your father's a deatheater..." He half asked. Blaise nodded. "He knew you were a shifter-"
"Half shifter, yes. Killed my mother, whom he had tricked into having me." Her eyes turned distant, and her entire aura changed, she became suddenly powerfully angry, the emotion peeling off her in cold waves. Icy strength made her suddenly terrifying, he supposed that was an effect of her shifter blood. "I will tell you my story, Harry Potter, just as I have read yours." Harry nodded, she could be very frightening, but it made her all the more beautiful.
"One thing about shifters, we don't have to stay anywhere we don't want to, we just happen to like Earth, what's left of how it used to be, the powerful ancient magic it still holds, buried in time. A few small groups of us are all we have, here, and we hold fierce loyalty of a sort to us, my mother was to become a leader of the larger of these groups. Then she meets my father, she watched him grow from a young student here, but she couldn't read his mind, even in her strongest forms. Mordred, my 'father' has no spirit, no soul, such creatures are rarer than shifters in this galaxy, and we are very rare here, we prefer the further reaches of this group of galaxies, where magic is stronger, and eve there groups are small."
"So he could trick her, because he along couldn't be read." Harry sighed. Blaise gave a nod, her eyes still distant, her image seemed to blur faintly between herself and a woman he didn't recognize, she was tall, long and slender, like Blaise, and the eyes were almost the same, almost, and her long hair fell in smooth bloody waves lined with earthy brown.
"She finally found out his plan, shortly after my birth, from another deatheater whose mind slipped. She could not flee by then, Voldemort had caught her, as had all of his deatheaters. My 'father'" She spat the word "Had taken of her blood, and had bound her. Shifters are bound by their blood, or blood is our power, it is all we have, the tiniest drop can be the most powerful spell, or can be captured for our damnation. My blood was different, she had tried to save me, when I was young she locked away a great deal of her own mind deep in the back of my own, so she could help Voldie and his fellows no more. For this she was killed, when I was three, for her blood could have saved Voldie, but"
"I'm sorry, Voldie?" Harry asked awkwardly.
"Charming little name, isn't it?" She pretended to be calling a dog. "Here, Voldie! Come here boy, good little Voldie!" Harry found himself snickering despite himself. Blaise smiled slightly as well.
"So, your mother had no control over her blood's power anymore and couldn't help Voldemort if she tried." Harry said. Blaise nodded. "And she was killed for it."
"Yes, and shortly after my fourth birthday, Voldemort reached my father, and possessed him long enough to burn the dark mark into me, and instruct Mordred." She rolled up her sleeve, showing an ugly mark Harry had become so familiar with, but it was blurry, sloppy, and shiny like a scar, making it look blue.
"It isn't as powerful as the rest of the deatheaters' marks, shoddy work. It woke up my mother's mind in my head, so when it bled, and Voldie tried to take the blood for strength, it threw him into a horror he will never admit to. The horror that really kept him in hiding so long. I had no childhood, not even a bad one, no childhood, my mind grew rapidly, even for that of a shifters, it grew beyond my mother's, it grew on knowledge that merged onto primal instinct, knowledge came wherever I tossed questions. I learned enough of life itself, of humanity, of this world. I became dangerous; my father spotted it, as it erupted over a mere few years after the mark. He took a vial of my blood. He could not control it, but it tells him exactly where I am when I shift, and if he's close enough he can disable me, or kill me." She paused and looked up when she realized the window was rattling from her aura, and that power was flowing off her like a small hurricane.
"Blaise..." Harry asked. She turned to him and momentarily looked almost confused, as though she forgot everything that had just happened. "Are you okay?" He asked, she shivered, he found himself wishing to pull her to him, to shield her, but if she could not protect herself, what could he do?
"When Voldie rose again in fourth year, I had to run, and run fast. One year in Hogwarts, that was all, and I had been dragged off to Durmstrang. Mordred had powerful friends there, who could keep their collective eyes on me, but he didn't see the powerful enemies he had there as well." He could see that she couldn't stop herself now, she had to talk, she had never done so before, but now she had to, he could see the human part of her now, the human part that only existed in blood had suddenly awoken. "I couldn't shift, I still can't, or I'll be found, that bastard." The human part died again, her voice was made of fire.
"Because I can't die, I've tried, what's left of my mother's mind won't let me, but she won't say why. I can only take so much pain, I've taken a lot of it, enough to have a lot of resistance, but when it finally builds over that peak, it really, really hurts!" The cat was back, it had its claws in his leg, and he knew suddenly, he had to stop her.
"Blaise..."
"I can't...I can't..." She began again; Harry vaulted from his seat and grabbed her shoulders, giving her a light shake.
"BLAISE!" He snapped, she returned immediately to normal, all composure, all lack of humanity, all her emotion gone. He relaxed. She shut her eyes and leaned back against the wall. How could she do it? His mind gasped in exasperation she was too strong, how could she be so strong, damn it? How do you do it? Harry of course didn't realize he'd spoken that last question rather loudly.
"Pain either breaks you, or makes you stronger, and each time you mend you make your fix a bit stronger. Either way, you get stronger and stronger the more pain is tossed your way, you can either acknowledge it, or never notice it's there. You're only as strong as you're consciously aware of." Harry only partially understood it, but it was all the understanding he needed.
"I can't compare..." Harry murmured, eyes dull. Blaise looked at him, her gaze dominant and even, daring him. He looked back at her, she deserved to be the hero tot he world, not him.
"I am not a heroine, Harry Potter. I am merely another who has a destiny, I think." Harry became slightly confused. "I know who I am, but nothing else, I know a lot about life, and am good at things when the moment comes, I take things as they come and take them well. You Harry Potter, you only know what you have to do."
"I can't do it, though."
"Not yet. She growled. He looked up at her again; she had figured something out, he saw.
"The war is coming, Harry Potter." She whispered. "It has already begun, the first battle has come and gone, and more are brewing. You are not ready now." She stood and lifted his face, pulling him from his seat; he was a bit shorter than Draco, she could tell, even though she would not let him stand up strait, keeping his face ye-to-eye with hers. Her familiar had spoken with her in her mind, as had part of her mother. She had many thoughts of how her life would go, but a new road had shown up, and just as she was good at, she had no clue what would come.
'I will not love in this life, so that I will not be taught, as I told Draco. S.S. is wrong, he isn't here. I have to teach this boy, I have to teach The Boy Who Lived. I should have known the rest of dear Mother had gone into the threads of time itself, who else would have created Harry's prophecy, and left her own daughter's untold but created still. You won't tell me my prophecy, mother but I'll wing it.'
"Meet me in the room of requirement in one weeks time. I will be in there a full day, I'll need to, but you must come when you will not be missed. Until then, Harry Potter." And she left.
Harry Potter collapsed again into the chair. His head hurt, very badly. He suspected he would not sleep. The Boy Who Lived also suspected he would need a good sleep, and a couple good fucks before he could think about any of this without his head exploding.
~*~
"Blaise, help me, I'm really, really, really confused." Draco whispered in her ear, despite this close proximity, had she normal human hearing she'd have found him rather difficult to hear. Though along with having inhuman hearing, she had a very, very bad headache and every sound made her head throb painfully. This was likely why she was curled up in a dark corner of the Slytherin common room, a silencing charm to block all sounds not within three feet of her head and also so no one would hear her pained obscenities.
"Got a headache potion?" She half-whimpered half-growled. Draco pulled a small vial from an inside pocket of his robes. She thanked him a dozen times and guzzled it.
"You know, half the vial would have-"
"I still think that vial wouldn't be enough, Draco." She sighed and handed him the emptied vial. Draco shrugged and returned it to his pocket. Blaise pulled him forward by his collar to speak directly into his ear, so her spell would cover them, as well as if said spell didn't work would keep them safe
"Let me take a guess as to your problem, you've found a girl, whom is my complete and total opposite, but you find yourself, to put in a way you'd never admit, falling for her. You also are feeling guilty that just after confessing your heart to me, you're diving headlong after someone else." She pulled back, the potion had begun taking effect and she was right, it didn't work very well, but it dulled it a bit.
She only half-watched Draco's mouth working silently for a full half a minute as she rubbed her temples, growling softly to herself. Confession might be good for the soul, she acknowledged what she knew of that muggle faith, but it was not by any means good for my skull. She felt as though she were going to explode, she had told Harry Potter because all else fails she could blackmail him, but now the door closing off her story had rusty hinges and a broken lock.
"Y-yes..." Draco finally managed. "H-how...how?" he sounded almost indignant. She felt much better, shocking the crap out of two guys in two days in a row, mm shiny silver lining!
"Don't worry about it, Dragon." She said, falling into character easily, thanking every deity she knew and some she didn't know that she was a fine actress. She had to be. "I am not meant to be yours. Let what will happen, happen."
"B-but she's...and you're..." He argued, one thing about him, even when he was confused, perplexed out of his skull and rather perturbed he could still look so regal and sound dignified. She stood and bent down to whisper in his ear.
"Ginny Weasley is perfect for you, and you know it." She left him to his utter and complete confusion, striding elegantly from the common room, raven perched on her shoulder, eyes and face as emotionless and cold as that of a face carved from ice. The dragon snorted angrily, and was quite tempted to follow her, when her familiar, as he knew it was one, turned one starling green eye to him and clicked its beak, sending a clear warning to catch her later.
~*~
"Blaise, help me, I'm so confused!" confessed the tall red-haired girl urgently into Blaise's ear. Blaise herself looked over the edge of her book to the raven who stood directly before her on the table. The bird's eyes gave her a mocking smirk, the dark girl's eyes narrowing at him. Ginny was the picture of agitation, chewing the pad of her thumb nervously, glancing around as if everyone could read her like a book, when really the only person in the room who could was glaring at a bird. Said person sighed and shut her book, or rather she book she'd had hidden in the sleeve of a potions text, that book being a muggle one titled "The Talisman".
~*~
Albus Dumbledore scanned his mind for the memory, he knew he had one, where was it. He sighed and turned to his penesieve, turning his wand in it lazily. The face of Blaise Zambini flashed across it. Her voice flowed from it, from various occasions.
"I have no information you do not already have. I cannot aid you without harming you and myself, I am refugee of Voldemort if ever there were one, and a danger to you in every way, but I seek help."
"The war has begun, and the only possible end to it is in your hands, Albus, what are you doing about it?"
"I am thankful for your help and your care, but that won't shut me up."
Several more meaningless comments escaped its depths. No, it wasn't something she herself had said, or was it?
"I don't believe in destiny, Albus! There are simply some things life decides to stick you with." 'What are you stuck with, Blaise?' "All I know, Albus, is who I am, and a bit about life. I take things as they come and handle them like a Slytherin, for all I know I've already lived all I need to, but there is still the fact you have crap you have to do, and so does a boy named Harry Potter, and they are both closely related!"
Close...useful maybe, but that still wasn't it. Albus sat back in his chair, gazing at the silvery pool. Bright blue eyes sparkled now with frustration. Maybe it wasn't about Blaise, maybe she had just reminded him of it. No, he felt sure it had to do with Blaise, and life, no, destiny, no...prophecy?
Harry Potter's prophecy played idly in the silvery pool, the prophecy of himself defeating Grindlewald played as well, two others danced half-heartedly across the surface. Then something clicked partially. Blaise, sitting across from him in his office, she changed. Blaise had changed, he leaned over the pool again, amazed, slipping into it easily, diving into his own memory.
Blaise was in mid-sentence, as he fell, Dumbledore couldn't hear a word of it, but he could see a hidden passion ignited, then hidden, then flared, then hidden, she was fighting it. He watched, not listening to a word while his self from that time took in every word under deep consideration. She was a magnificent young woman of steel and ice, but how could she hide this passionate side, even now it seemed to be more powerful than Albus himself.
Just as it seemed she'd beaten down the furnace within, she froze, Albus, past and present watched intently, almost worried. Her eyes, such beautiful things, changed slightly, became slightly deeper blue near the center, the black line around the irises thickening, spiking in, the crystalline quality that made her irises so deep and haunting faded, leaving a smooth smoky swirling of colors. She stood differently, not the scarred young woman wise beyond her years, no a woman old beyond years, but still remarkably young.
The image of the rest of this woman was like a mist around Blaise's body, far taller, but of the same elegant slenderness, smoother somehow, with long waving hair of blood and earth hues.
"Albus Dumbledore." Spoke the mist, and Blaise's lips; the voice was like a silk python, cool and smooth around your neck but ready to strangle at a moment's notice. This would be the time when people notice the wings from her back, and the inhuman quality of her every action, from breathing to speech. The wings were like the insides of oyster shells crossed with ravens' feathers, black but reflecting color in odd patterns like oil on water.
"Merlin..."The past Dumbledore whispered. Blaise's mother smiled lightly, a coy slight upturning of the left side of her lips that suddenly made her catlike. As if signaled by such a comparison, her ears, hidden by her hair, grew through it from the top of her head like those of a lynx.
"I am Niniane, Blaise's mother..." Spoke the misty creature. "What's left of her, the part of her that I left in her mind, doing this will likely take most of me out, I will only be the faint ghost of a whisper's whisper. I need someone to know this..."
Albus, past and future, were speechless, so she continued.
"The four are two souls,
None the same
Four poles
All tinted dark
The storm will come
The four will launch The storm will pass One set of lovers Will pass with it" The mist faded, Blaise snapped on as though nothing had passed.
"Albus, were you even listening?"
A/N: DAMN that one took a long time coming! SHEESH But I'm glad I finally got it out, WHOOT!
PLEASE REVIEW THIS POOR LITTLE AUTHOR WHO SUFFERS RECURRING WRITER'S BLOCK!
Sorry, terribly sorry but my beta reader is mostly dead, and had no time to proofread, I'm lazy and I want to post this ASAP, I'll fix the typo's I'm sure are there later.
