It was my crappiest Christmas ever. Not even when my father's aunt Clara
sat for three hours talking about the wonderful world of crochety was it
ever this bad. It started out innocently enough, with Marise waking me up
by jumping on my bed and almost breaking my ribs, shouting "It's Christmas,
it's Christmas!" at the top of her lungs. I got up and got dressed slowly,
because I hadn't slept well and was still tired, before heading down to the
dining room to eat breakfast. Lucas was sitting there with the morning
paper and some toast and coffee, and he nodded as we entered. I nodded
back, and Marise chirped another "It's Christmas!" before sitting down.
My mother was sitting at the other end of the table, far away from us, with a half-empty bottle in her hand. The label read Ogden's Old Firewhiskey. It was all downhill from there.
Usually, we'd have our family over at Christmas, all forgotten aunts and uncles, Great Uncle Drathil, second cousins twice removed, everyone who had any blood-ties to the family, but this year, it was only us. Maybe they wanted to leave us alone to deal with Father's death, maybe they didn't want to disturb, not that that had ever bothered Great Uncle Drathil before. One of my fondest memories was of him coming to knock on our door and just barge in and live with us for a week before leaving, with no explanations at all. For whatever reason, we were alone but for Lucas. He seemed to largely ignore us, sipping his coffee and reading about the latest disasters in the world. He was reading the Daily Prophet, which had lately been writing about imaginary plots and conspiracies, and had been profusely apologising to Potter at repeated occasions.
Breakfast was a gloomy affair; even my sister noticed, and she is a master at ignoring depression. By lunch, Mother was pissed off her rocker, and Lucas was still reading. He'd changed to some obscure Muggle book, apparently entitled Theories on Psychological Disturbances. It wasn't magical, that I could tell from the title; had it been, it would have been named something like Magical Madness; How to Tell if You're Off Your Rocker! Or something equally stupid.
Marise and I finally had our snowball war in the snowdrifts outside our house. She's so short she almost disappeared underneath the snow, but somehow managed to nail me straight in the eye with a snowball. The little pixie even won in the end, and I chased her back to the house laughing and covered in snow.
Turns out losing that snowball war was the best thing that happened all Christmas.
Things started to sour when Lucas announced he had done what he came for and that he needed to return to Hogwarts on the Headmaster's orders. Marise, who had when Lucas arrived seemed to think he was the devil in disguise (not that good of a disguise, come to think of it), now hugged him and sniffled pathetically, until I took over and had her clinging to me instead. So we were left alone to fend against our all other than sane mother.
The drinking binge continued. Marise and I stalked down the corridors as quietly as possible, whispered to each other and did as quiet things as possible. For example, we spent three hours playing chess, both to pass the time and keep out of Mother's way. Mother was a vicious drunk, and this time was no different. Marise won twice, and I won once, which I felt was a little unfair, but since she was my sister, I let it pass. The bombshell didn't drop until dinner, when Marise and I was almost crawling up the walls, waiting to open our presents.
"Blaise, I have to talk to you." My mother said, putting the cutlery and the whiskey bottle down. I swallowed. This was not going to be good.
"What is it, Mother?" I asked quietly, putting my own cutlery down, and waving to Marise to inch closer to the doors if things turned rotten.
"Your professor told me some interesting things." She was fighting to stay on a more or less calm level, and not quite succeeding. "He said you'd gone crazy. Is this true?"
"No Mother. I'm not crazy, even though I have a little paper that says I am." I rolled my eyes, "I just don't do magic with a wand any more."
"You've always been a freak, Blaise." At her outburst, I stared at her open- mouthed. "Ever since you were born you've been nothing but trouble! Your father was proud of you, gods only know why, but you've been nothing but a shame to the family since you were old enough to talk!"
Despite that she was calling me a freak, I had to admire my mother's ability to speak clearly even after ingesting enough alcohol to knock out an elephant. Not one syllable was misplaced, and if it wasn't for the fact that I'd seen her walk around with different bottles of alcohol all day, I wouldn't know she was drunk.
"Not once have you done anything to help the image your birth gave us! I can still remember their snide remarks about how it was typical of us to give birth to a son who was nothing more than a freak!" She was shouting now, waving the steak knife for emphasis. I attempted to back away while sitting, "But I've had enough of it now! There will be no more shame to the Zabini name because of you; I want you out! I don't want to see your freakish face here again, if I so have to disown you formally to achieve it!"
"But – but Mother, where am I going to go?" I forced out, as the true meaning of what she'd said sank into my mind. She was disowning me, truly disowning me and throwing me out of the house, on no grounds but for being born.
"I don't know and I don't give a bleeding damn any more!" She screamed, "Get your things and get out! At least I have one child that isn't a disappointment."
Nothing but months of training and a last-minute wish to prove that I wasn't a complete failure kept me from snapping and letting cutlery fly right there and then. Standing up slowly, I nodded one last time at my mother, and walked out of the dining room. Marise had fled the field as soon as my mother called me a freak, and was nowhere to be seen. I ground my teeth as I climbed the stairs to my room, trying to keep my temper under control and just managing.
My trunk made a hideous sound as I dragged it downstairs, not bothering to pick it up as I did so. The Silver Arrow, dust with disuse, but still one of the best brooms to ever see the light of day, had in my absence been stashed in a left-over wardrobe, the door of which I broke kicking it open. It wasn't as if the house and the cost of the repairs bothered me any more. The hinges of the main door made some less than normal sounds as I kicked those doors as well. My mother watched me go with a scowl on her face and a bottle in her hand. That was the last time I ever saw my mother.
Pitying Marise, I kicked off from the ground, and balancing my trunk, I flew off over the treetops.
'
Several hours and too many miles covered later, I touched down on solid ground again. Crossing the English Channel was nothing for the weakling Comets or Cleansweeps, and even Nimbuses would have trouble with the lack of landing space. Not so with my beloved broom, and the crossing had gone well. Unfortunately, finding a wizard-inhabitance was decidedly more difficult. At first, I'd thought about flying all the way to Hogwarts, but Hogwarts was unplottable and as such impossible to find by broom. The only way Weasley and Potter had managed it in second year was because they'd followed the train. I had no train to follow. So I'd dismissed the idea, and touched down in Seven Oaks instead, which was the closest wizard-Muggle dwelling I could find.
The best I could find was a magical house, not too small, with some flat roof-planes. Flying for well over five hours, balancing a top-heavy trunk on a too thin broom was hard work, and I nearly collapsed as I sat down. Some kind of party, a loud one, was going on in the house, and I should probably go and tell people I'd landed on their property, but I was bone tired and they seemed to be having fun, so I didn't want to disturb them. So I sat there watching the stars and catching my breath for a while.
"It's bleeding cold out here!" A decidedly familiar voice snapped from below, "Ugh, ice-cream brain-freeze. Who came up with the bent idea to eat ice-cream at Christmas, anyway?"
"I'll go out on a limb and say it wasn't you," I said, swinging my legs over the edge of the roof and looking down. "'Lo Anja. Fancy meeting you here."
The Severing Hex cut off a bit of my hair as it sizzled past my ear.
"I know I am constantly in desperate need of a haircut, but wasn't that going a bit too far?" I asked, making sure my ear was still attached to my head.
"Zabini, you filthy son of a one-eyed harlot, how dare you startle me like that?" Anja shouted up at me, "And what are you doing on our roof?"
"Resting?" I tried. "Crossing the English Channel is hard work on a broom, you know."
"Get down here you waste of perfectly good sense!" She snapped, pointing at the ground in front of her. As I climbed down on the vines covering the wall, she invented new swearwords, previously unheard of in the British language. "Now, you've got three red seconds to explain why you crossed the Channel on a broom, with your trunk, on Christmas."
"Three words then, if I have three seconds; Mother, alcohol, disowned." I ticked off on my fingers. "And that's about it. How's your Christmas going?"
"I have a brain-freeze due to ice-cream overdose, I have a house-full of relatives all speaking at once, and now you've decided to get kicked out of your family," Anja ticked off on her fingers as well, "So far, let's just say it's been a unique day and leave it at that. Your mother disowned you? Why?"
"I'm a horrid freak and a shame to the family, apparently." I shrugged.
The door of the house opened once more, and golden light spilled out over the night and snow. Anja's head snapped around and she raised her wand again, quicker than a rattlesnake struck. A tall, bearded man with blond hair and grey eyes, making him look like a Malfoy-refugee, stepped out into the yard.
"Anja? Do you have company?" He asked, in English, though he sounded as if he should be speaking Russian or something to that effect.
"No father, it's a figment of your imagination," Anja snorted, "Yes, I've got company. He just dumped himself on our roof. His name's Blaise Zabini, and I've had him hang around our Department a few times. Have you saved the ice-cream from Alyona?"
"Yes, I have. She's examining the cookies now," Anja's father was a surprise, I must say. If he was anything like Anja, he was supposed to be smoking and waxing cynical right now, "Please, let your friend in. We've got plenty of food."
"Buckle up now, Zabini," Anja patted my shoulder, "You're meeting my all other than sane family."
This was not what I had in mind for my Christmas. But then again, getting disowned wasn't exactly in the plan either. I'd come too far to turn back now, and who knew what might happen if I turned my back on Anja's family. Judging from the way Anja acted, I might very well end up with a rather nasty hex, just for the fun of it. I swallowed hard, and stared in fear at the nice and warm light spilling out from from the open door.
"Can I run for my life now?" I asked.
"'Fraid not." Anja sighed heavily and patted my shoulder sympathetically once more.
"Damn."
The house was full of people. There were people everywhere, of every size and possible personality. Someone attached their person to Anja's father as soon as we were through the door. This attachable person babbled about Christmas-presents and ice-cream all at the same time, while sounding quite like a rabbit on a sugar-high. I was starting to regret even crossing the Channel, and clutched both broom and trunk till my knuckles turned white. Every pair of eyes in the room turned to look at me, and therefore also Anja, who still had a hand on my shoulder. All but a few resembled Anja to the point of embarrassment, and those who didn't were obviously either related by marriage or going to be married to Anja's relatives.
Why, if this wasn't the most awkward moment of my life so far. Never liking to be the centre of attention, everyone staring at me was nothing short of panic-inducing. One could have heard a pin drop in the ensuing silence after our entrance. Anja's father made some gestures, trying to think of something to say, and failing miserably. Finally, one of Anja's relatives spoke up.
"Isn't that one a wee bit too young for you, Anja?" He asked, chuckling in a forced sort of way.
"Shut your gob, Vlad," Anja snapped, "You don't see me complaining when you drag home some girl ten years younger than you are. And for what it's worth, Zabini isn't my so-called date to this miserable annual party; he just happened to land on our roof and needs my help. I work with the boy."
"Landed on our roof? And I'm a Malfoy." The man addressed as Vlad snorted.
"But I did." I felt the need to break into what was obviously an ongoing sibling rivalry. "It was the first roof of a wizard's house I saw after crossing the Channel."
Now the room broke out in a mixture of disbelieving laughter and somewhat shocked questions. The crowd of Anja-clones and Anja-resembling people all wanted to know if I had crossed the Channel, why, how and when. I winced at the overbearing hum of sound that washed over me, and nearly took a step back. Anja rolled her eyes and, putting two fingers in her mouth, cut the noise off with a sharp whistle.
"Belt up you lot!" She snapped once more, "Leave the boy alone, for the sake of all things holy. He's had a rough day, so I don't want you picking on him. So you be nice to him while I'm gone. I'll be back in a while, alright?"
And so I was left alone with the hyenas – er, Anja's family. By now, being born seemed like it had been a bad idea. They closed in on me, just like a pack of hyenas, and the only thing that kept me from running out of there screaming like a girl was the knowledge that if they got too bad, I could always wallop them over the head with my Silver Arrow and then run away screaming like a girl.
Vlad took a sip of what looked like Firewhiskey, and inspected me critically. He seemed like the leader of the pack, as Anja's father hung back and talked to a woman who looked to be his wife. Some little blonde Anja-copy, maybe five years old, tugged at my trouser-leg and I nearly dropped my trunk on her in fright.
"So you're Zabini, eh?" Vlad questioned.
"Yes. I am." I answered, rather proud of my unbroken and steady voice.
"Heard about the fire." He continued. "Sure it was an accident?"
"I don't know," I bit out through clenched teeth. I hated when people made me think about the fire. "The memories are rather hazy, and I went to school almost immediately after it, so I had no chance of inspecting the ashes either."
"School? Anja's really robbing the cradle now." Vlad snorted again, and I saw red.
My fist made contact with his nose even before I knew I'd dropped my broom, and his head snapped back. The crack of his nose breaking was audible, and he stumbled back and sat down on the floor with a heavy thud, dropping his glass, which shattered as it hit the floor. He stared at me in shock, as did the others, as blood flowed from his nose like water from a fountain. I stared back, equally shocked, before looking down on my now bloody knuckles. My fingers were trembling. Without thinking, without really meaning to, I had hauled away and hit a member of Anja's family. Any minute now, the hyenas would throw themselves at me and rip me to shreds.
"Isn't it funny how the ground never opens up and swallows you when you want it to?" I asked the air after a few too many seconds of heavy silence. Reaching out my hand to help Vlad up, I continued. "I knew I should have stayed in bed this morning. For what it's worth, I am terribly sorry. I'm not the most stable person I know."
"You pack one hell of a punch, Zabini." He said, his voice a little muffled, "But please don't hit me again without warning me first. What earned me that in the first place?"
"The worst day of my life, if you don't count the one when my house burned down, or the one when my Housemate was kidnapped by some funny people with marks on their arms," I said tiredly. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I want to get more coherent than that."
"Did someone finally give you what you deserve, Vlad?" Anja asked from the doorway, "Maybe now you'll be able to keep your girlfriends longer than a week; getting hit might have knocked some sense into you. But I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up. Zabini, come along here; we need to talk to Linden."
She dragged me bodily from the room, while I was still in the middle of apologising to Vlad, whom I assumed was her brother, though it was hard to tell is he was older or younger than she. They all looked like Malfoys anyway; if it wasn't for the fact that I'd met Anja's father, I'd believed that they were all the bastard offspring of Lucius Malfoy. Anja was muttering under her breath about stupid brothers and cradle-robbing, while I puzzled over why we had to talk to Linden. It wasn't as if I could get un- disowned; once a member of an old Pureblood family, such as mine, had declared another member of the family disowned, that declaration stood, even if it wasn't written down.
The fire was crackling in the next room, and Linden's head was present in it. He watched us as we entered, not in the usual absent way, but sharply and directly. An unusual expression on his face; all his scatter- brainedness had gone missing, apparently. Anja dumped me in a chair and took a seat in another herself.
"Linden, we have trouble with a capital T." She gestured to me.
"Yes, you told me he'd dumped himself on your house." Linden nodded, "So, Mr Zabini, would you like to tell me what exactly caused this?"
"I was disowned by my demented mother and thrown out of the house. I need to be at Hogwarts within twenty-four hours. Why do you need to know this anyway?" I grumbled. It was too late to be even remotely civil any more.
"Because I have the authority to have you back at Hogwarts within twenty- four hours without any uncomfortable questions, that's why," Linden countered. "An advantage of working at the Department of Mysteries is that no one asks questions when you tell them to do or give you things."
"Fine." I muttered. "Just get me out of here before I break someone else's nose."
"Who?" Linden asked, straightening his glasses.
"Vlad, the miserable excuse for an older brother," Anja snorted.
"Finally." Linden grinned. "No offence Anja, but the Department for Enforcing of Magical Law has had your brother here so many times it's starting to get ridiculous. What earned him that?"
"He accused Anja of cradle-robbing, me being the thing robbed," I shrugged. "Too many hours on a broom and too many days of keeping my crumbling self- control together, and that remark just made me snap."
"Ah. Well. You just wait here for a moment, and I'll go and arrange some things." Linden nodded to us and disappeared.
We were left staring at the flickering flames. Anja poured herself a glass of Firewhiskery, and for a split second, I wished I was old enough to be legally allowed to drink it. Normally, it wouldn't have been a problem; I'd just have sneaked a glass and pretended not to care, but I couldn't just ask Anja to give me a glass. It would be awkward if nothing else. But, to my surprise, she poured another glass, and put in on the table next to my chair without saying anything. I downed the lot without blinking.
Half an hour later, the glasses were still standing empty. We'd resorted to passing the bottle back and forth. Not a word had been exchanged, and if this went on for another half hour, we'd not only need a new bottle, but we wouldn't be able to talk. Or walk. Linden better call back quick, or I'd be lying on the floor inspecting the carpet pattern soon. It wasn't my first time drunk; I was seventeen, and seventeen year old boys did a lot of stupid things, but I hadn't had the opportunity to get drunk on anything but coffee in a very long time. The alcohol went straight to my head.
'
Only dimly aware of things further away than a few feet, I stumbled through the fireplace, and ended up in the Department of Mysteries. Linden caught me before I smashed my head into one of the bookcases, before he turned and did Anja the same service. Although she spent a considerable amount of time clinging to his tweed jacket, which I hadn't. It's always the funny things you notice when you're dead drunk. Linden said something about establishing a temporary Floo connection to Hogwarts, and directed me to another fireplace, Anja still hanging on to his arm. He didn't seem to mind though, and stood there quite calmly.
"The connection will shut down as soon as you're through," He explained, "And you'll end up in the fireplace closest to the dungeons. I made sure that it isn't one that belongs to a teacher or the caretaker. Go on now; I wouldn't want you to end up in the wrong place, and if we wait too long, the connection might change."
"Right." I managed to mumble, "I'll just go now." It seemed I'd inherited the ability to pronounce things perfectly even while drunk from my mother.
Stepping through the fireplace, I saw a million other fireplaces rush past, before everything slowed down and I stepped out again in a familiar dungeon, far from the Ministry. I hoisted my trunk up on my shoulder, made sure I still had my broom and my rarely used wand, and walked out of the room and into a dark corridor. Breathing in the familiar smell of Hogwarts, I smiled for the first time in seventy-two hours.
It was good to be back.
'
Ending Notes; and thus I torture Blaise just a little bit more. I want to see how much he can take before he goes truly insane.
My mother was sitting at the other end of the table, far away from us, with a half-empty bottle in her hand. The label read Ogden's Old Firewhiskey. It was all downhill from there.
Usually, we'd have our family over at Christmas, all forgotten aunts and uncles, Great Uncle Drathil, second cousins twice removed, everyone who had any blood-ties to the family, but this year, it was only us. Maybe they wanted to leave us alone to deal with Father's death, maybe they didn't want to disturb, not that that had ever bothered Great Uncle Drathil before. One of my fondest memories was of him coming to knock on our door and just barge in and live with us for a week before leaving, with no explanations at all. For whatever reason, we were alone but for Lucas. He seemed to largely ignore us, sipping his coffee and reading about the latest disasters in the world. He was reading the Daily Prophet, which had lately been writing about imaginary plots and conspiracies, and had been profusely apologising to Potter at repeated occasions.
Breakfast was a gloomy affair; even my sister noticed, and she is a master at ignoring depression. By lunch, Mother was pissed off her rocker, and Lucas was still reading. He'd changed to some obscure Muggle book, apparently entitled Theories on Psychological Disturbances. It wasn't magical, that I could tell from the title; had it been, it would have been named something like Magical Madness; How to Tell if You're Off Your Rocker! Or something equally stupid.
Marise and I finally had our snowball war in the snowdrifts outside our house. She's so short she almost disappeared underneath the snow, but somehow managed to nail me straight in the eye with a snowball. The little pixie even won in the end, and I chased her back to the house laughing and covered in snow.
Turns out losing that snowball war was the best thing that happened all Christmas.
Things started to sour when Lucas announced he had done what he came for and that he needed to return to Hogwarts on the Headmaster's orders. Marise, who had when Lucas arrived seemed to think he was the devil in disguise (not that good of a disguise, come to think of it), now hugged him and sniffled pathetically, until I took over and had her clinging to me instead. So we were left alone to fend against our all other than sane mother.
The drinking binge continued. Marise and I stalked down the corridors as quietly as possible, whispered to each other and did as quiet things as possible. For example, we spent three hours playing chess, both to pass the time and keep out of Mother's way. Mother was a vicious drunk, and this time was no different. Marise won twice, and I won once, which I felt was a little unfair, but since she was my sister, I let it pass. The bombshell didn't drop until dinner, when Marise and I was almost crawling up the walls, waiting to open our presents.
"Blaise, I have to talk to you." My mother said, putting the cutlery and the whiskey bottle down. I swallowed. This was not going to be good.
"What is it, Mother?" I asked quietly, putting my own cutlery down, and waving to Marise to inch closer to the doors if things turned rotten.
"Your professor told me some interesting things." She was fighting to stay on a more or less calm level, and not quite succeeding. "He said you'd gone crazy. Is this true?"
"No Mother. I'm not crazy, even though I have a little paper that says I am." I rolled my eyes, "I just don't do magic with a wand any more."
"You've always been a freak, Blaise." At her outburst, I stared at her open- mouthed. "Ever since you were born you've been nothing but trouble! Your father was proud of you, gods only know why, but you've been nothing but a shame to the family since you were old enough to talk!"
Despite that she was calling me a freak, I had to admire my mother's ability to speak clearly even after ingesting enough alcohol to knock out an elephant. Not one syllable was misplaced, and if it wasn't for the fact that I'd seen her walk around with different bottles of alcohol all day, I wouldn't know she was drunk.
"Not once have you done anything to help the image your birth gave us! I can still remember their snide remarks about how it was typical of us to give birth to a son who was nothing more than a freak!" She was shouting now, waving the steak knife for emphasis. I attempted to back away while sitting, "But I've had enough of it now! There will be no more shame to the Zabini name because of you; I want you out! I don't want to see your freakish face here again, if I so have to disown you formally to achieve it!"
"But – but Mother, where am I going to go?" I forced out, as the true meaning of what she'd said sank into my mind. She was disowning me, truly disowning me and throwing me out of the house, on no grounds but for being born.
"I don't know and I don't give a bleeding damn any more!" She screamed, "Get your things and get out! At least I have one child that isn't a disappointment."
Nothing but months of training and a last-minute wish to prove that I wasn't a complete failure kept me from snapping and letting cutlery fly right there and then. Standing up slowly, I nodded one last time at my mother, and walked out of the dining room. Marise had fled the field as soon as my mother called me a freak, and was nowhere to be seen. I ground my teeth as I climbed the stairs to my room, trying to keep my temper under control and just managing.
My trunk made a hideous sound as I dragged it downstairs, not bothering to pick it up as I did so. The Silver Arrow, dust with disuse, but still one of the best brooms to ever see the light of day, had in my absence been stashed in a left-over wardrobe, the door of which I broke kicking it open. It wasn't as if the house and the cost of the repairs bothered me any more. The hinges of the main door made some less than normal sounds as I kicked those doors as well. My mother watched me go with a scowl on her face and a bottle in her hand. That was the last time I ever saw my mother.
Pitying Marise, I kicked off from the ground, and balancing my trunk, I flew off over the treetops.
'
Several hours and too many miles covered later, I touched down on solid ground again. Crossing the English Channel was nothing for the weakling Comets or Cleansweeps, and even Nimbuses would have trouble with the lack of landing space. Not so with my beloved broom, and the crossing had gone well. Unfortunately, finding a wizard-inhabitance was decidedly more difficult. At first, I'd thought about flying all the way to Hogwarts, but Hogwarts was unplottable and as such impossible to find by broom. The only way Weasley and Potter had managed it in second year was because they'd followed the train. I had no train to follow. So I'd dismissed the idea, and touched down in Seven Oaks instead, which was the closest wizard-Muggle dwelling I could find.
The best I could find was a magical house, not too small, with some flat roof-planes. Flying for well over five hours, balancing a top-heavy trunk on a too thin broom was hard work, and I nearly collapsed as I sat down. Some kind of party, a loud one, was going on in the house, and I should probably go and tell people I'd landed on their property, but I was bone tired and they seemed to be having fun, so I didn't want to disturb them. So I sat there watching the stars and catching my breath for a while.
"It's bleeding cold out here!" A decidedly familiar voice snapped from below, "Ugh, ice-cream brain-freeze. Who came up with the bent idea to eat ice-cream at Christmas, anyway?"
"I'll go out on a limb and say it wasn't you," I said, swinging my legs over the edge of the roof and looking down. "'Lo Anja. Fancy meeting you here."
The Severing Hex cut off a bit of my hair as it sizzled past my ear.
"I know I am constantly in desperate need of a haircut, but wasn't that going a bit too far?" I asked, making sure my ear was still attached to my head.
"Zabini, you filthy son of a one-eyed harlot, how dare you startle me like that?" Anja shouted up at me, "And what are you doing on our roof?"
"Resting?" I tried. "Crossing the English Channel is hard work on a broom, you know."
"Get down here you waste of perfectly good sense!" She snapped, pointing at the ground in front of her. As I climbed down on the vines covering the wall, she invented new swearwords, previously unheard of in the British language. "Now, you've got three red seconds to explain why you crossed the Channel on a broom, with your trunk, on Christmas."
"Three words then, if I have three seconds; Mother, alcohol, disowned." I ticked off on my fingers. "And that's about it. How's your Christmas going?"
"I have a brain-freeze due to ice-cream overdose, I have a house-full of relatives all speaking at once, and now you've decided to get kicked out of your family," Anja ticked off on her fingers as well, "So far, let's just say it's been a unique day and leave it at that. Your mother disowned you? Why?"
"I'm a horrid freak and a shame to the family, apparently." I shrugged.
The door of the house opened once more, and golden light spilled out over the night and snow. Anja's head snapped around and she raised her wand again, quicker than a rattlesnake struck. A tall, bearded man with blond hair and grey eyes, making him look like a Malfoy-refugee, stepped out into the yard.
"Anja? Do you have company?" He asked, in English, though he sounded as if he should be speaking Russian or something to that effect.
"No father, it's a figment of your imagination," Anja snorted, "Yes, I've got company. He just dumped himself on our roof. His name's Blaise Zabini, and I've had him hang around our Department a few times. Have you saved the ice-cream from Alyona?"
"Yes, I have. She's examining the cookies now," Anja's father was a surprise, I must say. If he was anything like Anja, he was supposed to be smoking and waxing cynical right now, "Please, let your friend in. We've got plenty of food."
"Buckle up now, Zabini," Anja patted my shoulder, "You're meeting my all other than sane family."
This was not what I had in mind for my Christmas. But then again, getting disowned wasn't exactly in the plan either. I'd come too far to turn back now, and who knew what might happen if I turned my back on Anja's family. Judging from the way Anja acted, I might very well end up with a rather nasty hex, just for the fun of it. I swallowed hard, and stared in fear at the nice and warm light spilling out from from the open door.
"Can I run for my life now?" I asked.
"'Fraid not." Anja sighed heavily and patted my shoulder sympathetically once more.
"Damn."
The house was full of people. There were people everywhere, of every size and possible personality. Someone attached their person to Anja's father as soon as we were through the door. This attachable person babbled about Christmas-presents and ice-cream all at the same time, while sounding quite like a rabbit on a sugar-high. I was starting to regret even crossing the Channel, and clutched both broom and trunk till my knuckles turned white. Every pair of eyes in the room turned to look at me, and therefore also Anja, who still had a hand on my shoulder. All but a few resembled Anja to the point of embarrassment, and those who didn't were obviously either related by marriage or going to be married to Anja's relatives.
Why, if this wasn't the most awkward moment of my life so far. Never liking to be the centre of attention, everyone staring at me was nothing short of panic-inducing. One could have heard a pin drop in the ensuing silence after our entrance. Anja's father made some gestures, trying to think of something to say, and failing miserably. Finally, one of Anja's relatives spoke up.
"Isn't that one a wee bit too young for you, Anja?" He asked, chuckling in a forced sort of way.
"Shut your gob, Vlad," Anja snapped, "You don't see me complaining when you drag home some girl ten years younger than you are. And for what it's worth, Zabini isn't my so-called date to this miserable annual party; he just happened to land on our roof and needs my help. I work with the boy."
"Landed on our roof? And I'm a Malfoy." The man addressed as Vlad snorted.
"But I did." I felt the need to break into what was obviously an ongoing sibling rivalry. "It was the first roof of a wizard's house I saw after crossing the Channel."
Now the room broke out in a mixture of disbelieving laughter and somewhat shocked questions. The crowd of Anja-clones and Anja-resembling people all wanted to know if I had crossed the Channel, why, how and when. I winced at the overbearing hum of sound that washed over me, and nearly took a step back. Anja rolled her eyes and, putting two fingers in her mouth, cut the noise off with a sharp whistle.
"Belt up you lot!" She snapped once more, "Leave the boy alone, for the sake of all things holy. He's had a rough day, so I don't want you picking on him. So you be nice to him while I'm gone. I'll be back in a while, alright?"
And so I was left alone with the hyenas – er, Anja's family. By now, being born seemed like it had been a bad idea. They closed in on me, just like a pack of hyenas, and the only thing that kept me from running out of there screaming like a girl was the knowledge that if they got too bad, I could always wallop them over the head with my Silver Arrow and then run away screaming like a girl.
Vlad took a sip of what looked like Firewhiskey, and inspected me critically. He seemed like the leader of the pack, as Anja's father hung back and talked to a woman who looked to be his wife. Some little blonde Anja-copy, maybe five years old, tugged at my trouser-leg and I nearly dropped my trunk on her in fright.
"So you're Zabini, eh?" Vlad questioned.
"Yes. I am." I answered, rather proud of my unbroken and steady voice.
"Heard about the fire." He continued. "Sure it was an accident?"
"I don't know," I bit out through clenched teeth. I hated when people made me think about the fire. "The memories are rather hazy, and I went to school almost immediately after it, so I had no chance of inspecting the ashes either."
"School? Anja's really robbing the cradle now." Vlad snorted again, and I saw red.
My fist made contact with his nose even before I knew I'd dropped my broom, and his head snapped back. The crack of his nose breaking was audible, and he stumbled back and sat down on the floor with a heavy thud, dropping his glass, which shattered as it hit the floor. He stared at me in shock, as did the others, as blood flowed from his nose like water from a fountain. I stared back, equally shocked, before looking down on my now bloody knuckles. My fingers were trembling. Without thinking, without really meaning to, I had hauled away and hit a member of Anja's family. Any minute now, the hyenas would throw themselves at me and rip me to shreds.
"Isn't it funny how the ground never opens up and swallows you when you want it to?" I asked the air after a few too many seconds of heavy silence. Reaching out my hand to help Vlad up, I continued. "I knew I should have stayed in bed this morning. For what it's worth, I am terribly sorry. I'm not the most stable person I know."
"You pack one hell of a punch, Zabini." He said, his voice a little muffled, "But please don't hit me again without warning me first. What earned me that in the first place?"
"The worst day of my life, if you don't count the one when my house burned down, or the one when my Housemate was kidnapped by some funny people with marks on their arms," I said tiredly. "I'm sorry, but I don't think I want to get more coherent than that."
"Did someone finally give you what you deserve, Vlad?" Anja asked from the doorway, "Maybe now you'll be able to keep your girlfriends longer than a week; getting hit might have knocked some sense into you. But I guess I shouldn't get my hopes up. Zabini, come along here; we need to talk to Linden."
She dragged me bodily from the room, while I was still in the middle of apologising to Vlad, whom I assumed was her brother, though it was hard to tell is he was older or younger than she. They all looked like Malfoys anyway; if it wasn't for the fact that I'd met Anja's father, I'd believed that they were all the bastard offspring of Lucius Malfoy. Anja was muttering under her breath about stupid brothers and cradle-robbing, while I puzzled over why we had to talk to Linden. It wasn't as if I could get un- disowned; once a member of an old Pureblood family, such as mine, had declared another member of the family disowned, that declaration stood, even if it wasn't written down.
The fire was crackling in the next room, and Linden's head was present in it. He watched us as we entered, not in the usual absent way, but sharply and directly. An unusual expression on his face; all his scatter- brainedness had gone missing, apparently. Anja dumped me in a chair and took a seat in another herself.
"Linden, we have trouble with a capital T." She gestured to me.
"Yes, you told me he'd dumped himself on your house." Linden nodded, "So, Mr Zabini, would you like to tell me what exactly caused this?"
"I was disowned by my demented mother and thrown out of the house. I need to be at Hogwarts within twenty-four hours. Why do you need to know this anyway?" I grumbled. It was too late to be even remotely civil any more.
"Because I have the authority to have you back at Hogwarts within twenty- four hours without any uncomfortable questions, that's why," Linden countered. "An advantage of working at the Department of Mysteries is that no one asks questions when you tell them to do or give you things."
"Fine." I muttered. "Just get me out of here before I break someone else's nose."
"Who?" Linden asked, straightening his glasses.
"Vlad, the miserable excuse for an older brother," Anja snorted.
"Finally." Linden grinned. "No offence Anja, but the Department for Enforcing of Magical Law has had your brother here so many times it's starting to get ridiculous. What earned him that?"
"He accused Anja of cradle-robbing, me being the thing robbed," I shrugged. "Too many hours on a broom and too many days of keeping my crumbling self- control together, and that remark just made me snap."
"Ah. Well. You just wait here for a moment, and I'll go and arrange some things." Linden nodded to us and disappeared.
We were left staring at the flickering flames. Anja poured herself a glass of Firewhiskery, and for a split second, I wished I was old enough to be legally allowed to drink it. Normally, it wouldn't have been a problem; I'd just have sneaked a glass and pretended not to care, but I couldn't just ask Anja to give me a glass. It would be awkward if nothing else. But, to my surprise, she poured another glass, and put in on the table next to my chair without saying anything. I downed the lot without blinking.
Half an hour later, the glasses were still standing empty. We'd resorted to passing the bottle back and forth. Not a word had been exchanged, and if this went on for another half hour, we'd not only need a new bottle, but we wouldn't be able to talk. Or walk. Linden better call back quick, or I'd be lying on the floor inspecting the carpet pattern soon. It wasn't my first time drunk; I was seventeen, and seventeen year old boys did a lot of stupid things, but I hadn't had the opportunity to get drunk on anything but coffee in a very long time. The alcohol went straight to my head.
'
Only dimly aware of things further away than a few feet, I stumbled through the fireplace, and ended up in the Department of Mysteries. Linden caught me before I smashed my head into one of the bookcases, before he turned and did Anja the same service. Although she spent a considerable amount of time clinging to his tweed jacket, which I hadn't. It's always the funny things you notice when you're dead drunk. Linden said something about establishing a temporary Floo connection to Hogwarts, and directed me to another fireplace, Anja still hanging on to his arm. He didn't seem to mind though, and stood there quite calmly.
"The connection will shut down as soon as you're through," He explained, "And you'll end up in the fireplace closest to the dungeons. I made sure that it isn't one that belongs to a teacher or the caretaker. Go on now; I wouldn't want you to end up in the wrong place, and if we wait too long, the connection might change."
"Right." I managed to mumble, "I'll just go now." It seemed I'd inherited the ability to pronounce things perfectly even while drunk from my mother.
Stepping through the fireplace, I saw a million other fireplaces rush past, before everything slowed down and I stepped out again in a familiar dungeon, far from the Ministry. I hoisted my trunk up on my shoulder, made sure I still had my broom and my rarely used wand, and walked out of the room and into a dark corridor. Breathing in the familiar smell of Hogwarts, I smiled for the first time in seventy-two hours.
It was good to be back.
'
Ending Notes; and thus I torture Blaise just a little bit more. I want to see how much he can take before he goes truly insane.