Disclaimer: Neither own Creep (Radiohead) nor Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling, Twentieth Century Fox, Time Warner, and respective publishing companies). However, my intricate little ditty does belong to me.
When you were here before
Couldn't look you in the eye
You're just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry
You float like a feather
In a beautiful world
I wish I was special
You're so fucking special
But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here
I don't care if it hurts
I want to have control
I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice when I'm not around
You're so fucking special
I wish I was special
One
It was more like playing dress up to her—which pained her to think about. She watched him in the shadows, often like he watched her—the shadows they lurked in so strikingly different it cut her even more. Draco favored the dark, erotic and private shadows of his library, of his bedroom…and Blaise had to be content to disguising his intrigue in the bright ballrooms of large houses, looking mournful in an expensive dress and on the arm of some well-dressed crony who she'd end up smoking with and kissing on some lonely balcony.
To watch him practically engaged to Pansy Parkinson and practically in obsessive love with Ginny Weasley—Blaise hated it. She was the halfway point. She was the distinctive and exclusive pure that Pansy was with the deep auburn curls, so much darker than the flaming color of the Weasleys, but that's what the distinction was. It paled her vivaciously brown skin. No freckles quite, but she was still just good enough for Draco.
"You're my best friend," He would whisper as an excuse, biting her lip and pulling away from her. He'd go and sleep in the bathtub, leaving Blaise in a bed of silk and confusing thoughts and she always felt as faint as a whisper.
Her crush on Draco had never quite tapered off into the distance, as she hoped it would, but it had faded. They were friends, although she was never quite sure of the boundaries of that relationship, as her crush never let her see clearly.
She had cared for him quite passionately since sometime in second year. But even then she had known her station. It had cruelly been whipped into her skin by everything around her. The aristocracy of the Slytherin house drained her, until she looked like some emaciated fairy from a very morbid ballet or lullaby—enchanting, delicate and internally bleeding.
In her third year, she had gotten lost from the crowd of third year Slytherins in Hogsmeade and ended up by the train station, where the Slytherin Quidditch team stood around, smoked cigarettes and pipes, and had a library of different flasks, filled with whatever touched your fancy intimately. A smile had spread about Blaise's face, and she had gotten stoned for the first time, giggling like mad and kissing anyone who would sit still long enough. More often than not, she'd play the poor little rich girl who couldn't be having money disappearing and she'd let herself get dragged into some shack with Marcus Flint, five years her senior and held back one year, and he'd gleefully grope and control her for a single pack of cigarettes…he bought her favorite, a distinctly mint-flavored pack in a glamorous platinum blonde package that read in quite girly script for Marcus's taste, 'Duet', the only thing legible in English. Blaise would draw in a drag of smoke, exhale, and pull Marcus into a deep kiss once they had finished the business end, and all the boys would laugh tenderly, keeping their secrets as to keep their fun. Their own little Lolita stood before them, a thirteen year old girl trying to play dress-up and smoke like a glamorous socialite they would lust after when they grew older.
Her hands would slip down into Miles Bletchey's pants because he was the only one who brought a flask of red currant rum, her favorite in her school years, and oh how the boys would laugh with her, affectionately taking care of her in the hallways for some unknown reason, and no one had ever connected Blaise's disappearances on Hogsmeade weekends with anything other than the pristine appearance she gave off. Perhaps, many optimistically thought, they had all adopted her as a little sister of some sorts…she was sort of boyish in her laid-back personality, after all.
In her third year, Blaise had thought her crush on Malfoy had begun to fade, mainly on account of they weren't really good friends for quite a few years, and besides, the Slytherin Quidditch team, although he was very much a part of them, could easily move on their own, and combined, possessed the wealth and prestige Malfoy had and had their own physical strength. Blaise had her fun with them quite often until Malfoy started showing up later in the semester.
Miles had told her in confidence over quite a bit of red currant rum that Flint had been joking with the senior Slytherin Quidditch players in the locker room about how much fun Blaise had been, desperate for a smoke and alluringly aloof all at the same time, and that Malfoy had punched him. Of course, Flint had survived it and had shaken Malfoy into his senses. Somewhere in there a business deal had been made and Malfoy suddenly started accompanying Flint to the train station and buying Blaise's cigarettes for her, and none-too-ironically had started purchasing a brand called 'Solos' for her, as to nip that reminder in the bud, and that had been the end of that until Flint had gone and graduated.
Eventually, the 'original' line-up had all gone and graduated, with the exception of Adrian Pucey and Malfoy. Remnants of her sordid past had withdrawn even further into the more select darkness. While Draco partied among his prized whore after the first and pathetic Slytherin win over Gryffindor, Blaise had Marcus in Draco's bed, getting the blowjob of the year. When Draco had been off running around with his prized whore following Umbridge's and his father's orders blindly like a sadomasochist lamb to the slaughter, Blaise had been reuniting in Hogsmeade with Miles at the old train station.
By her sixth year, it had become a pointed decision that she'd have to take on an official lover, to appease appearances, to quench the thirst of gossips, to dispel rumors and to make Draco intensely unhappy. Her qualifications were not too high—money wasn't an issue as Draco insisted on having financial control of the girl becoming known as his best friend and sole confidante, but looks were, as were pureblood and a Hogwarts status, as to easily flaunt her affair; dangling it in front of Draco like a carrot leading a donkey. It was terrible that Davies had left—a quite attractive and intelligent bloke, with loins always boiling over with lust.
Robert Ashley Bradley had finally been selected in October of her sixth year, and by November; she had seduced him into her snake pit. He was a seventh year Ravenclaw Chaser and Head Boy. Due to Draco's insecurities about Blaise's behavior, reincarnated after he had found Blaise tangled up with Adrian Pucey after Slytherin's devastating loss at the House Cup fifth year when Draco had been needing some attention; he had pulled strings and made sure Blaise had become prefect that year. Unfortunately, that only allowed Robbie and Blaise a lot more alone time, and although Draco publicly approved of the match, inwardly he was boiling and he didn't like the feeling of getting hot with absolutely no release. In sixth year, after Slytherin had lost to Ravenclaw in the match prior to the final and Draco was fuming and Blaise was shacked up in the Head Boy's room for the entire weekend, that incident had became the end of the affair. Robert pursued Blaise again and again after that, and when Ravenclaw lost to Gryffindor in the last round, Blaise had comforted him, but told him with quite a bit of pain, as she had come to like him and very much enjoyed the time they spent in his room, that it couldn't continue onward. Of course, Draco wasn't pleased that she had spent another second with him, but when it came down to it, he had no control over that. He had joked that it was silly for her to date out of house, it was nearly impossible to do so, he insisted. And the following year, she pushed her boundaries even more.
She had initially set eyes on Oliver Wood as every other forlorn, love-ridden girl had in her first year, and had watched him separately as a Quidditch fan, pushing her lust aside in his final year when she had begun smoking with the Slytherin Quidditch team. During the summer, she had taken several day trip excursions on her own to follow his team as they had already made it as Great Britain's national team, and by the time they had arrived in her native Italy, he was seeing her for private dinners in his hotel room after matches. They would lounge around languorously; she'd offer him her luxury expertise and order for them, massage him and loosen his muscles, and he'd kiss her quite gingerly and tenderly. By the time he was a victor at the World Cup, she was publicly his.
Oliver had much to learn from Blaise and she had much to learn from him. He had become quite the magical equivalent of good old Becks with her. In scorn and anguish she had blamed him for softening her—for being so remarkably gentle and protecting her and for doing it in such an effortlessly non-suffocating way that she never wanted to rebel against his touch, his love. Draco had brushed that drunken confession off with a simple, "He's not around, of course he's not suffocating."
It was true. The distance had saved them, or at least that was what Blaise had been led to believe. Over Christmas holidays, instead of her traditional visit to the Malfoy Mansion, Blaise spent the holiday with Oliver and his family. Narcissa had cooed to Draco, "She's such a smart girl. Handsome, wealthy and pureblood to boot. They look so incredibly happy."
Of course, Draco never told Blaise's godmother that she had been hanging with the Gryffindor crowd of Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger and that whole lot. Oliver had practically purchased her way into a more comforting group than let's say the Slytherin seventh year girls. Blaise had never fit in with them. She had never quite been feminine enough for them, even though she had decidedly been very glamorous. But the matter was that she had been too masculine for them; too laid-back. She would often smoke, and not thin, dainty French cigarettes either, and take nips of Ogden's from a flask at the train station with the Slytherin boys—but other than that she was quieter, not very flashy or arrogant, but she was calculating and she was vain. She made very high marks and was even number two in her class—the first time the top three hadn't included a Ravenclaw.
But Lucius knew. Lucius knew because the Dark Lord knew. And oh, did he glare. He glared at Draco pensively for a moment over that supper with the Zabinis, and decided to confront Draco later about it.
"How can you let her, Draco? I am well aware that you have been master and commander of her financially for quite some time, and I had high hopes that in the cards you had some hand in her fate as well, but now I see you a groveling weakling—that Parkinson girl will have to be put on the back burner for quite some time until you can get control over Zabini again."
All of this said, quite ironically, whilst he thrust into the backend of the elder of the Zabini sisters. He came and in a frustrated voice, dismissed Draco from his chambers.
When Oliver finally had her in intimate embrace over spring holidays that year, he marveled at the warmth that was brought to her eyes when she was in his private company—and there was something so distinctly virginal about it that he knew it had been a long time coming and that it had only ever been for him. "My own little black-hearted Gryffindor in there," He had whispered post-coitus, upon drawing her into his arms as their bodies rested between cool, soft sheets. "Your soul is the most beautifully complex thing I've ever seen."
No legendary vixen as he had heard in the locker rooms, and oddly, it sparked within him a stronger bond to this lovely little girl, just of age and locked into his hold.
Of course, the pussy Malfoy's tears after a late lashing in her seventh year would take her away from him. Her loyalty was too deep-rooted and blind for her to see his smirk over her comforting shoulder, shot invisibly into the dark at Oliver. Unfortunately, Blaise Zabini had loved Oliver Wood, and while they may not have been in love and that exact four-letter word had not escaped her lips, the bond was too strong to prevent them from a friendship, and they were good friends.
So there she was, the physical embodiment of her years with Draco. Hair teased as he teased her, looking starved, as she was in every sense, the pristine little lullaby fairy forever waiting in the wings for her wings—dark lips, low chignon, dark eyes—looking quite manic and at the end of her leash.
She sat in her boudoir of the Malfoy Mansion, her place now at the age of nineteen and her place until marriage or her release from the contract her parents had signed as their wishes should they suffer the untimely death that they did—until her twenty-first birthday. She exhaled sharply and pulled in her stomach, the ivory skin forming a smooth curve inward. Her ribcage stuck out under her pert breasts and her hip bones jutted out nearly parallel to the soft curves of her hips and the shape fascinated her. Blaise sat there, the vivid blue silk striking against the black lace and her skin the perfect palette, and she looked there at her vanity, a collection of perfumes, with names like Opium and Poison. One particular one stood at the height of the helm, black and gold steps leading up to its holier-than-thou perch. A fitting gift from Draco, the scent too gentle with its vanilla and too intensely overcompensating with its hibiscus. Robert had selected a very slender glass bottle with a sparkling pink liquid within, a crystalline snake resting in serpentine coils towards the top—an apple. His temptress, he had called her in lusty whispers. How people had gotten the impression that she loved perfumes was beyond her—the bottles were pretty and she had a great many, ranging from exotic, to opaque, to classic, to picturesque.
Oliver had known. Oliver had known she only appreciated the aesthetic value of these—many a suitor had been crushed when she never wore the scent that they had bestowed upon her. Marking their territory in the most canine of senses, Blaise thought it. The practice made her feel like a dog, and she was no dog.
She had, however, purchased a simple ceramic box with a cover molded much like the glistening waters of Loch Ness, and the infamous serpent coiled in it to spray the scent she had selected as her own—a reminder of the Scottish man who had forever changed her.
Draco hated the scent. He said it made her smell simple and common, two things he always insisted she weren't. Just as she would gather up the confidence or the alcohol to tell him what she thought of that, he would turn to someone else and start a conversation. She was his pawn and his addiction to her was only territorial, and she knew it.
Looking down at her make-up mournfully, Blaise lifted her mascara-ed eyes slowly, studying her reflection in the mirror Draco had cracked when they were eleven and a half, and he had insisted girls had cooties. A bit immature, Blaise had thought.
An old Muggle wives' tale said that breaking a mirror brought one seven years of bad luck. Since Blaise had always been blamed for the broken mirror, was it perhaps her luck that was bad?
It was in this divergent moment that Blaise didn't shed a tear, and instead reached for her wand, which rested in the garter holster so mythical and legendary to England's top wizards. She repaired the mirror so quietly the spell almost didn't work. And that was the turning point when Blaise Zabini decided that she was not going to be Draco's slave anymore. Victim no longer to the delicate noses and high cheekbones of this nobility that promised her no hope as they never quite lived up to the selective feature of the very word nobility.
Reaching for a secret pack of 'Duet' she had kept in her vanity drawer, dangerously hidden amongst the combustible powders and potions, she turned away from the vanity in the blue-tinted dark and lit one, exhaling the smoke into the dusky indigo night, the view of her boudoir so subtlety different now. She supposed she'd have to go downstairs now, practically the belle of the Malfoy Mansion, its female ward, its little starlet. Blaise wondered if Oliver might be there. He occasionally was when Ministry business came into the Malfoy Mansion, and it was then that Blaise caught sight of the deeper cobalt outside her lengthy windows.
"Lumos." She said with a more valiant strength and the deep crimson of the room finally made its appearance. She'd have to repair the damage done by too many years of Malfoy, but in actually wanting to do it with no hidden agenda stocked with vengeance, somehow she knew it wouldn't be as hard as she had once perceived it to be.
Blaise walked to those windows in her shoes and lingerie, flicking her cigarette so the ashes fell to the floor, and she put it out on Draco's picture, right over his heart, where she knew it needed to be burned out anyhow. Her dress waited for her on a sofa. She slipped it on over her head and without a check in the repaired mirror; she kicked the cigarette under the sofa for the house elves to find, ('Still the spoiled bitch,' She thought with a satisfied smile,) and left the room gingerly, her wand back in the holster. "Showtime."
To be continued...