Disclaimer: Neither own Glycerin (Bush) nor Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling, Twentieth Century Fox, Time Warner, and respective publishing companies). However, my intricate little ditty does belong to me. A/N: This was a tough chapter to write…because it's transitional, and transitions SUCK (having been through a few myself…). They hurt, as should the writing.
if I treated you badYou bruise my face
Couldn't love you more
You got a beautiful taste
Don't let the days go by
Could have been easier on you
I couldn't change though I wanted to
Could have been easier by three
Our old friend fear and you and me
Glycerin
Don't let the days go by
Glycerin
"Have you nothing better to do than mope around my office?" Draco said a moment after taking in Blaise's melancholy position on the couch, the same position he had left her in when he'd left for lunch. This was the third time this week.
Blaise turned her gaze from the window, beginning on a breathy inhale, "Perhaps," she seemed to stop herself, knowing better of it.
"No, go on and say it. Don't censor yourself on my account." Draco ordered cordially, pulling on the robe he'd taken off and straightening his tie. He went over to his desk and leaned back in the large leather chair, propping his feet up.
"Your account?" Blaise snorted, the air exhaling onto the window, its thin layer of dust torn by Blaise's nose and forehead.
Draco gingerly picked up a copy of the Daily Prophet.
"She hasn't announced the break-up yet." Blaise told him upon hearing the familiar rustle.
"There's nothing to announce." Draco retorted plainly. "I was actually going to read about the Puddlemere game last Friday. I noticed you did not go."
"You didn't let me." Blaise muttered, wishing to smack the smugness out of his voice.
"Up and coming Keeper Oliver Wood, popular with the ladies and rare to the social scene, played one of his best games of Quidditch since the last time he was seen in heiress Blaise Zabini's company, but in an altogether different style. His defense style has gotten quite violent, and Wood didn't let a single Quaffle in, helping the offense focus entirely on setting a score impossible to beat, even with the capture of the Golden Snitch." Draco clicked his tongue, hitting the hard palette of his mouth. "That Wood…such a boy when it comes to dealing with you."
Playing house… The words swirled around in her head more often than not. She flipped from lying on her stomach, absentmindedly wiping the dust off of her forehead and tip of her nose.
"Any messages?"
"She hasn't owled." Blaise answered. "As far as we know she's disappeared."
"I wasn't asking, but thank you." Draco retorted shortly.
"Azkaban. That has to be the better alternative." Blaise chirped, sitting up and getting ready to leave.
"I'm sure you think you're very funny. They like comediennes in hell, so I'm told." Draco pushed down the top of the newspaper's pages with his index fingers to watch her.
"Men like you," Blaise began, leaning on the doorway with blank eyes, "Should not believe in hell."
"Where are you going?" Draco demanded hotly, awkwardly standing up.
"Anywhere." Blaise snapped, brushing back the long, tapered layer of hair that had come undone in her moping.
"I don't know why you're acting so miserable!" Draco's voice chased after her. "You'll be queen of the Malfoy Mansion again."
Now he physically decided to follow her, hearing her snort, "I'll be bloody Cleopatra."
"Pardon?" Draco asked, his nose wrinkling in confusion.
"Fancy yourself a pharaoh much, Malfoy?" Blaise answered in place of an explanation.
Draco snatched her by the wrist, and his long, oval fingernails dug into the skin there.
"Not interrupting anything, am I?" The widowed Mrs. Bellatrix Lestrange, standing in all her self-imposed glory, smirked across the dimly lit hallway at them, an aura of light illuminating her as she walked. She inspected Blaise carefully, silently instructing her with a long, elegant finger to turn just so. Blaise tried to follow her instructions carefully, as for some strange reason, the vengeful Bellatrix enjoyed Blaise's company. Bellatrix frowned in Draco's direction. "I see you haven't popped any Black into this one yet. It's a shame…your fiancée certainly won't be able to strongly carry on the legacy of my fathers—at least not without contaminating it."
Blaise flushed. She took in Bellatrix as she always did, feeling quite surreal. The long, tight elegant black robes billowed from the elbows and knees, and a golden locket around her neck seemed to glitter with malice rather than antiquity. Similarly, a large golden ring with the Black family crest was only one of many on Bellatrix's fingers, and the luxury, history and hatred that perfumed the air were released with a wave of Bellatrix's hand, among many other opulent scents. Bellatrix wore a new one nearly every single day, as to not be recognized. A magnificent necklace of twelve opals circled Bellatrix's neck, and Blaise recognized all of these from photographs of the Blacks in their glorious years or from the shop window of Borgin and Burke's.
"So, to answer my own question…I'm not interrupting anything. Anything at all." Bellatrix grinned and Draco scowled at his aunt.
"What are you doing here, Bella?"
Bellatrix grinned, flicking her wrist and a gleaming contract unrolled itself from within her palm. "I have come to handle the great duty of the fate of one of our daughters."
Bellatrix moved her palm so it faced upwards and the contract rolled itself back up and disappeared back into it. Her index finger beckoned Blaise closer and Blaise felt a heavy hand push her intimately by the small of her back into Bellatrix's aura.
"You don't do this sort of petty work, Bella." Draco growled and with her free hand, she violently thrust out her palm and although she didn't touch him, Draco was pushed up against a wall.
"Let's to your office, Draco. I'm sure we will have a great deal of fun."
Within Draco's office, with Bellatrix sitting at the head of his desk, Draco and Blaise squirmed in their opposite wing chairs like children.
Bellatrix reviewed over the priors from the charm school Blaise had attended for six weeks after Hogwarts. "I did hope you'd follow in my footsteps, Blaise, you had such the potential for it at the end of your sixth year, but Draco failed to do his duty and he was punished for it…your aunt Berenice, now she was a good Egyptian pureblood witch, she followed her duty. They still talk about her in Cairo."
Draco sat up. "Now, Aunt, I can't allow you to go on any longer—"
"Shut UP, Draco." Bellatrix commanded, annoyed. "Now, I fetched this contract off of your desk and you seem to have not signed it as of yet—"
"Contract?" Blaise asked curiously, leaning forward from her seat. "I thought my contract with the Malfoys was kept in the Gringotts safe."
Bellatrix's eyes lit up. There was nothing more she loved (besides sadism) than drama. In those aspects, she was still quite the teenager. Call it her youth potion, pardoning the pun, of course. "Oh, my dear Blaise…we've so much to talk about…upon finishing school your caretaker was supposed to sign a contract with them and they were to arrange several matches for us to survey for your husband…for a slight fee of course…and you wonder, my dear nephew, why I have to do the dirty work? And here I was thinking there were no suitable matches in the whole of England and we'd have to enlist some Frenchmen into this mess! We needed to bring some color into the family!"
"Which one?" Blaise drawled under her breath, knowing there were probably six degrees of separation between herself and Bellatrix in the family tree.
"Well, naturally, he's going to have to be a Death Eater or the son of one, because I can see her loyalty will be pledged to his side as we seem to also have failed to drill the proper argument into her—oh, Draco," His name escaped her lips almost orgasmic ally as a pleasured smirk stretched across Bellatrix's face and her lids closed euphorically. "The Dark Lord is not pleased with this…he's not pleased with this at all!" Something seemed to be convulsing through Bellatrix's spine. "He doesn't like greedy boys, does he, Rodolphus? Does he, Lucius?" Her eyes snapped open and something swirled in their orbs so gleefully Blaise was scared. "Oh, those two met their end when they decided to fuck with me…"
Blaise stood up, something boiling hotly within her veins. "Was Draco supposed to approve of this match my teachers made, because even if he had signed the contract, he wouldn't, no matter if the match were the Dark Lord himself!" Blaise tossed over the wing chair and Draco scrambled out of his to escape its path. "Draco treats me like his property, even though he had a fiancée! I refuse to be his mistress as the cunt can't even kiss me!"
Bellatrix's eyes shined with morbid approval. "Oh, how you'd make a lovely match for Flint—he's so much more cunning when he has a challenge at home, do you catch my drift?"
"Marcus?" Draco squeaked from behind his wing chair, where he had flown to for refuge.
"I've gone through Flint." Blaise said flatly. "Besides, he's one of Draco's cronies."
Bellatrix walked around the table with long, languid movements of the entire of her legs, the heel and sole hitting the floor in a smooth rhythm. "Oh, if the Dark Lord weren't so angered in the caging of you as it were, how I'd love to play with you, pet…you're so headstrong…it's beautiful."
Bellatrix pulled Blaise into her embrace, whispering in her ear, "Trust me, Marcus is quite a match for you now, darling…the Dark Lord will bring out the spine in a man, either that or prove he's never had one…oh pet, Draco will have no cronies by the time I'm done with him…your qualifications are excellent."
And after that, it was strictly business. With the snap of her fingers, everything was back in order. She read aloud from the profile that Blaise's teachers had composed for her.
Made from a stardust that can be of lethal injection into desperate debutantes' veins, Blaise possesses a certain charm and knack for detail that would make her a strict, hands-on mother and no corner would be unturned in her household cleaning. Many believe that it is Blaise's wit, beauty and other developed skills that brings her to the tables of the wealthy, to the arms of the handsome, and into the rooms of the powerful, but no, it is Blaise's lingering loyalty that someday to one man will be pledged and her coolness of personality, and the real smile hidden behind the expensive enamel of porcelain teeth that captures hearts. Blaise is sophisticatedly sexual, and will attract too many offers not legitimate enough for the standard we have set for our graduates, and possesses too much nuance and panache to marry some poor man on some whim. Blaise would do best in a household of several children, animals and human servants who lived in a house on a manor, and preferably with a man who made his money rather than inherited it, as she has a stronger respect for a man who has worked hard. Due to her delicate association with her sexuality, perhaps, for the beginning of their marriage, should there be a long engagement and solid foundation, his career would involve traveling and/or strange hours to stimulate her in her youth until she is mature enough to always be a willing master suite partner. It is also recommended that Blaise be allowed to keep house in London, and perhaps a business to suit her greatest labors, with an allowance for both.
"You've no animals, Draco, and nor do I expect multiple children from you, and your job is as boring is as boring does. You neither allow her a regular allowance nor a house or business, and you seem to have monopolized quite enough of her time, so your hope of possessing Blaise as some silly sort of pawn is just that—a silly, schoolboy's fantasy. Do grow up, and until then, I'll see to it that this house is put back into its order, and we shall see about Miss Zabini…" Another thrill got sent up Bellatrix's spine, oddly from the glowing mark on her wrist, "Later." She released breathily. "Play nice, children."
"You are exactly the only Gryffindor who Draco will allow me to see on most days." Blaise whispered upon whipping off her sunglasses as she sat in the dark, private booth of an upscale café in a hidden corner of Diagon Alley. She stared across the booth at Ginny Weasley, who didn't smile.
"I'm afraid my personal relationship with Oliver will not throw off my professionalism right now, Miss Zabini." Ginny said as she got out her Verbatim Quill and a piece of parchment.
"Oliver has nothing to do with this." Blaise said hollowly. "I'm afraid that there would be no point."
"I'm sorry." Ginny muttered, not bearing to see the apathy in Blaise's features.
"As am I." Her voice echoed within itself, deeper, throatier, more pained. "I have been called into this world to undo that by which I was made, and I apologize if what I know is not enough."
"Alright. Miss Zabini, can you testify as to your position amongst the Death Eaters?" Ginny's voice was slow and deliberate, and finally, the quill inched across the page.
Blaise looked both ways and Ginny's hand over her shaking one set on the table comforted her. "We are well protected." Ginny mouthed, and Blaise inhaled sharply.
"My father, Alessandro Zabini, was a Death Eater, and owed the Malfoy family a wizard's debt when Lucius Malfoy rescued him from a raid of a Death Eaters' meeting near Hogsmeade. As some sort of training, Lucius had a contract drawn that made the head of the Malfoy household in charge of my trust, and thus, my care, upon my graduation from Hogwarts if and when my parents should fail to be able to do so. They were mysteriously murdered only months after this contract was drawn, late in my fifth year. Now, currently, I am the ward of Draco Malfoy." Blaise's voice broke suddenly. "He's only five months my senior."
Something stirred within the young Auror trainee's heart and they softly continued the interview.
"Is there any intent for your role amongst the Death Eaters to be promoted or demoted, to the best of your knowledge?"
"Yes."
Ginny wordlessly handed Blaise a flask of Veritaserum and she downed it quite rapidly, wiping her mouth almost primally. "Again." Ginny requested softly, and they began again.
Several days had gone by and Blaise was jumpy. Draco had neither returned home and nor was she quite dead yet, so chances were he was still with the Dark Lord, and none had suspected about her interview with Ginny.
The traditions of the pureblooded elitists, as it were, would seem to be the demise of them, according to the plans. When Pansy Parkinson again appeared on the arm of a fatigued Draco tomorrow night, she would subdue the rumors and prove Draco's statements of her private vacation true, whilst Blaise would find herself sacrificed to the pureblooded dogs—their bachelors, divorcees and widowers, all by invite of the also blossoming Mrs. Bellatrix Lestrange, the Dark Lord's right hand woman. After confirming their presence at the upcoming wedding on Saturday, Blaise would fly solo to the event, which was to be followed by a traditional, private Death Eater ceremony that Blaise would "accidentally" lead the Aurors to.
"Blaisie?" Her spine froze when she heard that name…coming from a strange voice. "Blaisie…I know you're here…Bellatrix said you're here…"
The cliché was slithering, tres serpentine…Draco seemed to be quite the fan of clichés, and in a second, Blaise could feel him try to wrap himself too tightly around her body. She whipped around and caught him entirely off-guard.
His weakened body hit the floor of her bedroom with a thud, and he gripped the hemline of her dress for leverage, only taking the beads down with him.
"Crikey, woman, can't a man surprise a woman without getting bloody expensive beads down his throat?" Draco tried to scramble onto his feet, and Blaise pitied him in his inability to do so. "I suppose you're very satisfied that my bullying has finally been punished."
Blaise nodded reluctantly, keeping leverage by not allowing him to close the distance between them.
"Scared, Blaise?" Draco asked almost innocently, as if she had no reason to be. Granted, his physical prowess wasn't quite up to par, but it never had been.
"No…" Blaise half-lied, turning away from him. "I'm fine. I'm fine." Her voice rose ever so slightly, only Oliver would have been able to detect it. "I've tried on my gown for this silly little thing…"
"Right." Draco whispered, his eyes glazing over as Bellatrix's voice taunted him in his head. "'The celebutante who looks more like a rock star than a lady who lunches, ambiguously virginal and mischievously innocent intrigue, seems to be moving on from wealthy school prefects and Quidditch stars and is putting an effort into settling down this Friday night…'"
The lilt of Draco's whisper was lazy and lingering, withdrawing like a heavy perfume in summer. The heaviness of the dust in the air was becoming increasingly more suffocating and Blaise coughed up a little. Inhaling deeply with a struggle, she tried to hold her breath but failed.
"Ambiguously virginal…" Blaise repeated slowly. Her eyelids suddenly felt heavy and Draco smirked.
"As if the Dark Lord would waste any effort on the practices of the pure since our ancestors' humble beginnings…" He muttered, as Blaise began to look a little faint.
"What?" Blaise muttered, and Draco pounced on her, scooping her up into his arms.
"The Dark Lord has better things to do than pay attention to a silly…little…girl…" Draco's lips turned up, but he wasn't smiling. He rarely smiled; she should have remembered that. "Tell me about your gown, Blaise…you girls just love talking about your gowns."
Blaise tried shoving against his embrace, but struggled to. "It's black."
"Oh, Blaise…" Draco teased with amusement, thrusting her upwards so that she practically sat up in his arms, her posture erect and rigid. "You can tell me more than that, can't you?"
"Fruit." Blaise croaked out through gritted teeth.
"Describe it, Blaisie." Blaise couldn't keep her eyes open any more but somehow, her sense of feeling was heightened and it was as if her body were interpreting the air in the corridors of the Malfoy Mansion.
He was taking her towards the master suite.
"Tight…deep plunging v-neck…sweeping mermaid skirt…train beginning at the waist…it's black lace…your favorite, git." Her eyes shut now; Draco didn't notice the thin, zebra-striped glazing on Blaise's cheeks. "Black orchids knitted into lace…"
"We've been dropping the beads of your dress, Blaise." Draco reprimanded, and she could nearly hear the simper left over in his tone. "Pansy will kill you."
The thin lines of salty glaze on Blaise's cheeks began getting thicker and bleeding into one another. The suffocating of the dust heavy air blended into the fluid of misery in Blaise's throat, and Blaise was gasping for air.
"Pansy." She managed, her hands wildly and weakly dancing in front of her. She could see them, luminously, trying to float in front of her closed eyelids, making their way to Draco's robes and trying to push.
"A tiny, insignificant detail." His voice was hissing gently, like the buzz after too much Firewhiskey, incessant and growing louder, despite its reality of softness. She was feeling hung over as the heavy double doors to Draco's suite opened with a gloomy finality, and he looked down on her. His face, as if reversed by some sort of light, glowing in the darkness, commanded her eyes to finally open.
They were flooding.
Reality struck Draco all too harshly and he nearly dropped her, drugged, right there on the floor, no matter how lushly carpeted the floors may have been. Draco set her down on the bed and rang for a collection of house elves.
"I'm off to fetch my fiancée, Blaisie." His voice rang with the tinkling of wedding bells, bitter and echoing and all at once, naïvely hopeful.
Her eyes barely being able to stay open, they shut again, hazy behind salty pools, the taste of the Mansion sitting in her mouth beneath her tongue, directly flowing into her bloodstream and poisoning it.
To be continued…