Title: All Things Bright and Beautiful
Subtitle: The Last and Final Word on Blaise Zabini
Author: Lucia de'Medici
Summary: Everything I do I rush through, so I can do something else. (Stephen Dobbins, “Pursuit”)
Rating: PG
Notes: Part of my Harry Potter half-finished-fic clearout. I think I started this when the wank first hit the web after HBP. Frankly, i don't really care how the poor bastard's treated these days, I just wanted to spit this damnable thing out, no matter how ironic or cynical it may be. If you'll excuse me, I've got a round of back-patting to take care of right about now. (Actually, I'm looking for a piece of H/D I wrote two years back so I can finish that, but this turned up first.)
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All Things Bright and Beautiful
“Everything I do I rush through, so I can do something else.”
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In the glory and heightened catharsis of all this fair and glittering, Blaise knows one thing about humankind; muggle, magical, or bestial. There are many people whom she loves not at all, and many of whom she cares for even less. Blaise knows she is one face that would not be easily forgotten, were she not so ready to cling to her entitled ambiguity.
Six years happily residing at the back of the line; the last name on the rollcall, the last name that commanded attention for one shimmering, gossamer moment where all eyes would potentially flit to her general vicinity like sadist insects fluttering nearer the flame, and then… nothing.
Blaise was contented with just that for the longest time; nothing.
Attentions at Hogwarts were easily distracted. The chortled bellow over lunchtime banter that so-and-so had shagged so-and-so atop the astronomy tower was scandal enough to divert the attentions of those who would otherwise single her out.
Malfoy, during these blatant attempts at slander and scandal, frequently looked more appeased with himself.
The godawful prat.
Then something happened. Blaise blamed her ripening breasts, the new curve of her hips, the length of her hair that she shore off with the hopes that the others would go on paying her no mind.
She vowed, lingering over the cauldron, stirring for the sixty fifth turn counter-clockwise, that the newfound fixations of the male population would be dashed. Never would they dare to reach beneath her skirt, place a tentative hand on her knee, nor drag at the damnable hem of her robes ever again.
Easier said, as they say.
She added the doxie wings with a flourish, and leaned over to inhale the vapours through her mouth.
It tasted repugnant, but no worse than the bitter taint of self-defeat.
Her mother would be proud and the efficacy at which her daughter had concocted the brew. Without further ado, she ladled a portion of the potion into a glass and tossed it down her throat.
It burned the entire way down, and that was perfectly fine… until, that is, the muscles beneath her skin bulged outwards, tearing the cloth of her blouse, sending buttons pinging into the cauldron though she tried to aim the small explosion elsewhere, and suddenly, in the place where Blaise Zabini once stood – Blaise Zabini now stood.
He swiped at the perspiration gathered beneath the too-small neckline, and came away shocked at the light spread of hair on his knuckles.
Success is only limited insofar as it is not shared, and baring that thought in mind, Blaise Zabini – six foot two, a hundred and eighty pounds of caramel skin and lean muscle, strode from the dungeons with his head held high and knee socks slouching.
-fin-