Ginny had never been the type to retreat. If anything, pressure only made her sharper.
So once she realised things between them had shifted, that the air between their rooms felt less frozen and more charged, she made a decision. If this marriage was going to be forced on her, then she would at least have some fun with it.
She chose her battleground carefully.
The house. The corridors. Every doorway he might pass through.
Her weapon was simpler. Herself.
It began quietly. A silk robe instead of pyjamas. The belt tied in a loose knot that did very little work. Bare legs, bare feet, just enough skin to make it hard to look away and still be polite. She moved through the manor with slow, unhurried steps, all sleepy grace and careless elegance, and underneath it all, the sharp awareness of someone who knew she was being watched.
Because he did watch her.
She had seen the flickers of it over the past days. Those quick glances he thought she did not notice. The way his eyes tracked the line of her throat when she tipped her head back to drink. The fractional pause when she brushed past his arm. Always brief, always controlled, but she felt every one.
Blaise Zabini, perfectly mannered, perfectly contained.
She wanted to see what happened when that control slipped.
The first test came early in the afternoon.
He had been in his study since morning, door left slightly open. A man like him did not do anything by accident. Maybe it was habit. Maybe it was an invitation he did not know how to say out loud. Either way, she took advantage.
She padded down the hallway, robe whispering around her thighs, pretending she was just passing through on the way to nowhere in particular. She did not look in. She did not slow down. The silk clung to her in all the right places, cool on her skin, shifting with every step.
She walked past the open crack of his door as if she had no idea he was there.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then a sharp noise split the quiet.
Glass. Wood. Something.
She stopped for half a second, just out of sight, and bit back a grin. That would be the sound of something slipping from a hand that had been a little less steady than usual.
Her lips curved as she kept moving.
To make sure he heard, she let a small, light laugh escape her, the sort of soft sound that could be put down to a passing thought, except she knew it would carry straight into that study. She imagined him there, jaw tight, fingers flexing, trying to breathe like nothing had changed, while her robe and bare legs replayed in his mind.
The tension in the house felt different already. Sharper. Brighter. Like magic before a storm.
She smiled to herself as she turned the corner.
This might almost be enjoyable.
By the time evening settled over the house, she was ready to raise the stakes.
The robe went first. In its place she chose something bolder, a slip of a dress edged in lace, held up by thin straps that did very little work. The fabric was light and soft, brushing the tops of her thighs when she walked, turning every step into a small act of intention. It was reckless. That was the point.
She waited in her doorway until she heard him. His footsteps were easy to recognise now, measured and unhurried along the corridor. At the last second she stepped out.
He stopped dead.
For a heartbeat his face stayed calm, all smooth lines and careful composure. Then his eyes moved. The change was subtle, but she felt it. His gaze travelled over her slowly, taking in bare legs, the way the slip clung, the hint of lace and skin. There was nothing polite about the way he looked at her in that moment. It felt like standing in front of a fire and choosing not to step back.
She tipped her head and let a small smile curve at her mouth. "Something wrong, amore."
He blinked once, as if dragging himself back from somewhere. His jaw flexed. "You are playing a dangerous game, Ginny." His voice came out level, but there was strain under it now, a roughness that had not been there before.
She lifted one shoulder in a careless half shrug and started to walk again. As she passed, her bare skin brushed the sleeve of his shirt. The contact was brief and light, but she felt the way his body tightened in response.
"Am I," she said, glancing back at him with eyes that glittered. "I had not noticed."
Then she turned the corner, the hem of the dress swaying with every step.
She did not need to look over her shoulder to know he was still standing there, staring after her. She could feel the weight of it on her back, hot and sharp, and it sent a slow, satisfied heat through her.
Whatever line he thought they were not crossing, she had just brought them right up to the edge.
The next morning, she decided subtlety had served its purpose.
No more quick passes outside his door. No more silk robes that might have been accidents. If he wanted to sit there in his study and pretend that he was made of stone, she was going to find every crack.
She dressed with intent.
The lace bralette was soft against her skin, delicate and almost insubstantial. The shorts she pulled on after barely deserved the name. They sat low on her hips, the hem brushing the tops of her thighs, more suggestion than coverage. Nothing about it felt desperate. It felt deliberate. Easy. Lethal.
She stepped out into the corridor as though she wore a full set of robes, head high, shoulders loose. The morning light coming in through the tall windows caught on her skin, on the line of her collarbone when she stretched her arms above her head, on the bare length of her legs as she moved. Her feet made almost no sound against the floor.
She did not hover outside his study this time.
She pushed the door open and walked in.
He was at his desk, sleeves rolled to his forearms, head bent over a stack of parchment. The scratch of his quill filled the room, along with the warm smell of ink, paper, and the faint spice of his cologne.
She let herself pause in the doorway, eyes wandering across the shelves as if she were searching for something. It gave him more than enough time.
She felt, rather than saw, the moment he noticed her.
The quill went still. Silence edged in around the scratch of nib on parchment that never came. She looked over, slow and casual, just in time to catch his eyes dragging over her.
His stare moved from her bare feet up the length of her legs, over the loose line of the shorts, the exposed skin of her stomach, the lace at her chest. For a heartbeat, his expression was not polite or neutral. It was raw.
His fingers tightened around the quill. His jaw clenched. His tongue flicked out to wet his lower lip as if his mouth had gone dry.
Then he forced his gaze back to the parchment, as if the act of looking away could rewind the last few seconds.
"Morning," she said lightly, stepping a little farther into the room, as if she had every right to be there. Which she did.
He did not answer. At least not with words.
The sound came first.
A small clink, the kind glass makes when it slides too far across wood. Then a sharper crack as it tipped. The tumbler hit the edge of the desk, spun, and went over. The crash when it met the floor sent bourbon and shards skittering out in every direction.
Her smile appeared before she could stop it.
She turned fully toward him.
Blaise had half-risen from his chair, staring down at the spreading amber stain and the scattered glass with a look that was far too murderous for an accident. His shoulders were stiff, his posture tight, as if his own loss of control affronted him more than the mess on the carpet.
The man who prided himself on never slipping had just very clearly slipped.
"Everything alright, Zabini," she asked, leaning her shoulder against the frame and folding her arms, her tone smooth as cream.
He swallowed, throat working, eyes still fixed on the floor. "Fine," he said, but his voice had rough edges that had not been there earlier.
He crouched down, gathering the broken pieces with quick, precise movements, a little too forceful to be calm. The tendons in his hands stood out as he picked up the shards and dropped them onto the desk with sharp little clicks.
"You should really be more careful," she said, tilting her head.
No reply. No glance in her direction. Only the tight line of his back and the set of his shoulders, every muscle drawn like a bowstring.
He could pretend all he liked.
She had heard the glass shatter the second he looked at her. She had seen the way his composure fractured for that breath of a moment.
She pushed off the doorframe and wandered back into the hall, the cool air brushing over her bare skin, satisfaction humming low in her chest.
He was not unaffected.
And this was only the beginning.
For the next several days, she did not let up.
A skimpy tank top one morning. A pair of ridiculous little pyjama bottoms the next. Nothing outrageous enough to be called out, nothing she could not pretend was accidental, but always just this side of indecent. Just enough to keep him hovering at the edge, his gaze catching on her for a fraction too long before he forced it away, his fingers flexing like he was fighting the urge to reach.
He did not say a word about it.
Not once.
Which told her everything she needed to know. He understood exactly what she was doing, and instead of telling her to stop, he was choosing to sit with it and let it drag him slowly out of his own comfort.
So she made it worse.
One evening, she drifted past his study again, this time in a nightgown that was more suggestion than fabric. Thin silk, no bra, nothing to soften the line of her body beneath it.
She felt him before she saw him.
The faint clink of ice against glass. The slight hitch of a breath that had been perfectly even a moment before. The way the air in the doorway seemed to thicken, heavy with something unsaid.
She did not turn her head. She did not slow her steps.
She kept walking, letting the silk sway around her thighs, letting the knowledge of his stare settle warm along her spine. She could picture his hand tightening around the tumbler, knuckles white, could almost hear the crack in his resolve as clearly as she had heard the shatter of glass on the carpet.
That was enough.
A small, satisfied smile tugged at her mouth as she disappeared around the corner.
This was her home as much as his now. If she was trapped in it, she would at least set her own rules. She would claim the halls, the rooms, the space between them, and she would do it in a way that made sure he could not ignore her existence.
And this was not only about entertainment.
Every quiet curse under his breath when he thought she was out of earshot. Every piece of glass that did not survive the day. Every time his eyes lingered and then jerked away as if burned.
Those were not just moments. They were small wins.
Each one tugged another stitch loose in that smooth, unruffled mask he wore in front of everyone else.
He was starting to crack. Slowly. Beautifully.
He was not the only one who knew how to play.
Ginny Weasley had never been any good at losing.
~~~~~~
Blaise had had enough.
For days she had pushed him, step by step, thread by thread, tugging at every last bit of restraint he owned. She drifted through the manor in scraps of fabric, all sleepy smiles and sharp eyes, every glance a dare, every stretch a challenge. She knew exactly what she was doing.
He had let it slide. Let her play. Let himself suffer.
Tonight he broke.
His temper, usually cool and controlled, snapped clean through as he cut across the marble floor, his stride long and deliberate. He did not knock. He did not announce himself. He shoved her door open with a force that sent it crashing into the wall, the sound cracking through the quiet of the house.
Steam poured from the open bathroom, warm and scented with lavender and rose.
She sat in the clawfoot tub, half submerged in bubbles, skin gleaming, hair piled on top of her head. For a second she looked almost startled, caught out in her own sanctuary. Then her spine straightened and her arms flew up, crossing over her chest.
"What the hell are you doing, Zabini," she snapped. "Get out."
He did not move.
He stood framed in the doorway, breathing hard, eyes dark and fixed on her. There was nothing lazy or amused in his expression now. It was all sharp edges and heat.
"Get out," he repeated, his tone quiet and cutting. "You have not exactly been shy, baby girl."
Her pulse jumped, but she refused to flinch.
Instead she tilted her chin and let a slow, wicked smile curl her mouth. "You are welcome," she said. The words came out sweet as honey and twice as provocative.
His jaw clenched.
He dragged a hand through his curls and began to pace along the side of the bath, the way a dangerous animal measures the length of its cage. His shoulders were tense, every movement tight with effort.
"Are you having fun," he asked. His voice sounded rough, like it scraped his throat on the way out.
She lifted one brow. "Should I not be."
His gaze pinned her in place. "You think it is amusing," he went on, louder now, "to walk around half naked, to wind me up all day, to crawl into my head and stay there."
Her smirk stayed put. "Maybe I do."
He let out a short, dry laugh that had no humour in it at all. "So this is a game to you."
Her grin slipped for a moment, then she caught it and reset it. "What is wrong, Zabini," she asked. "Finding it hard to keep up."
He stopped.
The air in the bathroom thickened, the steam suddenly feeling heavier against her skin. He turned to face her fully, his expression stripped of charm, stripped of teasing, nothing left but something dark and unguarded.
In that pause, her stomach dropped.
She had been winning. She knew that. She had pushed and poked and watched him unravel by inches. Only now she could feel the balance tipping.
He moved closer, step careful, voice lower.
"I have been patient," he said.
Another slow step.
"I have given you room to breathe."
He was close enough now that she could see the muscle ticking in his jaw, the way his hands opened and closed at his sides like he was keeping them in check by force.
"But this." His eyes dropped to the bubbles clinging to her collarbone, to the bare skin she had not had time to hide. He did not look away. "This is not making anything easier."
Her breath caught in her throat.
His presence seemed to press against her skin, filling every inch of the room. Up close, he felt even larger, all sharp planes and tightly held restraint. His gaze tracked over her in a slow sweep, not just looking but assessing, catching every flicker of emotion on her face, every piece of bare skin the water did not hide.
He moved closer.
Heat rolled off him. The space between them thinned. Her pulse stuttered, then picked up, quick and uneven.
"You want to play games," he said, voice low, as he crouched beside the tub. His face was so near she could see the specks of gold in his dark eyes, the way his pupils had blown wide.
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, but she refused to look away. "Maybe I do."
His lips curved at one corner, something between a smile and a warning.
"Fine," he murmured. "Then do not act surprised when I decide to join in."
A shiver ran through her, unwanted and impossible to hide.
The pull between them, the tension that had followed them from room to room for weeks, no longer felt distant. It sat right here, between their mouths and in the air above the water, heavy and alive. She could no longer pretend she had any real interest in stopping it.
He pushed up to his full height again, shadow falling over her, his voice softer but steady.
"I am finished pretending I do not want you."
The words struck and soothed at the same time.
Her lungs forgot their job for a moment.
Whatever game she thought she had been in charge of slipped out of her grasp. This was no longer a safe little experiment, watching him fray from a distance. He had stepped into the fire with her, and everything felt altered.
He turned towards the door, shoulders tight, movements clipped. At the threshold, he paused and looked back over his shoulder.
"I will be downstairs," he said. No tease. Only a clear line drawn in his tone. "If you are done playing, you know where to find me."
Then he was gone.
The latch clicked softly into place, and silence rushed in behind him.
Steam still curled in the air, candles still burned low, and the bathwater still held its heat, but a chill worked its way along her spine. The memory of him, of his words, clung to her skin and settled somewhere deep in her chest.
She stayed there, staring at the closed door, heartbeat loud in her ears.
Maybe she had pushed him too far. Maybe she had finally crossed a line he could not ignore.
She finished washing, though her hands would not quite steady. She told herself it was only annoyance, but the tight pull low in her stomach felt like something else entirely. Their clash in the bathroom still hummed under her skin, sharp and electric, as if every word they had thrown at each other was still hanging in the steam.
She dried off, dressed, and took her time coming downstairs. Each step felt deliberate, measured. She smoothed her palms over the front of her dress as if she could press herself back into composure, as if fabric could pin down the chaos inside her. She lifted her chin.
He would not see her shaken. He would not have that.
The living room was dim, lit mostly by the soft glow from the fireplace. She knew before she even saw him that he was there, waiting.
Blaise sat in one of the armchairs, legs stretched out, glass balanced in his hand, posture almost lazy. To anyone else, he might have looked completely relaxed, just another evening at home. To her, the pose rang false. The stillness around him felt too tight, too controlled.
His eyes found her the moment she stepped into the room.
"Ginevra," he said, smooth as ever, a trace of amusement curling around her name. "You refuse to speak to me like a normal person, yet you insist on taunting me every chance you get. Why is that."
She folded her arms, letting a smirk slide into place. "Because it is fun."
His eyebrow lifted. His gaze moved over her, slow and thoughtful, like he was studying a piece on a chessboard and trying to work out the next three moves.
"Fun," he repeated. His voice stayed light, but something underneath it hardened. "It is not fun for me. In fact, it is starting to get boring."
The shift came so quickly it caught her off guard. One moment he was playing along. The next, the humour drained from his face, leaving him calm and distant, almost cold.
"Tell me something," he said. His tone was controlled, each word careful. "Are you racist."
Her mind stuttered. "What," she demanded, the word ripping out of her far louder than she intended. She straightened, heat rushing to her face. "What did you just say."
He did not flinch. "Is that why you do not like me," he asked, as if they were discussing the weather. "Because I do not fit the neat little picture of a proper pureblood husband."
Silence dropped between them, heavy and strange.
Then she barked out a laugh, sharp and incredulous. "Merlin, no, you idiot," she said, shaking her head. "You really think that is the problem."
She walked closer, eyes bright with a wicked kind of amusement. The corner of her mouth lifted. "If anything, I am very fond of your chocolateness," she added, tone dry. "If you catch my meaning."
A quiet laugh escaped him, surprised and short. He shook his head once. "Understood," he murmured, his lips twitching.
Her smile faded.
The humour slid from her face as quickly as it had come. Fire rose in its place, hot and unflinching.
"No," she said, her voice dropping, steady now. "That is not it."
She looked him dead in the eye.
"You were a Death Eater."
The words fell between them with a weight that seemed to pull the room in tighter.
"That is why I hate you."
For a long second, nothing moved. No clever remark. No smirk. Just the sound of the fire and their breathing.
His expression hardly shifted, but something passed through his eyes, quick and dark. A shadow. A memory.
When he finally spoke, the silk was gone from his voice.
"That is fair," he said quietly. "I earned that."
He glanced down at the glass in his hand, then back at her. "But people change," he added. "I am not who I was."
Her throat tightened.
Because she wanted to believe that. She wanted to think that he could be more than the mark on his arm and the choices he had made. Believing him meant stepping closer to him instead of staying safely on the opposite side of the room.
It meant putting down a weapon she had held for a very long time.
It meant admitting that maybe, just maybe, she had been clinging to a version of him that was easier to hate than the man standing in front of her now. A simpler Blaise. A safer one. One she could shove into a box marked enemy and leave there.
She was not ready for that to change.
"We will see," she said at last, the words clipped and small compared to the storm inside her. She turned on her heel, every step away from him loud against her heartbeat.
She did not make it far.
His chair scraped hard across the floor as he shot to his feet. "Ginevra, stop."
She froze. Her back went rigid, but she kept her eyes on the doorway.
"We need to have this conversation," he said. His frustration was obvious, but something else had crept in too, something frayed and bare. "I need you."
Her breath caught.
"I need you to talk to me. To be my partner."
She took one step forward, stubborn, as if she could simply walk straight out of the mess.
That was when he lost his grip.
"We have a ninety-eight percent match on our magical core evaluation, for fuck's sake," he burst out. His voice cracked on the number. "Do you even know what that means. We are supposed to be soulmates."
She spun back so fast it almost made her dizzy, anger lighting her up from the inside. "And do you know who has ninety-nine point eight," she snapped, her voice shaking with fury and something that hurt far more. "Hermione and the ferret."
The sentence landed between them like a spell that could not be taken back.
"How does that make you feel," she threw at him.
Blaise went still.
Ginny pushed on, her throat tight. "His aunt tortured her," she said, the words rough and raw. "Imagine what a bedtime story that will be for their children. How Mummy screamed under Cruciatus while Daddy's family watched."
His throat worked. He looked like he had been punched.
He had never forgotten any of it. None of them had. The war sat on all of their shoulders. The names they carried. The marks on their arms. The houses they had been sorted into, the blood they had been born with. It was all still here, crowding the room with them.
"You think I do not carry that weight," he said quietly. There was nothing smooth left in his voice. "You think I do not regret every single thing. I am not proud of who I was. But I am standing here trying anyway. I am trying to make something out of this."
She stared at him, breathing uneven, her chest so tight it almost hurt.
"But why," she whispered. The sound of it surprised her. "Why are you even trying."
He closed the distance between them, slow and careful. Close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body, but he did not reach out. He just stood there.
"Because pretending you do not matter to me stopped working a long time ago," he said. His voice had gone softer, unsteady around the edges. "You matter. I need you to see that."
Her fingers curled into fists at her sides. Her heart thudded against her ribs like it was trying to get free.
She wanted to fight him. Wanted to shove him back into the role of Death Eater, the arrogant bastard with too much money and too many pretty words, the man who had turned her life inside out.
But right now he did not look like any of those things.
He just looked like Blaise.
That was what scared her.
The air between them felt thick, crowded with everything they had not said.
The next words slipped out before she could stop them.
"I want to kiss you."
His eyes widened. For a moment he just stared at her, completely wrong-footed, like someone had knocked his balance out from under him.
That alone sent a quick, vicious thrill through her.
"What," he managed.
She grabbed a fistful of his shirt, yanked him down, and crushed her mouth to his.
It was messy and hot and full of all the things she had used as weapons against him. Anger. Fear. Want. He made a small, choked sound against her lips, hands hovering at her waist as if he did not know whether to grab her or let her go.
When she finally pulled back, her breathing was rough. His pupils were blown wide, his lips parted.
She gave him a slow, razor-edged smirk. "I always wondered what it would be like to kiss a Death Eater," she said, every word dipped in mockery.
Then she turned and walked away before he could form a single reply.
He stayed rooted to the spot, chest heaving, mind blank, every part of him still tipping from the feel of her.
Bloody fucking hell.
Ginny Weasley was going to ruin him.
~~~~~~
He dragged a hand through his curls, fingers shaking just enough to betray him. Merlin, he was screwed. Not just in trouble. Fucked. Completely and irreparably fucked.
Ginny had settled into his mind like she had signed a lease. There was no getting her out now. This was not some passing crush he could drink away. It was not even the slow, reluctant pull of wanting someone he should not want. It felt like an obsession, a storm that had started somewhere on the horizon and was now sitting right over his head, tearing everything apart.
He could not even say when it had begun. Maybe it was the first time she stood in front of him with fire in her eyes, making it very clear she refused to be handled, controlled, or tamed. Maybe it was the dinner at Malfoy's, when she watched him over her wine glass like she was deciding whether to hex him or drag him upstairs. Maybe it was that cursed kiss.
That kiss would not leave him alone.
He could still taste her. Still remember the exact way her mouth opened under his, how her body fit against him, how her breath caught when he deepened it. She did not melt into him. She met him. Matched him. Bit back. Ginny Weasley was not a woman who yielded. She rose to meet pressure and pushed harder, and it did something ugly and beautiful to him.
I am fucked.
He let out a low groan and tipped his head back against the wall, pressing his palm over his face as if he could scrub the images out of his mind. He did not even try very hard. Why would he, when she had become the point his thoughts circled around from the moment he woke until he finally dropped into exhausted sleep.
If he slept at all.
At night she followed him into his dreams. Too vivid. Too close. He heard her laugh just out of sight, felt the warmth of her body pressed to his, imagined her saying his name like a secret and a curse at once. In his dreams she turned to him in dark corridors, in quiet rooms, in their kitchen at three in the morning. Sometimes she smiled. Sometimes she shoved him against a wall. He always woke with his heart pounding and her taste on his tongue, and he hated the daylight for not being her.
Because in the morning she was still not his. Not really. Not yet.
And this was no longer about wanting to get her into his bed and out of his system. It reached deeper, right into the parts of him he had kept locked down for years. She did not just tempt him. She stripped him bare. Every careful piece of the life he had built, every wall, every habit of control, felt useless around her. He had always known how to keep his distance, how to stay detached. With her, he had none.
She refused to bend. That was the worst of it and the best of it. The more she dug in her heels, the more he wanted to step closer. Something in him that had always liked a challenge now felt completely consumed by it.
And now she was playing with him, very much on purpose. The looks she threw over her shoulder. The way she walked past his study in silk that barely counted as clothing. The brush of her fingers against him as they passed in the hall. The casually open doors, the glimpses of bare skin that burned themselves into his memory. Small, throwaway moments that should not have meant anything had him gripping the edge of his desk like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
Focus, Zabini, he told himself, but the word had started to sound ridiculous. There was no focus left that did not lead back to her.
"I am so fucked," he muttered into the empty room.
His voice sounded strange to his own ears, rough and too honest. When had it got this bad. Maybe it had always been this bad and he had only just admitted it. Maybe it started the night she walked into Malfoy's in that dress, moving like she owned every single set of eyes in the room and did not care in the slightest. Maybe it was the first time she brushed past him and he realised her perfume stayed longer than his self-control. Maybe it was when she grabbed him by the collar and kissed him like she wanted to set the whole world on fire and take him with it.
He had spent a lifetime perfecting the art of keeping people at arm's length. Blaise Zabini did not get attached. He entertained. He flirted. He left before anyone could expect more.
Now he was standing here in the dark, heart in his throat, wanting a woman who probably had no idea just how completely she had undone him.
He had never wanted anything more in his life, and that, more than anything, terrified him.
He stepped through the heavy doors of the estate, the quiet swallowing him whole. His jacket clung to his shoulders, damp with blood rather than rain, the metallic scent rising from his skin like a second shadow. Magic still hummed faintly at his fingertips, the last echo of the curse he had cast, and for once, the familiar afterglow did not bring relief.
No rush. No clean hit of satisfaction.
Just exhaustion. Bone deep and ugly.
The house greeted him with its usual, suffocating silence. Grand chandeliers hung overhead, crystals catching the dim light; portraits watched from the walls with painted, indifferent eyes; the marble floors gleamed beneath his boots. It was all flawless, curated, impressive. It had never felt more meaningless.
The quiet followed him, clinging as tightly as the ghosts he carried. Names. Faces. Bodies that fell and never rose again. He had made peace with the fact that his hands would never be clean. His name would never sit lightly in anyone's mouth. There were things he had done that would never be forgiven, least of all by himself.
Tonight, though, as his footsteps echoed through corridors that had never felt like home, his thoughts kept circling back to one thing.
Her.
Ginny. His wife by law. His problem by design. His undoing by accident.
She was not here. He knew that. He had watched her leave earlier, chin high, eyes bright with that particular brand of fury she wore like armour. Even so, his feet carried him down the familiar hallway to her door, as if some stubborn part of him still expected to find her behind it. As if she ought to be there, just to prove she was still real.
He let out a breath that felt too sharp in his chest and shoved a hand through his curls. What is wrong with me.
Maybe it was the fatigue dragging at his limbs, the faint tremor still running through his muscles from the fight. Maybe it was the ache in his ribs every time he drew in a full breath, a souvenir from a particularly bad hit. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe it was the fact that from the moment he woke to the moment he apparated to his target and back again, his mind kept drifting to a woman who, on paper, was nothing more than a signature on a Ministry decree.
She was supposed to be a formality. A solution drafted by someone else's hand. A clean line in ink.
Instead, she had become the point his world tilted around.
He stopped in front of her door, fingers hovering just above the handle. He should turn away. Go to his own room, strip off the ruined clothes, wash the blood from his skin, pour a drink that burned on the way down and pretend none of this had touched him.
But he did not move.
He did not want to forget her. That was the truth he had been trying not to look at directly.
And that truth unsettled him more than anything he had done tonight.
Control had always been his greatest strength. Blaise Zabini knew how to compartmentalise, how to lock things away and walk past them as if they were nothing. Duty in one box. Pleasure in another. Regret in a third, sealed and buried. His mind had been a fortress for years, and he had lived inside it quite comfortably.
Until she walked in and started rattling the gates.
Lately she followed him everywhere, even when she was not physically there. During missions, when his wand was raised and his attention should have been razor sharp, she flickered at the edges of his thoughts. The memory of her hair catching candlelight. The curve of her mouth when she was about to say something cutting. The way she folded her arms and stared him down as if she could see the worst of him and still refused to look away.
More than once he had watched a man's last breath leave his body while his mind replayed the sound of her laughter. It shook him in a way he did not care to admit. He had spent years training himself to see targets, not people, to hear orders, not echoes. Now she lived there, in the split second between curse and collapse, stubborn and bright and impossibly loud.
It was not just a distraction. It was a crack.
And Blaise did not allow himself cracks.
Yet here he was, pacing the length of his study with dried blood on his cuffs and the shape of her name sitting heavy on his tongue. The weight of his past pressed in from one side. The path laid out for his future pressed from the other. In the narrow space between them stood Ginny Weasley, and he realised he could no longer pretend she was not part of the equation.
She had asked him questions he had dodged. Stared at him like she knew there were monsters he had not named yet. He had avoided the conversations, deflected, let silence do the work for him. He had never owed anyone explanations before. Never cared to.
But for her.
For the woman who had somehow rooted herself inside a place he had thought long dead.
For her, he would open the doors he had kept locked.
He would tell her everything.
A memory projection hovered in the center of the room, pale and flickering like an old film caught between frames. He had not spared himself. Every piece of it was there. His choices. His mistakes. The nights that had carved him into what he was now. The things that woke him in the dark when even he could not pretend to be untouchable.
The door opened behind him with a quiet creak. He did not have to look. He felt her before he saw her, a shift in the air, the same way you feel heat before you step too close to the fire.
She leaned her shoulder against the doorframe, arms crossed, eyes narrowed in wary curiosity. "What is this," she asked, her tone edged with challenge but softer than usual.
He turned to face her, his expression unreadable. "An explanation," he said. "How I became a Death Eater."
Something in her changed. Her shoulders stiffened. The teasing note in her voice vanished, leaving only caution.
"I did not think you would ever actually tell me," she said.
Blaise let out a slow breath. "I was not going to." He looked back at the drifting images in front of them. "But you deserve to know."
Something flickered behind her eyes. Suspicion, yes, but also something else. The barest hint of trust, maybe. She did not move closer, but she did not leave.
He lifted his wand, and the memory shifted. A younger version of himself appeared in the middle of the room, seventeen and standing before a circle of masked figures. Even in the projection, his face was smooth, almost bored. He remembered, though, how it had felt. The cold panic climbing up his spine. The clammy sweat on his palms. The way his heart had rattled against his ribs as he stared at the man everyone called the most powerful wizard of their time.
Voldemort stood at the center, his pale, inhuman face lit by torchlight.
Ginny sucked in a sharp breath. Even as a phantom, even as a ripple of memory, his presence pressed down on the room.
"This was the night I took the Mark," Blaise said. His voice sounded distant, like he was narrating someone else's life. "I grew up with expectations, mia cara. My mother cared about money, position, power. Voldemort was climbing, and to her it looked like an opportunity. A chance to make sure our name stayed above everyone else's. I was told I had a choice."
Her eyes stayed on the memory, but her mouth tightened. "You mean you were told what would happen if you said no."
One corner of his mouth lifted, but there was no real amusement in it. "Refusal was not something anyone survived," he said. "You joined, or you disappeared. I told myself if I went along with it, I could find a way out later. That was the first lie I ever told myself. Thinking there is such a thing as out once they have you."
The projection changed. Now his younger self sat alone in a cramped room, sleeve pushed up, the fresh Dark Mark still raw and angry on his forearm. His fingers hovered above it, not quite touching, jaw clenched.
"I hated it from the beginning," Blaise said quietly. "But once you take that Mark, you are theirs. They give the orders. You carry them out. You do not argue. You do not hesitate."
Ginny watched as the boy in the memory rolled his sleeve back down, shoulders tight with silent rage, eyes hard in a way they had never been at school.
The images kept coming. Quick, disjointed flashes. Missions in the dark. Faces caught in wandlight a heartbeat before they fell. His mother's cool nod of approval. Rooms full of gold and silence. The emptiness that followed every kill.
Then the scene shifted one last time.
A dim alley. A man on his knees, shaking, eyes wide with terror. Younger Blaise stood over him, wand raised. The memory played without sound, but the fear in that man's face screamed anyway.
Ginny flinched, just a fraction, but she did not look away.
The Blaise in the memory lowered his wand. The image froze, then dissolved into nothing, leaving only the quiet of the room and the two of them standing there.
"And now," she asked at last, her voice rough around the edges.
He met her gaze. "Now I live with it," he said. "Every day."
Silence settled on them again, heavier than before.
She turned slightly, running a hand through her hair as if her thoughts had become too loud. "Why tell me this," she asked. Her voice had dropped, stripped of its usual sharpness.
"Because you have a right to know who you married," he said. He did not look away from her. "And because you have made it very clear you hate me for what I have done. I cannot fault you for that."
She did not argue. She also did not agree.
She let out a slow breath, rubbing at her temples as if she could press the images out of her mind. "I do not know what you want me to say."
"I do not want anything," he answered. "Not from this."
She looked at him then, really looked, as though she was seeing the younger boy from the memory layered over the man in front of her. Her jaw worked once before she spoke.
"I need time," she said.
Blaise nodded. It was the only thing he had truly expected to hear.
She took a step toward the door, then paused with her hand on the frame.
"The worst sin," she said, barely above a whisper, "is that you destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing."
Her voice wobbled on the last word. She did not look back.
His throat tightened. He watched her leave, listened to the soft click of the door closing, and for a long moment he just stood there in the quiet she left behind. He had spent years wrapped in silence. Tonight, for the first time in a very long time, it hurt.
He turned back toward the hovering memory, watching his younger self hesitate, wand raised, eyes cold.
"This was the turning point," he said, more to the empty room than to anyone else. "I realised I had become exactly what they wanted. A killer. A weapon. I kept telling myself it was just survival, but it was more than that. I became everything I despised."
Liar.
The word rose up inside him, sharp and familiar, like an old curse.
The projection dissolved, light draining from the room until only the normal shadows remained. The quiet that followed felt heavy, dense, as if the air itself had thickened. He drew in a slow breath and turned toward her. At some point she had stepped closer again, close enough that he could see every shift in her eyes.
"I have done things that cannot be undone," he said, his voice low. "Things I will never be able to repay or balance out. I do not expect you to forgive me. I do not even expect you to understand. But I need you to know this." His words caught, rough at the edges in a way that startled even him. "I am not that man anymore. I am not only a Death Eater. I am not only a killer."
Liar.
The thought hissed through his mind again, bitter and automatic, but he did not take the words back.
She watched him in silence, her arms slowly uncurling from across her chest. She took a few steps closer, stopping just short of touching distance. Her face was hard to read, something cautious and searching mixed together.
"Why now," she asked quietly. "Why show me all of this now."
"Because I need you to see me," he said. His voice came out rough, scraped raw. "All of me. I am done hiding. If we are tied together, if this is our life whether we asked for it or not, then you deserve the truth. The good parts, if there are any, and the parts that are very, very ugly."
Liar.
He almost flinched at his own thoughts, but he kept his gaze steady on hers.
She looked away for a second, eyes flicking to the space where the memories had been. Her mouth pressed into a thin line. "I did not think you were capable of feeling remorse," she said. There was no venom in it, only a tired kind of honesty.
"You were not wrong," he answered, a humourless smile tugging at his lips. "I buried it for years. Locked it down so deep I convinced myself it was gone. Then you appeared in my life and it keeps surfacing whether I want it to or not. I hate it. I need it. I cannot keep moving through this like it means nothing. Not while you are here."
She swallowed hard. He could see the way her throat worked as she tried to make sense of everything he had shown her. The weight of his past sat in the room between them, ugly and solid. Yet beneath that, something else crept in. The way he had stood there and let her see the worst of him. The way his shoulders dipped, just slightly, under the strain of it.
"You have done horrible things, Blaise," she said at last. Her voice shook, but she did not look away. "I will not pretend you haven't. But I see you. I see who you are now, and I think that is what scares me the most."
He took a careful step closer, his eyes never leaving hers. His heart hammered in his chest, too loud, too fast.
"Then be scared," he said softly. "You have every right to be. Just do not walk away."
She stood there, caught between instinct and something she did not yet have a name for. The history he carried, the blood on his hands, the boy in the memory and the man in front of her, all tangled together into one impossible knot. Forgiveness felt far away, maybe unreachable. But he was no longer a shadow.
After a long, quiet moment, she gave a small nod. No promises. No absolution. Just acceptance that the truth was on the table now and neither of them could shove it back into the dark.
In that silence, something shifted. Thin as glass, fragile as a first breath, but real. He had turned himself inside out and laid it at her feet. Whether she crushed it or guarded it, whether she stayed or left, would be her choice.
For the first time, it truly felt like she had the power to ruin him.
And the worst part was that he almost wanted her to choose him instead.