Prologue

I had woken up two days ago in a new, distinctly darker-skinned body than I was used to. I vaguely recalled an online questionnaire, I had filled out that was surprisingly advanced for something that had apparently been done by an amateur web designer in his spare time using modern technology. That should have been my hint that I should have just walked away. Unfortunately, I never was any good at leaving well enough alone.

Oh sure, I knew what choices I had picked, but waking up in the body of eleven-year-old Blaise Zabini back in nineteen-ninety-one had been a shock. Something of a wake-up call that things had been far more serious than I'd realized. It was supposed to be two-thousand-three, after all, wasn't it? I was supposed to be sixteen, not eleven. At least I had cool powers now to help me deal with being transmigrated into a background character, right?

Well, you'd think that, but in actuality, those powers hadn't helped me much when I'd been smacked on the back of the head during a lunch outing in Diagon Alley with my mother and kidnapped. Honestly, being a natural leglimens had been more of a burden than anything else. I could see all the various ways that Madame Lavalle was planning on torturing me before she finally killed me.

It all came down to my mother. Madame Felicia Zabini, Contessa of Villagio del Mistero was a staggeringly beautiful, Pureblood, Italian Witch who had been educated at Hogwarts. She was also fond of dalliances with various wizards of a particular sort of skin tone. My own father was Haroun el Shafiq, a Moroccan Wizard of Berber Descent who was quite wealthy. Unfortunately, after giving birth to me, my Mother seems to have decided that having kids was not conducive to keeping her good looks.

She poisoned my father after my birth and wound up claiming a bunch of money and some property in Morocco in the will. From then on, she had gone through husbands like it was going out of style. Always claiming fortunes in the will and always escaping without being charged with a crime. Her last husband had been Jean Baptiste Lavalle, a Houngan from Magical Haiti who owned sugar and coffee plantations that had made him immensely rich. She had taken his fortune in the will, selling off the plantations and leaving Madame Lavalle, the sister of Jean Baptiste, destitute.

Unfortunately, nobody seems to have told my mother that Houngans tended to be decent with Necromancy because Madame Lavalle had been able to interrogate her brother's ghost and find out that my mother had been the cause of his death between that and an alchemical analysis of the corpse. Now I was stuck being tortured over and over again to serve as a proxy for Madame Lavalle's revenge.

It had been what felt like days since I'd been taken, though I somehow knew the exact time had only been around twelve hours. I knew, thanks to some sort of premonition, that I was fated to suffer at least a full day of torture before Madame Lavalle started to contemplate putting me out of my misery. Unfortunately, after the first couple of hours, Madame Lavalle had gotten completely bored of the Cruciatus curse. That didn't seem to do any actual damage to the body, and my Occlumency was helping dull the pain somewhat, though I had still screamed until my throat was sore.

Madame Lavalle had left me to sleep for a bit while she no doubt looked up some other torture she could put me through that'd be more satisfying. I was shaking and heaving in wracking breaths through my sore throat, but it was a respite. I knew I had precisely one hour remaining before she returned and began torturing me in ways that absolutely would damage my body. Somehow, I got a premonition that told me that if I didn't escape before she returned an hour from now, my chances of escape would drop sharply until reaching nil at the twenty-four-hour mark.

With that in mind, I tried to take stock of the room I was in. There had to be something in here I could use to escape. I just had to figure it all out. It was an old wine cellar, with creaky shelves lined with wine bottles. There were two exits, one that led outside but which had an old iron chain keeping it shut, and one that led up a staircase into the house proper. As to where exactly the house was or what it was, I had no clue. Hells, I could be on an island out in the middle of the North Sea for all I knew and any escape I could manage would be pointless. I still had to try and execute an escape plan even then.

My chair wasn't too far from one of the shelves of wine bottles. If I could manage to make it to the shelf, I might be able to grab hold of one of the bottles, smash it against the shelf, and use the glass to saw myself free of the ropes. After that, well, there was a hammer sitting on a table on the other side of the cellar. Madame Lavalle had taken it out and had been debating on whether or not to just bash my skull in and leave my corpse for my mother before she decided that she needed to torture me first. I was pretty strong for an eleven-year-old, even an eleven-year-old wizard. I might be able to smash the chains holding the outside doors shut. They looked like they were more rust than iron at this point, after all.

Grunting I began to wiggle in my chair, rocking it back and forth before jerking backward in a hop. I almost took a tumble and smashed my head in on the stones of the wine cellar floor, but managed to steady myself before I went sprawling onto the floor. As soon as I was steady, I began rocking my chair back and forth again in preparation for another hop.

Three more hops and five minutes later and I was at the shelf of glass wine bottles. My hands were tied in an awkward position at the small of my back, though that wasn't exactly a problem for grabbing a wine bottle. This shelf had most of its length filled with them, after all. Madame Lavalle had stocked this place up. I knew it had been her for two reasons, the first was that I could smell the stuff on her breath as she snarled and vented her bile at me before beginning the four hours of on-and-off Cruciatus cursing. The second was that those off periods in the on-and-off Cruciatus cursing had been that way because she'd stopped to drain another bottle of wine.

Finally, there was the fact that the second I managed to brush up against one of the bottles, a vision of these bottles being delivered by a lorry and a uniformed, muggle, grocery delivery man stocking the shelves blasted into my brain. The vision ended with Madame Lavalle casting a crackling, pale yellow, curse at the delivery man's back, causing his body to wither like a mummy's as he died an agonizing and painful death. Likely so she didn't have to pay the delivery guy.

As I snapped back to reality, I realized that apparently, I had some form of Psychometry going on. It was likely a result of my choices in the questionnaire having a lot to do with mental abilities, time, fate, thought, and Seer stuff. What was more important was that if the wine had been delivered by Lorry, then that meant there was a Muggle Town nearby. If there was a muggle town nearby, then it was possible that I could find someone to help me out!

I scrabbled frantically for one of the bottles on the shelf, efforts redoubling as I realized that I had a decent shot at getting free if only I could execute my plan! After five minutes of trying, my fingers grabbed onto the neck of a bottle and I rocked my chair back and forth, the motion allowing me to pull the bottle off the shelf and smash it against the wood.

I felt a slice of pain as a shard of glass from the breaking bottle rebounded off the shelf and cut into the back of my hand, but my Occlumency skills allowed me to swallow the yelp and push the pain aside. After all, compared to the Cruciatus Curse from earlier, this was nothing! I focused up on trying to saw through the ropes that held my hands to the chair. It was slow going, my position wasn't ideal, but I managed it after fifteen minutes. Five minutes later, I was free of the chair.

I stood and scrambled over to the hammer, gritting my teeth at the cramp in my leg from being tied up like I had been for twelve hours. I pushed through the pain, grabbed the hammer off the table, and moved over to the chained-up doors to the outside. With a short prayer to whoever would listen, I swung the hammer against the chain with everything I had. Once, twice, three times proved to be the charm as the rusty iron chain finally broke off. I shouldered my way up out of the wine cellar and found myself staring at a scene from an old-school horror movie.

The house I had been taken to was some sort of gothic mansion that had clearly seen better days. A dirt track led a path down a road through a stretch of desolate moorland. Off to the side of that dirt track, in a ditch, lay the Grocery Delivery Man's lorry. I didn't think I'd be able to get it out and drive it and only had twenty minutes to make my escape besides, but I still did a cursory, five-minute search of the lorry.

It was as I was searching through the lorry that I heard a reedy, grumbling, noise from behind me. Turning, I spotted a pair of angry-looking goblinoids with red eyes and wearing crimson leather caps. Unlike what I knew proper goblins were about, these pair were dressed shabbily in tiny leather jerkins and roughspun wool tunics. They also had clubs that had been fashioned out of what looked to be human femurs.

Recaps, I recalled from prior private lessons. They were attracted to spilled human blood and my bleeding hand certainly qualified. I knew they were deceptively strong for their size and build, no match for a wizard, but then, I didn't have a wand. I was supposed to be getting one during a trip to Villagio del Mistero next week. Apparently, it was a family tradition that no matter what school you went to or country you lived in, Zabinis always got wands from the Maestro delle Bacchette in Villagio del Mistero. Plus I was supposed to see my cousins. My aunt Evelina was my Mother's younger sister and I hadn't seen her since I was a toddler, which would have been before my cousin Giovanni had been born.

I had no time to think of that now, though. I wasn't going to overpower two Redcaps with a hammer. I was only eleven, after all. I had to figure out something. My eyes stopped on two items inside the cab of the delivery lorry. First was a zippo lighter, which would be useless if not for the flask that sat in the driver's side door's storage compartment. It had apparently been missed by Madam Lavalle because there was no way she'd have just left booze here. Grabbing the flask, I got an impression of hundred-proof Irish whiskey. That was good enough as together with the lighter, I could use that to improvise a flamethrower.

I grabbed the lighter and flask and turned around. The two redcaps snickered at me, pointing and laughing before they began to advance on me, swinging their bone clubs experimentally. Undeterred, I unscrewed the flask cap, took a mouthful of the whiskey, ignored the burning in my mouth, and flicked on the lighter. Then, I reared back before spewing the whiskey at the lit flame, igniting it, and sending a fireball at the Redcaps beyond.

The First Redcap dove for the ground, leaving its Comrade to take the full brunt of the fireball. The Second Redcap's cheaply made tunic caught on fire immediately and the damn thing let out a reedy cry of pain, fleeing as it squealed like a stuck pig. Quickly, I dropped the flask and lighter, snatched up my hammer, and swung at the First Redcap, who was getting to his feet as the danger had seemingly passed. The falling hammer met the Redcap's rising skull and with a crack of breaking bone, slammed right between its eyes. The First Redcap's red eyes rolled in its skull and it fell down to the ground, out cold with a cracked skull.

The whole confrontation hadn't even taken a minute. I still had at least nine minutes to run, so I did, fleeing down the dirt track that served as an access road, hopefully to find freedom. Unfortunately, I received a premonition of an alarm ward keyed to the property line just before I crossed it, though that didn't really matter. I could either stay on the property and get caught by Madame Lavalle, or I could run and at least get a head start. I chose the latter.

Not a minute after I crossed the property line there was a crack of displaced air and Madame Lavalle returned. Her tattooed shoulders visible through the patchwork of calico clothing she wore, her eyes full of fury at my escape. She'd taken the time to put on her headdress, beads, and calico skirt before going out, which likely meant she was off to scam more Muggles with parlor tricks for more wine money. I knew she didn't need to use a wand, I'd seen her use the hand motions they taught at Uagadou, which meant she could avoid the trace. Besides the only reason to look like that much of a stereotype was to play to people's biases.

"Damn! Why don't you lay down and die like a good boy?" Snarled Madame Lavalle in her accent. To her credit, it was light enough that you almost couldn't tell.

Unfortunately, it came with her cupping her hands together and shoving them outward to cast a ball of pale, blue-white light at me. Something told me I did not want to get hit by that, so I dove for the ground, hitting the dirt as the ball of light flew over my prone form. It exploded against a stunted, gnarled, tree nearby and the tree exploded with kinetic force and the howling of an angry ghost.

"Are you using ghosts to power your magic? Are you insane?" I shouted, getting to my feet.

"Feh, you don't get to talk about how I power my magic. Not after your damned whore of a mother took everything from me!" Spat Madame Lavalle.

She pointed her pinky and forefinger at me in what I would call a devil horns gesture like you'd see at a metal concert. Instead of music though, a crackling red bolt of light lashed out at me and I was forced off the dirt road to hide behind a drystone wall. The red, crackling, energy scored into the wall hot enough to burn a line straight through the solid stone. Normal fire spells don't usually do more than leave carbon scoring, that this was hot enough to burn through stone said bad things about my chances here.

As I popped back up, I offered a retort. Hopefully, if I could draw her fire for long enough, my mother would be able to apparate here. I knew she kept tabs on me with spellwork. There was no way she wasn't looking for me now and I was over the property line so any wards to block divination wouldn't factor in now.

"So what? You're just desperate enough to do something completely mad?" I retorted.

"Silence!" Snarled Madame Lavalle as she pointed her forefinger and middle finger out and sent out one of the crackling, pale yellow, withering curses I'd seen her use in my psychometric vision of the delivery guy. I ducked behind a tree and the curse splashed into its trunk, drying it up as if it had been stuck in the desert with no rain for a hundred years.

As I readied myself to move out of cover, a brief burst of precognition slammed into my mind. I knew that if I ran left or right, Madame Lavalle would hit me with a forked curse that would blast me. That meant running backward onto the actual moors was my only hope of surviving. So that's what I did. I ran straight backward, the forking, green-glowing, curse passing by me to my left and right, harmlessly. There was a cry of anger and the dried-up, petrified, tree behind me exploded into a dozen shards of driftwood as Madame Lavale advanced. Unfortunately, one of those shards smashed into the back of my head, cutting my scalp open and giving me a concussion as I was sent sprawling into the wet heather of the moor with a squelch.

"End of the line, brat!" Growled Madame Lavalle.

As she leveled her hand out, once more in the devil horns position, however, there was a crack of displaced air and my mother arrived on the scene. A bludgeoning curse smashed Madame Lavalle aside, her burning curse sinking into the turf off to my left as I flipped myself onto my back. My mother looked like the very picture of an ancient Greek Fury. Her raven hair was unbound and set free to write like snakes as she moved in swift motions to duel Madame Lavalle. Her pale, powdered, face scrunched up in fury as the powder began to run off from her exertion to reveal the dusky skin beneath.

I couldn't tell you exactly how the duel went down. I was too busy taking stock of my own aches and hurts, drifting in and out of consciousness after so much exertion. I do know how it ended. My mother hit Madame Lavalle with a blood-boiling curse that forced her to literally vomit up a steaming torrent of blood. With her last bit of strength, Madame Lavalle hit my mother with a sickly green beam at the same time that my mother's severing curse took Madame Lavalle's head off.

The next thing I knew, I found myself in an unfamiliar bed with two days having passed. I got up out of bed to find myself in the Palazzo de Mistero in Magical Italy. My mother wasn't as lucky as I had been. Madame Lavalle's dying curse had been a slow, wasting, curse. My mother did not have long to live, and she was already bound to her sickbed. My Aunt Evelina was taking care of her and had taken care of me, for the past two days.

Aunt Evelina was the opposite of my mother, where my mother was on the curvy side, my aunt was willowy, whereas my mother had dark, straight, hair, my aunt had chestnut, curly hair, whereas my mother had killed her multiple husbands, my aunt had married Giacomo Iacono, a rich pureblood from Calabria and stayed by his side, where my mother was decidedly non-traditional, my Aunt was a seeming slave to propriety.

I got the impression that my Aunt didn't care for my mother all that much, only taking care of us at the moment because of her familial obligations. It was a wonder that my cousin had as friendly a disposition as he did. Like me, Giovanni had wavy, black hair, though my complexion was just a tad darker than his, owing to my Morrocan Father. He was constantly smiling in contrast to his mom, however.

I put that down to his father's influence. My Uncle was a bearded, fat, jolly man who enjoyed laughter, the various amusements that his fortune could bring him, and the sharing of both with his family. He owned a number of businesses throughout the south of Magical Italy, though he wasn't technically nobility as the Zabinis were. He was still immensely rich and had my mother not done her black widow deal, he would be even richer than she was despite that.

For all her bitterness, my Aunt had seemingly married well and her family was clearly thriving. Mine on the other hand. . .well my mother lay in her sick bed, unable to say more than a few words at a time. Her perfectly flawless appearance looked wan and sickly, her cheeks sunken in as her body wasted away from Madame Lavalle's final curse.

"Blaise. You're ok." Hissed my Mother.

"I am, thanks to you." I nodded.

"Good. That's good." Whispered my Mother.

Despite my willing it not to, despite the fact that I was an amalgamated consciousness piloting Blaise's body instead of Blaise himself, and even despite the fact that my mother was essentially a multiple murderer, my eyes began tearing up. Even with all that, some part of me that was still mostly Blaise saw her lying there, propped up on pillows because she couldn't sit up in bed without them, and just broke down.

"No, don't cry." Pled my Mother.

"I can't help it Mom, you're dying and it's all because I couldn't get away on my own." I whimpered.

"No. My clever boy. You did well. So cunning. I'm glad I could save you. Even with all this." Refuted my Mother.

"I don't want you to die, Mom." I whimpered, tears flowing freely now.

"It was bound to happen. Sooner or later someone would do it. Here." Offered my mother, moving to hand me a letter that was sealed in gold and white wax with the Zabini Family Coat of Arms pressed into it. The Gold Lynx on a White Field, Symbolizing the Powers of the Mind that our family was known to have in antiquity.

"What is this?" I questioned.

"Introduction. Maestro Grimaldi is Maestro delle Bacchette. Get your wand from him. You'll need this." Insisted my Mother.

"Why? Can't Aunt Evilena help with that?" I queried.

"My sister was always jealous. She will press that you not become Conte del Villaggio del Mistero. Your father's death and my complicity means she'll likely get her way. Not legitimate is the argument she'll use. Damn her, she's likely to sway the family. She's not your friend here. You will likely only get my personal fortune and the Palazzo near Dover, plus a few things your grandfather left to you in the will thanks to that. Take the letter, and get your wand before the will is read. Please, for your own sake." Commanded my Mother.

It was the most she'd said this whole conversation and likely to be her dying request. How could I refuse? I took the letter of Introduction and made my way down into the village towards the shop of the Maestro delle Bacchette. The shop was clearly marked out by the sign of the crossed staff, wand, and sword. I entered to find an old man with a long gray beard, wearing a well-embroidered leather surcoat and actual armor. The Uniform of the Maestro delle Bacchette, or Master of Wands wasn't just an archaic showpiece either. It bore potent enchantments to aid in enchanting, crafting, runeworking, alchemy, potioneering, arithmancy, and half a dozen of the subtler, item-related, wizarding arts. Plus, should the Maestro delle Bacchette ever need to work a forge, the armor and surcoat would insulate him from the fire of the forge.

Maestro Antonio Grimaldi was one of the best, in fact, he was the foremost expert on any number of crafting skills and magical disciplines. He had learned his trade over decades of study under masters from all over the Mediterranean. He taught a summer course on Magesmithing at the Accademia Veneziana di Alchimia and was known to consult on various topics for the Synarmológisi Tis Mageías of Magical Greece and the Government of his Majesty Umberto the Third of Magical Italy. He was simply one of the best, some might say he even surpassed Ollivander, simply due to mastering more than just wandmaking, unlike the British Wizard.

"What's this? I sense a child with a letter of introduction. Let me see that." Intoned Maestro Grimaldi, standing up from where he'd been etching minute runes into the blade of a dagger using tools of enchanted silver and a large, glass, lens.

He snatched the letter from my hand, opened it, and read the contents quickly, frowning as he did so. When he was done, he handed the letter back to me with a heaving sigh.

"It seems that the Zabini family is in for interesting times. The Contessa is not long for this world, apparently. A tragedy, though some good may yet come of her sacrifice. I have been waiting for you, young Blaise, for some time. Your mother always preferred her estate in Britain, however, to her homeland." Intoned Maestro Grimaldi, shaking his head.

"You have?" I asked.

"I have indeed. I have had your wand ready for some time now after receiving. . .let us call it a visitation from the Fates and the Goddess of Luck." Confirmed Maestro Grimaldi.

He entered what I assumed to be an office and returned with a box of gold and white. He thrust the box into my hands and insisted I open it. Inside was a stout, brown wand of what seemed like two kinds of wood amalgamated together. It was about twelve inches in length with a somewhat supple heft to it despite its chunkiness. I took it and immediately felt the magic flow up my arm and into my core before coming out in a shower of sparks of gold and white.

"Yes, I suppose I shouldn't have doubted that sort of vision. Silver Lime and Waltnut with a very unique core. An Augerey Tail Feather suspended in powdered chimera scale. Twelve inches and supple. Good for a vast array of abilities that many consider to be too subtle for the average person to pick up. The Mind Arts, Leglimancy, Occlumancy, Enchanting, and things of that nature. It will work especially well for those gifted with the more esoteric knowledge of fate, time, and thought, along with those who have the gift of the Sight. However, the Powdered Chimera Scale ensures that more overt displays of power will not be lacking in oomph." Informed Maestro Grimaldi.

"I can tell. It's a beautiful wand." I complimented.

"This design came to me during that visitation. It is, and I do not say this lightly, a masterwork of wand-crafting. Very few wandmakers in Europe still know the old methods of amalgamating woods without contaminating the wand with foreign magic. I am one, Mykew Gregorovitch is another, and Garrick Ollivander is the third. Not that Olivander would dare sully his creations with such a technique, mind you. He's too much of a purist. Gregorovich is also too experimental, trying to use three or even more woods at a time for various wands. He should know by now that was never going to work. So yes, it is a beautiful wand, and quite unlike any wand out there in Europe today." Snorted Maestro Grimaldi.

"Thank you. How much do I owe you?" I questioned.

"No. This one is free. I can hardly deny a parting request from the Contessa, after all." Refused Maestro Grimaldi.

"I appreciate it. I am sure mother would too, were she well." I nodded.

"Indeed. You'd best run along now. Who knows how much time the Contessa has left? Best you spend as much time as you can with her." Insisted Maestro Grimaldi.

He was right about that. I spent the next ten hours at my Mother's bedside, spending what time she had left with her. At the stroke of midnight, however, my mother closed her eyes to go to sleep. She would never wake back up. The funeral was held two days later. After that, the debate over the will reading broke out. It turned out my Mother was right about my Aunt. For all that my Cousin and Uncle were jovial people, my Aunt was too bitter over not being able to live the lifestyle that my Mother had. She wound up successfully convincing the family elders, the collection of granduncles, grandaunts, and other assorted elderly members of the extended Zabini Family that she should become the new Contessa del Villaggio del Mistero. In the meantime, I was to be consigned to the Pallazo near Dover in Britain, a Ward of the Family, but not completely legitimate.

I was packed off with a single, non-expanded, trunk of items containing the few things that my Grandfather had left for me in his will, and sent back to the Palazzo Zabini near Dover in Southeast England. I wasn't too sad about being cut out of the will and only given a few things aside from my mother's personal belongings and home. After all, I'd made do without the wider family's money and titles my entire life so far. The bigger issue for me was that it was just me and Luci, my Mother's personal House Elf now. I couldn't help but feel sad about that.

I spent much of the next few weeks in my room, crying and sulking. Only pausing to make the obligatory Diagon Alley trip for the remainder of my school supplies. The night before I was to head to Hogwarts for my first year, I finally pulled myself out of my funk enough to open the trunk of things my grandfather had left me.

Inside was a quartet of books and a black cloak that I had to actively engage my Occlumency to be able to look at. Reading the titles, I realized that these were the books and concealing cloak that I had gotten from filling out the questionnaire. Sitting in a single vial on top of all of it was a bottle of liquid gold that shone with magic. The Enhanced Felix Felicis I had gained from taking the Worst Day Ever Drawback sat there, taunting me. Worst Day ever was right, my mother had died saving me during it. Once again, I cried myself to sleep that night. When I woke up, it would be time to head to the Hogwarts Express.

Somehow, it didn't feel as magical as I'd thought it would. . .

XXXX

AN: So yeah, here we have the start of my Blaise Zabini SI Harry Potter CYOA Story. As you can probably already tell, there's a lot in here that's going to be different from canon. For one thing, I'm not using Rowling's Worldbuilding, which I find entirely too South of England-centric. She seems to only know the culture of the South of England and decided to port it over everywhere. And that's just for starters. I'm not even going to touch her more. . .shall we say questionable choices.

Another thing you might have noticed is that Blaise is fairly light-skinned in this. That is a deliberate choice on my part. We get almost no characterization of him in the books, with some people thinking he was entirely made up until he showed up at the Slug Club. It also allows me to tie him into the worldbuilding I'm doing that's primarily focused on the Mediterranean. So here, Blaise is a mix of Sicilian and Moroccan.

Parts of this chapter were inspired by Fabled Webs' start to Troll in the Dungeon, another Blaise Zabini SI, though he has more AU Elements than just worldbuilding. He genderwaps a number of characters for one. It's still a good read and I encourage you to check it out if you guys feel like it. It's over on QQ and is the only other Blaise SI I know of.

At any rate, the next chapter will involve the Hogwarts Express including finally meeting some of the canon characters.

Stay tuned. . .