As We Fall (Blaise Zabini Fanfiction)

Chapter 45

Zoe

"Your father's name is Arro. Your mother's name is Heracate. Just as your brother Julian's surname is Tines, so is theirs."

Dumbledore pauses a moment. That soft smile remains etched into his jaw, but it has grown smaller and weaker since he began speaking.

"They began working for Voldemort as soon as they completed their seventh year at Hogwarts. At the beginning of the first wizarding war, he allowed them to become death eaters. They became part of Voldemort's inner circle -- a group whose membership was highly coveted by all his followers.

During the war, Voldemort decided to lead an attack on a powerful group of witches who were known for loathing him. Officially, they were called the Hands of the Night. During this attack, he was successful in murdering their leader. Another witch belonging to the group -- a woman named Zinephra -- was selected to take her place.

Now, this group, consisting entirely of women, was already aiming to rid the world of powerful male wizards. They were in possession of unique magical powers that no other witch or wizard had ever even dreamt of, and they used them to aid in accomplishing this goal. When Zinephra gained control of the Hands of the Night following the attack, she decided that eliminating Voldemort and his death eaters would be the group's first priority going forward. This was around the same time that she gave birth to a child -- a little girl. She was determined to raise her daughter to become her successor -- a powerful young witch that could take charge of the group when she was no longer fit for the job.

A year after the birth of her child, Zinephra led her first attack on Voldemort. It resulted in the deaths and abductions of several death eaters, as well as the exposure of Voldemort's location to the Ministry of Magic. Two of the death eaters abducted were your parents, Arro and Heracate Tines. They were tortured by Zinephra for weeks, until eventually, they were able to escape with the help of Voldemort.

An intense feud began to boil between Zinephra and the Tines. She despised them, and they felt the same towards her.

As revenge for what she had done to them, the Tines breached the spells protecting Zinephra's manor one night in 1977. They located her infant daughter's room and murdered her. Though they escaped before she saw them, she knew who had done it.

Zinephra was in agony, and her hatred for the Tines grew even stronger. She was determined to exact vengeance on them for taking her daughter's life.

It just so happened that one of her unique powers -- and as far as I know, this power is not possessed by any other magical being -- was the ability to create her own prophecies. She was not just able to predict the future, but to shape it how she wanted it to be. It also happened that Heracate had just become pregnant with twins -- a boy and a girl.

As Heracate and Arro had killed her child, Zinephra made the decision to direct her attack on their unborn children. She created a prophecy stating that after their birth, one twin must eventually die at the hands of the other. Each twin was set to naturally manifest rare magical abilities as they matured, and these would aid in their eventual fight to the death. She also declared that if the Tines ignored this prophecy, they would die in place of their children.

Instead of sacrificing their own lives, your parents chose to let the effects of the prophecy play out as Zinephra had intended. They went to Voldemort for help when they learned of the prophecy, and informed him of their idea to choose one of their children to train while abandoning the other. I am sure they told you that Voldemort decided to help them because of the loyalty they had demonstrated toward him in the past. This is a lie. Voldemort agreed to help the Tines because they offered him the opportunity to make a horcrux -- something he was collecting many of in order to preserve his immortality -- out of the child they chose to keep. They also proposed that if Voldemort trained this child in the dark arts, he or she could later become a powerful weapon for Voldemort to utilize when carrying out his plans.