Disclaimer: I am only writing this once, so this applies to the whole story. I do not own anything from the world of Harry Potter, because I am most definitely NOT JK Rowling. *raises eyebrows* I don/t see how you could possibly think I am, because she is obviously the better writer. (Occasionally there will be actual quotes from the first book, as this story takes place during it.)

A/N: This is my second try at a HP fic. My first was "Child of Memories," and people seemed to like that, so I've decided to put up another one I have partly written. Lol. Just warning you, the beginning of this story isn't very happy, but the rest of the tory should be much more lighthearted.

Summary: This story follows the mysterious Blaise Zabini during her first year at Hogwarts - beginning a little before she is born to just after the end of her first year. All her life she has lived with a foster family, and now that she knows about the world where her parents were from, she wants to know exactly who she is. All she has that belonged to her past is a silver locket with moving photographs of her mother and father inside, with a strange symbol on the front - the same symbol that has been on her right shoulder ever since she was born; and her mother's engagement ring that she wears on her right forefinger.

Who Am I?

Written By Eizoku (same as Elfmoon87)

Prologue

"I have to leave. If I don't leave now, he's going to suspect something."

"But-"

"I can't have him find out about you! He'd force you to join!"

"I won't let you go. Don't leave."

"I have to. Just promise me something."

"What-?"

"Promise me that you'll go live somewhere far away from this chaos. That you'll be happy and safe and forget about me."

"No. I can't do that. I can't fo-"

"_Promise_ me! You have to get out of this war!"

"I.I promise. But where will I go?"

"Make a life as a Muggle woman. You managed to act as a witch; I know you can act as a Muggle. They are that much different - they are both humans and therefore act similarly. When you find a place to live, _don't_ tell me where it is, or I might go looking for you, and everything will be ruined. You mustn't contact me - be it by owl, fire, or sending."

"No!"

"When this war is over, I will contact you. I have no idea how long that will be, but when it is safe, I will let you know. And then we can finally get married like we had planned to."

"P-please.."

"I love you. Have faith, love."

After a brief kiss, he Disapperated into the frosty January night air.

"I love you too.." She whispered. A dark hand seemed to close over her heart. She knew they would never see each other again.

Never.

She broke down and wept, her long, wavy tresses falling around her.

A week later she moved into a small house in a Muddle neighborhood. She refused to leave the island to go across the ocean, or even just to the mainland. After a month had passed, she discovered she was pregnant. This information gave her some happiness and hope, knowing that she would still have a bit of her love with her.

She soon was approached by one of her new neighbors, wanting to welcome her to the neighborhood. They came and knocked one particularly cold and dry day when she wasn't feeling very well.

She opened the door to a young couple that looked a year or two older than she was. She forced a smile.

"Hello, may I help you?" she asked politely.

The light-brown-haired woman spoke first, reaching out to shake hands. "I'm Laurel Zabini, and this is my husband, Elliot."

"Nice to meet you." They shook hands. "I'm Ameide Diere." Then remembering human manners, "Please come in." She stepped aside to allow them entry, and they took off their winter coats. She led them into the plain kitchen to pour some tea that she had boiled shortly before. There was a rectangular wooden counter in the center on the room, with some old stools arranged around it. There were no decorations of any kind in the room; only the necessities such as dishes, cleaning supplies, and food.

"How have you been adjusting to your new home?" Elliot asked conversationally, taking a blue mug of tea from Ameide.

Ameide shrugged as she handed another mug to Laurel. "Fine, I suppose. never had my own house before. I was staying with my fiancé.." She broke off abruptly and put her cup down by the sink.

Laurel also put down her tea and stepped closer to Ameide. "Are you alright?" she asked in concern as she placed a hand on Ameide's left shoulder.

Ameide forced another smile. "I'm fine. a little out of it."

Laurel didn't press the subject, assuming that Ameide's husband-to-be had left her for someone else. She didn't want to reopen fresh wounds. She wanted to be friends with this strange new neighbor who had hair that was a deep maroon, like the leaves on a Japanese maple tree, and steel blue eyes that seemed to have a silver mist in their irises.

The three stood there for a minute, sipping their tea in silence. Then Elliot spoke.

"Ameide, if you'd like, Laurel could show you around the neighborhood and town tomorrow-"

"Yeah!" Laurel agreed cheerfully. "I don't have anything planned, and we could have lunch at this nice little café I know."

Ameide looked up, trying to forget her despair. "That would be nice. And I heard it is supposed to be a little warmer tomorrow as well."

"Then it's settled! Let's about I come over here at eleven?"

"Sure. And if we could look around for a job I could do.."

"Of course. I'll help you find someplace," Laurel assured her as they headed toward the door, pulling on their coats.

"It was lovely meeting you, Ameide," Elliot said, shaking her hand once more.

"It was a pleasure, Elliot, Laurel."

The next day, Ameide and Laurel had an enjoyable day, and they learned many things about each other that were the same: they both loved plants and trees, though Ameide didn't tell Laurel the real reason behind her liking; they both enjoyed reading and writing, and they both were pregnant with the baby due in late October. Once Ameide was shown around, they found and open job at the garden shop in town. It wouldn't provide a lot of money, but she didn't need very much because her fiancé had given her a good amount to help her start her new life with, and she would be with the things she loved most in life (other than her fiancé and unborn child) - nature. She knew that the plants the shop sold that season would be the healthiest they had ever been when they got a taste of her power.

Laurel and Ameide became very close friends over the months, telling each other secrets and teasing each other over whose stomach was growing faster. They went to their check-ups together and after a while found out they were both going to have daughters. However, Ameide knew this information before the doctor told her, because her kind of people was able to tell it for their self.

That was one of the secrets that Ameide didn't tell anyone. When Laurel asked how her hair was the strange crimson-brown of maroon, when she never dyed it, Ameide told her that her hair had been maroon ever since she was born. The truth - that was the color her hair turned when she took her human form. When asked about the black "tattoo" of a tangled knot of a thorn-covered vine and three black pearls in the tangle that was on her right shoulder, she said she'd had it for a few years, which was partly true. It had been a "tattoo" for the last few years, but before then it was three black pearls embedded in her shoulder with thorns curling around the pearls and her shoulder. She told Laurel the truth about her silver locket that was around her neck, though. The locket had been given to her by her fiancé, designed specially for her. The locket that hung on a silver chain was oval shaped, and there were minute emeralds forming the design of her tattoo on it's front. Ameide never opened the locket when Laurel was around, because inside were two wizard photographs: on the left side, one of her fiancé, and a picture of herself on the right.

The only person who knew all of these things was her fiancé.

And she hadn't heard anything from him yet. She longed to let him know about their baby, but she knew what she would be risking if she contacted him. She would be risking not only her fiancé's and her lives, but also the lives of her baby, Elliot, Laurel, and their baby. She couldn't throw all of their lives away. So she waited patiently for his word.

One day in September, Ameide and Laurel sat on the Zabini's back porch with glasses of iced tea, debating good naturedly about what their daughters' names would be. Ameide decided on Blaise Velyn, and Laurel on Cara Lynn. They happily imagined how their daughters would be best friends - almost like sisters.

Then, on the twenty-ninth of October, Laurel went into labor. Elliot drove her to the hospital, and brought Ameide along just in case, and Ameide wanted to be there for Laurel anyway. Later that day, Cara Lynn Zabini was born. They stayed in the hospital that night, Elliot sleeping in a chair against Laurel's bed, and Ameide in another bed that the doctor had brought in for her. Later in the morning the next day, as they were getting ready to go home, Ameide went into labor.

However, things didn't seem to be going as well for her as they did for Laurel. She was still in labor that night. She wondered if it had something to do with the fact that she wasn't in her true form. Oh, if only she was in a wizard hospital!

Then finally, as day was dawning through the window on the thirty-first of October, Blaise Velyn Diere was born. She had the same silver mist in her blue eyes, but the blue was so dark it was almost black. Her thin hair seemed to be the same maroon as Ameide's, but there were a few strands of a darker color - either brown or black, it was too early to really tell. The strangest thing, though, was that Blaise had the same unusual tattoo on her shoulder as Ameide had.

Ameide wasn't doing very well. She had lost a lot of blood and was very weak. As she nursed Blaise, she took the locket from around her neck and placed it over Blaise's head. A little while later, when the nurse was taking Blaise from Ameide so Ameide could get into a more comfortable position since she was so tired, there were shouts from outside the room. The doctor opened the door to find out what was going on, and a small barn owl flew in through the doorway. The doctor gave a shout of surprise and slammed the door.

The owl flew straight to Ameide and dropped a piece of parchment into her lap. Then it flew to the window and tapped its beak on the glass. Ameide glanced up at the owl for a brief second, and the window - which had previously been closed and locked - shot open. The owl flew outside, and the window shut and locked itself.

Ameide reached for the small piece of paper, all of the color - what was remaining of it - gone from her face. She picked it up and turned it over so the words were facing her, and silently read the small note with trembling hands:

_By the time this reaches you, I am probably not alive. I just wanted to tell you that I love you and always will. Please live your life in the happiness I can't have. I must leave you now. Erase me from your mind. Goodbye.

Your Love_

Her hand crumpled the paper, and she screamed in misery and agony. Her head fell back against the pillow, and she managed to look at Laurel and whisper weakly while grasping her wrist with the hand that was holding the crumpled note, "Take care of Blaise for me. my ring. Tell her I love her.." Her hand dropped, and the note fell to the floor. Her eyes stared out, unseeing and glassy. The monitor's steady beep suddenly became a long, high-pitched _!_

Everyone stared at Ameide in horror.

"No. No! Ameide!" Laurel cried. "You can't."

Blaise started to cry. Laurel handed Cara to Elliot and took Blaise from the nurse. "It's alright, it's alright, Blaise," she tried to soothe, tears streaming down her own face. Ameide had been the best friend she'd ever had. Still comforting Blaise, she bent down and picked up the note. Reading it, she realized that Ameide's fiancé hadn't left her in the way Laurel had thought, but she was still very confused. She remembered the request Ameide made and carefully removed the unusual engagement ring from her finger after gently closing Ameide's eyes.

The ring was a thick band of dark ebony with silver, spidery-thin thorned vines tangled around the ring. She unclasped the necklace form Blaise's neck, put the chain through the ring, and returned it to its place on Blaise.

"Elliot," she began, turning to her husband, "let's adopt Blaise. I know it would make Ameide happy to know Blaise will grow up with a loving family. Blaise and Cara can be sisters."

Elliot stepped forward with Cara in his arms, and he gently embraced Laurel, Blaise, and Cara all at once. "I agree with you, sweetheart. Ameide would have wanted it. She was like family to us."

They had a small funeral for Ameide with some other friends; they didn't know how to find anyone form her family. There was a simple headstone over her grave; on it were the words:

Ameide Diere

June 13, 1958 - October 31, 1980

A loving and understanding friend who

will always live in the hearts of her

closest friends.

Shortly after, the Zabini's went through the procedure to make Blaise their legal daughter. Finally she was Blaise Velyn Zabini. When she was older, they agreed that she could choose to take back her original surname if she wanted.

Every few months, they would come back to the cemetery to tidy up the headstone, placing new flowers before it. One day, in the beginning of December when there wasn't any snow on the ground yet, they were dismayed to find a two-inch-high tree beginning to sprout from just in front of the headstone. Trees weren't supposed to start growing at the end of autumn, and they weren't supposed to grow over someone's grave.

However, when Elliot bent to pull the shoot out of the ground, Blaise made a noise of protest: wailing and kicking since she couldn't yet speak. The instant Elliot stood up without touching the sprout, Blaise became calm again. They left it there, assuming it would die in the coming winter. But it didn't, and in the spring, it was about five inches tall. It grew unnaturally fast for a tree in winter.

During the first year of Cara and Blaise's lives, the Zabini's kept hearing about people dying in freak accidents, mysteriously disappearing, or suddenly going insane. Everyone was becoming nervous. Some people told stories of black-cloaked people that went around hurting innocent people. Then, on Blaise's first birthday and one year after Ameide's death, something happened, though Laurel and Elliot had no idea of what it could have been. Owls were flying every which way - in the middle of the day! The very next day, Elliot heard on the radio how there had been a large gas explosion that killed thirteen people.

A week after everything seemed to calm down, Laurel noticed a solitary owl flying around, apparently in search of something it couldn't find. It disappeared for a few days, before returning. This time it seemed to find what it was looking for, and it only stayed for an afternoon before flying away again, carrying a note attached to its leg.

Midway through November, when Laurel was taking Blaise up to see her mother's grave, she noticed a tall figure by Ameide's headstone on the hill. The stranger was wearing a long black cloak and had his hood up. Remembering the stories about this kind of people, Laurel stayed out of sight and waited for the stranger to leave. She didn't want to get involved with the stories, if there was a chance they were true.

In the cemetery, up by the headstone, the man in the black cloak stood and stared at the words inscribed on the stone. Then he sank to his knees and sobbed in silent misery. He reached out and gently touched the small tree that was growing before the stone. It was a foot tall now.

"Oh, Ameide," he wept. "I shouldn't have sent you that letter. Someone found out about me, and I was so sure that the person would tell Him, but the person died in a fight before he could tell. I'm so sorry. Grow strong and healthy for me, little one. I will always love you. I only wish it hadn't worked out like this. Farewell, love."

He stood up and walked out of the cemetery, passing Laurel and Blaise on the way. If he had been able to see Blaise's hair, he might have paused, but Blaise was wearing a blue knitted hat to keep out the November chill, so he didn't notice anything strange about her. He assumed that Blaise was Laurel's daughter. He nodded politely to the pair as they passed on the path but then continued on his way.

As the man passed Laurel and Blaise, Blaise reached a small pale hand toward the man. "Dada," she whispered.

"No, no, sweetie, that is a stranger," Laurel corrected softly, not wanting to offend the foreboding-looking man.

"Nah Ebby-ot dada," Blaise shook her head as they approached the headstone on the hill. "Dada."

Laurel sighed. "I'm sorry, Blaise, but your father is alive anymore." She put Blaise down in front of the tree and began to replace the wilted flowers with fresh ones. Blaise was a very smart girl, and she had somehow figured out that Laurel and Elliot were not her real parents. She didn't really understand though, even when Laurel tried to explain it to her. Her baby mind couldn't comprehend the information, but she knew her mother was dead.

As Laurel brushed off some stray fallen leaves from the area around the stone, Blaise sat happily in front of the young tree. She carefully stroked the thin trunk of the growth. "Mumma, hebbo!" she cooed to the tree.

"Blaise, that little tree is not your mother; it is only a tree," Laurel told her sadly.

Blaise frowned, her black eyebrows furrowing her little forehead. "Iz! Iz, iz!" she ordered as sternly as she could.

Laurel picked up Blaise and went home once she had finished cleaning the area around the stone and the tree. She wished she knew more about Ameide. Though the two had been close friends for nine months, she realized that she didn't know very much at all about Ameide. What was she going to tell Blaise when she started asking questions? Laurel discovered that she wasn't able to open the locket when she was going to show Blaise what was inside, but she knew that the locket was able to be opened; she had caught Ameide looking at whatever was inside a few times.

Laurel would just have to raise Blaise as well as she could. She was happy that Cara and Blaise had seemed to like each other. She looked optimistically toward the future of her two girls; not knowing of the trouble Blaise would cause her family in years to come.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A/N: Well, how'd you like it? Questions, comments, criticism? I will appreciate any of that! If you want a reply to your review, please leave your e-mail address (or let me know if it's on your profile) for me to contact you. If you don't want a reply, don't bother, and I'll just read your review without a response. This has worked out wonderfully with my other story, so there shouldn't be any problems. Thanks very much, and please review!