First day of Winter break, 1890 — Zabini home

Zenobia and Necodemus had arrived home that morning. Her wand was immediately taken by one of the servants.

She'd waited restlessly for her father to return from work that afternoon. There was an hour or two before they would all have dinner together. She was pleased to hear that he'd be at his office until then. Alone.

She knocked on his door and when she heard back, she quietly slid inside. "Papa!" she said in a cute and innocent tone as she went to sit in a chair opposite his desk.

Domitian Zabini

  

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set by mj <3

Despite the difficulties with Zenobia that summer, Domitian was looking forward to having the children home for the holidays. The house was too quiet when they were gone, and although he might not show it often, he was devoted to his son and daughter. They didn't write him often enough when they were away, and he was eager to see what they'd been up to over the past few months. Maybe being around other children would have given Zenobia a chance to mellow out a bit — or, at least, it would take her mind farther away from the dramatics of the summer.

Still, he had instructed the servants to put her wand away in his study. She wasn't meant to be using it over the holiday, anyway, so it ought not to be too much of an inconvenience for her. After the ordeal in Ollivander's, he didn't really trust her to not using magic on her own. That was fine at school, to experiment around and try new things and learn, but if she was meddling around with spellwork that was too advanced for her under the covers in her room at night, or something, she might destroy something — or worse, accidentally hurt herself.

When she appeared in the study he offered her an actual smile, which was a rarity for him. "Welcome home, Zenobia. Would you like to tell me all about Hogwarts?" he asked, leaning back in his desk chair and knitting his fingers together over his lap.

  

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Bree made this!

His smile was encouraging and Zenobia smiled as well. "Of course Papa!" She replied cutely.

"Transfiguration is my favourite class!" she started. The family had a thing for Transfiguration, with so many of them being animagi, so Zenobia had cared a lot about excelling at it. "My transfigurations rarely have any flaws! I would show you, but..."

She looked down and away cutely. "I would need my wand for that, Papa!"

  

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set by mj <3

Ah; she was angling.

Any praise he might have expressed at her enthusiasm for transfiguration (which had always been one of his favorite branches of study, with or without the family's heritage to take into account) died on his lips when she mentioned her wand.

"You would need to be seventeen for that," he corrected. His tone was mild, but firm. "Underage magic isn't permitted outside of Hogwarts, unless you have a special license."

  

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Bree made this!

Zenobia pouted. "But Papaaa!" she whined. "All of my friends use their wands at home! It's not like anyone will care to check for the trace in a magical household! That's only for Muggle places! Only muggleborns can't use their wands at home! All of my pureblooded friends will practice their magic at home! Do you want me to fall behind my spellwork like the muggleborns?"

She had very pointedly mentioned the blood status stuff, because it was a touchy subject now that they were half-bloods. Her Papa wouldn't want her to be any different from the other pureblooded kids, would he? Flora and Sirius and the others all used their wands at home.

  

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set by mj <3

Domitian frowned at her comment, brow furrowing. Such level of expression was rare for him — typically in a conversation no one could get more than a twitch of his mouth in either direction — but Zenobia had a way of bringing that out, it seemed. She wasn't very good at regulating emotions, herself, so he supposed some of it rubbed off on him when she was deliberately pushing his buttons like this. He knew it was deliberate — she was too smart to have used those exact words accidentally.

"No, I do not expect you to fall behind," he said sternly. The sooner she learned this lesson about the world, the better. "I expect you to work twice as hard at school. I expect you to be better than all of them, and I expect you to do it properly." He met her eyes, his mouth set in a firm line. "There can be nothing — nothing — that gives anyone reason to think less of you, Zenobia."

  

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Bree made this!

"How would that have anything to do with me practicing my spellwork at home?" Zenobia complained. "I'm not asking you to give me my wand so I can go slaying muggles around town! I only asked to show you how good I am at Transfiguration! Don't you want to see how skilled I am? All you care about is reproaching me, Papa!" She finished off with a sad whiny tone and pouted.

"What if I only use it to practice for school and only if someone is present? Then it can go back to the box you're keeping it in and I can go back to living like a Muggle child! All I'm asking is to not lose contact to my magical roots! All I want is to be like my friends! Like Flora and Mr. Black and Miss Gamp and the others! Do you want them to make fun of me because I couldn't use my wand like the mudbloods?"

Even though she wasn't much of a purist, she deliberately used a word her Grandfather Cosmo used to describe those people.

  

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set by mj <3

If she had presented her request more diplomatically, he might have been easily swayed to the idea of giving her use of the wand when she was supervised. He didn't really think there was much harm in underaged magic, anyway, and those rules hadn't existed when he was a child. She was being petulant about this, though, and she was again trying to frustrate him on purpose, which didn't put him in the most charitable of moods.

"That word is not befitting of a lady," he warned sharply. He very nearly followed it with a threat: if that's what you've learned from your friends, perhaps we need to see that you spend less time with them. He didn't make threats he couldn't follow through on, though, and he thought Matilda might draw a hard line at that — the pureblood cousins were her family, and he knew that by virtue of being married to him she had been cut off from the life she'd expected to live in several ways already. She might not stand for another tie being severed, even if it was only temporarily, and even if it was for their daughter's own good.

  

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Bree made this!

Zenobia pouted, but she resisted the urge to say something along the lines of 'But it's alright when Grandfather uses it?'

She wasn't the best at keeping her composure with her father. It seemed to her that he was being difficult and harsh for the sake of it. That he wanted her to be unhappy. He had never been cruel, but he'd always felt... Distant.

She also felt like he only saw her flaws and never her virtues.

"I'm sorry Papa," Zenobia replied sadly, deciding to use a different tactic - guilt tripping. "I only wanted to show you how much I learned at Hogwarts! I was the best at transfiguring things into stone in my class and the professor even praised me! I wanted to do a demonstration for you, that's all I wanted when I asked for my wand!" Her previously agitated tone had been replaced by a sad one. She looked down at her lap and said solemnly: "Sometimes I feel like no matter what I do I'm never good enough and you'll never feel proud of me! I feel like everything I do is wrong!"

She did feel that way, but not as... Miserably as she made it sound. Still, she hoped that she'd make her father feel bad.

  

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set by mj <3

Domitian pursed his lips as he listened to his daughter speak. She was wrong, of course; he thought the world of her, even during her little dramatics through the summer. But he did not think it would be to her benefit to tell her that, and Domitian was always — always — thinking of his children's futures, rather than the present.

He waited a moment before he spoke. "Your metric for success should come from within you," he eventually said, his words deliberate and steady. "Not from a professor, or a friend. Not even from me." Especially not from him; he knew from personal experience that a father's love was not necessarily guaranteed, and while he could not imagine any scenario in which he could let Zenobia down so drastically as his father had disappointed him, he still did not want to raise his children to be reliant on his affirmation for their sense of self-worth.

"Excel because you want to. Because you can. Because you deserve to," he told her. "Not because you want to make me proud."

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   Zenobia Zabini

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Bree made this!

Zenobia was still at an age when she couldn't absorb her father's words to their full capacity. At an older age, after many disappointments, she'd probably come to properly understand and appreciate his advice. In any case, she paused to listen to his words.

"I succeeded at casting Incendio and you were angry at me," Zenobia observed in a cute tone and a playful smile. She knew, of course, why he had chastised her that day and it had nothing to do with her success at casting the spell. She just wanted to be cute.

  

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set by mj <3

Domitian wasn't biting on her little gimmick. He raised an eyebrow and gave her an incredulous look. She was smarter than that, and she would have been foolish if she thought he hadn't noticed it.

"You know why I was angry with you," he said simply.

  

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Bree made this!

"Ohh, alright Papa!" Zenobia whined. Was he going to remember one mistake forever? "But my flames were really well conjured! And I could show you how good I am at turning things into stone! I can even turn bugs, even though they're loving things and we don't learn that until next term. Please, Papa!"

  

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set by mj <3

Domitian frowned. "Is that why you tried to burn down the store, then? To impress me with how well conjured your flames were?"

  

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Bree made this!

"I didn't try to burn down the store!" Zenobia complained and then added with a softer voice: "But yes. I wanted to do something impressive, because you didn't seem pleased with me and you seemed impatient for a wand to pick me."

  

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set by mj <3

Impatient. Hm. Domitian considered his daughter for a moment before answering.

"I had been looking forward to helping you find a wand for a long time," he said, in the same neutral tone.

  

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Bree made this!