she looks like divine absolution. careful, meleager; this is your sport, but she's not playing a game. luciana zabini. potioneer. pureblood. thirty. rich bitch.
@steelbones asked me to use a line from the last TV show I watched ( misfits ) as a starter ( meme. accepting. )
“It's a cruel senseless waste. A young man taken from us in his prime,” said Luciana, her words twisted to sound cynical and ironic. “Leaving us to pick up the pieces of our shattered lives, knowing that he's gone forever.” Dramatics were added in then, but just enough, never too much, Luciana always lingering on the line of truth and lie. She was sad, she supposed, about Regulus, but not too sad, not too moved, not too bothered. In all truth, she was more saddened by the situation, by the fact that a teen had been allowed onto the ranks and had died soon after. ( That reality was nasty, was something Luciana had known for decades, though, so she had moved on quite easily. ) “How will we ever move on?”
A laugh spilled past her lips, head shaking. There weren’t many people who knew Luciana’s truths, her depths, her secrets, but Bellatrix Lestrange ( @sheweapon ) knew a few more than most. “She was tearing up, too,” she said. “If only she knew! Poor woman.” Sharing gossip, mocking people more sensitive ( more human ) than them, it was something that Beth looked forward to much too often. “I almost wished to tell her and obliviate after, only to see the look on her face when she learned that I wasn’t as poor a widow as I was making her think I was.” She filled up her wineglass again, laughter still leaving her mouth softly, her fingers stroking her stomach absentmindedly as she leaned back on the sofa. “People’s stupidity continues to serve us well, it seems.”
Luciana Zabini was a single mother and recent widow and life was supposed to be hard. It wasn’t, of course, but appearances LIE, especially when it came to her — she feigned mourning and grief as if it was her job ( which it was, in a way --- it did get her quite a bit of money ), playing the role of the fragile woman people wished to see quite perfectly. Let them think she was weak --- she liked it when people were wrong. And so, that day, she would cry over a cup of tea in a public place, fingers tapping against a table absentmindedly. It was all just too much. She felt victorious every time compassionate eyes fell on her, felt even better when someone approached her. She waved a hand, swallowed thickly, appeared to be embarrassed to be caught of this moment of emotion. “I’m – I’m sorry, I just … sometimes it all just comes crashing down on you, you know? And then the news of the Black boy --- it’s all just a bit much.”
( click on the images for explanations )
esme squalor ( a series of unfortunate events ), katherine pierce ( the vampire diaries ), cersei lannister ( a song of ice and fire & game of thrones ), six/lexi ( chicago ), amy elliot dunne ( gone girl ), michaela pratt ( how to get away with murder )
🎬 for me to use a line from the last movie I watched as a starter
📹 for me to use a line from my favorite movie as a starter
📚 for me to grab the book nearest to me, flip to a random page, and use the first line of dialogue I see as a starter
🎧 for me to shuffle my playlist and use the first line of the next song as a starter
🎶 for me to use my favorite line of the last song I listened to as a starter
📺 for me to use a line from the last TV show I watched as a starter
💻 for me to use a line from my favorite TV show as a starter
🎵for me to shuffle my playlist and use my favorite line of the next song as a starter
💋 for a shippy starter
😡 for an angsty starter
👊 for an argument/fight starter
🌈 for a random encounter starter
💀 for a dark starter
🍬 for a fluffy starter
“ she told me that love is a loaded gun that she’s been trying to dodge for many years now. .”
LUCIANA ZABINI is 30 years old and works as a FREELANCE POTIONEER/PHILANTHROPIST and is loyal to THE DEATH EATERS they were an SLYTHERIN and are a PUREBLOODED. SHE looks like AJA NAOMI KING.
CHARACTER PARALLELS: gloria delgado ( modern family ), cersei lannister ( asoiaf ), irene adler ( sherlock ), amy dunne ( gone girl ), katherine pierce ( the vampire diaries ), tahani al-jamil ( the good place ), michaela pratt ( htgawm )
AESTHETIC: pearl necklaces, heels longer than your d*ck, red wine stains on white blouses, perfect manicures, finding loneliness both a comfort and a hauntingly scary thing, gold eyeliner, faux fur coats, reveling in your own beauty and not apologising for it, silk sheets, childhood memories you’ve buried, dark purple lipstick
LINKS: stats. pinboard. character tag. playlist.
HEADS UP: there’s mentions of abuse ( spousal, child ), alcoholism and murder in here. all are marked at the bulletpoint!
history
luciana is born ready for a life of nannies, of pampering and being spoiled and getting everything she wants. for the first few years of her life, that’s exactly how it goes, too. her father’s a successful businessman, having connections all over the world, his business bringing in the money the zabini’s depend on, breathe on, sleep on. her first four years are spent on silk sheets and expensive clothes, in a massive penthouse apartment overseeing swansea.
it all falls to pieces when her father’s debts catch up on him and he goes bankrupt. there’s no money left. it’s a surprise to her mother, who thought business was booming and that there was nothing to worry about, but they have to move out either way, swap their massive place for a tiny flat in italy that just fits three people. elizabeth is four years old and doesn’t understand what is going on.
[ spousal abuse tw, alcoholism tw, child abuse tw her father starts drinking. a lot. he goes job hunting every day, at least, that’s what he says, and comes home smelling of booze and stumbling every evening. at one point, he starts drinking at home, too, having lost any sense of pride. the zabinis have been knocked from their pedestal, so there’s no room to pretend at home. when he starts drinking at home, the fights between him and luciana’s mother increase. her mother screams and her father sits still until he’s done listening and ends the fight with a smack against a cheek or something more. his anger turns to her at times, too, but not as much as it does to her mother, but it does, and that’s enough for her hate to start growing.
her mother starts growing absent, too. hiding in her bedroom or slipping from the house to visit friends and family and her other lover, leaving luciana alone with her father, or completely alone. the situation worsens. luciana learns to escape, to tune out the world around her, to let her imagination run wild. she keeps her hate and grudges locked up in her chests and learns to cry quietly. end of tws ]
they are kicked out of their house for the first time when she’s ten. they couldn’t make rent for the second month in a row and their landlord is done. her parents play the blaming game and luciana cries in the dry sheets at the motel they stay in now. they itch and are cold and she just wants a place to call home.
at least she can go to hogwarts half a year later. she had been enrolled there since birth, so of course she goes there. her parents don’t move to the UK, not wanting to face the pureblood families they used to see so very often before.
hogwarts is an escape, a place for luciana to leave behind the endless fights and the new shitty flat and to focus on something else than keeping quiet and not becoming too bored. she’s sorted in slytherin, like her mum was ( her dad went to school in italy, never even saw inside hogwarts, and perhaps that made the place even better ) and flourishes. socially, academically: suddenly luciana grows into something more than what she was before, learns how to use her disadvantages as advantages.
she mixes with the pureblood crowd like she should have done years ago, tells lies as to why she wasn’t at many events ( things like we moved to italy because of a grand business opportunity there and our mansion looks out over the mediterranean sea! ) and reconciles with people she went on playdates with before everything turned to shit. she gets into the slug club, grows ambitious when she finds out she has skills, proper skills, in potions.
her ambition becomes a drive, becomes a plan: she signs up for summer internships, for ways out of the live she has been living so far. she talks to slughorn ( who likes her, even if her dad’s a failure ) and searches for opportunities, chances, anything to become successful, to do what a zabini is supposed to do. to do what her shitty excuse of a father failed to do.
once graduated, she starts working to earn the title of potioneer, staying in contact with slughorn and meeting members of the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers, making connections and impressions. she’s nineteen when she gains the title. she’s one of the youngest who gets the title and she’s reveling in it. she starts making potions for st mungo’s and the aurors, works freelance, and so for no one but those she wants to work with. she makes her own money, and feels on top of the world.
luciana’s climb on the social ladder does not go unnoticed, and at the age of twenty four she marries a rich pureblood man (1973). she swaps the apartment she shares for his mansion and pretends to love him. she doesn’t, of course --- she wants his money, his power, to climb up that ladder, to have a taste of the life she should have had all that time.
[ abuse tw ] she doesn’t love him and he doesn’t love her either, no matter what he thinks or says. he’s not like her father, but he’s not unlike him either. he’s successful and respectable and doesn’t smell of alcohol but he does have hard hands and mean eyes. he wants her to love him like he thinks he loves her and his frustration doesn’t push him to leave, it pushes him to stay. luciana hates him, but she fears him, too. and fuck it, she’s done being scared.
[ murder tw ] he dies, after one and a half year of marriage, in 1975. a potion – a poison – stops his heart, making it seem like a natural death. he’s too young to die this soon, but no one stops to question it. why would they question it? luciana zabini’s potions are excellent. she makes no mistakes. she wanted him dead and she wanted no blame and she gets what she wants and she feels like she can breathe again. she cries tears at his funeral and spits on his grave when everyone has left.
there’s something twisted in elizabeth, like there’s in every zabini, in every rowle: it’s always been there, but the moment she starts toying with the idea of poisoning her husband, it grows. she makes the poison herself and feels the most alive than she ever has, and while she tells herself that she’s doing it for herself, for her own safety, somewhere, it’s also because she wants power. him dying would leave her a fortune, and she needs it. she could have just left him, but she wanted him dead. gone. [ end of tw’s ]
she’s not particularly keen to marry again. luciana keeps her dead husband’s name and stays in his mansion and revels in the wealth and tries to heal herself. she soothes her spirit and focuses on her potions and herself. she learns where her soul is still bruised and takes care of them and vows to never press down on those spots again.
in 1977 she marries again. not for love, or for money, per se ( though she doesn’t mind his money, if she’s honest ) but because she wants a child. easy as that. life is lonely, all alone in that bloody house that’s not hers. aurelius fawley is a good husband, that much can be said. he’s a man still, of course, and luciana doesn’t like men all that much. she has a good time with him --- they travel and laugh and drink expensive bottles of wine and appear at galas with white teeth smiles.
aurelius fawley is also a death eater, which is how luciana gets involved. he tells her how they could use her potions and her mind, and she says she’ll help him under the condition that she won’t have to take the mark ( the tattoo, she finds ugly ). luciana does believe in blood purity, but she cares more about power. helping the death eaters in a small way is a sure way to ensure that she has a foot in the door on the winning side. she doens’t mind that, at all. ( she does think they will win --- she knows dark magic and knows that the death eaters will wield it more easily than anyone who opposes them )
[ murder tw ] he dies in september 1979, when she’s seven months pregnant. he dies during a battle, drops to the floor like that, is unmasked and his name appears in the press. aurelius fawley --- fallen death eater, murdered in the crossfire. she hopes the ministry pats themselves on the back for his death, and that the order does, too. of course --- it was a potion, again, that killed him, clogging up his arteries and slowly taking his life away.
she kills him because, quite frankly, she doesn’t want her child to have a father, doesn’t want him to be the father — she doesn’t love him, and she won’t let her son grow up with parents who don’t love each other, like she had. she won’t allow that. she holds the cards, and she decides to stop the game and win. [ end of tw ]
blaise zabini is born 15 november 1979 and she loves him more than she has ever loved anyone else. actually, she understood what love was for the first time when she learned she was pregnant. she promises him the world and the stars and sun. everything.
luciana takes back her maiden name after aurelius’ death, too. she says it’s because she doesn’t want to be affiliated with his name, with his death eater name, because she appears to be shocked and disgusted by his role in the war. of course, it’s not because of that ( though she does value reputation, too ) but because she wants to reclaim zabini, the name her father destroyed, but the name she will use to build an empire. her son will not be named after the idiot who dared marry her --- he will be named after her, and be part of her world.
luciana is still making potions, though more for friends and acquaintances (and death eaters), but has put her career on a backburner. she’s found a better way to make money, after all, her two dead husbands have taught her that. besides that, she’s a single mother, and most of her time is eaten by blaise, blaise, blaise. she has cut ties with her parents at this point, has left her past behind and not looked back, and in stead only focuses on the future. she focuses on pretending to grieve and raising her son and being the face of perseverance for other widows ( because god knows the war makes many ). she wears red silk and red lipstick and cries fake tears and flips her hair and is in search for a new man to marry, eventually, to pretend to love, to steal his money from when he dies under strange circumstances.
personality and tidbits
we love an amoral queen!
luciana has built a name for herself. she came to hogwarts having to remind people of her family’s legacy and has started to build her own and she’s earned respect, i imagine. she’s quite charismatic and charming and loves all kinds of pureblood functions.
really loves. red wine. so much. oh my GOD. she’s not touching it rn though but akjdfsdf she loves it so much, will rave about it forever.
a walking set of aesthetic goals.
i guess ... there are suspicions about luciana out there? i imagine there’s aurors side eyeing/following her, maybe she’s been taken in for questioning ... there’s definitely rumours in witch weekly but also, that magazine is a bit dramatic im sure LMAO. she loves it all. she thinks she’s invincible.
so -- she’s a philanthropist and that is something she takes very seriously? luciana knows what it’s like to be poor and to be disadvantaged and all that fucking shit. of course, it helps with her image, but ... she does it out of genuine caring? i imagine she likes throwing big charity events, fundraisers and stuff.
i mean --- her life is very different from what it was before, and she could just ignore her past and focus on her future, and she does in a sense, but she doesn’t want to brush over her own experiences and belittle them and especially doesnt want to ignore the reality of the world? so yeah. she’s a giving person akjdfsdf.
she loves jazz
honestly this is fucking long
she has a dog!!!! her name is hera and she looks like this and it’s the most extra dog i have ever seen which means she LOVES IT
luciana is ... self centered. arrogant. haughty. fucking caught up in her own shit but ---- the world never gave her anything, so why should she give it anything back? she’s living life for herself and for her son and the rest of the world can perish.
bitter bitch, rich bitch, beautiful bitch.
i was reading a dance with dragons earlier and jon snow described val as lonely and lovely and lethal and that’s her!
a grieving :( single :( mother :( who is in shock :( that her husband was an evil man :( poor her :( uwu :(
she’s lying about everything and everyone but we stan!!
plots!
mr future husband --- well, this depends ... on if youre down? luciana probs wont get married until after the end of the war so this wont happen in game BUT it would be lit to plot it out long term? this could be any kind of person, as long as they have monaye. ive had her marry a muggleborn before just to be like ... i am NOT a death eater! or a purist! (she is). this man will get killed. to death.
idk i will add more when i wake bc i have to sleep and this got so long and im so tired SORRY
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