Chapter 1: Worst Day Ever

Unknown Location

"AHHHHHH!" I screamed out in agony as I startled to consciousness. It felt like every nerve in my body was on fire and my bone marrow was being extracted through a straw wrapped in sandpaper.

There was a popping noise as my muscles contracted involuntarily and made my spine contort in ways it wasn't meant to. I thrashed and swung at anything and everything around me, only to backhand the hard floor with enough force to bruise. I didn't know anything could hurt this much.

When I was eight, my cousin and I were horsing around, pretending to be WWE Wrestlemania superstars. He jumped off the couch and frog-splashed onto me but landed knee-first onto my forearm, splitting the two bones wide apart and ripping the ligaments in my elbow like a piece of string cheese. That was the prelude to eight weeks of agonizing recovery and physical therapy. For months, just balling a fist or holding a fork was an exercise in patience.

It didn't even come close to what I felt now.

I screamed myself hoarse until I tasted iron with every breath and kept going. My own screams drowned out everything else but I thought I could hear the delirious cackle of someone laughing in the distance.

My vision was blurry with tears. I could make nothing out in the haze of my own suffering save a crimson light that taunted me with promises of even greater pain.

I felt my spine convulse and slam my head against the hard ground. I saw stars and my vision went black for a moment. Even that was better than going through this pain, at least a concussion would daze me for a time.

And then, when the pain reached a new crescendo, I mercifully lost consciousness.

X

Again.

And again.

I didn't know how many times I awoke to this burning. It could have been five minutes. It could have been five years. So great was this unending agony that time itself lost meaning. I could only assume that I'd died and gone to Hell.

And then it lessened.

It was not a kindness. Now, blissful unconsciousness eluded me. I screamed and screamed until I could make no more sounds, until my own voice rubbed my throat raw and the taste of blood overwhelmed my senses.

"Finally got the power right. Wouldn't want you to pass out too often now. I want you to savor this, sweetie," came a woman's voice. I hadn't been dreaming of the cackling after all. I felt a cold, trembling hand caress my face, utterly at odds with the maniacal laughter that had filled the room until now. "You poor thing. You did nothing wrong. You don't deserve this. You just happen to be unlucky enough to have popped out of that whore's cunt. But as the French say, c'est la vie."

My whole body shook with the tremors of whatever the fuck this bitch did to me. Through bleary eyes, I saw her.

She looked bat-shit insane. She bore haunted, hollow eyes that might have once been a dazzling blue. Her cheeks were sunken as though she only ate once every few days. Wispy brown hair framed a face that could have once been pretty.

"W-Who are you?" I stammered. I hated how young I sounded. I hated how my voice trembled and how I had to gnaw on my gums just to keep from hearing the clatter of teeth. "W-Why are you doing this?"

"Why? Why? No, I suppose you don't know what your murderous whore of a mother's been up to, do you?"

"N-No. You've got the wrong guy."

"I assure you I don't, Blaise," she cooed, almost affectionately. "You're exactly who I'm looking for."

My name was Corbin, I wanted to shout. My mother died of breast cancer when I was twenty-six. I cremated and buried her. I was the executor of her will. Who the fuck was this bitch?

And yet, there was a niggling sense of doubt, the tiniest spark of recognition. There was a part of me that said I should know exactly what she was talking about, that, as absurd as this situation was, it should make sense to me.

I wanted to kill her. I wanted to choke her and watch the light leave her eyes. For speaking ill of my mother, five years dead. For torturing some random stranger. For the fiery pangs of agony that swept through my body like aftershocks from an earthquake. Maybe even to put the crazy bitch out of her misery.

Then the torture began again.

This time, I saw something that started to jog my memories, like two pieces of a puzzle crashing into place with the force of a train wreck. She picked up a stick I'd ignored until now and shrieked, "Crucio!"

I had a split second to recognize the word, to finally connect the dots that formed the picture to this shit-tastic day, then the crimson light struck me and my eyes rolled up into my skull as my world became pain.

She kept it up for what felt like hours but had to be several minutes at most. I stopped trying to gauge time long ago and instead ended up measuring her stamina. Who was this witch? Why was she torturing me? What did she have against my supposed mother? Was she as powerful as Bellatrix Lestrange?

God, I hoped not.

She wasn't very creative. Cruicio seemed to be all she knew. I wished she could be more inventive with her torture methods; then at least I'd have relief from this pain. I screamed and screamed until I would have gnawed off my own arm to escape the pain.

I promised everything. I didn't know what fell out of my mouth but it didn't matter. Between the blood and vomit, I promised her the world. I promised her prophecies and secrets that could make her the most wanted woman on earth. I promised the Dark Lord's horcruxes, the Deathly Hallows, the Sword of Gryffindor, the Chamber of Secrets. The philosopher's stone. All that I knew about the series fell from my lips like a raging river as I searched for anything, everything, that could possibly tempt her to stop.

It didn't matter; all I got for my babbling was her mocking laughter. Of course she didn't believe me. I hadn't even begun Hogwarts; what secrets could I possibly know? What treasures could I have? In the first place, all she wanted was to make me suffer for no fault of my own.

Until finally, it ended.

She was panting now. Her wispy, brown hair hung in matted streaks down her face, making her look all the more like some kind of skeletal wraith. The orange light of the sole lamp in the room cast eerie shadows over her face. She breathed heavily and I thought I could see a slight shiver run along her hand.

'Magical exhaustion,' the part of me that was foreign recognized. Crucio could not have been an easy curse to cast. Perhaps my suffering was at an end.

"When I'm done with you, I'm going to send her the memory. Maybe pieces of you too," she giggled madly.

I took huge gulps of air. Even the breath passing through my lungs sent fresh waves of pain through me. More and more of my memories pieced themselves together. I was Corbin Silva, just a no-name college librarian and lover of folk tales. I filled out a CYOA. I died doing… something…

I remembered my choices. I'd picked them out on a lazy evening at the campus library, a what-if character designed more for amusement than anything else. It sure as hell wasn't funny now.

I was Blaise Zabini. That name… my "mother"... That… That certainly explained quite a bit.

Memories of my life in this world came rushing to the fore: Blaise Zabini was born the only son of Dante Zabini, an old pureblood who used to be an acolyte of Grindelwald's back in the 30s. He married the black widow I called mother in 1976 and died in 1978. He was the first of her victims.

I remembered growing up in this life. I remembered slowly maturing and realizing just what happened to all my "fathers," just what a maneater mother was. I remembered wondering why she continued to let me live, if I'd serve some unknown purpose then have an "accident" like all the rest. Suffice to say, Blaise Zabini did not have healthy coping mechanisms.

Unbidden, I began to giggle. The giggling turned into deranged laughter. I couldn't help it; it was honestly funny and humor was all I had left. "Hehehe… Hahahahahaha!"

"What are you laughing at?"

"You. Me. Everything. You must be an Espinoza."

"Don't you say his name! Your murderous whore mother killed him! He was the only family I had-"

"And I'm the only family she has," I croaked. It still hurt to talk but it didn't hurt as much as a crucio so I kept talking. "That's where you're wrong."

"What are you yammering about?"

"Not the only one bit. The family bit. Valencia Zabini doesn't have family. That'd require she give a fuck about someone who isn't her."

"Shut up. Shut up."

"You think the black widow of seven murdered husbands cares about anyone? You think she's capable of that?" I laughed. There was real bitterness in my voice, not just from being in this mess. It was the pain of a young boy who grew up too fast, who unwittingly stumbled upon the cooling corpse of more than one step-father.

"Shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP!"

"You're just doing her work for her, you know, step-aunt number seven. Heh, she might even thank you for the convenience. Single mothers aren't as sexy as unattached women."

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH! CRUCIO!"

I had the briefest moment of satisfaction knowing I'd gotten to her, knowing I'd shared just a bit of my pain, then I began to drown again in my agony.

X

I was awake for it all but awake and lucid were two different matters altogether. Crucio was the single most excruciating thing I'd ever felt. It had a way of consuming you, of devouring every last thought until the only thing in existence was you and the curse, until pain was all there was, is, or could be.

It was also monotonous. It was one-dimensional. In a detached corner of my mind, I likened it to the desensitization of too much cologne, something you got used to if given enough time.

It wasn't like that of course. The pain was magical. The curse existed for torture and no other purpose. The curse wouldn't let its victim go, not this soon, not unless I left my sanity behind. I refused; I wasn't that far gone yet.

Still, I eventually sank into a semi-conscious state of perpetual suffering. If there was a purgatory, I suspected it'd feel a bit like this.

That subjective eternity eventually came to an end. The bitch couldn't go on forever after all. She could only fuel herself with misplaced hatred for so long; even she had to eat. More importantly, she was magically exhausted.

I wished I could stand but I could barely twitch in place.

"That was satisfying," she said with false cheer. She headed up to a staircase. "You'll stay down here for me, won't you, Blaise? Not that you have a choice. You don't even have your wand yet, do you?"

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

She laughed cruelly as she closed the door behind her.

I allowed myself a minute to tremble and sob but I couldn't afford to wallow long. I didn't know when she'd be back. I took stock of where I was and what I had.

The basement was an old wine cellar. There was a sturdy metal lamp hanging from a hook by the stairwell that cast a sickly orange glow through the room. Perhaps on another day, I might have wondered how wizards came to adopt light bulbs in some locales but remained so very backwards in others.

The floor was solid oak; my skull knew firsthand how sturdy the wood was. There was nothing else in the room save for a wall-mounted shelf with circular slots meant to hold wine bottles. I searched intently for even one bottle left, it could make for a passable shiv if movies taught me anything, but no, nothing.

I pushed against the floor and forced myself to sit despite the aching in my body. I had to. I had to believe I had a shot at escape. The CYOA was both my curse and my only hope. If I filled it out, it surely meant there was a way out too. Past-Corbin was a fucking asshole but even I wouldn't think a single day of torture-porn was funny. This couldn't be the end of my story.

Then something on my hand scraped against the oak.

I looked down to see a golden ring. I hadn't noticed before but she'd clearly not bothered with taking any of my belongings. Why would she? She wasn't looking for trinkets to rob. She only wanted to see me hurt and I didn't have a wand to take in the first place.

But I knew better. I knew what this was: a spell ring, a unique item enchanted to perform one, predetermined spell.

I wracked my memories but came up disappointed. No, of course it wasn't the AK, blasting curse, or anything to defend myself. Not even Fiendfyre so I could take the bitch with me. Then I realized what was in it and kissed my hand with the delirious joy of the dying.

"Episkey," I whispered as a gentle, green light washed over me. Relief, pure, unadulterated relief filled me and I knew I'd promise the devil my firstborn to feel this again.

The pain wasn't gone, the strongest torture curse couldn't be undone that easily, but the healing spell undid some of the damage I'd done to myself in my thrashing and banished the fog that lingered in my mind. It pushed the pain far back enough that I could think properly again.

'What do you have, Corbin? What do you know? What can you use?' I asked myself. Those three questions became my mantra as I went over everything the CYOA promised me.

I paled as I realized just what was happening here: Worst Day Ever.

It was a drawback, one of those that gave you a hefty dose of points for taking it. In exchange, it placed you on Fate's shitlist, because Fate was apparently a conscious force here. It made Fate take notice of you and ensured you were tested to see if you belonged in this world, to see if you had the right to exist.

For one day, you had to survive at all cost in a setting that would spell death for most: stranded in a forest chased by werewolves, ground zero of a territorial dispute between a nundu and a dragon, that sort of deal. Kidnapped, wandless, and mid-crucio in some undisclosed basement with a torturer who could not be bribed nor negotiated with certainly qualified. The perks, innate abilities, and magical affinities purchased through the CYOA were nerfed into the ground during this time.

It wouldn't be a test otherwise.

I slumped. It wasn't as though my perks were combat-focused anyway. No, no wandless magic, physical fitness, or the bloodline of some powerful magical beast. I went the seer-route. Past-Corbin thought it'd be funny to take every single perk and talent related to divination, up to and including Fate and Time affinities, all for the purpose of creating a competent seer who had some measure of control over his abilities.

Fuck…

The bright side was, if I survived this, Fate would acknowledge my right to exist in this world, providing me with a vial of enhanced felix felicis as a reward, or perhaps a peace offering.

I cast another dose of episkey on myself and closed my eyes. I had to try. Divination was one of the few talents that didn't require a wand. Crystal balls. Tea leaves. Bone fragments. Tarot cards. Zodiac signs and birth gems. Sometimes just someone's palms. Sometimes none of those things.

Would I survive? Would I be rescued? I had to know. I had to try. Anything was better than this.

Just twenty-four hours. If I could hold out that long, the drawback mandated Fate would pull back its bitchfest. Worst Day Ever ended with the holder of the drawback fainting, which implied survival or rescue. It meant my chances of survival in the long run would rise dramatically. If I couldn't… Surely I could ram my head hard enough against the wall to end it…

I took a deep, shuddering breath. I tried to look within myself, to find something, anything, that could hint at the Sight. Innate talents were greatly weakened while Worst Day Ever was active but weakened didn't mean gone… right…? It wasn't impossible to know.

"Come on, Fate, you bitch, give me this," I begged, my voice a raspy whisper.

I had no idea what I was searching for. Needless to say, Corbin came from a world without magic. Blaise wasn't exactly a studious prodigy. It was a hail mary, a desperate attempt to grasp at straws. All I knew was that Blaise Zabini was definitely a wizard and so it should theoretically be possible.

I didn't know how long I tried to find my magic. Seconds seemed to stretch on forever. And then, I heard the door creak open.

My heart fell through my stomach as my eyes flickered towards the stairwell, only to find it was still shut. She hadn't returned yet.

One second. Two… Three…

There was that creak again.

"I'm back~" she sang like a third rate horror movie villain. I wanted to call her on it but the promise of drowning right back in that ocean of pain strangled the words in my throat. She skipped down the stairs. I didn't know if she went to eat or sleep or whatever but she was back and ready to make me regret breathing again.

I blinked as she repeated the motions. The dissonance in time was just wide enough for me to notice. Taking a deep breath, I counted again.

Three seconds. Three. Fucking. Seconds. What the hell was this bullshit? I knew my powers would be dimminished here but what the fuck, Fate?

The torture began again and molten lead flooded my veins. I screamed and laughed in abject hysteria. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't some shonen hero who could make three seconds work for him. I wasn't motherfucking Monkey D. Luffy! Three seconds was fuck all!

I bent and contorted myself, howling in agony. Her curse struck, then struck again as reality caught up with my Sight. The Sight was worse than useless; it forced me to see it coming twice over. What little vitality I managed to recover thanks to my spell ring was undone in moments.

I coughed, spitting blood onto the oaken floor. It looked a lot like spilt wine in the orange light.

"Sweetheart, we're just getting started."

X

After an eternity of this, she was tiring again. Or maybe she was getting bored. No matter how obsessive she was, there had to be a limit, right? Ever so slowly, the rate of her crucios was trickling to a stop. My Sight made me obsess over time, counting the seconds until reality rubber-banded and caught up to my visions. The time between each curse ticked up, second by second, and I could think again.

'I have to make my move,' I realized. If I did nothing, she really would kill me. Or I'd go insane like the Longbottoms. It didn't matter; as far as I was concerned, true death and death of identity were one and the same.

She paused to catch her breath and leaned against the wall. I used those precious seconds to think of a plan. It was risky, but what wasn't at this point?

She had been arrogant, thinking that a boy who hadn't even gotten to Hogwarts couldn't' possibly be a threat. She hadn't bothered to tie my wrists or search me for weapons, not that I had any.

But I did have my ring. A crazy plan began to take shape.

When she returned to her torture, I brought my right fist to my mouth and did my level best to swallow it whole. I felt the ripping of flesh and the warmth of blood as my teeth bit down uncontrollably.

"Argghhhh," I screamed into my fist.

She paused to laugh at me. "Aww, you've screamed enough, don't you think, Blaise? There's no need to muffle your screams now. Or are you trying to be a big man?"

I ignored her. My blood hid my ring as I tugged it off with my teeth. I tasted metal, though whether blood or gold I couldn't say. I tucked it beneath my tongue and waited for the right moment. Three seconds. I'd get a mere three second's warning.

"Does this fix anything?" I asked between ragged breaths.

"No, sweetie, but it does make me feel better," she replied with an unhinged smile. "Your whore of a mother started this. Blame her."

I hated what I had to do. I needed her to be pissed, absolutely livid. I needed her seeing red, so focused on hurting me that nothing else would register.

So, I cracked a bloody smile, I'd bitten down hard enough to fracture my own teeth at some point. "Don't worry, I do blame her for this bullshit. I'm jealous, you know?"

"What are you talking about?"

I shot her the most insufferable grin I could. "At least he got a good fuck in before he croaked."

"You shut your mouth! Crucio!"

I saw it coming in slow motion. I saw it coming twice, once as my power kicked in and another as reality caught up to my vision. The red bolt moved towards me and I had no way to avoid it. So, I didn't bother.

Instead, with what little strength I could muster, I spat my ring beneath her heel as she bolted to her feet. The magic ring caught itself between her foot and the oak floor. It skidded along the floor and took her right foot with it, causing her to collapse with a squawk of surprise. The first, predicted bolt struck my chest. The second struck the space to my left as her aim flew wide..

I'd look back on this moment as the very first prophecy I'd broken. It was barely anything, a mere three seconds, but those precious seconds were a matter of life and death for me.

Her yelp of surprise was cut off abruptly as she struck her head on the wall she had been leaning against. The force sent my ring rolling back towards me and I snatched it from the ground as fast as my trembling hands allowed.

I put the ring back on, made easier by the slick blood covering my hand, and called, "Episkey."

I groaned audibly in relief but I had no time to waste. Episkey wasn't a counter to the crucio, something so convenient didn't exist. All it could do was relieve the symptoms. Its soothing magic calmed the tremors and cleared my vision, just enough to fight back.

I scrambled to my feet. My muscles burned and rebelled with every motion. There was a large part of me that wanted to give in, to just let her have her petty revenge and go to sleep forever. I couldn't.

I did not lunge for her. I instead stumbled my way to the lamp hanging next to the stairwell and removed it from the wall-mounted hook. It was made of sturdy wrought-iron, heavy enough to make my weakened arms shake from the weight.

I paused and did my best to focus as reality twisted and expanded like a slinky. Then, time contracted like a rubber band as the present caught up to my vision. Three seconds. I knew where she would be. With a roar born more of desperation than courage, I lobbed the lantern at her head. And thanks to my vision, I struck true.

The lamp couldn't have been more than ten pounds but it was just enough to daze her. I saw her loosen her grip on her wand and dove for it before she could recover.

"No!" she cried as I snapped it over my knee. Feeling the wood splinter in my grip was the single most satisfying thing I'd ever done.

I collapsed to my knees; I couldn't stand any longer. The combination of relief and vindication struck me like a physical force. Still, I had to move. I doubted I could fight off a toddler the way I was now. If I allowed her to catch her breath, she'd strangle me to death.

So I crawled. I crawled over her until I straddled her chest and did my best to pin her arms beneath my knees. I wouldn't win any title belts anytime soon but I managed. That she was mildly concussed and possibly malnourished and sleep-deprived helped.

'It's her or me,' I told myself. I did the only thing I could think of: I shoved both halves of her wand through her eyes, splintered points first.

"Ahhh!" she shrieked. I learned that day that eyeballs were uncomfortably durable. Instead of piercing through, I felt the wand fragments skid along the sclera until they reached her tear ducts. Then they sank in with a squelching noise that made me wince.

Neither wound was deep enough, not with my flagging strength.

Her scream sent a blood-curdling chill down my spine. I'd been in a handful of scraps as Corbin, a bar fight that my idiot friend started back in college, a schoolyard scuffle in middle school, but nothing like this. I'd never really hurt anyone before, never intentionally maimed anyone before.

But I kept going. I had to do worse than this if I wanted to survive. I told myself that she deserved it. She kidnapped some kid for the express purpose of slowly torturing him to death. If there was unredeemable evil, this was it. Besides, this was nothing compared to the agony of the torture curse.

I hardened my heart and reached out for the lamp even as I dry-heaved. My hands shook so I cast another episkey on myself. Then I brought the lamp down on her head.

"No, plea-" she tried to beg. Part of her must have seen it coming. Maybe I didn't cut the optic nerve.

Lift. Down.

Again.

And again.

Something in my chest burned and ached as I continued to heal myself even as I caved in her skull. I didn't know how long I carried on like that. Her screams became a whimper and slowly trickled to a stop. I didn't know when; I couldn't keep track. It was horrifying and therapeutic and hypnotic all at once, a droning rhythm that lured me into the task with the desperation of the dying. Not even the burn of magical exhaustion stopped me; I'd become very good at ignoring pain these past few hours.

When I stopped, her head was a bloody slurry and my arms felt like they'd fall off. The burn in my chest had gotten intolerable now. Something innate warned me that I couldn't continue like this. Anything more was suicide. I knew instinctively that even a single cast of episkey would kill me.

I slumped forward, still straddling this stranger's body. My head hit the floor and I was intimately introduced to the feeling of cooling brain matter. The thought of just what I was lying in made me empty my stomach again.

With supreme effort, I turned my body around so I could look at the door, the magically locked and soundproofed door.

A renewed wave of hopelessness crashed down on me. That hopelessness became relief; at least I'd get to die in peace. As the corners of my vision darkened and unconsciousness crept closer, I rolled myself onto my back with the last of my strength and lifted a shaking middle finger to the ceiling.

Worst. Day. Ever.

Author's Note

Believe it or not, I intended this to be a comedy for April Fool's.

Will this go on official rotation? Ehh… probably not. I think you guys like my other stories enough that I'm not sure it's a good idea to add yet another thing for me to juggle. People have been telling me to update my quests enough as it is. This might change if I ever build a big enough backlog of this story, but for now, enjoy the free chapters.

I've been on a Harry Potter kick lately and realized that as one of the oldest fandoms around, it's got a ton of tropes. I wanted to do a mashup of different trope ideas like I did with Plan? What Plan? with a trollish seer similar to Bryce as the main character. Again, was supposed to be a comedy before it took on a life of its own.

I still intend for that to happen eventually, but I wanted to start with a CYOA. It's this one if you're curious: kondor9543 .neocities HPcyoa/. I talked about some of the choices in the chapter. We'll see the rest next time.

I want Blaise to be a jaded, sarcastic shitheel who uses his knowledge to fuck with people for shits and giggles. How that became this, I'm not sure of myself…

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.