Part XII: Zacharias’ counting up all his wrongs, one sorry for each star (26 December, 2002)
Title: Tart Noir Around and About Vertick Alley
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Tart Noir, crime-romance
Pairings: Lavender/Zacharias, Draco/Ron, Susan/Blaise, Zacharias/Ginny ...
Summary: Lavender Brown is part of the investigation into the murders of the children of Death Eaters and is madly in love with her flatmate and best friend, Zacharias Smith. Ron Weasley is babysitting Draco Malfoy and sick of being gay in a terribly straight Wizarding World. Susan Bones doesn't get patronuses and is not having a relationship with Blaise Zabini. Zacharias Smith is sick of his job and thinks he might ask Ginny Weasley to move in with him. Mr Darcy, the flatmate's cat, thinks they're all bloody ridiculous. Four twenty-one year olds suffering with work, love and life.
Notes: So much for me keeping to the case, I'm afraid. A lot of Zacharias and his shitty relationships in this one. I promise the next will have more hints. Also, I'm aiming to finish this by Christmas as I'm going overseas for six months, plus exams are over, so expect more frequent updates.
I spent the rest of Christmas with my mother and father, trying to ignore the visions of Lavender Brown dance through my head. Mother thought I was coming down with something. “You’re working to hard at that awful place, Zacharias,” she said. Mother doesn’t have an especially high opinion of tabloids. “You need to have a break.” I ended up staying the night in my childhood room, it was just easier than going back to my flat.
So I didn’t see the article until mid-afternoon.
“Lavender’s going to kil you,” Ron says, as I walk through the door.
“You bastard. You absolute bastard.” Her cheeks are red with anger and her hair is sticking up every which way. “I am this close to killing you.”
“What?” I protest. “What did I do?”
“Oh nothing,” she snarls. “Nothing at all. Just leaked personal details about Harry and Parvati to the press.”
“You idiot, Zacharias,” Ron says, shaking his head.
And then I remember. I left the appartment on Christmas and was ambushed by Rita Skeeter. I’ve met her at work, several times. “Zacharias, darling. Merry Christmas.”
“You too, Rita. Now, what do you want?”
“Details,” she had said. “About the serial killer cases. I know you flat with one of the criminalists involved, Lavender Brown.”
“Lav’s just a lab rat. Can’t help you.”
“How is Harry Potter coping with this all?”
“Not very well.”
“Oh the poor boy,” she clucks in false sympathy. “And Parvati?”
“No change. Now, good day, Miss Skeeter.”
I take a look at the article as she waves the magazine in front of my face. “A close friend of Harry Potter, Zacharias Smith, informs me that Harry Potter is not coping very well with his fiancee’s attack at all. He hasn’t slept since the attacks, Zacharias tells me, and is becoming gaunt with misery. There is no change with Miss Patil, but the scarring that she has endured has made her almost unrecognisable. This reporter must wonder if Harry Potter will be able to love her after this.”
I don’t know what’s more ludicrous, the assertion that Harry is becoming gaunt with misery or that I am a close friend of his. “I did not say this,” I say, angrily.
“So you’re denying that you ever talked to her?” Lavender yells. “That she just picked your name out of a hat?”
“No, I talked to her…”
“You cock,” Lavender screams and, throwing the newspaper at me, she runs out of the room.
“All’s not well in paradise,” Susan notes, coming out of her bedroom, ink smeared down one cheek.
“I said about five words to that foul woman,” I say. “I said Harry wasn’t coping very well and that there was no change with Parvati. Ron, d’you think she’ll let me explain?”
“I’d let her calm down about it first,” he says. “Now, I have a question, just what is my sister doing in the gossip column of Witch Weekly?”
“What?” I exclaim and grab the magazine from him. ”Ginny Weasley, a law student and war hero, has been seen several days ago on a dance floor in passionate embrace with a mysterious young man. Zacharias Smith, her supposed boyfriend, was not available for comment.”
“Why is this in the columns?” Ron demands.
“I wasn’t going to tell you this,” I say, gulping audibly, “but we sort of had an argument and I think we’ve broken up.”
“You sort of had an argument? You think you’ve broken up?” Ron says incredulously, almost shouting.
“I thought we might get back together so I didn’t say anything, but obviously, we’re not going to.”
Susan snorts. “And there’s the fact that you slept with Lavender right after the fight.”
“You know about that?” I say, horrified.
“You what?” Ron yells at the same time.
Susan smirks. “I’ll let you two boys fight it out. Walls like cardboard, Zacharias. Remember that.”
“Ron, I am so sorry,” I say, edging for the door. “I am such a prick.”
His clenched fists loosen and he sinks onto the sofa. “No. I don’t think I’m one to talk at all.”
“I’m sorry?” This is not the hot-headed Ron Weasley, who beat the shit out of me this time last year when he found out I was dating his sister.
“I kissed Draco Malfoy.”
“You what?”
“I kissed Draco Malfoy,” Ron yells.
Susan reappears in the doorway. “It’s like a trashy romance novel at this flat. Am I the only one with any sense?”
I laugh at Susan, and when Ron has told us the whole sordid tale, he makes me promise to go and see Ginny. And soon. So I wander down the street, down to Ginny’s flat. My heart is thumping madly by the time I reach her door. She’s going to hurt me. She will probably kill me and eat my body. I’ve had enough Bat Bogey Hexes from her at Hogwarts to know this sort of transgression will lead to a sudden and painful death.
“Ginny home?” I ask her flatmate, Bella.
She licks her red lips and grins. “Yeah. In her room.” She steps aside and allows me in.
“Gin?” I ask hesitantly, knocking on her door and peeping in. She’s lying on her bed, reading Witch Weekly.
“I’m a star,” she says, laughing bitterly.
“Can we talk?” I sit down on the end of her bed. “Look, after I left you, I did something pretty wrong.”
“Ditto.”
“Pardon?”
“I said, ditto. I probably did the same sort of stupid you did.”
“Slept with someone you shouldn’t have?”
“You slept with Lavender?”
“And the mysterious stranger was your law tutor?”
She goes red. Perhaps I’m not going to die after all. I lie down next to her on the spangled quilt. “Any good?”
“Pretty fabulous. Absolute sleazeball though. How was Lavender?”
“I think I may just love her,” I say.
Ginny grins sadly. “I know you do. I’ve known it since we started dating.” She places her hand in mine and squeezes it.
“I do love you, you know?”
“There are lots of different types of love,” she observes. “Shall I tell Ron I broke your arm? It’ll make him happy.”
“He’s not allowed to judge me.”
“You blackmailed him?”
“He brought it entirely upon himself,” I grin.
She leans her head on my shoulder. “How’s Parvati?”
“No change.” I spot the grin on her face. “But you know that. I swear I did not say any of that rubbish to Rita Skeeter.”
“I know sweetie. I’ve had plenty of experience with the woman.”
“Unfortunately, I haven’t had enough it seems.”
“Well, at least you’re not ‘Ginny Weasley, law student and war hero’.” She grins, and I know she’s not really upset.
“No, I’m Harry Potter’s close friend.” I laugh. “Potter and I have never been friends. I made a point of never being friends with the Chosen One.”
“Oi,” she elbows me in the stomach. “Harry’s one of my best friends.”
“You’re also best mates with Bella. That girl’s dangerous.”
“She just likes you. If it doesn’t work out with Lavender she’ll quite happily sleep with you.”
“It’s good to know I have that option.”
“We work better as friends, don’t we?” she asks, leaning up on one elbow to look at me. I stare at the ceiling.
“We do, don’t we?”
“Do you remember when we first told Ron?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone’s face turn that red.”
“If I hadn’t threatened him with a particularly painful jinx, he would’ve hit you. Not good at thinking with his wand when he’s angry, my big brother.”
“You’re a one to talk,” I smirk. “I think I still have a scar on my arm from that time you ripped a chunk out of it.”
“I’d just like to mention that you fully deserved that.”
“Did not.”
“The chocolates you got me had peanuts in them. I broke out in hives, couldn’t breathe and missed the inter-league Quidditch final game because I was at St Mungos, re-learning how to use my lungs. I think you deserved to lose a bit of flesh.”
“If you want to call that a deserving reason,” I mutter. She rolls her eyes.
We spend the rest of the afternoon lying on her bed, swapping ‘Do you remembers’ before saying our goodbyes.
“I’m sure I’ll see you pretty frequently,” I say, kissing her forehead.
“Not if Ron has anything to do with it,” she grins. “We should do coffee soon.”
It’s getting dark as I leave, the stars starting to float into the purple skies. I don’t feel like going home, Lavender will still be angry, and I’m sure to see someone I know down at the Leaky Cauldron, so I head in that direction.
I settle down at the bar with a gillywater (it’s an utter girl drink, I know) and wave over Liz, Miles’ German secretary, who is looking absolutely exhausted.
“Rough Christmas?” I ask. She doesn’t sit down.
“Ya, tiring. Who’d have thought Christmas would be like so?” she laughs. “How was yours?”
“The same, yeah.”
“Damn being young,” she says, laughing.
I’m about to agree with another voice cuts in. “Mind if I have a word, Smith?” Blaise Zabini.
“I was just leaving,” Liz says, and, after giving me a hug, grabs her bag and heads out into the cold.
“What’s up, Zabini?” I ask. He looks like a wreck. Probably hasn’t slept in a good couple of days and, while usually a pretty snappy dresser, looks positively shabby in plain cotton robes.
“How much has Susan told you?”
“Susan? Hah. Absolutely nothing.”
“Figures.” He shrugs. “If she’d told you what had happened between us, she’d look like an idiot.”
“I already think Susan’s an idiot,” I assure him. “You’re quite welcome to tell me. I won’t let her know that I know. Promise.”
“You think I’m scared of Susan?”
“Well, yes. She’s freaking terrifying.”
Blaise laughs. “I know. Didn’t think of that when I bought the engagement ring.”
“You asked her to marry you?” I snort. I can’t help it. The idea’s just so ridiculous.
“No, I was going to. Then she found the ring in my pocket and jumped to all sorts of insane conclusions.”
“What? Like you were going to propose? The madness of it all.”
“Shut up, Smith,” Blaise says, unimpressed. “What should I do?”
“What did she ask you to do?”
“Leave her alone for ever, essentially.”
I draw in a sharp breath. “Nasty. I take it you haven’t followed this recommendation?”
“Fuck, Smith. Would you stay away from someone you loved just because they told you to?”
“I think that might be the sort of defense a stalker would use,” I say lightly, trying not to betray my own issues. “How have you been trying to get her attention?”
“I owled her on Christmas, she replied with a blank envelope so I floo-called her. We had an argument and then she poured water over my head.”
“Sounds like Susan.”
“You’re not helping, Smith.” His fists are clenched. It’s probably taking all his willpower not to hurt me.
I rub my forehead and take another sip of my drink. “Merlin, I don’t know what you should do. Generally I just do exactly what she says, and quickly. Probably giving her some space, make her realise that she does, in fact, care about you, would be an idea.”
“You think she actually cares about me?” Blaise asks, and there is a wild hope in his eyes.
“Have you seen her when she hasn’t been around you for a while? She’s cranky and volatile and utterly incapable of rational thought. I think she might care, just a little bit. Just give her some space and she’ll get there eventually.”
He grins, white teeth shining. “Thanks Smith. See you around,” and he’s apparated away.
I drain my drink (I’m tired, it’s late and I want nothing more than a good night’s sleep in my own bed) and leave the Leaky Cauldron. The cobbled streets of Diagon Alley are quiet and I wander back to the flat, hoping everyone’s in bed. And by everyone, I mean Lavender.
No such luck. She’s lying on the couch, Mr Darcy curled up on her stomach, purring like the Hogwarts Express at full throttle. “Hello,” she says stiffly, looking away from me.
“Can I explain?”
“No. I don’t want to hear it.”
I shrug. “Okay. Whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m going to move out after the new year.”
And then I realise that I’m not just falling in love with her, I’m already there and it fucking hurts.
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Tart Noir, crime-romance
Pairings: Lavender/Zacharias, Draco/Ron, Susan/Blaise, Zacharias/Ginny ...
Summary: Lavender Brown is part of the investigation into the murders of the children of Death Eaters and is madly in love with her flatmate and best friend, Zacharias Smith. Ron Weasley is babysitting Draco Malfoy and sick of being gay in a terribly straight Wizarding World. Susan Bones doesn't get patronuses and is not having a relationship with Blaise Zabini. Zacharias Smith is sick of his job and thinks he might ask Ginny Weasley to move in with him. Mr Darcy, the flatmate's cat, thinks they're all bloody ridiculous. Four twenty-one year olds suffering with work, love and life.
Notes: So much for me keeping to the case, I'm afraid. A lot of Zacharias and his shitty relationships in this one. I promise the next will have more hints. Also, I'm aiming to finish this by Christmas as I'm going overseas for six months, plus exams are over, so expect more frequent updates.
I spent the rest of Christmas with my mother and father, trying to ignore the visions of Lavender Brown dance through my head. Mother thought I was coming down with something. “You’re working to hard at that awful place, Zacharias,” she said. Mother doesn’t have an especially high opinion of tabloids. “You need to have a break.” I ended up staying the night in my childhood room, it was just easier than going back to my flat.
So I didn’t see the article until mid-afternoon.
“Lavender’s going to kil you,” Ron says, as I walk through the door.
“You bastard. You absolute bastard.” Her cheeks are red with anger and her hair is sticking up every which way. “I am this close to killing you.”
“What?” I protest. “What did I do?”
“Oh nothing,” she snarls. “Nothing at all. Just leaked personal details about Harry and Parvati to the press.”
“You idiot, Zacharias,” Ron says, shaking his head.
And then I remember. I left the appartment on Christmas and was ambushed by Rita Skeeter. I’ve met her at work, several times. “Zacharias, darling. Merry Christmas.”
“You too, Rita. Now, what do you want?”
“Details,” she had said. “About the serial killer cases. I know you flat with one of the criminalists involved, Lavender Brown.”
“Lav’s just a lab rat. Can’t help you.”
“How is Harry Potter coping with this all?”
“Not very well.”
“Oh the poor boy,” she clucks in false sympathy. “And Parvati?”
“No change. Now, good day, Miss Skeeter.”
I take a look at the article as she waves the magazine in front of my face. “A close friend of Harry Potter, Zacharias Smith, informs me that Harry Potter is not coping very well with his fiancee’s attack at all. He hasn’t slept since the attacks, Zacharias tells me, and is becoming gaunt with misery. There is no change with Miss Patil, but the scarring that she has endured has made her almost unrecognisable. This reporter must wonder if Harry Potter will be able to love her after this.”
I don’t know what’s more ludicrous, the assertion that Harry is becoming gaunt with misery or that I am a close friend of his. “I did not say this,” I say, angrily.
“So you’re denying that you ever talked to her?” Lavender yells. “That she just picked your name out of a hat?”
“No, I talked to her…”
“You cock,” Lavender screams and, throwing the newspaper at me, she runs out of the room.
“All’s not well in paradise,” Susan notes, coming out of her bedroom, ink smeared down one cheek.
“I said about five words to that foul woman,” I say. “I said Harry wasn’t coping very well and that there was no change with Parvati. Ron, d’you think she’ll let me explain?”
“I’d let her calm down about it first,” he says. “Now, I have a question, just what is my sister doing in the gossip column of Witch Weekly?”
“What?” I exclaim and grab the magazine from him. ”Ginny Weasley, a law student and war hero, has been seen several days ago on a dance floor in passionate embrace with a mysterious young man. Zacharias Smith, her supposed boyfriend, was not available for comment.”
“Why is this in the columns?” Ron demands.
“I wasn’t going to tell you this,” I say, gulping audibly, “but we sort of had an argument and I think we’ve broken up.”
“You sort of had an argument? You think you’ve broken up?” Ron says incredulously, almost shouting.
“I thought we might get back together so I didn’t say anything, but obviously, we’re not going to.”
Susan snorts. “And there’s the fact that you slept with Lavender right after the fight.”
“You know about that?” I say, horrified.
“You what?” Ron yells at the same time.
Susan smirks. “I’ll let you two boys fight it out. Walls like cardboard, Zacharias. Remember that.”
“Ron, I am so sorry,” I say, edging for the door. “I am such a prick.”
His clenched fists loosen and he sinks onto the sofa. “No. I don’t think I’m one to talk at all.”
“I’m sorry?” This is not the hot-headed Ron Weasley, who beat the shit out of me this time last year when he found out I was dating his sister.
“I kissed Draco Malfoy.”
“You what?”
“I kissed Draco Malfoy,” Ron yells.
Susan reappears in the doorway. “It’s like a trashy romance novel at this flat. Am I the only one with any sense?”
I laugh at Susan, and when Ron has told us the whole sordid tale, he makes me promise to go and see Ginny. And soon. So I wander down the street, down to Ginny’s flat. My heart is thumping madly by the time I reach her door. She’s going to hurt me. She will probably kill me and eat my body. I’ve had enough Bat Bogey Hexes from her at Hogwarts to know this sort of transgression will lead to a sudden and painful death.
“Ginny home?” I ask her flatmate, Bella.
She licks her red lips and grins. “Yeah. In her room.” She steps aside and allows me in.
“Gin?” I ask hesitantly, knocking on her door and peeping in. She’s lying on her bed, reading Witch Weekly.
“I’m a star,” she says, laughing bitterly.
“Can we talk?” I sit down on the end of her bed. “Look, after I left you, I did something pretty wrong.”
“Ditto.”
“Pardon?”
“I said, ditto. I probably did the same sort of stupid you did.”
“Slept with someone you shouldn’t have?”
“You slept with Lavender?”
“And the mysterious stranger was your law tutor?”
She goes red. Perhaps I’m not going to die after all. I lie down next to her on the spangled quilt. “Any good?”
“Pretty fabulous. Absolute sleazeball though. How was Lavender?”
“I think I may just love her,” I say.
Ginny grins sadly. “I know you do. I’ve known it since we started dating.” She places her hand in mine and squeezes it.
“I do love you, you know?”
“There are lots of different types of love,” she observes. “Shall I tell Ron I broke your arm? It’ll make him happy.”
“He’s not allowed to judge me.”
“You blackmailed him?”
“He brought it entirely upon himself,” I grin.
She leans her head on my shoulder. “How’s Parvati?”
“No change.” I spot the grin on her face. “But you know that. I swear I did not say any of that rubbish to Rita Skeeter.”
“I know sweetie. I’ve had plenty of experience with the woman.”
“Unfortunately, I haven’t had enough it seems.”
“Well, at least you’re not ‘Ginny Weasley, law student and war hero’.” She grins, and I know she’s not really upset.
“No, I’m Harry Potter’s close friend.” I laugh. “Potter and I have never been friends. I made a point of never being friends with the Chosen One.”
“Oi,” she elbows me in the stomach. “Harry’s one of my best friends.”
“You’re also best mates with Bella. That girl’s dangerous.”
“She just likes you. If it doesn’t work out with Lavender she’ll quite happily sleep with you.”
“It’s good to know I have that option.”
“We work better as friends, don’t we?” she asks, leaning up on one elbow to look at me. I stare at the ceiling.
“We do, don’t we?”
“Do you remember when we first told Ron?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone’s face turn that red.”
“If I hadn’t threatened him with a particularly painful jinx, he would’ve hit you. Not good at thinking with his wand when he’s angry, my big brother.”
“You’re a one to talk,” I smirk. “I think I still have a scar on my arm from that time you ripped a chunk out of it.”
“I’d just like to mention that you fully deserved that.”
“Did not.”
“The chocolates you got me had peanuts in them. I broke out in hives, couldn’t breathe and missed the inter-league Quidditch final game because I was at St Mungos, re-learning how to use my lungs. I think you deserved to lose a bit of flesh.”
“If you want to call that a deserving reason,” I mutter. She rolls her eyes.
We spend the rest of the afternoon lying on her bed, swapping ‘Do you remembers’ before saying our goodbyes.
“I’m sure I’ll see you pretty frequently,” I say, kissing her forehead.
“Not if Ron has anything to do with it,” she grins. “We should do coffee soon.”
It’s getting dark as I leave, the stars starting to float into the purple skies. I don’t feel like going home, Lavender will still be angry, and I’m sure to see someone I know down at the Leaky Cauldron, so I head in that direction.
I settle down at the bar with a gillywater (it’s an utter girl drink, I know) and wave over Liz, Miles’ German secretary, who is looking absolutely exhausted.
“Rough Christmas?” I ask. She doesn’t sit down.
“Ya, tiring. Who’d have thought Christmas would be like so?” she laughs. “How was yours?”
“The same, yeah.”
“Damn being young,” she says, laughing.
I’m about to agree with another voice cuts in. “Mind if I have a word, Smith?” Blaise Zabini.
“I was just leaving,” Liz says, and, after giving me a hug, grabs her bag and heads out into the cold.
“What’s up, Zabini?” I ask. He looks like a wreck. Probably hasn’t slept in a good couple of days and, while usually a pretty snappy dresser, looks positively shabby in plain cotton robes.
“How much has Susan told you?”
“Susan? Hah. Absolutely nothing.”
“Figures.” He shrugs. “If she’d told you what had happened between us, she’d look like an idiot.”
“I already think Susan’s an idiot,” I assure him. “You’re quite welcome to tell me. I won’t let her know that I know. Promise.”
“You think I’m scared of Susan?”
“Well, yes. She’s freaking terrifying.”
Blaise laughs. “I know. Didn’t think of that when I bought the engagement ring.”
“You asked her to marry you?” I snort. I can’t help it. The idea’s just so ridiculous.
“No, I was going to. Then she found the ring in my pocket and jumped to all sorts of insane conclusions.”
“What? Like you were going to propose? The madness of it all.”
“Shut up, Smith,” Blaise says, unimpressed. “What should I do?”
“What did she ask you to do?”
“Leave her alone for ever, essentially.”
I draw in a sharp breath. “Nasty. I take it you haven’t followed this recommendation?”
“Fuck, Smith. Would you stay away from someone you loved just because they told you to?”
“I think that might be the sort of defense a stalker would use,” I say lightly, trying not to betray my own issues. “How have you been trying to get her attention?”
“I owled her on Christmas, she replied with a blank envelope so I floo-called her. We had an argument and then she poured water over my head.”
“Sounds like Susan.”
“You’re not helping, Smith.” His fists are clenched. It’s probably taking all his willpower not to hurt me.
I rub my forehead and take another sip of my drink. “Merlin, I don’t know what you should do. Generally I just do exactly what she says, and quickly. Probably giving her some space, make her realise that she does, in fact, care about you, would be an idea.”
“You think she actually cares about me?” Blaise asks, and there is a wild hope in his eyes.
“Have you seen her when she hasn’t been around you for a while? She’s cranky and volatile and utterly incapable of rational thought. I think she might care, just a little bit. Just give her some space and she’ll get there eventually.”
He grins, white teeth shining. “Thanks Smith. See you around,” and he’s apparated away.
I drain my drink (I’m tired, it’s late and I want nothing more than a good night’s sleep in my own bed) and leave the Leaky Cauldron. The cobbled streets of Diagon Alley are quiet and I wander back to the flat, hoping everyone’s in bed. And by everyone, I mean Lavender.
No such luck. She’s lying on the couch, Mr Darcy curled up on her stomach, purring like the Hogwarts Express at full throttle. “Hello,” she says stiffly, looking away from me.
“Can I explain?”
“No. I don’t want to hear it.”
I shrug. “Okay. Whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m going to move out after the new year.”
And then I realise that I’m not just falling in love with her, I’m already there and it fucking hurts.