Challenge #002: Secondary Character (1 challenge, 3 fics)
Title: Five Facts about Zacharias Smith
Rating/Warnings: G
Characters: Zacharias, a bit of Justin
Summary: Some random facts about Zacharias Smith.
Word Count: 1721
Registered purchases?: Both!
i.
Zacharias Smith is born Zacharias Isaac Smith on January 14, 1980. He is the firstborn son of Abraham and Elisabeth Smith, distant relatives and not-quite-heirs to Hepzibah Smith, known to be a direct descendant of Helga Hufflepuff. Not many people know this considering Smith is a fairly common surname, and Zacharias likes it that way, even though he was not surprised in the least when the Hat Sorted him into Hufflepuff.
(He hates the color yellow. He always has, but it is a color associated with him regardless of this disdain. It is the color of his hair, the color of his House, the color of his robes.)
He has a happy enough childhood. His parents take him to many different places so he sees a lot of the world before he is even old enough to receive his letter from Hogwarts. He is never as interested in them, however, as he becomes when his father first takes him to a Quidditch game while they are in Cardiff for another holiday.
From there he is hooked for life.
He receives his Hogwarts letter the summer after he turns eleven, and he is not surprised at all by this. His mother wipes a happy tear from her cheek and his father takes a deep hit of his tobacco before he begins setting plans for the family trip to Diagon Alley. All Zacharias wants to know is whether his parents will allow him a broom his second year. (They say they'll think about it.)
He has been to Diagon Alley before so the trip brings no new surprises save for the murmurs at The Leaky Cauldron that Harry Potter was seen earlier that day and that he, too, is to start his schooling.
His mother hopes he might be Sorted into Hufflepuff so that Zacharias can be friends with him, but his father says it's likelier he'll be a Gryffindor as his parents were Sorted there.
Zacharias does not listen much to this conversation, because just then they happen upon Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour and he wants to know if he can have a float, please and thank you.
ii.
When Zacharias is three years old his mother sits him down in the parlor, tells him there is something he must know. She places her hand on her stomach and, with his father's arms wrapped around hers, she tells Zacharias he is to become a brother very soon.
Zacharias is a little confused by this development. He wants to know where his brother will be coming from and how his parents know that for sure, but his mother tells him he's to have a little sister and Zacharias wrinkles his nose then. Can't he have a brother instead, he asks, and his father laughs.
Maybe next time, his father says, but his mother only raises an eyebrow. They whisper to each other and laugh in the secret, grown-up way they usually do when they don't think Zacharias is looking, and Zacharias asks them about the other questions he had. They tell him some story about a special magical creature that deposits babies down chimneys when a family has been really, really good, and they tell him that they expect her to arrive sometime in the next few months, although they do not know exactly when.
His mother wants to know if he has any names he'd like for his baby sister and he offers Baby as a suggestion.
Rebecca Catherine Smith is born on a bright May day. Zacharias does not know exactly what happens, only that he is woken up in bed by his father, and that they are hurrying to the hospital (what about the chimney, he asks, and his father mumbles something about the creature going to the hospital instead) and then he is made to wait outside a room for a really long time.
When he is finally asked to come in, he sees his mother with a swaddle of clothing. Come meet your sister, she coaxes Zacharias, and he peers at her curiously before deciding that she is boring.
She grows up less so, but she's always after his own toys and his toy broom and she nags him constantly, and to make matters worse, when she goes to Hogwarts she is also Sorted into Hufflepuff like him.
He never forgets to let a day go by without reminding her that she is annoying, until the day when the Battle of Hogwarts takes place and he realizes, just as the rest of Dumbledore's Army are fighting, that he hasn't seen Rebecca in a really long time. He fights through a throng of first years shouting her name, and when he finds her, cowering and hidden behind one of the classrooms, he hugs her hard and never lets her go.
iii.
He watches Quidditch for the first time when he is six years old.
His first Quidditch match featured the Wimbourne Wasps and the Appleby Arrows. His father grew up an Arrows fan and so he tells Zacharias everything there ever was to know about Quidditch. He spends the entire afternoon fascinated, watching the players as they zoom around the pitch and score with Quaffles and avoid the Bludgers. He screams when the Chaser nearly makes another goal, claps gleefully when the Keeper stops an attempt by the other team's Chaser, and yells with the crowd when the Arrows' Seeker catches the Snitch.
He is still excited and happy and he spends the afternoon telling his mother all about the amazing game he just saw, and he never quite forgets it.
They don't go to matches all that often but he and his father often listen on the wireless. He sits on his father's lap, rapt and excited, as the commentator makes the calls and lets his own excitement carry him away. The Arrows win the Championship after a fifteen-year drought when he is ten years old; it is the happiest memory of his life and one of the many that he uses to conjure his first Patronus.
iv.
Zacharias Smith meets Justin Finch-Fletchley not at Hogwarts Express, not at the Sorting line, and not at the Feast that night, but afterward, when he descends into the tunnels leading to the first year boys' dorm and he finds himself sharing a room with four other boys. He recognizes Ernie Macmillan from a couple of parties his parents have attended--their parents are good friends, but he's never liked Ernie much--and the other two boys, Stephen and Wayne, are unfamiliar to him as well.
Justin is the first to say hello, the first to introduce himself. Justin talks a whole lot, and he is only too happy to tell them about his old home and how he was brought up by Muggles (he is Muggleborn, after all) and how he nearly went to Eton but he thought magic sounded much more fascinating at the end of the day. Zacharias tries to tune him out but he only nods and responds where appropriate.
He should not have gotten along with Justin as well as he does--he talks too much and is far too happy, he is not interested in Quidditch at all and he teases Zacharias for being cranky in the mornings--but Justin never does go away in the end. He is always there to help with homework or to whine about revisions, he shares his compartment at Hogwarts Express when Zacharias is running late again, and there is always a seat for him at The Three Broomsticks whenever they go down to visit Hogsmeade.
Zacharias wonders sometimes why Justin seems only too happy to put up with him but he isn't one to complain. He only notices sometimes that Justin never talks about girls and that whenever Zacharias does, Justin changes the subject immediately.
When he finds Justin snogging a Ravenclaw boy in the dorms one afternoon after Hogsmeade (Zacharias ate something that didn't agree with him so he decided to go back early) he finally understands why. Justin avoids him for as long as possible until Zacharias finally corners him after class one day and forces him to listen.
It's okay, he tells Justin, and even though now he sometimes still wishes Justin doesn't get into too much detail about his liaisons with other guys, he is looking forward to being Justin's best man when he gets married next month.
v.
If Zacharias had to choose he would have gotten into Quidditch after leaving Hogwarts, but the truth of it is he knows he's not nearly as good as any of the talent that the teams are considering. He doesn't really know what else he's good at either--his marks in most of his classes are piss-poor, and he suspects he only gets by most of them because his father is friends with most of his professors.
Nevertheless, after the battle is over and seventh year passed, he finds himself aimless for most of the summer.
His father finally introduces him to the Daily Prophet editor, tells Mr Vane that Zacharias is willing to do anything and everything so long as he gets to stay out of the family house eight hours a day for five days a week, and Vane gives him a quick once-over before sending him over to work the presses.
It is back-breaking, humiliating work for a wizard of Zacharias' standing (or a wizard of his family's standing, rather) but Zacharias finds he doesn't mind as much. He takes to the press quickly, and when the proof reader takes ill one night he even helps look over the copy.
He goes into Vane's office one day and asks if he can please be given a chance to write. Vane looks like he's trying to decide between laughing and refusing him outright, but to his surprise he offers Zacharias the St Mungo's beat. It is tedious work, he finds, as hardly anything that exciting happens in St Mungo's these days, but he takes to it with enthusiasm and dedication, and soon he is covering the Auror beat too. He finds he likes the task of finding the truth, of digging down to the fundamental facts, and he wonders how he doesn't figure it out sooner.
He is a Hufflepuff after all. It is the perfect job for him.
Word count points: 1721/30 = 57 pts
Bonus points: 10 pts
Title: The House that Theodore Nott Built
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, casual treatment of prostitution
Characters: Theodore Nott
Summary: Theodore Nott builds a house.
Word Count: 1114
Author's Notes: Um. I don't remember exactly why it started, but somehow in my head Theodore Nott slipped out of Britain after the Battle of Hogwarts and established a polyjuice brothel in Moldova. The details around this varies depending on the fic I write, but the basic premise remains. So... this is an interpretation of that head canon.
Registered purchases?: Both!
i.
At the edge of the wizarding world, where magic bleeds into the mundane, Theodore Nott builds a house.
Build may be an overexaggeration--there is already a house, after all. Its walls are made of rotting oak, its roof a crumbling thatch. The front lawn has been invaded by overzealous weeds and there is a small forest growing behind it. The windows are broken, the floor is musty and creaking from disuse. Behind the flimsy walls within Theodore can sense the rot and age and infestation of rodents who have made themselves home in a place where no one else has.
But it is spacious, and it is secluded, and so after the pipes break, brittle with rust and grime, when he touches it gently, he turns to the woman in the smart suit behind him and nods a little at her nervous smile.
He has but a few galleons in his pouch--the most he is able to squirrel out of the family vault when the Aurors came calling, almost the last of what he has left after a few weeks of getting by. "I'll take it," he announces.
ii.
It doesn't take a short time for Theodore to fix the house. There is magic, of course--charms that can fix a hole in a wall for a pinch, transfiguration spells that can conjure walls out of thin air, even, but the magic associated with architecture meant to last longer than a short while requires more effort, more energy to expend. He works on his house slowly but surely: when he nearly loses a leg after an errant footstep leaves a gaping hole in the living room he decides to work on the floors first. There is enough wood to use outside; he manages to cut enough for his specifications, laying them out board by board.
The walls are next, and these prove somewhat trickier. He goes to the nearest village, about half an hour's walk away, and there he befriends an Architectural Charmer who tells him what to do. In exchange for helping the Charmer brew a few potions for a witch he is interested in Theodore is able to reinforce the protective wards around his house, to make sure the walls are thick and sturdy.
The windows come next; he nearly cuts a finger attempting to take the rest of the jagged pieces out. He doesn't know what to replace them with, so in their place he puts up heating charms instead. Winter is soon to come, after all. The garden he hacks at with a rusty axe; the weeds he uproots with increasingly calloused fingers. When spring arrives with sunlight and showers there is enough brightness in the house that it becomes passable for a cottage, there is enough color within that it can almost be called home.
iii.
Theodore does not intend to take in guests but one day he comes home with a stray.
He passes by her as he is walking home, cutting through one of the city's seedier alleys. She murmurs at him from a shadowed corner of an alley, catcalls him and whispers filth in his ears when he makes the mistake of acknowledging her.
She can be had for less than half a galleon an hour, she says, even less than that if all he needs is her mouth. Theodore stares at her until she looks away. She is beautiful, he thinks, or perhaps it is that she once was beautiful, but her cheeks are too gaunt and her lips too red, her eyes too dark, enough to look more hunted than anything else. Her robes are pressed too tightly around her waist, tight enough to display whatever cleavage she has to offer, and her knees wobble with the height of her heels.
When he asks, she tells him she is only eighteen, and Theodore believes her.
He doesn't know what makes him do it then, but he asks her if he wants her to come home with him.
iv. the first client that comes in
There are more than a few available rooms in his cottage, and Anca (for that is her name) is surprised when Theodore only offers her a place to stay. She accuses him of cheating her out of her money but he tells her she's free to work as she pleases, only not in the streets. She looks at him incredulously but laughs when she realizes he is serious.
She takes her first client home that very night, and Theodore makes sure to put the silencing charms around each room.
He hears a crash out in the hallway and finds Anca struggling with a fat balding man who she yells is past his allotted time, and Theodore curses at him. He falls unconscious to the floor. Theodore Obliviates him and roots through his pockets to find all the money he can get. He gives ten galleons to Anca and takes down the silencing charms.
v.
Anca brings home two of her friends the very next day, and within the next month Theodore finds himself housing seven girls in his small home. There are a few spells he is able to use, charms that expand the rooms in the cottage or add extra space where there is none to be had. He gives each of them a room of their own; they are free to entertain as they are able and each month they give him a cut of their earnings. He is surprised at the amount he gets; it is more than what he has ever expected.
One day he passes by an apothecary; its owner is peddling Polyjuice potions for half the price. An idea blossoms in his head and he purchases the lot of them. The day after that he finds himself in the nearest Quidditch pitch; when nobody is looking he uses a concealment charm to sneak into the locker room.
He gets enough from the Harpies that all his girls can pretend to be a different player a night for the next week; their clients go wild for it and their earnings triple.
It is enough to attract even Muggles to the cottage, and there Theodore is careful that they don't notice the magic. (Their Muggle clients, however, provide the easiest to please. It becomes much more difficult to obtain samples from Quidditch celebrities, but there are more beautiful Muggles than he can count and they are guileless enough.)
vi.
At the top of a hill, by the outskirts of a small city of a quiet country, where the normalcy of daily living blurs into the lines of the surreal, lies the house that Theodore Nott built.
Word count points: 1114/30 = 37 pts
Bonus points: 10 pts
Title: The Quidditch Teams of Roger Davies
Rating/Warnings: G
Characters: Roger Davies
Summary: Roger Davies and Quidditch.
Word Count: 1286
Author's Notes: I love writing about Quidditch. And Roger Davies. I used to play him in a few games and while this isn't quite his backstory, it's close enough to one I imagined for him.
Registered purchases?: Both!
i. London Knights
Roger's first Quidditch team was the London Knights. They were a group of six to nine children from wizarding families around the London boroughs; the name came because once they heard the story of Merlin and King Arthur, and they all agreed the Knights of the Round Table sounded much cooler.
They all had little toy brooms that hovered maybe four feet off the ground, and they used Caleb Warrington's backyard (it was large enough for a forest to grow in, Roger always thought) to play.
They played three-on-three Quidditch most of the time, depending on how many children came to play. When there were more they would fight over who got to be Seeker, but that only happened when somebody's little sibling was also around, because then they became the snitch. Julian Dorny's little sister Elisabeth always got this role, and she always ended up crying to the grown-ups when that happened.
They hardly ever played Keepers or Beaters; there were never two kids who wanted to be Keepers, and the grown-ups forbade the use of Bludgers in the game.
ii. Ravenclaw Quidditch Team
When Roger went to Hogwarts he knew at once he wanted to play for his House's Quidditch team. He had to wait a few years, of course, but the summer before he and Julian (the only two who Sorted into Ravenclaw off the London Knights) entered their third years they spend entire mornings and all afternoons passing and flying and scoring goals. Roger wanted to try for Seeker but the Captain, Eddie's older brother, was currently Seeking and he figured maybe Chaser wouldn't be so bad after all. Julian encouraged this wholeheartedly; he also wanted to be a Chaser and he thought he and Roger would make for a great team since they have played with each other forever.
Roger made starter; Julian did not even make reserve. He refused to speak to Roger for a whole month, until the first game of the season when Roger scored what proved to be the game-winning goal (Hufflepuff caught the snitch, but by then Ravenclaw had outscored them over 160 points). Julian was in the crowd of Ravenclaws in the common room breaking out the butterbeer, and when he sprayed Roger with a full mug's beer there was no more jealousy in his eyes.
By the time Michael Carmichael (yeah, his parents really named him that; it still made Roger cringe) left Hogwarts, Roger Davies had already discovered Cho Chang. She was a year younger than him: small, lithe, really fast and agile and the perfect Seeker for Ravenclaw, he thought. It didn't hurt that she was easy on the eyes too.
He'd been on his way to ask her out when he passed by Fleur Delacour, who'd been putting on her Veela charms on full throttle. He was enthralled, she accepted, and the next day he heard Cedric Diggory was taking Cho to the Yule Ball.
iii. Montrose Magpies
He never thought he'd have more than a passing chance of playing professional Quidditch, but the year he left Hogwarts he actually heard back from a few professional teams. A few of them offered him the potential to try out for starting spots, even, including the Chudley Canons, but the Magpies came to him with an offer for a reserve spot.
His father told him that playing Quidditch would be different now that he was out of school, that it would no longer be a hobby, that the training was different. His father warned him that Quidditch should be dealt with as a business, that he couldn't make decisions based on his heart and he should be logical about it. That had been Roger's intention as well, but the Montrose Magpies were his favorite team growing up. They were the best team in the league, and he'd always dreamt of playing for them one day. Even if it meant sitting in reserve for the better part of who knows how long.
He accepted the offer on the spot.
iv. Newcastle Nifflers
He spent a few good years with the Magpies, one of them even resulting in a championship. (He played one game, when one of the starters got knocked out by a Bludger in a previous game, and scored a goal. It was the highlight of his career.) But even though he trained as hard as he could, even though he practiced with all his heart, he could never really crack the starting line-up for the team.
He didn't take this to heart too much. They were the goddamn Montrose Magpies. They were just that good.
When he turned twenty-nine his agent called him. His contract was up after the year and he'd been getting ready to get another cut in his paycheck--that was just how it worked now that he was getting up there in age--so when he answered the firecall he'd been fully ready to let Alain Winters know that he was fine with a 20% cut.
They want to know they're not renewing, Winters told him. How do you feel about Australia?
It turns out the market for semi-regular veterans was dwindling in the British league. Winters told him he'd already checked with other teams, even the Canons, and nobody was all that interested, but he did receive an owl from a team in the Australian league, and would Roger like to play there?
He became a Newcastle Niffler the next season.
It's strange to think about long after the fact, but he actually spent the best years of his playing career in Newcastle. The players there, mostly young Australians, looked up to him as though he were their older brother (he liked to think, at least; in reality they jokingly called him "pop"). He got to start his fair share of games as well, and one day while his team was doing some charity work at a magical hospital he met a pretty dark-haired Healer.
He married her after three years of up-and-down, on-and-off courtship. She became pregnant a year after that, and two years after his daughter was born he asked if she wanted to move with him back to England.
v. Portsmouth Potters
These days, Roger Davies has his hands full. His daughter Elle is almost nearing Hogwarts age. She's got little legs and a loud voice that seemed far too big for her tiny lungs. She's a fierce flier, determined and sharp and far too risky for her own good. (Roger's convinced she's going to be a Gryffindor; his wife thinks she'll be a Slytherin.)
Roger's backyard is large enough for a few children's Quidditch games, and Elle has a few friends who have their own toy brooms to play with. They spend Saturday mornings running around the Davies house, roughhousing and crying and teasing each other, and after his wife (pregnant with their third, the second child, a son, trailing after her with his fist clutched tight in the hem of her skirt) feeds them lunch, they all rush out to the backyard to get on their brooms.
They call themselves the Portsmouth Potters now, Roger doesn't quite understand why. He tried to talk them out of it but Elle is adamant, insistent they name themselves after the war hero of their time. Roger only laughs after a while, lets them do as they want, and he watches from his own broom, his trusty Nimbus 3000, calling out fouls and giving them coaching advice even though Elle tells him to stop distracting her. Halfway through the game he lets a toy snitch go, tells the Seeker (whoever the youngest is; this time it's Dorny's little boy Jonathan) to start hunting, and the game goes on.
Word count points: 1286/30 = 43 pts
Bonus points: 10 pts
Total word count points: 57 + 37 + 43 = 137 125points
Bonus points: 10 + 10 + 10 = 30
Total points: 155 pts for Ravenclaw!
Rating/Warnings: G
Characters: Zacharias, a bit of Justin
Summary: Some random facts about Zacharias Smith.
Word Count: 1721
Registered purchases?: Both!
i.
Zacharias Smith is born Zacharias Isaac Smith on January 14, 1980. He is the firstborn son of Abraham and Elisabeth Smith, distant relatives and not-quite-heirs to Hepzibah Smith, known to be a direct descendant of Helga Hufflepuff. Not many people know this considering Smith is a fairly common surname, and Zacharias likes it that way, even though he was not surprised in the least when the Hat Sorted him into Hufflepuff.
(He hates the color yellow. He always has, but it is a color associated with him regardless of this disdain. It is the color of his hair, the color of his House, the color of his robes.)
He has a happy enough childhood. His parents take him to many different places so he sees a lot of the world before he is even old enough to receive his letter from Hogwarts. He is never as interested in them, however, as he becomes when his father first takes him to a Quidditch game while they are in Cardiff for another holiday.
From there he is hooked for life.
He receives his Hogwarts letter the summer after he turns eleven, and he is not surprised at all by this. His mother wipes a happy tear from her cheek and his father takes a deep hit of his tobacco before he begins setting plans for the family trip to Diagon Alley. All Zacharias wants to know is whether his parents will allow him a broom his second year. (They say they'll think about it.)
He has been to Diagon Alley before so the trip brings no new surprises save for the murmurs at The Leaky Cauldron that Harry Potter was seen earlier that day and that he, too, is to start his schooling.
His mother hopes he might be Sorted into Hufflepuff so that Zacharias can be friends with him, but his father says it's likelier he'll be a Gryffindor as his parents were Sorted there.
Zacharias does not listen much to this conversation, because just then they happen upon Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour and he wants to know if he can have a float, please and thank you.
ii.
When Zacharias is three years old his mother sits him down in the parlor, tells him there is something he must know. She places her hand on her stomach and, with his father's arms wrapped around hers, she tells Zacharias he is to become a brother very soon.
Zacharias is a little confused by this development. He wants to know where his brother will be coming from and how his parents know that for sure, but his mother tells him he's to have a little sister and Zacharias wrinkles his nose then. Can't he have a brother instead, he asks, and his father laughs.
Maybe next time, his father says, but his mother only raises an eyebrow. They whisper to each other and laugh in the secret, grown-up way they usually do when they don't think Zacharias is looking, and Zacharias asks them about the other questions he had. They tell him some story about a special magical creature that deposits babies down chimneys when a family has been really, really good, and they tell him that they expect her to arrive sometime in the next few months, although they do not know exactly when.
His mother wants to know if he has any names he'd like for his baby sister and he offers Baby as a suggestion.
Rebecca Catherine Smith is born on a bright May day. Zacharias does not know exactly what happens, only that he is woken up in bed by his father, and that they are hurrying to the hospital (what about the chimney, he asks, and his father mumbles something about the creature going to the hospital instead) and then he is made to wait outside a room for a really long time.
When he is finally asked to come in, he sees his mother with a swaddle of clothing. Come meet your sister, she coaxes Zacharias, and he peers at her curiously before deciding that she is boring.
She grows up less so, but she's always after his own toys and his toy broom and she nags him constantly, and to make matters worse, when she goes to Hogwarts she is also Sorted into Hufflepuff like him.
He never forgets to let a day go by without reminding her that she is annoying, until the day when the Battle of Hogwarts takes place and he realizes, just as the rest of Dumbledore's Army are fighting, that he hasn't seen Rebecca in a really long time. He fights through a throng of first years shouting her name, and when he finds her, cowering and hidden behind one of the classrooms, he hugs her hard and never lets her go.
iii.
He watches Quidditch for the first time when he is six years old.
His first Quidditch match featured the Wimbourne Wasps and the Appleby Arrows. His father grew up an Arrows fan and so he tells Zacharias everything there ever was to know about Quidditch. He spends the entire afternoon fascinated, watching the players as they zoom around the pitch and score with Quaffles and avoid the Bludgers. He screams when the Chaser nearly makes another goal, claps gleefully when the Keeper stops an attempt by the other team's Chaser, and yells with the crowd when the Arrows' Seeker catches the Snitch.
He is still excited and happy and he spends the afternoon telling his mother all about the amazing game he just saw, and he never quite forgets it.
They don't go to matches all that often but he and his father often listen on the wireless. He sits on his father's lap, rapt and excited, as the commentator makes the calls and lets his own excitement carry him away. The Arrows win the Championship after a fifteen-year drought when he is ten years old; it is the happiest memory of his life and one of the many that he uses to conjure his first Patronus.
iv.
Zacharias Smith meets Justin Finch-Fletchley not at Hogwarts Express, not at the Sorting line, and not at the Feast that night, but afterward, when he descends into the tunnels leading to the first year boys' dorm and he finds himself sharing a room with four other boys. He recognizes Ernie Macmillan from a couple of parties his parents have attended--their parents are good friends, but he's never liked Ernie much--and the other two boys, Stephen and Wayne, are unfamiliar to him as well.
Justin is the first to say hello, the first to introduce himself. Justin talks a whole lot, and he is only too happy to tell them about his old home and how he was brought up by Muggles (he is Muggleborn, after all) and how he nearly went to Eton but he thought magic sounded much more fascinating at the end of the day. Zacharias tries to tune him out but he only nods and responds where appropriate.
He should not have gotten along with Justin as well as he does--he talks too much and is far too happy, he is not interested in Quidditch at all and he teases Zacharias for being cranky in the mornings--but Justin never does go away in the end. He is always there to help with homework or to whine about revisions, he shares his compartment at Hogwarts Express when Zacharias is running late again, and there is always a seat for him at The Three Broomsticks whenever they go down to visit Hogsmeade.
Zacharias wonders sometimes why Justin seems only too happy to put up with him but he isn't one to complain. He only notices sometimes that Justin never talks about girls and that whenever Zacharias does, Justin changes the subject immediately.
When he finds Justin snogging a Ravenclaw boy in the dorms one afternoon after Hogsmeade (Zacharias ate something that didn't agree with him so he decided to go back early) he finally understands why. Justin avoids him for as long as possible until Zacharias finally corners him after class one day and forces him to listen.
It's okay, he tells Justin, and even though now he sometimes still wishes Justin doesn't get into too much detail about his liaisons with other guys, he is looking forward to being Justin's best man when he gets married next month.
v.
If Zacharias had to choose he would have gotten into Quidditch after leaving Hogwarts, but the truth of it is he knows he's not nearly as good as any of the talent that the teams are considering. He doesn't really know what else he's good at either--his marks in most of his classes are piss-poor, and he suspects he only gets by most of them because his father is friends with most of his professors.
Nevertheless, after the battle is over and seventh year passed, he finds himself aimless for most of the summer.
His father finally introduces him to the Daily Prophet editor, tells Mr Vane that Zacharias is willing to do anything and everything so long as he gets to stay out of the family house eight hours a day for five days a week, and Vane gives him a quick once-over before sending him over to work the presses.
It is back-breaking, humiliating work for a wizard of Zacharias' standing (or a wizard of his family's standing, rather) but Zacharias finds he doesn't mind as much. He takes to the press quickly, and when the proof reader takes ill one night he even helps look over the copy.
He goes into Vane's office one day and asks if he can please be given a chance to write. Vane looks like he's trying to decide between laughing and refusing him outright, but to his surprise he offers Zacharias the St Mungo's beat. It is tedious work, he finds, as hardly anything that exciting happens in St Mungo's these days, but he takes to it with enthusiasm and dedication, and soon he is covering the Auror beat too. He finds he likes the task of finding the truth, of digging down to the fundamental facts, and he wonders how he doesn't figure it out sooner.
He is a Hufflepuff after all. It is the perfect job for him.
Word count points: 1721/30 = 57 pts
Bonus points: 10 pts
Title: The House that Theodore Nott Built
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, casual treatment of prostitution
Characters: Theodore Nott
Summary: Theodore Nott builds a house.
Word Count: 1114
Author's Notes: Um. I don't remember exactly why it started, but somehow in my head Theodore Nott slipped out of Britain after the Battle of Hogwarts and established a polyjuice brothel in Moldova. The details around this varies depending on the fic I write, but the basic premise remains. So... this is an interpretation of that head canon.
Registered purchases?: Both!
i.
At the edge of the wizarding world, where magic bleeds into the mundane, Theodore Nott builds a house.
Build may be an overexaggeration--there is already a house, after all. Its walls are made of rotting oak, its roof a crumbling thatch. The front lawn has been invaded by overzealous weeds and there is a small forest growing behind it. The windows are broken, the floor is musty and creaking from disuse. Behind the flimsy walls within Theodore can sense the rot and age and infestation of rodents who have made themselves home in a place where no one else has.
But it is spacious, and it is secluded, and so after the pipes break, brittle with rust and grime, when he touches it gently, he turns to the woman in the smart suit behind him and nods a little at her nervous smile.
He has but a few galleons in his pouch--the most he is able to squirrel out of the family vault when the Aurors came calling, almost the last of what he has left after a few weeks of getting by. "I'll take it," he announces.
ii.
It doesn't take a short time for Theodore to fix the house. There is magic, of course--charms that can fix a hole in a wall for a pinch, transfiguration spells that can conjure walls out of thin air, even, but the magic associated with architecture meant to last longer than a short while requires more effort, more energy to expend. He works on his house slowly but surely: when he nearly loses a leg after an errant footstep leaves a gaping hole in the living room he decides to work on the floors first. There is enough wood to use outside; he manages to cut enough for his specifications, laying them out board by board.
The walls are next, and these prove somewhat trickier. He goes to the nearest village, about half an hour's walk away, and there he befriends an Architectural Charmer who tells him what to do. In exchange for helping the Charmer brew a few potions for a witch he is interested in Theodore is able to reinforce the protective wards around his house, to make sure the walls are thick and sturdy.
The windows come next; he nearly cuts a finger attempting to take the rest of the jagged pieces out. He doesn't know what to replace them with, so in their place he puts up heating charms instead. Winter is soon to come, after all. The garden he hacks at with a rusty axe; the weeds he uproots with increasingly calloused fingers. When spring arrives with sunlight and showers there is enough brightness in the house that it becomes passable for a cottage, there is enough color within that it can almost be called home.
iii.
Theodore does not intend to take in guests but one day he comes home with a stray.
He passes by her as he is walking home, cutting through one of the city's seedier alleys. She murmurs at him from a shadowed corner of an alley, catcalls him and whispers filth in his ears when he makes the mistake of acknowledging her.
She can be had for less than half a galleon an hour, she says, even less than that if all he needs is her mouth. Theodore stares at her until she looks away. She is beautiful, he thinks, or perhaps it is that she once was beautiful, but her cheeks are too gaunt and her lips too red, her eyes too dark, enough to look more hunted than anything else. Her robes are pressed too tightly around her waist, tight enough to display whatever cleavage she has to offer, and her knees wobble with the height of her heels.
When he asks, she tells him she is only eighteen, and Theodore believes her.
He doesn't know what makes him do it then, but he asks her if he wants her to come home with him.
iv. the first client that comes in
There are more than a few available rooms in his cottage, and Anca (for that is her name) is surprised when Theodore only offers her a place to stay. She accuses him of cheating her out of her money but he tells her she's free to work as she pleases, only not in the streets. She looks at him incredulously but laughs when she realizes he is serious.
She takes her first client home that very night, and Theodore makes sure to put the silencing charms around each room.
He hears a crash out in the hallway and finds Anca struggling with a fat balding man who she yells is past his allotted time, and Theodore curses at him. He falls unconscious to the floor. Theodore Obliviates him and roots through his pockets to find all the money he can get. He gives ten galleons to Anca and takes down the silencing charms.
v.
Anca brings home two of her friends the very next day, and within the next month Theodore finds himself housing seven girls in his small home. There are a few spells he is able to use, charms that expand the rooms in the cottage or add extra space where there is none to be had. He gives each of them a room of their own; they are free to entertain as they are able and each month they give him a cut of their earnings. He is surprised at the amount he gets; it is more than what he has ever expected.
One day he passes by an apothecary; its owner is peddling Polyjuice potions for half the price. An idea blossoms in his head and he purchases the lot of them. The day after that he finds himself in the nearest Quidditch pitch; when nobody is looking he uses a concealment charm to sneak into the locker room.
He gets enough from the Harpies that all his girls can pretend to be a different player a night for the next week; their clients go wild for it and their earnings triple.
It is enough to attract even Muggles to the cottage, and there Theodore is careful that they don't notice the magic. (Their Muggle clients, however, provide the easiest to please. It becomes much more difficult to obtain samples from Quidditch celebrities, but there are more beautiful Muggles than he can count and they are guileless enough.)
vi.
At the top of a hill, by the outskirts of a small city of a quiet country, where the normalcy of daily living blurs into the lines of the surreal, lies the house that Theodore Nott built.
Word count points: 1114/30 = 37 pts
Bonus points: 10 pts
Title: The Quidditch Teams of Roger Davies
Rating/Warnings: G
Characters: Roger Davies
Summary: Roger Davies and Quidditch.
Word Count: 1286
Author's Notes: I love writing about Quidditch. And Roger Davies. I used to play him in a few games and while this isn't quite his backstory, it's close enough to one I imagined for him.
Registered purchases?: Both!
i. London Knights
Roger's first Quidditch team was the London Knights. They were a group of six to nine children from wizarding families around the London boroughs; the name came because once they heard the story of Merlin and King Arthur, and they all agreed the Knights of the Round Table sounded much cooler.
They all had little toy brooms that hovered maybe four feet off the ground, and they used Caleb Warrington's backyard (it was large enough for a forest to grow in, Roger always thought) to play.
They played three-on-three Quidditch most of the time, depending on how many children came to play. When there were more they would fight over who got to be Seeker, but that only happened when somebody's little sibling was also around, because then they became the snitch. Julian Dorny's little sister Elisabeth always got this role, and she always ended up crying to the grown-ups when that happened.
They hardly ever played Keepers or Beaters; there were never two kids who wanted to be Keepers, and the grown-ups forbade the use of Bludgers in the game.
ii. Ravenclaw Quidditch Team
When Roger went to Hogwarts he knew at once he wanted to play for his House's Quidditch team. He had to wait a few years, of course, but the summer before he and Julian (the only two who Sorted into Ravenclaw off the London Knights) entered their third years they spend entire mornings and all afternoons passing and flying and scoring goals. Roger wanted to try for Seeker but the Captain, Eddie's older brother, was currently Seeking and he figured maybe Chaser wouldn't be so bad after all. Julian encouraged this wholeheartedly; he also wanted to be a Chaser and he thought he and Roger would make for a great team since they have played with each other forever.
Roger made starter; Julian did not even make reserve. He refused to speak to Roger for a whole month, until the first game of the season when Roger scored what proved to be the game-winning goal (Hufflepuff caught the snitch, but by then Ravenclaw had outscored them over 160 points). Julian was in the crowd of Ravenclaws in the common room breaking out the butterbeer, and when he sprayed Roger with a full mug's beer there was no more jealousy in his eyes.
By the time Michael Carmichael (yeah, his parents really named him that; it still made Roger cringe) left Hogwarts, Roger Davies had already discovered Cho Chang. She was a year younger than him: small, lithe, really fast and agile and the perfect Seeker for Ravenclaw, he thought. It didn't hurt that she was easy on the eyes too.
He'd been on his way to ask her out when he passed by Fleur Delacour, who'd been putting on her Veela charms on full throttle. He was enthralled, she accepted, and the next day he heard Cedric Diggory was taking Cho to the Yule Ball.
iii. Montrose Magpies
He never thought he'd have more than a passing chance of playing professional Quidditch, but the year he left Hogwarts he actually heard back from a few professional teams. A few of them offered him the potential to try out for starting spots, even, including the Chudley Canons, but the Magpies came to him with an offer for a reserve spot.
His father told him that playing Quidditch would be different now that he was out of school, that it would no longer be a hobby, that the training was different. His father warned him that Quidditch should be dealt with as a business, that he couldn't make decisions based on his heart and he should be logical about it. That had been Roger's intention as well, but the Montrose Magpies were his favorite team growing up. They were the best team in the league, and he'd always dreamt of playing for them one day. Even if it meant sitting in reserve for the better part of who knows how long.
He accepted the offer on the spot.
iv. Newcastle Nifflers
He spent a few good years with the Magpies, one of them even resulting in a championship. (He played one game, when one of the starters got knocked out by a Bludger in a previous game, and scored a goal. It was the highlight of his career.) But even though he trained as hard as he could, even though he practiced with all his heart, he could never really crack the starting line-up for the team.
He didn't take this to heart too much. They were the goddamn Montrose Magpies. They were just that good.
When he turned twenty-nine his agent called him. His contract was up after the year and he'd been getting ready to get another cut in his paycheck--that was just how it worked now that he was getting up there in age--so when he answered the firecall he'd been fully ready to let Alain Winters know that he was fine with a 20% cut.
They want to know they're not renewing, Winters told him. How do you feel about Australia?
It turns out the market for semi-regular veterans was dwindling in the British league. Winters told him he'd already checked with other teams, even the Canons, and nobody was all that interested, but he did receive an owl from a team in the Australian league, and would Roger like to play there?
He became a Newcastle Niffler the next season.
It's strange to think about long after the fact, but he actually spent the best years of his playing career in Newcastle. The players there, mostly young Australians, looked up to him as though he were their older brother (he liked to think, at least; in reality they jokingly called him "pop"). He got to start his fair share of games as well, and one day while his team was doing some charity work at a magical hospital he met a pretty dark-haired Healer.
He married her after three years of up-and-down, on-and-off courtship. She became pregnant a year after that, and two years after his daughter was born he asked if she wanted to move with him back to England.
v. Portsmouth Potters
These days, Roger Davies has his hands full. His daughter Elle is almost nearing Hogwarts age. She's got little legs and a loud voice that seemed far too big for her tiny lungs. She's a fierce flier, determined and sharp and far too risky for her own good. (Roger's convinced she's going to be a Gryffindor; his wife thinks she'll be a Slytherin.)
Roger's backyard is large enough for a few children's Quidditch games, and Elle has a few friends who have their own toy brooms to play with. They spend Saturday mornings running around the Davies house, roughhousing and crying and teasing each other, and after his wife (pregnant with their third, the second child, a son, trailing after her with his fist clutched tight in the hem of her skirt) feeds them lunch, they all rush out to the backyard to get on their brooms.
They call themselves the Portsmouth Potters now, Roger doesn't quite understand why. He tried to talk them out of it but Elle is adamant, insistent they name themselves after the war hero of their time. Roger only laughs after a while, lets them do as they want, and he watches from his own broom, his trusty Nimbus 3000, calling out fouls and giving them coaching advice even though Elle tells him to stop distracting her. Halfway through the game he lets a toy snitch go, tells the Seeker (whoever the youngest is; this time it's Dorny's little boy Jonathan) to start hunting, and the game goes on.
Word count points: 1286/30 = 43 pts
Bonus points: 10 pts
Total word count points: 57 + 37 + 43 = 137 125points
Bonus points: 10 + 10 + 10 = 30
Total points: 155 pts for Ravenclaw!