Heeeerre ficcy-ficcy-ficcy
Done for the HP Characters Random Facts Meme, which is the brainchild of iulia_linnea
Title: Twenty things you never knew (and some of which he doesn't either) about Zacharias Smith
Author lucy_lupin (my main journal)
Characters: Zacharias Smith (main), plus Susan, Blaise and Luna (minor)
Pairings: Hints of Zacharias/Luna, Ernie/Hannah and Terry/Susan
Rating: Either a hard PG or soft PG-13
Word Count: 1,790
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
* ~ * ~ *
1. Zacharias is an only child, but secretly longs for a much younger sister he can dote on and shelter from the more unsavoury, unsuitable Hogwarts males. Which in his opinion is all of them. He also wishes that his father spent more time with him and less money on him.
2. Before he learnt how to fly, Zacharias was actually scared of heights.
3. While most students like Flitwick's classes the best, Zacharias finds the Charms classroom too chaotic and disorderly. His favourite class is Transfiguration, and his favourite teacher is Professor McGonagall because like him, she is very organised and to-the-point. Hagrid is his least favourite teacher because of much the same reasons that Charms is one of his least favourite classes. His dislike is enhanced by his belief that Hagrid is not a fully qualified wizard and got the job due to favouritism. The extreme disorganisation of Hagrid's lessons, coupled with his hesitant style of teaching, leads Zacharias to overlook how he actually does know quite a bit about the creatures he exposes the class to.
4. His opinion on the other three houses ranges from neutrality to a kind of laconic disdain (Zacharias prides himself on being a rational being and is seldom moved to strong dislike of a lifelong nature). He sees the Slytherins as not having enough scruples and the Gryffindors as being too hypocritical. He has a grudging respect for the work ethic and academic ability of the Ravenclaws and views them as being the house he would most likely be in if he wasn't a Hufflepuff, although he can't imagine anyone not wanting to be a Hufflepuff.
5. He is the type of student who is admired and respected rather than liked - and even that only within his own house. He tends to foster important acquaintances rather than friendships. His best, and in his case only, friend is Susan Bones. Susan is one of the few people who Zacharias can tolerate for long periods of time - and who likewise can tolerate him. In their friendship she often plays the role of mediator, going behind the scenes and trying to soothe things over with people whose toes Zacharias has unwittingly stepped on. If the average Hufflepuff sixth year had a Galleon for every time Susan told them, "He didn't really mean it that way," they would have enough money to pay off Ludo Bagman's debts.
6. Another student that Zacharias gets on well with - and perhaps would be considered a friend by all but him and the aforementioned student - is Blaise Zabini. Perhaps because Blaise has a similarly scornful, sceptical outview on the wider wizarding community and a reluctance to act chummy, the two often talk. Not talk in a let's-arrange-to-meet-over-a-pint-of-butterbeer-during-a-Hogsmeades-weekend-because-we're-such-good-mates way (that would be presuming too much, and Blaise considers himself to be too classy for Butterbeer), but in a linger-after-class-and-debate-our-philosophies-on-the-universe way. Because each boy is one of the few people who the other respects, while taciturn with other students they hardly come to disagreements.
7. The one thing that Zacharias and Blaise do disagree on is the role of Muggleborns in the school. Blaise feels that their presence at Hogwarts is an insult to the establishment and that it - in his opinion - is responsible for the place going to the dogs. Zacharias feels that, for a Gryffindor, Dumbledore was a decent enough headmaster, and that to let Muggleborns run wild within their own communities without control over their magical abilities would be harmful to both themselves and those around them. Blaise argues that letting Muggleborns into the school is a threat to the secrecy and the traditions of the magical world. Zacharias is similarly mistrustful, but counters that as long as care is taken to select the potential students and upon arriving and the importance of the school's traditions are enforced upon them, there shouldn't be any misunderstandings. Like his Hufflepuff founder, he ultimately considers it Hogwarts' responsibility to teach any child possessing magical powers - regardless of origin. The two once stopped speaking to each other for almost two weeks because of this. When they did start to converse with each other again, they acted as though nothing had ever happened. They no longer discuss the issue of Muggleborns in Hogwarts.
8. Zacharias took Susan to the Yule Ball. However, one week before the date of the ball, she was asked by Terry Boot, a Ravenclaw student whom she had been nursing a flame for since the Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff game in their third year. Because she had originally agreed to go with Zacharias and knew he wouldn't have time to find another date a mere week beforehand, in true Hufflepuff fashion she stuck to her word. Zacharias also suspected this was because Susan knew she was his only friend and he didn't have anyone else to go with. For the first time in his life that Zacharias began to wonder if he shouldn't start being more sociable to those around him.
9. Due to lack of availability, Terry eventually asked Luna Lovegood to attend as his date. Because Zacharias is - when all is said and done - a gentleman, and because he knew that Susan liked Terry, he swapped partners with him halfway through the evening. Terry seemed particularly grateful. After several minutes alone with Luna, Zacharias soon knew why.
10. Zacharias is too prim and proper for a nickname. He considers them to be extremely low-class, a thing that only Muggleborns and pureblood families of low standing allow. He would, however, allow his eventual wife to give him one if he was fond of her enough - so long as she never repeated that name in public.
11. At the ball Luna called him "Zachy." Because it wasn't quite as nonsensical as the other stuff coming out of her mouth, he allowed it. Or so he reasoned at the time.
12. Zacharias generally does not have a lot of time and patience for any girl other than Susan. He thinks that most of them are too frivolous and silly, yet still treats them in a respectful manner. He is not the type to fling Bat Bogeys at them no matter the provocation - or kiss and tell. He wasn't even remotely tempted to do so when he saw Hannah Abbott emerging from behind a row of shelves in the upper levels in the library - where he knew that Ernie Macmillan was studying - adjusting her skirt around her hips.
13. He was badgered about this last incident for weeks by Susan Bones, who suspected that something was going on between the two and wanted the dirt. When he refused to shred and she still wouldn't give up, it was one of the few occasions when he spoke harshly to her.
14. Another occasion was when she questioned him about what exactly he and Luna had been talking about for all that time during the Yule Ball.
15. And during all those DA meetings.
16. And during the final evening of their fifth year, when he had gone to wait outside the door of the Ravenclaw common room to return the Spectrecspecs that he had confiscated from a third year. He took a mysteriously long time to return. Susan suspects that Luna's company during the ball was perhaps not as tiring as he made out.
17. Zacharias is a good student, but not outstanding. He was secretly humiliated when both Ernie and Blaise earned "Outstandings" on their Potions OWLs - and he didn't. While he could have been accepted into Slughorn's class with his "Exceeds Expectations," he knew that in this way he would be singled out as a latecomer and didn't want to share in the humiliation with Ron Weasley and that Harry Potter. Some wizards don't have the onus of trying to uphold the family name, he huffed to himself at the time. This incident shows a covert diffident side of his nature - a certain self-consciousness and awareness of what other people think - that would probably surprise even Susan if she found out about it. Zacharias takes care that she doesn't.
18. The biggest falling out he has ever had with another student was with Draco Malfoy after Hermione needed to be taken to the hospital wing for being hit by a curse from Draco during their fourth year. This is not to say that Zacharias has much time for Hermione. He is scornful of the trio and believes that while Ron has a genuine friendship with Harry, Hermione is a calculated hanger-on who is using Harry for his fame - a view in no small part aided by the infamous Rita Skeeter articles during the TriWizard tournament. However, he was outraged that Malfoy had aimed a curse at a girl - and he considered who that girl actually was to be irrelevant. Draco insisted that he had been aiming for Harry, but Zacharias wouldn't let it lie. The two eventually came to blows, with Zacharias gaining a black eye and a detention for his troubles. This was the only occasion that he has ever lost points for Hufflepuff.
19. Unlike some of his housemates, Zacharias did not at any point hold Harry responsible for Cedric Diggory's death. He doesn't have a hypocritical nature and tends to say what he thinks, so if he had thought that Harry was in any way culpable for what happened to Cedric, he would have had a hard time going to the DA meeting with Susan that day. However, he did get fed up with Harry for never giving him a straight answer. Zacharias is big on straight answers.
20. Despite possessing the raging hormones of most other teenaged boys, Zacharias is at heart a one-woman man. This is for a large part down to his being so picky. While possibly only Susan could tell someone this, the kind of girl Zacharias likes and pictures himself with and the kind of girl he needs are completely different things. He is consciously looking for a traditional, old-money girl who was brought up in a very conservative manner regarding gender roles, yet needs - and is secretly attracted to - girls who are strong in their own right and who he can respect as equals. He has had crushes on two girls: Ginny Weasley and Susan. For the first three years of his Hogwarts tenure he was as in love with Susan as a boy of that age could be and - with them both being Hufflepuffs from good old-money families - saw it as a natural progression of their friendship that one day they would wed. This infatuation ended abruptly some time during his fourth year - without his even trying to do so or even realising that it had stopped. Around the time of the Yule Ball, in fact.
Title: Twenty things you never knew (and some of which he doesn't either) about Zacharias Smith
Author lucy_lupin (my main journal)
Characters: Zacharias Smith (main), plus Susan, Blaise and Luna (minor)
Pairings: Hints of Zacharias/Luna, Ernie/Hannah and Terry/Susan
Rating: Either a hard PG or soft PG-13
Word Count: 1,790
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
* ~ * ~ *
1. Zacharias is an only child, but secretly longs for a much younger sister he can dote on and shelter from the more unsavoury, unsuitable Hogwarts males. Which in his opinion is all of them. He also wishes that his father spent more time with him and less money on him.
2. Before he learnt how to fly, Zacharias was actually scared of heights.
3. While most students like Flitwick's classes the best, Zacharias finds the Charms classroom too chaotic and disorderly. His favourite class is Transfiguration, and his favourite teacher is Professor McGonagall because like him, she is very organised and to-the-point. Hagrid is his least favourite teacher because of much the same reasons that Charms is one of his least favourite classes. His dislike is enhanced by his belief that Hagrid is not a fully qualified wizard and got the job due to favouritism. The extreme disorganisation of Hagrid's lessons, coupled with his hesitant style of teaching, leads Zacharias to overlook how he actually does know quite a bit about the creatures he exposes the class to.
4. His opinion on the other three houses ranges from neutrality to a kind of laconic disdain (Zacharias prides himself on being a rational being and is seldom moved to strong dislike of a lifelong nature). He sees the Slytherins as not having enough scruples and the Gryffindors as being too hypocritical. He has a grudging respect for the work ethic and academic ability of the Ravenclaws and views them as being the house he would most likely be in if he wasn't a Hufflepuff, although he can't imagine anyone not wanting to be a Hufflepuff.
5. He is the type of student who is admired and respected rather than liked - and even that only within his own house. He tends to foster important acquaintances rather than friendships. His best, and in his case only, friend is Susan Bones. Susan is one of the few people who Zacharias can tolerate for long periods of time - and who likewise can tolerate him. In their friendship she often plays the role of mediator, going behind the scenes and trying to soothe things over with people whose toes Zacharias has unwittingly stepped on. If the average Hufflepuff sixth year had a Galleon for every time Susan told them, "He didn't really mean it that way," they would have enough money to pay off Ludo Bagman's debts.
6. Another student that Zacharias gets on well with - and perhaps would be considered a friend by all but him and the aforementioned student - is Blaise Zabini. Perhaps because Blaise has a similarly scornful, sceptical outview on the wider wizarding community and a reluctance to act chummy, the two often talk. Not talk in a let's-arrange-to-meet-over-a-pint-of-butterbeer-during-a-Hogsmeades-weekend-because-we're-such-good-mates way (that would be presuming too much, and Blaise considers himself to be too classy for Butterbeer), but in a linger-after-class-and-debate-our-philosophies-on-the-universe way. Because each boy is one of the few people who the other respects, while taciturn with other students they hardly come to disagreements.
7. The one thing that Zacharias and Blaise do disagree on is the role of Muggleborns in the school. Blaise feels that their presence at Hogwarts is an insult to the establishment and that it - in his opinion - is responsible for the place going to the dogs. Zacharias feels that, for a Gryffindor, Dumbledore was a decent enough headmaster, and that to let Muggleborns run wild within their own communities without control over their magical abilities would be harmful to both themselves and those around them. Blaise argues that letting Muggleborns into the school is a threat to the secrecy and the traditions of the magical world. Zacharias is similarly mistrustful, but counters that as long as care is taken to select the potential students and upon arriving and the importance of the school's traditions are enforced upon them, there shouldn't be any misunderstandings. Like his Hufflepuff founder, he ultimately considers it Hogwarts' responsibility to teach any child possessing magical powers - regardless of origin. The two once stopped speaking to each other for almost two weeks because of this. When they did start to converse with each other again, they acted as though nothing had ever happened. They no longer discuss the issue of Muggleborns in Hogwarts.
8. Zacharias took Susan to the Yule Ball. However, one week before the date of the ball, she was asked by Terry Boot, a Ravenclaw student whom she had been nursing a flame for since the Ravenclaw/Hufflepuff game in their third year. Because she had originally agreed to go with Zacharias and knew he wouldn't have time to find another date a mere week beforehand, in true Hufflepuff fashion she stuck to her word. Zacharias also suspected this was because Susan knew she was his only friend and he didn't have anyone else to go with. For the first time in his life that Zacharias began to wonder if he shouldn't start being more sociable to those around him.
9. Due to lack of availability, Terry eventually asked Luna Lovegood to attend as his date. Because Zacharias is - when all is said and done - a gentleman, and because he knew that Susan liked Terry, he swapped partners with him halfway through the evening. Terry seemed particularly grateful. After several minutes alone with Luna, Zacharias soon knew why.
10. Zacharias is too prim and proper for a nickname. He considers them to be extremely low-class, a thing that only Muggleborns and pureblood families of low standing allow. He would, however, allow his eventual wife to give him one if he was fond of her enough - so long as she never repeated that name in public.
11. At the ball Luna called him "Zachy." Because it wasn't quite as nonsensical as the other stuff coming out of her mouth, he allowed it. Or so he reasoned at the time.
12. Zacharias generally does not have a lot of time and patience for any girl other than Susan. He thinks that most of them are too frivolous and silly, yet still treats them in a respectful manner. He is not the type to fling Bat Bogeys at them no matter the provocation - or kiss and tell. He wasn't even remotely tempted to do so when he saw Hannah Abbott emerging from behind a row of shelves in the upper levels in the library - where he knew that Ernie Macmillan was studying - adjusting her skirt around her hips.
13. He was badgered about this last incident for weeks by Susan Bones, who suspected that something was going on between the two and wanted the dirt. When he refused to shred and she still wouldn't give up, it was one of the few occasions when he spoke harshly to her.
14. Another occasion was when she questioned him about what exactly he and Luna had been talking about for all that time during the Yule Ball.
15. And during all those DA meetings.
16. And during the final evening of their fifth year, when he had gone to wait outside the door of the Ravenclaw common room to return the Spectrecspecs that he had confiscated from a third year. He took a mysteriously long time to return. Susan suspects that Luna's company during the ball was perhaps not as tiring as he made out.
17. Zacharias is a good student, but not outstanding. He was secretly humiliated when both Ernie and Blaise earned "Outstandings" on their Potions OWLs - and he didn't. While he could have been accepted into Slughorn's class with his "Exceeds Expectations," he knew that in this way he would be singled out as a latecomer and didn't want to share in the humiliation with Ron Weasley and that Harry Potter. Some wizards don't have the onus of trying to uphold the family name, he huffed to himself at the time. This incident shows a covert diffident side of his nature - a certain self-consciousness and awareness of what other people think - that would probably surprise even Susan if she found out about it. Zacharias takes care that she doesn't.
18. The biggest falling out he has ever had with another student was with Draco Malfoy after Hermione needed to be taken to the hospital wing for being hit by a curse from Draco during their fourth year. This is not to say that Zacharias has much time for Hermione. He is scornful of the trio and believes that while Ron has a genuine friendship with Harry, Hermione is a calculated hanger-on who is using Harry for his fame - a view in no small part aided by the infamous Rita Skeeter articles during the TriWizard tournament. However, he was outraged that Malfoy had aimed a curse at a girl - and he considered who that girl actually was to be irrelevant. Draco insisted that he had been aiming for Harry, but Zacharias wouldn't let it lie. The two eventually came to blows, with Zacharias gaining a black eye and a detention for his troubles. This was the only occasion that he has ever lost points for Hufflepuff.
19. Unlike some of his housemates, Zacharias did not at any point hold Harry responsible for Cedric Diggory's death. He doesn't have a hypocritical nature and tends to say what he thinks, so if he had thought that Harry was in any way culpable for what happened to Cedric, he would have had a hard time going to the DA meeting with Susan that day. However, he did get fed up with Harry for never giving him a straight answer. Zacharias is big on straight answers.
20. Despite possessing the raging hormones of most other teenaged boys, Zacharias is at heart a one-woman man. This is for a large part down to his being so picky. While possibly only Susan could tell someone this, the kind of girl Zacharias likes and pictures himself with and the kind of girl he needs are completely different things. He is consciously looking for a traditional, old-money girl who was brought up in a very conservative manner regarding gender roles, yet needs - and is secretly attracted to - girls who are strong in their own right and who he can respect as equals. He has had crushes on two girls: Ginny Weasley and Susan. For the first three years of his Hogwarts tenure he was as in love with Susan as a boy of that age could be and - with them both being Hufflepuffs from good old-money families - saw it as a natural progression of their friendship that one day they would wed. This infatuation ended abruptly some time during his fourth year - without his even trying to do so or even realising that it had stopped. Around the time of the Yule Ball, in fact.