He should have been sleeping. That would have been a better choice, but during the short period Zach had been under the delusion he was going to bed at a decent hour, he had tossed and turned, utterly messed up the covers and gotten not a wink of sleep. So he was awake and not doing too much. Trying not to think. But it was hard to avoid thinking about himself.
So he had thrown himself into the journals. Of course he had already read everything public or written by servants (regardless of how private it was meant to be). But not much had interested him. But there were hexed entries. Zach was avoiding anything by Tracey because this was about forgetting about that situation, for a while. It wasn't even a situation really. It was dealt with.
But someone else's private life. That's what he wanted to read about. Whether it was good news or bad news, as long as it was something. And he had been working through a complicated hex with complete attention - Theo wasn't around to patch him up.
There was a knock. Zach jumped up and swore quietly as he lost progress on an entry he had determined to be from Draco and quite well hexed. If Zach admitted to people he did that kind of thing to students, he'd compliment the guy.
But there was someone at the door. Zach was still dressed, but he checked it out. Black slacks, a decent shirt, and his hair wasn't horrible. Eh, he didn't look that bad. Looked pretty decent. So he opened the door enough so that his body stood in the opening.
Tracey.
And a bottle of booze.
She was drunk.
Zach didn't say anything immediately, instead choosing to allow her to start the...conversation. And if she was after more, Tracey wasn't going to get it. She had been the one who - soberly - declared they were just friends. And a drunk Tracey didn't change that call.