Who: Justin & Zach.
What: Zach's abdicated from being Village Git. Justin is Worried. Also: Justin reignites some of Zach's suspicions, and Zach is unintentionally adorable.
When: Thursday, during supper.
Where: Hufflepuff seventh-year boys' dorm.
Rating: R, for swears that will probably happen, for angst that will definitely happen, for the nature of aforementioned suspicions, and for Zach being adorable.
Status: In progress.


Zach said that he hated everything often enough for people to conceivably start ignoring it and brushing it off as, 'just a Zach thing.' It was just a fact of life that, if you said things too often, they lost their meaning, and Zach had decidedly gone over his limit of being able to say, 'I hate everything' and expect people to believe him. But, right now? He definitely hated everything. He and Ernie had hardly spoken for about a week, at this point, and it was only some miracle that Hannah was talking to him, and, Merlin, he just wanted everyone to go away. He hated this. He hated everything about this. There may not have been Big Brother in the form of the school or the Ministry, but his father was watching him now, and that knowledge was just about killing Zach.

Literally, even. All he'd wanted to do since he'd gotten Dad's owl and talked to Susan was sleep; he'd even fallen asleep on the Quidditch pitch twice already, making it back into the castle just in time for curfew on both occasions. He'd skipped most meals this week, in favor of either nicking food from the House Elves or just not eating anything; it wasn't as though he sought to gain anything from not eating -- he just didn't have the initiative to eat. Took more energy than it was worth, it did, and none of the food tasted any good. This was having side effects that Zach didn't like -- it was bad enough that he'd lost weight over summer hols and during the Quidditch try-outs, but his weight had slipped down further still this week (he wasn't keeping meticulous track, but after he'd needed to cinch his belt tighter in the morning, he'd checked and seen that he was now barely ten stone-4.5)... but he still didn't feel like eating. He'd nicked food from the kitchens on the way back to the dorm to see Justin, but he had no desire to eat it.

He barely had a desire to talk, at that; he was freezing cold, and it was bothering him more than most everything. As Zach entered the dorm, he went immediately to Justin's bed, sat down next to him, and huffed, "Budge over. You're sharing your body heat tonight; I'm bloody freezing." Without waiting for permission, Zach nestled up against Justin, putting the care package from the House Elves on his lap and putting his head on Justin's shoulder.