title: Climatology
author: Sirikit
rating: T
summary: Change is
incremental. Zacharias, Ernie, Hufflepuff gen.
a/n: For omniocular's May Spring Cleaning Challenge, for which I got Ernie and Zacharias. Many thanks to my lovely betas summerborn and expositionary, who didn't see the final draft because I was anxious to post this while it's still May where I am. All errors are totally my fault.
feeding the five thousand
was not done with prayers alone
it takes blood and guts and
it takes devotion
---
Hannah and Ernie are speaking in a hushed undertone to Hermione Granger, and that's how Zacharias finds out about the meeting in the Hog's Head.
"Just what we need, Professor Potter," Zacharias scoffs, lingering in the corridor after Granger has left.
Hannah looks like she wants to chide him for his rudeness, but Ernie squares his shoulders and manages some diplomacy. "Now look, it's not like that. And it's a good-- I mean, the important thing is that we work together and learn something, isn't it? Fight for the common good!"
"Even if it goes against school rules?"
Ernie looks faintly troubled at that, but Hannah pats his arm. "It's the right thing to do," she says bravely, "and that's always worth it."
Zacharias can't quite meet her gaze, but he gives his roommate a measuring look. "We'll see, won't we?"
---
It's a brisk autumn evening when they walk down to the village. Susan and Hannah are arm in arm ahead of him, and Justin's saying something charming and making them laugh.
Ernie lags behind, his hands in his pockets. Zacharias notes this, and quickens his pace.
"Will you tell your parents?" Ernie asks him.
"No," Zacharias said shortly. "You?"
Ernie looks uncomfortable. "Maybe." Then adds, more honestly, "No, I don't think so. They'd just worry and there'd be an argument, and I'd lose that argument. I mean, it's sort of mad, isn't it? Not exactly what a prefect like me ought to be doing."
"Taking Dark Arts lessons from the Boy Who Lived? Nah, it's perfectly normal. Myself, I'm thinking of supporting Gryffindor next match. Colours and everything." He grins mockingly for good measure.
Ernie doesn't look amused. Zacharias doesn't feel amused, so he figures they're even. They enter Hogsmeade proper together but break apart as they continue on to the Hog's Head.
---
Zacharias is too cross to sleep and finds himself rummaging through his trunk at midnight, looking for sweets or old Quidditch magazines or, hell, even owls from his mother.
"Oi!" Wayne complains from the next bed over. "Keep it down, Zachs!"
Zacharias makes a rude gesture in his direction, and that's when he notices that Ernie is wide awake as well, sitting up in his bed and obviously bursting with Meaningful Things To Say In Troubling Times Such as These.
Zacharias mutters more rude things to himself and jumps back into bed, spelling the curtains shut. In the dark he dreams of that parchment full of names, flying through the air and turning into ashes.
---
"We'd really like you to try and keep an open mind tonight," Ernie tells him over breakfast, of all times. "We know you don't like Harry, and that's-- well, it happens. But surely you can get past that, yeah?"
To Ernie's credit, he looks a little ashamed of himself. Across the table, Justin coughs into his orange juice and Susan has stopped attending to her toast. Hannah, of course, slides next to Ernie and pats his arm in support, which only irritates Zacharias more.
"No, I don't think I can," Zacharias answers as evenly as his temper will allow, but Ernie doesn't like that answer and makes a 'tut tut' noise in his throat.
Hannah is relentless. "But he can do a corporeal patronus! Don't you think that's impressive at all?"
A short, four-eyed, bumbling little git is supposed to be our best chance at--
"No," Zacharias answers after that moment's deliberation. He spears some scrambled egg on his plate, but he's rapidly losing his appetite.
As if on cue, it's Ernie's turn to be patronising. "Maybe if you ask him questions instead of being, um, hostile, you can find something about him to admire!"
"Remember that he's faced You-Know-Who several times and survived," Justin adds, apparently feeling the need to be helpful.
"A lot of good that did Cedric," Zacharias snaps, perhaps more forcefully than he meant to.
Silence.
Zacharias gets up, swings his rucksack onto his back, and tries his best not to storm out of the Great Hall.
---
It pains him to do so, but he apologises to Hannah during Herbology and to Justin before lunch. He tries to apologise to Susan, but she gives him an oddly amused look and just tells him to pass the parchment to the left, please.
---
"I'm sorry for this morning," Ernie tells him in the common room later, when it's just the two of them and a pair of firsties playing Gobstones.
Zacharias looks up from his Astronomy homework and shrugs, which is about the closest thing to an mutual apology he can manage at this point. Ernie understands this, nods gravely, then sits down.
"Are you coming later, then?"
"Dunno," Zacharias replies, and means it.
"If you do come to the meeting, er. . ." Ernie falters a bit, then regains his bluster. "It's just that this is possibly the most important thing we'll do at school!"
Zacharias rolls his eyes. "Yes, I've heard the 'most important thing' speech. It's my personal favourite, after the 'Hannah Abbott is the loveliest girl in school' speech. Oh, hi there, Hannah."
Ernie's eyes flicker to the portal in a brief panic, but there is no Hannah, loveliest girl in school or otherwise. He glares at Zacharias and makes makes that 'tut tut' noise again. Zacharias grins, but it's strained.
"I'm just saying that we have something to prove, too, as purebloods," Ernie insists, though he looks uncertain. "Like Hannah said, it's the right thing to do."
It takes Zacharias a full minute to realise that Ernie has just said something wise.
---
Still, he's as rude as ever on that first night in the Room of Requirement. Ernie shoots him aggrieved looks, then shepherds Hannah to the other side of the room, where Susan and Justin dutifully follow. Zacharias finds himself standing across from Anthony Goldstein, who wisely doesn't comment before raising his wand in a neat salute.
By the end of the meeting, Zacharias has only learned that Potter is positively gagging for Cho Chang and that the Weasley twins could do with being smothered in their sleep.
---
His wand arm bothers him when he wakes up the next morning. Zacharias grits his teeth as it goes numb and extremely itchy in cycles, depending on what his skin is touching. He doesn't think anyone else has noticed, but at dinner Ernie dons his best 'concerned prefect' face and slides him a bottle of disgusting-looking potion.
"My grandfather's own recipe," he announces proudly. "The ancestral land's a bit rough up there in Cromarty, infested with bogles, real nasty ones, too."
Zacharias regards the bottle with open scepticism. The label is decorated with yellow daffodils.
"Oh, I got Hannah to brew it," Ernie explains, a bit of colour rising to his cheeks. He's clearly trying not to glance down the table to where she is sitting.
Zacharias refrains from comment. He uncorks the bottle, holds his nose, and takes a swig. The potions tastes like shoes with an aftertaste of mint, but after the inevitable coughing fit he realises his forearm isn't being weird anymore.
"Yeah. Uh, thanks," Zacharias mutters, rubbing the skin on his arm. "But don't think this is going to convince me to keep going. I already told you I'm through with that lot."
Ernie's good cheer wavers a bit. Zacharias tells himself that it's the potion that's making him nauseous, not guilt.
---
He tries to go back to the way things were before, when he spent most of his time hanging around with his teammates and worrying about his marks and dutifully owling his parents. He catches up with Summerby and Cads, who take the piss out of him for abandoning them for 'Macmillan's swot squad'. They look a little worried when his retorts come up short.
The days pass and he thinks of his name on that parchment, and other promises you can't take back.
---
At night, the sky above the Astronomy Tower is clear and inky and cold. Zacharias squints at the lines on the asteriometre, wishing he could just either engorgio the whole thing or blast it to pieces, but they've already overrun their time on this practical.
"Twenty-nine lines of mercury!" he reads out with finality, then peers toward the horizon. "With Cepheus declining at seventy-one. Or whatever. Agreed?"
Ernie doesn't look too thrilled at that 'or whatever', but relents. "Fine. But I do set-up tomorrow."
"Tomorrow's Wednesday isn't it?" Zacharias asks in a tone of perfect unconcern.
Ernie gives him a quick, assessing glance, then smiles expansively. "Why, yes it is."
---
Zacharias isn't very good at skulking around the corridors at night, but he makes it to the Room of Requirement on time. He ignores Potter, tells the Weasley twins to get stuffed, and nods at Goldstein and his friends. He makes his way to his house mates.
"Don't say a word," he snaps, appropriating a pillow for himself and sitting down. "What are we doing tonight, then?"
---
Lyrics from Bloc Party. Feedback is manna from heaven.