Night had fallen over London, an extra blanket of snow making things look clean and crisp in the suburbs on the outside of the city, where it was treacherous with black ice and slushy roadside messes. To add insult to injury, it was still precipitating, but not cold enough to be snowing. Rain was falling; it would melt the snow and create more trouble for everyone – the exception being those who remained indoors.
Zacharias Smith lived in a mansion whose grounds far outreached appropriate proximity to the home. A luxury his father could afford what with how much money he made travelling and doing what he did best, which was work. With his son home for the holidays, Zacharias' father did not take the time off that most fathers' could not afford but relinquished anyhow for the closeness of the family, but in Zacharias' eyes, it would have been a lie in itself if they had the opportunity to be together that Christmas.
Bereft of all familial ties he was not, however. Though his mother was gone and his father as good as gone, Zacharias had his sister, and she was more than willing to be his boon that Christmas season; to make him feel as he ought to feel, as he deserved to feel, in a way his parents would never allow him to feel again. Also, he had brought home a friend.
Ernest Macmillan was possibly the most unlikely mate a boy like Zacharias would ever have. They were polar opposites when it came to almost everything, and one of the two often became frustrated with the arrangement. Zacharias was not that one, because as he would have it, he did not really care about such petty things as character and merit – and that was all Ernie was. The Scottish boy put a lot of sweat into things, but Zacharias was sure his friend would not bleed for anyone else's sake. It was comfortable to be just business and not to really care.
They had provided each other with a sort of superficial comfort, only it was not exactly superficial. Zacharias found himself unable to function properly as he once did, not quite the perfect fit for the groove he had worn himself year after year after year. No longer was he listless in his routine, but he felt irked in a small way that he could not possibly ignore, even if it outwardly appeared he could. No one suspected anything of him because people had learned long ago that there was nothing to suspect from Zacharias Smith.
Except for Ernie. What bothered Zacharias the most was not that the boy did not seem to ever go away, spoke a mile a minute to ears that were so obviously deaf but preached words that compelled Zacharias to listen, near pried into his personal life on a regular basis with eyes that shone with concern – true concern – or that he looked so inviting all of the time, but that Zacharias looked at his former way of going about things and felt empty without Ernie in the mundane. Up until that point he had been comfortable with the knowledge that he only needed to worry about two people: himself and his litter sister, but now there was a foreign object lodged in his conscious, in his subconscious, in his brain, and he could not find the willpower to force himself to want to remove it.
Lying in bed, Zacharias stared up at the ceiling, observing the texture of white paint over sheetrock, and how he saw millions of little pinpricks of bluish, sometimes whitish, fuzz around that time every night, like his eyes felt like seeing on a different plane of reality where the particles in everything were visible. He often thought of things like that; things that were opaque and unimportant to the masses, which would make him seem like a fool if he were to speak it aloud. They were not things he found important, or things he found interesting, because Zacharias was all Quidditch and creatures and an older brother. And something else.
Ernie emerged from the bathroom a moment later with the promise of a flushed toilet and the faucet turning on, then off again. He slipped through the door with his damp hands gleaming in the low light, catching a glare from the floor lamp. Zacharias found himself amused with the image of Ernie standing in the bathroom with a towel in his hands, obsessively catching every single drop of water before he retired; that was the kind of thing he would expect from the freckled Scot.
Silently, Zacharias watched Ernie meander over to the bed, itching his hip through his pyjama pants as he went, looking fidgety. It was easy to tell when Ernie was uncomfortable, but Zacharias still said nothing, noting the look on the other boy's face. Ernie was going to say something at any moment.
"Zach," the prefect began, his deep voice tentative, and he paused a beat to observe Zacharias' face, which was placid and expectant. "Zach," he said again, this time trying to sound serious and businesslike, "I have a condition."
To an outsider, such a statement might have alarmed, but Zacharias knew a condition to Ernie was like opinion to another. They met eyes briefly, Zacharias still lounging in the bed on his back, his attention slowly turning away from Ernie as he became disinterested in the drawn-out proclamation of said condition, whatever it was, and more interested with how the shadows played against the walls.
"May I remove my pyjama pants?" Zacharias' attention was restored upon Ernie in a second, and the standing boy continued. "I mean to say, at school I sleep in a nightshirt, you see, and I feel most uncomfortable with material … in that area of my body, if you follow, so it would be most appreciated if you would grant me the freedom to remove the offensive garment. Just to sleep," he added quickly. Zacharias shrugged.
With the affirmative, Ernie averted his eyes to the drawstring on his pants and pulled, loosening the waist before letting the pants slip down so he could step out of them. Upon doing so, a snort was heard from Zacharias' end of the bed. Ernie looked up, suddenly blushing. "If it bothers you –" he began.
"I can't believe you wear those," was the interjection.
"Excuse me?"
"Y-fronts, Ernie?"
Displeasure settled in and Ernie's mouth curved into a frown, his brows furrowing, but his cheeks were still glowing. Taking a moment, he folded his pants and set them aside before sliding into the bed beside Zacharias, pulling the covers over his lower body, leaving him in a t-shirt with some Muggle band's insignia on the front, unknown to him. Zacharias smirked.
"I'll have you know that most wizard elders don't even wear undergarments," he blurted, obviously trying to defend himself. "They find them uncomfortable and restraining. Robes give more leeway where that is concerned because of how they are designed and worn, but currently wizards are more susceptible to Muggle fashions, which do not necessarily denote underpants but include. . . ."
Zacharias could care less about wizard elders and current fashion, and about why Ernie always felt so threatened when someone did not agree with him. It did not concern him that Ernie always talked at him and wanted to be righteous and important – not altogether. What made Zacharias act was the feeling Ernie could inflict upon him. How endearing and amusing it was to spend time in his company. When Ernie and begun speaking, using a domineering, no-nonsense tone of voice, bristled and nettled, Zacharias felt, and he moved to sit himself up, and turn, and pull Ernie closer by the waist, fitting his face at the crook of his friend's neck, applying a smooth and gentle, wet, kiss.
When Ernie's words trailed off and he slowly relaxed into Zacharias' oral ministrations, Zacharias felt a familiar calm settle over him, just as the dark had fallen outdoors. The hand Ernie rested upon his arm as he shifted into a more comfortable position, leaning wilfully toward Zacharias, was like the blanket of snow upon the ground, cemented with ice that burned to the touch and felt warm; and as they both turned their heads, and their mouths united in an open, mutual embrace, it was as if they were melting whatever coldness lay between them, chipping away at it with broad, careful strokes of the tongue, like the falling rain.
They broke apart, the only sounds the rain pattering on the balcony outside and heavy breathing, both things muted in a way that made the world seem a softer place, just like the grey fuzz on the dimmed ceiling and how Zacharias' carpet felt beneath his bare feet. Ernie rested his forehead against Zacharias' shoulder, breath directed at Zacharias' neck, and leaned in such a way that Zacharias lay back on the pillows, Ernie moving to fit flush against him, curling an arm across his torso and into the slight concave of his waist. This was how he fell asleep, a heavy weight pressing against Zacharias' chest, and he could feel Ernie's beating heart.
Ernie was like all of the things Zacharias thought about. The things everyone saw and knew about but never paid any mind to, like the angle one's shadow protruded from their feet, and how the nose was the first part of the body to grow cold. Ernie did not disregard the little things; he knew about them and never felt too stingy to share. It was uncanny, everything he knew and to what extent. Every time Ernie would begin an informational tangent, Zacharias would grow restless as his head spun, trying to remember what he was hearing, but also trying to forget, rejecting any little bit of Ernie that might endear him further, make Zacharias yearn for his company in copious amounts – or even at all. It had been so easy to dictate to himself before, and he wondered constantly why this was not so anymore.
Contrary to popular belief, Ernie was not too much of anything, nor too little, but he was imbalanced and always changing subtly, like solid shapes did to untrained eyes in the darkness. Most thought he was unchanging in his ways, stuck up and unable to budge, but Zacharias knew if one looked hard enough, one would be able to see that everything was always in constant movement, no matter how concentrated it looked.
Stirring, Ernie made a soft noise in his sleep; a sort of sigh that was less breathy and more vocal, and Zacharias had heard Ernie whimper in the same manner as that before, but he had never felt it. To Zacharias, things were not actually things unless they were tangible. There was no God if he could not see Him, no hope without foreseeable result, and no love without lust. But Zacharias did not love Ernie. Zacharias would never love Ernie.