Author's Note: This fic was written for the 2020 Tag(line) You're It! Competition. I chose the Apocalypse, which meant that I was randomly assigned two characters (Zacharias Smith and Hannah Abbott), a trope (Mutual Pining), and a movie tagline ("So shocking she could only be spoken about in whispers!" from "The Strange Woman"). This is the result! Beta credit to the indefatigable DreamsofDramione for her structural support and encouragement!
Awards:
- Overall Favorite
- Best Characterization
- Runner Up: Best Angst
Warnings: Mentions of abortion and stigma related to abortion
Castoffs
I.
The Tin Spoon stank. The dive bar had adopted a sour fug in the humid, late summer air, and the cracked door provided little relief. Its floor was sticky, layered with decades worth of spilled beer. Zacharias Smith could feel it trying to trap him with every step, tugging insistently on the rubber soles of his trainers. The resistance grew the farther he walked, like quicksand trapping a careless wanderer.
He considered leaving. He was broke, desperate, and decidedly miserable, but he still had standards.
In the end, it wasn't the floor that rooted him in place. It was a person. A familiar face behind the bar. A woman who had done something so shocking that, even now, six months later, she was only spoken about in whispers.
Hannah Abbott.
She looked just as Zacharias remembered.
Blue eyes. A heart-shaped face. Pink lips known for kind words and an easy smile. Long, dirty-blonde hair, tied up tonight in a high ponytail that ended midway down her back. Ample cleavage, on rare display in a low-cut black shirt. Hips a man could hold onto. An arse designed for teenage fantasies.
She was also a half-blood.
While this didn't necessarily qualify her as below Zacharias' interest at Hogwarts, it had put her on a lower tier: not quite a Greengrass, but well above a Granger.
Things were different now, though. Zacharias was a month into his first year at university, and his father, Mortimer, had made his expectations clear. According to his father, at this point in Zacharias' life, the pursuit of a woman should only be undertaken if that woman was fit to be a wife. Otherwise, romance was a bad investment—a waste of money, time, and effort.
This, far more than the rumours that had ripped through the wizarding world, put Hannah out of the running.
And yet, he didn't leave.
There was still time: Hannah hadn't seen him. To her, Zacharias was just another hazy figure standing in the pub's shadowed threshold, debating the choices that had brought him to this point. He could go back to his overcrowded flat, where his roommates were no doubt imbibing, indulging, and generally behaving in a way that struck him both as immature and deeply enticing. Or he could go to the library, where he arguably should have been anyway, to tackle his growing assignment list and prepare the progress report Mortimer expected at month's close.
"Zach? Zach Smith?"
It was too late. The decision to stay—like so many others in his life—had been made for him.
And Zacharias—like so many other times in his life—didn't fight it.
He took a seat at the corner of the bar, tucked against the wall and half-hidden behind a support column. Hannah met him there with a wide smile and a pint of ale. He stared at the glass, then at her, a question clear in his eyes.
"Old friends get the first one on the house," she explained with a wink.
They hadn't been friends. The same Hogwarts house, yes, and the same year, but that's where their connection had ended. However, Zacharias' financial restrictions—a test of independence, as his father had put it—remained at the forefront of his mind. If a short conversation was the price of his first beer, he'd pay it—gladly.
He lifted the glass to her, muttered his gratitude, and took a long pull. The place was a shitehole, but the beer was passable, cold and carbonated. Hannah swiped the bar with a damp rag and waited until after he'd swallowed to exact her fee.
"What brings you to London?"
"University," he said. Best to try and keep this daillance brief.
Her smile widened. "Oh, that's wonderful! Me too! Where at?"
"A wizarding college. You've probably never heard of it."
She leaned forward with a conspiratorial grin. "Try me."
"The Miletus School of Maintenance."
"The engineering university." Hannah's answer came quick as a whip. "I considered it. Magical Maintenance track?"
Zacharias nodded, surprised and a little dismayed. Miletus' was a private institution, and very select. It took more than just good grades to secure a spot. In fact, Mortimer had met with the university's dean in the fall of Zacharias' Seventh Year. He'd returned home in a foul mood and, though he never admitted it, Zacharias had the impression that a significant donation had been required to secure his admission.
"Lucrative, but competitive," Hannah continued. "I heard all of their grading is done on a normal distribution."
He nodded again. His professors had made that clear on day one: only half of the class would earn passing grades. The rest… Well, not everyone could work in Magical Maintenance.
"Do you like it?"
No.
The truth nearly spilled out of him. He delayed the correct answer—the expected answer—with another sip.
Zacharias hated The Miletus School. His classes were small and filled with strangers, students from abroad who knew neither him nor his family and treated him with none of the deference he felt he deserved. His professors were beady-eyed men who laughed too much, shrugged when asked for the exact answers, and only smiled when Zacharias pointed out the grading rubric's subjectivity. His living quarters were loud, his roommates unruly, his finances tight, and his confidence practically nonexistent. So far, there was nothing to recommend about adult life.
"It's all right," he answered instead.
Hannah's eyes narrowed, as if she'd heard a ghost of the lie. "That's great," she said. "I'm going to Cass Business School, working toward an MBA with a concentration in Innovation and Entrepreneurship."
"Never heard of it."
"It's a Muggle institution."
He nearly choked on his ale. "Come again?"
"I wanted a change." Hannah shrugged, though the gesture did not appear as carefree as she'd probably intended. There was a reason she was in a Muggle school, after all. Zacharias would bet his pitiful savings that it wasn't because she'd wanted a change.
Their eyes met, an unspoken understanding passing between them. Over the span of five minutes, they'd glimpsed each other's truths. They were on even ground.
And it irked him.
Zacharias was a pure-blood. His family didn't have the lineage of a Malfoy or the clout of a Zabini, the connections of a Nott or the money of a Parkinson. But they did have drive. An irrepressible ambition to matter, to be noticed, to be worthy.
Settling on even ground had never been the goal.
Zacharias' lips turned in a sneer, the ale suddenly bitter on his tongue. "I take it that's why you're here, serving drinks in this hovel?"
Disquiet crossed Hannah's friendly face, and her eyes flicked across the pub. Zacharias wondered if she saw it now. If he'd opened her eyes to the uneven bar stools and split upholstery; the dilapidated piano and pock-marked walls; the haggard men with craggy faces and discolored teeth. Maybe now she'd feel ashamed for her failure.
Maybe now, by proxy, she'd help him feel less ashamed of his.
"It's not perfect," Hannah said with a sigh. "Not what I thought it would be, at least. But I have my independence, and that's worth everything to me."
"Even your dignity?"
She recoiled as if slapped, and her blue eyes lit with fury. Part of him hoped that she would lose it, that her composure would crack, revealing an interior that was just as lost and floundering as his.
Instead, she lifted her chin. "I've got customers." Her voice was as brittle as old glass as she turned, tossing a careless goodbye over her shoulder. "Take care, Zach."
"It's Zacharias."
She stopped, shoulders tense and drawn up near her ears. But she didn't look back at him, just raised a hand: a clear dismissal.
Good. He didn't want to be here anyway. Hadn't wanted to stay. She'd made him—forced his hand—and look where it had got them. He slammed his ale, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and left, not bothering with gratuity.
A witch like her wasn't worth much to him anyway.
II.
Late November sleet blew down in sheets outside, but the Tin Spoon was warm as ever.
Hannah had been working since her classes ended at four. She'd removed her cardigan and tied her hair back, transforming from the diligent student who walked the placid halls of higher education to the busty barmaid who gave as good as she got from behind the noisy pub's crowded counter.
The Spoon wasn't known for its quiet. Her regulars fed Muggle coins into an old-timey player—a monstrosity called a jukebox—with budgetable predictability. Far from being distracted by the once-unfamiliar Muggle tunes, Hannah had grown to like them. To depend on them.
Hannah danced her way through work, but she didn't move in a way that could be counted off in three-quarter time. Her rhythm was dictated by the raising of hands and the shuffling of glasses, by lifted brows and knowing smiles. She waltzed behind the bar, filling orders as she went. Here, a sweep, removing pint glasses and setting them aside to be washed. There, the pull of two fresh drafts, the glasses tilted just so, overfilled to achieve that perfect, heady foam cap. Two steps and a dart as she reached forward to settle a bill. A spin to the till, followed by a complicated combination of her fingers over its electronic keys, which was always on beat to the ambient tune. Another turn to settle the change, and a retraction as her patrons waved her off, delivering her three favorite words with a smile: keep the change.
There was an elegance to it, a steady satisfaction in delivering drinks Hannah had never expected to feel. There had been a derisive joke at Hogwarts, snide comments about Hufflepuff girls being kitchen witches fit for little more than baking and breeding. Hannah had done everything she could to buck the stereotype, vowing never to set foot in a kitchen so long as she had her magic.
How thoroughly a few months could change things.
And how much she would have regretted never experiencing the simple joy of serving others.
The pub's door blew open with a gust of frigid air. But instead of slamming closed, as the heavy door was wont to do, it remained open. More than a few heads turned to glare at the backlit new arrival. Hannah saw a shiver run through a nearby patron.
"Oi!" Her voice carried over the music. "In or out!"
The door swung shut, and the pub exhaled in the renewed heat.
But Hannah felt a deeper chill.
Zacharias had returned.
Their eyes met. Hannah, conscious of her customers, kept her face impassive. The Tin Spoon was a dive and, therefore, a refuge. It was a place for those who couldn't afford London's highbrow nightclubs or weren't interested in their attendant judgments. It was a place everyone was welcome, including self-important arseholes from her past.
He took the same corner seat he'd occupied a couple months ago. Hannah slung a dish towel over her shoulder and waited opposite him, the epitome of impatience.
"What'll it be?"
He answered like it should've been obvious. "Pint of bitter."
Hannah held her hand out, palm up. Zacharias' eyes narrowed. This wasn't how things usually worked. Patrons ordered what they wanted, understanding that they'd settle up at the night's end. The trust between patron and barkeep was as sacred as that between congregant and preacher, but after their last encounter, Hannah trusted her former classmate about as far as she could throw him.
Only after she'd rang his money into the till did Hannah pull him a draft. She set it down and turned to make another sweep of the bar, intending to ignore him for as long as professionally possible.
"Wait."
Hannah whipped around. "What?"
"How… " Zacharias looked down at his glass. "How are you?"
Like he cared. "Fine."
"How are your classes? At Cass?"
"Brilliant, actually," she snapped. "I'm acing my first year, and my flatmate moved in with her boyfriend, so I have the place to myself for now. Turns out my dignity provides enough to live on."
He had the good grace to blush. And while she wanted to feel joy at his shame—wanted him to feel bad for making her feel bad—Hannah felt pity instead.
Exhaustion rode his shoulders like a yoke, and stress lines aged his brown eyes. If his first month at The Miletus School had started the erosion process, then the intervening two had finished it. Zacharias looked worn down and miserable, and it wasn't in Hannah's nature to hold a grudge.
Even less so against a man she fancied.
He'd never known about it. No one had. The girls in her year had mooned over Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. No one admired Zacharias Smith. Never mind that he was tall, or smart, or ambitious, or focused. All people knew about him, all they chose to see, was the social climber. The prickly boy who asked too many questions and was more concerned with getting answers than worrying about how he did so. He had the bad-boy allure of a Slytherin, the intellect of a Ravenclaw, and the brash attitude of a Gryffindor. Hannah had never understood how he'd landed in Hufflepuff, but she'd been selfishly glad for it.
She was selfishly glad to see him now, too, if she were being honest with herself. Zacharias had grown more attractive since Hogwarts, and even though he'd acted like an arsehole, Hannah couldn't help but wonder if there was still an opportunity here. Maybe this was her second chance to discover a man worth knowing.
"How's your semester going?" she asked.
"Terribly."
She had suspected as much, though his honesty surprised her.
"I'm failing," he admitted matter-of-factly. "Every class."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
"No you're not." He breathed a laugh. "Why would you be? The great Zacharias Smith, bested by Countercharms 101. What could be more thrilling?"
So, he had come to pick a fight. Hannah had half a mind to give him one.
"How'd you handle it?" he bit out. "Disappointing your family? Shocking your friends? Throwing away your entire future?"
"Another word and I'll turn you into a toad." Hannah's composure frayed, and her grip tightened around an empty glass. "You don't know a damn thing about what I went through or what it cost me, and you'd do well not to draw comparisons between us. I fucked up, I made the decision that was right for me, and I'm dealing with the consequences. You fucked up, and instead of taking responsibility or making any sort of worthwhile change, you come here, looking to make yourself feel better by making someone else feel worse.
"It's not going to work." She hit him with a hard glare. "I'm happy with where I'm at, and I don't have any room in my life for arseholes like you. So get the fuck out of here, Zacharias. I never want to see you in this pub again."
"You're throwing me out?" His raised voice caught the attention of a nearby table.
She quelled their interest with a kind smile, which turned cold as she looked back to her former classmate.
"I'm politely asking that you vacate the premises," she clarified. "Or Karl, our line cook, will throw you out, and he won't be nearly as nice about it."
Turning away, she waited until a brief gust of cold air swept through the pub. When she looked back over her shoulder, Zacharias was gone.
Hannah reached for his half-empty glass, under which he'd tucked a five pound note. She stared at the money for a long moment, then took it, folded it, and tucked it into her back pocket. She cocked a hip against the counter, crossed her arms over her chest, and sighed. Though she knew he'd never return, she watched the door anyway. Just for a minute. Just long enough to come to terms with a terrible, indelible truth.
She had absolute shite taste in men.
III.
The Tin Spoon's neon sign flickered, a loose connection made worse by the driving December wind. Zacharias had promised himself, had vowed, never to visit this shitehole again.
But tonight, he had nowhere else to go.
He tipped the gin bottle to his lips. It was bottom-shelf—all he could afford—and burned on the way down, stinging his chapped, cracking lips. He didn't care. The spiral that had started at the semester's beginning had reached its terminus, landing him on an empty street corner across from a dive.
Alone. Drunk.
Homeless on Christmas Eve.
Unwanted and unloved.
Zacharias leaned against a light pole. His meager possessions, shoved into a charmed trash bag, sat beside him gathering snow. He considered casting a warming charm on himself, but the alcohol kept him warm better than any magic and had the additional benefit of numbing his despair.
At eight p.m., the pub's sign flickered off. Only a few patrons stumbled from the dark doorway, unsteady on their feet due to the drinks and drifts of snow. Staff trickled out soon after.
Hannah was the last to leave.
He called out to her. His voice was muted by the snowfall, but somehow, she heard him. She half-jogged across the empty street, hands in her coat pockets.
"Zacharias… What are you doing here?"
"I got kicked out," he said.
"Of your flat?"
"Of my flat, of my school, of everything." He gestured widely, the inch of liquor left in the bottle sloshing against its side. "I have nowhere else to go."
"What about your parents?"
He shook his head, tears stinging his eyes. "Tried that," he admitted, voice thick with grief. "Father… He's—He's cut me off."
Hannah's eyes narrowed, but not in pity. "So you came here?"
Zacharias looked past her, unable to meet her eyes. "You said your flatmate moved out."
"And what? You think that means you can move in with me?" Her cheeks, rosey from the cold, flushed with outrage. "You know what your problem is, Zacharias? You think the world owes you. You think that your mere existence is reason enough for things to be handed to you, when the reality is you've never once had to put in effort. You think you're superior because you've never had to try, and now that you actually do, you're coming up short. And since you can't fucking deal with it, you're running to someone who can."
A week ago, he would have disagreed with her. He would have thrown her failures in her face, insulted her intelligence, her blood, her taste in men, her morality—anything to make himself look better in comparison.
But tonight?
"You're right," he said. "About everything. I've fucked up, and I don't have the first clue how to fix it."
"And you want someone else to do it for you. Forget—"
"No. I don't want you to fix it for me. I just want…" He trailed off. He didn't know what he wanted. Not long-term, not really. "I just want a place to stay for the night. Will you help me?"
Hannah pursed her lips but remained otherwise impassive as she looked him over. Zacharias tried not to fidget. He didn't know what she was looking for, what metric she was using to assess his worth, but he had a feeling that being still and quiet would work in his favour.
After far too long, she relented with a curse. "Fine. Follow me."
"Couldn't we just Apparate to—"
"We're walking," she snapped, whirling away from him. "Gives me plenty of time to rethink this decision."
Zacharias bit his tongue and followed.
Things grew hazy from there. He remembered an interminable set of stairs, a long hallway done in stained, red carpet, and, at last, collapsing on an ugly couch.
Several hours later, he woke to a view of Hannah's knees. She wore pajamas—black with little yellow badgers—and Zacharias smiled despite the pounding behind his eyes.
"How are you feeling?" she asked softly.
"Like I drank a bottle of gin," he muttered. Even thinking about pine made his stomach turn.
"I thought that might be the case." She leaned forward and set three vials before him. "For your hangover, your headache, and your stomach."
"Thank you."
She nodded, then clasped her hands together. "What's your plan?"
"I don't have one." He tossed the potions back and pressed his fingers to his eyes. "I can't pay rent because I can't get a job. They put me on academic probation because I'm failing all my classes. "
"Do you even want to go into Magical Maintenance?"
"No," he admitted. "I wanted to be a musician."
Hannah's eyebrows lifted a fraction. "I didn't know you played."
"I've studied piano since age eight. But there's no living in it, according to my father."
"Especially if you never try."
Zacharias sent her a sideways look but didn't argue. Hannah had a point. He'd lived a frictionless life until now, applying minimal effort and receiving maximum reward. But that approach no longer worked. It was time for a change.
"Then I will," he said. And, after a beat: "How?"
Hannah thought for a moment. "Come with me to the Spoon tomorrow. I'll talk to Karl and see if we can't get you signed on as wait staff."
Zacharias frowned. "What about the piano? Does it work?"
"I don't know." Hannah shrugged. "I've never seen anyone touch it. If it does work, it's likely out of tune."
"I can fix that."
"That might help convince Karl." She didn't sound confident, but at least it was a start.
"What do we do until then?"
"Well, my parents still aren't talking to me. Apparently, neither are yours." Hannah sighed and sat back in her chair. "I guess we're all we have."
"You're not kicking me out?"
"Do you have anywhere else to go?"
Zacharias grimaced.
"That's what I thought. You can stay here until you're back on your feet. But I'm not your mum," she said sternly. "I'm not your cook, your maid, your anything. You need to start taking responsibility and acting like an adult. Are we clear on that?"
Implicit in the bargain, what neither of them gave voice to, was that she would teach him. The independence he needed would be learned by her side. It was counter-intuitive, but so was his utter helplessness after having every advantage for the first eighteen years of his life.
Hogwarts had taught him how to be a wizard; Hannah would teach him how to be a man.
"Deal."
He offered his hand. Her eyes flicked to his. For a moment, he wondered if she was going to renege. Then her warm hand grasped his, her grip firm, her skin soft.
They held on for a second too long. Hannah dropped first, a flush staining her cheeks.
"I have a small roast in the fridge and a bottle of whisky in the cupboard. I'd appreciate your help with both when you feel up to it."
She rose and crossed the small studio, her footsteps sock-silent even as the wood floors creaked beneath her.
Zacharias took his time, staring at the ceiling until he felt his headache lessen. This was his first day as one of the castoffs. As a willing participant in life, instead of a golem mindlessly walking the path set before him. It might've been a mistake. Leaving school, defying his parents' expectations, throwing away the future they'd planned for him.
Living with Hannah.
He didn't deserve her. He'd realized as much a month ago and was certain of it now.
Though he'd likely never be able to repay her kindness, the least he could do was try.
And maybe that would be enough.
IV.
The Tin Spoon's jukebox sat quiet, as it had for the last few months.
Hannah continued her waltz up and down the bar, pulling drafts and taking payment. But her rhythm had changed, becoming less predictable on nights when Zacharias' fingers danced over the piano's keys.
He was good.
He'd started with the classics at odd hours—those slow afternoons when the pub's patrons were more focused on getting blitzed than Zacharias' clumsy cadance. But his confidence grew, measured by the strength of each finger stroke, and soon the bar was filled with the correct chords.
He'd quickly transitioned from reading sheet music to listening to the aerial, and Hannah was shocked to learn he could play by ear. Muggle tunes rounded out his repertoire. The Beatles, Billy Joel, Elton John, and Journey. Power ballads and raucous rock songs that spawned pub-wide singalongs and shouted requests.
She met Zacharias' eyes from across the bar. He winked as he started his final song of the night: Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.
The noise was deafening, the words unintelligible, but that wasn't the point.
His music brought people together. It was a very real kind of magic as a pub full of strangers stood and raised their glasses to the plight of a young boy who nobody loved, and roared in applause as his story concluded with a few final, delicate notes.
Zacharias took his bow, and Hannah turned up the lights: a signal for the crowd to settle their tabs. When the final patron left, Zacharias locked the door and met Hannah and Karl at the bar. She had an ale waiting for him.
"How'd we do?" he asked.
"Another killing. We have more customers, and they're staying longer and drinking more. Business has never been better. Just as I predicted." She smiled, nudging Karl.
The thickset proprietor clapped Zacharias hard on the shoulder. "He was a good bet. You got lock up?"
Hannah nodded. "As always."
With a kindly salute, Karl left. In his absence, a familiar tension sprouted.
"You were great tonight," Hannah said.
That was stupid: Zacharias was great every night he played. But she needed to break the stretching silence, interrupt the moment that had started to gain weight as Zacharias looked at her.
He smiled, almost sheepish, though the compliment couldn't have been a surprise. Her roommate was many things, but humble was not one of them.
"You need help cleaning up?"
"No, I'm good, thanks." Hannah had worked the bar alone for long enough. She'd established a flow and had yet to find a partner who could match it.
Zacharias nodded, then took his beer and headed back to the piano bench.
He started to play.
Slow songs, rhythms that were easy to keep pace with.
Melodies that had her twirling around the pub, bussing and wiping tables.
Love songs, full of yearning and heartache.
Lyrics that she sang along to as she loaded and started the washer.
A song played just for her ears, loud enough to make her forget her fatigue and sore feet. It swept away her worries and spun her up in wonder.
Only when she reached the song's end did she realize that the music had stopped. She looked up and froze.
"I didn't know you sang." Zacharias stood next to her behind the bar.
"I… I don't. Not really."
He stepped towards her, close enough to feel the heat from his body.
"Didn't sound that way to me." He reached up and caressed her cheek. "It was beautiful."
Hannah shuddered when he kissed her. It was a simple gesture, a brush of his lips against hers, his breath beery and warm. Her hand tightened around his wrist, and he pulled away, brow drawn.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I thought…"
And he'd thought right.
Living with Zacharias had been surprisingly easy. He'd dropped out of The Miletus School and had devoted all of his energy to self-improvement. He'd kept his space tidy, learned to cook, and ran errands when Hannah was in class.
He'd made an effort. Not only tried, but succeeded, and whenever Hannah thought about where he'd been, she couldn't help but feel proud of her friend. He was finally on the right track, working towards what he wanted instead of what others wanted for him. But still, she worried about his future. He'd learned so much, but did he truly understand what this decision would cost him?
"I've made mistakes." Hannah shifted her hand to his, forcing herself to keep his gaze. "You know what they are."
"I don't care about that." His reply was both immediate and sincere. "I never have."
"Your parents would."
They'd been tiptoeing around the story for ages, but he deserved to know the blunt truth of what she'd done. And he deserved to hear it from her instead of the Daily Prophet.
"I slept with Cormac McLaggen during our Eighth Year," Hannah said. "I got pregnant, and I chose to have an abortion. My family stopped speaking to me. My friends abandoned me. I couldn't get a job. The world I knew—the world you came from—abandoned me. I like you. I like you a lot. But I don't want to take this further than friendship if you're not prepared to deal with the consequences of what being with me would mean for you."
His brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
"I mean you have a chance to go back. You can reintegrate into our world and remake your reputation. But me? I don't think I have that luxury. Not for a few more years, at least. I might never get back to where I was, and I worry that you'd only be hurting yourself if you stayed with me."
"Are you telling me to leave?"
"No," she said. "I'm telling you the truth. You need to understand what you're risking if you…" Her cheeks turned red. "If you kiss me again. Zacharias, I…"
She trailed off as his eyes searched hers, the pub quiet save for the dishwasher's low rumble.
"Hannah?"
"Yes?"
"Call me Zach."
And when their lips met again, Hannah felt certain: the choice was his alone.
The End