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Chapter 4
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Whether the students of Hogwarts realized it or not, Hogsmeade was even more crowded that day than it would have been normally a week before Christmas. Not only were the shops flooded with teenagers, the small wizarding town was also littered with several members of The Order of the Phoenix, placed undercover by a recommendation from the school's Headmistress and Order leader, Minerva McGonagall. Despite the Ministry's latest attempts to once again try to downplay the escape of several Death Eaters from the seemingly defunct Azkaban prison, they were out there, and McGonagall wasn't about to take any chances when it came to the safety of her students. Aside from the typical hussel and bussel that went along with last minute Christmas shopping, though, Hogsmeade seemed quite calm.
Megan, however, was by far the most frightening person that Zacharias Smith had ever shopped with in his life. Just looking at her with her hair in braids, freckles, and absolutely ridiculous striped hat with a puffball on top, it'd be hard to believe that this girl let loose in a store could be hazardous to a person's health.
It's true, though.
"THIS IS PERFECT!" Megan squealed with glee, picking up some sort of strange blue orb thing as Zacharias flinched at the noise that had just come out of her mouth. No human should be able to produce that high of a pitch, and now his ear drums were paying for it. "What is it?" he asked Megan, looking at the thing skeptically.
Megan looked between Zacharias and the ball in her hand, frowning. "I'm... not positive. It's just so Wayne though, so get it. Darnit. Oh hey, look at this!" she cried, grabbing something pink and fuzzy right from under an elderly woman's hand and tossing it over to Zacharias, who promptly grabbed it and set it right back down on the shelf.
"Oooohkay, I think that is enough shopping for now..." Zacharias decided, seeing as how the old woman who'd been going after the ugly fuzzy thing seemed about ready to smack Megan upside the head with her cane. Because Megan could object, Zacharias grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the store before the enraged grandmother could call for backup.
Once the two were back outside, the snow thankfully falling more lightly than it had been when they'd gone in, Megan fixed her hat and threw her scarf around her neck an extra time. "I could have taken her," Megan stated, looking as evilly as she could manage back towards the door of the shop.
"She was about to take you out with her cane, Meg."
"It wouldn't be the first time that's happened."
"... Really?" Zacharias laughed, raising an eyebrow.
"I have really horrid luck with little old ladies," Megan explained cryptically, then shrugged, smiling again. "So, where to next?"
'Somewhere that doesn't involve you getting bludgeoned to death by the elderly' Zacharias thought to himself, trying to come up with a quick remedy to Megan's shopaholic syndrome. "Well... how goes the egg name search?" he asked as a last resort.
It seemed to work well enough as a distraction, though. "Oh! I've figured it out. Are you okay with the name Zoë?" Megan asked, pulling the egg from her pocket, where it had been riding safely throughout their shopping spree. "I was torn between that and Anya, but I enjoy the E with the two little dots over it thing," she explained, just in case Zacharias had confused the way she wanted to spell it with the version that ended in 'ey'. "Oh, and the meaning of the name is,"
"Zoë sounds like a great name," Zacharias interrupted. "Zoë it is. Zoë the egg." He was just pleased that they could finally move on from that topic, and Megan would finally stop toting that damn names book around with her to meals.
"We have a name! Victory is ours!" Megan cried happily, not noticing the odd stares she was getting from the people walking past, wondering why a seventeen year old girl was so happy about an egg. Carefully placing the eggish Zoë back into her pocket, Megan turned to Zacharias, a questioning look on her face. "I have something else to ask you."
"Zoë does not need a middle name."
"Sure she does! I don't have one and I don't want her to feel deprived or anything. But that's not my question. It's actually about your name," Megan explained to Zacharias as they walked by a few of the stores in the snow, waving or nodding in acknowledgement when they spotted one of their mates. "So, honestly, do you prefer Zacharias or Zach? Does it bug you when people shorten it?"
Zacharias had to think about this for a moment; no on had ever really asked him flat out about it before. "Well... I don't know. Both are fine, I guess. I think it's more of a "my friends call me Zach" kind of thing, really."
Megan nodded. "Zach it is, then."
Zacharias couldn't help snorting a bit at this new development. "So wait. You suggested naming the egg D'jajecolette, and yet you're asking permission to call me Zach?"
"Well, yes. I suppose I like to think that we're friends," Megan answered quietly, looking down at the ground, suddenly taking an extreme interest in the way that the snow was covered in various boot imprints. Fascinating stuff, that wacky snow. All nice and clean and white and not embarrassed because it doesn't say stupid things.
Zacharias looked just as caught off guard by Megan's statement as Megan was that she'd honestly said that out loud. "Well... we are." Zacharias frowned. 'Way to make things weird, Jones.' "So. Zach then."
Despite the fact that Zacharias was willing to at least admit they were friends, Megan's number one goal at the moment was to make the evil awkward silence go away. "Awesome! Definitely Zach then. Like Zach attack! Or Zach the Lego Maniac!" Megan rambled at hyper speed, every through that popped into her head flying out of her mouth. "Did you have Legos when you were a little kid? I didn't, but my friend Enid? She's a muggle, and her brother had all the Legos ever, it seems like. And her brother is named Zack too! Isn't that absolutely mad? Of course, his version of Zack is with a K and is short for Zackary rather than Zacharias like yours is, so it's kind of the same thing but not really and hey, is that my Mum?" Megan blurted out onto the end of her monologue, grabbing Zacharias's arm and pulling him in the direction that she'd apparently spotted her mother, as Zacharias tried his best to figure out how Megan could have possibly said that many words in that short an amount of time.
Sure enough, sitting at one of the snow covered tables outside of the Three Broomsticks was Hestia Jones, looking like she'd much rather be sitting inside where it wasn't snowing. Zacharias looked between Megan and the older black haired witch. Besides the very distinct contrast in hair color, there was absolutely no mistake that the two were related. The man who was sitting with Mrs. Jones, however, Zacharias didn't recognize.
Megan did, though. She'd been seeing a great deal of Mr. Sturgis Podmore over the last year, and Megan still wasn't quite sure how she felt about it. For as long as she could remember, it had always been just Megan and her mum, her dad having died when Megan was still quite young. And while Hestia had gone on dates every once in a while over the years, nothing had ever really gotten all that serious. This thing with Sturgis, though... Megan wasn't sure what to think of it. He seemed like a really nice, kind of quiet guy, but even just mentioning his name made Hestia get kind of a goopy look on her face. It weirded Megan out.
"Hi Mum... hey Sturgis," Megan added as a quick afterthought as she and Zacharias reached their table. "What are you doing here? Don't you usually work Saturdays?" she asked, fidgeting with the ends of her hair as Zacharias stood by, feeling out of place, not sure how much attention he should be paying to Megan's conversation with her mother.
Hestia threw a quick glance to Sturgis before answering her daughter. "They were overstaffed in my ward, so I figured I'd take the day off to finish up some other business," she explained nonchalantly, although Megan took her meaning right away. Her mum was on Order business.
"Ohhh, like Christmas shopping for yours truly?" Megan grinned, not sure whether or not Hestia caught that Megan had gotten her meaning. Megan still wasn't sure if she was supposed to let it be clear even to other members of the Order that she knew of her mother's part in it, Hestia having warned her in the past that quite a few of its members wouldn't be all too keen on someone her age knowing about it. (Of course, Megan also hadn't been told about the several Gryffindors in her own year who were more than aware of the Order...) Megan knew that Sturgis was aware that she knew, but considering that Zach was there too, playing dumb would probably be for the best.
"That may be a part of it..." Hestia trailed off, glancing up at Zacharias. "So are you going to introduce us to your friend?" Hestia asked, shooting another one of those glances Sturgis's way, who continued to sip from his mug of butterbeer silently.
Zacharias decided that this would be a good time to start paying attention again, seeing as how he was the topic of conversation. "I'm pretty sure you've met Zach before, Mum," Megan thought out loud. Hadn't she? When would that've happened? "Well anyway, Zach? This is my mum and her friend Sturgis Podmore. Mum, Sturgis, this is Zacharias Smith. He's going to be fathering my child."
This announcement caused Sturgis to practically begin choking on his butterbeer, having nearly spit out his drink over the shock of this proclamation. Zacharias stared at Megan, not sure if there was a worse possible way that she could've phrased that statement. And in front of her mother! And her mother's... rather angry looking friend, who was currently shooting him a look that would probably kill him, if it was allowed to go on for much longer. "You're new to English, aren't you, Meg?" Zacharias muttered quietly enough so that only Megan could hear him.
Hestia looked all too calm, considering the explosive announcement Megan had just made, and merely raised an eyebrow in amusement at how her daughter had chosen to phrase things. "Oh, so Zach is the lucky fellow you were telling me about. I see. Did you decide on a name yet?" she asked.
"You knew about this?" Sturgis sputtered, dropping his death glare at Zacharias and turning in disbelief towards Hestia. The woman was a Healer, for Merlin's sake. You'd think she would have at least better explained certain... protection charms to her daughter to prevent things like this from happening while she was this young, if she was THAT unable to control her urge to do THAT. Sturgis had pretty much been under the impression that Megan was one of the most naively innocent girls her age, but to find out that she was... oh Merlin. Images. Mental pictures please stop now, ow, Sturgis pleaded with his brain.
Hestia rolled her eyes at her panicky friend. "It's an egg, Sturgis love."
"Yes, they all do start out that way, don't they?" he muttered, deciding this would be a fantastic time to recommence with his death glaring.
"It's for a Muggle Studies project," Zacharias finally spoke, realizing that Megan probably just didn't get that it sounded an awful lot like he'd 'dropped off his mail at her house while playing parcel delivery worker'. "It really is an egg. I promise," he assured the adults, rubbing the back of his head and looking to Megan to explain herself in a bit more detail. Maybe he could just reach in her pocket and show them that there really was an egg... no, that just made it look like he was grabbing for the no-no regions, which caused both of the adults to throw him a look. "You're looking very lovely today, Mrs. Jones, heh heh, Hey MEG," Zacharias nudged the girl sharply, finally getting her attention. "Why don't you show them the egg?"
"Oh! Right!" Megan nodded, reaching in her pocket and revealing the egg. "This is Zoë Jones-Smith. She doesn't have a middle name yet, but we'll find her one. " Megan continued to further explain the assignment, and Zacharias was just relieved that Mr. Podmore seemed to have gotten much less tense since Megan had pulled out the actual chicken egg. 'Honestly. Zach will be fathering my child. This is why we think first, then speak,' Zacharias thought, trying to mentally send this concept Megan's way through brain waves.
"...And then we were thinking about maybe naming her Lita but I guess Morag named her and Ernie's Lita and we didn't want to copycat on names or anything so..." Megan kept right on about the project to her mother, who appeared to be listening interestedly, but was actually running over the current shopping list of things she still had to get done in her mind. Sliding into the conversation at the first available opportunity, having been waiting and watching for her daughter to take a breath, Hestia interrupted Megan's ramblings, rising to her feet and fixing the bits of her fringe that was sticking out from under her hat. "Honey, I don't think that Zach here wants to spend his day in Hogsmeade hanging out with your parents. Er, well, your mum and her bloke." Megan couldn't stop wondering why in Helga's name her mum kept giving Sturgis that look. What that supposed to be subtle?
Okay, so it was subtle enough for Megan to not be able to figure out what it meant, but still. She'd caught her mum in the act at LEAST three times that day alone.
Megan could (sort of) take a hint, though, and pulling her tacky green and orange and yellow and pink striped hat over her ears, nodded in agreement to her mother's statement. "Okay. I can tell you more about it Monday," Megan replied, having forgotten for a moment that she'd be going home for Christmas in two days.
"See you Monday, love," Hestia nodded, hugging her daughter and turning towards Sturgis, who was currently adjusting his bright turquoise fuzzy earmuffs. "I think we should probably stop in at Dervish and Banges before it closes, don't you?" she hinted. Sturgis took one last drink of his butterbeer and began to nod, only to catch Zacharias smirking at his fluffy winder ear-garb. Realizing he'd been spotted, Zacharias quickly substituted his amused grin with as angelic a smile as he could muster. "Wonderful meeting you both," Zacharias said goodbye to them hurriedly, beginning to back away from the small family reunion. Megan waved goodbye to Sturgis and started off after Zach.
"Be careful and stay out of trouble!" Hestia called after Megan and Zacharias. Megan stopped in her tracks, looking back to her mum and rolling her eyes. "Oh please. Does Ringo glow in the dark?" she called, then dashed off after Zach, needing to catch up.
Sturgis looked uneasily at Hestia. "Does Ringo glow in the dark?" he asked, not quite understanding the reference, and not quite sure if he wanted to. "He's also blue," Hestia laughed, shaking her head. "Have you ever met Megan's cat?"
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Author's note: Wooooo typing up handwritten fic from a notebook takes a ridiculously long time. BUT! Next time, things start to get complicated, as creepy scary fellows like girls with bright hair, heh heh . .
And to answer the lovely firnoviel's question, Megan is a character in the Harry Potter universe, who was mentioned in the list of students in Harry's Year which J.K. Rowling released a few years back. Basically, all that was established by J.K.R. was her name, and any characterization for her thusfar hasn't been established in the books. She exists, though! Barely, but she's there, hehe. Thank you for asking!