Zacharias Smith (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} captainzach) wrote,@ 2008-09-23 13:11:00 |
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profile!
The Player
Name: Kassie
Time Zone: American EST
Contact Information: SailorStarPoet // duanya @ gmail . com
The Character
Basics
Name: Zacharias Isaac Smith
Nominal Significance: Zacharias is the Greek form of Zechariah, which comes from the Hebrew name Zekaryah, meaning, “Yahweh remembers.” One Zechariah was a minor prophet in the Old Testament, and another was the father of John the Baptist. Isaac is a predominantly English name, coming from the Hebrew name Yitzchaq, meaning, “he laughs.” In the Old Testament, Isaac was the son of Abraham and father of Esau and Jacob; the name was also shared by Isaac Asimov and Sir Isaac Newton. And Smith is his family name, also known as the most common English surname ever. Zach, in an instance of reading too much into things, sees some sort of significance in the fact that he has the same name as Winston Smith from George Orwell’s 1984.
Nicknames: He’s not the biggest fan of them, thanks, but even he admits that ‘Zacharias’ is a pretty ridiculous name. He prefers ‘Zach’ or ‘Smith.’ Any other nicknames are totally not approved by him, but they tend to include things like, ‘brat,’ ‘prat,’ and ‘annoying Hufflepuff.’
Age/DOB: 20 / March 21st, 1980
Former House: Hufflepuff
Wand: Cypress and dragon heartstring, 11.6 inches, tough and rigid.
Boggart: One of Zach's greatest fears is powerlessness -- no power to help himself but, more importantly, no power to help the people he cares about; the other greatest fear is people worrying about him. In that vein, his boggart would be his friends, his mum, his aunt Elisabeth, and his dad barraging him with concerns about What He's Been Up To, How Bad It Is For Him, et cetera and not giving him any room to say anything against them.
Patronus: Naturally, Zach's patronus is a badger. Partly, this is because he partly considers himself to be, "the ultimate Hufflepuff." And, being "the ultimate Hufflepuff," Zach wants to be protected by the animal associated with his house. Also, the Badger has symbolism enough on its own: "The badger is an animal noted for his fierceness and courage in fighting to defend his home. The image of the badger is a symbol of bravery, perseverance and protection." And, to be perfectly honest, Zach wants to be protected by something with traits he thinks he doesn't have, notably bravery and perseverance.
Amortentia Smells: Something vaguely oceanic (at least in that it’s cool and salty), grass and dirt (like a Quidditch pitch), aged brandy, good, strong Russian vodka
Secondary House: On any given day, it’s a toss-up between Gryffindor and Slytherin. He has the selfishness, determination, and occasional ruthlessness for the latter, but his tactlessness, recklessness, and habit of running off his mouth bespeak the former. Really, the only House he could never have been in was Ravenclaw.
Current Occupation: Auror trainee
Current Residence: A nice flat in Diagon Alley.
Delving Deeper
Personality: The first impression that pretty much everyone gets of Zacharias is that he’s what Professor Trelawney would describe as “your garden variety Aries,” though he would, out of turn, retort that: A. astrology is total bunk, and B. there is nothing ‘garden variety’ about him. At any rate, Trelawney would have a point; Zacharias is very much like what’s expected of his zodiac sign. He’s aggressive, he’s crass (despite knowing very well how to be well-mannered and courteous), he speaks his mind without reserve and stands up for himself even when both are bad ideas, he’s egocentric, he’s possessed of seemingly endless stores of energy, he’s tempestuous, he’s witty, and he loves one-upping people just to remind them that they’re only human. In so many words, he comes off as a total bloody prat, which is a fair enough assessment, really.
Zach always wants things to go his way, which is unfortunate, really, since his facility with manipulation extends entirely to making a sad puppy face or kicking someone’s head in. Granted, he’ll resort to either in a heartbeat, in which case it’s a pretty wretched time to be yourself. He’ll also resort to sex to get his way… if you happen to be pretty and male, and, more often than not, sex is the end itself. Not that he’s a slut (even though he totally is), he just “really appreciates having a good time with some good-looking blokes.” And, when Zach doesn’t get what he wants, his “endless stores of energy” translate into a very fiery temper. Once his temper’s been ignited, it takes quite a bit to make Zach calm the hell down; he’ll usually either need to be smacked around, to be left alone to sulk for a few hours, or to get himself enmeshed in a physical altercation.
As it sort of tends to be with bullies, Zach’s tough exterior is overcompensation for a host of issues that he hasn’t properly dealt with in his time. The first is that he happens to be of the cabin-boy-and-attractive-male-pirate-cap
Zach usually doesn’t do so well with expectations, in a general sense, which is why he’s mostly stopped trying to meet the ones that other people set for him. If he does well in a class, it’s because he damn well wanted to, not because it’ll help get him a Ministry job, which will, in turn, make his father proud of him. He gives his full and honest friendship rarely, but, when he gives it, he gives it full force; it may take a lot to win him over, but, once you’ve managed that, he’ll be yours forever. Granted, most people aren’t on the receiving end of this; most people get his utter neutrality, and if you’re one of the few who get actual dislike from him… woe be unto you.
All that said, Zach isn’t all that bad. Once you get on his good side, Zach will be yours forever (unless someone dies, or you give him very good reason to remove you from his good side). He’ll step up and take the initiative to lead a project, even though, to be quite fair, he’d probably lead everyone off the edge of a cliff if he thought it would succeed. If he thought it was going to be helpful, he’d volunteer for a suicide mission for the Order, and then proceed to go through with it. He keeps secrets well, he’s adaptable, his energy never seems to quit, and, once he starts something that he’s actually invested in, he doesn’t stop until it’s done or he’s close to killing himself for it to be just right; more than once, someone has had to pull him away from a project because, if he didn’t stop working and get some rest, he was probably going to unintentionally off himself.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Height/Weight: 6’4”, 175 lbs
Hair/Eyes: Blonde / blue
Appearance: Overall, Zacharias has the look of a sheltered rich boy – but don’t let that fool you. He stands just shy of a full 5’9” and has long since accepted that he takes very strongly after his mum: slim and compact, with long arms and legs. Naturally, he’s built for speed, but he’s not without muscle. Ask anyone he’s ever gotten in a fight with. He wears his golden blonde hair to chin length, floppy and purposefully messy; his blue eyes sparkle with annoying superiority. When left outside long enough, he freckles, but, coming off spending the war in Moscow, he’s fairly pale. While he usually dresses casually, he makes a consistent effort to look nice; the gold hoop earring in his left ear is the only thing that his parents think doesn’t fit with this, but Zacharias refuses to remove it. Aside from looking nice, in his opinion, it gives him something to fiddle with while he’s bored.
PB: John Robinson
Family Members: Father: Jeremiah Smith, 54, Pureblood, former Hufflepuff personal adviser to the Minister for Magic (a position he’s enjoyed since the days of Millicent Bagnold).
Mother: Anne Smith nee Gamp, 48, Pureblood, former Hufflepuff homemaker.
Grandmother: Esther Smith, nee Avery, died in 1990 at age 78 (brain aneurysm), Pureblood, former Slytherin, wife/mother/socialite.
Grandfather: Elijah Smith, died in 1989 at age 79 (septic shock after an untreated ulcer), Pureblood, former Hufflepuff, held a position on the Wizengamot at the time of his death.
Aunts: Elizabeth Collins nee Gamp, 49, Anne’s sister, and a member of the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; Christine Bones nee Gamp, 47; Great-Aunt Hepzibah Smith, Pureblood, deceased.
Uncle: Robert Collins, 49, Muggleborn, member of the Committee on Experimental Charms; Spencer Bones
Cousins: Susan Bones, 20, Pureblood, former Hufflepuff
Not Really Family, But They’re Susan’s Family: Edgar Bones, died in the first war with Voldemort; Amelia Bones, died in the second war with Voldemort
Personal History: If you ask Zach, no one in his family should have been allowed to procreate.
The last three generations of Smiths may be proud of the family’s links back to Helga Hufflepuff, but she would likely be more than a bit shocked by them, for they are definite proof that violence begets violence. When Jeremiah was born in 1942, his father, Elijah Silas Smith, hardly showed any signs of mental or emotional instability, his mother, Esther Smith nee Avery, was generally regarded as being as kind as she was beautiful, and his grandfather, Isaac Micah Smith, was renown for his generosity, good nature, work with charitable organizations, and open, caring demeanor. Elijah and Esther’s marriage had been an ostensibly archetypal Pureblood arranged marriage, but, underneath the pairing for Purity, they were truly in love with and devoted to each other. Due to complications in Esther’s getting pregnant, she and Elijah had Jeremiah rather late (she was 30 and he was 32) and they cherished their only son. By all accounts, Jeremiah had been born into a picture-perfect, loving, wonderful family.
The war with Grindelwald changed everything. Although he was already quite well-established in the Ministry by the time his son was born (working with Wizard-to-Muggle relations), Elijah saw Grindelwald’s mounting forces and knew what they stood for, and he risked everything from his job security to his family’s safety to join in Dumbledore’s fight against the mounting Dark. Nominally, this had a happy ending: Elijah worked with Dumbledore’s forces, fought the good fight for three years, and was one of the many witnesses of the epic duel between Grindelwald and Dumbledore that ended the war. Good had triumphed over Evil – in the magical world as well as in the Muggle one, since their Second World War ended shortly after Grindelwald’s demise – post-war prosperity swept over the Wizarding world, and life was going to be better now.
But an end to war doesn’t mean an end to the suffering it causes. Saying farewell to arms doesn’t mean that the scars they leave heal instantaneously, and Elijah was left with a considerable amount of trauma. He’d seen many terrible things in the war – friends being the victims of the Unforgivable Curses, friends using the Unforgivable Curses, families destroyed, young lives ended over a clash of ideals, the darkness inside of him and the horrible things he was capable of (including the use of the Unforgivable Curses), to name a few things – he wasn’t prepared for how bad things would really get, and he had no idea how to deal with what he’d seen. He knew that moving on from a war wouldn’t be easy for anyone, but he dealt with the war both in his personal life and in his work life: cleaning up and restructuring after the Muggles’ war was the most frequent topic to come up, he had to deal with counseling survivors of both the Muggle war and the Wizard war, traumatized Muggleborn children had particularly violent fits of accidental magic after the war – and it wasn’t as though he could put the war away by going home.
Once he got home, he dealt with his own side of the war: he had nightmares, he thought about the people he knew he had killed and those he may or may not have killed, and he was often afraid that he was going mad. His emotions were turbulent once he was behind closed doors. He was quick to anger and snapped at Esther and three-year-old Jeremiah frequently, and he always felt terrible for letting his negative emotions get the better of him, but the only thing that he could think of when he did was that he was supposed to be better than that. He was supposed to be Elijah Smith, Hufflepuff, Ministry employee, and so many other things, none of which involved snapping at his wife and son. The combination of the trauma from the war and his unstable emotions drove Elijah to drink, which didn’t help matters in the slightest. While the alcohol made it so that he would think less about what he’d seen in the war and what he dealt with every day at work, it also made his emotions easier to upset and harder to control, as well as removing his inhibitions.
A year after Anne and Jeremiah’s marriage, the family encountered twin difficulties when Isaac Smith died at the age of 95 and Anne’s older sister, Elizabeth, eloped with a Muggleborn, Robert Collins. Although his in-laws cut their elder daughter out of their lives and Jeremiah wished to follow their example, he couldn’t bring himself to do so; Anne and Elizabeth were, after all, terribly close, and he cared more for Anne’s happiness than for Blood Purist beliefs. As for his grandfather’s death, Jeremiah was affected less by the fact that the old man had died and more by the fact that, even though he had known his grandfather to be an ineffectual, excuse-making fool, he was remembered as a great, upstanding man with strong convictions, who had dedicated his life to his family and the Ministry. Needless to say, he was rather less than pleased with all of the sympathy cards and all of the personal best wishes the family received from people who had no idea who the real Isaac Smith was, but he channeled this into two ambitions: raising himself up in the Ministry and building a family with Anne.
The first ambition turned to be much more easily actualized than the second. In 1975, in the midst of the beginnings of the First War with Voldemort, Minister for Magic, Millicent Bagnold, picked Jeremiah out to fill a junior counselor position in her office and he rather quickly gained the trust of his superiors and colleagues in the Minister’s office. He was still a hard worker and, as far as the office was concerned, nothing was more important to him than making sure that the Ministry kept the peace in Wizarding Britain. But he and Anne still didn’t have children, and they wouldn’t until March of 1980. Both of them had ideas of having several children and raising a large, model family of intelligent, successful, and happy witches and wizards. This was, unfortunately, not to be the case. When Anne finally got pregnant, the family rejoiced and there was much celebration throughout the pregnancy. When she went into labor, Jeremiah took his first day off work since he had started at the Ministry and went to Saint Mungo’s to wait. After several nerve-wracking hours, he got the news that he had a son, Zacharias Isaac Smith. While Anne rested under her Healers’ supervision, Jeremiah was allowed into the ward to visit with his son, which he took full advantage of. As he held the fussy little boy, he had his second instance of genuinely loving someone and wanting to make them happy and keep them safe. Here he finally was – the son that he and Anne had wanted so badly and worked so hard to have – an heir to the Smith name, a boy to love and raise properly… and then one of Anne’s Healers had to break the news that, because of complications with the birth, Anne wouldn’t be able to have any more children. There was a chance that she could conceive, but the potential dangers to her health from actually carrying another pregnancy to term were too numerous and too serious for any Healer to approve of it. The Smiths would never have their several children, their large family, or any of it.
Jeremiah didn’t mean to, but, from that moment, he unconsciously blamed Zacharias for ruining this dream. He went through all of the logical progressions and he knew that the boy had done nothing, excepting be born, which was hardly anyone’s fault, but Jeremiah still wanted something to hold responsible for ruining his and Anne’s dream, and he wound up blaming his son. It could easily be said that the first, last, and only time Jeremiah unconditionally loved the boy was there in the maternity ward. For all appearances, he dealt with the bad news well enough – after all, bad news or not, he still had a son now – but he still grew withdrawn and, for having been so excited about having a baby, he was remarkably distant with the boy. Zacharias wound up spending much of his time with his mother and grandparents, and, while Jeremiah more than trusted Anne with their son, he only pretended not to know how spending time with Esther and Elijah would end up. The reality was hardly as bad as his version of it, but it still wasn’t particularly pleasant: on one hand, Zacharias’s mother loved him dearly; on the other, his grandparents were both incredibly harsh with him; and, on the third, his father was only barely involved with his life, and when he was involved, it was almost never for the better.
Jeremiah’s involvement in his son’s life became greater after Zacharias’s fourth birthday, which involved a family trip to Saint Mungo’s. Zacharias was too young at the time and has no actual memory of what happened, but he’s been told since then that he was playing inside the house, wasn’t paying enough attention to his surroundings, and fell down the stairs, which is also what’s been put down on the official records. What actually happened was that he was playing inside the house and bothered his grandfather, who proceeded to be rather rough with him, physically. Jeremiah intervened, and it could have been just a clash between him and his father, but one of them (to this day, no one is quite sure, and each of them blamed the other until Elijah’s death) lashed out when Zacharias attempted to break up the shouting and he got knocked down the stairs. After that, Jeremiah became involved enough to keep Elijah from physically hurting Zacharias, but he wasn’t much better himself. He was harsh with the boy, incredibly strict, hardly let him have friends outside of other Pureblood children and the children of Jeremiah’s Ministry friends (among them, one, Amos Diggory), and saw little problem with demeaning him if it got the results he wanted. He, himself, calmed considerably, but was nevertheless distant and demanding.
Between the impossible expectations and the cycle of abuse and neglect, Zacharias is the sort of kid who’s spent his entire life getting whatever he wanted. Because everything was handed to him, he got bored and started looking for new things to want. They got handed to him, he got bored, and he went looking for new ways to have fun simply because he could get away with it. Anne and Jeremiah Smith (a housewife and advisor to the Minister for Magic) had planned on having more children, but encountered difficulty; Zacharias’s birth on March 21st, 1980 made that a dream of the past.
Zacharias spent his childhood hearing all manner of self-important things, most of them aimed at what his duty was as the sole child of a Pureblood family: marry a nice girl (preferably Pureblood, but she doesn’t necessarily have to be, as long as she’s a witch of some sort) and have a lot of nice (hopefully Pureblood) babies. As wealthy Purebloods, the Smiths had a duty to watch over all the other members of the Wizarding World, UK chapter – and, yes, having extravagant social events constituted doing their duty. He learned quickly that He Was Better Than Everyone Else, in part due to old Pureblood superiority and in part due to being doted upon for being a miracle baby.
He wasn’t just a spoilt brat, though. More than toys, memorabilia, and Quidditch tickets, he wanted his father’s love and acceptance, which he eventually gave up on having as perfectly as he wanted. And, since he couldn’t get that, he decided to start living for the people he deemed worth his attention. …His father was distinctly NOT on the list. Granted, he wasn’t particularly fond of this and, as much as he would never admit it, still tried to gain his father’s acceptance; but, on the other hand, there were people who DID love and accept him, and they got his loyalty.
The final straw for most positive relationships with his father involved Zach’s sexual preferences. As the only son of an old, Pureblood family, he was expected to marry a nice, hopefully Pureblood girl and make nice, hopefully Pureblood babies. He and his mind had other plans. Although he didn’t come out until after his fifth year, he knew he was gay for as long as he can remember, and that it distinctly didn’t fit with his expressed purpose in life, which didn’t sit well with Zach, who just wanted his father to love him and be proud of him. Needless to say, going off for his first year at Hogwarts, thereby getting out of the house to practice “out of sight, out of mind” at his father, was more than welcome.
He didn’t like being sorted into Hufflepuff at first, even if he was with his favorite cousin, Susan, but he got over it upon meeting three people: Hannah Abbott, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Cedric Diggory. Oh, and Ernie Macmillan. He was okay too, even if he wasn’t a completely new addition to Zach’s life. Zach took an immediate liking to the girl, the curious Muggleborn boy (who would eventually be dubbed Zach’s spokesperson when he feels too honest to be productive), and the handsome older boy on the grounds that they were actually nice to him, as opposed to being friendly because they were related or because their parents were friends of Anne and Jeremiah. He was an above average student, though not especially notable; he joined the Hufflepuff Quidditch team in his second year as a reserve Chaser; and everything was pretty normal.
And then there was his fourth year and the Triwizard Tournament. Somewhere in between watching Cedric at Quidditch games and practices and watching Cedric get named Hogwarts Champion, Zach developed a crush on him. One of those big, obnoxious crushes wherein his general functioning was very, very compromised. Eventually, he blurted this at Cedric, which earned him a smile and the polite refusal of, “You’re a good kid, Zach.” This was far better than he’d expected, and he hasn’t been in the closet at school since; he accepts that it might not be wise, but he stopped seeing the point. Especially since he eventually wrote Cedric a letter, which inadvertently made him feel bad, which, in turn, made Zach love him more. Really. Who can resist a boy who feels bad for not liking a boy two years younger than himself, when the first boy happens to be straight and have a girlfriend? Not Zacharias Smith, that’s who. When Cedric died, he was only visibly upset for a few days, after which point he refused to talk about it. He still refuses to talk about it and firmly insists that he’s moved on, just like the rest of the world, excepting Cedric’s parents. In a sick sort of convenience, he learned about the joys of alcohol and sex that summer.
In his fifth year, Zach joined the DA, rather dragged there by Susan, Ernie, Justin, and Hannah, but, really, life was uneventful for him. He played Quidditch, he went to DA meetings, he got himself on Harry Potter and Ron Weasley’s collective bad side (and the bad sides of several other people), and life went on. He took his OWLs and did admirably; life went on. He tramped it up with more than a few different guys, and life went on. War was declared, and life still went on. Zach wasn’t really affected by anything school-wise until the end of his sixth year, when Dumbledore died. Even becoming Hufflepuff’s Quidditch Captain in sixth year didn’t seem to faze him at all. He was a good, strong captain and did his best to lead the team, but he still wasn’t particularly affected by it, or by anything.
At the heart of everything were his home-based issues. After fifth year, he figured that honesty was better with his family than keeping things from them, and so he decided to come out to them. …That didn’t go as well as he’d hoped. His mum, as he’d expected, just said that they still loved him and would stand by him through whatever he went through; his father, on the other hand, spent most of the summer lecturing Zach about how, exactly, he was failing the family. While Zach couldn’t say that he hadn’t entirely expected something like that, it was still rather crushing for him to get so bad a reaction from his own father, and he got understandably depressed about the whole thing. He withdrew from his friends, though not entirely, acted out and was more of a prat to everybody else, and found himself talking to Professor Sprout about what was going so wrong for him on more than one occasion; he was only perfectly honest with her once, but, for all his grousing, he did appreciate what she was doing.
Dumbledore’s death, however, rather abruptly jerked Zach out of his funk. Although “the incident” wasn’t really what affected Zach – sure, he’d always respected Dumbledore, but he was also old, and old people die; not all old people die by being hexed off a tower by Severus Snape, but old people still die – it served to initially wake him up, and ignited a series of events that got him outside of his own head. After Dumbledore’s death, Zach’s father tried to take him home immediately; Zach flat-out refused and insisted that they stay for the funeral. When his Hogwarts letter came that summer, Jeremiah tried to keep Zach home; Zach, again, flat-out refused, and threw a tantrum until his father agreed to send him back to school. Both of these actions earned Zach a lecture on What Would Happen To People Who Threw Their Lots In With Any Entity Other Than The Ministry of Magic; Zach listened, but disrespectfully disagreed.
Seventh year was mostly uneventful, as far as Zach was concerned. Whoopee, the Carrows were making life hard; he ran his mouth off and got punished for it, sure, but overwhelmingly, they left him and his Pure blood alone. The offer was made to him, and he could have easily gone underground with the rest of the DA, but he didn’t see a point to it, really. He was at school to learn, not to fight Harry Potter’s war for the git. He did have a small role in the Battle of Hogwarts – sure enough, he was seen running for the hills like a coward, but he fought when his friends were involved. He took his inheritance and left home shortly after leaving school, shacking up in his Aunt Elisabeth and Uncle Robert’s place for a bit before joining the Auror training program and getting his own place in London.
How did your character get involved in the arranged marriage situation?: His father essentially gave him the ultimatum of, “Get married or get blasted off the family tree and never get to see your mother again.” Zach would hardly bill himself as a mummy’s boy, but he doesn’t trust Jeremiah not to be a prick to Anne, so he’s getting hitched to protect her. He figures that, beyond that, it’s no one’s business what happens with him and his to-be wife.
IC Writing
(Answer the following questions In Character)
1. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? What the fuck are you on about?
2. What do you think of Harry Potter? Fuck him.
3. What was your sorting like? Unimpressive.
4. What do you honestly think of this whole marriage debacle? It’s fucking bullshit.
5. Your favorite childhood memory- discuss. Do I have to?
The Player
Name: Kassie
Time Zone: American EST
Contact Information: SailorStarPoet // duanya @ gmail . com
The Character
Basics
Name: Zacharias Isaac Smith
Nominal Significance: Zacharias is the Greek form of Zechariah, which comes from the Hebrew name Zekaryah, meaning, “Yahweh remembers.” One Zechariah was a minor prophet in the Old Testament, and another was the father of John the Baptist. Isaac is a predominantly English name, coming from the Hebrew name Yitzchaq, meaning, “he laughs.” In the Old Testament, Isaac was the son of Abraham and father of Esau and Jacob; the name was also shared by Isaac Asimov and Sir Isaac Newton. And Smith is his family name, also known as the most common English surname ever. Zach, in an instance of reading too much into things, sees some sort of significance in the fact that he has the same name as Winston Smith from George Orwell’s 1984.
Nicknames: He’s not the biggest fan of them, thanks, but even he admits that ‘Zacharias’ is a pretty ridiculous name. He prefers ‘Zach’ or ‘Smith.’ Any other nicknames are totally not approved by him, but they tend to include things like, ‘brat,’ ‘prat,’ and ‘annoying Hufflepuff.’
Age/DOB: 20 / March 21st, 1980
Former House: Hufflepuff
Wand: Cypress and dragon heartstring, 11.6 inches, tough and rigid.
Boggart: One of Zach's greatest fears is powerlessness -- no power to help himself but, more importantly, no power to help the people he cares about; the other greatest fear is people worrying about him. In that vein, his boggart would be his friends, his mum, his aunt Elisabeth, and his dad barraging him with concerns about What He's Been Up To, How Bad It Is For Him, et cetera and not giving him any room to say anything against them.
Patronus: Naturally, Zach's patronus is a badger. Partly, this is because he partly considers himself to be, "the ultimate Hufflepuff." And, being "the ultimate Hufflepuff," Zach wants to be protected by the animal associated with his house. Also, the Badger has symbolism enough on its own: "The badger is an animal noted for his fierceness and courage in fighting to defend his home. The image of the badger is a symbol of bravery, perseverance and protection." And, to be perfectly honest, Zach wants to be protected by something with traits he thinks he doesn't have, notably bravery and perseverance.
Amortentia Smells: Something vaguely oceanic (at least in that it’s cool and salty), grass and dirt (like a Quidditch pitch), aged brandy, good, strong Russian vodka
Secondary House: On any given day, it’s a toss-up between Gryffindor and Slytherin. He has the selfishness, determination, and occasional ruthlessness for the latter, but his tactlessness, recklessness, and habit of running off his mouth bespeak the former. Really, the only House he could never have been in was Ravenclaw.
Current Occupation: Auror trainee
Current Residence: A nice flat in Diagon Alley.
Delving Deeper
Personality: The first impression that pretty much everyone gets of Zacharias is that he’s what Professor Trelawney would describe as “your garden variety Aries,” though he would, out of turn, retort that: A. astrology is total bunk, and B. there is nothing ‘garden variety’ about him. At any rate, Trelawney would have a point; Zacharias is very much like what’s expected of his zodiac sign. He’s aggressive, he’s crass (despite knowing very well how to be well-mannered and courteous), he speaks his mind without reserve and stands up for himself even when both are bad ideas, he’s egocentric, he’s possessed of seemingly endless stores of energy, he’s tempestuous, he’s witty, and he loves one-upping people just to remind them that they’re only human. In so many words, he comes off as a total bloody prat, which is a fair enough assessment, really.
Zach always wants things to go his way, which is unfortunate, really, since his facility with manipulation extends entirely to making a sad puppy face or kicking someone’s head in. Granted, he’ll resort to either in a heartbeat, in which case it’s a pretty wretched time to be yourself. He’ll also resort to sex to get his way… if you happen to be pretty and male, and, more often than not, sex is the end itself. Not that he’s a slut (even though he totally is), he just “really appreciates having a good time with some good-looking blokes.” And, when Zach doesn’t get what he wants, his “endless stores of energy” translate into a very fiery temper. Once his temper’s been ignited, it takes quite a bit to make Zach calm the hell down; he’ll usually either need to be smacked around, to be left alone to sulk for a few hours, or to get himself enmeshed in a physical altercation.
As it sort of tends to be with bullies, Zach’s tough exterior is overcompensation for a host of issues that he hasn’t properly dealt with in his time. The first is that he happens to be of the cabin-boy-and-attractive-male-pirate-cap
Zach usually doesn’t do so well with expectations, in a general sense, which is why he’s mostly stopped trying to meet the ones that other people set for him. If he does well in a class, it’s because he damn well wanted to, not because it’ll help get him a Ministry job, which will, in turn, make his father proud of him. He gives his full and honest friendship rarely, but, when he gives it, he gives it full force; it may take a lot to win him over, but, once you’ve managed that, he’ll be yours forever. Granted, most people aren’t on the receiving end of this; most people get his utter neutrality, and if you’re one of the few who get actual dislike from him… woe be unto you.
All that said, Zach isn’t all that bad. Once you get on his good side, Zach will be yours forever (unless someone dies, or you give him very good reason to remove you from his good side). He’ll step up and take the initiative to lead a project, even though, to be quite fair, he’d probably lead everyone off the edge of a cliff if he thought it would succeed. If he thought it was going to be helpful, he’d volunteer for a suicide mission for the Order, and then proceed to go through with it. He keeps secrets well, he’s adaptable, his energy never seems to quit, and, once he starts something that he’s actually invested in, he doesn’t stop until it’s done or he’s close to killing himself for it to be just right; more than once, someone has had to pull him away from a project because, if he didn’t stop working and get some rest, he was probably going to unintentionally off himself.
Strengths:
Weaknesses:
Height/Weight: 6’4”, 175 lbs
Hair/Eyes: Blonde / blue
Appearance: Overall, Zacharias has the look of a sheltered rich boy – but don’t let that fool you. He stands just shy of a full 5’9” and has long since accepted that he takes very strongly after his mum: slim and compact, with long arms and legs. Naturally, he’s built for speed, but he’s not without muscle. Ask anyone he’s ever gotten in a fight with. He wears his golden blonde hair to chin length, floppy and purposefully messy; his blue eyes sparkle with annoying superiority. When left outside long enough, he freckles, but, coming off spending the war in Moscow, he’s fairly pale. While he usually dresses casually, he makes a consistent effort to look nice; the gold hoop earring in his left ear is the only thing that his parents think doesn’t fit with this, but Zacharias refuses to remove it. Aside from looking nice, in his opinion, it gives him something to fiddle with while he’s bored.
PB: John Robinson
Family Members: Father: Jeremiah Smith, 54, Pureblood, former Hufflepuff personal adviser to the Minister for Magic (a position he’s enjoyed since the days of Millicent Bagnold).
Mother: Anne Smith nee Gamp, 48, Pureblood, former Hufflepuff homemaker.
Grandmother: Esther Smith, nee Avery, died in 1990 at age 78 (brain aneurysm), Pureblood, former Slytherin, wife/mother/socialite.
Grandfather: Elijah Smith, died in 1989 at age 79 (septic shock after an untreated ulcer), Pureblood, former Hufflepuff, held a position on the Wizengamot at the time of his death.
Aunts: Elizabeth Collins nee Gamp, 49, Anne’s sister, and a member of the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; Christine Bones nee Gamp, 47; Great-Aunt Hepzibah Smith, Pureblood, deceased.
Uncle: Robert Collins, 49, Muggleborn, member of the Committee on Experimental Charms; Spencer Bones
Cousins: Susan Bones, 20, Pureblood, former Hufflepuff
Not Really Family, But They’re Susan’s Family: Edgar Bones, died in the first war with Voldemort; Amelia Bones, died in the second war with Voldemort
Personal History: If you ask Zach, no one in his family should have been allowed to procreate.
The last three generations of Smiths may be proud of the family’s links back to Helga Hufflepuff, but she would likely be more than a bit shocked by them, for they are definite proof that violence begets violence. When Jeremiah was born in 1942, his father, Elijah Silas Smith, hardly showed any signs of mental or emotional instability, his mother, Esther Smith nee Avery, was generally regarded as being as kind as she was beautiful, and his grandfather, Isaac Micah Smith, was renown for his generosity, good nature, work with charitable organizations, and open, caring demeanor. Elijah and Esther’s marriage had been an ostensibly archetypal Pureblood arranged marriage, but, underneath the pairing for Purity, they were truly in love with and devoted to each other. Due to complications in Esther’s getting pregnant, she and Elijah had Jeremiah rather late (she was 30 and he was 32) and they cherished their only son. By all accounts, Jeremiah had been born into a picture-perfect, loving, wonderful family.
The war with Grindelwald changed everything. Although he was already quite well-established in the Ministry by the time his son was born (working with Wizard-to-Muggle relations), Elijah saw Grindelwald’s mounting forces and knew what they stood for, and he risked everything from his job security to his family’s safety to join in Dumbledore’s fight against the mounting Dark. Nominally, this had a happy ending: Elijah worked with Dumbledore’s forces, fought the good fight for three years, and was one of the many witnesses of the epic duel between Grindelwald and Dumbledore that ended the war. Good had triumphed over Evil – in the magical world as well as in the Muggle one, since their Second World War ended shortly after Grindelwald’s demise – post-war prosperity swept over the Wizarding world, and life was going to be better now.
But an end to war doesn’t mean an end to the suffering it causes. Saying farewell to arms doesn’t mean that the scars they leave heal instantaneously, and Elijah was left with a considerable amount of trauma. He’d seen many terrible things in the war – friends being the victims of the Unforgivable Curses, friends using the Unforgivable Curses, families destroyed, young lives ended over a clash of ideals, the darkness inside of him and the horrible things he was capable of (including the use of the Unforgivable Curses), to name a few things – he wasn’t prepared for how bad things would really get, and he had no idea how to deal with what he’d seen. He knew that moving on from a war wouldn’t be easy for anyone, but he dealt with the war both in his personal life and in his work life: cleaning up and restructuring after the Muggles’ war was the most frequent topic to come up, he had to deal with counseling survivors of both the Muggle war and the Wizard war, traumatized Muggleborn children had particularly violent fits of accidental magic after the war – and it wasn’t as though he could put the war away by going home.
Once he got home, he dealt with his own side of the war: he had nightmares, he thought about the people he knew he had killed and those he may or may not have killed, and he was often afraid that he was going mad. His emotions were turbulent once he was behind closed doors. He was quick to anger and snapped at Esther and three-year-old Jeremiah frequently, and he always felt terrible for letting his negative emotions get the better of him, but the only thing that he could think of when he did was that he was supposed to be better than that. He was supposed to be Elijah Smith, Hufflepuff, Ministry employee, and so many other things, none of which involved snapping at his wife and son. The combination of the trauma from the war and his unstable emotions drove Elijah to drink, which didn’t help matters in the slightest. While the alcohol made it so that he would think less about what he’d seen in the war and what he dealt with every day at work, it also made his emotions easier to upset and harder to control, as well as removing his inhibitions.
A year after Anne and Jeremiah’s marriage, the family encountered twin difficulties when Isaac Smith died at the age of 95 and Anne’s older sister, Elizabeth, eloped with a Muggleborn, Robert Collins. Although his in-laws cut their elder daughter out of their lives and Jeremiah wished to follow their example, he couldn’t bring himself to do so; Anne and Elizabeth were, after all, terribly close, and he cared more for Anne’s happiness than for Blood Purist beliefs. As for his grandfather’s death, Jeremiah was affected less by the fact that the old man had died and more by the fact that, even though he had known his grandfather to be an ineffectual, excuse-making fool, he was remembered as a great, upstanding man with strong convictions, who had dedicated his life to his family and the Ministry. Needless to say, he was rather less than pleased with all of the sympathy cards and all of the personal best wishes the family received from people who had no idea who the real Isaac Smith was, but he channeled this into two ambitions: raising himself up in the Ministry and building a family with Anne.
The first ambition turned to be much more easily actualized than the second. In 1975, in the midst of the beginnings of the First War with Voldemort, Minister for Magic, Millicent Bagnold, picked Jeremiah out to fill a junior counselor position in her office and he rather quickly gained the trust of his superiors and colleagues in the Minister’s office. He was still a hard worker and, as far as the office was concerned, nothing was more important to him than making sure that the Ministry kept the peace in Wizarding Britain. But he and Anne still didn’t have children, and they wouldn’t until March of 1980. Both of them had ideas of having several children and raising a large, model family of intelligent, successful, and happy witches and wizards. This was, unfortunately, not to be the case. When Anne finally got pregnant, the family rejoiced and there was much celebration throughout the pregnancy. When she went into labor, Jeremiah took his first day off work since he had started at the Ministry and went to Saint Mungo’s to wait. After several nerve-wracking hours, he got the news that he had a son, Zacharias Isaac Smith. While Anne rested under her Healers’ supervision, Jeremiah was allowed into the ward to visit with his son, which he took full advantage of. As he held the fussy little boy, he had his second instance of genuinely loving someone and wanting to make them happy and keep them safe. Here he finally was – the son that he and Anne had wanted so badly and worked so hard to have – an heir to the Smith name, a boy to love and raise properly… and then one of Anne’s Healers had to break the news that, because of complications with the birth, Anne wouldn’t be able to have any more children. There was a chance that she could conceive, but the potential dangers to her health from actually carrying another pregnancy to term were too numerous and too serious for any Healer to approve of it. The Smiths would never have their several children, their large family, or any of it.
Jeremiah didn’t mean to, but, from that moment, he unconsciously blamed Zacharias for ruining this dream. He went through all of the logical progressions and he knew that the boy had done nothing, excepting be born, which was hardly anyone’s fault, but Jeremiah still wanted something to hold responsible for ruining his and Anne’s dream, and he wound up blaming his son. It could easily be said that the first, last, and only time Jeremiah unconditionally loved the boy was there in the maternity ward. For all appearances, he dealt with the bad news well enough – after all, bad news or not, he still had a son now – but he still grew withdrawn and, for having been so excited about having a baby, he was remarkably distant with the boy. Zacharias wound up spending much of his time with his mother and grandparents, and, while Jeremiah more than trusted Anne with their son, he only pretended not to know how spending time with Esther and Elijah would end up. The reality was hardly as bad as his version of it, but it still wasn’t particularly pleasant: on one hand, Zacharias’s mother loved him dearly; on the other, his grandparents were both incredibly harsh with him; and, on the third, his father was only barely involved with his life, and when he was involved, it was almost never for the better.
Jeremiah’s involvement in his son’s life became greater after Zacharias’s fourth birthday, which involved a family trip to Saint Mungo’s. Zacharias was too young at the time and has no actual memory of what happened, but he’s been told since then that he was playing inside the house, wasn’t paying enough attention to his surroundings, and fell down the stairs, which is also what’s been put down on the official records. What actually happened was that he was playing inside the house and bothered his grandfather, who proceeded to be rather rough with him, physically. Jeremiah intervened, and it could have been just a clash between him and his father, but one of them (to this day, no one is quite sure, and each of them blamed the other until Elijah’s death) lashed out when Zacharias attempted to break up the shouting and he got knocked down the stairs. After that, Jeremiah became involved enough to keep Elijah from physically hurting Zacharias, but he wasn’t much better himself. He was harsh with the boy, incredibly strict, hardly let him have friends outside of other Pureblood children and the children of Jeremiah’s Ministry friends (among them, one, Amos Diggory), and saw little problem with demeaning him if it got the results he wanted. He, himself, calmed considerably, but was nevertheless distant and demanding.
Between the impossible expectations and the cycle of abuse and neglect, Zacharias is the sort of kid who’s spent his entire life getting whatever he wanted. Because everything was handed to him, he got bored and started looking for new things to want. They got handed to him, he got bored, and he went looking for new ways to have fun simply because he could get away with it. Anne and Jeremiah Smith (a housewife and advisor to the Minister for Magic) had planned on having more children, but encountered difficulty; Zacharias’s birth on March 21st, 1980 made that a dream of the past.
Zacharias spent his childhood hearing all manner of self-important things, most of them aimed at what his duty was as the sole child of a Pureblood family: marry a nice girl (preferably Pureblood, but she doesn’t necessarily have to be, as long as she’s a witch of some sort) and have a lot of nice (hopefully Pureblood) babies. As wealthy Purebloods, the Smiths had a duty to watch over all the other members of the Wizarding World, UK chapter – and, yes, having extravagant social events constituted doing their duty. He learned quickly that He Was Better Than Everyone Else, in part due to old Pureblood superiority and in part due to being doted upon for being a miracle baby.
He wasn’t just a spoilt brat, though. More than toys, memorabilia, and Quidditch tickets, he wanted his father’s love and acceptance, which he eventually gave up on having as perfectly as he wanted. And, since he couldn’t get that, he decided to start living for the people he deemed worth his attention. …His father was distinctly NOT on the list. Granted, he wasn’t particularly fond of this and, as much as he would never admit it, still tried to gain his father’s acceptance; but, on the other hand, there were people who DID love and accept him, and they got his loyalty.
The final straw for most positive relationships with his father involved Zach’s sexual preferences. As the only son of an old, Pureblood family, he was expected to marry a nice, hopefully Pureblood girl and make nice, hopefully Pureblood babies. He and his mind had other plans. Although he didn’t come out until after his fifth year, he knew he was gay for as long as he can remember, and that it distinctly didn’t fit with his expressed purpose in life, which didn’t sit well with Zach, who just wanted his father to love him and be proud of him. Needless to say, going off for his first year at Hogwarts, thereby getting out of the house to practice “out of sight, out of mind” at his father, was more than welcome.
He didn’t like being sorted into Hufflepuff at first, even if he was with his favorite cousin, Susan, but he got over it upon meeting three people: Hannah Abbott, Justin Finch-Fletchley, and Cedric Diggory. Oh, and Ernie Macmillan. He was okay too, even if he wasn’t a completely new addition to Zach’s life. Zach took an immediate liking to the girl, the curious Muggleborn boy (who would eventually be dubbed Zach’s spokesperson when he feels too honest to be productive), and the handsome older boy on the grounds that they were actually nice to him, as opposed to being friendly because they were related or because their parents were friends of Anne and Jeremiah. He was an above average student, though not especially notable; he joined the Hufflepuff Quidditch team in his second year as a reserve Chaser; and everything was pretty normal.
And then there was his fourth year and the Triwizard Tournament. Somewhere in between watching Cedric at Quidditch games and practices and watching Cedric get named Hogwarts Champion, Zach developed a crush on him. One of those big, obnoxious crushes wherein his general functioning was very, very compromised. Eventually, he blurted this at Cedric, which earned him a smile and the polite refusal of, “You’re a good kid, Zach.” This was far better than he’d expected, and he hasn’t been in the closet at school since; he accepts that it might not be wise, but he stopped seeing the point. Especially since he eventually wrote Cedric a letter, which inadvertently made him feel bad, which, in turn, made Zach love him more. Really. Who can resist a boy who feels bad for not liking a boy two years younger than himself, when the first boy happens to be straight and have a girlfriend? Not Zacharias Smith, that’s who. When Cedric died, he was only visibly upset for a few days, after which point he refused to talk about it. He still refuses to talk about it and firmly insists that he’s moved on, just like the rest of the world, excepting Cedric’s parents. In a sick sort of convenience, he learned about the joys of alcohol and sex that summer.
In his fifth year, Zach joined the DA, rather dragged there by Susan, Ernie, Justin, and Hannah, but, really, life was uneventful for him. He played Quidditch, he went to DA meetings, he got himself on Harry Potter and Ron Weasley’s collective bad side (and the bad sides of several other people), and life went on. He took his OWLs and did admirably; life went on. He tramped it up with more than a few different guys, and life went on. War was declared, and life still went on. Zach wasn’t really affected by anything school-wise until the end of his sixth year, when Dumbledore died. Even becoming Hufflepuff’s Quidditch Captain in sixth year didn’t seem to faze him at all. He was a good, strong captain and did his best to lead the team, but he still wasn’t particularly affected by it, or by anything.
At the heart of everything were his home-based issues. After fifth year, he figured that honesty was better with his family than keeping things from them, and so he decided to come out to them. …That didn’t go as well as he’d hoped. His mum, as he’d expected, just said that they still loved him and would stand by him through whatever he went through; his father, on the other hand, spent most of the summer lecturing Zach about how, exactly, he was failing the family. While Zach couldn’t say that he hadn’t entirely expected something like that, it was still rather crushing for him to get so bad a reaction from his own father, and he got understandably depressed about the whole thing. He withdrew from his friends, though not entirely, acted out and was more of a prat to everybody else, and found himself talking to Professor Sprout about what was going so wrong for him on more than one occasion; he was only perfectly honest with her once, but, for all his grousing, he did appreciate what she was doing.
Dumbledore’s death, however, rather abruptly jerked Zach out of his funk. Although “the incident” wasn’t really what affected Zach – sure, he’d always respected Dumbledore, but he was also old, and old people die; not all old people die by being hexed off a tower by Severus Snape, but old people still die – it served to initially wake him up, and ignited a series of events that got him outside of his own head. After Dumbledore’s death, Zach’s father tried to take him home immediately; Zach flat-out refused and insisted that they stay for the funeral. When his Hogwarts letter came that summer, Jeremiah tried to keep Zach home; Zach, again, flat-out refused, and threw a tantrum until his father agreed to send him back to school. Both of these actions earned Zach a lecture on What Would Happen To People Who Threw Their Lots In With Any Entity Other Than The Ministry of Magic; Zach listened, but disrespectfully disagreed.
Seventh year was mostly uneventful, as far as Zach was concerned. Whoopee, the Carrows were making life hard; he ran his mouth off and got punished for it, sure, but overwhelmingly, they left him and his Pure blood alone. The offer was made to him, and he could have easily gone underground with the rest of the DA, but he didn’t see a point to it, really. He was at school to learn, not to fight Harry Potter’s war for the git. He did have a small role in the Battle of Hogwarts – sure enough, he was seen running for the hills like a coward, but he fought when his friends were involved. He took his inheritance and left home shortly after leaving school, shacking up in his Aunt Elisabeth and Uncle Robert’s place for a bit before joining the Auror training program and getting his own place in London.
How did your character get involved in the arranged marriage situation?: His father essentially gave him the ultimatum of, “Get married or get blasted off the family tree and never get to see your mother again.” Zach would hardly bill himself as a mummy’s boy, but he doesn’t trust Jeremiah not to be a prick to Anne, so he’s getting hitched to protect her. He figures that, beyond that, it’s no one’s business what happens with him and his to-be wife.
IC Writing
(Answer the following questions In Character)
1. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? What the fuck are you on about?
2. What do you think of Harry Potter? Fuck him.
3. What was your sorting like? Unimpressive.
4. What do you honestly think of this whole marriage debacle? It’s fucking bullshit.
5. Your favorite childhood memory- discuss. Do I have to?