Anagapesis // plot shop

𝕩𝕧𝕚𝕚. Zacharias Smith, Lukewarm

status: available
title: lukewarm/misfits
love interest: zacharias smith
oc name: linus* okopenko*
house: ravenclaw
blood status: muggleborn
timeline: one year past the seventh book

𝕔𝕒𝕤𝕥

linus okopenko: pat*
zacharias smith: max barczak*

𝕤𝕪𝕟𝕠𝕡𝕤𝕚𝕤*

Most people want to fit in, it's an urge, a desire (oh, why haven't they named him Désirée?), a wish that's maybe one of the reasons why humans are social creatures - Linus doesn't kow for sure though, it's just been a thought he's had when picking petals to pieces in a dream. He's assumed it because he wants to but everyone is different anyways. Maybe it's just a minority, maybe it's just him.

Of course, he could ask some Ravenclaw about it but he wouldn't know which one, he doesn't know them, he's not acquainted with them, he's merely living besides them. They're like parallels, existing in the same space but never in contact - noli me tangere!

Linus would like to belong to them, to be part of their laughs and art and lives but he doesn't and he doesn't know how to change it, after all nobody would care to engage with him now, after nearly four years of silence - funny how he's had more trouble with English than Norwegian.

But Linus doesn't only know how to interact with his fellow Ravenclaws, he doesn't know a lot in general. He's not good at studying, he's not good at listening to his teachers, he's not good at finding the motivation to actually look facts up for his essays.

Linus Okopenko is a bad Ravenclaw.

He isn't studious, he isn't especially witty, he isn't artistic.

He isn't.

Negatives have accompanied his life since he can remember, he can't, he isn't, he won't.  They've tinted his blood and turned his thoughts grey, his bones are milk glass skyscarpers, clinking in the whisp of wind of no and none and not, his body a mausoleum for dreams that have never been born and his steps Icarus falling over and over again.

Linus is a child of sadness, always has been. That doesn't mean he's crying a lot, eyes red, head feeling too heavy for his weak body, sobs shaking him like earthquakes. He's just... sad.

Whilst others are always full of this sun-warm optimism, a lemon drop smile on their lips, others have been pressed out of the womb filled with anger, screaming like harpies, hiding a volcano inside them but not very well.

And Linus just happens to be in a constant state of lukewarm sadness, it's like when you've finally taken your time to take a long bath with rose oils and candles and soft music and then you sit in the tub and hug your knees because the water isn't hot enough anymore, goosebumps fighting with your wet, oily skin for the hair to raise it like tin soldiers but you stay in your position because it's been so nice to bath and you've taken your time and when you stand up it will just be colder.

Therefore, Linus likes being sad. He's used to it and it's like his cuddle blanket, raddled and old, the one that's not spending any warmth. It's good for summer night's though because he doesn't get cold when being wrapped in it like a caterpillar waiting for its metamorphosis to happiness. It's just lukewarm and he likes it.

However, while his comfort zone is tepid, Zacharias Smith is both hot and cold, he's one of those with a volcano stuck in their ribcage and when he isn't spitting fire, he's spraying poison, so cold that it's burning just as much.

It's logical for Linus that if he can talk to Zacharias, maybe even get the boy to like him, that he certainly can befriend his fellow Ravenclaws too. After all, Zacharias is the meanest and most unsympathetic person in the castle so nobody can be better training than him, right? And it certainly doesn't hurt that both of them are misfits in their own house.

He's nearly happy when he finds out that Zacharias' smiles are lukewarm.

𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕖𝕤

¬i like this one a lot
¬it could be a poetry fic, however, it certainly needs a flowery, dreamy language bc linus is sad in a... romantic way if u know what i mean
¬linus means "flax" in english apparently, in german the meaning is "lament" and that's the reason i picked it
¬okopenko is the surname of an austrian poet with slovakian roots and bc linus is slovakian he needs a slovakian surname, think of that if u decide to change it
¬linus' family moved to britain in his fourth year, he and zacharias are in the same year as ginny so that's the fifth book. however bc he's attended durmstrang before (hence his norwegian bc the school is probably located there) he's already been to hogwarts before bc of the triwizard tournament, however, he hasn't rlly spoken to the slytherins back then bc he has only known very little english (you don't rlly learn english in school before secondary school)
¬to make it a bit clearer: he's attended durmstrang for three years bc his parents didn't know anything abt magical schools and durmstrang was the quickest to send him a letter and when his parents move to britain bc of jobs he changes to hogwarts
¬linus misses slovakia and durmstrang and his friends, they've tried writing letters but bc they've never made endeavours to meet they grow apart and he's left alone nowadays
¬linus is a sad boy, i don't know if this is depression bc honestly i am not very well-versed in that theme, i know like nothing
¬zacharias is an angry boy
¬he's not easy to be with, he's cynical and caustic and pessimistic and really really angry but he doesn't even have a "reason" he just is and he hates it what makes him even more angry but he can also be mild (--> lukewarm)
¬it's playing the school year past the war (they're scarred bc of it, don't brush it off like it was nothing), you can stretch it out even after school - linus will work in a theatre as makeup artist, the only thing he is good at is making theatre makeup, he also sometimes paints his own face 
¬his parents haven't been bad to him bc linus' turned out to be a wizard but they've also not been supportive, they don't rlly have a connection