the end has no end

Roxanne settled down in one of the vacant seats littered throughout the study room. She was fortunate enough to find a table without any occupants. As she began to set out her things in a rather methodical manner, she glanced around the room, surveying the few other students present. None of them were recognizable, granted most of them had her back towards her. The few students that really took advantage of the quiet study room were view and that was one of the reasons she frequently turned to it when she needed to buckle down and get things done. Her eyes fell upon her Transfiguration book, the first bit of homework on her long and tedious list of assignments. True, she had until the next week to get most of the said assignments completed, but she wasn't one who enjoyed wasting time; she appalled it actually. The amount of students that waited until the last moment to get things done were idle and lazy, they would never be able to get everything done to their fullest potential. Granted, she profited from other students' poor decisions as she was able to get higher grades and maintain a higher ranking in her class, but there was still a part of her that would always be irritated by laziness, whether in herself or another person.

As she began reading her assignment, she also took notes in her navy blue ink. The layout of her notes was always very clear and eligible, neatly organized and structured with bullet points and the like. After she had read several pages, she leaned back in her chair, feeling her muscles stretch as her arms reached above her head. After getting a little more comfortable from repositioning in her chair, she buckled back down to work. However, there was something irritating her. The sound of a quill tapping against the wooden tables was echoing throughout the previously silent room. Attempting to ignore the sound, she looked back down at her book and began reading. It wasn't until she realized that she'd read the same sentence nearly four times that she cracked. Whipping around in her chair, she hissed, "Could you please stop tapping your quill? It's obnoxious." She wasn't always rude like this but get between Roxanne and her studying and you're likely to see the darker side of her personality.

According to his father, it was high time Elijah buckled down and actually did some work. He’d been slacking for the last two years nearly. He’d had scores that were through the metaphorical roof at Durmstrang. That was only because he spent more time hiding in the library than he did playing Quidditch or doing things he actually enjoyed. Viktor had accepted the fact that his son was never going to be a Quidditch player. What he wasn’t ready to accept was that his son was intent on becoming an artist – just an artist. He could get over the Quidditch thing. He wasn’t prepared, however, to see his son turn into a penniless artist with three children and a wife to provide for. He knew it wouldn’t happen but he wanted Elijah to have something to full back on if it happened. So, until he got his act together school-wise, he wasn’t allowed to go home to see Fauve and Thierry.

If anything, they were the only people that were going to spur him into action. He was quite sure they weren’t going to want to spend the majority of their rapidly ending childhood’s in Bulgaria without their father. There was only so much of the extended family he could take and although they were enamoured with his children and they them, he knew that soon enough, Fauve and Thierry would get bored. Motivation. That was what he needed. So far though, he had none and the homework lay out before him wasn’t thinning in the slightest.

In need of nicotine and a pint, Elijah weight up the pros and cons of taking a break and going into Hogsmeade for just that. Involuntarily he began to tap his quill against the tabletop as he pulled the locket out of his shirt. Elijah popped it open and watched as the pictures were projected. He smiled wistfully and watched as the two lovers frolicked in the fields of the Bulgarian countryside. Elijah pursed his lips and closed it. He dropped it against his chest and left the buttons undone. He blew a stray piece of hair out of his eyes and pulled the nearest book towards him. As he began to concentrate, a voice broke through, alerting him of the tapping sound.

Elijah looked up and met the seemingly irate gaze of a Ravenclaw student. His lips twitched slightly and he tapped the quill once more before dropping it on the table. “Sorry,” he apologized, his voice thick with the Bulgarian accent that had began to disappear. It returned today though, with full force.