I could use some friends for a change

Lily walked up towards the Gryffindor common room, her usual doom and gloom settling in to her slender bones. She couldn't go on a walk around the lake without being attacked. The poor girl no longer had a guardian in Hogwarts, leaving her to fend for herself from students either to attack her reputation or her family history. Lily was not free in an aspect of her life to escape them all. She had hoped the frigid air would drive students indoors, but there had been enough to turn her around and force her to abandon her walk.

Lily's cheeks were pink from the cold. She no longer reacted physically to taunts and pestering of the other students. She did not blush, she did not turn pale, she did not shake, Lily had no poker tells. She walked away, if the other was lucky, that was. It resulted in a lot of time alone, however, which Lily had come to seek. It was a bit sad, all the time alone, but it was so much safer.

The Gryffindor common room wasn't always a reliable shelter, but Lily was chilled and needed to sit before the fire. She gathered her sweater around her and hurried up to the Fat Lady, stating the word, "Skrewt," before it made way to allow her inside. She clambered in, before straightening up and pushing her hair back.

The fire waved to her and she turned, stepping towards it and slowly kneeling. Warmth crept into her and she shivered once, only once. She rocked back, sitting down with her legs before her as she began to unlace her boots.

Winter and sneaky fag breaks would never mix but it was worth it just to watch the little Hufflepuffs choke on cheap crap they’d brought in Dufftown. It was from the covered bridge that Elliot watched them, a cigarette that was more ash than anything else dangling from the side of his mouth. Three Hufflepuff boys, two he knew vaguely, the other he didn’t really care to know. They were experimenting with something. They were rollies by the looks and whatever they had in them, Elliot knew it wouldn’t be worth stealing. It couldn’t be any worse than what Trent had stashed in a tin on the table beside his bed. Now that, that was bad enough.

But the point at hand was that the biting winter weather was never going to suit the aching need for nicotine that crept up the back of his neck and seemed to tickle at the nerves in his head, teasing him, baiting him, forcing him out of his room where it was already choked with smoke, and out into the open air where things smelt different; where things actually smelt. Elliot did not appreciate the chill of the weather but what he did adore was the landscape that fanned out before him, dipped in white from the frost as if winter had to taste the ground before it laid down the snow. Elliot knew it would not take long. Weeks of studying the stars and the nights were getting clearer, easier to view. Yet, this was all a sign, the prelude to the rolling clouds and the crack of thunder before the rain fell down frozen, as delicate flecks of snow.

The Hufflepuffs were about as interesting as they got when they were making nuisances of themselves, trying to make their lives worse. They were just doing it for fun to be big boys. Elliot felt it was all rather juvenile but then, who was he? He too was sat out in the cold, freezing his arse cheeks on the perch he’d found on the covered bridge. He was in no position to despair at their lives and their poor choice of what was to become of them. Part of him wanted to go over there, to bother them into thinking better of their actions but in the end, Elliot found he didn’t care enough to do so. Let them press on. Had it been anyone else, anyone he loved, then perhaps he would have been obliged to slink over there. Perhaps. Once he started criticising other people’s lives outside his head, he was laid bare for them to poke fun at him, also. Which, oddly enough, didn’t actually suit Elliot at all.

Embittered and certainly not feeling better, Elliot flicked the cigarette over the side of the bridge and made his way back inside, picking his way across the ice-slick bridge towards the cobbled courtyard which he knew would be an even larger battle for him to face. Yet soon enough he was back within the warmth of the castle and the wind was closed out, forced only to slap itself against the windows and the walls in its vain attempt to get in, to surround the students and petrify them with its icy temperatures. Elliot felt safe enough and mad enough to stand and taunt the wind that continued to throw itself against the castle. But of course, he did not. Instead he moved briskly through the castle and towards the Gryffindor common room where, once there, he felt warm enough to tug his jumper over his head and chuck it on the couch, only to slump down in the same position he had the other day, head way below the back of the couch, feet on the coffee table.

It was not a moment later that the portrait door opened and the equilibrium was disturbed. But then again, could it be disturbed any more than it already had been by his angsty, smoky self? Probably not. No, the person that entered was a particularly famous redhead, one that had been condemned to a life of fame from the day she’d been born, one that had, had to suffer for it too. Still, you had to take the good with the bad and if you were Lily Potter there was loads of the latter and very little, indeed, of the former. Elliot almost pitied her but most of his pity was direct at him. He was perfectly happy drowning in self-pity. She, meanwhile, had to deal with being a Potter. Poor lass. Oh, so maybe he did have a bit to spare.

“If you buy yourself a decent coat, Potter, then you won’t freeze.” Elliot called out genially, hypocritically too seeing as he had gone out in shorts, a t-shirt and a thin jumper to protect him from the cold. “If I were you, I wouldn’t go out at all. But I see why you do.” Elliot dropped his legs down and sat up a little better, though not much.

“Finnigan, by the way. Er. Elliot. Elliot Finnigan.” The boy, not the teenager, had the decency to blush a little though it was unclear whether his cheeks were picked pink with embarrassment or cold.

The bravado was gone, replaced instead by quite a bit more shyness than he would have first allowed.

“I expect you know my sister, eh? She makes enough of a nuisance of herself... you can’t avoid her really.” The boy smiled a little and brought his hand up to fiddle with the feather attached to a piece of metal that was pierced through the left earlobe. He nibbled idly on his bottom lip and looked over at Lily again, finding that her red hair was much prettier in the light of the fire. It seemed to roar and crackle and spit just like the flames in the hearth. Ah yes, that was better. And so a bit more of the level-headed, kinder Elliot began to appear. Gone was the snooty teen that was present not twenty minutes before, weighing up whether or not he should disturb smoking Hufflepuffs. Perhaps it was the warmth of the common room but even he could say he felt a bit better.

OOC: Woohoo for it getting out of hand. :3 I liked that post. Enjoyed it a lot. [/endramble]

Lily was a very focused girl, but this sometimes made her blind. She was typically so focused on what was before her, that the little distractions life threw out floated around her cranium until they smacked right into her, making her fall over. And in a much more practical sense, it also hindered her ability to notice small things like the presence of a house mate in what she had assumed was an abandoned common room.

She twisted around at the sound of a male voice, identifying the speaker as a boy scrunched far down on one of the sofas. He was sitting sloppily, as though he had sunk as far into the cushions as he could. "My coat is decent enough, thanks," she responded, attempting to leave it at that as she turned back to her boots, rarely ever in the mood for conversation. She had unlaced one boot and now pulled it off.

As she did, he spoke again. She paused her hand resting above the laces of her left boot, waiting for him to clarify. What did he mean, he saw why she did? It was a strange comment. Didn't everyone go outside? Why could he see why she, especially, would choose to go out?

Mistress, it's just something people say, Lily's brain told her, having found the file on social norms. Our records identify it as 'small talk.'

Oh. Thank you brain.

"Finnegan."

Lily twisted around again, staring at him. "What?" she said, looking irritated with his persistence and the apparent gibberish coming out of his face. He stuttered onward, clarifying that it was his last name, as he added his first name to the mix. "Right," she said. "I'm Lily."

Mistress, our records suggest that you can infer he probably knows your name-

I'm aware, thanks.

He continued on and she turned back to her boot, pulling it off. "Your sister is Millie. Everyone knows who Millie is. She doesn't give the school a choice in the matter." Lily wanted it clear. She didn't know anyone by her own free will. It was a matter forced upon her. She set her boots before the fire, allowing them to get warm. She wiggled her socks and stood, looking at the boy. She blinked before saying, quite without warning, "Do you play Exploding Snap?"

They called it a ‘Muddy Upbringing’, some Purebloods. It meant that Half-Bloods or poverty-stricken Purebloods brought up their children in conditions that mirrored the ways Muggles and Muggleborns were brought up. It was enough to unsettle most Wizards, the mere thought of it, and even the most liberal amongst the population refused to entertain a world without magic for themselves or their children – regardless of the cost.

A Muddy Upbringing was something that Elliot Finnigan had had and though it was not something that was a huge secret, he was hardly proud of it. He felt as though the Potter children may have benefited from such a childhood. Hounded by anyone who knew about their past and was after a snippet more, they’d hardly been raised in peace. Perhaps that was what made Lily retreat the way she did. Elliot had noticed, of course. How could he not? How could anyone not?

Pursing his lips for a moment, the young man sat up a little straighter and brought his legs up onto the couch, curling them behind himself as he propped his body up against the amass of golden-trimmed pillows that adorned the scarlet couch. Running his fingers through the front of his dirty-blonde locks, Elliot gave his next words some thought lest he wanted to admit to her that talking to girls had never been his strong point. Not that he liked her, of course. His mother had been a Pureblood. She’d known the ways just like he knew them despite his handicapped beginning. It was never, ever as simple as that.

“Indeed,” Elliot replied easily, smoothly, as if it wasn’t his retort at all. But the bravado was back, ever protecting him from foolishness. He wished he could be as awkwardly charming as Trent was or as brilliant as Spencer and Byron were at these sorts of things. Just, talking. That was the difficult bit. It had been a nightmare with Sarah. That was probably why she’d been better off with Graham – better conversation, even if it was about Quidditch.

Elliot nodded, “I play a little, yes. I must warn you, I’m not very good.” Then, with a smile he asked, “Do you have your deck with you?”