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]