Unlikely Accident

Adrienne was walking the streets of Hogsmeade, mostly window shopping, and looking for something to take back to Wyatt next time she was headed home. She hadn't seen him in too long, and knew that bringing him something would at least help appease him a bit. She headed into one of the stores and ambled around a bit, before deciding that she would head towards the Three Broomsticks, and if she didn't find anything on her way, she'd just stop in for a bite to eat, and try again afterwards.

Although she expected the area to be chilly, as they were, of course, fairly far north, there was a breeze that made her wish she'd brought a jacket along with her scarf. Taking it off to re-tie it, she stopped paying attention to where she was going. She wasn't really moving that quickly anyways. Once she thought she had it how she wanted it, she glanced down to check. She had a thing about scarves - she loved them, and had too many of them, but at least she actually wore them all.

She decided that she'd done it up well enough, and looked up just in time to walk right into someone who she assumed hadn't been paying attention either. She couldn't tell, though, as she tripped a few steps backwards letting out a quiet, "Merlin!" and looked up at the person she'd run into.

Within a week of staying here, Reid had come to the conclusion that Britain was a horribly limited place.

Sure, it was still 'home'. But unlike back in Bulgaria, people here actually cared about people other than themselves. They paid unnecessary attention to random strangers, stopped to enquire about one another's wellbeing, struck up irritating conversation with people they had never met. Reid had gotten tired of saying that yes, he was staying in the Three Broomsticks all alone, no, he was not a student of Hogwarts on the run, yes indeed, he had been suspended, and no, he wasn't going to set anything on fire. The suspension part was quite entertaining though. Hogsmeade inhabitants couldn't possibly imagine what behaviour would be horrible enough to merit one a suspension from a notable Dark school like Durmstrang, leading Reid to concoct more and more wild explanations everytime the question was posed to him, starting from planting bombs in the classroom to outright murder of the Headmaster. Needless to say, the people had been pointedly staying away from him after the last one.

But of course, they were British. So they couldn't simply ignore him, they simply had to point, and whisper and glare everytime he crossed the streets. Reid's temper was running on a short fuse.

Which led him to unnecessarily collide with someone on the road to the Broomsticks. Reid brushed lint off his shoulder, looked at the other person, and inwardly groaned. Great. A girl. Judging by her uniform, a student. This was the bloody fifth Hogwarts girl he had encountered since coming here. Did the female students of the establishment have no other work to do except loiter in the streets of Hogsmeade, and conveniently collide with strangers who decidedly, emphatically did not want to talk to them? No. Of course not.

"Merlin!." The girl let out a small gasp. Reid couldn't resist the temptation to roll his eyes. "Close, but not quite." He stepped back, made a show of brushing off lint from his hands and shoulders, and gave the girl a 'patient' stare. "Now if you're not completely devoid of brains, would you kindly step out of the way?"

Adrienne stared at the boy she'd stumbled into. He made a great show of brushing himself off, and made what she supposed he thought to be a witty comment. "My, my, aren't we proud," She snapped at him sharply, running her hands over her shirt to smooth out the wrinkles. She was known for dressing nicely, and some boy who hadn't been watching his way either deserved no sympathy, and wouldn't get the pleasure of seeing her out of sorts.

"What," She added in response to his rather hypocritical statement, "can't walk around, you git?" She was openly glaring at him, now. If this was his way of getting her to apologize or some other such nonsense, he would be thoroughly disappointed. "Not my fault you can't see what's right in front of you, now is it?"

She wasn't usually so snappy. Something about this boy made her rather annoyed, though. She wasn't about to apologize, now. She didn't care if she was short, or a Ravenclaw, or any other reason you could think for her not being the type to fight back. It was people like this who set her on edge, and made her snappy side come out. She wasn't quite sure she wanted to deal with him, and debated just walking off. But then he'd have had the pleasure of her basically doing what he'd told her to. So she just crossed her arms over her chest and waited to see what he'd do.

She snapped at him, hard. Reid's eyes flashed. He wasn't in the mood for sassy chicks right now, who thought themselves to be queens of the world. Actually come to think of it, he was never in the mood for sassy chicks. Hypocrites, the lot of them. Strutted around this way and that, claiming to be strong and demanding 'equal' treatment since they were obviously so much better than males. And when he actually raised his voice at any of them, cowered like wet kittens and labelled him to be 'ungentlemanly' since he had the audacity to be rude to a girl.

"I'm sorry." Reid's voice had fallen to a hiss. "Obviously, my life's ambition is to purposely bump into random girls on the street." A part of him, that was harshly judgemental of everyone including himself, acknowledged the fact that he was probably unloading his due-to-the-world rage on this girl unnecessarily. There was the familiar slide of lava in his veins, and Dr. Kramnik's calm, altogether annoying voice chanted in his head: Count back from ten.. Reid exhaled forcefully through his feet. The advice of the school psychologist was a spectacular failure.

Regardless, he brought his voice back to 'safe-level', and forced a tight smile on his features. "My bad." He stepped to the side, inclined his head in a bow that simply refused to be anything else other than mocking, and muttered. "Idiots first."

Adrienne was watching the boy closely as he spoke, eyes narrowed. She had come out from school in a perfectly good mood, and here was this prat, determined on ruining it. Brilliant. That's just what she needed today. It wasn't as if she had been taking a break from studying from finals. No. Of course not. Her only goal and purpose of the day's trip was to run into some guy and let him have a go at her. Not bloody likely.

His hissing at her made her no less annoyed or angry. When he cooled down a bit, she figured perhaps he would just leave her be. But no. He had to go and make snide comments like that. Instead of doing what he wanted, she paused perhaps a moment after he finished speaking, let out a soft laugh through her nose, and replied primly, "Yes. Please be my guest. Now.." She gave only a second of dramatic pause, ensuring she could speak fast enough to get her comment out before he interrupted. She continued quickly, referring to his pretend bow as he gestured her on her way. "I can see why you, as King of the imbeciles, would expect people to bow to you. But I think bowing to yourself before you leave is overly self-indulgent don't you think?"

She let that sink in for a second, sending him a one-sided smirk, her eyes glaring into his, daring him to have at her again. She wasn't one to back down from a challenge of this nature - she knew she could go on and on when it came to arguments of this kind. She honestly probably would have just stayed there until he walked away.

Adrienne tensed immediately as she saw his face seem to suddenly close off even further. She'd gone too far it seemed. His hand took hold of her wrist, and her eyes grew very wide very quickly. As soon as he spoke of course, Addie's eyes narrowed both defensively and in anger. He gripped her hand tighter and she had to hold back a wince. Addie knew she oughtn't show any weaknesses before him.

He finished with what sounded both like a sigh and a warning, before turning and walking away. Addie wasn't usually one to follow up. She was no Gryffindor or anything. But the idea that this boy had called her childish? Like she couldn't out think him! The Ravenclaw wouldn't accept it. Muttering a curse under her breath - something she rarely did, if ever - she bristled. Shaking herself a bit, she strode forward and stepped in front of him, holding a hand out to push him back if he ran into her.

"Listen, kid," Adrienne snapped, her eyes blazing. She tended to call anyone who was bugging her 'kid', though in this case, she hoped it bothered him. "It was by no means my intention to have you run into me and have to put up with your sad attempt at snark. But nobody," she inclined her head to show how serious she was, "is allowed to just grab me and act haughty and stuck up. I don't know who you think you are, but I'll have none of it."

Finishing her rant, Addie glared at him, shaking her head in disapproval. Yeah, she would agree that she wasn't exactly the best person or the smartest person. But this guy had no idea what she was capable of. She read textbooks for kicks to know spells others didn't. She was already reading up for the summer trip she and some of her fellow to-be seventh years would be taking. She had little to no patience with people who were as haughty as this guy.

Crap.

The first danger signal was a pounding head. Reid had possessed that ever since he got up in the morning today.

The second was a tightly clenched jaw, and white knuckles. The girl had contributed to that generously a few seconds ago.

And the third was blackening vision. Shadows around the periphery of his sight, everything seeming darker except the concentrated focus of his ire. He was experiencing that right now.

The girl had the bleeding audacity to walk up to him, and stop him.

The 'kid' was just the icing on the cake.

For a second, Reid imagined. Imagined what it would be like to tell this midget that the 'kid' she was talking about had cast the Avada Kedavra, and was feeling sorely tempted to do it again. But since he had always considered imagination to be useless, and without any point whatsoever, he stretched out the kinks in his shoulder and took a step forward. "I couldn't give less of a f*ck, about 'allowed' and 'not allowed'. And since you don't know, I'd inform you that I think I have more advanced brain processes as compared to yours. Admittedly, " His eyes scanned up and down twice, words dropping caustically. "Its not that great of an achievement."

And god, inspite of his anger, was he bored of this or what. Perhaps it was time for radical action. He withdrew his wand, spinning it between his pianist fingers, intent clear. "So Midget, if you don't have better things to waste my time with, move."

Adrienne couldn't even feel surprised at his language, though she wasn't often one to use any like he obviously did. Someone had to seriously mess with her to draw out that sort of reaction. She had seen his reaction to the name she called him, of course, because she was watching for it. Her glare darkened when he apparently rolled his shoulders and stepped closer. Refusing to step away, Adrienne stood her ground and met his glare with a sneer as she looked up at him.

He looked her over repeatedly and she had to keep from clenching her fists even as her jaw tensed. He insulted her and she was opening her mouth to reply when he drew his wand and her hand flew to her own in response, though she left it in her pocket. This cynical guy was threatening her? Oh heck no. 

Addie's eyes were surely flaming right now as she scowled at him. Not the nicest or prettiest look, but she definitely wasn't worried about that right then. He was twirling his wand like it would entertain him to cast some kind of dark curse on her.

"You, smarmy git that you are, see no problem with threatening people." She spoke quickly, words sharp like she thought they could injure. "But normal people who lack the asinine quality that you have know better. I'm not avoiding threatening you to prove I'm better than you. No, I'm better than you because I won't threaten you back and sink to your dirt-crawling level." She replied, voice dripping with disdain. Her dark brown eyes bored into his as he stood over her.

She decided she probably shouldn't stick around if this guy had no problem threatening others. So she sneered at him briefly before shoving into his shoulder as she passed, hair flying behind her.

(( OOC: I don't know if you wanted to end the thread or not, but judging by Addie and Reid's characters, they wouldn't remain in each other's company for another minute. There is the Vacation thread anyway so....hope this is okay XP ))

She pushed him and walked, hair flying behind her like a skewed-up halo, and Reid closed his eyes.

Seared dark eyes, darker hair and a snotty face into his mind. Fixed the memory of the clear, sharp, prissy voice. He would have liked to have a name to go along with the image. "Piss Princess" would just have to do.

"Threats are for people who don't follow through." His voice trailed in the cold wind, words whipped and fading off into the air. His fingers tightened around his wand. He didn't believe in concerning himself in worthless matters, or even more worthless girls. After this minute, he probably wouldn't spare even a split-second's thought on this incident. It would be sheer wastage of precious time.

But he would remember. And if the girl was ever unfortunate enough to cross his path again then.....

His eyes resembled cold, hard granite. Well, he had been looking for a test subject anyway.

Reid slipped his hands into his pockets, and took off in the opposite direction, mind already lost in the chords of the Sonata Pathetique. His shoes clicked against the cobblestoned streets, winding off into the distance; Hogsmeade had done enough for him. He needed to be away. London, now that was a hellhole he hadn't made a point of visiting yet.

The last, half-disintegrating thought to flit vaguely across his mind was that he would, for the girl's own good, probably never meet her again. 

It was one of the few times that Reid would be proved wrong. Horribly so.