Erin had been going through his days since he'd lost the Quidditch captaincy in a state of simmering anger, a dull roar muffling everything except for when it spiked into something sharp and hot. There was nothing for him to lose anymore and everything pissed him off. Other students talking, his housemates trying to be funny, the stupid drudgery of classes, Landis' calm face at the head table. He hated it all.

At least he could do something about it again. It should've been better now that he could act however he wanted. Someone looked at him the wrong way, he got in their face. If they said something, he hit 'em. It was an easy formula. It didn't require much thought. And he thrived on those moments when someone did answer him and he could do something, he could leap, desperately, eagerly wanting to fight. When he walked through the hallways it was like everybody could feel what he was feeling and they avoided him, they got out of his way. He walked with his head down and his shoulders hard, thrumming with tension, arms like taut wire and hands clenching so easily into fists. Erin Harper was trouble again. Word spread throughout the school. It felt satisfying, but it wasn't enough.

He'd been skipping classes too. No more reason to try for good grades and they were just rubbish anyways, ridiculous bullshite that he didn't need. He stayed in the common room or he roamed the school, brooding in corners, finding empty classrooms to wait the school day out. He didn't go to the Pitch like he used to when he wanted to clear his head. Flying, the thing he loved most, felt poisoned. Even in the air he couldn't forget he wasn't good enough.

Today he'd had to stay inside. It was suffer the cold or suffer people, and with the sun setting the temperature had already dropped. It was also raining, not that anyone could tell in the perpetual underwater gloom of the Slytherin dorms. Classes had let out; it was just before dinner. Erin'd been in the common room all day. He wasn't doing anything. He just sat. None of his fellow students were safe from his moods, but of everyone the Slytherins were the least likely to take him seriously and the most likely to be able to defend themselves. Most of the students in the common room ignored the sulking lump in the chair by the fireplace or rolled their eyes behind his back. But as long as they didn't bother him, Erin didn't care what his classmates did.

What a truly horrendous day it had been for Lovella. Not once, not twice, but three times she had been disturbed, interrupted, distracted, or annoyed by her fellow students while she was trying to work. No matter where she was, no matter where she tried to hide in quiet comfort and concentration there always seemed to be some ignorant prick around to haunt her. It confounded her to think that they had nothing better to do than to trace her every walking moment. She lived in a castle that had no end of magical corridors, rooms, secret compartments, and disappearing doors yet she still had trouble finding a private place to study. 

First she thought she'd seek solitude in the back aisles of the library where the dust had grown so thick on the long neglected books that it appeared as though the entire shelf had become covered in a fine layer of snow; however, not but a quarter of an hour later a bloody third year (from Ravenclaw) had come thundering back through the aisle saying he needed to hide from the librarian. Than she had tried an empty classroom on one of the higher floors. It wasn't empty for long though, as a couple of snogging students soon stumbled in, licking each others faces like a couple of dogs. It was only when they had half undressed themselves that they finally took notice of the penetratingly deadly stare coming from the heated Slytherin sitting on the other side of the room. The last poor sole who had walked in on her as she took solace in quiet aloneness  of the outskirts of the forbidden forest (he had been sent on a dare to touch a werewolf apparently) she left roped up against a tree,  upside down.

Out of patience and out of places to successfully be alone, she  soon found herself heading in the direction of the Slytherin common room, book bag slung across her shoulder and her recently used wand in her slender, white fingers. She knew, of course, that the common room was never empty, but she had come to the realization that she no longer had the option of studying in solitude and had resigned herself to taking a seat in front of the fire (a seat she commonly used when she couldn't find anywhere else to go), and doing her best to ignore the various goings on from her obnoxious house mates.

As she walked down into the gloomy depths of their chilly common room, she saw to her relief that there was not such an over-abundance of students that she couldn't simply ignore them. However, it wasn't until she had reached the fireplace that she say the real problem slouched over like a human doll. Why did everything today seem so unavoidably frustrating? Now, she was hoping to dispense with any open conflict as smoothly as possible, but as soon as she saw who it was all hope  of that flew out of the window and into the icy lake. To say Erin Harper was aggressively ill-tempered was putting it lightly. Lovella was no saint herself when it came down to it, of course, but that required a great deal of aggravation. Erin seemed to fly off the handle if you blinked the wrong way.

Well, there was no easy way to do it, but after all she had went through that day she wanted that seat badly. Not to mention, she always sat there and it wasn't as though he were doing anything but simply sitting there staring into the fire anyway, so why shouldn't she have it? "She calmly walked over to stand in front of him, her wolf-eyes peering down into his vacant expression. "Erin." She began, truly in a calm manner. "I can see that you may not be in the best of moods today, but I must say that, one, I do not care, and two I have not had the best of days either." This was considered tactful right? In truth she had no idea how to compromise or negotiate with someone  on her level as most of her words were often demeaning, and commonly degraded into hexes and curses. "So, I'm sorry to ask it of you, but I need that seat for my work. If you don't... mind." She finished.

It was easy to ignore everyone around him like they were ignoring him. They didn't mess with him, he didn't mess with them. At least, for right now. Erin just wanted to keep sitting there. He'd been doing it long enough that he wasn't restless anymore. It wasn't like he had anything better to do than stare at the bloody fire until dinner.

Someone walked over in front of him, blocking his view. It started okay. Lovella was talking to him calmly. Erin's eyes focused - he looked up - and then he registered her words. Really? This little twig of a girl was going to tell him to move? He didn't have it in him to be surprised. There was just more dull anger. Around them were plenty of chairs; he wasn't moving.

Erin bared his teeth at her. It wasn't much like a smile. "Find another," he suggested, about as sympathetic towards her bad day as she was to his.

She had been right on the mark when she had assumed Erin was in one of his... moods; answering her in a short tempered way almost through his teeth it looked like. Of course, she wasn't stupid. She knew that there were other chairs sprawled across the common room, even a few behind the one Erin now occupied, but she wanted this one. It was directly in front of the fire, turned away from all distractions, and one of the more comfortable seats to be had, not to mention that when Lovella had her sights set on something  she wouldn't settle for anything else.

"I'm terribly sorry." She began not feeling very sorry at all. "But I found this one. You're right that there are plenty of other chairs from which to pick, and they are probably more suitable for what you appear to be doing, or should I say not doing." She dropped her book bag on the floor in front of him with a thump. "This chair, however,  happens to be  perfect  for study and work." This was already going badly.

"You didn't find it!" Just like that, Erin was enraged. Dull anger turned to blazing anger, flaring like a struck match at the tone of her voice. He would have shot up out of the chair to face her but that was what she wanted, she'd probably take the seat when he did. Instead his fingers clenched on the armrests, sinking deep into the cushion, his knuckles turning white. "This chair," he growled, "is MINE. Sod off, you silly bint, you're not getting it!"

Of course, of bloody course, he couldn't catch a break. She was doing this on purpose just to taunt him, it was the only explanation. There were chairs everywhere! Why else would she keep at it! Maybe she thought it fun to make him mad. Oh, he could get mad, he could become a downright lunatic if that was the game she was playing. It wasn't funny to him in the slightest. She dumped her bag next to his foot like she was staying, and sitting up abruptly from his slouch Erin gave it a vicious kick that, even seated, made the thing sail a good meter across the carpet. He hadn't really meant to actually do it, but his urges and his actions didn't have too strong of a line drawn between them at the moment. It was a bit like - maybe a bit too like a tantrum when they'd only just gotten started, but when Lovella plopped the thing down he just wanted to tear it apart. She wasn't staying. No way in hell. He was serious. If she wanted something to fight over, he'd give it to her!