It had been a rough couple of weeks for Erin. Days passed in a helpless, red-tinged monotony; he'd never wanted more to be out of Hogwarts castle. Living under the eye of adults drove him crazy, his classmates grated on him, schoolwork was a joke. He didn't know what to do with himself. He was furious most of the time. He longed to kick and hit and shake things up, to rage until everyone recognized what a shitty world it was. The feelings weren't going away with time; they were only getting stronger. If he wasn't angry, he was brooding.

And that was more or less what he was doing now. Erin had skulked up the stairs to the ground floor and was idling in one of the courtyards. It was cool, bordering on cold, and the wind whistled through the open spaces. He liked that, distantly. It was sharp against his hot face. He wedged himself into a stone corner, expression a black, blank cloud, and watched the students passing for classes he wasn't going to attend. On the rare occasion that a staff member walked by he drew back behind one of the columns, eyes narrowed, mouth tight.