Anyone who knew Erik well, after class was over, could  easily deduce what he was doing with his spare time: if there was a charms class about changing color, Erik was sure to have bright pink hair at the end of a rather colorful hallway; if there was a potions class about explosive concoctions, Erik was sure to be experimenting with a dung-bomb somewhere; and if there was a Transfiguration class about candy or food, there was only one place the Gryffindor could have run off to.

After ransacking the kitchen of some lunchtime dessert, meat and potatoes, Erik had found himself a cozy corner of the castle to relax with a stack of bare chocolate frog cards sitting next to his plate of food and bowl of dessert while he filled the room he was in with a ridiculous amount of magic bubbles. One of the bubbles was spinning around in front of him, and Erik would catch it as a chocolate frog leaped around on the inside, bouncing from wall to wall as many other bubbles jerked sporadically through the room in the same fashion, also containing chocolate frogs.

It was a brainless sort of amusement, but after the whiny, loud, and tear-filled Transfiguration class, Erik thought it was quite the improvement, and had almost forgotten about he whole ordeal together. After leaning over and taking another bite of his early lunch he saw someone enter the room, and focused on the intruder, with a spoon idly hanging from his mouth.

"Oh, hi Hannah," he mumbled around the utensil casually, "Want some cheesecake?"

Hannah had checked the tower, she'd checked the courtyard, she'd checked the statue of the humpbacked witch and she'd even checked the library, but she could not find Erik Collins. To the kitchens, then - but he wasn't in there either, and she'd spent a few minutes surrounded by helpful house elves telling her Master Collins had been here just a moment ago, and maybe she'd like some jelly tarts to take along for their picnic?

No, Hannah had not wanted any jelly tarts. Well, she had, but - maybe later. She spent another uncertain couple of minutes hovering outside the kitchen painting before bravely taking off in a new direction. And lo and behold, she found him in an empty classroom nearby all filled up with bubbles, all dancing and bouncing with a chocolate frog stuck snugly in their centers.

If she hadn't been so set on saying what she had to say - and if she hadn't spent the last half hour looking for him, even then getting lucky in finding him so soon in a castle of this size - she might've been fascinated. But she could ask Erik about his spell later.

After they had a little chat.

"No, I don't," she said, plopping down on the floor across from him, close enough to have touched their feet sole-to-sole in a circle if they'd both stretched them out. Despite the matter-of-fact tone in her voice, she didn't seem particularly angry - but as she clasped her fingers lightly together and looked him in the eye, it was obvious she'd come here with a purpose.

"Erik," she said unceremoniously, "You're an arse." Then she stopped and waited for the inevitable indignant explosion, because if there was anything that having two brothers had taught her it was that boys didn't like being called on when they'd done something stupid. Especially if they didn't know they'd done something stupid, which seemed to be the case for Erik and which was the only thing that'd saved him a good hard smack.

"Oh What?" Erik gave a short burst of outrage, "You couldn't have gotten that in before I left Transfiguration?"
 
Rather than repeat himself or continue on in a raised voice he fell over onto his side, facing away from Hannah, and played with his chocolate frog ball.

"Anything else you'd like to add? Heartless, prat, jerk, brat--" Erik really wasn't the best at zingers when he was in a bad mood, especially when he was insulting himself, "I'm sure there's a dictionary lying around here somewhere you crack open to assist you,"  although he doubted that Hannah was ever short on words for any situation.

But If there was one thing that Erik decided to come to accept in that semester of school, or the time-span of about a month, was that girls were going to yell at him regardless of what he said or did, and that he'd never understand it. After how Tawse's class went over, he'd rather sit there and ignore Hannah rather than go over this wonderful issue of him being an 'arse', again.

Unseen by Erik, who now had his back firmly to her, Hannah rolled her eyes. What a baby. Her mum had told her girls matured faster than boys.

"Well, I didn't think you needed it then," she said primly. "Since everyone else was so quick to tell you for me. I bet you don't even know why, do you."

Absently, she waved away a frog-bearing bubble that had floated a little too close to her face. Erik didn't seem like a bad bloke. He was a lot of fun sometimes. And maybe she couldn't tell him anything he'd listen to, but she could at least try. He was making the rest of Gryffindor look bad! Besides, since common sense seemed to be so rare around here it was only her duty to share.

"Everyone was angry at you because you made a girl cry. That's like the worst thing you could do. And poor Noriko is really very sensitive and you shouldn't...you should try not to - " Hannah looked at Erik's stubborn back, and her mouth twisted into a scowl. "You weren't even sorry for it. And that's why everyone was angry. Boys can be mean to other boys, but picking on Noriko makes you a bully."

And at Hannah's accusation Erik rolled onto his stomach, braced himself up, and turned back around to give her a disgusted look, one Bertie's Bot's couldn't have given him with the most disgusting bean.

"I am sorry, and I wasn't picking on her," his voice was low, frustrated, and half-sad at Hannah. "I just said the word bum, and ten minutes later she starts crying, I thought she had a bad bean." Erik shrugged his shoulders and let his eyebrows rise as his mouth dropped sourly. Even while he let himself be a smartass in any situation, he was completely genuine, "Then I get punched at, people start yelling, Noriko cries more, I try and joke it off," Had the boy not been enraged by everyone else's reactions he may have actually realized how angry and mean he had gotten in the class. He sighed and rolled back around to play with his frog, completely ready to ignore Hannah.

"Mairead gets mad at my wanting to have my dad take us to a theme park, Noriko cries because I said butt, i]you're [/i]no better than either of them right now," His voice was weak, tired, annoyed, he really wasn't in the mood for this right now. He really wasn't in the mood to entertain anyone of the opposite gender anymore, maybe not even his own twin. "I just make girls upset because I'm stupid. There--happy now?" Erik added a stupid force for emphasis, hoping that maybe she'd just get angry enough to get up and leave now or stop being such a downer.