In the quiet of night...

Elijah sank into the cushions on the sofa that lay before the fire in the Slytherin Common Room. A yawn escaped his mouth and he closed his eyes, his mother’s diary lying open on his bare chest that was rising and falling beneath it. His hair had fallen around his shoulders and even asleep he looked as if he was haunted by something. By what, was the question though? A number of different factors could have influenced the unrest. Guilt at not mourning Alice when he should have, the sense of loss where his mother was concerned, the distaste he felt for his sister, the stress of finding out about his mother, the stress of having Chase wandering around unprotected with his child in her belly. Everything was building up inside of Elijah and he felt about ready to explode. He didn’t know what to do anymore. All he could really do was sleep. It was in slumber that he could escape the maddened space that was his mind. It wasn’t that Elijah was losing his mind; just that he had no idea how to control everything going on around him. He couldn’t control his grief or Chase or Cecilia or anything he truly wanted needed to.

The fire crackled, prompting Elijah to open one of his eyes. He sat up slightly and let the book drop into his lap. The snakes that had gathered on his torso wriggled underneath his skin. He looked down at his chest and watched a few of the babies slither across his stomach and onto his left arm. Elijah smiled and ran his finger down it. The snakes hissed at the feeling of his hot hand against their patch of skin ad Elijah chuckled. He slipped back down against the pillows and brought his legs up so they were bent at the knee. At a loss of what to do after dinner, Elijah had turned back to the book hat evening. He’d not been back long and had had no desire to do any school work. Discovering his mother seemed more practical. It hurt more but it was well worth it. To know such a woman would mean the world to Elijah.

The mood circling Elijah was not unique. In fact it was normal yet it was still uncertain when his emotions would change.

Yeah, Renny had found her smoking outside in the rain. Yeah, she had yelled her or something. Not like Piper gave a damn. Sure, when it came down to it, Piper loved her sister, she would always side with her, she would kill someone who tried so much as to push Renny. But, for God sakes, the girl could get on Piper's nerves faster than a Bludger.

She waited ten minutes after Renny had left and then went back to the castle, drying herself off and warming herself up with some spells she had come across and coughed. She might have gotten herself a cold. Perfect. She could get out of some classes the next day by making a scene and getting sent to the Hospital Wing for some Pepperup Potion. She could live with that.

She gave the password and slipped into the common room to find she was alone with Elijah Krum, the boy everyone wanted. She rolled her eyes at the very sight of him, finding nothing particularly special about him whatsoever. "It's cold in here," she commented and summoned a sweater, which she pulled on. She did not want to go to bed until she was sure that the girls in her dorm were asleep. She hated dealing with them.

She fished a cigarette out of her pocket and walked over to one of the torches and lit it off of the torture before collapsing into an armchair, taking a few drags. She did not ask if it was okay she smoked. She did not care what other people thought about her habits. Why would the Hogwarts Heartthrob's opinions be any more important?

Before rubbing his arms to keep the cold out of his bones, Elijah took his wand from his pocket and flicked it at the stack of wood by the hearth. One of the logs rose and fell into the fire where the rest of the burning wood lay. Sparks flew and Elijah shivered slightly as he contemplated putting his shirt back on. It had been warm in the common room earlier, now the chill of the lake above the room was beginning to seep in through the walls. He lifted the book up off of his stomach and rested it against his legs. Elijah ran his fingers across the cursive on the page and momentarily found himself lost in thought. When the portrait swung open however, he sat up, letting the diary full closed in his lap.

Elijah shivered when the cool metal of the dog-tags around his neck, brushed the skin of his chest. He bit into his bottom lip and shifted his legs off of the couch. He put Marina’s diary down beside him and looked at the girl who had entered carefully. The first words he would have used to describe her would have been sexy, sultry and all together extremely f-ckable. Unfortunately though, she opened her mouth and in doing so she supplied Elijah with all she needed to know. He could smell the smoke on her and he could hear the lilt of annoyance in her voice that wasn’t yet to be directed at him. She’d been caught doing something that students weren’t meant to. He was going to take a wild guess and say smoking – she didn’t look like the type that was fond of setting fire to First Years’ hair.

She was off-limits, he was guessing. That meant nothing, though. If it was one thing the Krum men loved then it was a good chase. It explained a lot of Elijah’s traits. The irony was that said traits that ran through the family where heightened and made worse by other nationalities that also have their Casanovas. Elijah had yet to meet anyone Italian but he knew that Catalina’s boys, Andres and Javier, all of whom had Spanish blood went out purposely looking for a femme fatal to have a good time with. Elijah, on the other hand, didn’t go out of his way. They usually just...came to him.

The smell of nicotine was suddenly under Elijah’s nose and he turned to find that the blonde had lit a cigarette using one of the torches on the wall. Elijah put his mother’s diary on the table before the sofa and got to his feet. He wandered over to where she was and leaned against the wall. “They’ll kill you, you know.” Elijah told her, quoting everyone that say him smoke. No one ever said anything useful; they just commented on the fact that his addiction was hastening the inevitable. All he really wanted to hear was where he could get them cheap and cheerful. As it was, Elijah had a taste for expensive ones and he had his father’s money to burn. He was doing it too, literally but still figuratively.

Reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, Elijah pulled out his packet which the busty girl in Dufftown had given him that morning. He’d cut down but after dealing with the little nicotine monster in his head screaming and crying and banging on the wall of his brain, he decided he needed to indulge it. He placed his cigarette between his lips and placed the packet back into his pocket. He leaned forward and lit the end of the cigarette on the flame of the torch. Elijah pulled back and held the cigarette with two fingers as he inhaled the nicotine. He took it from his mouth and blew the smoke away.

Suddenly unsure of where to put the ash, Elijah leaned over to where the windowsill was. He picked up an empty glass bowl and held it between them. Elijah tapped his cigarette on the side and let the ash fall in before placing it back between his lips. “How old are you exactly?” He asked curiously. She couldn’t have been much younger than him. She was most strange.

Piper took a few more drags and closed her eyes, sinking deeper into the armchair, trying to block out the vision of the boy, trying to ignore the world around her, forget the face of her sister as she B**** and whined at her. She told the world to f*ck off... Why could it not just do that one little thing for her. Just leave her alone, let her fend for herself.

Krum spoke and her eyes rolled beneath her closed eyelids and she blew out some smoke, saying, "Oh, yes, and I'm sure that it is the utmost concern to you." She did not particularly care for smoking, she had only taken it up to piss off her grandmother. But now she was quite fond of it, and quite fond of the fact that it made at least the 'goody' half of Hogwarts steer clear of her. She could be quite content with that at least.

Her eyes flicked open and she took another drag, sighing as smoke took form in the air in front of her. She glanced over to see that Krum was leaning against a wall, trying- and failing, in her opinion- to look cool. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and she rolled her eyes. Ah, a smart ass. Or a hypocrite. Either way, really not her favorite.

He suddenly asked how old she was. She turned and glared at him, holding her cigarette aloft and narrowing her eyes on him. She could usually figure out what people were playing at and she knew how to identify the raging hormones of the teenaged male, and she was almost certain she detected a flicker of them in Krum. Great. What a way to spend her relaxing evening.

"And why would that matter to you at all?" she asked in her usual cold voice. The fire from the torch was illuminated in her eyes, making her look like some sort of hell woman, some demon that would take nothing from him, though the fire was not enough to melt her icy cold exterior. "I mean, you don't even know my name and you want an age. That's a little premature, don't you think?"

Smoking in the common room was not something Elijah often did. He didn’t like to be confined with the smoke oddly enough. No, he preferred to smoke outside. He liked it better out in the open. The several breaths of pure oxygen between each inhale were ones he treasured. A part of him knew he could probably do without but he’d now experienced what it was like to try. Elijah knew how close he’d been to cracking it before. He was weak, though. He gave up when he could have continued and beaten one of his first vices. It could have been the first to go. Clearly though, that hadn’t happened. He’d cut down though – that was something at least.

From where he was stood, Elijah observed the girl. His early assumption had been wrong. She wasn’t off-limits because of elder siblings or anything of the like – she was off-limits of her own accord. No one wanted to go near her for their own safety. Elijah was nearly positive that it would be a knee to groin experience. She could have had quite an innocent disposition for all he knew but somehow Elijah didn’t think so – she just wasn’t giving off that vibe. He hoped to avoid such an experience though. It had been a while. He didn’t want to make a habit out of it now.

“Of course,” Elijah replied, not missing a beat. “I would hate for you to die. It would be such a waste of magical blood.” Elijah blinked at the bowl. He had realised that he’d been staring at it but what was more important was that he realised how much like his uncle he sounded. Elijah chuckled to himself and stubbed out the cigarette, bored with it now. He placed the bowl back on the windowsill and walked back over to the couch.

As he sat, the girl spoke, answering his query from before. Elijah smiled. “It was more of a concern for your well being,” he quipped. “There was nothing sinister about my question. But as you said rightly, I do not know your name. Care to supply it?”

Aw, a treasurer of magical blood. Piper really had no opinions about magical blood, halfbloods and mudbloods and purebloods. She really didn't care. She was a muggleborn, possibly one of the only ones in Slytherin, but she still considered herself better than everyone. So blood purity really did not matter to her. She scoffed slightly and took another long drag of her cigarette, looking straight forward and not bothering to even glance over at the boy.

She did not understand how asking her about her age had anything to do with any sort of concern for her well being so she slowly turned her head to give him an unimpressed look on her face as she surveyed him with more distaste. But he had asked her name and she found no reason to withhold it from him, no rationale so she gave up. "I'm Piper. That's all you need to know."

She was in a foul mood. Usually she was much more subtle and sincere about her disliking of everyone around her, but she was not in the mood for quips and banter. She did not want to deal with anyone at present, and though her dislike was sincere, she did not have the energy to smirk at him, insult him with some sharp words, and move on. She was much too drained for that.

"And you are Elijah Krum," she said, a bored look on her face as she surveyed her cigarette closely, before reaching out and tapping it against the bowl- she did not feel like getting ash all of her clothes. "Am I your latest victim to irritate? Because I don't like to play along." She squinted up at him, her lip curling.

Slipping his shoes off, Elijah drove his feet into the soft, almost fluffy, emerald carpet that kept the cold out of the floor. The worst thing was to have cold hands; the second was to have cold feet. The dungeons were freezing during the winter and the weather forecast said more snow was due. Elijah wasn’t looking forward to that prospect at all. It was February. Spring was meant to be on its way. Instead, they were going to get another smatter of snow and general winter weather. A shiver drove up Elijah’s spine and he brought his hands together. He cupped them around his mouth and blew into them before rubbing them together in an attempt to drive some heat through them. Nothing happened though, much to Elijah’s dismay, and he dropped his hands to his sides.

“Piper, eh?” Elijah gave the blonde a half smile. “Nice name,” he commented, tipping his head back onto the back of the couch and letting his eyes slide shut. Elijah shifted uncomfortably against the pillows behind his back. He kicked his feet up onto the coffee table and looked over at Piper as it finally dawned just who she was. “You’re that Ravenclaw’s sister aren’t you? Remy...Ren...Renny! Handler isn’t it? Is your hair dyed by any chance then because Renny’s is dark if memory serves correctly? I haven’t come across her in a while.”

Piper’s quick identification of him made Elijah smiled. He chuckled, the low rumble warming his chest somewhat, and pushed some of his hair back out of his eyes. “Good guess,” He commented with a half smile. He grabbed his shirt off of the back of the chair and sat forward. He pulled it on over his head, a yawn escaping his throat, and pushed his head through. His hair came out static and mussed but Elijah paid it no mind. “I don’t go out of my way to irritate people,” Elijah informed her, threading his fingers through his hair – a recently acquired habit. “Sometimes it just happens. I apologize if I am irritating you, Miss. Handler, it was completely unintentional, I promise.”

Piper did not like people messing with her, she did not appreciate guys trying to pick up on her, and she could generally tell when they were trying, too. Piper may not let people get close, but that did not make her ignorant to their ways. She and her sister had come from a screwed up family. She had had to leave her aunt and uncles because her uncle would not leave her alone. He had tried several things with her but after dealing with all the other creeps in her family she knew not to let him get away with anything. Unfortunately, that meant she and Renny had been kicked out since their aunt thought him to be a saint and Piper became the whore. It was Piper's fault their brother got stuck with them. If Jerris ever got hurt it'd be her fault...

No. It was that asshole's fault. Not hers. She didn't put up with his bullsh!t and she wouldn't put up with Eli's either.

He said something about 'that Ravenclaw' and her head snapped towards him. Yeah, she may have been the one person in Hogwarts that did not think Renny was perfect, but she would also kill someone for looking at her sister the wrong way. She knew she got mad at Renny for being overprotective, but Renny was innocent and would not defend herself. The saint would pray for them or something, Piper really didn't know. But Piper wouldn't let anyone hurt Renny. She'd kill them first.

He did not say anything bad on Renny though. He could survive. Her cold eyes rested on his, saying, "Yeah, she's my sister, and no my hair isn't died. There are these things called genes, and they're not what you wear either. And sometimes you can get a blonde gene and your sister can get a brunette gene. Science is amazed by this," she said the last bit very sarcastically since this was not a new concept and she wanted it to be clear she found Krum stupid.

He pulled on his shirt and she felt herself relax a bit. It was hard to act smug and superior when someone was trying to show off their body. She was surprised by his apology, expecting more banter or some sort of smirking reply and she did not know how to respond to politeness. So she scoffed and said, "Yes, intentional. Right," as though she could not believe that. She took a drag on her cigarette.

There was an unsettling silence between the two Slytherins once the blonde had finished her bit. Elijah stretched, throwing his arms up above his head. He felt his joints click and a yawn of fatigued escaped his mouth. He felt the throw underneath his legs settle flat against the couch cushions when he relaxed his legs. He reached down to push his hair out of his eyes, catching a whiff of Camille’s strawberry shampoo – that he’d stolen and used – as he did so. Elijah dropped his arms back down to his sides and yawned once more, crossing his ankles.

Elijah’s chocolate gaze drifted over to the sarcastic little shrew and he raised an eyebrow as she spoke, her lips, in his opinion, moving grotesquely over the ugly words that were passing the soft Cupid’s bow. Sighing, the wayward Slytherin sat up. He rose to his feet and crossed the room, stepping over the coffee table, to the fireplace. He put his hands either side one of the logs and heaved it up. He tossed it into the hearth and jumped away as sparks flew. He patted the satin trousers down and looked over at the blonde. He smirked at her and turned away, deciding this time to take a seat in one of the arm chairs.

“Don’t bite my head off,” he replied airily. “It was merely a question. I am no idiot. I am quite aware of what genes are thank-you very much.” Elijah rolled his eyes and crossed one leg over the other. Oh yes, he knew a fair bit about genes. It was genes and various bodily fluids that no meant Chase was ‘with child’ – to use an old term. "Do you always treat people with such hostility or have you saved it especially for me?"

Piper chewed her lip smugly, turning her gaze away from him as he went to go feed the fire. She felt as though she had won, by spurning his advances. She was done with him, trying to find something more interesting and worthy of her eyes. Oh, look, a blank wall, she quipped silently to herself, her eyes shining with the smirk that she did not reveal on her face.

At his words she blinked a long, slow, heavily lidded blink as she slowly turned her head, feeling every microscopic movement in her neck as she turned to look at the boy, her expression dripping full of disdain as her cold grey eyes resting on his figure like stone, uninviting and merciless. She narrowed her eyes on him and then smirked when he asked his question.

"Oh, please don't think you're special, I would hate for you to think that," she said in a serious, yet slightly edged with sarcasm, sincere voice, shaking her head so her blonde curls brushed against her pale, firelight-bathed cheeks. "I would hate for you think I think especially of you for anything. You are just like everyone else, Krum."