Tik Tok [Slytherins]

[.RAIDEN BRYAN NOTT !]

Sitting on one of the arm chairs seated close to the fireplace, Raiden sat reading a quidditch book that he had brought back from the family’s extensive library at home over Christmas. Raiden had brought a few other books as well, but he would have to peruse through those books without the possibility of anyone stumbling upon him, and the Slytherin Common Room definitely didn’t fit that bill. His current pastime, the quidditch book, was a book that went through the different strategies that all the well known teams of the game happened to have used over the years, it was rather enlightening. His eyes followed the small font type of the book from left to right, as he systematically brought his index finger and thumb up to his mouth and licked it briefly before returning it to the top of the page and moving the page over, every three minutes or so. Every now and then he would deviate from the routine just to reach his hand out to the table beside him to pick up the glass which held his butterbeer in it and bring that to his mouth and return it to the table before he turned the page.

A few Slytherins had made their way into the common room earlier on and had asked Raiden if he wanted to join them on their way to the Great Hall for dinner. Raiden had merely looked up from his book and stared at them with both pure disbelief and disdain, before returning to his book, as they scuttled off talking under their breadths, surely about him, before disappearing behind the bare stone wall. Raiden had hardly believed that the fifth years could believe that he would have joined them, but odd things like that had been occurring more often since the whole Scorpius betrayal and he merely ignored them. It was like they actually believed that Raiden required Scorpius or some sort of a friend type. It annoyed him slightly, their belief that he, Raiden Nott, needed someone, but it was their misconception and if they preferred to look idiotic then that was their choice and he would not correct them.

Eventually Raiden placed the book down beside his glass of butterbeer on the table next to him and stood. He placed his hand behind his neck and rubbed it slightly as he began walking the floor of the common room. He had missed dinner again, but he didn’t mind. If he got hungry he had a stockpile off goodies in his trunk that his mother had forced him to take along with his sister. He had packed it without much complaint, because it had seemed his mother wanted to do something for him. She had not seen much of him during the holidays and he was pretty sure his mother knew the reason behind it all. She had been a journalist in her day, and she was hardly the stereotypical pushover household wife and mother, the same couldn’t be said about his father As he paced the room Raiden started considering how he might use what he had read in the book to improve the game his team played, preferring to not think about his family for now.

The team wasn’t bad as it stood, but if they had any chance of winning the Quidditch Cup they would have to improve, Raiden included. They needed to be better than their best and they needed an edge on the Gryffindor team, in Raiden’s mind, Slytherins real threat. Yes, he wasn’t afraid to admit to the fact they had a good team. He was no idiot and unlike an idiot he did not underestimate those that were a threat and that team was a definite threat. They thought like one person, moved like one person. They were in sync with one another, though that could hardly surprise anyone, since almost the entire team was made up of Weasleys and Potters. Raiden knew that his team would never work like that for the simple fact that they were Slytherins and each one believed themselves better than the next. Hell for the most part Raiden thought he could be the entire team, but that was simply not the case. What he needed to do was concentrate on each member’s strengths and where he could substitute his player’s weaknesses with another team member’s strengths. Raiden took a deep breadth as he brought himself to a stop. “Should be simple enough,” he said out loud, disagreeing with himself on the inside.

[emilia]

A tiny laugh was heard from the very far corner of the common room. Obviously Mr Nott thought he was alone this evening, but was mistaken when his thoughts were interrupted by a girlish giggle and Emilia took her feet down from the chair she was curled up in. Pressed between it's leather and her thighs was her own book on English literature, a far cry from homework but so was Raiden's book by the looks of things. Pushing her long hair from her eyes, Emilia stood up and tucked her book under her arm, walking over towards the fireplace which was between Raiden and the common room entrance.

"Do you often talk to yourself like that?"[/b] Emilia asked simply, a hint of a smile in her voice as she cast him a glance. Of course she knew Raiden; he was in a number of her classes and also a sixth year like herself. But Emilia was on the outskirts of his inner circles of friends, so conversation between them was usually minimal. She also knew he was very much into his Quidditch, something Emilia couldn't stand, to dampen their chances of a causal friendship. Usually Emilia wasn't the type to strike up a conversation, particularly with somebody she wasn't all that close too, but reading Chaucer had put her in an exceptional mood this evening that granted her social behavior. "I mean, it's the first sign of madness, isn't it? I don't even know what you said, 'sort of a mumble from what I heard over there."[/b] Emilia looked over at her favorite armchair she had abandoned, still with her cloak and bag hung over the back of it. S"'alright I suppose. I guess you thought you were alone."[/b]

The reason why Emilia hadn't gone to dinner was a complicated one. She'd noticed sometimes fellow students, girls especially, would stick with stupid reasons such as "not being hungry" whenever they were upset about something. This wasn't Emilia's case, in fact she didn't really have a case, she was just too engrossed in her reading to be bothered to grab a bite this evening. She knew she'd be sorry in the early hours of the morning when her stomach would be rumbling. Besides, skipping one meal wasn't going to kill her.

"Are you on a hunger strike?"[/b] Emilia piped up again, surprising even herself with the amount of effort she'd gone into making conversation with this boy. "I heard you decline the others when they asked you if you were coming to dinner."[/b] Emilia didn't really care if Raiden had a good excuse or not as to why he was missing dinner, she was mainly fueled by an excited spark that tempted her cheeky attitude when it came to these questions. Maybe she hoped he'd get fired up and jump to his own defense, but surely Raiden knew Emilia well enough by now to know just how much she craved those sorts of reactions. If Hogwarts had a debating team, Emilia would be the president. Finding an argument out of anything was almost like a hobby, but really was just her only way of communicating with somebody new. Lifting an elbow, she rested herself against the ledge of the fireplace, tucking a heel behind the other as she faced Raiden for an answer, still with the same half smirk she was wearing a few moments ago.[/size]

[.RAIDEN BRYAN NOTT !]

A tiny bubble of laughter coming from what sounded like the far corner of the common room caught Raiden’s attention. It seemed he was not alone and whoever his unseen company was, was finding him rather entertaining, which was an oddity in itself since he hardly made anyone laugh, unless of course he was poking fun at someone for his own entertainment and even then you wouldn’t find Raiden laughing, so perhaps it was something he never did. Raiden looked toward the area the laughter originated from and found Emilia Dawson walking toward his location with a book underarm. Apparently he had not been the only one enjoying reading in silence.

Emilia stopped at the fireplace to ask him if he often spoke to himself and advised him that doing so was the first sign of madness. He quirked and eyebrow at here but did not respond at once. Emilia Dawson was not among his normal suspects for a casual chat, if he ever had one of those without some underlining meaning. Nevertheless Miss Dawson did not fall in that bracket, so he hadn’t expected to be caught by her in a loop of conversation. They shared classes, were in the same house and year, but they had never spoken to each other. Neither one ever wanting to pursue a conversation with the other, so Raiden looked upon this situation with slight suspicion, of what he was not certain, but he would remain cautious of the girl for the moment.

Tucking his right-hand into his pocket, the pocket of the school attire that he still wore, he looked to Emily, “Thank you for pointing that out Miss Dawson. I didn’t know my well being happened to be your concern, but I’m delighted to have that information at hand now.” the ever present smirk that normally lingered on his lips appearing once again. He would allow the dear Miss Dawson to entertain herself with his company until he no longer found her entertaining, or until he had decided that whatever this was, was not to his own detriment.

Pulling his hand from his pocket he held it out as if he were ready to catch something and muttered, “Accio drink,” as the glass that had been on the table beside him earlier lifted and made its way to his already outstretched hand. “And no I am not on a hunger strike. Alas this body of perfection would not take well to that,” Raiden commented on his own body ad he used his free hand to point out what he considered to be the perfect specimen of the male figure, himself, bringing the glass up to his lips with the other hand. After taking a rather short sip of his drink he turned his attention back to Emilia, “And I don’t recall saying anything to their invitation, I remember them merely getting the drift with my facial expression.” At the mention of the expression he mimicked it to depict to Emily exactly what had occurred so that she was not under some illusion of his friendliness, but as quick as it displayed on his face, it disappeared.

“Would it be alright if I posed the same question to you, the whole hunger strike question of course, since you being here would mean that you missed dinner as well?”