Of Drunken Snogs and Furious Slaps

[Callan Urquhart]

Callan and Ellen's Sixth Year
November
(after gryffindor's victory against ravenclaw)

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Although the Gryffindor Common Room held only roughly about a quarter of the students in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, on the night of Gryffindor's spectacular victory in Quidditch against Ravenclaw - a tough opponent - it was generating enough noise for an entire school of rowdy students. The seeker, a particularly talented fourth year, had been lifted high into the air by a bunch of boisterous sixth- and seventh-year boys and had been pummeled affectionately by almost every person in the room, until finally he had been tipped onto one of the squashy sofas, messy-haired and bright-eyed, exhausted and yet happy with his head on his girlfriend's lap. The captain of the Quidditch team, a well-built, strong-and-silent type, had drank more than his fair share of firewhiskeys and was standing on a table and recounting the match in detail, with quite a few people listening earnestly despite everyone in the room having seen the match. The rest of the players were dispersed around the room, being jostled and congratulated and pelted with sweets and handed butterbeer or firewhiskey, depending whether they drank or not.

Callan Urquhart, one of the sixth-year lads who had hoisted the seeker into the air for half the night, had also been someone who had helped smuggle the firewhiskey into the Common Room, and he and his mates were certainly contributing mightily to the din in the room. He was wearing his school-shirt and pants, having pulled off his jumper at some point in the night and lost it immediately, and some girl, in an attempt at flirting, had nicked his tie, although for the life of him he couldn't remember her name. Brown hair, red lipstick. Smudged red lipstick, he had noted at the time, although he supposed one couldn't be too choosy. His sister Jenny had wandered over to the seeker and his girlfriend, and was chatting earnestly away, tucking her blonde hair behind her ears every now and then. When Callan got up on the table with a couple of his mates and they began their own rendition of a dodgy old wizarding drinking song, he spotted Jenny rolling her eyes expressively and grinned.

Eventually he hopped off the table, tired and over-heated and done with being the centre of attention, although his mates were more than willing to carry on. Snatching a handful of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Bean and stuffing the handful into his mouth at the same time, he gazed around the room, realising that the party would probably be coming to a close soon - although after-Quidditch parties always raged on for ages something told Callan that sooner or later the Head of Gryffindor would burst in furiously and break it all up - plus, most of the team seemed to be getting tired, the seeker practically drifting off on his girlfriend's lap. Callan plucked an unopened bottle of firewhiskey from one of the tables that had been pushed into the middle of the room and was groaning under the weight of all the food and drink stocked on it. He was just about to make his way over to the girl who had stolen his tie (she was eyeing him with an alarming come-hither sort of look about her - he didn't want to get off with her, she was too bloody young) when a movement by the portrait hole caught his eye.

He hesitated a moment, watching the girl slip out of the Common Room and wondering if it was worth it, before he found his feet moving of their own accord and he flung open the portrait hole himself, stumbling out of it with a half-grin still on his face, the music coming from the wireless fading after him as he shut the portrait hole. Taking a generous gulp from his firewhiskey bottle, he called after the girl cheekily, "Where you off to, Chaucer?" There was no doubt at all that he spoke her last name in a slightly uppity accent; it was hardly a secret what Callan Urquhart thought of Ellen Chaucer. Moving towards her jauntily (and drunkly) he said cheerfully, "Party's just getting started, after all!" (Stretching the truth, seeing as he had just been thinking that the party was coming to a finish.)
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ooc. hope this is okay! i fail dismally at maths so i couldn't work out what year this was. sorry. and it's a bit crap as well, sorry!

[Ellen Urquhart]

Having spent the last five years at Beauxbatons where Quidditch was neither played nor followed with the same intensity at Hogwarts, Ellen was overwhelmed. This was the first match that Gryffindor had played this year, and that combined with actually winning it meant that the celebrations were at fever-pitch. As a result, ice-queen Ellen Chaucer was well and truly completely smashed.

She hadn't realised the extent of the partying that would occur should Gryffindor win, and was thus already changed for bed by the time the Firewhisky had arrived, dressed in a pair of teeny-tiny pyjama shorts and an old t-shirt. Needless to say, she'd been dragged out of the dorm by her enthusiastic room-mates who were determined that their new friend should not miss a moment of this. At some point in the night she'd acquired a definitely-too-big boy's Gryffindor jumper - in the morning she'd discover it to be Jack Hewer's - and a lot of alcohol. She'd had a damn good night, if a little less refined that her former headmistress would perhaps expect for a Beauxbatons girl: she was definitely a Hogwarts student through-and-though now, or getting there at least.

She had no idea what time it was when she decided that it would be a really good idea to go and find her boyfriend, who was in Ravenclaw, and so, she would realise retrospectively, was probably tucked morosely up in bed, lamenting the afternoon's events. That thought hadn't yet occurred to her though and so she'd slipped out of the party in search of him, a lit French cigarette in one hand, and the nabbed jumper covering up most of her shorts.

She stopped in her tracks at the sound of the horribly familiar voice behind her: of all the people in the entire castle - even Mrs Norris and Filch - it would be him wouldn't it, to come and find her now. "Don't you have a third year to go seduce or something?" she shot back before turning to face him, icy-cold in demeanour despite the alcohol swirling through her veins, clouding her judgement somewhat. She'd noticed the exchange the two with amusement: Callan really was as awful as she'd thought him to be, hitting on fourteen year-olds.

She took a drag of her cigarette, leaning against a pillar as she waited for his retort, for their already-common back-and-forth bickering to commence. Ellen wasn't a regular smoker, or even a social smoker, but - just sometimes - she missed her friends, and a Gauloise or a Gitane was reminiscent of the place that had been home to her for so long, more so than her home ever had been. She hadn't been unhappy at Beauxbatons, but she knew that she'd want to return to Britain afterwards, and she knew that, career-wise, her path was likely to be smoother with British qualifications, and knowledge of how the country worked.

She eyed him disdainfully, outwardly at least. She'd never admit it even to herself whilst sober, but right now she could see what twittering idiots like Mandy Brockett - a Gryffindor fifth year generally deemed to be god-awfully irritating to the rest of the entirety of the human race - saw in Callan Urquhart, even if she didn't appreciate it herself. She realised she hadn't answered his question, and she swayed a little as she answered, "Going to find my boyfriend. He's lovely." And, to Ellen's credit, he really, really was - Philip wanted to be a Healer, and would be a damn good one in time.

[Callan Urquhart]

Callan Urquhart was not only a notoriously chatty and cheerful drunk, but he was also notorious for being not quite as able to handle his drink as the rest of his friends were, and so it was with a distinctly casual air that he surveyed Ellen Urquhart with, sipping steadily from his firewhiskey. "Ah," he exclaimed, when she brought up the girl who had nicked his tie, holding the bottle up to her in a salute as he moved forward, noting that she already had her pajamas on and wondering why in the world she was wearing pajamas at the party. French, he thought to himself blearily. Must be France's influence. He'd never been to France, but he stuck with that view, which seemed perfectly reasonable when intoxicated. "In my defence, I tried to get away," he told her cheerfully, half-staggering towards her. "She nicked my tie...and she's a fourth year. I think. So," he said, as though that settled the matter.

Callan had never seen Ellen Chaucer smoke before, and it was rather fascinating for him to watch her do so, as she pulled it off quite elegantly indeed. "Didn't expect Queen Chaucer to be sloshed and smoking at this time of night," he said, attempting to tut and somehow managing to slur it, which was quite an achievement. "Thought our lowly parties would be beneath you," this was followed by a swig of firewhiskey before Callan reached out, a lopsided grin appearing on his face. "Give us a drag, then?" He managed to look quite endearing for a sloshed, quite cocky sixteen-year-old, gently removing the fag from her mouth before she could protest and taking a long drag before exhaling the smoke right into her face. "Very French," he said approvingly (and rather stupidly), attempting to pop it back into her mouth.

Boyfriend. Who was Ellen Chaucer's boyfriend? Ah, Philip. Twat.

"Ah, Philip," Callan said knowledgeably, immediately voicing what he had been thinking. "Twat. Always banging on about Healing...Holly told me he was rubbish in the sack, as well," Callan tacked on, referring to his old girlfriend and one of his best friends, the blonde and very pretty Holly Fitzgerald (commonly known as 'Fitz') who was a gossip and a bloody good one at that. "Although she didn't screw him, so her information is questionable," Callan admitted, always one to give plenty of information whilst drunk. "It's just what she hears...still, I can't imagine things are going very well in the bedroom department for you two," Callan continued, not totally oblivious to the fact that he was probably annoying Ellen and yet not caring in the slightest. "He looks like the sort of bloke who folds his socks, and that's never good," Callan said pityingly.

[Ellen Urquhart]

Ellen snatched the cigarette back off of him as he futilely tried to wave it near her mouth, blowing smoke in her face as he did so. In retaliation for his (successful) attempts at theft, she reached out and helped herself to his bottle of firewhisky, taking a swig. She shrugged nonchalantly, shoulders rising and then falling ridiculously elegantly, as he tried to defend himself. She really didn't care, surely even Callan himself knew that? "I really couldn't care less, Urquhart," she informed him, steadily, "About what you do or who you do it with, so long as I don't have to listen to your ridiculous justifications the next day in Transfiguration the next day, compris?"

Callan was watching her smoke as if he'd never seen a cigarette before, let alone a girl with one. It amused her, to see him so slightly perplexed at such an insignificant thing. "Fuck off," she drawled lazily, swear-words were better in English than in French. He may have looked endearing to 99.8% of the human population, but to Ellen he merely appeared insolent as he grinned. "I'm not sloshed," she denied, a statement refuted by the fact that she evidently was, particularly as she was making no move to escape the corridor and Callan in order to find Lovely Philip.

"Of course it's French," she raised a supercilious eyebrow in his direction, and it was almost impressive how disdainful she could make that look, even when pissed. Her other joined the first as he proceeded to be mean about her afore-mentioned boyfriend. "He's not a twat," she replied indignantly, shoving his shoulder with his hand - they really were stood closer than normal. "He's really... nice." Unfortunately, bedroom-wise, Holly Fitzgerald was possibly right. So far everything in that department had been less than inspiring on his behalf, to say the least. She wouldn't admit that to Callan though, that she, Ellen Chaucer - long-legged, doe-eyed and a bit more than pretty in a way that she didn't quite know yet - couldn't get properly shagged. Urquhart was wrong about one thing though, and thus she replied frostily: "He doesn't fold his socks. Besides, didn't Holly go out with you? I mean, she seems nice enough, but her taste in boys is obviously horrific."

[Callan Urquhart]

Due to the fact that Callan was drunker than he would've admitted, his reflexes were rather dulled and therefore he found himself unable to realise that Chaucer was about to nick his firewhiskey before she already had. "Hey!" He exclaimed, although without any heat whatsoever, which wouldn't have been the case had he been sober. "Ah. Justifications. I've had to do quite a few of those recently," he said, leaning forward as he reclaimed the bottle and saying wisely, "If you're going to break up with a girl, wait at least a week before you start snagging - snogging her best mate..." he wrenched the bottle from her grasp. "It's common courtesy, apparently." Although he wasn't aware of it, he was making himself seem something of a notorious womanizer, which was absolutely not the case. Oh, it was true that he had been with a few girls, and he may have made a few (mostly) harmless mistakes, but he'd only had sex with one girl before in his life, and she had cheated on him and then dumped him on his arse rather brutally (needless to say his feelings towards her were anything but pleasant). When Callan was drunk, however, he seemed to get it into his head that he was an incorrigible lady-killer who was not only highly talented at breaking hearts but also extremely charming. (This was not the case.)

"Lovely," Callan commented, when Ellen told him to fuck off. "And you're sloshed," Callan told her, nodding importantly, although he himself was hardly the poster boy for Sober Teenagers. "One hundred-percent, absolutely, totally, Post-Quidditch-Match, God-knows-how-many-firewhiskeys sloshed. Drunk as a skunk, Chaucer, you're drunk as a skunk...not so high-and-mighty after all," he added, rather maliciously, taking another gulp of firewhiskey, used to the burn of the liquid by that stage.

"Fitting," Callan said agreeably. "Seeing as you are French. Ish. Not really. You went to Beauxbatons, though..." he wrinkled his nose up, looking as though he was trying not to laugh; it was obvious that Callan did not rate the French Boarding School of Witchcraft and Wizardry very highly whatsoever. Callan laughed outright at Ellen protesting against Philip being a twat, disregarding Ellen's shove. "He's a twat," Callan insisted knowingly, eyes twinkling. "And niceness doesn't make up for lack of satisfaction," he tacked on with a wicked grin, knowing that there was nothing wrong with Philip, exactly - it was just that he was so bloody nice and earnest and he just looked like the type who would fold his socks and there was something rather twatty about that sort of bloke, wasn't there? "His underwear, then," Callan said dismissively, knowing that Philip had to fold something. "I noticed that you're not protesting against Holly's gossip about Philip's rubbish-ness in the sack...hm," Callan decided to remember this for later (he had forgotten by the next morning). "Ah, Holls and I have a..." for lack of any words to describe it, Callan waved his hand airily before continuing, "Sort of relationship. On and off. You know the sort. And she has shacked up with some awful ones, I'll grant you that. I have been the high point of her boyfriend career," he puffed himself up proudly.

[Ellen Urquhart]

"You," Ellen said lowly, her voice dangerous although, in all fairness, Callan probably didn't really know what her voice sounded like not-dangerous for comparative purposes, "Really are as much of an arse as I think you are, aren't you?" She took the bottle back from him, tossing her hair out of the way as she leant her head on the stone of the pillar. "It's more than 'common courtesy', you dick, it's basic humanity." Despite her words to Callan, Ellen had - unknowingly, she really didn't care about Callan's romantic life - gotten around rather a bit more than he.

"I am not sloshed," she repeated hotly, "Just perhaps a little tipsy, and even if I am, you," she jabbed a finger at his chest, "It's none of your business. Because I don't even like you, and you think I'm high and mighty when really, merde, really it's just because you need to get your head out of your arse, because you're lazy and cocky and arrogant everyone else is just so, so much nicer than you."

She made to step round him, but stopped as he continued trying to rile her up. She always was easy to tug into an argument. "Born in England, to a horrifically old-money English family," Ellen confided, not looking precisely thrilled with this fact. And really, who would blame her? Ellen's background, whilst financially well love, could not be described as 'loving' or even as setting a good moral example, being as involved in the Dark Arts and pureblood supremacy movements as a family could without attracting the attention of the Ministry. However, she had no idea why on earth she was telling that to Callan-bloody-Urquhart of all people.

Her voice rose, irrespective of the fact that it was past two in the morning. "There is nothing wrong with Beauxbatons. In fact, it has a major point in its favour in that you don't go there!" Still he carried on talking, garçon stupide - would he never leave her in peace to finish her smoke and- suddenly she couldn't remember why she'd left the party in the first place, all she could think of was that she'd really quite like to punch Callan's charming grin right off of his face.

"How much I'm getting is none of your concern, nor ever likely to be, I'm sure," she replied stiffly, "If you must know, gossip in the girls' dormitory is that you're a worse fuck than he is." This was a blatant lie, but Ellen thought she could probably carry through with it if he questioned it instead of wandering off like a wounded puppy. "And Holly doesn't describe you as her high point. I think she'd much prefer Jack Hewer to you, to be honest."

[Callan Urquhart]

Callan hesitated, evidently trying to work out, in his intoxicated state, what, exactly, she had said, before his expression cleared, and he looked half-amused, although there was a slight feeling of anger stirring in the pit of his stomach. "Probably not that bad," he slurred, with a casual shrug, waving the bottle around breezily. "Almost as bad, maybe, but not quite." He felt the bottle swiped away from him yet again, and his look of outrage was almost comical. "Do you mind?" He demanded, stepping closer in order to retrieve the firewhiskey.

Although Callan would've never admitted it, Ellen's jab really quite hurt, and his hand flinched, automatically wanting to jump to his chest at the pain. Instead, however, he changed tack midway through this movement and pushed her hand away - gently enough, but quite firmly. "Can't believe you're preaching about being nice," he said pointedly. "You're just as bad, with your French words and your French fags, and all this bull thinking that you're better than everyone else because you've got money." This was spoken with the deepest of disgust; Callan himself had never had much money growing up and had never taken to snobs.

As Ellen went to side-step him, Callan moved in the same direction that she did, effectively halting her in her tracks and preventing her from running off - he couldn't bear people to live in the middle of an argument. "Very nice," he said, sounding rather droll, in reaction to where she came from. He noted, even in his sloshed-ness, that she did not seem delighted about being rich, did not seem delighted about coming from old money. "Born in England, to a middle-class, thoroughly boisterous, slightly dysfunctional family," Callan said in response, summing up his own background with apparent ease and even taking a bow after he did so.

"Why don't you go back there, then?" Callan demanded. He was not yet properly invested in the argument - more so arguing for the fun of it, because she was almost asking to be argued with - but there was potential that he could really lose his temper soon enough, as Ellen Urquhart had the knack of getting a rise out of him. "If you liked it so much? And seeing as I'm not there? Leaving Philip the Twat and his ironed - no - folded underwear surely wouldn't be too difficult, eh?"

There was a silence as Callan took a swig of his drink, before he continued without any sign of being abashed, "Of course not. I'm just saying, though...can't be the most satisfactory relationship," he looked slightly bemused when Ellen took her next shot at him, before saying, rather honestly, "That's not true. I haven't shagged any of the girls in your dormy." It was true that he and Holly had gone rather far, but the only girl he had shagged was in seventh year and not particularly friendly to many in his year. "Pffft," Callan said disparagingly, despite the fact that Jack was his mate. "Holly and I are the couple. You can't mess with us," he told her confidently. "And she'd tell me if she liked Jack Hewer," he added truthfully.

[Ellen Urquhart]

"Really?" Ellen sounded highly sceptical as she exhaled a plume of smoke into the air, waving it away artlessly. "Why are you not quite as bad as I think you are? What in Merlin's name do you think redeems you in my eyes?" She looked him up and down as he stepped closer, infringing her personal space, and took another drag of her cigarette, the end glowing in the gloom of the corridor. "No," she replied matter-of-factly, biting back at smile at the expression on his face, "Didn't your mother ever teach you to share, Urquhart?"

She batted back at his hand as it lingered on hers just a fraction longer than she wanted it to. "I am nice," she retorted, "Just not to you. You're not nice enough to me to warrant it. Not even on my first day here." She stopped, frowning at him slightly, "Are you... racist? Why don't you like French people?" She folded her arms, waiting for his response, for yet another of those justifications he'd said he'd had to make so many of recently.

The dig about money hurt a little, but she was Ellen Cassandra Chaucer and she'd never let him see that, so she merely pursed her lips a little tighter. It hurt a little more that his description of his own family sounded so... perfect. She'd bet he'd never needed to protect his younger siblings from being sucked into the frankly terrifying actions and ideals of their own family, and she'd bet he didn't appreciate it enough either.

"I might just do that," she practically hissed, "And for the last time, Philip isn't a twat, he's lovely and he doesn't fold his fucking underwear." She huffed into the silence, rolling her eyes and holding out her hand for him to give her the bottle once more: if she must stay here engaged in this inane 'conversation' then she'd do it properly pissed, thank-you very much.

"It's gossip, not first-hand knowledge," she pointed out slowly, putting her hand on her hip, "And if you are Holly are so perfect, why are you, in your own words, so 'on-and-off'?"