Who: Elaine and Dougie Where: Ravenclaw Common Room When: Saturday afternoon-ish What: Dougie and Elaine get along SO WELL. Or do they? Status: AIM log, complete Rating: PG-13, for language.
Dougie MacDougal had a habit of slouching. In fact, if anyone had ever seen Dougie sit up straight, they hadn't lived to tell about it. The Scotsman tended to just fold into whatever furniture he sat on, his feet finding their way to a nearby table in total disregard for any dignity or civilization.
At the moment, his black Converse sneakers had found their way onto the arm of a sofa in the Ravenclaw common room. Dougie was sprawled out over the rest of it, his lanky frame easily taking up the entire length. He had a drink in one hand, a copy of The Mirror of Production in the other, and The Ramones playing on the record player. Somebody must have already been through to order him to turn it down, because for some reason it wasn't blasting at top volume.
It was into this picture of slovenliness that Elaine Campbell walked, every inch of her the complete opposite of Dougie. From the skirt which was still as yet wrinkle-free to the dark blue cardigan she wore to stave off the slight chill that persisted no matter how roaring the fires, she was the epitome of prim dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction was easily dispersed to those within the school who believed such transparent rumours or to too-tall boys who slouched and seemed to think that every surface but the one he was sitting in served as a footrest.
He wasn't properly seen from the entrance to the Common Room so it was a few moments before she fully registered his presence and the awful noise that he was listening to. Sniffing slightly and tossing her head, she switched the player completely off and returned to her chosen study table. Fully intending to ignore him, she opened her Charms text to re-read the chapter before beginning her essay.
"Oy!" Dougie complained, immediately sitting up. "What the fuck, 'Laine?" His thick Argyll accent almost always dismissed the first syllable of her name.
He glared at her, and meanwhile picked up his wand to turn the music back on. No one cut off Joey and the boys while Dougie was on watch. "I mean, for fuck's sake, it's not like it was even loud," he added.
"My name is Elaine," she said as if the Queen herself, and bestowed a look back to him. One eyebrow arched, she looked at him from head to foot, her expression growing ever more doubtful as she did. Flicking her own wand to turn the music off again, she shrugged a bit. "Perhaps you should try it once or twice."
Dougie gave her a markedly annoyed look back. "And perhaps you should try not fucking with people's music without a by-your-leave," he snapped. He waved his wand and the music turned back on, "Blitzkrieg Bop" sounding considerably louder than it had a moment before. "There's such a thing as common courtesy, you know."
"Which you're doing a very good job of ignoring by having it playing whilst someone is trying to revise." Elaine's own accent usually was very mild, but annoyance thickened it. Turning in her chair fully she smiled at him, patently lacking sincerity. "Oh, Dougie, would you please turn off your music? I'm trying to do my Charms." From the tone of her voice she could have been talking about painting her nails or curling her hair. She did not tell him that she thought it was revolting and she could hardly understand a word.
Dougie gave her a stunningly fake smile that looked incredibly incongruous on him. "Why certainly, E-laine," he said with great cheer. "Far be it from me to disturb the ever-so-important revising of a scholar at work! What was I thinking, that the common room was for everybody or something? Ridiculous."
What was Campbell's problem, anyway, he wondered? It wasn't even like he was being loud. He'd actually been trying to stay out of trouble for once! Obviously this was proof that there was no point in that.
Pressing her lips together, for now she refused to admit that she could be in the wrong. After all, this was a school, wasn't it? Not some place to laze away the day, or to allow yourself to believe every word that was printed by others. However, what she was nothing in defence of herself. "Well. You could have sat closer to it so that it didn't disturb anyone. Not everything has to be so loud that you can't hear yourself think."
Turning back to her books, she gave her journal, lying on top of her other books, a baleful glare. With more finess than even she knew she possessed, she reached out and grabbed it, only to toss it across the table. It slid, slowing at the edge where it tumbled off to lie on the floor, ignored. It only made her feel slightly better.
"If you think that's loud, you should've come to the concert with us this summer," Dougie replied with a smirk. "You'd get a whole new definition for loud."
But Dougie silenced the music, and he was just about to take himself, his philosophy, and his record back up the dorms when he saw Elaine toss her journal. Clearly the book had done something to piss her off, or at least something in it had. He looked at her curiously. "That book piss in your oatmeal this morning or something?" he asked bemusedly.
Did he really think that her Grandfather would have allowed her to attend a concert? Especially with a MacDougal and one of his decidedly non-pure friends? He was, obviously, crazy. "Must you be so vulgar?" Elaine asked, lifting her head once again. "But no, it didn't. It's..." She sat back in her seat, steepling her hands for a moment in thought. "Sometimes I wonder if this place is devolving into a playground for toddlers."
"Devolving?" Dougie asked dryly. "It'd have to be something other than a playground for toddlers to begin with in order to devolve."
As he always enjoyed an opportunity to talk crap about his classmates, Dougie decided to resume his position on the sofa. He sprawled back unceremoniously, propping his feet on the arm again.
Elaine smiled slightly. Turning once more in her chair, she hooked one arm around the top of it and fisted her other hand into her lap. Quelling the urge to tell him to remove his feet from the sofa, please, waggled her head and conceeded the point. "Then it's an unchanging morass of stupidity and there's no way out. Either way it's hardly an assuring picture. On one hand there's children who haven't ever learnt to take 'no' for an answer, and on the other we've got people who in any other circumstances be normal, relatively smart people." She paused, staring into space. "I'm surrounded by baboons."
Dougie laughed, and his laugh was just as loud as everything else about him. "Aye, lass, that you are," he conceded with a nod. "I'll agree to that even though I know you're counting me in their number."
He set his book spread out on the table to mark his place (because bookmarks are so Establishment), letting Jean Baudrillard have a break from all his long words. Besides, it didn't really make any damned sense, anyway.
Elaine gestured at the book. "You'll hurt the spine that way. Fall apart faster." She had no idea if it was true, really, but it's what she'd always been told. "What are you reading?" It certainly looked nothing like anything she'd ever read, or had been encouraged to.
"Jean Baudrillard," he replied with a shrug. "The Mirror of Production, specifically. Critique of Marxism that I only about halfway understand. Swear to Odin, the man's sentences are even more convoluted than fucking Nietzche."
Dougie liked a challenge in his reading. He couldn't make much sense of Baudrillard (he'd done better with Nietzche), but he kept working on it. He liked the fight with his books about as much as he liked arguing with his classmates.
"Er." Elaine frowned. "I'm afraid I haven't any idea who any of them are. Muggles, I presume?" She didn't speak with malice that he would read Muggle books, but only with curiosity. She had, of course, read wizarding philosophers, many of whom she'd dismissed the instant they started espousing the inherent and latent superiority of those with pure and untainted magical blood. Only one had she ever been able read all the way through and still had ended up unsettled with the pompous belief the author presented that while magic can happen in those who didn't come from magicians, they were aberrations and their blood would only die out in the end.
"Yeah," Dougie answered, not unsurprised that she hadn't heard of them. Most of his Hogwarts classmates didn't bother with Muggle philosophy. "Marx invented Communism, basically, and Baudrillard...okay, I have no idea how to explain Baudrillard. He's just weird. Do you read philosophy at all?" he paused to ask. Having an answer there would make it easier to figure out what would need explaining. If she was into the wizard philosophers at all, he might at least be able to make some connections for her (except that wizard philosophy was behind by at least fifty years, it seemed like.)
"What's Communism?" Elaine suffered greatly from a family who wished to be entirely magical to the point of ignoring major events that had even shaped her own world -- simply because they were Muggle events. It wasn't something she was particularly proud of, but neither had she ever been encouraged to remedy it. "I've read mainly Wizarding philosophers. Hining, Larsen, Ochoa... the normal ones that every Pureblood family has lining their shelves."
"What's Communism?" Dougie asked incredulously. "Are you serious? You've never even heard of it?"
Then he listened to the list of philosophers, and it suddenly became rather clear. "Ever read any Reinhardt? Twombley?" Reinhardt was a rather famously cynical German who wrote mostly in English, while Twombley was an Englishman best known for his controversial statements on the effects of blood-ism on the economy.
"It's Muggle rubbish, young lady," Elaine said in passable imitation of her grandfather's brogue. "You'll not be reading it under my roof. I'll not have your head filled with those thoughts. They'll be the downfall of civilisation as we know it!" She cleared her voice; it wasn't truly made to speak so deep or roughly. "And so on, ad nauseum. As for Reinhardt and Twombley... mere fodder for the broadside of Grandfather's tongue, and whoever might be his chosen dinner guests. I know of them but I've not read them." She shrugged again, looking away. It was somehow embarrassing admitting these things to Dougie, as if his opinion mattered in some way.
"Sounds like mine," Dougie said with a snort. "That pureblood elitist shite's one of Granddad's favorite's to go off on. The funny part's how much Gran disagrees with every word coming out of his mouth. Holidays with the MacDougals are always a good time."
Dougie's love of an argument was a typical MacDougal trait. They all tended to like a fight,, and more often than not they wound up on the losing side. At least it kept things interesting, though.
Elaine's eyes widened at this indication of how similar their grandfather's were. To hear Duncan Campbell speak, Rory MacDougal was the scourge of the earth, the worst of the worst, what every man should desire not to be. "I don't know if Grandmother agreed with mine or not," she said thoughtfully. "She died when I was very young." She looked at him for a moment. "I'd like to borrow one of those books, if you wouldn't mind." And perhaps then she'd have something worthwhile to contribute to this sort of conversation.
Now that managed to surprise Dougie - and please him as well. He grinned, sitting up and leaning forward. "I'll start you off on Reinhardt, then!" he said. "He's my favourite. Really cynical and bitter and all, but fucking brilliant. Can't beat Reinhardt when you're hating the world, and it looks like you're kind of hating the world today."
It was, truly, pointless to mention that most days she hated the world anymore. Regardless, she nodded. "Thank you. Whenever is convenient, then." Elaine cast a glance over her shoulder, at her books lying in wait. "I should do my essay." That was enough to pull her back to her studies; already she was turning to pick up her quill.
"You people and your studying," Dougie sighed, shaking his head. He wasn't much for it, himself. He'd crack open the books if he was interested, but when he wasn't he didn't bother. Up until NEWTS, he'd consistently had the lowest Ravenclaw marks in their year. Luckily things had gotten more interesting just in time to salvage his final grades.
Surprisingly Elaine found herself not as irritated as she might have any other day. She looked at him, the end of her quill pressing against her lips. "I don't know what's wrong with us, really. It's shocking. Outrageous." Carefully she dipped her quill into her ink, letting it drip back into the well as she watched it. "We all have our vices, I guess."
"Truer words were never spoken," Dougie agreed with a grin. He stretched, almost spider-like as he got to his feet and flipped his Ramones album into his hands. "And speaking of which, I'm going to indulge mine upstairs. By which I mean listening to this music at an obnoxious volume that'll hopefully make Worple twitch."
Quill scratching across the top of her parchment, Elaine wrote a flourishing title for her essay. Only when he was beside her table did she tilt her head to look up at him. "You don't have to," she said, even though it would likely be an hindrance to her study. "But thank you." She tapped the feather against her cheek before returning her attention to Charms again.
Dougie paused in his exit. "Sure you don't mind?" he asked. "I don't actually have to have the obnoxious volume. So if you don't mind it being on...I guess I'll go on and stay down here."
Dougie wasn't really a great one for alone time. He almost always preferred to have someone around. And Elaine...well, she might be an all right person to be around for the moment.
Elaine couldn't really tell him no now. "Yeah, it's fine. Just have it lower than you did?" His presence wouldn't bother her; it would be the extraneous noise that did it. It was why she tended to work in the Common Room when it was empty or mostly empty and then move to the library, and then a far corner so that she could have the quiet she enjoyed.
"'s fair," Dougie replied, giving her a slight smile. He dropped back onto the sofa with an unceremonious flop, picking his book back up. With a flick of the wand in his other hand, the Ramones came back at a much quieter volume. "Good?" he inquired.
"Yes." Elaine's voice was quiet but firm. "Now please be quiet so I can do this." Probably unnecessary, but really, he should expect her to tell him if it was a problem. "Thank you."
Dougie rolled his eyes, but he didn't say anything else. He just snorted and began reading. He was, after all, here first. Dougie couldn't believe he'd actually considered departing.
The sofa was comfortable, and Elaine Campbell wasn't bad eye candy, even though she was way too uptight. And of course his family's mortal enemy. Really, sticking around on this sofa was so many rebellions at once that it was impossible to walk away from.