"Patricia, come here a minute."
The words were said very calmly and coolly, and this only served to annoy Pat more. She scowled and folded down the corner of the page she had been reading and set Non-Magical Holistic Remedies For Magical Ailments down on the coffee table.
"Coming," she muttered as she got to her feet and walked toward the study.
As she reached the doorway, she saw her brother sitting lazily in a green crushed velvet armchair, his legs crossed and his feet propped up on the desk. He was absently twirling his wand between two long fingers and seemed to be gazing at a floating bit of parchment a few feet away from his nose.
"Close the window, will you Patricia," said Quinn, not looking up, "It's a bit draughty."
"You know," said Pat moodily, leaning against the door frame, "You're really much closer to it. It would make a lot more sense for you to close the window than for me to do it."
"Well now that you're up, it would really make a lot more sense for you to do it," said Quinn, raising an eyebrow but still not taking his eyes from the parchment.
"Do it yourself, you lazy bugger."
Quinn turned his head slightly and looked at her in a surveying manner as if he were in a cloak shop trying to decide whether he should buy black or jade. He paused and rubbed his chin gently before speaking.
"I didn't ask for a commentary. And if father knew you were using such language to talk to yo-"
"Honestly Quinn! It's a bloody window!" exclaimed Pat, unable to control her temper, "You're already here, but no, you have to call me from the other room to close it because you're too goddamned lazy to get up and walk three steps to close the thing yourself!"
"I'm quite busy," said Quinn in a placid tone that only irritated Pat further, "The editor must have these obituaries by eight o'clock. I mean, how would you like it if you died and the paper was unable to print notice of your death because the journalist in charge of the obituaries was delayed by having to close a window."
Pat clenched her fists. "You could have shut that window ten times over in the time you've spent arguing with me about it."
"This is precisely why you should get on with it and close it right away. I really must get on with my work."
"Don't try to pass that off as work," said Pat bitterly, "You're at the lowest level of that bloody paper, and we all know it, so don't sit there and tell me that people actually depend on you."
"That's quite enough," said Quinn, and there was a touch of anger in his voice, "I'm not going to sit here and listen to a silly little girl tell me about work. Since when do you have a job anyway?"
"That's not the po-"
"Now really Patricia, close the window before I have to call father."
As much as Pat would've liked to set fire to his feet at that moment, she did not say or do anything rash.
"Fine," she said in a curt monotone, walked across the room and slammed the window shut on its hinges; the topmost pane shattered, sending shards of glass to the floor with a tinkling sound.
"Patricia Lauren-Eileen, you must control your temper," said Quinn in an almost sing-song tone of voice, "now repair that glass or I shall have to tell father what a bad girl you've been."
Pat gave him a look of deep contempt, before turning her eyes to the window pane: the glass on the floor trembled before flying back into its proper place.
"Much better," said Quinn, who had turned back to his parchment, "You may go back to whatever it was you were doing."
Pat shook her head, trying her utmost not to say or do anything she might regret, before walking stiffly back out to the sitting room; Quinn smirked, his eyes following her descent over the top of his parchment.