"Snape pulled them aside the second lunch ended, said they've got detention to serve."
"Oh, and after Potions they went to see Hagrid, sounded like they picked up on something. Then, completely out of nowhere, they went and borrowed a stack of books from the library. When I asked about it they both went all mysterious and wouldn't say a word."
Hermione pouted and let out a small huff, every bit the person who'd been denied her gossip.
Altair glanced at Harry and Ron's empty seats and gave a thoughtful nod.
Sounded like the two of them had worked out that Fluffy was guarding the Stone, and were now hunting for anything they could find on Nicolas Flamel and what the Stone actually did. Thanks to Altair's own influence, though, Hermione wasn't quite as close with them as she might otherwise have been, which was likely why they hadn't let her in on it.
"Ah well. If they don't want to talk about it, don't push. Are you off to the library this afternoon?"
"Not today. All this business lately has me too on edge, I just want some fresh air. Padma said Gryffindor and Ravenclaw have a friendly Quidditch match this afternoon, do you want to go watch?"
The Hogwarts Quidditch Cup ran from November through to April the following year.
Once Halloween passed, preparations for the Cup kicked into gear, with every House training hard, and every so often two teams would arrange a friendly to warm up together. These friendlies usually skipped the Seekers and the Snitch entirely, just Keepers, Chasers, and Beaters.
Every House except Slytherin played friendlies against each other fairly often. Nobody much wanted to play with Slytherin, on account of how loosely they tended to interpret the rules.
"A Quidditch friendly, hm."
Altair thought it over, then nodded.
"Sounds good. A bit of downtime wouldn't hurt."
Nearly all of his time lately had gone into brewing, and while it hadn't cost him anything, it had gotten rather dull all the same. A proper afternoon of school life for a change sounded nice.
"Then let's go together! It starts at two!"
Hermione lit up at that, her whole manner brightening at once. She tilted her head, propped her chin on her hand, and looked at Altair with a smile in her eyes.
Altair had grown up his whole life with people watching him, so a look like that hardly fazed him. He finished his pasta at his usual unhurried pace, worked through a bacon pasty, drank a glass of juice, and only then wiped his mouth with his napkin.
"Let's go."
Hermione got to her feet without complaint. If anything, she found something quietly satisfying in simply watching Altair eat, an odd sort of elegance to it.
The two of them walked out of the castle side by side.
November had brought a real chill to the air outside, though the weather held fair, with plenty of sun. Altair had a thin jumper on under his robes and didn't feel the cold at all.
Down at the Quidditch pitch, players from both teams stood chatting, and the stands around them were filling up with students, mostly first years.
"Hermione!"
As they approached, the Patil twins waved excitedly from the Gryffindor section.
"Shall we sit over there?"
Hermione tugged at his sleeve, and Altair nodded, letting her lead him happily toward the Gryffindor stands.
"You two came to watch too? I thought you'd be off in the library."
Altair could never quite tell which twin was speaking, Parvati or Padma. The two of them looked nearly identical, and both rather pretty.
"I've had my nose in books every day lately, figured I could use a break too."
Hermione looked a bit sheepish about it, since one of the twins was clearly eyeing the hand she still had wrapped around Altair's sleeve.
"Good Afternoon."
Altair greeted them both. Hermione had introduced them once before, and while he didn't know them well, they were friendly enough acquaintances by now. By Hermione's own account, the Patil twins were good company, far better than Lavender, who had a bit of a jealous streak in her.
"Hello."
The twins answered back, a touch of color rising in their cheeks, though it hardly showed against their complexion.
Altair, as it happened, had quite a name for himself among the first years.
Word had gotten around that he was an unusual sort of Slytherin. Even-tempered, humble, and polite, unhurried and graceful in everything he did, he'd earned praise from nearly every professor and picked up house points constantly, especially in Charms, Transfiguration, and Potions, where he'd actually outpaced Hermione's reputation as the top student.
Of course, what people talked about most was his relationship with Hermione. She always insisted they were simply friends, but hardly anyone believed her, particularly since Altair had once put fellow Slytherin Pansy in her place on Hermione's behalf.
The Patil twins, for their part, also happened to know that Altair had once given Hermione an expensive birthday present, one whose scent still lingered faintly in their dormitory.
Which only made the two of them all the more curious about him.
Altair and Hermione found a couple of open seats, the twins on Hermione's left, Altair on her right.
As the two girls chatted with Hermione, their eyes kept drifting toward Altair, and whenever the conversation touched on Charms or Transfiguration, they found reasons to ask him questions too.
It didn't take long, though, before Hermione noticed something was off.