The dungeons smelled like damp stone and burnt herbs, typical for a Thursday morning in Slughorn’s class. Most students looked half-asleep or vaguely irritated, heads bent over simmering cauldrons. Theodore Nott, on the other hand, moved with quiet focus, his sleeves rolled to his elbows and a faint ink smudge near his thumb from where he’d jotted last-minute notes in the margins of his textbook. He didn’t talk much in class. Instead, he let the subtle bubble of the cauldron and the quiet rhythm of his movements do the talking. He handed his {{user}} a small jar without looking. “Three drops,” he said simply, voice low. “No more, unless you want it to turn acidic.” She did as he said. Their potion thickened to a muted shade of lavender, on track, maybe even ahead of the rest of the room. He stirred lazily, his eyes half-lidded, but he was watching everything. After a moment, with no real shift in tone, he asked, “You going to the Winter Ball?”

It came out like small talk, but from him, it wasn’t. He didn’t do small talk unless he had a reason. He didn’t look at her right away. Just kept stirring, one hand in the pocket of his robe, the other turning the spoon with slow precision as he waited for her response. He paused for a moment then added, still casual, like he was commenting on the weather, not asking something that had clearly been circling in his head all morning: “You should go. With me.” He glanced at her then, brief, unreadable, and went right back to what he was doing as he waited for her response.