The other students whispered among themselves as Altair chose a seat near the front. Hermione dropped into the chair beside him without hesitation. Neville took a moment longer, then settled on Altair's other side.
The room filled steadily as the hour approached.
Professor McGonagall hadn't arrived yet, and a few students were already grumbling about it. Altair read through his Transfiguration textbook at his own pace. Hermione was still bent over her notes, studying the match-to-needle conversion with the focused expression of someone who had been at it since breakfast.
About five minutes past the hour, the door swung open. The room went quiet. Everyone turned.
It was Ron and Harry.
The noise picked back up almost immediately.
"Thank goodness." Ron looked genuinely relieved. "Professor McGonagall's late too!"
He grabbed Harry's sleeve and started scanning the room for seats. He'd taken maybe three steps when the cat on the desk dropped to the floor and transformed, mid-stride, into Professor McGonagall.
Ron stopped walking.
"That was really brilliant," he said, with the specific tone of someone who knew he was in trouble and had decided to be gracious about it.
Harry started to apologize. McGonagall talked over him.
"Perhaps I ought to turn the two of you into pocket watches. At least then one of you might manage to arrive on time."
"Sorry, we got lost. Those staircases—"
"Then perhaps I ought to turn you into a map. Now, go and take your seats."
She said it the way she said most things. The matter was closed.
She walked back to the front, gave a brief nod to Altair, Hermione, and Neville, and began the lesson.
...
Hermione had not expected the subject to be match-to-needle. She'd spent the better part of breakfast drilling it, which felt less like luck and more like something she couldn't quite explain. Professor McGonagall covered the theory thoroughly, ran through a list of precautions, and then set them to work.
Hermione leaned toward Altair the moment she had an opening.
"Was that really something you dreamed? Do you actually know Divination? Or did Professor McGonagall tell you in advance? And how did you even know it was her?"
"Of course I knew," Altair said. "I told you I know Divination. When Professor McGonagall came to my house, she did the same thing. Turned into a cat and gave my uncle quite a fright." He glanced at her. "Didn't she do something similar for your parents?"
Hermione thought about it, then shook her head slowly. "She turned my father's dental equipment into a piglet."
"Ahem."
They both looked up. Professor McGonagall was standing nearby, watching them with an expression that didn't quite commit to amusement.
"Mr. Shelby. Miss Granger. Given how much you seem to be enjoying yourselves, perhaps the two of you have already mastered the Transfiguration?"
"Of course," Altair said.
He tapped the match with his wand. It shifted, contracted, and lengthened, the wood giving way to something else entirely, until what rested on the desk was a hollow gold needle, fine and perfectly shaped, the kind of thing that looked like it belonged in a display case.
Professor McGonagall looked at it for a moment.
"Incredible." She said it quietly, almost to herself, before recovering. "Mr. Shelby, your gift for Transfiguration may surpass even what I first thought. That needle is exquisite. Ten points to Slytherin."
The Slytherin table broke into applause. Across the room, something crossed Draco's face that was nearly a smile, before it collapsed into something more like helpless irritation.
"And Miss Granger?"
Hermione nodded. She was nervous, but not without reason to be confident. She'd put in the hours. Altair had walked her through the key points that morning. Under the attention of the whole class, she raised her wand.
"Match to needle!"
A faint glow. The match changed shape, and a moment later a clean silver needle sat where it had been.
"Excellent. Five points to Gryffindor."
Professor McGonagall looked at her with obvious approval. Hermione smiled and let herself glance over at Altair, briefly, with the particular satisfaction of someone who had earned something.
Altair, for his part, was already thinking about how to make Harry and Ron lose those five points.
...
No one else managed it. The match stayed a match for the rest of the class, Seamus Finnigan's briefly becoming part of a small explosion that took a desk corner with it, though McGonagall didn't take points for it.
When the morning lessons ended, Hermione pulled Altair directly to the library. She located a book several hundred pages long and settled into it with genuine pleasure. Altair moved through the stacks slowly, not looking for anything specific, until an idea started to take shape. He'd been trying to work out how to build momentum for the figures from the world of the Ring. Something was coming together.
...
By lunch, the Great Hall was already busy. Altair sat at the Gryffindor table without much thought about it. Professor McGonagall had personally invited him, and it made no real difference to him where he ate.
Harry and Ron were glad to see him. Whatever else could be said about Altair, anyone watching McGonagall's class could see clearly enough that she had a particular regard for him, Slytherin or not.
Altair's plate held fried pork cutlet, grilled sausages, a smoked meat pie, and spaghetti. Hermione had pumpkin pie, a vegetable salad, and a fruit sandwich. Ron and Harry had a large plate of roasted chicken wings between them and were working through it with visible contentment.
Then came the hoots from outside, and a flock of owls swept through the hall, dropping letters and parcels along the tables as they went.
"The mail's here!" Ron sat up straighter, already watching for the family owl.