Snape set down the last of the ingredient containers with a quiet click.
"My instructional methods," Snape said, "are not subject to your analysis or your approval."
"I'm not criticizing them," Alister said. "I'm genuinely asking."
Alister walked toward the workstation, slowly, and stopped a few feet away.
"She's my sister"
he leaned in slightly closing enough to talk in lower voice.
"The only family I've got. And you know as well as I do that the name she's carrying is going to put a target on her back for the rest of her life. I just want to understand your intentions toward her. That's all."
Snape was silent for a very long time.
The cauldron gold had begun, very slowly, to fade toward pale copper as the draught settled.
"My intentions," Snape said finally, his voice low, "are not something I am required to justify to you."
"No," Alister agreed. "You're not."
"Then this conversation is finished."
"Okay," Alister said.
He picked up his bag from the stool. He paused at the workstation and looked at the fading draught one more time.
"She's a good kid," he said, not looking at Snape. "Probably the best person I know, which is a low bar because I have known some genuinely terrible people, but still."
The corner of his mouth twitched.
"Whoever decides she's worth their time, in whatever capacity, is either going to be very good for her or very bad for her." He finally looked up. "I'm not in the habit of leaving that kind of thing to chance."
Snape held his gaze.
"Neither," he said, very quietly, "am I."
Alister stood there and looked at the man who had just spent an hour patiently teaching his first-year sister.
"Good night, Professor," he said, shouldering his bag.
"Get out of my classroom, Potter," Snape said.
Alister walked to the door, and there was, for just a moment, the ghost of the smirk again.
"Ok. See you, same time next week." he called back.
Alister stepped out into the cool corridor, the heavy door swinging shut behind him, and began the long walk back without waiting for snape's reply.
…
The castle was dead silent by the time midnight arrived. For Alister now, sneaking out was less of a challenge and more of a casual stroll.
'I'm have gotten so much skilled in sneaking around. Am i going to become a magic assassin. even my footsteps don't make a sound anymore'
He easily bypassed the slow, predictable patrol routes of Mr. Filch and the patrolling prefects.
He climbed the winding, narrow spiral staircase of the Astronomy Tower, the air growing noticeably colder and crisper with every step.
Pushing open the heavy wooden door, he slipped quietly into the circular classroom.
The room was completely empty. The polished brass telescopes bathed in moonlight, but the person he was scheduled to meet hadn't arrived yet.
Unbothered by the delay, Alister casually crossed the room, he stopped at the edge of the large, open-air balcony window and leaned his forearms against the chilled stone parapet.
The grounds stretched below him in shades of grey and black, the lake a sheet of dark glass, the Forbidden Forest a solid wall of shadow at the edges. Most of the view was exactly as he remembered it from every other time he'd come up here to think.
Although part of the view is obstructed by Ariel Gauntlet.
He tilted his head slightly, examining it from another angle.
The door behind him opened.
Alister didn't turn around.
The footsteps stopped a few feet to his left.
Alister stared at the grounds for another three seconds.
Then his serious expression, the one he'd been carefully maintaining, developed a crack as a short, quiet chuckle escaped before he could do anything about it.
"Why are you acting so mysterious?" he said, still looking out the window.
"…I'm not being mysterious," said a voice from somewhere inside the hooded robe.
"You walked in like we are going to process some shady deal," Alister said. "All you were missing was ominous background music."
"That…I've never been out after curfew before. I wasn't sure what the appropriate presentation was."
Alister finally turned around.
He looked at the hooded figure in front of him, robes pulled up, posture impeccable even while standing in the dark at midnight, and the smile on his face widened considerably.
"Ah," he said. "I've taken your First time."
"Why don't i like the sound of that."
"It must be your imagination."
"Really?"
"Forget about it. You don't need to hide your face"
She reached up and pushed the hood back. Her silver hair spilled out around her shoulders, catching the moonlight making everything around her seem pale and muted by comparison. The ethereal glow made her look something out of a forgotten myth.
Her eyes, one a clear bright blue and the other a warm gold, settled on him with an expression that was simultaneously composed and mildly irritated.
She held up a letter.
Alister recognized it immediately. The one he had handed to Astra.
"Why did you call me up here and even used a letter even used a letter? we have the arcane network now. You could have sent a message directly."
Alister opened his mouth.
Closed it.
He turned back toward the window briefly, as if someone might offer some assistance.
He turned back around with a wry smile.
"Okay, So the letter was partly a distraction."
Artoria stared at him.
"For Astra," he added before Artoria can open her mouth for questioning.
"She's very perceptive and I needed an excuse to send her earlier to classroom," he said. "Handing a letter to fellow first year she had class with was the perfect option. But I did actually want to meet you and the note was real, so technically it wasn't..."
"You used me," Artoria said.
"Hey, don't interpret it in such manner it can cause misunderstandings."
Alister had the grace to look at least partially sorry about it.
"In my defense," he said, "the thing I need to talk to you about is better done face to face. Some conversations don't translate well to the arcane network. Also I wasn't entirely sure how you'd react."
Artoria studied him for a moment but she forgave him as she lowered the letter and crossed her arms instead.
"Fine," she said. "What is it?"
Alister leaned back against the window sill, settling his weight against the stone.
"I know Gellert Grindelwald," he said.
Alister paused for a moment to see her reaction.
"uhh.. What? Don't tell me you called me here just to tell me this."
"Instead of this, I would have been surprised to death if you had told me you don't know who Gellert Grindelwald is."
"Don't give me that look, Damn it."
Alister had to snap at her as Artoria's gaze became more and more sympathetic, clearly questioning his intelligence.
"I meant, I know through the arcane network."
"So do You really know my grandfather?"
"Grandf…"
"How long have you been in contact with him?" Artoria demanded, stepping forward. "What has he told you? What have you discussed? Why didn't you say something the moment you..."
"Artoria"
"...arrived at Hogwarts, if you've known this entire time that we were..."
"Artoria, calm down"
She finally stopped giving Alister a chance to continue.
"When you say grandfather, you mean Gellert Grindelwald is your actual grandfather."
"Obviously," Artoria said.
"Biologically."
"Yes."
"Not 'grandfather' in the honorary sense or a mentor figure. Not..."
"He is my mother's father," Artoria said flatly. "What other kind of grandfather is there?"
"I didn't expect you would be so closely related."
"Did he not mention it?"
"Old man did talk about you but he did not mention that you were his granddaughter."
She looked at him for a long moment.
"How do I know you actually know him?" she said, crossing her arms again. "Anyone could claim a connection."
Alister was quiet for a moment.
"Bathilda Bagshot," he said. "She's the one who raised you and she's the one who sent you to Hogwarts. They argued over you after he knew you are here at Hogwarts."
The color that left Artoria's face did so with considerable efficiency.
"So he knows I'm here"
"Which bastard ratted me out," Artoria murmured, and it was so quiet and so genuinely dangerous in its softness that Alister almost took a step back on pure instinct.
"If I knew any proper curses I would..." she stopped herself, pressing her lips together as she took deep breaths composing herself again.
"I wish I knew who told him," she said, with tremendous carefully maintained calm.
Now it was Alister's turn to exhale his breath.
He looked out the window at the stars that didn't care about anyone's problems.
'Thank every conceivable magical forcethat she doesn't know it was me who accidentally spilled the beans'. he thought with deep and sincere feeling
"These things have a way of coming out," he said, with the neutral, sympathetic tone of a completely uninvolved party. "Hogwarts isn't exactly a secret institution."
Artoria turned to look at him.
He maintained eye contact with the exact steady composure of someone who absolutely had not, sent a very specific inquiry to a very specific old man on the arcane network that had resulted directly in this situation.
"I suppose," she said finally.
Alister let the silence sit for a moment before steering the conversation very deliberately forward.
"So," he said, with a slight clearing of his throat. "Now that we've established that. There's more I need to tell you about what he said to me this morning."
"It.. may involve a somewhat unusual proposal which may be inconvenient for you."
Artoria looked at him.
Alister looked back.
The astronomy tower was very quiet.
"I hope you can listen to me very calmly," Alister said, which was, in retrospect, probably the wrong thing to lead with, because it immediately communicated that whatever came next was something a reasonable person would not be calm about.
"Go on," she said as her expression didn't change.
"Right," Alister said. "So. The context is important here. There's a full chain of events leading up to this moment and I want to be clear that I approached the situation with..."
"Alister."
"Yes?"
"We don't have all night," Artoria said. "I would like to return to my dormitory to sleep as soon as possible."
Alister pressed his lips together briefly.
"Fair," he said. "A short version then."
He straightened up from the window st sill.
"I have been working on a research project on dark arts and I say that without arrogance, the practical applications alone would..."
Artoria raised an eyebrow.
"Short."
"I needed someone to publish it," Alister continued, trimming aggressively. "Someone with a name credible in certain circles that wouldn't get immediately suppressed by Dumbledore. Your grandfather agreed to publish it under his name. In exchange..."
Alister paused Just for a second.
"...he had one condition."
"A condition." Artoria repeated.
"Yes."
"What condition?"
Alister looked at her deciding that hesitating any longer was genuinely worse than jumping off from this tower.
"He wants me to be your fiancé," he said.
(END OF CHAPTER)
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