"If it weren't for me, those old books might have sat there gathering dust forever. I spotted that one out of tens of thousands at a single glance."
"Yes, yes, our Hermione deserves the most credit."
Altair echoed her with a smile.
A faint blush rose on Hermione's cheeks. She shot him a little look. Even though her face was still childish and young, Altair somehow caught the faintest trace of something almost alluring in it.
"What do you mean, our Hermione..."
Hermione muttered under her breath, then fell silent. She lowered her head and dragged her fork back and forth through the mashed potatoes on her plate.
Even the tips of her ears had turned red.
Neville, sitting beside Altair, pressed his lips together and suddenly felt like he had lost his appetite.
It was the middle of the day. He had not even finished his meal yet, and already he had been force-fed a bellyful of romance.
School life was hard.
I miss Gran, thought Neville
And so, life settled down again. The Quidditch teams of every House began training every day, because once Halloween was over, the inter-House Quidditch matches would begin.
As for the other young witches and wizards, under the prefects' guidance, they had started preparing for the Halloween feast.
During this period, Altair continued brewing Orc potion as usual. He had already sorted out the centaur blood he collected a few days ago, enough for the production of four hundred bottles of Uruk-hai potion.
He had not gathered the remaining ingredients yet, but Altair was not in a hurry.
After brewing another three bottles of Orc potion, Altair left the Room of Requirement. As he stepped out, he unexpectedly ran into someone.
The moment he saw her appearance, Altair already had a guess.
"H-hello..."
Cho Chang had clearly not expected to run into Altair on the eighth floor. A little flustered, she awkwardly greeted him.
She obviously knew who Altair was. In fact, quite a few students in the upper years knew him as well.
The genius little wizard from Slytherin. A bit of a lone wolf. A Muggle-born boy, and supposedly very close to a little witch from Gryffindor who was also from a Muggle family.
The Weasley twins even called them an academic power couple...
"Hello. My name is Altair."
Altair looked Cho over. He had never actually met her before, but there did not seem to be many Asian students at Hogwarts, and among the pretty ones, Cho Chang was the only one he could think of.
"My name is Cho Chang. I'm a second-year witch from Ravenclaw..."
Compared with the Cho Chang from the films, this one was much prettier. At the very least, she matched the description from the books.
"Ravenclaw Tower isn't this way, is it? Do you need something? Need any help?"
Altair asked curiously.
Of course, what he really wanted was to find out why Cho had come here, and whether she had noticed him coming out of the Room of Requirement.
"No, I came to find a friend..."
Cho clearly was not very good at talking to strangers, and she looked a little nervous.
"Lee Jordan from Gryffindor. He's the commentator for the Quidditch Cup. I wanted to ask him about some of the preparations for the Quidditch Cup..."
After saying that, she added another sentence.
"I'm a reserve player on Ravenclaw's Quidditch team, so I can only handle simple things like this."
Altair knew that Cho later became Ravenclaw's Seeker, though if he remembered correctly, she did not officially take the field until fourth year. It was during that match that she first met third-year Harry.
"I see."
Altair nodded and did not pay much attention to it. As long as she had not noticed that he came out of the Room of Requirement, it was fine.
"Then I won't keep you. I'll be off now. Have a pleasant afternoon."
"Oh. All right. Thank you. Um... goodbye."
Cho herself did not even know what she was saying. She only saw Altair smile at her like a gentleman, then shift slightly to the side, and she walked past him in a daze.
The Gryffindor common room was on the eighth floor too.
Only after she had gone some distance did Cho come back to herself. She secretly turned her head for a glance and found Altair still standing there, smiling as he watched her leave.
Her cheeks heated at once. She gave a little nod, then hurried off in a rush.
"He's really such a gentleman. But he probably came here to see that little Gryffindor witch, didn't he?"
Thinking that, Cho patted her warm cheeks and let out a long breath.
Watching her disappear around the corner, Altair confirmed that she had not discovered the Room of Requirement. Only then did he turn and leave.
"That was a fairly nice encounter."
At dinner that evening, Hermione handed Altair a large package.
"What's this?"
Altair gave it a squeeze or two. The thing inside was very light, probably some sort of clothing.
"It's a white bedsheet. I've already cut a few holes in it... In two days it'll be the Halloween feast, so when the time comes, you can just put it over your head."
Hermione explained it to him carefully.
This was how she celebrated Halloween every year. Put on a ghost mask, wear a strange costume, then go knocking from neighbor to neighbor.
"Trick or treat!"
This was what Hermione taught Altair.
"I think Professor McGonagall, Professor Sprout, and Headmaster Dumbledore will probably give us sweets... especially Headmaster Dumbledore. They say the Headmaster loves candy most of all..."
"As for Professor Snape, forget it. I wouldn't dare go. If I did, I'd probably only get scolded. Back home, my father never let me eat too much candy either. He's a dentist, remember."
"But this time, I plan to ask for more. I'm a witch now, so I probably don't have to worry about cavities anymore..."
As Hermione spoke, she gradually slipped into muttering to herself. Altair's face was full of amusement. At moments like this, he felt Hermione was still incredibly adorable.