He blinks. "So why'd a Hufflepuff come bring it?"

The Hufflepuff looks equally curious about this.

He shakes his head.

Oh well. He shrugs and returns to his discussion with Seamus about Quidditch, and the Hufflepuff returns to his table.

Victor decides to spend the day reading in the library. He brings Muninn, who sits neatly on his shoulder and is impeccably well-behaved.

They are not behind the Potions shelf at 10:30, but they are within sight of it.

And a girl they've literally never seen in Hogwarts is sitting there, reading a book.

Muninn flies over to inspect her.

She winks at him.

He perches on her shoulder and messes up her hair.

The girl's giggles change in pitch as she morphs into Dayo's boy form. "Get Victor here, too."

"Why?"

"Well, 'cause I wanna talk to him, too, not just you."

"Kind of bossy, telling him to meet you here like that."

"Ask him if he'd like to come here?" he tries.

"What'd you want to talk about?"

"Well. The reason I called you two here in particular was because I wanted to talk to you without giving much away, believe it or not I do in fact get it that you would want to be a secret. And if he was here it'd be easier to pretend I was just talking to him if we need that. But also I—feel like we didn't end yesterday's conversation on the best of notes and I wanna fix that."

"I'd kind of like it if you'd stop acting suspicious of my intelligence," he says. "It's just going to put the idea in people's heads that I might be more than I seem."

"—oh. I'm sorry, you're right, I hadn't thought about it, I was just acting the way I'd act if I didn't know anything about it."

"Try acting the way you'd act if you were satisfied I was just a chatty owl," he says. "As for Victor - well, I'll see what he thinks."

He swoops off.

And when he comes back, it's on Victor's shoulder.

"Hi," he says. "I'm—sorry if I was rude or something yesterday."

"It's all right."

"How are you? Do you want to—do anything?"

"What do you mean?"

"About Snape. You didn't seem to think what I was doing was a good idea but I don't get why. Do you disagree that it was wrong of him?"

"It could have been much worse and I was afraid you were going to make it much worse by acting like that."