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+------- Thread: hems and hazards || dragon (/showthread.php?tid=1066)
hems and hazards || dragon - Alice Ravenstone - 05-21-2026
Thursday, 26 October 1922
After dinner
The library
After dinner
The library
Alice dreaded this. She really did. As she approached the back corner of the library, her brown eyes darted around for the giant she was meeting.
He wasn’t there yet.
She sat down in one of the chairs, setting her bag on the table. And waited.
She felt nervous.
When Professor Blackwood said that she and Dragon were to be partners for this project, she groaned. Outloud.
And now she was meeting him in the library to get the project done.
What was this said project?
Hemming.
Yes, hemming. Both magical and muggle.
Everyone was paired up with the opposite gender. The girls had to hem shirts on the boys and the boys had to hem skirts on the girls.
Overall, it was stupid. If she were honest.
She didn’t care to work with her cousin’s betrothed. Not because she didn’t like him, but because she… well, she wasn’t entirely sure how she felt about the boy.
Alice didn’t know what she felt about much anymore. She couldn’t discern her own feelings from those she was picking up from people around her.
All she had to go off of was that while her cousin cursed his name, Alice knew the truth; that Matilda felt something other than hatred.
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Dragomir Zdravkova - 05-24-2026
Lev might have been right after all. Hogwarts’ teachings were a little…questionable.
When he’d signed up for Applied Magic, Drago had expected different things than what this Professor Blackwood actually ended up teaching them. Nothing in particular, but definitely not this.
Hemming?
Drago had never heard of a more ridiculous task. Then again, that entire class had been ridiculous. In hindsight, applied did make sense, just in a way he most certainly had no interest in.
Having signed up for the class meant having to give an effort however. He’d need every Outstanding he could get, and if it meant hemming a skirt on Alice. The muggle way.
The entire thing had made it hard to keep his unmoved expression upright, the surprise of being told their next project almost managing to downright shock him out of composure. Alice’s groan hadn’t gone unnoticed either, but that hadn’t bothered him.
The girl hadn’t been his greatest fan from the start, and it he hadn't expected that to change. He could live with her resentment. After all, it wasn't her that needed to accept him, but her cousin.
Which, speaking of, had been paired with the most obnoxious boy in the room.
Drago had made sure the Slytherin had seen the warning in his eyes as he'd passed him on the way out of class, fixing him with the coldest stare he could muster.
When he walked into the library, steering for the spot Alice and him had agreed on, she was already there.
“Hello, Alice,” he greeted her, tone formal as though meeting a business partner. He sat his bag on a free chair, remaining standing as he rummaged through the contents. “I have brought a book on sewing techniques.” He pulled it free, alongside the small kit Professor Blackwood had given them each.
“Do you want to start on my shirt, or do you like me to begin with your—” Decidedly inappropriate, too, this task, “—skirt.”
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Alice Ravenstone - 05-24-2026
Upon spotting her project partner approach, Alice stood. She opened her bag and pulled out the small sewing kit provided by the professor along with a round pincushion. She glanced over at the book on sewing that he pulled out and couldn’t help but to smirk. Adorable.
“That might be a good reference for you,” she commented lightly, knowing she didn’t need it at all.
“Do you want to start on my shirt, or do you like me to begin with your skirt.”
Alice smiled politely. “Your shirt first,” she responded as she stuck some pins in the round cushion and then slipped it over her wrist.
The brunette then turned to the boy, a pin in hand, before stopping. She looked up at him. He stood a full foot above her. This wouldn’t do. She sighed and stuck the pin back in the cushion. She moved a chair closer to him and then lifted herself up onto it, closing the distance between her and his collar.
Once she was situated, she pulled a pin from the pincushion. “Hold still,” she directed and leaned in as she began pinning his collar. This close she could feel the formality coming off him like a second jacket; controlled, deliberate. The same wall she put up herself in uncertain situations.
Alice filed that away and kept her eyes on her work so she didn’t accidentally stab him.
“How are you finding Hogwarts?” she asked. Polite. Conversational. Just like she’d been brought up.
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Dragomir Zdravkova - 05-26-2026
His shirt first. Drago nodded, he could live with that. Anything if it meant pushing off his part of their project just a moment longer.
While Alice prepared her pincushion, Drago took off his cloak, folding it lengthways before draping it across a chair. He had already put on the too big shirt before coming here so he wouldn’t have to get changed. He supposed they could use the bathrooms for that when the time came.
The moment Alice turned, Drago came to the same conclusion, blinking down at her for a beat. This wouldn’t do.
But she was already moving one of the chairs closer and stepping atop it before he could do that for her, so he simply fell into position, pulling his shoulders back and waited for her to begin. Pretending this was just a normal fitting session with one of their tailors.
“Hold still.”
“I did not move,” he said mildly, but not unfriendly.
If there was one thing he was an expert in, it was standing still as a tree. Especially during tailoring. His mother being the woman she was had always loved dressing up her children in the latest fashion of the season, requiring new clothes way too often to be considered normal. The hours he had spent doing absolutely nothing while tape measures and pins floated all around was bordering on ridiculous.
The only new thing about this was the fact Alice was doing this by hand.
“How are you finding Hogwarts?”
Drago kept his gaze stubbornly ahead. Polite conversation would at least make the time pass by faster. “Is okay,” he said, seeing no need to sugar-coat his opinion. “Very different from Durmstrang.”
In truth, there were a good many things that bothered him, didn’t sit quite right with him, or downright confused the hell out of him. But that wasn’t how polite conversation worked, so he kept that to himself.
“Do you like this class?”, he asked after a moment of silence, curious. “Applied Magic. Is quite strange.”
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Alice Ravenstone - 05-26-2026
“I did not move.”
He was stiff. She wondered if he was constantly stressed.
“You will,” Alice responded, not unkindly, eyes still on the pin she was setting. In her experience, everyone moved eventually. Especially when sharp objects were involved. It was involuntary. Even the most disciplined people breathed.
Could he really stifle a cough?
Alice worked in silence for a moment, moving along the collar with quiet efficiency. He was easy to work around, she’d give him that – he really was like a statue. He didn’t fidget. Someone less trained in the Pureblood society would fidget. Her expectations naturally shifted, filing it away near formality and the sewing book and adorable which she definitely was not thinking about.
“Is okay. Very different from Durmstrang.”
“Very different how?” Alice asked, genuinely curious despite herself. She pulled yet another pin from the cushion.
“Do you like this class? Applied Magic. Is quite strange.”
Caught off guard by the question, Alice placed the pin she’d been holding and then stopped leaning towards him, lost in thought.
Did she like it? Interesting question.
“I’ve never really considered it,” she said honestly, her voice a bit lighter when she realized she didn’t have an opinion. “My family expected certain classes. I took them.”
A moment later, she recovered from the realization, and began working again. “I suppose I’d never thought to ask myself whether I liked them or not,” she commented, her voice back to its level tone.
“What about you? How strict is your family about your classes?” Alice asked, still a bit thrown off by his previous question.
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Dragomir Zdravkova - 05-27-2026
“You will.”
Drago glanced sideway, eyes narrowing. “No, I will not,” he retorted insistently and just to prove a point, he grew impossibly stiller. This clearly wasn’t a challenge but he took it anyway.
Her hands continued their work around his collar and he had to note, she hadn’t poked him once. It had been at the back of his mind, he couldn’t deny it, the expectation to be pricked and prodded by accident a hundred times throughout their assignment. One more reason for his apprehension.
But she seemed to be proficient enough, and maybe he shouldn't be surprised. He supposed she’d been taught sewing and needlework just like the women in his family were too.
Still, the uncomfortable closeness continued and thus he remained a rigid statue.
“Very different how?”
Where should he even start? Maybe the foundational issue.
“Is undisciplined here,” he began, staring straight ahead. “Noisy, lax, less order. Everyone is always running or screaming and being childish. We do not act like that at Durmstrang.” Behaviour like that was not tolerated, not from the youngest and neither the oldest.
“Also food is weird,” he added after a moment, like an afterthought. “Bland and dry. And classes here are different. Teaching sewing and muggle things.” He almost scoffed then. “We only learn proper magic.”
Her immediate pause to his question and the following reply pulled a frown over his forehead. Did she not have an opinion on the classes she took? He understood the duty of taking what the family expected, but even then he had always either liked or not liked them, despite the fact he had taken them without complaint. He was still pondering when Alice resumed her work.
“What about you? How strict is your family about your classes?”
“Strict," he grumbled. "Nothing below E, more O's than E's. We take the classes we are told." And once he’d reported back on this one, no Zdravkova would ever take it again.
Still unmoving, Drago refrained from waving a hand, unable to let his previous thought go. “Why do you not know if you like a class?”, he asked. “You should know what you like.”
And then, after another beat. “What do you like?”
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Alice Ravenstone - 05-27-2026
The boy had grown even more still, as if that was possible. For a moment, Alice wasn’t even sure he was still breathing. But he hadn’t fallen over from lack of oxygen, so he was safe.
As he spoke about how Hogwarts was different from his previous school, she continued working silently. She’d almost forgotten about her task of screening the boy for her cousin. Instead, she could read his stillness, his uncomfortableness, which matched – she thought – her own.
Except she wasn’t still.
“Why do you not know if you like a class? You should know what you like.”
Alice frowned. She should. Her hands stilled. She felt saddened at this revelation.
“What do you like?”
The question hung in the air and Alice mulled it over, working deftly. The question wasn’t unkind and wasn’t even all that probing. Not under normal circumstances. But the fact that she honestly didn’t know how to answer… that is what made her slightly uneasy.
“My family is similar,” she responded, not yet ready to attack the main question. “Nothing below Exceeds Expectations. More Outstandings than not.”
Alice smoothed the fabric near his shoulder and considered the section question. Or tried to.
“I like reading,” she finally said after a moment. “And I’m good at Charms. I don’t know if that’s the same thing as liking it, though,” she admitted.
Onto the next section. She pulled another pin. “I want to work at St. Mungo’s,” she added quietly. “That’s – I do know that.” What she didn’t say was why; she wanted to because her sister was there, and because she wanted to be able to help her more.
“What do you like?” Alice asked, turning the question back on him. She was genuinely curious at this point, and wasn’t just deflecting to change the subject. Though the uneasiness sat there, pushed aside as if it wasn’t a problem.
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Dragomir Zdravkova - 05-29-2026
It was curious, he thought, brow creasing. She seemed so unsure about the most basic aspects of her own self, things everyone knew. She avoided his question at first, confirming instead that her family followed the same patters as his where it came to academic expectations. It wasn’t surprising, in the end all elite pureblood families wanted the same from their children. Excellence in everything, outdo everyone else. A constant cycle of pressure.
At least that one thing appeared to be the same everywhere.
After a moment, Alice did give him an answer.
“I like reading. And I’m good at Charms. I don’t know if that’s the same thing as liking it, though.”
Instead of clearing his confusion, her response left him more puzzled than before. How could she not know? He was good at many things himself, that could either mean he enjoyed them, or didn’t. It was quite an easy distinction to make.
“I want to work at St. Mungo’s. That’s – I do know that.”
Drago hummed briefly, thoughtful. Whatever had them fascinated with working at St. Mungo’s, he couldn’t tell. Matilda had mentioned it too, possibly considering an employment at the hospital as a herbalist one day. The topic hadn’t been brought up since their meeting during summer, thankfully. Should she still feel the same after her graduation, he’d have to explain reality to her.
It wasn’t his place to do the same for Alice however, so he kept his disfavour to himself. Grumbling about it on the inside only.
“What do you like?”
He was still mulling it all over when her counter-question cut through his thoughts. Matilda’s incessant questioning had him more than prepared though.
“I like exercise,” he said immediately, growing a little taller. “Quidditch and running, and I do boxing. There was sparring in Durmstrang but not here.” There were plenty of people looking for fights here as well but none who knew how to do it properly. It had been itching him for a while now.
“And I like winter and snow,” he added, remembering how Matilda always told him listing his variety of physical activity apparently didn’t count as a complete answer to these sort of questions. “I enjoy cold. Also reading. Russian novels and poems.”
He hoped that was a reply complete enough.
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Alice Ravenstone - 05-30-2026
Alice could feel something – restraint – bubbling just under Dragon’s surface. It was interesting, and she couldn’t immediately tell why he’d be holding back.
She listened to him as she worked, finishing one side and moving to the next. She worked in silence, glancing at him briefly when he spoke about Russian novels and poetry.
She hadn’t expected that.
Alice found herself filing that away somewhere that wasn’t the Tilly folder, then immediately questioned why she’d felt it important to make that distinction. She felt a bit off-balance at the realization, which caused her to fall silent. She didn’t ask for titles of work that he loved.
For some reason, that information felt too personal. And Alice was too busy mulling over the strange sensation she was still dealing with; the one that made her question her intentions with getting to know him.
When finished, Alice stepped back and assessed her work with a critical eye. She flipped his collar to check both sides and then nodded slightly.
“That’s the pinning done. I figure that you can pin my skirt and then we can go change before we do the actual hemming,” Alice explained as she slipped her pincushion off her wrist and set it down with the rest of her kit.
She turned to the chair, biting her lip gently. He was tall and she was short; she couldn’t imagine him sitting on the floor to get to her skirt. So up on the chair she would go. She may even have to stand on the table, if she were honest. But perhaps he could sit.
The logistics were spiraling in her head as she placed one hand on the back of the chair. Alice then looked at Dragon, who immediately offered a hand for her other to hold while she stepped up. She noticed his hand was warm and strong, larger than hers.
And not terrible to hold.
Alice dropped his hand the second she was situated and steady at the higher altitude.
She uneasiness she suddenly felt was distracting. She cleared her throat. “The hem sits just below the knee, so you’ll need to pin it there,” she said, her mouth a bit dry.
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Dragomir Zdravkova - 05-31-2026
The lack of follow up questions told him his answer must have been elaborate enough. Thankfully Alice didn’t ask why he liked these things the way Matilda liked to do. But then again, this was just a conversation to pass the time, not necessarily to get to know each other.
For a while she worked in silence and he stood and didn’t move, falling into that quiet part of his brain that allowed him to simply be, mulling things over. Her answers still didn’t let him go entirely. He couldn’t grasp it. In any other situation he might have asked about it further, wanting to understand what she meant. The circumstances of their exchange pressed too deep into his awareness though, keeping his curiosity stifled for now.
“That’s the pinning done. I figure that you can pin my skirt and then we can go change before we do the actual hemming.”
Drago gave a curt nod, the stiffness that had somewhat loosened returning full force. Letting Alice pin his shirt had been the least uncomfortable part of this task, a bit strange perhaps, but manageable enough. Now, having to pin her skirt however… That was the part he’d dreaded the most. He didn’t have a choice though if he wanted to pass their assignment, so wordlessly he prepared his own pincushion which he refused to slide over his wrist. It would sit on the table next to him.
Turning, he looked down at Alice, once again.
Apparently she was having the same thought as him, making to climb back onto her chair. Drago offered his hand on automation, guiding her up before pulling another chair close, sitting in front of her.
“The hem sits just below the knee, so you’ll need to pin it there.”
His gaze flicked up to her face. Just below the knee?
Despite himself, Drago cocked a brow. “Short,” he commented dryly, pulling the book he’d brought to the edge of the table, opening a page he had tabbed on a previous skim. The instructions seemed clear enough, the execution might become the problem however.
The tiny needle held in between his thumb and forefinger seemed to vanish, impossible to handle. Grumbling something under his breath, brow scrunched in concentration, Drago folded the fabric of the hem and pushed the pin in place.
Careful not to touch or even brush her legs.
For a moment he continued his work in focused silence, trying to get a hang of this motion. Fine work like this wasn’t his expertise.
Placing another pin he made a motion with his hand, indicating Alice to turn a little. “Why so short?”, he finally asked, not looking away from his work.
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Alice Ravenstone - 05-31-2026
“Short.”
Alice couldn’t help but to smirk a bit at his comment. She didn’t say anything yet, until he asked why she wanted it so short.
“It’s the fashion.” She was looking straight ahead, which was safest, not down because down was where he was, sitting on a chair with a pin between his fingers, closer to her than almost anyone had been in a while. She was very aware of her own legs in a way she didn’t particularly want to be.
She cleared her throat slightly.
“Skirts have been getting shorter since the war,” she continued, because talking was better than silence right now and she knew things about fashion history she could recite without thinking too hard. “It started with fabric rationing, then it just stayed,” she added.
She turned when he motioned her to, careful to not lose her balance. “My mother would have preferred longer,” she added without even meaning to. Something about standing still with nowhere to look had loosened something in her. She pressed her lips together briefly.
“Hold the fabric flat before you pin it,” she said in an effort to redirect from personal to practical. “Otherwise it’ll pucker when it’s hemmed.”
Alice looked down at him then, just briefly, to check on his progress.
That was a mistake. She bit her lip and looked back up.
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Dragomir Zdravkova - 06-01-2026
“It’s the fashion,” she said, and Drago glanced up at her, brow cocked again. He couldn’t claim to know anything about fashion, and it had never interested him. Men’s wear really didn’t change much and all the better. He had more important things to worry about.
Women’s on the other hand seemed to change with the breeze, and held a lot more importance to society. One thing had barely become popular when another replaced it. His mother and sister loved the chase of it, always the ones to be up to date, discussing this cut and that detailing. He supposed it served their reputation well enough, he was glad however it wasn't something he had to think about.
Still, never had he seen a skirt get pinned this short as he was doing now.
Below the knee. His mother would gasp in horror. Thankfully she couldn't see him like this, it would actually send her tumbling to the floor.
“Skirts have been getting shorter since the war. It started with fabric rationing, then it just stayed. My mother would have preferred longer.”
Maybe not so different then.
Drago shook his head slightly, picking up another pin. The quicker he got this done, the sooner this would end. Not that he found Alice’s presence and company uncomfortable per se. Not at all. Being this close to her though, legs only a few inches from the tips of his fingers, didn’t change in how inappropriate it felt and he'd rather finish this sooner than later.
“Hold the fabric flat before you pin it. Otherwise it’ll pucker when it’s hemmed.”
Another glance upwards, briefly meeting her eyes before she looked away again, and Drago squinted at the skirt’s hem. The bit he had managed so far didn’t look too terrible. A bit wonky but nothing too bad. Still, he did as told, pressing the edge flatter before securing his next pin.
He had to admit she was right. That did look better. His eyes darted to the beginning of his work, considering to redo. But maybe this once a few points deducted were fine.
Discarding the thought he continued.
“Maybe fashion is something you like,” he remarked absentmindedly, circling back to their earlier conversation. “Sewing. Tailoring? You did pinning well and you know these things.”
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Alice Ravenstone - 06-03-2026
Alice looked forward momentarily until she felt him move around her again, so she glanced down. He was looking at the spots he’d already done, contemplating them. She couldn’t help but to smile a little to herself. She didn’t know why teaching him made her feel better about herself.
“Maybe fashion is something you like. Sewing. Tailoring? You did pinning well and you know these things.”
Alice tilted her head slightly at the thought. “Maybe…” she said after a moment.
Honestly, she’d never considered it before. She hadn’t considered most things before. She’d learned the importance of being able to tailor at a moment's notice, and magic certainly made that easier. She liked trying on fashion, but didn’t really know if she enjoyed this part.
But she’d noticed his pinning. She’d corrected it automatically, without thinking, the way you corrected something that mattered to you.
“I do know things about it,” she admitted, deep in thought. “I don’t know if that means I like it or if I just – retained it.” It was an interesting dichotomy. If you were trained a certain way enough, would you correct someone else because you were interested and cared, or just because it was the right way to do something?
Alice glanced down again to check his progress, still considering fashion. She didn’t think she liked it enough to say it was an interest.
Looking down was a mistake. The action itself was practical, sensible, and the kind of thing you did when someone was pinning your hem. It was the staying. Just a second too long, watching him work with that focused, careful concentration he brought to everything. Even though he found the task absurd, he was taking it seriously.
Alice looked straight ahead again, her jaw locked a bit tighter than before, her brain humming with strange thoughts.
“You’re doing better than you think,” she commented, which was the safest version of what had just happened inside her head.
She refused to look at what the other versions were.
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Dragomir Zdravkova - 06-05-2026
As Alice contemplated whether sewing and tailoring might be one of her interests, Drago continued placing his pins. With the tip she had given him it felt a lot easier and a bit quicker too. He was almost all the way around now, indicating for Alice to turn again.
Or maybe he was simply beginning to get the hang of this. But either way, he was glad that this was going better than anticipated. Conversing instead of sitting in awkward silence sure helped. And it was actually enjoyable. Not that he’d thought talking to Alice would be anything less, but given the circumstances he found the matter of their conversation engaging nonetheless.
Someone who didn’t know what she liked. He still couldn’t fathom it. Trying to figure out what she did like only felt like the right thing to do.
“I do know things about it. I don’t know if that means I like it or if I just – retained it.”
Contemplative, Drago hummed. He supposed that made sense. There were a good few things he knew a lot about but didn’t particularly enjoy. Divination. Theory on the physiology and pathology of the magical mind. He retained it because he was expected to. A family member untutored in the basics of their business was a useless family member after all. That didn’t mean he particularly enjoying it though. His strengths lay elsewhere, in the things he did enjoy.
The only difference was that he knew the difference. Alice didn’t.
“You have to do lot of things and then find out which one you like,” he said with the certainty of an instructor, securing another pin without looking up. “Is good to know, even despite duty and responsibility.” He wasn’t sure why exactly he thought it was important to know, but somehow it made sense to him.
He definitely knew he didn’t like this. Regardless of the somewhat easier flow of motion, his hands still felt clumsy and the already pinned part of the hem he continued to glance towards appeared less than perfect.
“You’re doing better than you think.”
Drago glanced up, a little startled, as though Alice had read his mind. “Hm,” he said, recovering quickly. “Is bit wonky.” With a small shrug he smiled a little before finding back to his work. A few more moments and he placed the last pin.
“Okay,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “Is done.” Crossing his arms he inspected the hem of her skirt where she stood before him. After a moment he decided it was fine. He rose, offering Alice his hand once more to help her down from the chair.
With the worst part done, a bit of the tension in his body eased. “We change, then we sew, yes?”
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Alice Ravenstone - 06-06-2026
“Is a bit wonky.”
The smile that accompanied that comment did something inside Alice that she wasn't sure about. She looked away and bit her lip slightly to shake it off. When she looked back, a moment later, he was offering his hand to help her down.
She took the help, of course, because she wouldn’t look dignified falling off the damn chair. She once again let go of his hand once her feet were on solid ground, her eyes widening slightly when she realized she didn’t want to let go.
What the hell was happening?
She smoothed her skirt in the same motion, as soon as both hands were free, checking that the pins were still sitting correctly. They were. He’d done fine. Better than fine, if she were completely honest about it.
“We change, then we sew, yes?”
“Yes. We change, then we sew,” Alice responded, looking at her things on the table. She began moving things about, desperate to do something with the hands to try to not think about how warm his were.
The thread of conversation was closing and she noticed, without meaning to, that she didn’t feel the way that she’d expected to feel when she had originally walked into the library. She’d come in with a purpose, a list of things to observe and file away to tell her cousin later. She’d done that, she was fairly certain, but somewhere between the chair and the hem and the what do you like – her purpose had gotten quieter and something else had taken up space there.
Alice wasn’t going to look at what that something could be.
“We can change in the restrooms down the hall. And then come back in here for the sewing,” she said and quieted herself when she realized she was just moving things in and out of her bag without thinking about it. The same things. Over and over.
She frowned. She didn’t feel quite like herself. She put everything back in her bag. “Can’t trust the firsties walking around, may as well take our things with us instead of leaving them here.”
Alice pulled her bag on and began the walk towards the restrooms. “You did well,” she said, smiling, finally glancing very very briefly at the tall boy next to her.
RE: hems and hazards || dragon - Dragomir Zdravkova - 06-09-2026
As Alice confirmed the next steps, Drago nodded, packing up the pins he hadn’t needed, storing them away. He pulled the book towards him again, the one on sewing, placing the rest of his kit on top. Ready for when he came back from changing.
“We can change in the restrooms down the hall. And then come back in here for the sewing.”
“Okay,” he said, looking through his bag for the extra shirt he’d brought, but paused mid-motion. Was she doing alright? Following her repetitive movements for a moment, Drago wondered whether the long standing had perhaps gone to her head. Some people tended to faint after not moving for too long, he'd seen it before.
He didn't get the chance to suggest she sit for a moment. Alice was packing up all her things as though in a hurry, claiming the first years weren't to be trusted.
Drago watched her for a moment but didn’t protest. In the end she was probably right. These children here were nothing like the ones he was used to being around at Durmstrang. He didn’t trust them either. Making short work of it, everything landed in his bag and, slinging it over his shoulder, Drago joined her on the way out of the library.
Still wary, in case she did suddenly fall over.
“You did well.”
Looking around, he smiled faintly. “Thank you. You did better probably. I will see when I take shirt off.”