Refinement by offermyheart

Disclaimer: Everything is attributed to J. K. Rowling.

"The process of discovering your fearless self is of refinement." —Steve Maraboli

I: A Truth Not-So Universally Acknowledged

To most returning Hogwarts students, the first week of each new school year was reserved for catching up with dorm mates and getting used to their new schedules. As though moved by a shift in the air or a spark against worn granite, old friends relayed tales of summer visits to Irish moors or sightseeing in Vienna.

In Isobel Wayland's mind, the first week back was always the worst. Her first year, that shift in the air even had her eyes widening at the way Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry seemed to welcome you home in a way that made that spark of light against granite seem realistic as well. There was even a friend thrown in at one point.

She soon realized that the stagnant flow of her life would eventually find a way back in. Now, she was determined to focus. No imaginary notions of air or romanticism of sparks in the Hogwarts air (most likely the result of someone using a Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes product, no doubt) would move her line of sight from her textbooks. Unless, of course, this "shift" in the air was the smell of dinner shifting to dessert.

In any other case, she had her agenda: Get in, get educated, get out.

Her own silence was her way of knowing that there were others that felt similarly. Maybe not quite the same, but similar.

Which is how she found herself saying, fuck it, and sneaking out of the Slytherin dungeons at one in the morning on a Sunday night on an impromptu visit to the library.

That one track mind was not, however, the cause of her accidentally walking into Albus Potter at one o'clock in the morning.

As she not-so gracefully fell, her eyes led up his tall frame. In the natural stillness of night, he was a formidable figure, lit only by the combined candent glow of their two wands. She imagined he would make a decent extra on a movie set, listed in the credits as "Creepy Guy Setting the Creepy Setting in a Creepy Alleyway."

"Shit, sorry!" He cursed, bending down to help her back up by instinct. "Didn't think anyone else would be out this late on a Sunday."

Isobel was silent.

In the back of her mind, she dully noted that it was now technically Monday.

"Er... I'll just leave you to it, then?" He continued, offering a small upturn of his lips, a deep rosy color in the glow of their magic.

Before she could get a word out, the harsh light of another wand joined them.

"Oi, what's this?"

Albus groaned as the two seventh year students turned to face Professor Merimac, the greying Arithmancy instructor. She stayed silent, eyeing the fading hair dye around his temples. She briefly wondered if he forgot to touch it up in the last few weeks or simply stopped caring with old age.

Albus, on the other hand, ran the hand that wasn't holding his wand through the ever-messy jet black mop on his head. "Sleep walking?" He offered, lips still upturned in what seemed to contribute to natural charisma, rather than nerves.

Merimac was not impressed, Isobel thought, looking between Albus and the professor, still struck silent by the situation.

"Detention, both of you. Every night this week," Merimac's own slight figure deadpanned at the two students, leaving no room for argument.

This time, both Albus and Isobel's eyes widened, although Albus was still the one that spoke. "The entire week?" He said evenly, trying to keep the annoyance from his tone, though Isobel could see from her close proximity how his jaw had set, defining the bones in his side profile. Ramus, she identified, eyeing the straight line setting his features into a frown. She expected Merimac hadn't noticed, the thought flicking through her mind, in and out like a light.

The professor arched one dark brow, still expressionless. The similarity in color between his rich, dark skin and his blackened brows made it almost as hard to notice the professor's expression as the grit of Albus's teeth.

"I could make it two, if that bothers you, Mr. Potter," he said in his own even tone.

"I think we're fine, Professor. We'll just be on our way to bed now, got classes in the morning," Albus replied as he grabbed his housemate's forearm and turned in the opposite direction, hasty to escape the potential additional days mopping floors or cleaning loos to their sentencing.

As they made their escape, sans dismissal, Isobel thought she heard Professor Merimac sigh and mutter something under his breath. She decided she didn't want to know what. After three years in his class, she had heard (and even learned) some quite colorful language in his classroom.

After passing through two low-lit corridors, she murmured a single syllable: "Arm."

Albus stopped his brisk brisk pace, leading her to quit walking as well. "Sorry?"

"My arm," she repeated just as quietly, her flickering brown eyes meeting his own emerald green gaze.

"Oh, sorry Iz," he remarked, letting go of her and, sensing her discomfort, decided to take a small step to the left. "So... Detention. That sucks."

"Sucks," she nodded. Iz?

"That could've gone worse though," he continued, clearly in a mood that required some sort of noise to fill the outward silence. "I think us being housemates all these years must've rubbed off on me by now. You've always seemed like you're a million miles away - not that that's a bad thing. More sensible than not, really. Then you're there and Merimac's muttering under his breath about how you can not listen to a word he says and know all the answers. Merlin knows I usually talk my own head off and I never know what's going on, especially in Arithmancy. Only there for the O.W.L., honestly. Mum would've killed me if I started off the term with two weeks of detention, not that one week won't set her off. Sorry for running into you though, literally. It'd probably just be me that got caught yammering to a portrait or something if I hadn't," he rambled.

Iz... It'd been five years since she'd heard him call her by that name, Isobel noted inwardly, trying and failing to keep up with the subject changes he went through every five seconds. She'd long ago learned that Albus Potter's reputation at Hogwarts was defined by few defining traits: his striking resemblance to his father, his friendship with Scorpius Malfoy, son of a former Death Eater (although the shock of that had dimmed over the years), and the charisma that seemed natural to him and a metaphorical type of magnet to everyone around him. In this moment, as Albus rambled on about the wheels turning in his mind, she questioned Sera McClaire's own ramblings of his way with words that Isobel had long ago learned to tune out.

Sera, while harmless, liked to have these conversations from her bed a few measly feet away from Isobel's. She now wondered if Sera McClaire had ever actually spoken to Albus Potter.

She nodded to him as he stopped speaking and ran his hand through his hair as she started walking again, her pace brisk and her strides long as the pair wound through four more corridors of silence.