2:30pm

The day unwound as it always did, though Tapendra was still getting himself onto the new routine somewhat. Last year Astronomy had only taken place at night - a nightmare to a teacher like himself that wanted to teach complex theory alongside charting and basic concepts. Geometry was all fine and good, but it barely kept the students awake at the best of times. Asking them to sit through a lecture on it at 12:30am was hopeless.

It had been a pleasant surprise to find his whining requests had been listened to and Astronomy had been split into a lecture portion and a practical portion. It worked fine for him, even if it did mean he no longer had the entire day to himself. These lecture classes had utterly eliminated his 3pm allotted faffing about period.

At least the first years this year seemed to be picking things up quickly, much to his pleasure. Those of last year had struggled to cope with the wild swings in curriculum, not that he could blame them. The previous professor had turned up drunk more often than not; to follow that up with talk of magnetism and gravity wells was about a jarring a shift as one he could have.

Ostrander was one of the new ones who was particularly enthusiastic about the new concepts. She was muggleborn, which came as no surprise - Astronomy seemed to have become the one course where the muggleborn students started out ahead of their wizarding counterparts. Unlike in the wizarding children, for muggleborns many of the basic concepts were already instilled into them by cultural osmosis and a good primary school education.

She'd also taken to staying after class to ask him about various topics, something he was all too happy to oblige. So it was rather noticeable when she rather suddenly stopped doing that, without any indication as to why. She hadn't seemed upset or confused the last time they'd spoken, and she paid as much attention in class as ever.

"Miss Ostrander?" He called, as the distant sound of the school bells echoed up the tall tower towards them.  The other students from the class filed away down the spiral stairs towards their various house commons, and Tapendra paused by the giant display globe in the center of the room. It still displayed a cutaway diagram of the Earth, which spun slowly as he stood there, leaned up against it. The globe was large enough that even his 6'8 height left his shoulders just about even with the top.

Once the din of retreating students had died down somewhat, he raised his eyebrows slightly at Violet. "Is everything quite alright, Miss Ostrander? You've been rather quiet lately."

The lecture Astronomy period passed as pleasantly as they usually did, barring lingering irritation about the day's earlier trials, not to mention trials yet anticipated.  Even if Violet had learned almost all of the material they covered years ago, it still reminded her of being at home in the sane world, wrapped comfortingly in testable theories and logically consistent frameworks.  There was enough depth to Astronomy that, with the books of her own she'd brought to Hogwarts, she could just read further in to whatever sub-topic they happened to be covering without feeling like she was ignoring Professor Trishna, who she respected.

The Ravenclaw let other students raise their hands to get House points.  Aside from the fact that she didn't care, if points were to have any value at all as an educational tool for other students, for her to receive them based on things she'd learned before even enrolling seemed both unfair and counter-productive.

As the bells tolled the end of class and everyone began to pack away their materials and head back downstairs, the Professor got her attention, calling her name in the neutral-but-expectant tone of voice all the Hogwarts Professors seemed to use instinctively when they wanted someone to stay after class.  Several classmates clearly made note of this, a few seeming pleased, others looking puzzled.

Violet herself seemed apprehensive, as she'd already experienced one such request earlier that morning, resulting in a still-unexplained detention.  Waiting, the copper-haired girl caught brief snatches of speculation as the students left: "...want with her...she do something?...maybe...two detentions, ha!..."  She racked her brain for something she could've done wrong, but this was one of the few classes she wasn't having any trouble in at all, theory or practice, because it never really involved active magic, aside from avoiding freezing to death, and it had never been necessary for her to correct this Professor on details of simple fact.

"Is everything quite alright, Miss Ostrander? You've been rather quiet lately."

Some of her tension left at his question, which held nothing but curiosity and concern (in stark contrast to Professor Storm's typical mixture of disappointment, disapproval and disdain).  Though she was still not sure what he meant.  Even if she didn't answer questions in class, it had to be clear to him from her exam marks that she knew the material backwards and forwards, not to mention the much more in-depth conversations they'd had before she'd decided to...

Oh.

"I...yes, I'm f-...well, technically no, I have a detention tonight for no reason that I'm aware of, but that's not a causative factor if you're talking about me not staying for conversation as often, since I just found out about the detention this morning."  She wasn't sure how to explain her decision to him...this was one of those social situations she dreaded, and could never quite navigate confidently.  She knew she shouldn't care what the other students thought of her, but if a little sacrifice could reduce external distractions from peer status rituals, it seemed worth it.  But...could she have actually made the Professor feel bad?  She didn't think adults thought of children's opinions in the way that would imply...

"Is...that what you meant?" the young Ravenclaw asked, once again uncertain.

Tapendra raised an eyebrow at her reply, which seemed both upset and confused. Ostrander had been quite quiet in his classes - though he'd made a mental note to start calling on her for answers, as it was best to keep students on their toes somewhat. Still, she didn't seem the detention type; sitting quietly in class and handing in homework on time was the definition of well behaved by most standards.

She hadn't really answered his question, though, and so he shook his head just a bit. Detentions for Ravenclaws did concern him...both for reasons of house pride and, well, he expected the best from the little clever clogs. Them getting detentions for no reason was, well, worrying.

"No reason you're aware of? The professor didn't tell you what you'd done?" He asked, slightly dubious. He couldn't think of a professor that would do that - other than perhaps Morgan, who didn't seem likely to give out detentions at all. Morgan seemed the sort to expect the students to know what they'd done wrong without having to have it explained. He couldn't really fault the man for that, but -

His brows knit together as he considered. "Which professor was this?"

"Professor Storm.  In Defence Against the Dark Arts this morning, Gwenna was whispering to someone about something I didn't quite catch, but he apparently overheard and gave her a detention tonight.  He turned back to the class, but then he looked at me and said," - Violet lowered her pitch and mimicked the Professor's accent and intonation as best as she could - "'Come to think of it, you are overdue for a detention yourself, Miss Ostrander, I will expect you tonight as well.'  I was...well, I was kind of too...surprised to ask, and he hasn't historically been very keen on being questioned about discipline anyway."  The girl frowned, as if unsatisfied that school policies did not live up to her personal standards of jurisprudence.  And more than mere surprise, she'd been outraged, but she'd buried it against the danger of an outburst which would only make things worse.