It was in between classes when the door opened again. Unlike most arrivals, it wasn't preceded by the loud slap of footsteps on the stone stairs just outside; no, the steps here came only when the door opened. It caught Tapendra off guard, and he stumbled, dropping several of the books he was holding. Balanced on the end of one of the alcove couches, he was standing on tiptoe, slipping books back into the high recessed bookshelves that lined the walls. The books that fell from under his arm were large, hard backed and leather bound. The noise of them made him cringe as it echoed in the stone tower.

"Ugh," he said, under his breath, supposing he should be thankful they hadn't landed on his head or his feet. A quiet itch in the back of his mind made him cautious, however - even Sasha, as unobtrusive as the boy tried to be, he was rarely that quiet. He stepped off the couch, quite aware of where his wand was. After the incident earlier that month, he kept it close at hand...

Of course, the familiar mess of blonde hair identified the culprit swiftly enough, as the girl came up the stairs to the floor level. "Almasy," he said, tone a mixture of surprise and relief. "Is something the matter?" He asked, as he picked the books up.

Her feet were freezing.

They had probably been freezing for quite some time now but Raine did not think of such things during the visit with Aunt Ira. It had been such a distracting nonevent, fraught with subtle kindliness and few revelations. That business with hunting werewolves... no. It only reminded her of Zel.

The Gryffindor pushed open the door into the Tower classroom and Maurice went tottering in ahead of her; he had not gotten far when the books fell. The loud noises caused both witch and cat to jump in surprise. Raine popped her head into the room properly, glancing up at the Astronomy professor with a guilty look, and then entered.

"Sorry, professor~" she apologized in a surprisingly cheerful voice. Mixed feelings aside, the meeting downstairs had left her spirits in better condition. "Nothing is the matter. Didn't mean to trouble you, I've just come to fetch my shoes."

Merlin knew how she managed to forget them!

"Why don't you just use magic? For the books, I mean." Raine asked as she moved away from the shelves towards the desks, where Maurice had already gone. "Doing it by hand looks awfully tri-- ah, found them." Quick as a cat, she ducked underneath a desk and brought out a pair of patent black shoes.

Raine leaned against the desk while she put them on. "Can't imagine how Aunt Ira didn't notice I wasn't wearing any."

---

Almasy was  a relaxing sight, and he waved off her apology casually. "No worries, Almasy," he said, looking at the pile of books, nudging one closed with his foot.  He took to picking them up as Raine spoke. His idle train of thought detected a bump, and he carried on, quietly curious as to what Almasy said that had caught his notice. His subconscious whirred away as he looked at the book titles.

"I could, I suppose," he conceded, with a half-hearted shrug. Habits died hard, and there was still something satisfying about re-shelving his books by hand. Maybe it was the hearty thunk of the massive tomes settling onto the wooden shelves; or maybe it was the way the simple task took him hours, as he uncovered an old book he'd forgotten and took time to flip through it. Most definitely the latter. 

"Rather prefer this. It's relaxing. Lets me realize how many of the buggers I've got." Raised upper body strength too. Amazing things, books.

"Family visit?" He'd asked in a casual way, and as the words left him his subconscious recognized a name, one that slotted into place and made him pause, hand halfway to a book, before he grabbed it rather too quickly. Oh, he knew Ira Almasy, alright; it was her name that had sent him into a bit of a scurry to attend that murderous opera. He'd been hoping she'd forgotten about him; no such luck, of course.

It took a nearly literal bite of his tongue to stop himself from quipping something. He remembered the woman keenly, could see her in Raine now that he looked at her. And he was sure Ira would have noticed Raine's lack of shoes. The woman rather resembled a shark; her sharp eyes turned up in his dreams quite a bit. He settled for, "People've stopped commenting at me about it. Perhaps it's catching on," as he shoved a book back onto the shelf with rather more force than was necessary.

"What was your aunt here for?" He asked instead - his mind elsewhere, the thought of Arthur Lemon evaded him. Someone like Ira in the castle wasn't good news for anyone.

If there was any irregularity in the wizard's mannerisms, she hardly noticed.

Her head still spun with the dizzying drizzle of information that had come into being over the last few days- something she hadn't yet discussed with their Astronomy professor, and all for the better. It was easier to make up her mind without having to contend with other people's ideas of how she ought to be feeling.

Speaking to Aunt Ira seemed to settle her, somehow.

"Sort of family." Raine replied and finally glanced up, having snugly slipped on the shoes. "My toes are frozen, I don't know how you do it," she commented before pulling herself up onto the desk's edge. "And I've got stockings on at least."

Fleetingly, the Gryffindor wandered if Gigi shared the trait with her brother, though it seemed unnatural to think of her classmate as preferring anything over six inch heels that could pierce a man's chest. A book slammed forcefully into place and snapped her away from the idea.

"Oh, you know-" she shrugged, leaning back on her hands and looking up at Trishna. "- they had to send someone after the article. Aunt Ira isn't terribly emotional but she's um..." Raine hesitated. "Well, she's calm I suppose." That sounded right: calm like a glacial lake, and just as cold sometimes.

But in a good way. It occurred to her now how difficult it would be to describe the older witch.

"At any rate, she came to ask if I wanted to go home with her." Raine sighed almost wistfully at this. "Or to Russia, or something. I don't know. I was tempted."

The article. He caught a surprised remark before he could utter it - he'd completely forgotten, in his surprise about Ira. Though there was definitely an element of disbelief in the sound he made in his throat.  What state was her family in that they sent Ira Almasy to reassure her? Even if she was...sort of family...she was bloody Ira Almasy.

Calm certainly described every encounter he'd had with Ira, all right. But that wouldn't be the word he'd use. Frosty, maybe. Predatory. Confident. Mostly he remembered feeling like a bleeding fish being watched by a shark. She'd been a woman who was cold and factual, terrifying without doing anything to outright threaten or scare him. She'd been memorable, that was for sure.

He put the books down on the shelf, turning to look at Raine a bit more fully. There were a lot of things he wanted to say, but dared not - it was literally biting on his tongue that stopped an immediate and obvious objection. That the girl would go anywhere with Ira Almasy - much less Russia - was downright terrifying.

"Have you visited her before?" He asked instead, the calm and somewhat jovial tone entirely forced. "I've heard things are...different, in Russia."

Professor Trishna, she thought, was quite distracted over the books. Raine did not enjoy the idea of taking her elder away from his work and was thinking of ways to politely extract herself when he put away the tomes to afford their conversation a little more attention.

He was first person she'd told about Aunt Ira's offer, it wasn't expected news. Gracie and Alex would have to know as well, eventually, if anything came out of it. Sasha too.

"When I was a child-" the Gryffindor shrugged at the statement, though something about his tone rang untrue. It was difficult to place what exactly. "- and then after my sister died. It's a pretty place outside of Moscow. But a little strange and..." she trailed off, uncertain, before lamely finishing: "And my Russian is quite rusty."

Nowhere near fluent enough to get by alone in Moscow, where the accents were quicker. Not that she would be alone.

"I'm not going." Raine slid her hands on to her lap, then turned them palms up to consider the lines idly. "Not yet. I want to finish my exams this year-" a creased formed on her brow, though she didn't look up at the professor. "- and to spend time with everyone. The thing is, I don't think I'm coming back to school after the summer."