You're curled into the corner of one of the leather couches, a textbook open in your lap that you stopped reading an hour ago. Your phone is face-down on the cushion beside you. Dark screen. No notifications. Nothing.

The portrait door scrapes open.

Theodore Nott walks in like he owns the silence. His hair is messier than usual, dark strands falling across his forehead, and his tie is loose — undone almost completely, hanging crooked around his neck. His shirt is untucked from his trousers on one side, wrinkled, like he slept in it. Or didn't sleep at all. His steps are slow, unhurried, as he crosses the common room and drops his bag onto the floor beside the armchair across from you.

There's a faint smear of something near his collar. Dark against the white fabric. Lipstick, maybe. Or just a shadow in the low light. He doesn't seem to notice it.