It’s only later, two bottles of cheap wine in while Crookshaw purrs between them in front of her small fireplace that Alina talks about the orphanage, about Mal, how’d ignored her and then how he’d become mean when her her letter from Durmstrang arrived. It’s impossible for Hermione not to draw parallels with Ron, how he’d made fun of her love for studying and ignored her up until he needed her, how their relationship had promptly ended as she’d felt him caging her in more and more.