Tig's grip slackened as she processed his unexpected reaction. Was he injured? Had something gone wrong after all? What other explanation could there be for the way he was behaving? For some reason it wasn't smugness that she felt at this, it was something else altogether. He had said 'nothing', hadn't he? What was he implying, that he wasn't even an animagus, had he failed that spectacularly? How had he let it happen? Tig had felt magically inferior to him from day one, he was older and more experienced and he'd only reasserted this by occasionally teaching her things she hadn't known before; that he could fail at something that now seemed simple to her, contradicted her ideal of him. If he was weak and fallible, then what did that make her?

She didn't resist him when he shoved her away from him, only stared at him impassively. If she'd been smirking before she wasn't now. "I do wish you hadn't said that, it makes you seem pathetic as well as a failure. Believe me when I say I'm too disappointed to take any pleasure in it." Surprisingly she wasn't trying to be spiteful, Tig was genuinely disappointed in him, to taunt or tease him would only destroy what respect she might still have for him. "If you'll excuse me, I want a hot bath." She started off hastily for her own bedroom, now intent on being the first to leave.

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