(I'm sorry about the rambling; being sick seems to make be very rambly.)

Thoughts of the homicidal tendencies that curiosity had towards cats crept up, utterly unbidden, ans she had to push them down forcibly; not entirely an unsuccessful venture, though she found that she was quite unable to shove down the sentiment that accompanied it. Every passing moment confirmed her suspicions, that this whole notion of following Montague to the Hog's Head had been nothing but an idiotic idea. An extremely idiotic idea, at that, for not only was she thoroughly out of place here, utterly at a loss as to what to do next, how to proceed about the simplistic task of ordering herself a drink (which was rather embarrassing in itself), she was also in fairly clear view of Montague, who was, for all his many, many flaws, not an unobservant individual. Though, after all, her hood was up and that was not exactly an uncommon thing to do in a place like this. She was not, at the best of times, the most noticeable person in the room, was she? Years of fading out of conversations and being the face that was vaguely familiar was enough to grant one that sort of anonymity. But perhaps she had been overconfident about that, a little too impulsive.

A wave of uncertainty washed over her, strengthening the growing feeling of unease; but leaving, of course, was not an option. Not merely because that would raise various sorts of eyebrows and would be thoroughly embarrassing, but also because that would be certain to attract his attention, as his eyes did keep darting towards the door in anticipation, perhaps, for whoever he was going to meet.

That, and she was, despite her apprehension and conviction that this could lead to no good whatsoever, curious. Yet, curiosity was probably not the most appropriate of terms for it, for it was much deeper than a mere inquisitiveness. This wasn't anything like a question she ached to ask in class, but never found the nerve to do it, opting, more often than not, to go and look up a book, conduct her own research, rather than raise her voice and demand an answer. Because in Alannah's experience, at least, answers were rarely, if ever, just handed over on a platter to lick up. There was something infinitely interesting about Montague in the Hog's Head, about the way his eyes moved continuously to the door, about how... well, nervous he seemed to be under that ever so calm exterior that proposed a question that she needed an answer to. On some level, she was aware of how very stupid this situation was, following Montague around in the hopes that he may have something to contribute to the little game of connect-the-dots she was playing these days, with scraps of information and bits of knowledge, all of which fit in somehow; though how, of course, was the question. A very good question, the potential of which being answered was rather nil, especially since the last person who would ever offer her an answer was Montague.

Which, of course, was a long term worry, one that had a lot of 'if's before it presenting very effective obstructions. She would be much better suited focusing her energies on the more immediate need of ordering a drink. Was she to go to the bar, or ... raise a hand and summon the bartender or something of that nature? Why had she not paid more attention to Braeden when he'd been ordering? Well, she knew why; but really, this was preposterous, being stumped by something so logistical, so trivial; and either way, she was in danger of attracting attention. Drawing in a deep breath, Alannah looked up, preparing to raise herhair and proceed with the... summoning, in question, feeling so utterly out of place that it was ridiculous. It made her feel unpleasantly conspicuous, for it was evident that while it was one thing to blend in with the shadows and fade away in a school like Hogwarts, it was quite another to do so here. For at Hogwarts, the extremes were so polar that it was exceptionally simple to be average, to fall right in the middle and become the self-proclaimed embodiment of mediocrity, neither here nor there. There were no polar extremes in the Hog's Head. There was no balancing middle, as such that, she could become. In fact, a more extreme and conspicuous person from Hogwarts would have blended right in here.

Hopefully, that was just her nervousness talking. Regardless, attempts had to be made to amend this noticeability, the first of which would be to order some sort of a drink. An Ogden's. That didn't sound too ridiculous, did it? Well, she'd find out. But looking up towards the bar, Alannah found herself somewhat baffled once more, for it appeared to be lacking a barmaid.

...providence? Alannah blinked, feeling a little thrown off by this development, though not in entirely a bad way. Before it could register and she could celebrate the postponement of the rather distressing task at hand, however, it occured to her that perhaps the reason why the bar was lacking a barmaid, so to speak, was that the latter had departed from the former and was now heading towards Alannah. Which was considerably more unsettling. Providence indeed. Trying with no success whatsoever to look as though she knew exactly what she was doing, the Slytherin regarded the woman with a questioning gaze. Well, one had to pretend that one was confident, at least, even if in reality one was suppressing an urge to run out of the door. Because despite her internal conflict, or whatever the heck one could call the strange mixture of unpleasant sensations at the pit of her stomach, she was not here for no reason. There was indeed such a point that one came to when one could no longer sit back and do nothing; and Alannah felt very strongly that she had long since past that point. Obstructions, however, did insist on presenting themselves, in the form of nervousness and cheeky-looking barmaids.

"You are not of age, are you?"

"I - well," said Alannah, pausing, and trying not to go red, "d- does it matter?" It came out shaky and utterly wrong, sounding a thousand times more mortifying once it had been said. "I mean," she amended, quickly, losing all hopes of remaining monochromatic, as such, although she did try, to her credit, to sound as staunch and convincing as she possibly could, "I'm not." Never mind that she failed quite miserably. So much for sounding convincing, really. But she was distracted from the way that her words appeared to be turning on her with just the sort of intent that curiosity did on the cat by the acute consciousness of that this was not particularly standard behaviour on the part of the barmaid. Precisely the sort of thing, in fact, that would attract attention from people, should they turn around to glance once more at the door, or perhaps merely in search of the barmaid who was not really where she ought to have been. A brief glance towards the bar was enough to confirm this, for the narrow look that Montague was giving her was unmistakeable. "Really, I'm just... waiting," she partly invented, looking back at the barmaid. This, she reflected, her hands going colder than the frigid weather warranted, was probably what the cat felt like a few minutes before its untimely, tragic demise.