If her parents could see her, they would definitely be proud of how much better Althea was getting at socializing with others. It was hard to deal with people who didn't understand her or her thought process, so she was grateful that Noelle had seemed to be taking to her well. She hoped that was the case, anyway.

"Oh, okay, well that makes sense that. You seem comfortable with Amias, at least. Which is incredible," mostly because Amias was behaving (she suspected it was a vanity sort of thing for him.) "He's not my pet," she laughed and shook her head, curls flying around. As if Amias would ever stand to be called that. "He's...hmm." There wasn't a simple way to explain him; and it wasn't like Althea wanted to lie, so she opted for some truth. "I guess you could say he's my familiar, of sorts."

Oh. Oh. "Why? Afraid that I might find something I don't like?" She raised a brow and glanced over towards Noelle. It never occurred to her that there were Gryffindors who didn't like being the center of attention. "Well, I will say that you are absolutely brilliant at staying still. So that's a plus," a smile crept onto her lips. "And you can't be all bad; Amias looks like he's enamored with you." Althea shot the scarab a pointed look before taking a step back from the easel. With her head tilted to the side, the painting looked about halfway done. She tilted her head again, on the opposite side, and from that perspective it looked less than halfway finished. She'd figure something out eventually.

Althea caught the smile--and even more importantly, she'd seen the blush. Noelle seemed like the sort of girl who was unable to mask her expressions well. "Yeah, it's much bigger and stronger. You'd need something really powerful to break it." Her smile had remained on her face momentarily, but it fell once Noelle started giggling. "What's so funny?" Her brows furrowed and she placed her hands on her hips, watching Noelle carefully. "We should take a break, I'm really hungry, and you must be hungry too because you're giggling like mad." And, as an afterthought, she added: "Not that I mind it at all, it suits you, actually."