William had rather thought that an owl such as the one he'd sent would have meant that even the minimal interaction he'd had with Gabe, with Nate serving as their appointed procurator, would have come to a complete and abrupt end. He'd expected and steeled himself for it, written the owl (after a number of drafts) with firm, black-inked intent. He'd half-anticipated (resigned himself, a traitorous part of his brain clarified) never seeing Gabe in the library again.
Gabe being Gabe, of course, he never ceased to surprise.
"I didn't," William began, although his letter had borne a striking resemblance (one which he chose not to examine closely) to a similar letter he'd written back in fifth-year to end an unsatisfactory relationship. He would never call Gabe unsatisfactory, of course, but that was also beside the point. "I wasn't..." he tried instead, and then gave up and shifted tactics.
Folding his hands in front of his on the desk and utterly lacking composure, he resorted to grasping after phrases from one of his earlier discarded drafts. "I value your insights, I just didn't wish to impose on your professionalism any further when it was unnecessary." Saying 'your assistance is no longer required' seemed just as much of a slap in the face as it had the first time he'd tested it out on parchment, so he left it at that.
His eyes flicked down to the book in Gabe's hands out of habit, and up again to his face. Having Gabe here - leaning on his desk, addressing him directly after a month of careful, polite, mutual distance - was making something in William's chest tighten. He half-feared he was going to stutter if he spoke again, but managed to say clearly enough, "If you have more information you think would be useful, however, I would be grateful for the knowledge."