"I heard that it was because muggles would kill us all, or to protect them from us, or protect our culture, or protect our economy..."

"Why don't you find those compelling?"

"Muggles aren't violent and we don't kill each other, a prepared magical person wouldn't be in danger. We are basically muggles in psychology, we won't attack them. I don't care about cultures and ours is too old and slow anyway. I don't even know what it means to protect our economy and the person I was talking to didn't know either."

"I wouldn't discount the idea that the muggles could choose to fight or attack us if they knew we existed. People do awful things when they're scared and magic is pretty scary if you feel like you can't protect yourself. Even if you don't care about preserving cultures there are people who care deeply and will fight to keep their culture intact. Reading between the lines that was part of the reason for the last war."

"There are six billion of them, it makes no sense to talk about them like they're just one thing."

"I'm sorry for not being more precise. I meant some groups of muggles, including maybe some governments." Sarah feels that Dayo's objection is uncharitable.

"I think that's also making a lot of complicated things into a single thing," she says, oblivious to those feelings. "Like... yeah there will be horrible groups but there was Voldemort, that's not a muggle thing it's a human thing, it wouldn't get worse because muggles know about us."

"I didn't mean to claim that muggles are psychologically different from magical people. The history books I've read make it sound like magical people are pretty much the same. I'm not sure why you think that changing a major part of how people think the world works won't create new groups of scared desperate people. Maybe if you did things really carefully."

"It's not that I don't think that, it's that this already happened here, that was what Voldemort was, and that enough good things can happen if we go public that in the end it's still good."

"This wouldn't just be one country though, this would be all over the world. It's potentially a lot bigger than the Voldemort war."

"I guess," she says dubiously. "But that would mean a lot of people everywhere would need to want to hurt wizards in a way wizards can't help with, like, hiding charms and wards and teleporting."

"I don't think it would be good if all the wizards and witches had to stay in warded areas all the time. That wouldn't protect muggle-borns for one thing."

"But we already are in warded areas pretty much all the time. The school, and houses, and the Ministry, for example."

"The Hogwarts Express leaves from Kings Cross. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other places used by both sorts of people. I also don't know if wizards sometimes buy food and such from muggle stores."

"...yeah, good point."

"There being issues doesn't mean it's a bad idea. It just means that there are challenges besides people disagreeing with you."

Nod.

"I think most really important things are complicated. Sometimes that's just because people disagree but not always."

"Yeah," she sighs.

And then it's time for class!

She'll make her way to her next class.

Dayo goes to Herbology with the Hufflepuffs.

And Sarah has Transfiguration with the Gryffindors.

She'll try to find a seat in the first couple rows again.

Not very many other Gryffindors do as they fill the classroom that's empty except for a tabby cat sitting on the Professor's table with strangely intelligent eyes. Sarah ends up sitting with Mandy, who waves at her when she arrives.

"Hi Mandy. I think I read that some people can turn into animals using advanced transfiguration. Do you think that might be Professor Mcgonagall?"