"Small plants are technically allowed in the dorms but I think I'm gonna rule 'no' on singing ones lest Malfoy's father show up in my dorm room for a stern talk about sabotaging his daughter's academic progress."

"I didn't even want an entire potted mustard, just a leaf, it would've wilted anyway."

"There's a potion to make cut plants last like ten times longer, or fifty if you're sure no one's going to try eating them. It used to be a second-year potion but they did a curriculum restructure recently, you might learn it this year."

"Maybe, we didn't get a syllabus in Potions."

"Of course not! All that newfangled nonsense! In fairness I do think students gain something from talking to older ones and having that be the only way to learn when you get to the cool stuff is one way to achieve it."

"Who else should I be talking to, then?"

Oooh, he bets Miranda will get along with that second-year boy and that third-year girl and possibly also that other one, if she catches her in a good mood and doesn't mind being treated as fascinatingly exotic - "she was top of her year in charms and loves talking about it, I don't know if that makes up for it -"

"I don't mind doing the fascinatingly exotic bit on occasion. M na-ekwu igbo." She writes down the names.

"Don't be polylingual around my little brother, he'll ask you to teach him and if you refuse he'll go owl-order a tutorial."

"He did ask me but I don't think you can owl-order tutorials for languages that don't have written forms."

"I suppose not. I wonder how long that will stop him."

"He wants me to invent it an alphabet."

"There's one approach to the problem."

"It will not cause the existence of an owl order tutorial though."

"Perhaps he'll go down to Igboland himself on vacation and write one."

"That would be interesting. Would he be good at that?"

"Probably? He's got my father's fascination with languages and his, uh, singlemindedness. I'm not sure an owl-order Igbo tutorial is desperately needed, but if it is, Minor's your man. Or boy."

"I don't really see it having a large audience, but if I ever do decide to invent it an alphabet I'd like the alphabet to be in good hands."

"That you'll have! My family treats language as practically sacred."

"He says you have a rule that conversations about Quidditch have to be in Latin."

"My father would probably prohibit them altogether but it's his broomstick innovations that keep the house fed and watered and elved, so Latin it is."

"He's not a fan of the game? It is sort of a silly game. I'm looking forward to flying on its own merits though."

"He thinks it is a silly game. He thinks he could design a better game but no one has adopted his better game so it makes him resentful of Quidditch."

"How's his better game work?"

"Game ends when an hourglass reaches empty, you partially refill it by scoring, you end it automatically by catching the Snitch but only get fifty points for it."