"I wish Muggles could annoy me with demands! I can't even go find Muggles who look like they have demands and offer them stuff, it's terrible!"

"I know, right? I want to build a big visible tower crackling with magic in the middle of London so everyone who wants to bother someone with demands can come there and get their demands handled!"

Miranda giggles. "A tower? I guess it would look very cool. I was thinking an office."

"I can have an office in a tower."

"All right, you win, magic tower."

"It'll be spectacular." And he goes off to break up a fight between two second-year girls who've been at each others' throats over a mutual cousin who is a Squib.

Worthy endeavor. Poor Squib.

Both of the second-years agree with her on that; what they disagree on is whether the one girl is actually related to the Squib at all, or whether the Squib's mother must have been disloyal and the Squib therefore no reflection whatsoever on her father's family.

Sigh.

Yeah.

Gryffindor has Quidditch tryouts. He was on the team last year and he'll make the team again this year; it's the only thing he's good at, but luckily it's also the only thing anyone cares about. 

(Both of those are slight exaggerations. He's ridiculously good at Care of Magical Creatures, has an intuition for it the way Timothy has an intuition for people or Michael for music or Aaron for certain kinds of systems or Minor for languages and invention and Father's particular turns of mind. Of all the things to get a talent in, Care of Magical Creatures. But it's infinitely better than nothing and he gets a rush of gratitude whenever he thinks about it.

And Quidditch is not the only thing anyone thinks about; it is the only thing Gryffindors think about, and he is inconveniently a Gryffindor to the core, but he's vaguely aware there are other houses with other people who think about other things. Probably similarly stupid things.)

Fredrick's trying out, too, but they don't talk to each other. It's not really because their fathers don't talk to each other - Theodore loves his family but he doesn't listen to them, and if his father ever actually told him not to talk to Fredrick Theodore'd probably march over to him that very minute - but it probably is because they have the same last name, and are sort of cousins no matter how much his father denies it, and so they can't just hit it off however they might have done.

For instance, Fredrick had not told him he was going out for the House team. And so now here they are waiting in line for tryouts, awkwardly not looking at each other.

"Way," he says.

"Way," he says.

They're staring at each other awkwardly; he's disinclined to change that. He'll get distracted and not fly as well. 

His father asks occasionally how his nephews are doing, and since Finis won't talk to them he is on that subject his father's only information source, and he takes the responsibility very seriously. Theodore, he wrote most recently, is smart but self-sabotaging, the top of Magical Creatures and Herbology and the worst at everything else. He never does the reading and his essays are atrocious (Fredrick's seen the grades) but his in-class work is excellent wherever that doesn't set him too far behind.

Minor is brilliant and energetic and fascinated by everything and has been carrying most of the Ravenclaw first years along in his wake. Everyone who taught his father comments on the semblance and Minor seems to burst with pride when they do.

Aaron seems slightly unhappy to be displaced from the role of Ravenclaw's young prodigy but he's been helping with the patient slightly-condescending manner of an older brother whenever Minor wants an experiment which is a little beyond his reach.

Michael attracts crowds when he sings, these days. Fredrick doesn't go because if he went to Slytherin Quidditch practices, inexplicably Michael's preferred location, it'd look like he was spying. Also he'd be tempted to actually spy.

Timothy is adored by all, and it's not hard to see why; he is funny and generous and remembers not only your birthday and what you've been wanting for it but also when you have a difficult test and when something will interest you and who you'll want to meet. Timothy's been growing out his hair and it's probably going to become a new style. Timothy gave him a hug in the hallway the other day and mentioned that Fredrick'd mastered Summoning Charms faster than he himself had and Fredrick had gone around all day feeling vaguely like he was on fire but he doesn't think his cousin subtly hexed him, that'd be - not his style. 

He makes the team. Fredrick narrowly misses it. He doesn't act exceptionally smug about it but it's the only thing he's good at and he's allowed to take some pride.

He is pretty sure he'll be on the team next year, which is pretty good. It's unusual to make it as young as they are. Theodore's doing the thing again where he's bracing himself to be attacked even though everyone's congratulating him. Finis's children are all ridiculous, he concludes the letter to his father, after adding in the tryout outcomes and various endearments. Thaddeus is doing fine, very happy, I'm sure he writes more often than I do anyway, give Mum and Abigail and Edd my regards. 

He doesn't write home, because why the fuck would he do that. Timothy'll tell their parents he made the team.

Timothy does that. Timothy runs into Fredrick in the hallways again and tells him he flew well and Fredrick gives him something of a puppy-dog look and he makes a mental note to tone it down. 

And the Ravenclaws continue mapping Hogwarts!

Miranda's mostly lost interest - she just can't get that excited about anything that involves so much climbing stairs - but Karen's still on board! She is systematically quizzing portraits about how their corridors work and looking around certain inconsistently-behaved corners with her shiny silver Potions knife for lack of a portable mirror.

She's good at it! They're actually getting somewhere, too. Parts of the castle are mappable with an ordinary map; parts are mappable with beads and string; there are three or four places that just don't seem to follow any rules at all. 

And they're annoyingly mostly populated by uncooperative portraits and statues that don't talk, so there's no way to clarify if they just behave certain ways during certain moon phases or years divisible by five or something inconvenient to check empirically like that.

Still, they've done pretty well for themselves. They get to all their classes on time. He suggests to Miranda that she try to get special permission to use a broomstick indoors due to being bad at walking.

"I'm not sure I want the kind of attention I'd get for doing that."

"Yeah, fair."

"It would be fun if it weren't for that, but I'm not that bad at walking. Quite."

"I'm still surprised there's not a spell for that."