"Right, so it's what a really competent Dark Lord'd do."

"I really don't think he'd have a hard time keeping the desire to rule the world a secret if he wanted and that would be strictly less suspicious looking!"

"Okay, maybe. But at some point it'd get hard to hide."

"Eventually, yeah, but by then it matters much less if anyone is suspicious!"

"I think if I were a Dark Lord I'd care about my reputation most when I was halfway through my world takeover!"

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense."

"James, are you discussing how optimized my life has been for being secretly evil? You shouldn't discuss that with people, some of them will end up vaguely wondering if I'm secretly evil!"

"Yeah but Miranda won't."

"I probably won't."

"Are you trying to get all the continents to yourself, James? There are more than enough to go around."

"No, I'm just being accurate. If you were a Dark Lord this'll be a good strategy."

"Oh, are you on the list of people who maybe get continents too?"

"If I turn out to be any good at it!"

Giggle.

"Hey, I might."

"You might! I didn't say you couldn't!"

"What're you going to do with yours?"

"Figure out what the heck I'm doing with it. And abolish the human slave trade."

"...that sounds pretty reasonable. Considering you're a first-year and everything."

"I think so too."

And after breakfast everyone spills into a spacious ballroom to read or write or work while watching Timothy and Michael practice dueling - they both find it tremendously fun - and then Finis and Nell practice dueling - they get distracted by trying to be absurdly clever.

...Miranda is tempted into staying and watching (and taking notes on) the duels. And then she had probably better be flying home, would someone be so kind as to Disillusion her, she can't get things more than slightly washed-out looking yet.

Finis will do that!

"Thank you!" she says invisibly. "Thank you very much for having me over!"

And she flies home.

School begins again a few weeks later. Hogwarts is very thoroughly snowed in.