"Do you have any projects you're planning on tackling?"

"I'm a Gryffindor, I just want to make friends and do well and save the world. Planning doesn't come into it."

"Save the world from what?"

"Bad Slytherins? Muggles from wizards, wizards from Muggles? I don't know, I'll know it when I see it." 

"Well, when you see it, tell me, I wanna save the world, too."

"Maybe I should do something about Dementors..."

"Dementors being?"

"They were the guards of the prison, until He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named promised them more victims. They feed off sadness and pain, they make people relieve their worst memory, and if they get close enough, they can take your soul." 

"...what? Souls are real? And there are monsters that eat them?"

"Who's 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'?"

"The Dark Lord who took over the Ministry, the one who started the wars. Voldemort- I guess it's safe to say his name now."

"It wasn't safe to say his name before?"

"A long time ago, it was just fear, I think, but since he came back to power, and replaced all of the disloyal Ministry workers, he instituted magic that could tell when someone said his name."

"Come again?"

"Voldemort took over the government? He used magic to track down people who said his name?"

"The government can keep track of stuff we say?"

"I don't know if they still can...the Trace can tell when you use magic outside of school, I think that's what he used." 

He makes an incoherent noise of frustration.

She pats his shoulder sympathetically.

Alistair will look vaguely sympathetic, and unambiguously confused. 

"I do not," he explains, "like the idea that the government can keep track of everything I say if they want to."

"Oh. It's not like he had anyone listening to people, just a spell that would know who said his name...and I don't think anyone would still be using it, but anyone could. You could do that to me."

"I could? How?"

"I don't know the spell. I just mean, it's not just the government that could do something like that, they just already had the Trace set up."

"Hhhgg."