He beams. "Thank you! You're a great Gryffindor, too."

"I hope so. Willow, what are you most excited about? Besides just magic in general, I guess."

"Charms! The other things are fun I guess but Charms is gonna be awesome!"

"Professor Flitwick will love you, then. A Ravenclaw who excels in Charms, I suppose the only thing left is to be into dueling."

"Oooooh is that a thing? We can duel? That sounds so cool!"

"Of course! I don't know if Hogwarts has a dueling club right now, but you can probably talk to Flitwick; he used to be a Champion." 

"Oh, is that, like, a sport?"

"Sort of, yeah. There are competitions."

"I wanna learn that!"

"Sadde, where's all that ambition you promised? If she takes dueling, we each need an activity too, right?"

"Oh I'm totally gonna take up duelling but I mean I'm also going to fix muggleborn hatred and figure paintings out and eliminate death so I'm cool not having a special activity or anything."

She blinks.

"How are you going to eliminate death? I think that one is kind of hard."

"Well first I need to learn more magic. I'll figure out the details later."

"Sounds exciting."

By now, they're well on their way. 

Alistair takes a moment to admire the scenery outside the window.

And Willow eats some cake.

"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?"