But eventually she's done, and hands them to the girl. "Sorry for the delay, dear, it's your turn."

"It's fine," he says, getting up and moving where indicated.

She busies herself with telling magic tape measures to measure him.

Sadde looks up at him. She had not been crying. Just really—angry. "How—casual are they about it?"

"I'm not sure how to answer that," says Anthony. "They don't want muggles to know about magic?"

"Why?"

"– Okay so you don't know about the statute of secrecy? It's part of why you can't do magic outside of school."

"I know it's a thing. I don't know why it's a thing."

"There is… a lot of history involved? It's been around since the late sixteen hundreds, started in response to– witch trials?"

"...were witch trials, like. Actually. Dangerous. To magic people?"

"If someone doesn't have their wand and they get tied up and lit on fire? Uh. Yeah?"

"Why wouldn't they have their wand?"

"Because if muggles find out that pointy sticks are used by magic people then they will probably try to snap pointy sticks and also kidnap people in the night while they're sleeping," he responds. "Which was three hundred years ago so I'm not sure the statute has much of a place anymore but I'm pretty sure it did."

"Why would muggles even do that, though. Why weren't magical people, like. Fixing people. Curing diseases. Solving old age."

"… I am not actually from that time in history? So I have no idea. But it's not immediately obvious the statute was totally groundless, some of the reasons made sense, they just weren't really strong enough."

She sighs. "I'm sorry. I know it's not your fault."

"– My mum campaigns against it, does research into things we could do without it, other solutions to the problem, things like that."

"—I like her."

"Me too," he agrees. "I think it's a good cause."

"Does she want help with that?"

"Uh, possibly? But it's like half a week until we go, isn't it?"

"Well yeah. But like, I'm a muggleborn. That could help, maybe. Or from within Hogwarts! We could start a generation of people who think that, really, muggles aren't all that different from us!"

"… In terms of, like, value as people, right?"

"Yeah, what else?"

"I just mean, you're probably going to get people saying 'but they don't have magic'. I think that's most of what they focus on."

"Y'all don't have spaceships and you don't see me rubbing this in your faces."