"But most accidental magic isn't that obvious and most people don't do magic in front of muggles even accidentally. So it's probably not happening quite constantly, but it means you'd have to get the law changed before you could do civil disobedience or anything."

She still looks fairly ill. "I..." she looks down at her feet, then at Miranda again. Her eyes have changed colour; it's almost unnoticeable, but they are in fact somewhat darker. "I think that sounds like a great idea."

"I think so too. But we're eleven. Well, I'll be eleven in two weeks. And I haven't thought of a way to get anybody to listen to me about it yet."

"I'm listening!" she says. "I wonder if other muggleborns wouldn't think the same? At least if we talked to them?"

"Well, Renée cares that I care but she doesn't think it's a particularly huge problem."

Sadde stares for a second, before blinking a few times. "Mum's gonna think it's a particularly huge problem," she comments. "Are there any other horribly immoral things going on with our government? Do they maybe burn kittens for fun on the street?"

"I have a list," says Miranda, and she goes into her bedroom to rummage for her list.

Sadde wonders whether she should follow.

"You can come in just don't read my notebooks," Miranda says over her shoulder. Rummage rummage.

Sadde comes in, and doesn't read her notebooks. "Do people frequently try to read your notebooks when they come into your room?" she asks a bit doubtfully.

She looks increasingly upset by what she's reading, a fact that can be discerned from how she's pursing her lips and how her eyes are becoming noticeably darker. She doesn't seem to have a lot to say about that, and even when she gives the notebook back her face looks somewhat focused, as if she's looking very intently at something invisible right in front of her.

"Since we got back I've heard rumors that some people are thinking about repealing the Statute of Secrecy," Miranda says encouragingly. "...Mostly because a lot of British wizards died in the war, we have a fair amount of international clout, and nobody wants a total population crisis, so if it were easier for people to go about having half-blood children that would help. Not for good reasons. But still."

"Bad reasons are better than no reasons," she sighs. "There's been a war, recently?"

"It wasn't quite a war by Muggle standards - smaller, less organized - but there was a Dark wizard and he and his followers killed a lot of people. That's why Mum took me to Australia. But this last spring he was defeated and things are calming down."

"Last spring?!" Well. Guess magic isn't all flowers and candy, is it? "I think this is the closest I've ever been to a historical event."

"The last battle was actually at Hogwarts. All the students in years ahead of us were probably there."

"There's only really a homeschooling option if you have magic parents, but you could apply to an overseas school. I almost went to the Owly, which covers Australia. Beauxbatons is more likely than the Owly to take a British student who's never lived there, but you'd have to learn French."

She grimaces. "No, I don't think so, we don't really have the money to move." She sighs. "Well, I hope no Dark Wixen decide to terrorise the place while we're working on tidying it up."

"They're not that common. Last time was about fifty years ago and it was the same guy, he just spent the intervening time mostly dead."

"Mostly dead? How can someone be mostly dead?" Beat. "Well, I guess 'magic,' but I mean, uh." What does she mean? "I guess I'm just confused about what that means."

"I don't really know the details, I wasn't there."

She giggles, the first positive expression of emotion since the whole 'our government is a dystopia' revelation. "Fair." Her eyes are marginally lighter, again.

"Your eye color keeps changing. I thought it was the light but it's just changed while you didn't move."