"Well there's something going on that's making electrons misbehave, right?"

"They can't be generically misbehaving or they'd do more things. And affect lightning."

"Hmm, yeah, so they're like, misbehaving in specific ways." Pause. "I'm not sure if this is evidence for or against the thaumo-particles hypothesis."

"No idea."

"It's also pretty annoying that particle accelerators run on electricity so it's not like it's easy to test anything either way..."

"Yeah, I don't think you can do a steampunk version."

"You will have to work on that yourself."

He thinks about that then shrugs and shakes his head. "I think that's probably lower on my priority list than becoming an animagus."

"Sounds about right."

"If I find any Ravenclaws that look like they'd have grown up to be particle physicists if they were muggles I'll tell them about it."

"What do counterfactual particle physicists look like?"

"I dunno! Maybe they ask these kinds of questions but then go ahead and try to answer them. Maybe it's the people who invent spells."

"So, people advanced in Runes and Arithmancy."

"Yeah, possibly, though maybe there's a way to tell before they can actually take those electives."

"I'm planning on both but I don't think I'd be a particle physicist."

"Really? I was planning on Divination and something else that's definitely not gonna be Magical Creatures."

"Divination is usually considered a soft subject. I'm not sure if it'll live up to your expectations."

"Hmm... maybe I'd better just study it by myself, then. It's just, you know, knowing the future is an instant-victory condition, it sounds very useful to be able to do it."

"Which is how you can tell that nobody's very good at it."

"Nobody's very good at most things, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Weren't we just discussing how to kill unkillable monsters?"

"Yes, but I think more people have been trying for divination."

"More people have been succeeding too, though, even if sporadically. Prophecies are a thing. Although, granted, apparently they're not a thing you can actually learn."

"Which means they don't really support your argument."

"Well, no, you're right." He shrugs. "I guess I just believe less in the general competence of people than you do. What's Arithmancy even about, though?"