"Did he get you back?"

"He tried it several times during those weeks, but he's not the most creative of Slytherins and apparently can't imagine a way to get revenge on someone without hexing them. And I think he's still not totally sure I didn't actually take anything."

"Well, it'd be hard to confirm either way."

"Yep! I'm pretty proud of that one. Also, see, I'm not only just pranking older years, I'm even being kinder about my pranks!"

"Well, you're getting more psychological, I'm not sure if that's the same thing."

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to."

Sadde eventually finds the class of memories that will consistently produce mist and fog and keeps trying some more of those.

Miranda takes notes on their results.

Sadde wonders whether she's reached any conclusions yet.

Nothing particularly useful, no.

Drat.

"Maybe we should pick this up another day," Miranda sighs, when she fills her notebook page.

He nods. "And maybe try to talk to Spukhafte and Granger for some more tips."

"I'll ask next mealtime."

Miranda goes over to the Gryffindor table and addresses Hermione Granger, then comes back.

"What'd she say?"

"She says that practice will help, my wand movement looked right, and we might need stronger memories but that will be about us and not something she can really help with, but if we're still working on it in April she will supervise us for a half-hour and see if she can come up with any pointers."

"Hmm, alright. Stronger memories. Huh." Ponder. "I wonder if grabbing a shorter memory at the peak of one of the good memories might help? Like, focusing on a couple specific seconds of a whole thing? ...have you been doing that? I've been mostly thinking of sorts of 'events' as indivisible units."

"I've tried some other variants but not that one."

"Alright, maybe that'll help. I wonder if Professor Spukhafte might have more tips."

"Maybe, but if Hermione's right it might be too idiosyncratic."

"Which might explain why so few people try it and succeed. That's kinda disheartening."

"A bit, yeah."