"...Practicality. I mean, not all of us, but some of 'em. It's okay to have a few head-in-the-clouds scholars but not quite that many, I think."

She nods. "I could see myself falling under that category. In. Very different circumstances." Nodnod.

"Really?"

"Yeah! I mean, I'm super duper curious, right, I just wanna know stuff, even stuff that's not directly actionable, or even actionable at all. If there wasn't Slytherin to fix, and maybe if everyone was already immortal, that might be me!"

"I think a hypothetical which requires everyone to already be immortal while you attend an otherwise unchanged Hogwarts is a little far out."

She shrugs. "Well one where I didn't care that everyone's not already immortal is even farther out."

"I think this adds up to 'you cannot realistically have this particular Ravenclaw problem'."

"...yeah, I guess so." Shrug. "Do you know many Gryffindors or Hufflepuffs? I think the Hufflepuffs are lacking a bit in the 'hard work' department, but most Gryffindors still don't quite trust me so I can't tell."

"I haven't talked to any of them all that much, but I think Gryffindors might have too good a reputation and coast on that."

"Hmm, yeah, I can see that. ...I kinda find it a little bit weird, as a House. I mean, wit, cunning, hard work, and courage. One of these is not like the others."

"It doesn't stand out that too much to me. And less if you make it wit, ambition, loyalty, and courage."

"Hmmm, I guess." She shrugs. "I dunno, I guess I'm just too un-Gryffindor. Figures."

"I think both loyalty and courage kind of seem like... wrong answers. Like... any situations where loyalty comes up it seems like other things should be coming up more than that. Any situation where courage comes up it seems like you might have already made a mistake to even be there and dealing with that would have been a better use of your time than cultivating your bravery."

"Hmm, I dunno, I guess I can see a sort of bravery that's not like that. I mean, technically looking at a task like 'create glory for Slytherin' or 'cure death' and not just having your knees buckle under you does take a lot of courage."

"I don't feel like I'm using courage to care about curing death. I think I'm doing some other thing. Maybe some people need courage."

"Well, I think most people are terrified out of their minds of death."

"I'm not sure I'd characterize it that way."

"How would you characterise it?"

"They... ignore it and come up with ways to use it anyway. Like gravity. Nobody except physicists thinks about it very much, but we have stairs."

"I'm not so sure. I mean, personally I have thought about death way more than about gravity, but even in general, I don't know if people would be so... fixated on stuff like religion and the afterlife if death didn't scare them at least a little."

"Even people who aren't religious are like that though."

"Right! I mean, I suppose when it comes to you ending death isn't much about courage, maybe. I don't know if I'm scared of death but I think if I'm not it has something to do with being eleven. It feels like it makes sense to be afraid of death."

"It's not particularly un-Christmasy to us," Sadde comments, accepting the mug, and Laura nods in agreement. "And I see what you mean," she tells Miranda.

"Good, because I didn't have a better way to explain it handy."