"If you do, yes. If someone else does, not necessarily, although often."

"Hmm, is that a mindset thing? If I try the same thing twice but wanting or thinking of different results do I get different things?"

"It seems not to be anything as ephemeral as that. Although there are occasional reports of someone getting different results if they perform a procedure twice with a few decades between attempts."

"That's very interesting," he says, writing it all down. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

He turns to Miranda. "So, as I was saying, this is deterministic so controlled trials aren't really all that necessary."

"As you were saying, because you totally knew that."

"Well I'd assumed it, and questioned it as soon as it came to my conscious attention and I turned out to be right, so!" He sticks out his tongue at her. "Besides, I'd totally have tried doing the same thing many times."

"Really? Exactly the same? Over and over?"

"Well, I'd've asked Professor Slughorn before trying the second time, probably."

"I'm just not ascribing you quite the patience, when you could instead try radically different things."

"I can be patient! I can totally be patient! Just watch me patiently waiting for the paint to dry, here!"

"While conducting a conversation..."

"If you want me to shut up..."

"Not especially. I'm not pretending to be patient."

"I'm not pretending!" he protests. "I just don't have a reason to be patient right now, but I could totally be patient for stuff I really wanted. Like making Slytherin nice again! Or making everyone immortal."

"There's a difference between being patient and not happening to succeed immediately!"

"Yes but both of those things are things I haven't even tried doing yet! The Slytherin thing is an ongoing project that will take yeeeears, and the immortal thing we won't even really try for a good long while."

"I still think it's different."

The paint is dry! Except under the egg, so he turns it around and paints the rest. "And even if it is I still think I'd be able to do it."

"If you say so."

"Do you think you wouldn't? If it turned out there weren't clever tricks like 'asking the Professor about it' available?"

"My actions might resemble patience. My mental state wouldn't be."

"...I'm not sure I get it."

"I think patient people are sort of fundamentally okay with waiting in a way I'm not."