"Why don't you explain what you were thinking of, and I'll tell you if it might be the innovation we've been waiting for."

"I mean, I don't know how magic works, so this could be so much bullshit, but I was sort of imagining using some kind of past-scry or other information collection method to get the exact structure of the brain before death and then, uh, using that data to grow a new brain."

"Oh, sorry - I was using 'corpse' to refer to any nonsentient human body, which isn't exactly proper. You can make a brain and a body around it like that, but it comes out dead. Which can be convenient for necromancers, but is inconvenient for people who want to bring back the dead."

"That's weird, why would it work that way, you can cultivate vital human cells in a petri dish."

"Something about bioelectricity. If you're quick enough and have the right medical equipment you can intubate and fit them with a pacemaker and then you've got a coma patient instead, but they're still not the person you wanted."

"That's so weird. Still, if one could figure out what it was about new children that drew in souls...could be tricky to do ethically but not impossible, surely."

"My hypothesis is that there's some kind of agent at work. Some spirit or god who examines incoming requests, and puts up the barrier if it doesn't satisfy their criteria. If that's the case, you couldn't get through no matter how hard you studied."

"..."

"...well, okay, I guess in that case it shifts the problem to 'how do we kill that spirit or god'. But given the implied power level of a being trusted to maintain one of the laws of magic, I don't feel that much better about that question."

"It's not the kind of problem we're going to solve in our first week. But never let it be said I am unambitious when a relevantly-sized problem presents itself."

"I can respect that. First week sign up for classes, second week destroy the angel of death."

"Let's be fair, 'convince the angel of death to change their mind' is also absolutely an option."

"Oh, that's true. I... haven't had much luck convincing entities of cosmic power to change their minds, historically, but I've never been much of a diplomat, you might do better."

"Or find someone else who can do better! This doesn't seem like the kind of project best attempted alone." 

"Maybe we can start a student organization for it."

Harry chuckles. "Maybe. At any rate, even confirming my theory would take more advanced scrying magic than we have, so it's not an immediate priority - you'd want to, you know, learn how to do magic, first."

"Yeah. I'm not trying to get too far ahead of myself, I just--don't plan to give up or do anything stupid."

"Well, if you're careful and you run your theories by other mages before trying anything, I don't see anything to complain about."

"Yeah. First things first, though, we have to deal with the Sentinels before we get serious on any other project."

"Yeah. Mrs. Carson said that they're going to try to get a backer for a scouting mission, but it could take a few weeks."

"They might be able to get intelligence without the risk if they can go straight to Canada or something."

"The risk isn't the main factor, though that's good to know. The main problem is that deliberately traveling across dimensions is very difficult to accomplish; it uses up a lot of powdered mithril, which costs ten thousand dollars per ounce. Whateley's got a budget, but we'd still need help to cover that kind of expense. And if it turns out the best way to get rid of the sentinels would be a mercenary army, that's another investment. Having a backer is vital, and she needs to find one who won't take advantage of the situation - part of why she doesn't want to go to the government. Mrs. Carson does think she can get it done, but it's not a one-day problem."

"Huh."

"What's Mithril?"

"One of the more significant magical metals. It's a conduit for magic of all kinds, though there's more effective conduits for some specific fields - but you can't really go wrong with mithril. It's got a couple of other properties - it burns werewolves, for instance, and it's as strong as steel and light as aluminum - but those are secondary to its magical uses."