"Yes, that. I meant over the summer."

Nod. "My birthday is in March and my parents took me to Diagon Alley day of," because if they hadn't there would have been explosions, "but they did not really... let me use it... Um, they said I would probably set the house on fire."

"My siblings and I went on holiday to our great-uncle's estate over the summer, and he has a room in his house for spell research. Rated for a lot more than an eleven-year-old messing up Hover Charms."

"I guess you'll be the class showoff, then? Put the rest of us to shame?"

"Seems the thing to do."

"I suppose you two will compete for grades while we have exciting adventures, then," Tintin says. "We shall see which is more fun."

"I volunteer for guinea pig though."

"What, for spell research? I'm not a researcher, that's Susan's job all over. She's the Ravenclaw. I'm just going to learn what they teach me and spend the rest of my time in riotous living."

"'Riotous'. Is that Slytherin or Gryffindor?"

"Slytherin, probably. Peter's a Gryffindor, and I'm nothing like him." Edmund sighs. "It was a joke, I don't do - riotous. I want to learn what I can and become a healer. If I have to I'll go into the Ministry, I guess."

"What's wrong with the Ministry?"

"It's a bit miserable, isn't it? It's a good way to make things better, and I'll probably end up there because there's a lot to fix, but - most of the people who want to be politicians don't want to make things better, they want to have power over people. So it's a lot of dealing with those bastards, and a lot of trying to solve really hard problems where people get hurt if you can't get the right answer, and not a lot of what I want. But what I want isn't as important as what helps everybody."

James raises both eyebrows. "What a Slytherin," he says, but he's grinning. "You could be a travelling Healer, maybe? Or, um, I dunno, I guess St. Mungo's is part of the Ministry isn't it..."

"It's about scale. A healer would have to work nonstop to do as much good as one politician who managed to get a proper ban on the books against Muggle-Baiting. Or repealing the Statute - well, the Statute's untouchable. Still, though, can you imagine? You'd have to heal every wizard in the world half a dozen times to match that."

"...why, what's wrong with the Statute?"

"...In 1918, fifty million muggles died of a flu. My younger sister, who is eight years old, can brew a flu-cure potion, the ingredients to which cost three knuts for ten doses."

"Oh."

"Rather."

"Sorry for snapping."

"It's fine.

"That's so many."

"There's a lot of them. People don't understand that. That's - not the only problem - but it's a big problem. They're important. And vulnerable. It's like - we've all got a little sister who we abandoned in the woods and we're trying not to hear her screaming because if we helped she'd want to know why we left her, and we don't have a good answer."

"Don't we? —why do we have the Statute?"

"Reason I was given was that the muggles would want us to help them with every little problem. I've also heard 'they'd burn us at the stake' and 'they've got nothing to offer us, why should we put ourselves out for them'."

"Those are stupid reasons."

"Rather."

"What did you mean when you said it's untouchable?"