"The same - oh."

"I'd met Cam before he was sad."

"I should probably still have noticed."

"I think Cam's been reading things on the multiverse for the last thirty hours, if you want to go talk him into taking a break."

"I don't know if -"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Could I lie to you - actually, that's an interesting question - I bet I could, come to think of it -"

He ignores him and goes bouncing off to find Cam.

Cam is hanging out nearish Miranda; they are both reading things.

"Moon things went well! Apparently you two are the same person?"

"We are! Minor is now weirdly angry at the guy who murdered Cam!"

"How bizarre! Is the guy who murdered Cam an ongoing concern in any respect?"

"Nope!"

"Then I will suggest to him that he find something that is. Though I bet he's busy, actually, I have forty pages of reading on interdimensional transit options and what's being pursued with them."

"Lots to do. How's the moon prison doing?"

"The prisoners have been restored to good physical condition and the angels are appalled with everything, as they should be. The prisoners seem confused about the concept of therapists - I'll confess I'm a little confused about the concept of therapists - but were happy to have people to talk to and assurance the Dementors weren't coming back. Buying this much time required admitting to the Hogwarts Board of Governors that I'm up to shenanigans and their interpretation of shenanigans was that I am the heir of Slytherin and have opened his secret chamber, but I don't think I care. There're still stray dementors out in the wild, if conjuring can get their surroundings it might be worth taking a demon and a fairy and going to pick 'em off. How've you been?"

"I've been fine. Is there context around the heir of Slytherin thing?"

"Uh, rumor has it that when Slytherin built the school he made a hidden chamber where - depending who you ask - there's either a library of dark magic or a terrible monster, and only his true heir can open it. As far as I know I'm not descended from Slytherin but I can see why people are guessing that, given what they do know."

"If it's about descent you'd think having living parents would disqualify you even if you were thus descended. It's not inconvenient to be rumored to have opened this chamber?"

"And does it interfere with your ability to cover for me?"

"It is more inconvenient than being the darling Head Boy without a misdemeanor to his name but less inconvenient than explaining Milliways, and they're actually cancelling exams for everyone except those of us stuck with O.W.Ls and N.E.W.T.s, on account of the breakout, so even if I lose authority to cover for you you are covered for."

"I don't see why they'd cancel over that when nothing's come of it."

"Lot of families wanted their kids at home."

"...I think Amber would have given Karen my letters if Nnenne had sent anything urgent..."

"You told Karen that I'd whisked you off on suspicious premises, right? How much does she know after that..."

"Yes I did but not much else except to panic if I stop writing her. I may have to visit at some point, she'll probably worry."

"Might be worth it. At some point we have to close the door so I can study for my dreadfully neglected exams but I'm in no hurry."

"I'm at a reasonable stopping place, I'll go do that now. Don't strand me. Oh, also, Maitimo is going around telling people you have a crush on Cam."

"Which people, and did he say why -"

"Me. I don't know about anyone else. Why you have a crush on him or why he told?"

"Why he told -"

"He said you had a plan involving love potions and he wasn't going to enable it because it would be unhealthy."

"Well, sure, now that we've got better options - thank you for telling me -"

"You're welcome." And off she goes.

And he sits down and starts reading. "Maitimo says you haven't taken a break in a while, are you likely to take them as often as they'd be beneficial?"

"I'm not actually well calibrated on that because occasionally I wind up deciding a given break was not beneficial."

"- is everyone being okay?"

"...I was actually thinking, like, nightmares."

"Ah. Those I can't fix, whereas siblings and alts and Amriac I could scold. There're potions but I'm assuming -"

"Even before I ever got summoned to Arda I often just didn't sleep, it's not a big deal. Also I think Amriac would ignore you and I'm not sure about Maitimo."

"I don't think Amriac'd ignore Macalaurë and Maitimo'd listen to me on anyone I knew better than he did."

"Do I count? He's known me longer."

"We could compare notes, I suppose. I think he's been - running with a lot of pieces turned off for the last while."

"...oh?"

"I want to like people I get to know, I care about them a lot pretty fast, I'm invested - he's - assembling and maintaining functioning working relationships and leaving them there? Which would make me miserable and can be assumed to be making him miserable but I guess if you were ordering enough people out to risk a fate worse than death maybe that'd be the more efficient way to - organize my head - anyway I don't know if he'd say he knows you better."

"He did notice the thing with Miranda. Miranda is neat, by the way. Very fond of you."

"She's a good kid. I promised her a continent. When I take over the world, you know."

"I think she may have been assuming that given recent events this should be adjusted for inflation."

"Is she."

"That is my professional altly impression."

"We still haven't figured out how to reach any worlds unless their inhabitants happen to walk through the door."

"She could have Mars."

"Are we giving up on keeping wizards and daeva separated?"

"I don't expect her to mind-control any daeva."

"I expect her to have friends and loved ones who are wizards."

"Yeah, I guess."

"I'm not saying we're not going to end up ruling hundreds of universes each with whole populated galaxies and everything orchestrated so no mind control occurs at all, just that I promised a continent and do not yet find myself positioned to promise more of 'em."

Nod.

"And no one anywhere will have problems more serious than whether elephants are people and if so whether their underage sex is problematic."

"No one can agree on what the age of majority for elephants might be, actually."

" - wizards it's seventeen. I don't know what the Muggles do."

"Depends on jurisdiction - well, I don't know about 1802."

"One assumes it also depends on jurisdiction in 1802, and possibly also on gender, and the centaurs and giants and merfolk are self-governing."

"Do they have humanlike aging?"

"I'm actually not sure."

"Also do centaurs have two hearts?"

"Yes, why?"

"Just seems weird. And two ribcages! These are things organisms don't usually have two of. Also that spinal angle looks uncomfortable if I think about it too hard."

"I wouldn't argue the point with them, they're a bit touchy. Probably because wizards have been variously horrible to them over the centuries, that's usually the reason though I don't know much about centaurs in particular."

"Well, I can't talk, my tail technically involves a fork from the spine near the tailbone."

"Your tail is adorable."

"Thanks."

"Also that smile. Are you quite sure 2179 hasn't criminalized being that aggressively adorable on the grounds it'll make the mole rats feel bad about themselves? Ugly animals, mole rats, but they too deserve their fundamental human rights!"

"It's actually 'personal rights' or 'sapient rights' now, specifically for elephant etcetera reasons. Mole rat self esteem has not to my knowledge featured in jurisprudence lately."

"Maybe we can point Theodore's alt there."

"That the next youngest after Michael?"

"Yeah. You haven't met him yet because he'd want a demon too and I am less confident that one ends well."

"And his alt has a pet Maia."

"Who can talk to animals, apparently. Revelation'd love him and it might be good for him but."

"But I should probably not be involved."

"Yeah. If you have some masochistic impulse to know what he'd say I can just tell you."

"I'll let you know if I come over all self-destructive."

"And I'll probably decline to help if you do, so."

"It would be such a well-reasoned self-destruction though. I'd have charts."

"I would like to register in advance my skepticism of the charts. You'd have to be doing some seriously misleading accounting."

"I probably won't actually though. Seems silly."

"Won't self-destruct? No, I don't think so. Your opinion of yourself is too anchored in reasonable things like how much you have accomplished and have the potential to accomplish and how good at being correct you are and so on. I think I might, if it were me, but that's a thing wrong with me, the same thing wrong with me that made my alt worry I'd take love potions..."

"Was he wrong?"

"I was going to take over the world. I wasn't going to wrong anyone aside from me along the way. The rest of the details were sort of fill-in-as-you-go."

"Miranda took the assertion plus the information that you had a crush on me and the thing where we're alts and was briefly concerned but your alt said that wasn't ever on the table. I also figure you know Minor likes her. She doesn't; I'm not sure she'd appreciate it till fourteenish."

"Oh - what, no, that'd definitely count as wronging people other than me, there are women who wouldn't really care but she would and also yes Minor wrote our father within I think two months of starting at Hogwarts saying 'Miranda is smart and right about things most of the time and has the best insights on our Charms experiments and invented an alphabet, is that how you pick a girl to marry?' -

- our father said you should wait and see if you also wanted to kiss her, which is I think what he is waiting for."

"It's kinda cute."

"It's adorable. Michael was I think envious that he didn't think of picking the girl he was going to marry in the first two months of classes but that wouldn't have gone nearly as well."

"I mean, he still has to convince Miranda at some point."

"And he may well fail or either of them may end up inconveniently oriented but he can at least consult lots of people on how to give it a proper attempt."

"I wonder if he can pull off the half an hour of compliments thing."

"Does it count for less if he writes them up in advance?"

"No, it's different but in a way orthogonal to quality."

"Then I bet he can manage. - or if all half an hour gets one is an adorable smile, how long should he make it if he wants her to kiss him -"