"Yeah?"

"The existence of alts is sort of inconvenient for various forms of sensitive information and I'm trying to figure out how to handle that."

"Do you mean the thing where Maitimo said you had a crush on Cam. Because that could be solved by just not saying things like that."

"No, I mean more - so far, everyone matches, and Cam's bi, and you I assume don't know yet, but might not want people concluding that either way -"

"Me and Cam are not very matchy. For instance I am a girl. I guess people might be stupid about it but I'm not sure how a stupid person would even notice we were supposed to match in the first place."

"I noticed. It might be no one will assume anything but I thought you deserved some control over it."

"I think it'll be okay as long as the alts thing isn't casually advertised to stupid people."

"Can do. ...Maitimo is fine saying things about us but he wouldn't say things inferred using people skills about you, if you were worried."

"That's good."

"Althood sort of stretches the definition of our own business but we can mind our own business, and peoples' personal lives or families aren't."

"Anyway, that's all I wanted to ask you."

"Okay."

"Thanks."

"What for?"

"...your time? I asked you how to handle it, you gave advice?"

"You're welcome."

And back to work. 

"- I should probably let Theodore and Fredrick study for their O.W.L.s in here," he says to Cam at one point, "since it's my fault that the school and Board and most of society has been in a very disruptive uproar all week and they've been covering for Michael and I instead of studying."

"Seems reasonable."

"After exams I'm going to have to pull a lot of favors to get continued access to Hogwarts. Usually it'd just be a matter of inventing an ongoing research project but the Ministry's terrified by the Azkaban breakout - I'd tell them where to look but they're rounding up all the wild Dementors to help with the search and that's by far the most efficient way for all the wild Dementors to be rounded up, so I'm thinking we steal those and then explain ourselves..."

"How does one round up a Dementor?"

"They can understand conversation, though they don't talk - presumably they're promising them lots of people to feed on in exchange for help tracking down the escaped ones - it's possible they have internal experiences and being alone in deep space is unpleasant for them, maybe we can eventually find a synthetic emotional fuel source for 'em."

"Yeah, if they're bright enough they can make economic bargains they should probably warrant some consideration even if they're awful nightmare thingies."

"They are in fact awful nightmare thingies but there's probably some way to give them some of what they want, somewhere in the multiverse."

"And then we can feel very magnanimous, feeding the awful nightmare thingies responsibly-sourced nutrition."

"It's the same principle that makes me so fond of the people who care about elephants - having enough resources that you can give the prisoners visits with their mothers and the nightmare things ethically-sourced happiness and everyone who might even potentially matter careful moral consideration - that you don't have to compromise, ever again..."

"I read your books."

"Were they very confusing?"

"Whenever they were very meticulous about using a concept of 'gender' that does not correspond to anything I could figure out I got a little lost but the rest I could piece together."

"If you want context on that one I could find something but it's not actually applicable here far as I know."

"I will probably familiarize myself before we're in a position to be setting policy, because if it is a thing that will matter to people then we should get it right to start with, but it didn't seem especially urgent, no."

Nod.

"Did I convince you on the age differences thing when we were discussing Michael, because that was mentioned too -"

"...pretty much but I do feel compelled to point out the irony of you calling your cousin who is two years younger than you 'a kid'."

"He is. It's not exactly an age thing but it is a thing which matters. I wasn't a kid at fifteen but I also wouldn't have said anything to you."

"...what is the thing you're pointing at then?"

"Hmm, I think - whether a relationship would compromise either person's ability to notice if they were happy and if they endorsed what was going on? Which is partially a maturity thing but not entirely, and I don't think people who don't have that figured out should necessarily avoid relationships but I wouldn't date them because - well, that much responsibility for someone's wellbeing given there are any circumstances under which I mess up -"

"Fair enough."

"I think I handle pressure better than Elf me who grew up in paradise but I do not want to assume I am perfect at it and I find it very reassuring that if I were careless you'd notice."

"Yeah, I am more of a pushover in standard conversational modes than I used to be but I don't think that will extend that far."

Kiss. "That might have been part of my motive for insisting really vehemently that it was reasonable to believe yourself entitled to me specifically taking you as seriously as before -"

"I did actually buy your explicit argument for that so you can't get out of it if you dump me."

"It was a correct argument," he says smugly. "I don't want out of it and I intend to point it out to other people it reasonably applies to."

Kiss.

Yes, more of that. 

And then he will go tell his brother and his cousin that thank-you-very-much-for-covering-for-him-lately there's a magic time-stopping bar if they want to study for their O.W.L.s. Which they do.

Fredrick stares at Maitimo kind of a lot. Timothy makes a point of mentioning, as he arranges rooms for them, that Maitimo is a thousands-of-years old Elf and Elves are weird and in particular they are going to be mourning this war that just happened for the next few decades, isn't that funny, it came up because this girl who was dating Michael was interested in dating the Elf Michael but the Elf Michael is not dating people for the next. Several. Decades. And neither is Maitimo. 

Fredrick still stares at Maitimo kind of a lot. Maitimo gets him a computer and talks excitedly at him for several hours about proposals to handle Muggle disease outbreaks. This does not help at all. Maitimo can be presumed to know how much this is not helping so Timothy refrains from saying anything. The proposals are very well-thought-through.

Eventually they all decide they have studied enough for their exams, and float a napping Minor over to the door so they can actually take them.

"Good skill, as they say in Arda."

"- huh. I like it." Off for exams! They involve turning some kittens into teapots; he inquired about bringing his own kittens and was told that wouldn't be an acceptable solution because of the potential for cheating somehow. 

The Ministry has stationed Dementors on the Hogwarts grounds to help in the search for the Azkaban escapees. They are too far away to interfere with the exams, but he gets a glimpse through the window and pleasantly anticipates boxing them and sending them off far away.

Cam hangs out in the main bar with a glass of lemonade and some reading material, watching Minor to make sure he doesn't roll away from the door in his sleep.

He is a very stationary napper, except when he mumbles in his sleep about electricity. 

He also makes a sort of distressed noise when a Dementor approaches down the hallway, but Cam cannot see Dementors and could not possibly interpret that as anything but a nightmare, at least not at first.

Cam is not quite interpreting distressed noises at the moment.

(Miranda's upstairs, the Fëanáros are upstairs, most of the others are in the backyard or out in Hogwarts -)

The Dementor does not enter the bar, just stops curiously at the doorway. The cloak is moving as if in a wind, though Muggles can't see that, and no one around has ever been happy, in their whole lives, and everything they will ever experience from now on is the worst moment of their life, over and over -

Cam is indestructible.

Pity, that.

- and here's an Elf who did mass installations of sewage and water treatment systems back when they were needed in Valinor, and volunteered to come here and help develop plans to do the same on Earth, and the worst moment of his life is not quite bad enough to be incapacitating (the moment they learned the war was over was not a happy moment, but it was not a hopeless one, either) -

- "uh, Security?" he says, "uh, Curufinwë - whatever your name is - Curufinwë, wake up -" 

- and a moment later there's a loud knock on Miranda's door - "you're a wizard, right, something's gone wrong, fix it -"

"Witch," reflexively, then, "what, what is it -?"

"- mind control spell or something but not the one that's supposedly pleasant, it was really terrible, couldn't get not-prince-Curufinwë to wake up -"

She steps out into the hall and makes for the stairs. "Terrible how -"

"- it seemed like everything that had ever happened was terrible, and everything would be terrible no matter what so there was no point in doing anything about it -"

"...they're not supposed to be in the building - I know the spell but - is Michael still around, I know the spell but I've never been able to make it work -"

"I don't know where he is and none of you people have chips if you know his room we can go find him -"

"Did you try Security?"

"I said 'Security' - don't know how to get their attention - how do people without chips even do anything ever -"

Miranda snaps at her dictation quill, "If you know the Patronus charm main bar area immediately otherwise send for help" - and flicks a wand at the paper so it will go find Michael -

- and heads down the stairs.

Everything is terrible! Everything in her life was terrible, and everything always will be!

Is that fucking so.

She descends the last couple stairs - Minor twitching in his sleep, Cam staring glassily into space looking like tears would be an insult to his grief -

She knows the wand motion and she knows the incantation and she is in a timestopping bar that reaches into a gazillion other universes full of strange magic and opportunities and people and "Expecto Patronum!"

And it's - gone. 

...wait, really?

He shudders violently, wakes up - "wha-"

The glowing figure is still standing in the doorway directly over him.

"Minor! Are you okay?"

"I -" blink - "yeah - what happened - hey, I didn't know you had a Patronus - I didn't know you could have a humanoid Patronus either - what happened to Cam -"

"A dementor happened to Cam but I think I killed it and I didn't have one before but I guess I do now." She goes over to Cam and puts her hand on his shoulder. He doesn't stir. ...She waves her Patronus over with her wand and it does the same thing. That doesn't help either.

He comes down the stairs holding her note - "is everything okay -"

"I think I killed it? But - I don't know what to do about Cam -"

"Uh, if he wasn't apparently you I'd say this is the situation for cheering charms? But I vividly remember you flipping out about those - uh - Stupefy?" - because Cam still looks like he's in an awful lot of pain -

That works.

For about forty seconds, then - well, he doesn't move, but you can kinda tell -

- he can't send Timothy a message in the middle of his exams - 

"Uh. It didn't kiss him, right -"

"I don't think it even came in through the door or Minor'd be shivering - you're not really cold, right, Minor -?"

"Not really, no - I had a bad nightmare but that was - it - it was in the hallway when you killed it? - oh - Bar, did the Dementor come in, can you tell -"

It did not enter or Security would have apprehended it for unauthorized use of a hostile psychic aura.

"But that doesn't apply if people in the bar are being affected by the hostile psychic aura, as long as it's technically outside? That's stupid - sorry -"

"- should I keep him stunned until we think of something -"

- word has spread and now more people are coming downstairs.

"...yeah keep him stunned till we have a better idea."

While hostilities inflicted on persons in the main bar area by patrons elsewhere in the establishment are treated as though the perpetrator were in the main bar area, Security cannot be responsible for events outside Milliways entire. It is recommended that when this risk is incurred someone awake hold the door.

"Sorry -"

(Michael stuns Cam again -)

"You didn't turn a dementor loose in Hogwarts in the first place - who even does that -"

(Stun again) - "they were around the grounds looking for escapees but they weren't supposed to be allowed anywhere near the school -"

"Ugh. What time is it in our world now, I was upstairs -"

"Nearly sundown, exams should be over soon if they're not yet - Timothy can probably fix everything -"

"Okay. I'll... leave this here... in case any more Dementors show up... and if he's not here soon I'll go out with it and look for him -"

He stuns Cam. He explains to the gathering audience of mostly-Elves what happened.

And he sees a crumpled Dementor-cloak on the floor in the hallway -

- and a crowd of people, all looking very shaken-up, and Cam -

"...so it turns out I can kill Dementors."

" - well, that's useful - why was there a Dementor here at all -"

"I don't know and I don't know what to do about Cam, if Michael stops stunning him he's just kind of -"

He crosses the room. He does not collapse on the ground next to Cam that would be undignified he floats Cam up to his level and then pulls him close and - "either stop stunning him or describe it well enough I can actually do something -"

"- he looks like he wishes he could die."

"I want two people on the door from now on," he snaps - the assembled wizards mostly ignore him but a couple Elves go to sit next to Minor - kind of disconcerting, that -

- "Imperio," he whispers - 

- it doesn't go - 

- he tries wrapping his brain around it better - he wants to make this person an extension of his will he does it counts stupid mandatory evil spell -

- nope -

"Michael thought maybe Cheering Charms but they might just be - confusing -"

"Yeah this'd work better if it worked but it looks like I can't cast it - possibly can't cast it on him at all but definitely not with the expectation that he will be okay and then immediately throw it off -"

"- you cast it on him before and then he said he didn't want you to do it anymore and if you do it anyway then he knows you substitute your judgment for his and you didn't even ask me, he will not be happy -"