"That could be, yeah."

"Or maybe my hypothesis is completely wrong, I don't really have a good way to test it without doing unsafe or unethical things," shrugs Darren.

"Well, yes, there is that. Historical research would be called for."

"But you saw the problem with that one, especially when magic's involved."

"Yes, the people are terrible. Maybe at some point we should go on a tour of various Avalons and see if we can find not-terrible people."

"Yeah. After graduation though, unless you want to spend your summer touring the country visiting Avalons instead of magic."

"Magic first. The massive amounts of scroll money will be necessary to get hotels, even if we can skip out on plane fare." Wingflap!

He snickers. "Agreed. Scroll money is great, I'm going to get as many scholarships as I can get, but it would help with going to college."

Bella nods. "Do you know yet what you want to do in college?"

"Probably something that can be involved in social services. Also, French. Fluency will be great with magic."

"Sounds like a plan. I guess I'm looking at education and Spanish. I will pretend I want to be a Spanish teacher but it will be a clever ruse."

Darren laughs. "And then you will open Hogwarts and shock them all."

"Yes. Yes I will. I probably won't actually call it Hogwarts."

"I figured, that would get lots of people to be upset with you."

"A bit, yes. Also it's kind of a dumb name if you think about it."

Darren snorts. "It does sound absolutely ridiculous, yes."

"I will call my school something more sophisticated, like Goosepimples."

Darren bursts out laughing.

"No," he says, snickering. "But it was funny."

"How's your research on extinct things going?"

"It's going okay. Kind of. I mean, a lot of the books aren't helpful, but some are okay at being straightforward."

"You can tell me about it on the way home and annoy Savannah!"

"Hurray! Annoying my sister!" he laughs.

"I'm gonna see if I can find any more things about Cherufes. Have fun with your dead critters."