"You know, I could as a matter of fact acquire a cambric shirt without any seams or needlework. If you asked."

"What, really? I've - this is extremely embarrassing to admit but I've actually always wanted one. Since I was a kid. I heard the song, and tried for about a week to think how I'd make one, and - probably not right now, right, since I'm hardly going to change shirts here and now, but. If you're ever trying to work out a gift, I guess."

"You're unreasonably cute. I'll keep that in mind for when I want to gift you something."

Anyway, 'tis time for supper! What is a British boarding school cafeteria like, he's dreadfully curious, the only exposure to it is Harry Potter and somehow he does not think there are going to be four long tables with floating candles and a crazy wizard mentor at the helm. He'd also be surprised if it were like the cafeteria at his American high school, actually, but less surprised than that.

It's time for him to be surprised, then.

There are five long tables, each one not as long as the ones in Hogwarts but still recognizably drawing from the same aesthetic, and there is also a head table at the other end of the mess hall where the staff eats. There are more staff than at, again, Hogwarts, and they are not all directly facing the students like benevolent deities watching on from above, and the line to the buffet-style self-service selection of food off to one side and complete lack of any floating candles whatsoever help dispel the magic mood, but it is still very much reminiscent.

It is also all really nice. Well, nice for a cafeteria, but still, it's very spacious and the dishes and cutlery look fancy and the food selection is honestly surprisingly varied and capable of accommodating various common dietary restrictions and there most certainly aren't a bunch of individual tables that student cliques can huddle at. Human nature being what it is, there probably are, nevertheless, cliques, but they won't be as obvious to the eye as they would be in Pete's high school, and there's bound to be more cross-form mixing, too, especially with how this school isn't just high school and there are more age groups than that.

But right now they're mostly empty, what with Edmund and Pete having been nearly the first ones to arrive, as promised by the powers of narrative. There aren't yet any groups he can see to infer anything about the social dynamics here.

"...is the Spirit messing with me? Is it trying to make some reference no one else will get to Hogwarts?"

"No, you're just terminally American and at an extremely English public school. What in the world do pigs or their skin conditions have to do with this?" Edmund heads over towards the buffet, making a beeline for some fried mushrooms with an aioli dip and then winding through the selections accumulating a mostly-but-not-exclusively vegetarian meal.

He is going full vegetarian but mostly not paying attention to his choices at all because eating only needs to be vaguely and superficially referenced by narration and not actually experienced, in his opinion. At least for him, other people may choose to enjoy it if they so wish.

"It's, I, Hogwarts is that magic British boarding school for wizards from a popular book series I mentioned and it had such bizarre things as the weirdass long tables and the staff table and each of the student tables was assigned to a house and houses were so silly I Googled them to find out that they are actually real but it did not occur to me that the, the," vague wave in the direction of the tables, "would also be real."

"The tables are completely inoffensive! And Valentine doesn't have Houses, but there's nothing that silly about them either, is there? Some places have to split up the students so they don't need one massive dormitory the size of a citadel, and once you've done that why not gamify it a bit, give them a consistent team for football and a reason to stick together and help each other and earn points towards a party at the end of term?"

"I may in fact just be too American for this, I'm having Freedom™ feelings about some staff deciding whom I get to hang out with. Speaking of which how do you pick who you have supper with, even, with everyone together like this."

He pronounced that capital F and that ™ out loud but he made sure his voice was low enough compared to ambient noise that if anyone overheard it it'll necessarily be because there's a plot reason for them to.

"Usually there's enough empty space early on that you can cluster up, and if you get in late you get your just deserts. And your just desserts... God, I cannot decide on a pudding, I can never decide on a pudding, I'll get the Bakewell tart and have done with it. Anyway, Houses don't stop you hanging out with whoever you want, it's not as if everyone in Frog House must swear a blood oath against everyone in Toad Hall."

"Everyone in Gryffindor has to hate everyone in Slytherin, though," he mutters under his breath. "Anyway, since I don't actually have any friends yet other than possibly you unless you are entirely too sick of me or want a break before our date I will follow you like a duckling. —it is, to be clear, fine if you want a break from me, I'll go find one of the other plot-involved people. Hell, maybe I should find Sophie and find out what that's about."

"I haven't got sick of you and I don't think I can. Follow as you will. Tell me along the way about Gryffindor and Slytherin, are they related to the Hogwarts?"

"They are Houses in that book series about Hogwarts, yes, and the author had a bone to pick with Slytherin and put all of the shit characters in it even though the actual ostensible virtues the House embodies are ambition, resourcefulness, shrewdness, determination, and cunning, which i.m.o. are perfectly good virtues I myself aspire to but she thinks are bad. Gryffindor is the House of the protagonist and all of the good people and the virtues are daring, nerve, chivalry, and courage, but also it's the House that had the dumb hero-wannabes and a bunch of bullies. Whom the narrative basically agreed with."

"Ugh. Any others, or was it just Politician (Parenthesis: Evil)* House and, uh, Peter But Less So House?"

*Edmund is forced to pronounce his parentheses manually. It's very sad.

"There's Ravenclaw which is about wit and learning and creativity and wisdom and intelligence and there's Hufflepuff which is loyalty and hard work and fairness but which in practice the author just slotted everyone who didn't fit the other three into."

"Well, that's where fairness gets you, I suppose. You advertise how fair you are and suddenly everyone else feels free to not be, because you'll do it for them. ...also, this was a series of books and the author didn't pay attention to the wit-and-learning House? This was a school, and there was one House about being creative and intelligent? I feel like these books might be stupid."

"It was a series of books for children that got a lot bigger than it should by rights have and became incredibly popular and then the author turned out to be a TERF—are there TERFs, here, actually?"

"Not so's I recognize the acronym off-hand? But there are enough acronyms I don't recognize that it isn't strong evidence."

"It means trans-exclusionary radical feminist, it's basically, God I need a crash course in local history, it's people who think trans women are dangerous predators and trans men mumble mumble are probably also bad mumble. Anyway she turned out to be kind of a shit person in general I guess. And the books were good at, hmm, painting a vibe and being fun but really really bad at any kind of worldbuilding and the plot was also subpar and had some really sketchy morals especially with the hindsight of not being a religious eight-year-old."

"Ah. Yeah, we've got transphobia. And inconsistently written literature that nonetheless leaves us making references to it ten years later."

"I think it's been nearly thirty actually. ...as in the first book came out like ten years before I was born. ......what year is it?"

"2023. And if the book came out ten years before you were born, you haven't been referencing it for thirty years, and if you learned to read when you were five years old, it's been about thirteen years. Round down to a decade. Nyah."

"Eleven, I read it when I was seven, so your point is even more valid. But people who were seven when the first book was released are still making references to it to this day. ...also it's 2023 where I'm from, too, so I have no cool future knowledge."

"The cool future knowledge is overrated. Well, I mean, objectively it isn't, it's saved millions of lives. But I don't really think you need to worry about it."

"There's always Riddle, who knows how many people I'm going to save from him."