"Ooooh, can they do it hereditary? Not that it matters but it'd be safer for the ex-reds -"

"I didn't ask," says Shasali.

"I'll email them - my alt was so excited about electricity it was really cute, apparently making it play nicely with magic takes some doing -"

"But if you didn't even ask why would they have been looking," Shasali says to Tiko, "they don't even care -"

"I don't know," says Tiko.

"Maybe Telkam's alt thought it would be hilarious to turn everyone red as a prank, it would not be out of character."

"...should I tell Dad to tell them not to do that -" says Ladah.

" - maybe. I mean, it would merely be obnoxious, it really wouldn't be a huge deal - presuming it can be put back -"

Ladah goes and finds his dad.

"I really don't think he's planning that but I can tell him to not. How're you doing -"

"I'm okay now we can come and go, I wasn't expecting to hate being stuck in a house that much."

"It's the worst. Theodore apparently got in trouble a lot at school, for sneaking out."

Nod nod.

"Theodore's school apparently whips students for that. Isn't that something. I'm imagining if our blue schools did that -"

"I mean, not everyone at Hogwarts is equivalent-of-blue, right -"

"No but they do punishments with no consideration for who your family is. It's awfully refreshing really. - not no consideration. But ours's important and they still got beaten when they broke the rules."

"I think that's horrible," says Ladah.

"Humans might be different? Or wizards in particular. But it's not that I think beating children is a good idea it's that I think whatever the rules are they should be the same for everyone - partially because then if they're bad the powerful people will change them."

"But the powerful people are the ones who aren't children any more."

"I am all in favor of putting the kids in charge of the school too. - they kind of do that, the kids are the ones who assign punishments."

"Huh."

"It's not a nice place and my alt dropped out as soon as that's allowed. But it's - it doesn't pretend to run on principled rules and actually run on favors and lies and games."

"For the record I do think the vast majority of court cases at home are decided fairly."

Ladah snorts.

"Think I'm wrong or just setting the bar in the wrong place?"

"I don't really know. But it's a different thing to get the right answer most of the time and to be doing it according to rules? Like if you steal a teacher's answer key you can also be right a lot."