"Professor Slughorn would probably have told us off for talking about things beside the potion eventually anyway," says Miranda, though Slughorn is across the room helping a pair of Hufflepuffs understand the book's described difference between chopping and mincing. Miranda minces the things that need mincing.

"I don't know how I feel about that. That might make this like a normal class. It's supposed to just be Awesome Magic!"

"Uh, this is a normal class. First Year Potions is a - a pretty normal class."

"Er, normal for a Muggleborn?"

"Normal doesn't mean nonmagical, Jenny."

"I know, I didn't mean it like that! Really, I didn't. But- it's normal to me, and I wasn't thinking about it, so I said normal!"

"What would Muggles be learning instead of Potions, anyway?" wonders Karen. "Is it just like more primary school, forever?"

"Well, they learn different things even in primary school, but I think it's more like that than Hogwarts, anyway." Miranda powders something that needs powdering and sprinkles it into her and Emma's potion, then looks up other uses of the powder in the index.

"Well, in wizard and witch primary school like Renée teaches they still teach about magic, they just can't have the kids actually doing it," Miranda says.

"Speaking of school... what class do you have next? Are we in the same one again?" Emma asks, consulting her schedule.

"We have Charms after this. And Astronomy tonight."

"We've got Charms with you, but Astronomy isn't for a couple days," Emma reports.

"Well, we can't have everything together - and tomorrow we have Transfiguration and brooms and that new lecture that they're doing this year on - relatively more current events than the kind Binns teaches."

"Yes! Flying broomsticks this is going to be the best!"

"Yeah, I love flying."

"What's it like? I can't wait!"

"I mean, it's like sitting on a flying broomstick? It's kind of hard to describe. But it's great."

Emma and Miranda's potion is finished soon after. Theirs comes out pumpkin spice scented, well within acceptable parameters.

"I have no idea how we got pumpkin out of this," Emma says contemplatively, "but it smells tasty, so, good enough!"

"It's making me hungry."

"You can't just make food out of nothing," says Miranda, waving Slughorn over to sniff their potion and award them their excellent grade for the day. "For some reason, there's a magical principle, I forget."