"Cloaked zombies," Jenny says sadly. "Magic is a roller coaster of super awesomeness and murder-death, really it is."

"It's expecto patronum, Miranda said, but it's supposed to be hard magically, not - pronunciation-wise."

"Hard magically? That's- actually. You said overpowered wand. That might help. But I don't- is that the weird one? What happened?"

"She lodged her feather into the ceiling in Charms," says Karen. "With the one that the shopkeeper said was cored with chimaera, the hazel one. I still don't know if it's chimaera hair, but it's something for sure."

Jenny stares. "That sounds so neat, can you do it again? I want to see! Pretty please?" she begs.

"Not in the library, Pince would curse us," says Miranda, consulting her book's index. "I'll show you outside sometime maybe."

"Deal!" Jenny says promptly.

"You're only saying that because now you get to see the feather and you don't get cursed."

"Which is obviously the best!"

"Seems sensible to me."

"Have you actually tried the spell yet?"

"No. Not in the library. I'll see if I can maybe do it despite being not even quite eleven yet after I'm done with this book."

"Uh, you're not? But letters go out on your eleventh birthday?"

"Hogwarts letters do but the Owly has a different cutoff date, and I told Renée that I would go to Hogwarts if I could go this year but otherwise I'd just as soon go to the Owly whether we lived in Britain or not, and she wrote Professor McGonagall and she made an exception. Since my birthday is on the thirteenth of September, not in spring or something."

"We are officially way less cool than you," Emma informs her. "You got into Hogwarts at ten, that's insane."

"I don't think it's because I'm cool. I think it's because they're low on students," says Miranda. "When Renée was in school there were twenty Ravenclaws counting her in her year. This year there are eight. Me and Karen are the only girl Ravenclaw first years."

"My dad hasn't mentioned," Emma says thoughtfully, "but I think my mom said hers was bigger too. I... guess the war..."

"There's probably a lot of families who left, and didn't come back like I did," says Miranda. "Plus everyone who just died and didn't have any children."

"So... as the confused Muggle." She looks at Karen. "Muggleborn. This means what? If anything?"

"There aren't as many witches and wizards in Britain as there used to be, especially young ones," says Miranda. "They're overseas or dead instead."

"Well, yeah, but like- if England has fewer wizards, total, what happens? Nothing? Does Hogwarts have to close? Or Diagon Alley?"

"Well, not yet, obviously, but - I don't know, I guess they seem to be filling in the faculty with Americans. Things seem to be running okay. There were still a lot of closed storefronts in Diagon Alley and our apartment building is half-empty but - it could bounce back, I guess."

"Huh. I thought the faculty thing was just, um, that curse thing on Defense class? Not finding teachers for it?" Emma says. "But I guess there isn't a curse on Transfiguration too."

"If the curse was still working after all this time I'd think they should change the class around enough that it wouldn't be cursed anymore. Maybe add a section of Charms and have it cover more defensive things and add a dueling elective, maybe. The Patronus Charm is a Charm. We could learn it in Charms."

"Everyone said... uh... it was supposed to be, um, You Know Who. Who did the curse. So, maybe it's gone? Since he is?"