"Ooh, we could-" Alli starts.

"-I'll go," Emma says over her. "No, Alli, you may not have Jenny make animal faces at the Muggles."

"We couldn't actually anyway," Alli pouts, but nods acquiescence.

"To be entirely clear: Jenny, don't make animal faces, or do any morphing at all, so that Muggles can see you," admonishes Renée, while Miranda takes up her post next to Alli. "Any last-minute questions before we leave the Floo station?"

"Don't worry!" Jenny says brightly. "I know the ruuuuules," she adds on a singsong in Alli's direction.

Humph.

Emma glares at both of them, then attempts a smile for Miranda's mum. "No, um- thank you, I think we're all set."

"Out we go, then!" says Renée, and she leads them into downtown Edinburgh.

"Oh Merlin it's so crowded," breathes Karen.

"I don't suppose it'll help if I say London gets more crowded?" Vivian offers weakly.

"Not really."

Vivian considers suggesting holding hands to avoid getting lost. Then discards this immediately as a bad idea. Then recons- no, no, bad idea. "Here," she says, and puts her hand tentatively on Karen's shoulder. "This way you'll know you won't lose track of me as we walk. It'll be okay."

"Good idea. Last thing I want is to be lost in a - a sea of - um, strangers."

Vivian giggles, mentally filling Muggles. "We don't bite or anything, I promise."

"We?"

"I have spent more of my life being a-" she waves her hand, for lack of a good public-appropriate euphemism off the top of her head- "than I have at school. I can still say 'we' sometimes!"

"Yeah, but, if I say the wrong thing and you hear me it's not a question of whether you bite, because that's... not... a biting thing. If I say the wrong thing and some stranger hears me it is a question of whether they bite all of a sudden."

Jenny takes a brief respite from expounding to Emma on the virtues of Muggle zoos and their stellar qualities as tourist attractions to contribute, "Nooooo, no biting! Remember: if anyone is nuts enough to ask? It's a book. It's always a book. We're still in school, we can totally read weird books, it's totally a thing." Then she blinks. "Sorry, sorry! No more interrupting, I swear." She turns back to her original topic. "Seriously, Ems, you haven't seen a panda, I don't know how you've lived-"

Vivian laughs. "She's not wrong," she tells Karen. "Kids can talk about whatever, and there's lots of books and movies and such about magic. I mean, obviously be careful, but it's not the end of the world if you forget when chatting or something?"

"Okay. It's a book. I read weird books."

"And if all you're doing is talking you're fine even if you don't explain that it's a book," Miranda puts in. "It's not the end of the world if someone has to decide they misheard or that you're playing pretend."

"People are weird," Alli says, sounding entirely unconcerned. "Okay, Silverlight, you're the boss lady, where are we off to? Scottish adventures? Yes?"

"Mum is getting shoes and pens and in between she wants to look at everything interesting. As long as we're nearish we can do what we like. I don't know what looks interesting to you, it's all comparatively old hat to me, what do you want to see?"

Alli waves her arms around haphazardly, missing passersby pretty much entirely by luck. "I don't know! Scotland! Adventures!"

Emma and Jenny continue their zoo-related negotiations. Emma's position is less anti cute, fuzzy creatures than it is pro attractions that are actually nearby. Compromises are occurring.