arts magical

[occluminous]

Bella has been living in the dorms for two days when the term properly starts. The buses begin arriving and discharging the students who didn't need to arrive early just in time for them to join the early attendees for lunch. Bella is sitting at a half-full table, reading her Charms textbook and prodding at one of her notebooks with the hazel wand. The vine one is still in her hair; she uses it for most things (to the extent that there is a 'most things', but she's getting a jump on her assignments) but she's giving the hazel a try for this particular charm. It's supposed to make the notebook refuse to open for anyone but her. Poke. Poke. "Claudo!"

Her notebook snaps itself shut abruptly. She opens the cover, closes it, passes it to the girl on her right and gets her to try, observes that it does not open. She puts the hazel wand back in her sleeve.

Comments

[sparksflying]

"Most people never screw it up that bad."

[occluminous]

"Are you trying especially hazardous experiments or are you just really accident-prone?"

[sparksflying]

"I'm used to experimenting with electronics, not magic," she explains. "That stuff catches fire regularly when you don't know what you're doing. But Mom says it's a good idea to get in the habit of being safe about stuff, even when it's less dangerous."

[occluminous]

"That does make sense," agrees Bella. "They did go an awfully long way to reassure us about how competent the school healer is..."

[sparksflying]

"...huh," says Tony, "you know, I didn't realize until just now, but Muggles are way more concerned about people getting hurt than magic people are."

[occluminous]

"The reassurances about the healer did sound very, um, magical," says Bella. "I guess he can do a lot better and a lot faster than a Muggle doctor, so that makes sense."

[sparksflying]

"Yeah, exactly. But I mean, from the point of view of the experimenter, it makes a lot more sense to try not to get hurt in the first place."

[occluminous]

"Right. Otherwise your experiment's ruined and also you spend some time being hurt."

[sparksflying]

"Exactly!" she repeats.

[occluminous]

"So I will stop casting unfamiliar spells over lunch, I think, even if the ones I tried so far worked okay without exploding or anything," Bella nods to herself.

[sparksflying]

"I mean, probably nothing's going to explode even if you get it wrong," says Tony, "but there are spells that do, and you don't always know which ones are which without trying it."

[occluminous]

"You'd think they'd annotate the textbooks. Little symbols. 'May explode if done wrong'. 'Type A blood types allergic to this spell'. Whatever."

[sparksflying]

"There should be safety data sheets," Tony agrees. "But there's not. 'Cause that's a Muggle thing. Around here they just send you to the healers if you accidentally melt your face off."

[occluminous]

"Because that's a Muggle thing? I sorta got that wizards and witches are weird about Muggles, but so weird that they won't take good ideas from them even?"

[sparksflying]

"According to most magic people you'll meet, who aren't actually married to one, and sometimes not even then, there's no such thing as a good idea from a Muggle. And then they don't think of stuff like SDS because the healers are so much better it doesn't even really look like a concern. At least, I'm pretty sure that's what's going on. It makes sense, right?"

[occluminous]

"I don't know. I've only had a couple days to look at the culture, and almost all the other kids who came before today were raised by all Muggles like me. That sounds bad, though, if magic people are rejecting good Muggle ideas just because of where they came from and not anything about the idea."

[sparksflying]

"That's life," shrugs Tony.

[occluminous]

"But it's bad. Well, maybe that's what I'll do when I grow up, is find all the ideas that magic people are dumb not to use and dress them up so they can look at them right? And I'm a witch, not a Muggle, so maybe people will listen to me, when I'm grown up."

[nobodyelse]

"You're Muggle-born," says Sherlock. "Unfortunately, that seems to make a difference."

[occluminous]

"...That's just racist."

[nobodyelse]

"Yes," says Sherlock.

[occluminous]

"I probably need to know more about that, I guess. What kind of difference? To who, everybody?"

[nobodyelse]

"...I have conclusions but I can't articulate them," he admits after a moment.

[occluminous]

"Can you turn the conclusions directly into advice?" asks Bella. "I mean, I'd also like articulation but I'll take what I can get."

[nobodyelse]

He hesitates again, then says, "Pointing out the obvious prejudice that everyone displays and denies is usually counterproductive."