Budding Curiosity

Elias nodded as Miranda explained about the different wizards and the elder wand. He was glad she explained what that was, since that alone would have led to a string of different questions. The most powerful wand ever made? It must be a pretty hard thing to come by then. Elias wouldn't be surprised if it was locked up in some vault somewhere. Or buried deep under ground. Or shoved halfway into a stone.

Elias blinked at that last train of thought. "Errr. So. I know, probably a stupid question. Was Merlin real? Ya know? King Arthur, Knights of the Round Table, Micky Mouse? Surly HE would have to be the strongest wizard, right?" Yeah, this was a stupid question. But he would have to ask it now or it would haunt him until he eventually found out.

The two stopped as they finally made it outside. Elias stopped in the sun and smiled as he felt the warmth on his skin, the only thing that would have made this perfect would be the smell of freshly cut grass. The itch to just start running slowly crept forward. He didn't know where he wanted to run to. He just wanted to get moving. But the company he had was something he had been craving since he got to this school.

"Errr. So. I know, probably a stupid question. Was Merlin real? Ya know? King Arthur, Knights of the Round Table, Micky Mouse? Surly HE would have to be the strongest wizard, right?" Elias suddenly asked, and Miranda smiled.

"Yes, he was real, and yes, he was quite powerful. However, they spells we use nowadays are much more potent than the ones back then, and the only reason he seems so strong is the fact that his stories were slightly exaggerated. He was powerful, don't get me wrong, but only compared to that time period. He'd be more of a slightly above-average wizard nowadays," Miranda explained. "Also, Mickey Mouse? What's that? Some kind of muggle... creature?"

She frowned slightly in thought trying to remember if she heard that name before, only to draw a large blank. Whatever this "mickey mouse" was, it wasn't something from the wizarding world. Maybe it was some kind of muggle machine? Their technology was growing quite rapidly, so she wouldn't be all that surprised if it were.

It was at that moment that the two of them arrived outside, and Miranda couldn't help tilting her face upward to soak in the sunlight. It had been a while since the last time she'd gone out. The professors had been assigning mounds of homework, so it wasn't really her fault. Not if she wanted to keep her grades up, that is.

Disappointment is the feeling that came to mind when Miranda broke the news. Merlin? Just above-average compared to wizards now? That just didn't seem quite right. But, he was new to all of this. Not like he'd be able to have any sort of debate when it comes to how strong an ancient, long dead wizard was.

Then, she found her way to Mickey Mouse. Her confusion at who he was made Elias burst into laughter, nearly bringing tears to his eye. He had hunched over with laughter as he tried to get control of himself and catch his breath. The laughter would go on for a good minute or two before a couple deep breaths finally helped him regain his composure. "Mickey Mouse," Elias starts as he wipes a tear from his eye, "Is a cartoon character. You guys really don't know who Mickey is? The mouse king of entertainment. The old cartoons that have been around for like a hundred years at this point?" He was completely dumbfounded by this. Though, from everything he has heard, it would make sense that she doesn't know much about the mundane world.

"Yeah, Um," Elias continued after he held back another laughing fit, "You know those moving pictures you have in your newspapers and all that? We uh, muggles have something similar. Except instead of it being of an actual person, it's a drawing. I'm no animation artist, so I couldn't tell you how it works. But they basically make pictures move without the use of magic."

Miranda watched Elias laugh at her comment, not understanding. What was so funny about this mouse? Weren't all mice the same? Boring and tiny, not even enough to give thought to.

Finally, he recovered enough to explain further, although Miranda wasn't sure how much she actually understood. It wasn't like she'd ever learnt much about the muggle world (both she and her brother had been home schooled), but she'd thought she'd known enough. This...well, it didn't exactly fit in with what she'd learnt.

"Let me get this straight," Miranda began. "You make moving pictures - without magic - about a mouse entertainer. What in the world could a mouse ever do that would make him a king?" She shook her head in confusion. "Please don't take offense, but I honestly cannot understand any of the things muggles do. Some of it is just... so weird."

Since Miranda grew up without seeing much of other kids her age (her parents didn't trust their children to keep their magical life a secret), her only immersion in the muggle world was from the rare books she came across that had stories about their sciences or beliefs. She didn't remember them very well, but Miranda was sure she'd never came across any mention of strange words like "animation" or "mickey mouse". It was all very new to her.

"Oh no, you don't worry about me being offended, I was more worried about you being upset about me laughing," Elias admitted as he had finally gotten control of his laughter. "It's just. I've never met someone who was so confused about Mickey." He scratched the back of his head as he tried to compose his thoughts to try to have this make more sense.

"So, the easier part to explain would be what I said about him being a king. It's more of a metaphorical term. The.... idea of Mickey Mouse belongs to a corporation called Disney. Disney is the muggle's largest... Uh, moving picture company. So people joke that Mickey is the king of entertainment." Elias took a deep breath as he prepared to go into the more difficult part to explain, "So, from what little I do understand of animation; These artists pretty much.... you know what? hold on, I think I can show you this."

Elias reached into his bag and pulled out a notebook. He began to draw stick figures on the corner of each page. When he was done, he rapidly flipped the pages, showing that the stick figures he had drawn, looked as if it were walking. When it was done flipping, he put the notebook away and continued, "That's more or less how it works, but on a much larger and more detailed scale. They just layer pictures on top of each other like that to make it look like they're moving."

"They do this with Mickey. And I just realized I should probably tell you that he's pretty much a mouse that has arms and legs and walks and talks like a normal human." While this made perfect sense in his head, this probably wouldn't end up being the best description of the character.

Miranda watched the moving picture demonstration with interest, her eyes wide. "Woah, that looks cool," she murmured. "And it doesn't need magic?"

It seemed to take her a minute to process what Elias said next, and then she burst out laughing. "You mean muggles make things like that about a walking, talking mouse? Who thinks of that? I mean, why a mouse? Why not a dog or a dragon or a monkey?"

She shook her head in amusement. "I've never been able to understand muggles. It's just... so, so strange what they can think of."

A bit belatedly, she realized Elias might take offense by that comment, and glanced at him nervously. She didn't want to seem anything like the other pure-bloods she'd met that thought muggle-borns or half-bloods were nothing but garbage and unworthy of magic. It was disgraceful, if nothing else. Wizards or witches that mingled with muggles were just as good as any other, no matter what all those old families said on the matter.

Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted loudly, and Miranda found herself wondering whether it was a wild one or was someone's pet. Normal owls weren't out in daylight, for sure. With a start, she forced herself to pay attention. It was difficult, sometimes, to keep herself focused on more important things.

"Nope! No magic at all," Elias said with a big smile. A smile which only grew as Miranda laughed and asked about characters she thought were impossible. When she was done, Elias nodded and said, "Yeah! There are dogs, monkeys, dragons, cats. Pretty much anything you can think of, us muggles have made a walking, talking version of it!"

"We are pretty special," Elias agreed, "But magic. Actual magic. That's something we'd never dream of. I mean, flying brooms, being able to instantly turn a person into an animal and back, levitating objects with a flick of the wrist. We'll probably never be able to get that far."

Elias had noticed a moment of sadness? Perhaps shame? On Miranda's face. She was soon distracted by some owl hooting off in the distance. "You alright?" He asked, half wondering if he was starting to bore her. She seemed to be enjoying the conversation. Maybe she was just being nice?

That couldn't be it. She was laughing too hard to be faking it. Something he hadn't seen in a long time. Before moving to London, Elias didn't have many friends. Those he did have were ones to take advantage of him and laugh at him, rather than with. But one friend stood out. One that actually enjoyed his company, a friend he missed dearly. He cheeks slightly turned red and asked, "So uh, Miranda? I know this is kind of silly to just ask. But uh, do you want to be friends? I've really enjoyed our time together so far and would like to keep hanging out with you when we aren't too busy."

"Oh, I'm fine," Miranda replied hurriedly, trying to fix her expression into something less mournfully. "Just... thinking."

She grew silent again, then shook herself likes wet dog and smiled. "Okay, I'm good now"

Will Elias think I'm hiding something? she wondered briefly. I'm acting strange, I know, but I don't really want to explain that I was feeling guilty for maybe acting mean and like a "noble born Pure-Blood". Although, he doesn't seem mad, so maybe it's okay? Oh, muggle-born people can be so hard to read sometimes.

With that train of thought, it completely took Miranda by surprise when, instead of getting mad at her, Elias asked if they could be friends. It was... not expected. At first, her confusion at the unlikely situation left her standing there like an idiot, before she regained control and smiled brightly.

"I'd like to be your friend," Miranda replied, still smiling. "As for hanging out, well, yeah, I'm not all that busy, so I wouldn't mind." In fact, she'd absolutely love to do that, since Elias could no doubt teach her more about the muggle world, a topic she felt sorely uneducated on. It was too bad students couldn't take Muggle Studies until third grade.

Elias considered pushing the topic for a moment and asking what Miranda was thinking about, but gave his head a slight shake. That would be too rude, to just ask what someone's deal was. That's when Miranda went and shook her whole body. Like a dog that just walked in from the rain. He half expected to be pelted with water. Elias did his best to not give her a strange look and stifled a laugh. Not many people would just up and do something like that. But hey, maybe it's something that pure-bloods do regularly.

Then, when Miranda agreed to be his friend, Elias shot her a wide smile. "Awesome! I can ask you questions about the magic world and you can ask me questions about the muggle world! Just two people basking in the warm glow of ignorance." Elias closed his eyes and look towards the sky to bask in the sun, almost as if to show it's something the two were already doing. He was happy to have a friend. Someone he could rely on at least a little. Though he didn't want to seem like some kind of burden one day.

As the two sat in silence for a moment, A rather fun question came to mind. "So. I have a question for you now. What is, without a doubt, the most useless spell someone could learn?" Up to this point, Elias had only seen spells that made life easier in one way or another. He wanted to hear if there was some spell that did basically nothing and was around just for laughs.

"I'm not sure the glow of ignorance it all that 'warm'," Miranda replied with a wry smile. "Who would want to be ignorant? It would be better to say that we can revel in the fact that we will both learn new knowledge." However, she too enjoyed the sunny light that beat down on the courtyard ground. It was a beautiful day, and she could see several other students taking advantage of that just like them. A few of them were even playing in the shallows of the Great Lake.

After a long pause, Elias finally asked her another question, although for the life of her, she had no idea why he would ask that of all things.

"Well, there are actually quite a few spells that take some time to find a use for... but if I had to choose one over the rest.. hmm." Miranda was quiet for a moment, before her eyes lit up as she realized something. "Have you ever heard of densaugeo?" she asked. "It's a spell that enlarges a person's front teeth until they look like beaver. It's only use is as a ridiculous prank, so it's just kind of stupid." SHe shook her head slowly, and rolled her eyes.