Magical Hogwarts

“Helen who?” Mavis asked, trying to keep her eyes on Michael even as it became increasingly difficult to do so. She shrugged at his comment about every job making a difference, Mavis understood what he meant, but, “Yeah but, like, there is a difference between, you know, making a difference, and Making a Difference, right?” In her mind, she’d just dropped a genius-level insight, but in reality, it probably sounded more like a drunken riddle.

Michael headed off to buy another round of drinks and the moment he left the table Mavis realized another reason why she shouldn’t pay for them. “It’s for my birthday,” she said to no one and went back to twisting her hair between her fingers.

 “Real maths,” Mavis said quickly, as if she was some how insulted by the fact that Michael had to ask the question even though she had done pretty much everything in her power to keep her love of math (and all things “nerd”) a secret for the better half of her Hogwarts career. It was only recently that the young witch had started coming around to the idea that being smart was awesome, and that she should stop pretending she wasn’t. “Not sure about the Unspeakable stuff…” Mavis shrugged, taking a rather reckless slurp of her drink.

She let the idea of intersections between maths and magic roll around in her brain for a moment, and it felt like something she might be interested in, something she might even be good at, but at the same time, it felt entirely unobtainable, too far out of reach, and like it might confuse her so much she could be sick. “Not sure I want to make a difference, sounds exhausting.”

Mavis let out an unladylike burp, her hand quickly covering her mouth, before speaking again. “Maybe I’ll just work in a bank or something.”

"War correspondent," said Michael, waving one hand lacksadaisically. "You won't know her. Way before your time." He was only about seven years older than Mavis but, as he watched her get drunk off one fruity cocktail, this seemed like an amusingly insurmountable gap.

Mavis was pretty clearly punctuating the second "making a difference" differently somehow, but Michael could eke neither grammatical sense nor meaning out of her significant tone, and he wasn't sure which one was the more influential 'making a difference'. He was about to say something to that effect (or possibly just to make an inane observation that she was drunk) but he wasn't in the business of mocking her drunken insights (yet). Nevertheless it was getting harder and harder to keep a straight face. Christ but he could only imagine what it had been like for his dad to watch him drink, what a fool he'd made of himself back then. Of course, he couldn't remember it himself with any reliability, for some reason.

So he fell back on an old standby agreement -- "Reet. Well. I think 'making a difference' is one of them things that happens on a Pareto distribution, that." Certainly he didn't think his job was far-reaching, and -- unkind though this was -- he wasn't sure anybody close to him was making all that much difference either. What had his dad always thought, about the wizarding world? It was too steeped in tradition and secrecy to be changed from within, too structured and policed to free itself from a centuries-old mould. Things like that.

As Mavis astutely observed, it sounded exhausting.

"Mmm," he said. "It probably pays well enough." His dad had not liked or trusted Gringotts as an institution, and though Michael had never felt strongly enough on the topic to actively avoid the bank, he had also not felt strongly enough to withdraw any of his money from his dad's old stubbornly non-Gringotts accounts. He could not see Mavis particularly enjoying accounting, so -- "...doing what?"

Mavis felt her skin tingling and her face starting to flush. Her cheeks burned as she focused on the feelings. She’d felt flush before, when she was sick or embarrassed, but this feeling was not the same, it was not unpleasant at all. She smiled into the warmth that crept up her neck and relaxed into the booth. Mavis leaned back, nodding when Michael explained who Helen was, and pressing herself against the tall cushion of her seat. The teenager felt like she fit here perfectly. Like she could melt into the backdrop and be happy about it.

Oh! But she did not want to melt. She wanted to keep talking. Being social sounded like so much fun right now, even though she was getting tired. Mavis reached for the drink again, taking another sip from it and shrugging. “What distribution?” she asked between slurps, holding the straw between her teeth and talking out of the side of her mouth. Mavis was interested in math, but she hadn't taken any proper courses in statistics and economics yet.

Michael asked what she planned to do working at a bank, and Mavis shrugged again before replying: “Haven’t the foggiest.” What did bankers even do when they weren’t counting all the money? Mavis had only been to Gringotts a handful of times, and she only remembered seeing goblins. “Do they let witches work at Gringotts?” It would be rude if they didn’t, Mavis thought, scrunching her nose up in silent displeasure and drinking again.

"I wouldn’t wanna, like, work all day with goblins, y'know? No offense to the goblins or anything – they're cool and all, but, like, I'd wanna chat with actual people, y'know? I feel like that is important. Being around people you like, I mean. Right?”