Bell wasn't sure what she meant by her last question, but he was inclined to interpret it charitably since she'd been so enthusiastic about the idea of learning from tutors as he had. To be honest, he didn't use as much magic in his life as he probably could. Growing up with a Muggle mother, he'd known how to do most things without it. The spells he used most frequently were for handling his magical paints when he made moving portraits, which wasn't something he expected most people would have even learned, much less used with any degree of frequency.

"Since I was ten, sure," he said with a shrug. "What do you mean whenever you wanted? Do they give you a schedule for learning magic in England, or something? Wands out in the mornings and then put away by lunch, that sort of thing?"

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Hermia would love to laugh at the idea of a wand schedule, but he wasn't completely wrong. "Ministry law bans the use of underage magic except in situations of imminent harm to oneself or others or in individual cases where specific licenses are granted for employment purposes. We are monitored until our seventeenth birthday. Essentially, it's wands up in September and act like they don't exist come June." Honestly, how could he practice magic and not know this? Had his parents received special permission? Had her parents lied about the difficulty of such requests? If there was some provision that would have allowed her to practice over holidays before this term, she was going to have stern words with her father.

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Her answer sounded so mechanic and rehearsed that Bellamy almost wanted to laugh. He knew there were restrictions on underaged magic in Britain, but the laws weren't universal. The only universal rules were things set down by the International Statute of Secrecy, and there wasn't a clause about underaged magic at all, so every country he'd been to did things a little differently. To someone in northern India, who apprenticed under a guru at six or seven and would learn magic slowly over the next decade in lieu of formal European schooling, the idea that children ought to be prevented from doing magic would have been ridiculous. Even more ridiculous when you started bandying about phrases like imminent harm to oneself or others; the language just seemed so far removed from reality.

"Did you just recite that?" he asked with an incredulous grin — he was making fun of her a little. "Is that part of the coursework here, memorizing the wording on laws?"

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"Not verbatim," Hermia responded truthfully before his tone even registered. She recoiled slightly when it set in that she was being mocked. That wasn't something she was used to, not any longer. "The Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery is essential, but not a subsection of the actual Statute of Secrecy." Hermia grinned brightly, now a part of the joke. Reciting from the Statute of Secrecy was nearly synonymous with being a Bonaccord. The History Club, and Professor Darrow, got that demonstration at the first possible opportunity. She was a good sport about this sort of teasing, it wasn't as if her odd skill for memorization had ever harmed her. She was a Bonaccord, rote memorization of dry material was a genetic predisposition. "And it isn't required at Hogwarts, but my parents never mentioned that as my brothers and I spent hours on memorization. You mean to tell me your parents didn't stake family honor of useless recitation?"

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Bellamy laughed openly at that, though he wasn't sure if she was making a joke or serious. Hours on recitation? Surely no one could really think there was any benefit to that? Whether she was serious about the activity or not, though, she at least seemed to be of the same opinion he did that the practice would be useless.

"We never spent much time talking about family honor," he admitted, still laughing. "My uncle was involved in the slave trade eighty years after they made it illegal, so — not much honor left to salvage after that came out, I think." Maybe he shouldn't be discussing that quite so openly, but it had been a fact of his life so long that the shock value of the statement had worn off for Bellamy. It wasn't as though he'd been personally traumatized by the news; he had only met Sebastian Echelon once or twice prior to his sordid affairs coming to light, and had no particularly salient memories of him. Certainly no fond ones. Still, the point remained: for someone whose close relative had made his fortune by selling people against their will, notion of legacy and honor seemed, at best, unspeakably pretentious.

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"Between statutes and slavery, I think I had the better go of it." Hermia mused candidly. Perhaps that was why his family name was familiar, the illegal slave trade would be rather newsworthy, though Hermia couldn't remember the event. It must be some time ago, especially if a nephew could joke so openly about it. Hermia appreciated the forthright attitude but imagining doing so herself was nearly funny. Hermia rarely spoke about Pierre; she definitely wasn't going to joke about him being a squib.

"Then perhaps you make your own legacy." Hermia offered as if that was something you decided on a Friday and perfected by Monday. "What do you want to be remembered for? Maybe not abolition, it is a bit late and maybe too literal a reaction." She hadn't imagined career counseling tonight, but it seemed a more humanitarian venture than remarking on the various tints of white the debutants wore.

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"Oh, that's easy," Bellamy said, without even having to think about it first. Why give the question any thought now when he'd been thinking about it for years already? He'd known what he wanted to do with his life since he was fifteen, though his more general ambitions had been honed to a much finer point through reading (and rereading, and rereading) The Picture of Dorian Gray.

"I want to be remembered for my art," he continued. "I want to paint a portrait that captures so much of a person's soul the painting becomes more renowned than its subject."

It occurred to him only after he'd answered to wonder why she'd asked him. It seemed strange for anyone in her position to be concerned with such high-minded ideals as eternal beauty. Maybe she'd meant something else by legacy. Preemptively a little defensive, he asked, "Why, what are you going to do? Marry someone?"

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Hermia's polite interest became full engagement at the mention of art. If she'd had time for another club, she would consider the art club or at least the choir. Hermia was never much for paints, but she enjoyed charcoal drawings, ballet, and music. Hermia enjoyed creation, the work of materializing a thought or impulse in some physical manifestation. Perhaps one is inspired to sing, perhaps her charcoal smudges knew where to go, and maybe she felt less anxious about her long and lean form when she was moving through ballet positions.

"See? You already know your legacy. You must tell me your medium. Olis seem preferable, but are there other things you prefer? Oh, and your subjects - what sort of person do you imagine in your works? It seems a worthy endeavor, regardless." Hermia meant it and hoped he was gifted enough with speech to describe his artwork to her.

At the reminder of her assumed life goal, Hermia scrunched up her nose in disgust before regaining control of her reactions. "Of course I will marry someone, but that is not my life goal. I," Hermia hesitated. She didn't disclose her future hopes easily, especially with a stranger, but Hermia could offer something. "I would like to follow in my family's foreign service tradition or find my own posting in the Ministry."

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Bellamy didn't really know what to make of her response, so he merely frowned lightly at her and said "Hm." He hadn't actually been trying to ask about her ambitions in life, really — he'd just been trying to preemptively defend his own, in case she was tempted to laugh or deride his comments about art, which she didn't seem interested in doing. And he didn't know what she meant by foreign service. He was inclined to support anything that the British deemed foreign just on principle, but service of what? The British government, probably, but what were they doing mucking about in foreign countries? They probably ought to just stay home — if their goal was to make the rest of the world more British, Bell really wished they wouldn't. Britain was the most boring place he'd ever lived in (probably mostly because it was the place he'd stayed the longest and he was shiftless by nature, but Bellamy wouldn't have recognized that).

"Mostly oils, some watercolor, and some sculpture," he answered instead — he was quite comfortable talking about himself, rather than digging into whatever it was the Ministry did (aside from being the workplace of the Minister and presumably locking up criminals, Bellamy didn't really know). "And it's not about any particular sort of person. It's about beauty," he practically gushed. "I'm working on one of this fellow I met in a park, Alistair Darrow, and if you could see the way the sunlight hits his hair — he's got curls the color of honey, when the light is just right. And the way his features are laid out — there's this curve to the bottom of his nose that looks just perfect in profile, and the way his jaw's cut — his lips have the same shade as cherry blossoms. He's — well, you can't describe him," Bellamy concluded, feeling the familiar frustration of not being able to find words for the image he had in his head. "You just have to see him."

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It suited Hermia just fine to veer away from mentions of her future. No matter how she put her mind to the task, she couldn't decide what she wanted next, not really. She was mostly certain she would avoid a match she didn't agree on, but it was still a frightening possibility. She'd much rather focus on someone's art.

Smiling indulgently as Mr. Echelon raved about his muse, Hermia couldn't help but blush a little at the very in-depth description of her former housemate. Perhaps this was just how artists spoke, but it was rather intimate to her ears. It wasn't her place to make such an observation, of course. "We are distantly acquainted. Mr. Darrow was my housemate and his grandfather is a professor here. I think you've captured him quite well if you can describe him so perfectly." She hoped that was encouraging, but she hadn't seen the work herself.

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Bellamy didn't think he had described Alistair Darrow perfectly at all, but he didn't say as much. He was far more interested in this young woman being acquainted, however distantly, with the man he'd become so lately obsessed with.

"You've met him?" Bell said brightly, as a smile spread across his face. "Then you know. You know what he's like." That was a relief, because he hated having to talk through things like this. How could he find words to capture the color of the blush on someone's cheek? He couldn't — that sort of thing just had to be painted.

"You should come see the painting, when I finish with it," he suggested. "Tell me what you think."

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Hermia nodded, surprised at how quickly he lit up at her mention of knowing Mr. Darrow. The acquaintance wasn't a novel one for her, she knew plenty of people. Alistair had just been one of several Hufflepuffs two years her senior. "I won't pretend to know him well, but we had classes together for three years and shared a common room. He was rather shy, but always kind." Remembering she was speaking to an artist, she adjusted her description. "He has rather striking eyes, but I remember them always looking away. And his curls, I find them fascinating. Oh, I hope he still has them, it would be a shame if he'd cut them." It felt horribly awkward to comment on the looks of a living person like this to a stranger, but Hermia assumed the artist wouldn't take offense.

"I would be honored," Hermia responded automatically. She would love to see a painting where she had the opportunity to discuss it with the artist, but the invitation was unexpected. She couldn't accept invitations from a gentleman without her parent's permission, it was unseemly, especially for a girl of age but not yet out. She couldn't explain this to her new artist friend, of course. Hopefully, he was aware of such limitations if he was spending any time in polite society. "With the approval of my parents, of course. I would very much like to see how you capture him."

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The idea that Alistair Darrow might ever cut his curls was alarming. Surely he wouldn't? Surely he knew how remarkable they were? Well, if he hadn't known before, he certainly knew now. Bellamy had made quite a fuss over the way they'd caught the light, and had started painting them. Perhaps a month ago the man could have been beautiful and ignorant of it, but now at least he would never be able to pretend he was entirely unaware of how absolutely striking he was.

The transition to the topic of parents was almost a welcome one, compared to the idea that anyone might want to cut Alistair Darrow's hair, although Bellamy wasn't really sure he understood what the girl's parents had to do with anything. If she wasn't officially an adult yet then he supposed her parents still had the burden of ensuring she was safe and healthy, but it was hardly as though anything that happened at his house was going to put her much in jeopardy on that front. (Although the leopard might give them pause, if they knew about the leopard, but he was harmless really...) In any case, if she was only coming over to look at a painting it was hardly as though she was likely to be kidnapped by pirates, or anything of the sort.

"Well, let's hope they do approve, then," he said, deciding it was probably just an English thing that he ought not to try too hard to understand, but rather accept at face value. "I'll write you when it's ready. Oh, except — I probably can't address it to Hermia, daughter of Anselm, can I?" he reflected. "Sorry, you told me your last name, but I've forgotten."

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Hermia smiled her agreement, already formulating her mental argument. In the past, it was rather easy to do and see what she wished on holidays, as long as one of her oldest brothers was willing to chaperone. Adventures with Charles and Silvius were always delightful as they trusted her judgment enough to allow her breathing room. She certainly hadn't been with her mother when she discovered Chaucer last summer, Merlin forbid having to share that discovery! Still, as she was now of legal age and looking at her final year of school, her father was growing rather fussy about her freedoms. The chances her father would shrug off a visit to an unknown person connected to illegal slavers so she could look at art was, well, dubious. She'd be going straight to her brothers for this, without question.

"I suppose you could, I don't know any other living Hermias that are daughters of Anselm in Britain." Of course, Hermia didn't think there were many in good society that wouldn't recognize her family name in an instant, either. "The standard British address would be 'Miss Hermia Bonaccord,' if you aim to be properly stodgy." She offered, more willing to be cheeky with a companion that seemed so confused by the daily workings of the world. "I look forward to your masterpiece, Mr. Echelon."

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"Of course I don't aim to be stodgy," he said, but his tone was playful now rather than properly offended. She'd earned enough of his goodwill throughout the conversation that he was willing to believe she was only teasing him with a word like stodgy, and Bellamy took it in stride. "But I'll write Bonaccord on the letter so I know it won't go astray. And hopefully I'll write soon," he said. The painting wasn't anywhere close to finished yet, but he'd been working on it quite a bit, so he didn't expect that it would take him too long. It really couldn't go on indefinitely, because he didn't have access to Alistair Darrow often enough to keep him fresh in his memory.

Bellamy had said this with the tone of a goodbye, and had even taken half a step away from her, before something occurred to him. "Oh! Do you want to dance?" he asked, with a gesture towards the dance floor. He hadn't ever been particularly interested in dancing, at least not ballroom dancing, but this was a ball. It seemed the thing to do.

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Hermia dropped into a hurried curtsy once she realized the conversation was at an end, even if no formal goodbye was given. She didn't receive this as a slight, Mr. Echelon already established himself as something of a novelty, and Hermia was pleased something interesting happened this evening that did not involve an avalanche of debutants tripping down the stairs (after a Hogwarts career as Jemima Farley's housemate, Hermia was always slightly anticipating disaster).

She was off to find a friend when her eclectic companion spoke again. Startled by the abrupt change of pace, Hermia attempted (and mostly failed) to stifle a laugh. It was rude to refuse a gentleman's invitation to dance, but images of all the ways an oblivious-to-Society artist and a witch too tall and not yet debuting could cause a scene had her eye sparkling with amusement. Still, she was careful to be courteous in her refusal. "Forgive me, Mr. Echelon. I must return to my friends. A few might never forgive me if I monopolized the attention of the most interesting partner in the room. But do write soon, I look forward to seeing your painting." She gave him another quick curtsey and a genuine grin. He'd been most interesting indeed.

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