The way Mister Greengrass responded fell far outside Ida’s realm of expectation. When one serves a bland statement one does not anticipate to be served back something even remotely interesting, and it was said with such passing fancy that she could have easily missed it if her mind was elsewhere. A slow blink as she processed his statement, punctuated by a short laugh at his smiling self-deprecation.

“Ah, I see,” said with a sage nod, as though he described a very well-documented condition, non-visionaryness. “At least you’re honest with yourself,” she added thoughtfully. Ida appreciated his perspective more than her simmering smile let on. He implied that making a career in academia required guts. “The irony here is that academics vastly prefer the company of an honest man over anyone else. So you stand to become much more involved than your elbow-rubbing peers.” Her eyes widened briefly in playful warning, and then her eye caught the waiter the same moment he did.

Both of them made a move towards the man, but rather constrained in her formalwear, Ida’s leap was much less noticeable (thank goodness– leaping for a drink was probably a bit offensive, wasn’t it?). She offered a polite incline of her head in thanks, before taking a delicate sip from the glass to ruminate on his question. Sure, she could always talk about her work. But it was hard, finding that fine line where she ought to edit herself.

“Well… my research focuses on Animagi, including the relationship between applied transformative practices and magical pedagogy.” Er– but that probably made no sense to someone outside the academic sphere, now that she considered it. The witch frowned, and tried one more time, “I learned that in one region of Africa, most children learn how to transform themselves by the age of thirteen. This phenomenon has also been discovered in regions of North America, where entire villages transform into packs of wolves and flocks of birds as a means of safety. Though that example is most unusual, given our assumptions that a unique animal picks us for our distinguishing characteristics. It’s not just in America, however, where populations transform themselves into the same sorts of creatures… Similar threads have been discovered in some of remote populations of north-western China. In all cases, people are predisposed to animals they are most familiar with, of course… Er, anyway…” she gestured as though balling up the entire premise and sending it out an imaginary window behind her.

“My research explores how this sort of transformation is considered an exclusive privilege in our society… While in other corners of the world, it is considered a right of passage into adulthood – a birthright, even – and how those social factors may influence magical outcomes. My hunch is that this has more to do with the way we teach our children, rather than the inherent ability of the child.”

Ida cut herself short then, immediately jarred by the sentence she so easily quipped without a care in the world about its implied meaning. In company like this? Mister Greengrass could be one of those purists in the Knights group, for all she knew, the sort to make a proper fuss over this to Flint. The woman did her best to disguise her wince into her wine glass, hoping he'd keep the ‘nice’ act and not mention it.

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