Victor had nothing against the Muggle authorship, but did wrinkle his nose ever so slightly at the phrase short stories. His hobbies had been spell theory and mathematics, and his reading had been mostly in line with those interests — etymologies of spell incantations from various cultures, papers on the applications of imaginary numbers, that sort of thing. Very informative, very interesting, very dry (at least in the opinion of most people). Fiction in general had always seemed like more of a woman's hobby to him; short stories in particular carried all of the same stigma in his mind but additionally suggested the reader lacked the stamina or focus for a full-length novel. But he was hardly in a position to be judgemental of anyone's reading tastes now, when he couldn't so much as turn a page without the facilitation of someone with a body.

"Well, not anymore," he admitted with a frown. "And when I was alive I didn't spend much time on fiction, to be honest."

It would have been silly to claim that he'd spent his time on more important or useful pursuits, though. A few months ago he might have said that, but now his wand was useless for anything more than spinning between his fingers when he was trying to kill time. How important had spell theory really been, in the end?

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