[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

"If you could just wait a couple of minutes, Mr Daily. Please, take a seat."

Odhrán looked at the blonde witch in front of him with a frustrated expression.

"Ó Dálaigh. My name is Ó Dálaigh." He sighed. "And fine, I'll sit. But please remind Obliviator Headquarters that I am here as a favour to them. It's rude to keep me waiting." He focused his blue eyes on the witch in front of him giving her a stern frown. "I have a waiting room full of patients to get back to who urgently need my help."

Well, sorta. Kinda. If Odhrán was honest, business had been slow of late. However, the witch in front of him didn't know that. But no matter how slow his days were, there was no place in the known world he liked less than the British Ministry.

"Obliviator Peasegood will be here to pick you up shortly."

Odhrán raised an eyebrow. Peasegood. That was not a name he recognised. How had this person even heard of him in the first place? And what had possessed Peasegood to ask him here? Even a minimal amount of research should have told Peasegood that Odhrán was no friend of the ministry. Had somebody recommended him? Pyxis Abercrombie? No, Odhrán decided against that. His friend would have given him a warning before pulling such a move.

The blonde witch turned her back on him leaving Odhrán standing by the door of the ministry's all-purpose room. It really was a misnomer in Odhrán's opinion. No purpose room would have been more accurate. At the very least they could have had the decency to drop him off at the library while waiting, instead of this useless space with nothing to do in it.

He plopped down on the cozy three-seater and looked out at the enchanted window. Maybe that auror bloke who had interviewed him the other day was to blame? He'd had a great number of questions about his career and magical talents. Odhrán had told the man rather more than initially planned. Hm, there was a possibility.

The whole thing had been unexpectedly civil. Odhrán had expected to be dealing with another corrupt official, but instead he'd met one of the few decent guys left at the ministry. Between rounds of questioning he'd even met the auror's son. If that had been a tactic, it had certainly worked and served its purpose in humanising Harrison.

Was that a sound? Odhrán had run out of thoughts to consider and the silence around him had taken on a deafening quality.

In an attempt to keep busy he retrieved his notebook and a graphite stick out of seemingly nowhere and began to sketch. Drawing always made for a good distraction while waiting.

[Michael Harrison]

There was no getting around it: Michael Harrison loved to visit the Ministry of Magic. Not only did these excursions mean that he got to see his father in between their time apart during these brief stays with other relatives whenever his father's work schedule filled up too much, but they also provided him with a much needed break from the monotony of Muggle life and living. Which was not to say that his extended family were not fine people and everything, but when it came down to it, and despite of his own resolve to try and make the best of these overnight visits, he could not help but feel  that compared to the wizarding community, the Muggle world was dreadfully dull. More importantly, however, every time Michael popped by, there was something new to see; someone new to meet, something new to learn. All right, so the fact that his father worked there did not mean that he could just go wherever he liked, so Michael had yet to see the Committee on Experimental Charms at work with his own eyes yet, but at least he got to meet a lot of interesting people whenever he traversed Level Eight. As ever when he found himself in close proximity to Muggles going about their daily business, however, he had stuck out like a sore thumb and been hard-put to maintain his composure and not taint the quality of his own mischief by laughing along with the people who snickered at the sight of him. In fact; if anyone had stopped him on the street and asked him what it was that had prompted him to act on this whim, or why on Earth he found the reactions from surrounding Muggles to be so funny, he doubted that he could have given a good answer. All he knew was that as a general thing, older witches and wizards were often hopelessly out of touch with fashions in the Muggle world, while magical children, who often mingled freely with their non-magical counterparts and hence typically found dressing like a Muggle to be entirely unproblematic, and that there had been something irresistible about doing the opposite of everyone else just for a lark. It was a bit of juvenile rebellion, one might say.

Whenever he visited Diagon Alley, they were positively surrounded by people whose clothing might be said to be frozen in time, as their style harked back to the seventeenth century, and so Michael, ostensibly in a show of cultural pride, had contrasted his peers by following suit and insisting on wearing threads to match whenever he could get away with it. The result was that Michael, who was a common-faced boy enough, looked like something straight out of Charles Dickens, and therefore cut a decidedly more odd figure than most other of his kind would do at that age; at least in the Muggle world. And it was a streak of genius too, it would seem, since if a grown wizard had gone around looking like that, he would have seemed like such an eccentric that he might have gotten in trouble with the Ministry for drawing unwanted attention to himself. Michael, however, was still of such tender years that the prevailing views of onlookers seemed to be that he was part of some children's theatre troupe on his way to rehearsal, or else dressing like that on a dare or simply as an antic. Although odd looks and snickering followed him in public when he dressed like this, nobody had asked him to pull a rabbit out of his top hat yet, which meant that while he was not exactly acting in accordance with Wizarding law when it came to adopting an entirely Muggle standard of dress when he was out and about, since there had quite clearly not occurred any significant infractions of the International Statutes of Wizarding Secrecy as a result, he was not outright breaking it either.

As he had expected when he climbed into his grandfather's car, and, as indeed was the general idea, Michael had drawn a fair amount of attention to himself from the moment he set foot back outside it. He had yet to inform his father, however, that the amount thereof had been greater than it should because of how he and his grandfather had somehow gotten it in their heads that their meeting was at The Leaky Cauldron and ended up taking the London Underground from there to Whitehall all on his tod, but as his decision to show up early in order to jokingly lecture his father on being tardy had permitted him to show up at the Ministry on time, he had decided that what his father did not know could not hurt him. His visit had been as delightfully eventful as always; though this time, since he retrieved his wand from the long, square box in his trunk and slipped it taken to carrying it around with him; another thing he did not feel like telling his father about. The consequence of bringing it with him, of course, had been that he had been able to undergo the security check proper for the first time in his life. Thus far, the various watchwizards that sat behind the security desk would glance at him, recognise him as the young son of Chris Harrison and just wave him through without another thought. Now that he had been, but this time, he had presented his wand to Mr. Munch for identification. Fine, so he knew that the latter was clearly indulging him in doing this rather than feeling any particular need to check him like he did other grownups, but hey, it was still sort of cool to have done it. Luckily, his father had not showed up until Mike had reached the Fountain of Magical Brethren, by which time his wand was once again hidden in an inside pocket of his tailcoat, and fastened with a leather strap so that it would not fall out.

Before they could even find a place to sit to enjoy their packed lunch, however, an interdepartemental memo had arrived to tell his father to come back up to the office, where Michael was told to sit down at his father's cubicle while his father gently questions this dark-haired, clean-shaven wizard Michael had never seen before a bit further down the row. What about, he had no idea; as all questioning of witnesses and interrogation of suspects happened in its own cubicle, which was bewitched with a Imperturbable Charm to prevent people from listening in. In other words, it was an open space; several times his father had turned his way to check on him, and even waved at him a couple of times, but there was no way in which to listen in on their conversation, as the sound within the cubicle came off as all distorted and muffled. Then at last, their meeting ended, and his father and the stranger parted ways, his father to lay claim to those precious thirty minutes he had to eat his launch during midday, and the questioned party to reach another appointment. And so it was that Michael had ended up taking both of their launches and went on ahead to the Ministry All-Purpose Room, as his father had just had to deliver a couple of reports to some colleagues before he joined him. And so, Michael pushed the door to the large, lavishly furnished parlour and, as the back of a head poking slightly up above the back of the leather arm chair nearest to him by the fire place, Michael crossed the length of the room to drop down at the one on the opposite end of the small coffee table that separated them, put down their lunches,  which were wrapped up in white kitchen paper, down on it, and yawned. As always, he took his usual moment to let his gaze wander, and to appreciate the place in all its splendour: Then he jumped almost all the way back off the chair. Straight ahead of him sat the last person that Michael had expected to see any more to that day: The wizard that his father had questioned shortly before. Collecting himself and remembering his courtesies, he said: "Good afternoon, sir."

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

The sketch was coming along nicely. Hills and shrubs and plants, resembling the view one had from his aunt's sitting room. More or less. Some creative liberty had been had been taken in the rendering of the details. It was easy to become absorbed in the task, making his wait for the Obliviator Peasegood somewhat more bearable.

At last he was interrupted by a greeting. Looking up from his notebook we was expecting to find a grown man, but was instead looking down upon auror Harrison's kid. Why would that young boy even greet him? Surely his father ought to have told him that it wasn't necessarily wise to socialise with the criminals he interviewed in his office.

"Hello there," he muttered. Making conversation with children wasn't one of his strong suits. Whenever he had young patients at his clinic, he usually left it up to his receptionist to handle them. Kids had an uncanny way of asking uncomfortable questions that he didn't want to answer.

"Waiting for your dad?" It was the obvious thing to say, but Odhrán didn't have any other ideas. Of course he could have commented on the boy's rather peculiar look, but that would have been rude. He couldn't help speculating though for how many generations this outfit had been passed down. Surely, nobody had worn such a thing since the 1870s. Yes, Odhrán decided that even his mother would have thought of it as old fashioned.

He twirled the graphite stick in his hand hesitating before making another mark on the paper. "You know, that hat you're wearing really reminds me of a young boy I met in Azkaban. I could swear he had exactly the same one."

An astute observer might have noticed there was a bit of a mischievous twinkle to Odhrán's eyes, betraying his otherwise pretty convincing act.

He shifted the angle of his notebook about to continue his sketch when he noticed that he had gotten some graphite on his trousers. Odhrán stood up to dust himself off while trying to catch a peak at the boys' expression. Had it worked? Was he scared yet?

[Michael Harrison]

For one horrible moment, Michael felt like a proper fool: He had been taken so aback by the sudden and unexpected reappearance of the man before him that it had nearly scared the breakfast out of him, and when it immediately occurred to him that most people would probably take offence to it when others flinch at the sight of them and tried to remedy it through courtesy, it turned out that the man had not even noticed he was there before after he, Michael, spoke to him. It was all he could do not to bury his face in his hand and groan in annoyance at his own obliviousness; especially because he did not know if his father would have particularly liked it much that Michael becoming all chatty with people he associated with while doing his job.

When he greeted him back, however, he breathed a faint sigh of relief: All right, so he had made his bed, and now he had to sleep in it, conversationally speaking, but at least the stranger seemed friendly enough. When he noticed the notebook and peculiar-looking pen in his hands, it occurred to him that the bloke on the other side of the table was in fact jotting down something or another, and now Michael had just interrupted him in something important. Despite himself, and even though he knew it was none of his business, Michael was suddenly very curious to hear what that was all about. And would have asked too, if the old 'un had not beat him to it: "Yes, sir." Michael answered, and his eyes flickered to the door behind the older wizard for only a moment before he looked back at him. Michael could not think of anything else to say right away; so he said nothing as the wizard seemed to take the measure of him.

When he spoke next, however, he said something that made the boy blink foolishly and send him a blank stare. "that hat you're wearing really reminds me of a young boy I met in Azkaban" - what an odd thing to say. Why on Earth would somebody lay out about something like that to a complete stranger? So what if this boy had a hat like Michael's? Why mention that horrid fortress in the North Sea when he could just as easily have said that he simply knew somebody else with a trusty topper and leave it at that? What business was it of Michael's that this man had ever sat foot in Azkaban? He pondered it for a moment - but only a moment; Michael had been told by older relatives trying to get one over on him that he was inconveniently quick on the uptake, and now he supposed this old 'un would get more of the same, because something had clicked, and Michael had clocked on: 

There were no 'boys' in Azkaban, because only those who were seventeen or older, in other words, those who had become adult in the eyes of the Ministry, was ever sent there. Nor did it seem all that likely that any adult prisoner would just get to have spare pieces of clothing laying around their cell either; the magical community was fairly old-fashioned, so the prisoners there probably wore simple, standard black and white striped prison uniforms or something. As these things occurred to him, the boy's uncomprehending expression was first replaced by a thoughtful frown and then a slight narrowing of his clear, bright blue eyes. This, in turn, gave way to a small snort of laughter and a tiny smile when he finally realised that the question was just a wind up:

"Nice try, sir." Michael acknowledged, his eyes twinkling.

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

The laugh, well that was rather unexpected. He'd anticipated discomfort rather than amusement, but the latter made things a little more interesting. It hadn't even been a nervous laugh.

"You take after your mother, don't you?" Odhrán commented drily. He paused for a moment to let the sentence sink in. But just before the boy had much of a chance to answer he continued speaking. "Because it's pretty clear you didn't inherit your father's wit." There was no malice to Odhrán's statement and the twinkle in his eyes remained present.

Where was he? Oh yes, sketch. Settling back onto the sofa he made himself comfortable once again go continue his drawing. Except, no, that just didn't look right. He flicked to an empty page and started again with a new motive, an exterior view of Azkaban. Though he had only been to the place once, the impression was strong enough in his mind to draw it from memory and get the features of the place reasonably correct.

Something occurred to him, and he stopped drawing, mid-stroke and looked up. "Out of curiosity, what did you think I was trying?" He focused his gaze on the young boy much in the same was as he did when trying to read another person's mind. However, this time there was no magic to his gaze, just the brooding intensity of a bored and cantankerous man in need of some sort of diversion.

Why was this taking so long? Where was Peasegood? Or even the boy's father? There was something rather suspect about the entire situation. Surely, the Obliviator hadn't forgotten him? Odhrán wondered if there was in fact anything amiss... trading wits with a child was beneath him, and yet still otherwise an improvement on the long-abiding apathy entrenched within the bureaucracy around them.

[Michael Harrison]

When the wizard before him compared him to his mother, Michael felt a great jolt in his guts; almost as though he had just missed a step going down a staircase. Michael's smile faded as every ounce of mirth left him. How often had he not found himself taking longer than he usually did falling asleep because of his mother? He had never known her, of course, what, with her having upped and left them both when he was still too young to remember anything at all and everything, but she had still managed to make him loose more sleep than he cared to keep track of. How many long, restless hours had he not already spent lying in the pitch-black of his own bedroom, staring up at the ceiling, and wondered what could have been? Other times, however, he had instead found himself pondering different questions entirely: Had she known how much she had hurt his father when she abandoned them? And if she did, would she have cared?

He and his father very rarely talked about his mother. Whenever she came up in conversation, Mike thought he could sense the hurt his father seemed to want to shield him from, and when he thought about her when he was alone, he rarely did so without feeling a wave of anger. Not for himself, exactly, because it was rather difficult to really miss a person that he had no memory of having been part of his life in the first place. Nor, for that matter, could he truly bring himself to feel hurt about having been let down by somebody who had never been there to expect anything else, either, though not for lack of trying. In a weird way, he [i}wanted[/i] to resent her more than he did. To share in his father's pain. He did not take any pride in his kinship with such a callous person, and whatever other qualities she may have had, Mike did not like being compared to her by any person for any reason. He felt indignant, but just a smidge.

If anything, Mike would readily forgiven this gibe. He had absolutely no intention of making a scene by protesting loudly, or by making it known that the question had felt like a bit of slight: He had been told he had good instincts after all, and at that very moment, they told him that this wizard, who was after all a perfect stranger to him, knew nothing of his mother's betrayal or that it was a sensitive subject for him, probably thought that he was paying him a bit of a compliment when he likened them. When next the wizard mentioned his father, however, the warm glow that had ignited inside him when the older wizard had indulged him with what had seemed like a degree of comradery was extinguished as something icy flooded the pit of his stomach. How dared? He did not spell it out, but he had effectively called his father stupid! Michael curled his hands into fists, and had to fight very hard not to say anything rude.

It was the question that followed in the heavy silence that followed Michael's struggle against impertinence that finally allowed him to regain his composure. The inquiry in question had such a clear, obvious answer that not only did Michael have to ask himself if the stranger had actually been serious, but to simultaneously ask himself what the best way to get back at him was: For defending his father's honour, he would. With forced calm, he replied "Taking the Mickey", before he went back to contemplating what his revenge should be. Then it hit him: Few things was worse than when other people knew things about you that you had not freely shared with them, and it just so happened that Michael had heard just enough of his father's discussion with the other Aurors right before he went to question this bloke that Michael did just that. And so it was that Michael leaned back in his seat and said, with a definite edge to his voice:

"I didn't know St. Mungo's did 'ouse calls too. Do yer 'ave a lot o' patients in Azkaban, sir, or is it just the one?"

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

St Mungo's? Odhrán quirked an eyebrow, amused at the notion. He supposed the boy had probably overheard he was a healer and based his remark on that. While incorrect, it wasn't a bad shot and it was unexpected that the boy had managed to string together an interesting comeback.

The funny thing was, the kid was probably wasn't all that wrong about St Mungo's. With all that was going on in the spell damage department Odhrán wouldn't have batted an eyelid if somebody told him that healer Audish had made a house call at St Mungo's - though it probably wouldn't have been to treat anybody. He almost instantly felt guilty for being amused by it; but he could picture the scene before his inner eye in all its unsavoury glory. Uncanny how the boy had tapped into something he could have no knowledge or understanding of. As a matter of fact, Odhrán was reasonably certain that even auror Harrison didn't know anything much about the cabal and their illicit activities. If he knew anything he certainly would have had some more interesting questions for Odhrán.

"I don't work for St Mungo's," Odhrán responded after a moment's consideration. "But I do the occasional house call. Not to Azkaban though. There's not much any healer can do to help the poor souls that end up there. I've certainly tried my hand at it once or twice, but I can't replace the lost pieces of a wizard's soul with new ones. Fifth exception to Gamp's law and all that. Or was it the fourth? I never remember."

If one stopped to think about it, it was quite shocking how the wizarding world treated its criminals. Even muggles were less savage in their punishments. Perhaps the strangest part of it all was that it never really deterred anyone from doing the wrong thing, even if the consequences were known. Odhrán had looked into enough minds to know that everyone considered themselves smarter than average and capable of doing or getting away with what others couldn't. It really was one of the big paradoxes of the wizarding condition.

He added a few strokes to his drawing, his gaze loosing itself in the distance. "Who's to say I didn't go there for some other reason far more nefarious. Maybe a bit of my soul is missing."

There was some truth if ever he'd heard some, though dementors had nothing to do with it.

[Michael Harrison]

"Yer don't?" Mike asked, so surprised that every ounce of the fierceness and indignation that he momentarily forgot all about the indignation that he had fought to hard to suppress over the last couple of minutes. A Healer that did not work at the wizarding hospital in London? Michael Harris had never heard of such a thing in all of his eleven year old life. He leaned forward, ever so slightly, and considered the stranger with an expression that had suddenly turned thoughtful. Not every health professional with magical abilities worked at St. Mungo's, obviously; but he had been certain that every health professional with magical abilities with the designation of a Healer did. There were mediwizards- and witches, of course, who had the basic training of the Healers down, but who lacked the additional education required to be a specialist in the treatment of a specific sickness, but who rush out into the field, whether proverbially when a witch or wizards gets hurt, or literally during Quidditch matches, to handle physical injuries from broom-crashes and the like. There was also the so-called "Healer's Shop" in Diagon Alley, who sold various remedial potions that she brewed in the back, and even ran a free healing station where she treated minor injuries of people who dropped in. She too, he knew, would have had to have completed some sort of training programme at St. Mungo's to get the licence she needed to practice medical magic legally. Hogwarts had a Matron, he knew, but neither of those two were proper Healers.  

As the stranger continued to talk, however, his expression became very apprehensive indeed as the man laid out about the repercussions of serving a stint in the dreaded fortress, and gave a slight, involuntary shudder at the mention of people who missed a part of their soul. His father had never gone into much detail about what the conditions were like in Azkaban, but his job sometimes brought him to the accursed island, whether it was to transport someone who had been found guilty of a crime to serve a sentence, or to bring those who had completed their sentence back to the mainland, and every time, it had left his father white-faced and shaken, so if that was how it was for somebody who were just visiting the place, he would hate to think about whatever the prisoners went through. He shook his head, then, as though chasing away a fly, and decided to turn his attention to the marginally more comfortable conversation from before: Where oh where did this bloke work? Mike thought for a moment. He was a Healer, but not at St. Mungo's. He did house calls, so that ruled out the healing station, where in any case he had only ever seen that one witch work anyway; and that left... Where? Where? He pondered the question...

"W, then?" he said, finally: "The bloomin' Mnemosyne Clinic for Memory Modification or sumfink?"

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

Odhrán couldn't help a little laugh. Was this a blind guess? If so, Michael had inadvertently come pretty close to the name of his clinic. The other option seemed more likely, but at the same time slightly disturbing. Had Michael been to Knockturn Alley? Odhrán didn't think the boy's father would have allowed such a thing, but it was certainly possible he'd done a little exploring of his own. Odhrán himself had gotten into all sorts of trouble as a boy. However, Arranmore was a somewhat safer place than wizarding London to be out and about and exploring.

"I'm a spell and curse damage specialist and mostly see patients with damaged minds," he offered up as an explanation. "Used to work in Paris for many years. They have a big magical hospital there, much bigger than St Mungo's." Gawds, he missed Hôpital Magistra Hersend and his friends who still worked there. It seemed an absolute lifetime away with all that had been happening lately.

"I run my own practise these days," Odhrán explained. "More time for complicated cases or patients that need long term care." Ugh, it was useless. His act of playing the villain collapsed in on itself, revealing a glimpse of his true personality. As entertaining as it had been, he clearly wasn't a great actor. There was a difference between hiding the truth of something or fabricating a new story altogether. "Small place called Meridian."

It was altogether unexpected, but he felt a little bit of pride at it. He'd done well with his little clinic.

"Let's hope you'll never have any reason to visit me there. People usually only come to see me when St Mungo's can't figure it out." Well, there were other reasons too, but those were hardly a wise choice to discuss with the son of an auror.

"What about you? Have you started school?" Michael certainly seemed to be about the right age to be staring his education if he hadn't already.

[Michael Harrison]

If his indignation had been momentarily forgotten by the realisation that the wizard before him was a Healer that did not work for St. Mungo's, it was entirely forgotten by the time the man were half-way through his explanation of where he did work. In fact, not only was Michael suddenly interested in hearing everything the stranger had to say, he even leaned forward in his chair to make sure that he caught every word. A Healer with a private practice who handled spell damage cases too difficult for St. Mungo's to handle? It was all he could do not to make a quip about Sherlock Holmes, though since he had no idea whether the man before him was a pure-blood, he had no idea whether or not he would get the reference. Witches and wizards, he had learned, rarely indulged in Muggle literature, and if there was one thing Michael hated, it was when a joke fell flat. So there he sat, nodding every now and again to show that he was paying attention, and just absorbing the information he were given without interrupting him. When suddenly the topic of the conversation shifted, Mike blinked a couple of times, and pushing away his attempted picturing in his head of how the French wizarding hospital might look like.

"I start school in September," he replied, and added, a bit sullenly; "I've tried ter get out o' me Dad 'ow it will be like ever since I got the letter, but 'e keeps tellin' me that it's "a surprise". It's part o' the 'ogwarts experience', he says. Did yer go ter 'ogwarts, sir?"

[Odhrán Ó Dálaigh]

Hogwarts Experience? Those words sounded funny to Odhrán, though he supposed that Michael's father had a point. It continued to baffle Odhrán again and again how much of an influence the school had. People who'd graduated years ago still felt some sort of kinship with their 'houses'. Even the concept of that seemed bizarre to Odhrán and he couldn't for the life of him work out what the supposed benefit of it all was.

"I moved to Britain later in life," Odhrán responded. "So no, I didn't attend Hogwarts. I went to school in Switzerland." He didn't think there was much point to giving any additional details. The little private school he had attended wasn't widely known, and he doubted Michael would understand much about the world of the wealthy and affluent. While there were others who enjoyed making a point out of their privilege, it always made Odhrán feel mildly uncomfortable. He didn't like taking credit for the accomplishments of others.

"I remember being very excited about going to school though when I was your age. And I heard a lot of good things about Hogwarts." Some of his friends certainly spoke highly about it. An ex-girlfriend of his had even worked there for a while, though he tried to avoid thinking about that woman, it always put him into a sad mood to consider what might have been had things played out differently.

"Well, mostly good things anyway. I don't think they teach any of the Dark Arts there or how to read minds, even though both of these things are quite useful to know if you ask me." If he was entirely honest, they hadn't taught everything he'd wanted to know at his former school either. While Dark Arts classes had indeed been a regular thing, not that they were called that in German, legillimency wasn't an official subject at his former school either.

[Michael Harrison]

As the stranger laid out about his life and ways, Michael gave the man a nod of acknowledgement every so often to show that he had his undivided attention. Try as he might, though, as much as he would have liked to take everything the older wizard said in stride, he could not. Why, it would not have been such a bad thing, Mike thought, if the gentleman could have simply explained that he went to some Swiss wizarding school, and left it at that. If he had, Michael could have made the many inquiries that popped to mind at the mention of it, and that could be the subject of their conversation going forward. To hear, however, that the school taught the Dark Arts, and how to read minds, of all abominable and repulsively intrusive things, was enough to make Michael's stomach to turn, and his expression to go from politely interested to politely interested and a bit tense. He knew that there was a wizarding school far north in Europe called Durmstrang Institute that taught the Dark Arts as well, but he was almost positive that it were located further to the north than that of the gentleman's. In either case, any school that treated Dark Magic as coursework was to be viewed with suspicion, as far as he was concerned. His father was, after all, an Auror.

"I s'pose that depends on wot yer mean by 'knowing', sir." It was a bit difficult not to put the aversion for the Dark Arts that he had inherited from his father on full display, or the wave of unease that washed over him when the gentleman spoke out about his apparent liking for it, but Michael did put his very best effort into it so as to not create the misconception that it was the wizard personally he felt repelled by. "I mean, yer would 'ave ter know it ter defend against it, right?" Michael considered him for a moment, then he added, albeit with a slight more edge to his tone: "So how does a Dark Arts lesson look like? There's limits ter 'ow dangerous the magic yer taught in class can be, innit? The three Unforgivable Curses only became 'unforgivable' hereabouts in 1717, but that's Britain. You don't learn that sort of magic in class elsewhere in Europe, do you?"