"You are very welcome," he says.

"This is the best present, I don't even mind that Tony was kidding about the broomstick after all," says Bella gleefully.

"Tony promised you a broomstick?" says Sherlock. "She was not kidding. She forgot. If you remind her, you will get an embarrassed apology and a broomstick."

"She didn't really promise," Bella says. "...Really?"

"Really," says Sherlock. "Try it and see."

"It wouldn't be - I dunno, taking advantage of her having said something silly when she knew me for like an hour?"

"She meant it when she said it, and she is better friends with you now than she was then."

"...Crap," says Tony. "I totally forgot to get you a broomstick for your birthday! Lemme owl my mom before I forget again."

Bella giggles. "Okay. Thank you!"

Bella squirms with delight and nibbles on her chile relleno.

Feral takes a seat beside her and says, "Where'd your friend go and what's got you in such a great mood?"

"Tony went to owl her mom. It's my birthday! She said she was going to get me a broom and she forgot but Sherlock said I should remind her so I did."

"Rich friend," comments Feral. "Nice rich friend. Lucky you. Happy birthday, what'd you turn?"

"Eleven," says Bella. "I was just inside the cutoff to get into sixth grade here this year instead of next."

"Cool," says Feral. "I dunno how old I am, I forgot my birthday, but I'm probably twelve-ish."

"You could make up a birthday," Bella says, "so people would know when to get you presents."

"I'll think about it," he says.

She smiles and goes on eating. "How's my eleventh birthday been treating you?"

"Pretty good!" he says. "Maybe I should steal it."

"Then it would be your birthday and I wouldn't have gotten you anything," Bella points out.

"So?" says Feral. "I didn't get you anything either."

"I guess, but I would get you something if I knew your birthday was coming. I'm not sure what though."

"You're gonna have a hard time getting me a birthday present if you don't know what to get," he giggles. "Maybe I should wait until next year to make one up."

"Well, I mean, I could think of something! Or you could tell me something you want," Bella says.

"I don't think I really want any stuff," says Feral. "But I'll let you know if I think of anything."

"Okay," Bella says. "If nothing else, Christmas is the same for everyone!"

"...who celebrates it," he tacks on.

"Even people who don't celebrate it are not-celebrating on the same day," says Bella. "I just meant the date."

"Okay," says Feral. "Don't get me Christmas presents."

"Okay, if you want," Bella shrugs.

He smiles at her. "Thanks."

"How come you don't want Christmas presents, though?"

"'Cause I don't," he says. "I don't really like Christmas."

"Why not?"

"I just don't."

Bella shrugs. She writes down no Christmas present for Feral in her notebook. "Okay. Guess what Sherlock got me!"

"No idea!" says Feral.

"It's a book about a thing called the Philosopher's Stone and it does immortality! It doesn't say how to make it, but it has lots of other stuff about it, and it sounds like it's probably real," says Bella.

"Cool. I wonder what's wrong with 'em."

"It does say they're very hard to make and the only known maker gave it up and died a few years back," says Bella. "So it doesn't do immortality immortality, just, like, eternal youth if you keep using it. But he lived to be more than six centuries old first, with his wife, so I don't think it can be too bad."

"Six centuries ain't bad," he agrees. "Think you can make one?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to work really hard in Potions."

He laughs. "Good luck!"

"I don't think making soap and boil cures is going to be all that applicable to making a Philosopher's Stone but there's probably some underlying principles that will be handy," says Bella.

"Yep," says Feral. "Plus, if you live forever, you're gonna need a lot of soap."

Bella laughs. "I won't need it faster than usual!"

"Yeah, but if you get good at making it yourself you'll probably like it better than stuff you just buy, right?"

"Yeah, there's that, all kinds of stuff I could custom-make instead of having to find a kind I like in the store," says Bella. "I like the shampoo we did, it makes my hair behave itself really well. Magic in general is really convenient, I'm gonna be upset when it's summer and I'm not allowed to do any, I think that's a dumb rule."

"It is a dumb rule," says Feral.

"Is there a reason for it besides magic being sorta dangerous?" Bella asks. "Because if that's all it could be that we can't try new spells that we haven't mastered, maybe, but we could still do things like Light Charms."

"Something called the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy," he says. "I think."

"Yeah, I knew about that, but then we could do magic at home with our families who already know about it," Bella sighs.

"Nope, 'cause they don't trust you not to fuck it up and show somebody who's not supposed to know."

Bella sighs. "At least that goes away, but not for years. Are they trying to make us ones who go back to the Muggle world find it a huge disappointment every time?"

"Probably," says Feral.

"Yeah, I guess that seems like the sort of thing they might do. I like magic, but I'm really not thrilled about all the social studies type stuff, you know?"

"...Whaddya mean?"

"Like how the government seems to work, and what magic people seem to care about, is kind of screwed up."

"Sure," says Feral. "It's the same way with Muggles."

"Yes," Bella agrees. "But - but I think maybe it's worse with magic people, like Muggles at least pretend to care about some things that magic people don't and magic people are just as bad in the ways that Muggles are bad. I'm not sure yet, but that's what it looks like so far."

Feral shrugs. "Maybe so."

"I'm not sure if pretending to care about stuff is actually better," says Bella after a musing pause. "But I have more practice arguing with people about really doing things they say they think they should than about arguing with them that they should care about things."

He shrugs again. "Not like I do much of either."

"What kinda stuff do you care about?"

"...I dunno," he says. "What do you mean?"

"Like, I care about people not having to get hurt and die, and having the stuff they need, and about nobody messing with my brain even though it turns out there's no good way to learn Occlumency that anybody knows about, and about knowing who I am," says Bella. "What stuff do you care about? Specially so, that most people don't, I mean."

"Uh... I don't really compare what I care about to what most people care about," he says. "I don't really think about what I care about, like that."

"What do you do instead?"

"Instead... of sitting around listing stuff that matters to me? Uh, I do all the other stuff I do with my time?"

"No, I mean - how do you - maybe you just don't," says Bella. "Know what you'd do if different stuff happened. Maybe people who aren't me just don't."

"How do you decide which things matter?"

"...How do you?"

"By knowing what I care about, and which of those things I care about more," Bella says.

"Oh," says Feral. "That makes sense, I guess. I don't do that."

"Then what do you do instead? If you know some stuff matters and some stuff doesn't."

"Well, if I think of it, I know if it matters or not."

Bella decides she's not going to get a satisfactory answer to this question. "Sure."

"I just don't have a list anywhere," he explains. "It sounds like you've got a list of stuff that matters to you, with a bunch of stuff on it, and it's all orderly and everything. I don't have one. But there's still stuff I care about, it's just not organized like yours."

"I don't have, like, a master list," Bella says. "With everything all outlined neat. Maybe I should, but mostly it's all scattered around between notebooks and I have the general idea memorized and know where to look for details if I can't come up with them."

"Okay," laughs Feral, "then I'm even less organized than that."

"I get the idea," she says. "It sounds - confusing."

"It's not really," he shrugs. "Your way sounds like it'd confuse me more. What happens if what you care about changes while you're not looking?"

"Then I notice that when I look again, and then I figure out why, and try to find out if it's going to happen again and if I want to let it."

"But if something came up before you checked, would you go with what was on the list, or what you really wanted?"

"What I really wanted - if I was sure about what that was. Sometimes I might not be. If I was scared or mad or something, I might feel like I really wanted to do something that I'd know was a bad idea if I was thinking clearer. And then I'd have to sort of - step back and remember why I wrote what I wrote, and see if those reasons are still there, and see if I trust my brain however it's being right then."

"Oh," says Feral. "Huh." He smiles. "If you write out that list, can I see it sometime?"

Bella thinks about this. "Maybe not all of it," she says. "But some of it sure."

"Why not all of it?"

"Because some of it might be private."

He shrugs. "Okay."

"I care about privacy, that'd be on the list," she says with a little laugh. "That's why I wanna learn Occlumency."

"I don't care much about privacy," offers Feral. "Well, mine. I care some about yours."

"Huh. So you wouldn't care that much if somebody Legilimencied you and could see - all your memories - and what you were thinking?"

"...Well, depends on the somebody," he says. "If it was somebody I didn't know that well, or didn't like, I bet I'd get mad. If it was you or the elves I wouldn't mind."

"...Hmmm."

"Why, you wanna learn mindreading? You can practice on me," he says generously.

"Not just to mindread," Bella says. "I don't want to mindread anybody who doesn't want to be mindread. It's just, I can't find out how you're supposed to learn Occlumency, and I could make stuff up but I don't know how I'd tell if the stuff I was making up was even sorta right, without - testing it."

"Oh." He shrugs. "Okay, that's fine too."

"So if I find anything about how to do Legilimency and I have an idea of how Occlumency might work and I think it's all safe I'll ask you and you can be my test subject."

"Okay!" he repeats cheerfully.

"I actually did find a how-to book on Legilimency but I didn't read it. I'll do that," says Bella, and she writes this down.

Feral grins.

That evening, there is a long thin package waiting for her in her room. It looks distinctly broom-shaped.

She pounces on it! Carefully. She doesn't want to snap a straw.

The broom in question has twigs, not straw, as most modern flying brooms do. It's not especially sleek or shiny, but the twigs are straight, the handle is polished, and the binding is gleaming brass.

Eeeeee. She wants to fly it right away, but it's almost lights out. She hugs it and props it up gently in a corner instead.

"Thanks! Broom broom broom, the teacher even said at the start of the first class that if we have our own we can bring them, this one's way nicer than school brooms, Tony is getting so hugged tomorrow!"

He laughs and hugs her.

"Best of luck," he says.

Feral smiles. "So... you wanna read my mind, or what?"

"Yeah. Your room? I try to stay out of mine during the day on weekends." She stashed her new broom in the student broom locker before breakfast so she could clear out and let Sherlock sleep.

Om nom lunch. "Okay, let's go, unless you have something else you need to do nowish?"

"Nope," he says serenely, and leads her to his room - a single-occupancy in the same wing as the infirmary, whose door opens by password instead of by wand-tap. He murmurs the password too low for Bella to hear.

Bella doesn't try to listen for it, she just follows him in and sits down and peers at her wands before stuffing the hazel back in her hair and aiming the vine. "You ready?" she asks.

Feral shrugs. "Sure."

"I need eye contact," she adds, when it doesn't materialize.

He looks at her.

Feral is wondering idly what reading someone's mind is like, and noticing that her eyes are very pretty, and she has a bit of dust caught on an eyelash, and he wonders if blinking would mess up the spell, and how long he should go without it if it does.

...Feral giggles. He doesn't know why, exactly, but something about the sensation of her reading his mind feels funny, like a joke he's just on the edge of getting.

"That was fun!" says Feral. "Wanna try again?"

"Yeah! This time I'll see if I can do memories, I'm supposed to be able to do memories, what should I look for?"

"Cooking," he says immediately. "Look for me cooking with the elves, it's super cute."

- there he is, measuring ingredients into a mixing bowl as the kitchen elves chatter about proper pancake technique.

She grins, and watches till her eyes itch and she has to blink again. "Neat. Now I know how hard it is when you don't know any Occlumency," she says. "What if you try to fight me off without any Occlumency practice, want to try that?"

"Sure!"

"Legilimens."

"Hmm," says Bella. "Is there anything you don't want me to see - I mean I won't look for it if you really don't, but anything you could be more energetic about shooing me away from?"

"...Not... really," he says. "Well, kind of. But most of it's stuff you probably don't wanna see either."

"...Oh. Yeah, there's that. Okay. So, the Occlumency books aren't very - stepwise - but they talk about having a clear mind, and about moving like water away from the attack, and one of them mentioned meditating. Can you work with that or should I invent something with more detail for you?"

"I can try to work with that!" he says.

"Okay! Lemme know when you think you have something. I'm gonna go outside and play with my new broomstick," beams Bella.

"Sure," shrugs Feral. "See ya!"