"Danson's master work is why I owled him in the first place," Z said. "It's interesting stuff."
Z listened to the entirety of Professor Nolan's speech and finished up her sandwich before replying.
"If I sat my NEWT exam tomorrow I'd get an E. If I take the time to go over all of my notes and practice exams, I'll get an O. What I do or don't do in class has astonishingly little impact on what the NEWT examination board wants."
It occasionally infuriated Z that in this subject at least, she was entirely qualified-perhaps even overqualified. She was more than capable of earning her Arithmancy NEWT scores but now that this latest war was over, she couldn't petition to just take her NEWTs and be done with it-she had to go back to school and sit through months of classes.
"I'm bored in class, I'll freely admit to that. I'd love to have something more challenging to do. But I'm not interested in being used as an unpaid research assistant. I also don't feel like jumping through hoops and playing games with steadily more difficult projects-I've done that already. I'm not some precocious student reading professional journal articles for the hell of it, Professor. I'm someone who's been screwed over by Britain's antiquated notions about what makes someone a qualified and employable witch."
Z made a point of making eye contact with Nolan.
"I already know anything's possibly with magic. I just need the opportunity to prove it. Can you give me that or not?"