Theodore had to laugh at the shared experience. "Well, we had a first-time professor and...the entire class was rather a disaster, if I'm being perfectly honest. He started us with intensely inappropriate creatures, for twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. A friend of mine was clawed by a hippogriff. And then we were onto things like flobberworms, because of course he over-corrected, after that, in the completely opposite direction." He shook his head, remembering. "Not to say he was truly at fault - he really did love all the creatures. His heart was in the right place, anyway."
Theodore thought about it. "Let's work on it together," he said, raising the cane, which, speaking of magical creatures, had a threstal for a head. They were ugly beasts, but he had always rather liked them. He wondered what had become of Nightrunner, the thestral he'd taken Jamie to see, a lifetime ago. "I don't much fancy shouting between rooms to keep our conversation going."