Chapter 7

Jöran and Paul found themselves in something of the same boat with their art homework, sighing over an unfamiliar medium and being required to look.

The non-marauders were variously posing for Paul and encouraging Jöran.

Paul was using Chinese ink and a brush and was being required to find a line of movement in people and animals, to get as much of a moving creature down on paper with a minimum of lines; which as he said to Jöran was limited as yet to a spine and perhaps a leg as moving people would, well, move.

"He's very tough is Professor Prince" said Paul "He gave me a few pointers when I was in the nursery last year and he doesn't hold back criticism OR praise. I got ticked off for the same sort of things as you; trying to be too clever. Only being a kind of second hand relative of his he was a bit harsher on me. I guess I must have taken it enough to heart to have satisfied him because on the whole he was fairly easy on me. I SO will have an earful about some of these though; and I know which ones because I know where I was careless or hadn't looked as well as I thought I had. Draco does these sort of sketches so well; about four lines and you KNOW it's a seeker reaching for a snitch. And Draco doesn't count himself an artist and claims only to have taught himself to draw well enough to lampoon his teachers. And being Draco that's probably true."

"You mean Draco Malfoy? Do you then actually KNOW him?" asked Jöran.

Paul stared.

"Well of COURSE I know him; Krait's his cousin!" he said "Krait – Madam Malfoy she teaches as, but of course she's Madam Snape – is my guardian too, so we all knock around with Lucius' brats in the hols, natch."

"And he will tell you that class does not matter to schoolboys and mean it sincerely" said Gabiden. "Because Paul is so very English that he thinks of Mr Lucius Malfoy as just a sort of uncle I think; and forgets that he is one of the most famous wizards in the whole wizarding world; and perhaps only Harry Potter more so."

"Well I know Harry has to put up with a lot of silliness, but isn't that pushing it?" said Paul. "Harry is Severus' ward too, so I do know that he thinks people can get a little daft over him being The Chosen One since it was only freak that he was the one chosen, he says."

"Lucius Malfoy is a name known across the globe" said Gabiden "As is Harry Potter. It is, I think, very nice that you are so English that you just accept being in the position almost of being as a brother to Harry Potter and do not boast; I should have boasted. But I am learning the English way and I see it is nicer to be happier to love your friends and relatives than to – to wave them on display like en erumpant shows off its horn."

"Well I guess I never thought of Lucius and Harry and Draco as people to wave" said Paul. "Severus would have jumped on it pretty damn quick! I mean, I'm tremendously proud to be the ward of the world's greatest potioneer; but I guess it's okay to boast about Severus in that respect because he's EARNED that by talent and hard work too not just been famous for being born it; because even if you ARE born with such a tremendous talent as he was, you won't amount to a damn if you DON'T put in the work. And I know he had a pretty useless teacher at Hogwarts so he had to teach himself a lot of it out of books. And Krait for that matter, who was brought up in a muggle orphanage and caught up five years' work in a year; and of both of them for spying on Voldemort and being in constant danger. I guess I reckon they're pretty wonderful people; especially as they took in my siblings and me during that scary time and never let us feel we were subordinate to the cause. And yes, Harry IS pretty wonderful too; he had to be famous and still do his schoolwork and fight Voldemort. But he wishes that now it's over people would let him forget it. They won't of course; but to me, he and Draco are big boys who used to play with me and that's more important than either being a big cheese in the council."

"I think" said Reaz "It is why so many people admire Harry Potter so much; he always seems to be just like them – and yet he is, too, a hero, as well as being unspoiled by the attention. He is a man you could imagine living next door and giving a hand with de-doxifying."

"How romantic though, to be a prophesy!" said Bertha Jorkins.

"Can THAT, Jorkins!" said Paul "I don't remember it, but my oldest brother has told me that Severus had to speak to him sharply about letting other silly asses moping about prophesies upsetting his schoolwork and the sooner he got a chance to fillet Fishface – it's what they called Voldemort – and finish the whole silly business the better."

"I think it's silly to believe in prophesies" said Lydia Grant "Nobody's totally accurate, are they?"

"Professor Prince is, but he only gets fits of prophesy dead close to things happening" said Paul. "He draws the fairly immediate future if seeing someone or something trips him into a drawing trance. But Severus says that prophesies are NOT always fulfilled and the Department of Mysteries is full of unfulfilled prophesies and often they only happen if someone goes out of their way to make them; like Voldemort did."

"Professor Tuthill used to work in the Department of Mysteries; let's go and ask her" said Lydia.

oOoOo

Freya was happy to answer the group of first years that indeed most prophesies were not fulfilled – those indeed that were even heard and stored. And that trying to avert trouble might even be the trigger to cause it; or make no difference since the obscurity of prophesies meant that interpreting them was another matter entirely.

"Particularly as some of them are obscure; and may not mean what the people hearing it think" she said "One I've heard – having tracked down to whom it referred – went 'the goblin of the line of Gurdak shall bear a wand and defeat wizards, yey, even of the oldest of families'; which had the unfortunate Gurdak murdered. He already had a daughter however and her line gave rise to Kinat gan Konal, first goblin at Hogwarts, whose wand was at the disposal of Harry Potter and who fought deatheaters and werewolves with the rest of them. A knee-jerk reaction that did nothing to avert the prophesy; which was true as far as it went, but not in the way the ignorant peasant wizards in the eighteenth century thought."

The children thought it fascinating and Bertha, who was wont to be inclined to believe in omens, was a trifle chastened. And Freya was rather down to earth and inclined to think that divination should be used to predict the weather and find criminals and should otherwise be left severely alone!

Jöran was not sure what to think; but it WAS rather pleasant not to be excluded from the group that went to ask questions. And he must reassess Paul too in terms of who he knew; Jöran was not a snob but he was rather inclined to see a parentless ward as someone who was a bit above himself, perhaps at the school through sufferance; but he had to admit that Paul WAS good, and some of his three line sketches were almost suggestive of people running and jumping.

And even though he did not need glasses any more they had none of them tried to jostle him. And it was actually rather nice to be able to see clearly from the moment of waking up without having to grope for his glasses.

"Why has Professor Snape never cured Harry Potter's eyes?" he asked suddenly.

Paul blinked.

"Never occurred I suppose" said he "Besides, before he invented chanting – or rather rediscovered it – nobody had done that sort of thing; and Harry's dad wore glasses and Harry looks like him and James Potter fought Voldemort too and I guess Harry is happy to look like his dad in all details. But more like it never occurred. Harry could fix his own eyes, he's a good enough chanter you know."

"Heh, I bet he likes to be able to take them off, supposedly to clean, so he can pretend not to recognise people he don't want to talk to" said Reaz.

"It wouldn't surprise me" said Paul. "Can you lot jiggle about some more? Only I want to fill another couple of sheets before we have to go to the common room and I can't do any more set exercises. Jöran, it's not forbidden for artists to doodle in leisure time, or paint for pleasure, like musicians, but we're not supposed to do set exercises, as that IS prep. Of course, you'll doodle constantly – I do – and it draws on lessons and instructions, but it's not strictly something we're handing in so we get lenience over that."

"I see I think" said Jöran "we MAY draw if we want but only if it is what we want to do. Because it is our life, and so is a leisure activity as well as a subject."

"Like I may build clockwork trains" said Reaz "Because I like metalwork AND trains. And hard lines on those who like Arithmancy."

"Nothing to stop them filling in puzzle books that use Arithmancy in tortuous puzzles" said Paul. "Like Siegfried in the second doing chess problems and m'sister doing sudoku. It's to stop people studying until they make themselves stupid because they aren't keeping up, or something."

They stopped the conversation in a hurry to apologise to Sirri who had come in to see if the Marauders were with them as Wilhelm had an owl from home and she walked into a handspring Lydia was performing for Paul.

It was time for kaffee und kuchen anyway so they packed up and went to find it.

oOoOo

The owl was not serious; just a line from Wilhelm's sister who had been a little preoccupied when he left for school with brand new twin baby sons.

"Ann is decent to write just because" said Wilhelm. "I like her husband too, even though he is a Duke; he's very decent despite that. Eduard is all right and it's quite fun being an uncle; I expect I shall be able to teach Leopold and Leonhard heaps of good spells when they get a bit more interesting and by the way, aren't marauders supposed to pull japes?"

They fell to discussion over what ought to be done.

oOoOo

Srang contacted Severus by the communications globe.

"Headmaster, there are people who wish to mount; they are from the Austrian Ministry of Education" he said "They have no right to stick their noses in to an English school do they? I didn't say so, but I wanted to check."

"They have no rights at all; but you may send them up and I'll have the head girl escort them to my office. Have the rail staff on standby in case I need them to escort them off the premises."

"Boss" said Strang.

oOoOo

There were six people to escort to the head's office. One was in the robes of a minister, the others were youngish men and women in a variety of robes that were not any kind of identifying uniform. Irmi curtseyed politely to the Minister and wished him elsewhere since she was wrestling with her prep on Gamp's Law.

"Please come with me" she said, leading them off.

The curtsey she gave Severus on being invited in after knocking was a deeper and more respectful one.

"Domine" she said. "Do you wish me to wait without?"

"You may stay within Miss Luytens" said Severus "As the school's representative; you won't learn any younger."

Irmi inclined her head; what Severus meant was that he wanted a witness and she might also learn now to rout interlopers if such they were according to law.

She politely summoned chairs from the end of her wand for the visitors; one might as well show off one's accomplishments.

The minister was impressed.

"Your head girl is most accomplished" he said to Severus.

Severus smiled.

"She is an excellent student; and prefers to aim for the top grade in the five NEWT subjects she is taking then risk dropping to an 'E' in one or two if she took more; a prudent girl" he said.

"Your academic standards are very high" said one of the young women "I considered myself good to achieve four ZHs."

"The school IS rather set up now towards academic excellence or some kind of unusual talent" said Severus "We also specialise in musical and artistic talent, and too in quidditch; which I should not have considered had not my daughter Lydia married Viktor Krumm who thus comes to us to help our sports teacher. We too take students with special medical needs who require small classes and sometimes special coaching; asthma is relieved by the mountain air, and one of our students had problems manifesting his magic from a childhood trauma. We still of course have some of the students who were here in the time of Miss Cackle, but I have to say that I am pleased on the whole with the way they have risen to the challenge. One of them is taking only three NEWTs but as she is also talented at Quidditch this is scarcely surprising. Our delicate child of that year is taking eight; and two of the boys are taking seven."

Irmi looked smug; one of the two boys was her boyfriend Sebastian. The other was the head's ward, Darryl; and Emily was just a genius.

"My goodness!" said the minister. "I rather fancy that is beyond the standard most schools may hope to achieve; yes indeed, you young people should not feel disheartened!" he added to his protégés.

"May I ask what it is you want of me, Minister?" asked Severus "The school, being English, is not really under the regulation of the Austrian ministry."

"Oh no, quite so!" said the minister "Did you not get my owl requesting this meeting?"

"No minister I did not" said Severus.

"Ach I HAVE got gremlins in the office!" cried the minister "Always messages go astray!"

"Perhaps, if you do not take them to the owl loft yourself, minister, your gremlins are either a lazy office boy who can't be bothered to run them upstairs; or a mole who wishes to sabotage your reputation" said Severus dryly "You will have to fill me in on what you wrote."

"Indeed yes; let us hope it is nothing but laziness" said the minister "These young people wish to set up a free school with ministry funding for the poorer members of society; and are anxious to see how goblins and half goblins and humans interact in a school environment; so we thought that by seeing your school they would have a better idea."

Severus twitched an eyebrow and conjured butterbeer all round.

"An admirable project" he said "But I fear that there are some realities of life with which any hopeful teacher needs to be acquainted. For a start, I charge an arm and a leg for the privilege of learning in a small select school. I provide scholarships for the truly talented poor; but generally speaking my children are wealthy. It makes a difference and I will explain why" he went on, seeing protest on the lips of some of the young idealists. "Wealthy children have, on the whole, nothing to prove. The one real racist we had – I had to expel him – was sponsored by his father's employer. He was a goblin boy who was of the lower middle classes and he insisted on calling part bred people 'abominations' which included two sisters and one of my staff members. I could not bring him to a level of understanding and I would not have the young people and staff member involved subjected to such abuse as he handed out. In poor communities either there is a community spirit because all have to work together and be neighbourly in order to survive – as often happens in England where there is very little segregation by race – or there is the situation where the only people who may be despised are those of other, or mixed race. My daughter Jade, also known as Nefrita Von Strang und Luytens, has found this when setting up the subsidised school in Germany; that some of both races refused to attend because they would not mix with those of other races. They are the losers; but you MUST be prepared for it. And to be ready to leap on racist comment and emphasise that your students are students, not humans or goblins or part-bred. You are welcome to look around the school; Irmi will show you, and my dear I shall have a word with Madam Malfoy to give you an extension on your essay and I will relax the leisure rule for you."

Irmi curtseyed.

"Thank you sir" she said.

"What is this leisure rule?" asked one of the would-be teachers, a very correct looking young man.

"Growing bodies need a balance of work, exercise and leisure" said Severus "Doing schoolwork in common rooms is forbidden; also in bedrooms. And each age group has a set time past which they are not permitted to do school work. The sixth are on their honour not to break this in their private studies; Miss Luytens is wrestling with Gamp and is doubtless hoping to get back to him but a break will NOT do her any harm. But as she has the break now, I give her a half hour extension on her work time this evening."

"Thank you for the explanation, Herr Professor; we had no such rule at Durmstrang" said the young man.

"Perhaps it is some measure of how I obtain such excellent results through my students" said Severus "There is no such rule at Hogwarts either; though I suspect that my protégé, Professor Fraser will be instituting it gradually. My daughter has it as part of the starting rules of her school; which, by the way, I suggest you visit – AFTER Yule. Setting up a new school is hard enough without visitors. You may wish to travel to England and see the free school in Obscura Alley; I expect that Professor Longbottom, the head, will permit you to act as classroom assistants for some weeks and take over teaching some of the classes, to get a feel for the rougher elements of society. One of whom, incidentally, graduated to be my herbology teacher; and another is teaching transfigurations in the German school. He took five NEWTs after three years education; so there is much that the truly ambitious youngster can achieve. Irmi, show the professors around if you please."

Irmi curtseyed again and led the visitors round each class.

They were amazed that the classes all rose to greet a visitor; and stared slightly at the mix of races, not just goblins and part goblins, but elves too.

Irmi too led them to see the common rooms, which was when they discovered the fruits of the ponderings of the would be marauders.

The flagstones along the corridor each played a different musical note.

"Mm" said Irmi "A different twist on the honky-tonk twinkletoes curse; mildly ingenious."

"Are – are such pranks encouraged?" asked the proper young man.

"Oh yes; all pranks develop wandwork or – in this case I think – chanting" said Irmi. "A mild imposition is set for any jape that causes inconvenience; sooner or later a prefect or member of staff is going to get irritated by sounding like a child's toy for walking along this section of corridor and will delete the effects. I'm not going to bother; the culprits plainly went to a lot of effort and it hurts nobody. I expect the musically talented will learn to skip about to make a harmonious combination of sounds. Just think; they could have made them make farting noises."

"Children can have a rather er basic sense of humour" said one of the girls.

"Yes; one of the favourite curses here is the fluorescent fart jinx, invented by one of the staff members when she was a schoolgirl at Hogwarts" said Irmi "It's reckoned a fair jinx for dropping on visiting dignitaries or pompous grown ups, so DO check your rears after you leave; finite incantatem deals with it adequately. Kids will be kids especially in the lower forms; and the feistier elements of the third of course like to show off that they can drop minor curses without word or wand. As you can see we have nice airy common rooms, two years share each common room except the fifth, who being an exam year have their own common room, not to study but to escape the younger ones. Story books and games are encouraged here, and there are lockers for collections to be stored and hobby materials. You'll see a lot of knitting stuff out at the moment, and patchwork; we're sewing and knitting for the poorest in society. There's an orphanage associated with the subsidised school and we're making stuff to jolly it up; and the boys doing metalwork and woodwork stuff. One of the first year kids here is making a clockwork train set from scratch; ambitious but a couple of older ones are helping him. And the woodwork mostly stays in the woodcrafting room; patchwork can be done in the common room but we have too sewing machines for larger items. One of the lower sixth is making machine appliquéd curtains with simple scenes on them; they are very pretty."

This was Frieda who was, with all her problems, a fine hand sewer; but also took to the sewing machines so well that she was delighted to give something back by making pretty things for orphans. And Irmi showed the would-be teachers the hobby rooms.

"I should think that actually teaching a trade like carpentry or sewing would be helpful for those of your students who are not very academic" she said "Even if they are able to take a ZAP, having such a skill might prove useful; and you could then too give employment to an impoverished dressmaker who is perhaps well capable of teaching but is too old to make a living by reason of hands crippled with arthritis; and a carpenter likewise."

"A brilliant idea" said the minister "These machines – they are amazing! I have never seen the like! Are they English inventions? Both sewing machines and lathes are most cunningly wrought!"

Irmi laughed.

"They are muggle inventions of the last century that have been copied in English factories; from the time before muggles widely used electricity. Madam Krait Malfoy Snape introduced the concept, being amazed that the wizarding world did not use them and being disgusted with the poor quality of sewing spells. One might cut out and make up a robe in an afternoon if one is skilled. It would be a great boon to the economy of your poor children if they might do so. And an increase in cheap clothing would mean more people would become better dressed also. And an increase in an educated society means an overall increase in wealth and hence an overall increase in demand for manufactured goods thereby further stimulating the economy."

"Is that so? You are very knowledgeable, Fraulein Luytens" said the minister.

"It is what I have learned in muggle studies sir; as muggles spend money in the same way wizards do. And they are in Europe socially more advanced than we, with less grinding poverty. They made many social leaps since the defeat of Gellert Grindelwald" she added. "For them, the war was over; we still had Odessa as a very real menace, and England had Voldemort. Now we have a freedom from such oppressors we are free to make social advance so we may not be shamed by the enlightenment of most muggles."

"I know very little about muggles" said the minister. "But if they can invent such machines that are as ingenious as many a goblin might build I fancy we may underestimate them."

"Many wizards do" said Irmi, dryly. "Which is a mistake. I would strongly advise phasing in muggle studies with your tuition also; many of the poorest are poor because they are marginalised for having muggeborn parents or muggleborn in their recent ancestry; they have more knowledge of muggle ways, and there may be a muggle family member who knows about the wizarding world who might be employed to explain truth about muggles, not the foolish myth that electricity is an attempt to copy magic. For if that were so, it would make the statute of secrecy a foolishness, would it not? Electricity was harnessed first in the nineteenth century for the sending of messages by short and long bursts of electrical power; it was not used for anything more –and then only as a novelty – until the end of that century, two hundred years after the statute of secrecy. It is only in the last fifty or sixty years that muggles have become totally dependant on electricity, to the extent that if it were lost, millions would die as a result, mostly of starvation; since they use it to preserve food, not to copy preservation cupboards – of which they are unaware – but because muggle explorers found that frozen animals in northern climes were still good to eat after they had been frozen a long time. Which they sort of knew anyway because of ice houses; but it meant cheap food was available for all, and the population naturally grew. And so too did the muggleborn increase, because more heritance factors came together that threw up the hidden combinations of wizardry in the population. This was also contributed to by muggle forms of transport that permitted more people to travel and meet and mix heritance. You might say the increase of our kind and its expectation of thriving is partly made possible by muggle technology."

"An interesting view" said the minister carefully "One that I suspect many would find unpalatable."

"Well, stuffy old fools find anything that challenges their set and often fallacious beliefs unpalatable" said Irmi "I AM glad that Austria is going to be forward looking and realises that education for all is a way forward to increase civilisation and promote the country's whole economy; and I who am part Austrian and part German – my mother was German – hope that it will be an idea that penetrates at least most German heads by the end of this century, though we cannot expect Russia to be civilised in the foreseeable future. They haven't even got the least semblance of civilisation among their muggles; they are even more a peasant economy than the French."

"Not that you're at all parochial" teased the youngest teacher.

Irmi grinned.

"We have been told by the French student we have here that there are two Frances; Paris and the peasantry" she said "At least France is trying, but it is grass roots attitudes that delay them. Russia is too culturally fragmented to be really able to be considered as one country; and has suffered much from war, famine, and stupid social and economic experiments on the part of muggle leaders who had as much idea as a cheese cauldron. Muggles can cause great disaster as well as producing very useful things and having ideas that are altruistic. Some because they mean well but are dense; some because they're downright nasty. The word Tyrant is an old one and the concept goes well before the time that we separated from muggles. And the meaning has changed to be more negative; and that is the same in both worlds too. Have you actually any of you visited poor neighbourhoods?"

"No Fraulein; why, do you think we should?" asked the proper young man.

"If you have not seen the conditions in which your pupils live, how then can you hope to understand the way they think?" said Irmi. "If a child is used to being brought coffee in bed by an elf, he is a lazy little so-and-so by the time he gets to school. If a child is used to rising at dawn and doing a sixteen hour day to support a widowed mother and eight younger siblings he will be worrying that they will be managing as well as being used to expend more physical energy than he is called on to do at school which may make him inattentive and disruptive. If he has lived in a damp apartment with flaking plaster he may be physically frail with a continual cough that will disturb his sleep and disrupt his studies. If he has no toilet facilities and no running water – common on the continent – he may have dirty habits that need GENTLE teaching to overcome, not ridicule for something he knows no better than. If a little girl has been raised in a brothel, she may have been trained from an early age to raise her skirt to men for a few knuts. She may already have been used by the age of eleven and have bad physical damage that causes her problems with toilet needs. And well may you look shocked; but Jade Von Strang und Luytens is my step mother and she has delved deep into the shame that is Germany's poverty. There are orphans in the orphanage who have needed such healing, and it will take years of gentling to heal them mentally. Such you must be prepared for; such is what happens in a society when the rich may have whatever they want and the poor go to the wall. You are MORE than teachers, you are pioneers of a better society, knights of justice and mercy for the poorest who will lift them from the poverty trap and give them a gift beyond price, that of education!"

The minister and the young teachers were much moved by Irmi's impassioned speech.

"I – I do not know if I can do this after all" said one of the young women.

"Fraulein; you are privileged" said Irmi "You are educated. You fear because it is a difficult task; were your ZH's easy? They were not. Yet you faced them because taking them was worth while. You CAN do it; you will find the courage in you to face the horror the poor must face daily because they have no choice; because I believe you CAN be brave and stand up to it. And when the stinking, snotty half breed brat climbs onto your lap to sob out her tale of humiliation and degradation you will be too angry on her – or his – behalf NOT to find the reserves to show no disgust to the child but only comfort. I somehow suspect" she added "That Austria will not prove to have such extreme problems as the big cities in Germany; being an altogether more pastoral society. And, may I add, a more neighbourly outlook generally; a friendliness."

"I hope so" said the young woman. "I – I cannot imagine such horrors! And I do not want to!"

"Then you should take whatever you come upon a little at a time, day by day" said Irmi. "My boyfriend and I purpose to teach a free school too, with those of our friends who will join us; so we too will have to face all this for ourselves. And I honour you for this decision."

"I think" said the pompous young man "We none of us realised quite what we were volunteering for; but I for one cannot feel that we could back out because the challenge may prove harder than we realise. I should feel dishonoured if I stepped down when the going became hard. We will do as you suggest, Fraulein, and visit poor neighbourhoods; and therein too see who will embrace education. We will too as the good Professor Snape has suggested visit the free school in England and too the subsidised school in Germany once it has had a chance to settle down. We came for help and ideas and to see what we would be letting ourselves in for; we are finding out. It is good, Fraulein, that Professor Snape and his relatives have a realistic idea of what we shall find else had we based our ideas on the well-run and smooth school that is here we should perhaps have been disillusioned in so unpleasant a way that we gave up in despair. I for one would rather know the worst that we might have to face."

"The worst that you might have to face" said Irmi "If you are to be in a city location that is, could be racists of either race, human or goblin, storming the school with fire and missiles because the purity of their own is being sullied by having to work with THEM, whichever THEM they may mean. You will undoubtedly have those who bully part bred children who may be despised by either side; for in poor neighbourhoods, unless there IS neighbourliness they are more likely to be also illegitimate, by rape or by being the children of prostitutes; and remember, goblin communities make a girl become a prostitute if she has been raped in most cases. Some human communities also. And the innocent child is the sufferer. In a closed society like a school, bullying CAN become endemic – see Durmstrang as an example – and such marginalised children may be driven even to suicide. It won't be easy. But it WILL be rewarding when your children learn to treat each other as people and with respect; and when they run to you to tell you news of their families; and when they finally graduate with pride. And you MUST be proud of them; for if you despise your students they will become despicable people. Give them dignity. See past the squalor of their poor clothing and dirty skins. Reach for their souls."

"I think we have learned a lot" said the minister "I for one am shocked by the level of poverty you have described; though certainly in Germany I suppose I am not really surprised. And if we find such in our own country, I WILL be making waves in the ministry. And I have every trust, Fraulein, in your word, for I can see that you have either seen this for yourself or heard of it first hand from those who have. Thank you for showing us around, and thank you too for your educative talk."

Irmi was glad when they left; but she knew that if she had made an impression on them, they would have a better chance of actually making a good go of a free school; and she genuinely wished them luck.

And then there was Gamp to struggle with.