Disclaimer: If I happened to have created and owned the rights to Harry Potter, and was therefore typing these words onto a computer constructed entirely of diamonds, there likely would have been a point where I took the time to explain why those with animagus forms must be registered, when the very act of turning into an animal technically strips the wizard of his ability to use magic, arguable much more dangerous than any animal might be, while in that form. Alternatively, I would have at least explained what a single animal form could possibly do that a non-animagus wizard couldn't do more easily with magic.
Chapter Seven
Far sooner than she wished it had, the alarm spell that Daphne had put on her pillow before falling asleep went off. The spell itself was silent, merely making the pillow it was used on gently vibrate at the assigned time until the counter spell was used.
Woken by the pillow, whose vibrations would gradually increase all the way to shaking the bed it was on if she didn't stop it, Daphne sat up rather blearily and fumbled for her wand. She pointed it at the pillow and whispered the counter spell, getting it wrong twice before her brain woke up enough to get the spell right.
The pillow finally went still, and she was tempted to fall back down on it and get the extra hour of sleep that everyone else would be getting. But Daphne knew that she had to get up and take care of a few things before the rest of the students started filling the hallways.
First, she gathered clean clothes and fresh robes from Harry's trunk and made her way into the bathroom that the second year boys were expected to share. Locking the door behind her, and for good measure adding the simple lock spell that she had learned the previous year as part of an ongoing effort at keeping the more... reputation-worthy Slytherins from stealing her things, she proceeded to take care of her morning routine.
Honestly, she doubted that hiding her gender as far as baths and showers went was going to be that hard. It wasn't like the boys were going to be super eager to come in on each other bathing. Provided she made it obvious that the bathroom was occupied, prevented anyone from accidentally barging in, and didn't take forever while they were waiting (part of the reason for waking up early), it shouldn't be difficult to keep her hygiene up without being caught.
After cleaning herself thoroughly and habitually checking the burn scar to make certain that it still looked right, Daphne dressed herself and then took care of one more thing that needed to be done before classes started. The fact was that while she technically could use Potter's wand, it would never work quite as well as the one that had been matched to her. But if people saw her using a different wand, and teachers tended to notice that kind of thing, there would be questions that she couldn't answer.
Taking both her own and Harry's wand, Daphne set the two side by side. Hers was an inch shorter, and made of a darker wood. There wasn't a lot she could do about the length, considering transfiguring a wand would have been difficult for a seventh year, let alone a second. She could, however, use the same sort of color change charm that she had been renewing each day on her hair, on the wood. And she'd already managed to make that particular spell work with the real Potter's wand.
She took it up then, examining the wood carefully to be sure she had it right before casting the charm on her own wand. It took three tries, but she finally managed to match her wand's color to Harry's.
There, it still wasn't the right length, but considering how wizards held their wands, that was much harder to notice offhand. Slipping both wands away, the girl started out. Making certain the light was doused when she left the bathroom, she carefully opened the door and listened. All she heard was quiet snoring. The boys were still asleep.
Breathing out in relief, she took a moment to collect the invisibility cloak and the book that Moody had sent her, then pulled the cloak on before starting down to the common room. After slipping the invisibility cloak on and exiting into the corridor (leaving the poor fat lady in the painting confused after she had been startled awake by seemingly nothing), Daphne started to head for the library. There were things there that she wanted to learn about that were much more difficult to find under the watchful eye of the librarian, Madam Pince.
Using the invisibility cloak so much throughout the summer had made it almost second nature to be invisible. Daphne had found herself preferring the solitude and privacy of it more and more, sometimes even sitting under the cloak inside Harry's room when no one could see her anyway, or simply taking walks out on the street with the cloak on to avoid interacting with anyone. Not that many people had tried to talk to 'him' anyway, aside from that Figg woman with all the cats that kept staring from her windows whenever she thought that 'Harry' couldn't see her.
Once she was among the stacks, Daphne took a moment to listen carefully. No one else was in the library, not even Pince herself. Taking advantage of the privacy, she started back toward the restricted section and ducked under the rope to get in.
For the next half hour, she searched through the restricted books for anything related to the philosopher's stone that Quirrel had stolen. She wasn't going to bother with the regular books, since anything worthwhile would be in the books that the staff kept a much closer eye on, especially after last year.
Unfortunately, the fact that she couldn't ask the librarian for any kind of direction, or even use the card catalog that helped students find the regular books, meant that half an hour wasn't nearly enough time to find what she needed. She had no other choice but to carefully examine each and every book, trying to ignore the sounds that some of them made in their attempts to either scare her away or summon her nearer. She'd barely finished ruling out the books in one aisle before it was almost time to leave.
Looking at the rest of what she had to go through at some point to find what she needed, the girl sighed inwardly. Either Daphne was going to have to wake up earlier to get down into the restricted section with enough time to actually search thoroughly, or she needed a better way to narrow down where the book she wanted might be.
The trouble was, she had no way of knowing what kind of system Pince was using to organize these restricted volumes, and the search thus far hadn't done anything to answer that either. She had seen books about summoning minor demons right alongside detailed descriptions of memory adjustment potions and a couple of books whose presence utterly baffled Daphne considering how innocent they seemed. She was almost tempted to believe they had been misfiled, but Madam Pince was, if nothing else, obsessive about her books. There was no way that she would allow books to be put back on the wrong shelf.
All of which meant that even though Daphne had no clue why these seemingly innocuous children's books were set out of the way, there had to be a reason for it. Considering what that reason might be distracted her until the clock on the wall nearby indicated that it was almost time for the rest of the students to wake up. She had a few minutes to return to the common room so that she wouldn't be missed.
While she was about to slide the brightly colored book back into its spot, she heard a clearly annoyed voice hiss from the next aisle over. "Explain to me where it could be then? And please, do try not to tax my patience or your clearly limited vocabulary by using more than five words, you simpleton."
Daphne turned in time to see a shadow pass by the lamp at the end of the aisle, even as a second, calmer voice answered, "I don't know. I swear."
The angry, though cultured voice hissed a curse. "Perhaps I should motivate you further."
"No, no." The second voice pleaded. "If I knew where they put it, I'd tell you. I would. I don't need... motivation."
Confused, worried, and intrigued all at once, Daphne tucked the book under the cloak so that it wouldn't be seen floating through the air, and then crept to the end of the aisle to get a better look. She was just in time to have to jump back as one of the books was flung through the air.
The book was caught in midair with a hovering charm just in front of her aisle. That dangerous voice whispered, "You try my patience, Abercrombie." The book began to float back the other way. "But we mustn't leave evidence of our search."
"We'll find it." The calmer voice reassured whoever was so mad. "We will, just give us time."
Carefully, Daphne poked her head back around the edge of the bookshelf once she didn't think that she'd end up taking a leather-bound projectile to the face. She couldn't see anyone at first, then noticed a shadow passing the librarian's desk and moving into the corridor.
She hurried to catch up, while trying to remain as quiet as possible. Being invisible would be pointless if she tripped over a chair and went sprawling. All of which meant that by the time she reached the doorway, all she could see was the remnant of a cloak swishing around the corner at the end of the corridor.
Daphne attempted to sprint without making noise, the obvious ridiculous sight of which (long, exaggerated leg strides followed by gingerly landing on her toes at the end of each step in a sort of side-ways fashion) made her even more grateful for the fact that no one could see her.
Throughout her pursuit of the arguing duo, Daphne remained far enough behind that all she could see was shadows and fading signs of movement. She trailed them all the way to the stairs and from there down from the fourth floor where the library was, to the second.
The voices echoed back toward her from around the next corner. The dangerous one seemed to be brooding, while the other, Abercrombie, apparently, kept muttering reassurances and promises that they would find whatever it was the two of them had been searching for.
Finally, the angry voice said with a tone of finality, "If we can't find it, I'll just release my little friend. If Dumbledore is busy trying to save his precious mudbloods, we can search more thoroughly."
Daphne heard a door swing open and then shut, and quickly hurried around the corner and down the hall. She stopped at where she thought the pair had gone and looked up.
It was the girls' bathroom. The girls' bathroom that all the girls avoided because of Myrtle, the obnoxious, wailing ghost that haunted it. Frowning, Daphne pressed her ear to the door. She thought that she could hear something grinding inside, but couldn't be sure with all the other noises the castle made all the time.
Working up her nerve, the Slytherin-hidden-as-a-Gryffindor got her wand ready. Being invisible would give her a bit of an advantage, but she'd have to be sure to take care of angry voice first. Abercrombie would probably be easier to deal with once his leader or master or whatever he was went down.
Before she could tell herself how phenomenally bad this could end up, Daphne pushed the door open and raised her wand beneath the cloak, the stunning curse on her lips.
She found an empty bathroom, utterly devoid of potential stupefying targets. For a moment, she simply stood in place, letting the bathroom door swing shut in her face.
Shoving the door open once more, Daphne stepped inside and looked around. Nothing. No one. She looked in every stall, crouched to look behind and under the sinks, and still found no sign that anyone had been there.
Sweeping the cloak off, as she had started to feel claustrophobic in it while trailing the voices, the girl crouched to peer under the sinks one more time, completely at a loss. Could she have been mistaken? Maybe the voices went into some other room.
After a last glance around the clearly empty room, Daphne sighed and started to the door once more. By now, some people would be up and moving around to get ready for the day.
Barely had she stepped into the corridor, than a confused voice spoke up from just down the hall. "Harry?"
Making a face at the fact that she hadn't put the cloak back on, Daphne turned that way. It was the other Gryffindor second year, the one she hadn't met. Longbottom. What was his first name again? Sniffles? Snivvles? Nibbles? Norbert? Neb... Nev... "Neville? What are you doing here?"
Neville hesitated, and Daphne noticed that he looked exhausted. "I was... taking a walk. I couldn't sleep." The boy shifted from foot to foot, and the expression on his face was so broken that Daphne was afraid that someone else had died. Before she could find a way to ask about it, he said quickly, "Please don't hate me, Harry. Please, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't know. I swear, Gran says there's nothing else I could've done, but I shouldn't have done what I did. If I didn't, then it wouldn't have happened. I don't know how to fix it, Harry. But please don't hate me. Please, just tell me what I can do." He looked miserable.
Daphne was bewildered. Just what had this boy done to Harry Potter? "Neville..." 'He' began without thinking. "What are you so upset about?" If nothing else, she could just play off the apparent lack of knowledge as Harry's typical do-gooder, forgive everything personality.
"I..." Neville's eyes closed, and she thought he was about to cry. "She's dead, because of me."
Blood running cold, Daphne swallowed. "Who?"
"Who?" Neville peeked up, his eyes red. "Greengrass. Daphne Greengrass."
Well that just made Daphne even more confused. "What- huh?"
"When I stopped you in the common room." The boy all but wailed, tempting Daphne to tell him to lower his voice. "When I slowed you down and made you- err- Hermione petrify me. I made you wait, I made you slower. If I hadn't tried to stop you, then maybe you could have gotten there earlier, maybe you would have stopped him. Maybe Daphne would still be alive." Neville's eyes closed, and he dropped his chin to his chest, honest tears falling then. "I'm sorry, Harry. It's my fault."
"Merlin's Mercy..." Daphne breathed out, staring at the boy. "Have you been going around all summer thinking that?" When the boy nodded hesitantly, she couldn't help herself. She slapped his face. Apparently, her talk with the Weasley girl notwithstanding, Daphne was not ready to become an emotional counselor.
Neville had let out a yelp when he was slapped, holding a hand to his face. But he made no move to defend himself. "I know." He said morosely. "I deserve worse than that. I want to see if Gran'll move me to another school, maybe-"
She slapped him again. "Stop it." Daphne ordered, angry now. "Stop... just... stop. Shut up for a minute." She shoved both of her hands back through her short hair, the habit that she had picked up from checking its new length so often. "Okay, look. Are you a dark wizard?"
The boy hesitated, then shook his head mutely.
"Did you kill Daphne?" She asked him flatly.
Neville's eyes widened, and he shook his head more quickly. "N-no."
She continued then. "Did you tell Daphne to meet you down in the off limits room for some snogging?"
If possible, Neville's eyes would have leapt out of his head and scurried away. "No!" He blurted, red-faced. "I mean, I thought she was pretty, and... and... maybe sometimes I lost track of what Pro-professor McGonagal was saying because Tracey Davis would tickle Daphne's ear with the end of the quill and make her twitch and I thought it was cute, but I never ever said anything."
Uh, wow. For a moment, all Daphne could do was stare, twitching a little bit. Tracey had loved to make her jump with that stupid quill, but she hadn't thought anyone else had noticed. Let alone a mousey little Gryffindor who seemed like he should have been tossed directly into Hufflepuff.
"Harry?" Neville asked, clearly worried again.
Shaking it off, Daphne took a breath. "Okay, look, the point is... you didn't kill her. You weren't the reason she was there, and you weren't the reason she died. Slowing H-Hermione, Ron, and me down, that didn't make Daphne die. Because Quirrel already had her when he- when I got there. You understand that? Quirrel already had Daphne when I got there, so no matter how long I took, he still would have had her. He took her with him."
"So it's Quirrel that's responsible. You understand that? You try to take any of that blame, and you're taking blame off of him. You try to do that again, you try to make that piece of filth seem even slightly less guilty, and I'll slap you into next week, if I don't just curse you to be green and stinky for a month. Because he's the one I owe. Got it? Not. Your. Fault."
The boy's head bobbed up and down quickly, and Daphne turned to walk away. "It's too early for this. I need breakfast." She was halfway down the hall when she noticed that the boy hadn't moved. "Are you coming?"
Neville seemed to shake himself, and quickly followed after 'him'.
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"Everyone take your seats. Take your seats, please. We have much to go over today." Professor Filius Flitwick walked from the back of the classroom, where the door was, to the front while waving both of his diminutive hands to go along with his instructions to sit.
Sandwiched between Granger and Weasley, as usual, Daphne took her seat and let her eyes drift toward the Hufflepuffs on the other side of the room. Most of them she didn't know, though two did stand out. The first was Ernie Macmillan, whose family's high status meant that the two of them had actually played together a bit as children. Daphne had liked when her mother arranged these outings, even if Ernie could be a bit pompous even as a child. It was at least more fun than when her mother insisted that they spend time with the Malfoys. Draco's idea of a fun time was to brag about how many muggles and blood traitors his father would 'put in their place'. It had been even less endearing coming from a six year old than it was now.
The other Hufflepuff that Daphne knew was the non-Weasley redhead Susan Bones, whose aunt had been the Madam Bones that she had seen in the Ministry. Susan herself had visited the ministry a couple of times over the summer while Daphne had been there. The other girl seemed to feel eyes on her, and looked up to see 'Harry' gazing that way. Looking to either side of herself, Susan then looked back at 'him' and mouthed, 'What?'.
Shaking 'his' head, Daphne looked away as Flitwick climbed up to stand on top of the chair in front of his desk to start the lesson.
"Now then," The professor began. "Since you are all now capable of casting the basic charms from your first year, it's time that you begin to understand what magic is." Casting his gaze around the room, the small man asked, "Well? Can anyone tell me what magic is?"
Naturally, Granger's hand was stretched so far into the air that Daphne was fairly certain that her arm was going to pop off and fly into the ceiling. When Flitwick nodded to her, Hermione recited, "Magic is the exercise of one's will and power over the environment toward a host of effects which sidestep what are thought of as ordinary or natural laws. Most uses of purposeful magic fall into one of two categories: charms or transfiguration. Charms tend to alter how an object behaves, adding or changing properties of that object, while transfiguration alters the object itself in a more fundamental manner."
Flitwick was nodding, all but salivating over the know-it-all's rambling. "Yes, yes, quite good. That was a very good answer, Miss Granger. Five points toward Gryffindor, I believe." Considering the way that the headmaster had altered the house points rules at the end of the previous year, this caused less annoyance from the Hufflepuff side of the room than it might have otherwise.
But Granger was still a stuffy, spoiled know-it-all.
At the front of the classroom, Professor Flitwick waved his wand, conjuring a long strip of thin green cloth. It hovered flat in the air in front of the students. "You may think of this..." His hand indicated the length of cloth. "... as reality. This cloth is the world we live in."
A second gesture of the man's wand summoned a second strip of cloth. This one was silver. "This," Flitwick explained while the second cloth lined up directly beneath the first. "is magic."
The teacher hopped down from his chair, beginning to pace in front of the class while the two strips of cloth remained where they were. "What we call magic, is an invisible field which lies just beneath our own reality. That field is capable of reshaping our reality by reshaping itself." Swishing his wand back toward the floating strips, Flitwick made the silver cloth representing magic rise up in one spot, which pushed the cloth representing reality upward in that same place.
"Most people, what we call muggles, are unable to affect or notice this invisible force. But a very special few have been born with the ability to manipulate that field through the force of their will. Those people are all of you, and myself. Wizards and witches."
Hannah Abbott raised her hand from the Hufflepuff side of the room. "But professor, we don't just will things to happen. We use spells."
Flitwick nodded. "Quite right indeed. You see, this field that we call magic is very difficult to manipulate in ways that it doesn't yet understand. If it helps, think of magic as a pet animal. What do you do when you wish to make your pet perform a certain action?"
This time, Parvati Patil raised her own hand from a couple seats down from where Daphne sat. "Train it?"
The professor beamed, nodding his head rapidly. "Exactly, Miss Patil. Five more points to Gryffindor. And how do you train a pet?"
It was another Hufflepuff boy who raised his hand then. It took Daphne a moment to place a name to him, Justin Finch-Fletchley. "You train an animal by associating the behavior you desire with a reward or treat of some kind. Specifically, through repetition and consistency. The animal must learn to connect what you want it to do, with being rewarded. This takes time and patience."
"Oooh very good." Flitwick was smiling broadly. "Absolutely right. Thank you, Mr. Finch-Fletchley. Thank you very much. Five points to Hufflepuff. Yes, we train a pet through repetition, which itself must be precise. If you are training a dog, you cannot simply say 'sit' one time and 'banana' another and expect the poor animal to do the same thing each time. You must take the time to repeatedly say 'sit' and put the animal into the position you desire. Eventually, all you will need to do is say 'sit' and the animal will act in the manner it has now been trained to."
"The same can be said for magic. While it is technically possible to enact an effect through pure will, doing so takes a very long time, and can be very taxing. It is far more efficient to follow the training that has already been established. In this case, think of the field of magic as a pet who has lived for thousands of years, and who has been taught a great many tricks. But to convince it to perform those tricks, one must use the proper command. Those commands are what we know as spells. That is why the intonation and wand gestures must be so precise. Because just as you cannot order your pet dog to sit without the proper command, neither can you order magic itself to turn your apple pink without the proper spell."
This time Daphne couldn't help but raise her hand. "Does that mean a wizard could invent a new spell, even today?"
Flitwick nodded at that. "Oh yes, Mr. Potter, of course. New spells are still occasionally invented, though it normally takes years of effort. Decades for the more powerful ones. You see, to invent a new spell, a wizard must speak the new incantation and perform the appropriate wand gesture they wish to associate with the spell, and then force the effect through their own will. Even the most powerful wizards can only manage such an effect two, perhaps three times per day, and for a spell to 'take hold' within the magical field itself so that simply performing the associated gestures and vocal components will 'remind' the magic of what it is supposed to do requires hundreds or even thousands of repetitions."
"By now, with all of the spells that have been invented and trained into the magical field, it is simply more efficient to use one of them than to take the time and effort to invent whole new ones." He winked at the class then. "After all, one would have to be very devoted indeed to come up with a spell that has not already been well established. Most attempts at such 'inventions' these days are simply minor alterations to spells that have existed for quite some time."
"Now then," Flitwick continued. "With your new understanding of what a spell is, precisely, let us begin with our first spell of the year. Most call it the tickling charm. Please hold your wands upright like so..."
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Once class was over, Daphne waited for the other students to leave before approaching the teacher. Ron and Hermione had originally insisted on staying, but she had convinced the pair to go on without her with the premise that the professor was less likely to usher them all to their next class if it was only 'him' that risked being late.
Actually, she was fairly sure that all she would have had to say was the word 'tardy' and Hermione would have left a smoke cloud and trail of flame on her way out the door.
"Professsor Flitwick?" She spoke up as the professor pushed his chair back behind his desk.
He looked up quickly. "Ah, Mr. Potter, is there something I can help you with?"
Daphne hesitated. "Well, I was wondering... can you remember the name of you-know-who?"
Flitwick blinked twice at that, cocking his head to the side as if he hadn't heard her properly. "I'm sorry?"
"His name, Professor." She repeated. "I mean, I know we don't say it, but can you remember what it is?"
The small man's head bobbed. "Well of course I can. It's..." He trailed off, his easy smile turning to a frown. "Well that is, the name of he-who-must-not-be-named would be... I believe that..." A disconcerted look crossed his face then. "How very... odd."
"Odd?" Daphne echoed. "I think not remembering the name of the most evil wizard who ever lived is a bit more than odd, Professor."
Now Flitwick looked troubled. "Yes, you're quite right. Excuse me, Mr. Potter, I must go and speak with the Headmaster about this at once."
Then he was gone, jogging out the door and leaving Daphne to trudge to her next class in a state of quiet contemplation. If even the teachers couldn't remember the name, could anyone? The Wizarding World's greatest enemy might very well reappear somewhere and leave them with no idea of who he really was.
Eventually, she found her way through the dungeons and stepped through the doorway into the potions classroom.
"Mr. Potter." Professor Riddle himself stood at the front of the room, ramrod straight as always. The man had always been thin and tall, his features almost gangly, with long, wild dark hair that framed a face whose expression had always struck Daphne as a little wild and intense, belying his aristocratic stature.
Even when she had been one of his favored Slytherins, Daphne had thought the man favored his own house far too openly. He was thoroughly unfair toward the other houses, especially Gryffindor, and most especially Potter himself. It was as though Riddle held a special animosity toward the famously-scarred boy.
"Thank you for joining us." Riddle all but drawled the words, the scorn in his voice palpable. "I do hope that our silly little class didn't interrupt your very busy schedule."
Most of the Slytherins in the room, whom Gryffindor shared the class with, tittered so much that Daphne wondered if someone had been practicing Professor Flitwick's tickling charm on them. It hadn't been that funny. But then, when one was in Professor Riddle's house, one sucked up to him.
"Sorry, Professor." 'He' said, trying not to give Riddle any reason to take his annoyance out on 'Harry' even more. "I was talking to Profe-"
Riddle's voice, cultured and powerful, boomed. "My mistake, class." He took a few steps that way, raising one hand to indicate 'Harry'. "I'm afraid I rather stupidly believed that this was my classroom and that, by extension, I would be the one speaking now." He made a bowing gesture, gesturing for 'Harry' to go on. "But it seems that Mr. Potter would rather have a conversation."
"So let's have a conversation then, shall we?" Riddle pretended to consider for a moment. "Let's say, ahhh, fifteen points away from..." He smiled thinly. "... every House."
That caused a brief uproar from both sides, until Riddle shot a look toward the students that silenced them so quickly that Daphne very nearly thought he might have used a silent spell to manage it. "Since the Headmaster has altered the House Cup rules, I find myself needing to be slightly more creative when it comes to finding ways to silence Mr. Potter's cheek. To that end, the entire school will pay for his inability to shut his mouth and sit down."
Without another word, even though she was seething inwardly, Daphne started toward the seat next to Weasley and ran herself through a calming exercise as she walked.
"Wait." Professor Riddle was smiling when Daphne looked back that way. "I have a better idea." He snapped his fingers and began to walk back to the front of the room. "With me, Potter."
After a momentary hesitation, she followed him. When they reached the front of the room, Professor Riddle indicated the cauldron that sat bubbling away. "I have been preparing this particular potion before school began, in order to begin this year by showing everyone what sort of very special effects a suitably talented potions master may achieve with enough study. I believe that you can help with that."
Daphne hesitated, frowning. "I can help? How?"
"Easily." Riddle replied with a small smirk. "This is, thankfully, within even your questionable abilities, Potter. Merely pluck one of your own hairs, and add it to the cauldron."
She blinked at that. "What? Why?"
Riddle's eyes narrowed and he reached out snake-fast. The next thing Daphne knew, there was a stinging sensation in her scalp and the man was tossing several of her hairs into the cauldron himself. "This is a polyjuice potion, Mr. Potter. It will change whoever drinks it into a copy of whoever adds a bit of themselves to it."
As Daphne's eyes widened in sudden panic, Riddle dipped a cup into the cauldron and then raised it. "Now then, who would like to turn into Mr. Potter?"
Note: THANK you guys, for the encouragement. I have very specific ideas about how the Houses work and what they're supposed to be like, and it's good to know that someone else likes those ideas as well. As to expanding the world outside of Hogwarts, I definitely want to do that as well with my own ideas. There will probably be a bit of that come Christmas break.
Hopefully my description of how magic works is understandable. I tried to keep it as much 'canon compliant' as possible, as in it could work with what we know about magic from the books without Harry ever technically hearing it explained that way. We'll see.