[The moment when a mythical monster of folklore out-popcultures you.

Douman gives her a queer look for a moment -- he'd expected some sort of quip back over the H.P. thing -- but maybe she's just not the type for that kind of media. Surprising, considering that she seems interested in learning magic. (In comparison, the 'pain in the ass' doesn't faze him. His students are pretty notorious with speaking their minds a little too bluntly sometimes.)]

It was the other way round back when I learned it. Dozens of wanna-be practitioners trying to sell you their services, but barely anybody who was worth learning from.

[it hadn't helped that he'd been a precocious kid with a lot of magical talent]

I'm sorry to hear that your teacher went missing. Do you know what happened to them? [since she said 'disappeared' rather than 'ran off']