faderift | [Open] I can't take the distance

Entry tags:

[Open] I can't take the distance

WHO: Hermione and OPEN
WHAT: Catch-all for the month while Hermione gets used to Kirkwall
WHEN: Throughout Bloomingtide
WHERE: The docks, the Gallows, and exploring Kirkwall
NOTES: Will update with any warnings if necessary. If anyone wants to plan or would like a specific starter, feel free to either PM this journal or hit me up on plurk (

StarryOblivion).

Arrival

While Hermione had never had trouble with boats, she couldn't help feeling nauseated during the entire trip. She was still convinced that she'd left Harry behind in Skyhold, and that she could have done more to find him, and the concern and guilt weighed on her heavily.

By the time she'd disembarked, she was a little unsteady on her feet, and the sight of the Gallows wasn't really helping to foster a cheery disposition. She lingered by the docks for a time, often stopping to stare back across the water towards where they'd come from, but she knew that eventually she'd have to make her way into the Gallows proper.

The Gallows

Though it wasn't as dismal as it had been when she'd been kept a prisoner there in that horrible future world, the Gallows still wasn't the most inviting of places. Hermione didn't consider herself sensitive to that sort of thing, but she could swear she could feel the pain and anguish that lingered, soaked into the walls despite the Inquisition's best efforts to make the place livable. Though she sat in the library more than once and took a few meals in the dining hall and tried to settle into something resembling a day-to-day schedule, she didn't feel wholly comfortable anywhere. It wasn't until now that she realized just how much Skyhold had come to feel like home, and that posed a whole host of other problems in itself.

The city

Though Hermione hated the Gallows, she'd heard enough mixed tales about Kirkwall to be reluctant to travel there. But she knew that staying in the Gallows all day every day wasn't healthy, and so she eventually managed to borrow a set of clothes that wouldn't look too out of place among the locals, and so wouldn't attract any undue attention as she spent a few days familiarizing herself with her new surroundings.

[OOC- For the last option, anyone in her current CR circle is free to venture along with her, and anyone is welcome to encounter her throughout Kirkwall as she tries to get her bearings. She's curious enough that she'll at least pop her head in anywhere that doesn't look clearly dangerous, but feel free to contact me if you want to be sure or want something specific!]

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Hermione nods, satisfied with the supposition that Cosima is, in fact, a Muggle. "It's its own government. Within the magical community. Technically, I shouldn't be talking about this at all to someone who isn't also a witch or wizard, but I've decided that the International Statute of Secrecy doesn't apply beyond the international level. I can't rightfully be expected to survive Thedas if I couldn't use my magic at least once in a while, and keeping it quiet seems pointless when this world is aware of the existence of magic.

"Anyway, the Ministry of Magic runs similarly to Parliament, only its various departments are more focused on the magical community. There's the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, for instance, making sure that no one uses magic inappropriately or breaks our laws, such as the International Statute of Secrecy, which states that we're to keep our magic hidden from Muggles - that is, people without magic - unless it becomes necessary, such as a marriage that results in children who can do magic. There's also the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, which covers all manner of magical beasts, beings, and spirits, from dragons to elves to goblins to Dementors. And then there's the Department of Magical Transportation; they're in charge of making sure of things such as proper Apparation from one place to another, the regulations put on the various models of brooms, how to use the Floo Network and Portkeys and all sorts of other ways we have of getting around."

She opens her mouth, meaning to keep talking - there are, after all, four more major departments in the Ministry of Magic - but she doesn't want to overwhelm Cosima. "All this goes on alongside the non-magical community, just beyond their knowing. It could very well be that we're from the same world and just don't know it, since we'd run in different circles. Besides, Earth is fairly large, and your accent doesn't sound European."

"Nope - I was in Canada directly before I came here, but born and raised in California." She smiles, almost ruefully. "Depending on precisely when you're from, this might be the part where I insert a sheepish apology for being American, but."

Adjusting her glasses, she adds, "I wouldn't be entirely surprised if we were from the same world and didn't know it. It's a big place, and there's a lot going on that the public doesn't know about, even just where science and corporate research are concerned. Though I have to ask ... at what point in dating someone is it legal to tell them you can do magic, because I assume you're not just putting it on your OKCupid profile." It's a little bit of a joke, because that's how Cosima is, but the curiosity is genuine and nonjudgmental.

If there's one thing she loves, it's trying to understand something new.

Hermione looks at her a bit quizzically at her preemptive apology. "It was October of 1998," she answers. "As far as I know, there are a fair amount of stereotypes associated with Americans, but none so bad that they warrant a blanket apology. You haven't insulted me yet, after all."

She blinks at that next bit, though, understanding the question but not knowing what an OKCupid profile is. She assumes it's some sort of personals advert, but she's never exactly been one for that sort of thing. "It's not unheard of for someone to be married to a witch or wizard and never know about it unless they have a child who starts showing signs of magic. Otherwise, breaches of various severity are dealt with in various ways, from a blatant display of magic in front of a group of Muggles to furtively performing a non-essential spell in front of a Muggle spouse."

"Ah, sorry. OKCupid's a bit later than 1998, and a lot of the apologizing starts after the 2000 presidential election." So Hermione has that to look forward to.

Cosima leans back a bit, thoughtfully. "So is magic, like, a recessive gene? Muggle and non-muggle equals question-mark-muggle kid? Man, that'd be a bumpy awakening. Living a whole life with someone until one day your kid sneezes and his hair turns blue. I mean, I'm sure that's not how it manifests, but you get my point."

Blinking, Hermione tried to think back of what little she knew of present-day American politics, remarking, "Ah. So I take it that President Clinton's scandal didn't have an effect on his career in the long-term, if there's still a proper election two years later rather than an impeachment."

Cosima was surprisingly on the mark, and the look on Hermione's face said as much. "There are no geneticists in the wizarding world - not at the moment, anyway - but yes, that's how I tend to think of it. I'm a fairly talented witch despite being Muggle-born, to the point where I've been asked if there was any magic in my extended family. But the hair turning blue bit is only likely to happen if the child is also a Metamorphagus, a witch or wizard with the ability to change their appearance at will. Otherwise, they would need a potion or at the very least a wand to be able to manage that. It's more likely to manifest in ways that Muggles would consider strange coincidences or freak accidents, such as bullies getting their comeuppance, or some such thing."

"Oh, interesting. Can I ask, and please shut me down if this is rude, but does 'Muggle-born' mean both your parents are muggles, or just one? From the way you framed it, it sounds like there's an expectation that the expectation is that wizarding kids of wizarding parents are usually stronger, but is that just cultural, or has anyone ever studied it?"

She is resisting the urge to take notes - this is Hermione's life, that would be rude - but on the other hand, it is totally fascinating and she hasn't managed to frame magic in Thedas in terms of heritability yet in a conversation with someone who knows enough about it to be helpful.

(Though she totally makes a mental note to ask Anders. If he doesn't know, at least she's pretty sure he'd find the question interesting rather than nosy.)

Cosima is more than welcome to take notes, though Hermione might be a bit useless when it comes to mapping out how magic is inherited in Thedas. None of the mages she knows have children, and since they'd mostly been sent to Circles when they were quite young, they often don't remember their parents, though there's the implication that their parents lived outside a Circle and so weren't mages at all. It's something she's often thought about herself.

"It's not rude at all. Both of them are Muggles, yes. If only one of my parents had been a Muggle, I'd be known as a half-blood. There are some who would say that the child of a Muggle-born and a pureblood would still be known as a half-blood, but those people tend to be blood purists. Bigotry exists even in the magical world." She doesn't sound too happy about that, but other than a slight grimace, she can move on past that.

"In actuality, a person's magic has nothing to do with their lineage. It's like athleticism. Of course parents will have some sort of influence on their child's predisposition, but it's up to the individual to actually practice and excel. There are many people who come from pureblood families who end up being Squibs, which are people who can't perform any sort of magic at all despite their lineage, and so are essentially wizard-born Muggles. The only reason it's of any note when a Muggle-born ends up being a very accomplished witch or wizard - especially in school - is because there's a large culture gap, so it's surprising when we can catch on quickly enough to be on equal footing with our magical peers as well as blend in in the Muggle world."

"Ah." She brightens a bit at the athleticism comparison. "So it's partially heritable the way, say, being a ballet dancer is. Some people could never dance ballet professionally just because of how they're born; some have the potential, but don't have the resources or the encouragement or the opportunity; and a very few have the talent, the opportunity and the desire to perform at the top of their craft. I mean, obviously no analogy is going to be perfect, but yeah, that makes some sense. So a pair of identical twins might have similar raw magical talent, but one might be more driven to pursue it than the other."

Not that twin studies particularly interest her or anything.

"If you're a witch and your parents are muggles, how do you find your way to this secret world when the laws keep it so hidden?"

Edited 2017-05-23 15:28 (UTC)

Athleticism and dance might not be the best way to describe it, but at least it seems as though Cosima is aware of that. "Right," she replies anyway. "It's not unheard of for there to be a witch in a group of otherwise Muggle siblings. As you'd said before, it's not too dissimilar from a recessive gene, and I'm only reluctant to think of it that way because there hasn't been any official research to that effect to support such a comparison."

Of the twins Hermione knows, both in each set have magical capabilities, and so she can't really say whether it would be possible for one twin to be a Muggle and the other to be a witch or wizard. She does know for a fact, however, that Harry's mother had been a Muggle-born witch while her sister had not, so she feels more confident talking about that much.

"When I was eleven, I received a notice that I'd been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. My parents and I had thought it was some sort of prank, until one of the professors dropped in for a visit and confirmed it. The Ministry of Magic keeps tabs on underage magic use throughout the country, and so whenever a child uses magic, the Headmaster - or Headmistress, depending - of the school will be alerted, and once the child reaches school age, they receive an invitation for enrollment. In the case of Muggle-born children, this usually means that a staff member will be dispatched to have a discussion with the family, since most Muggle parents will of course assume that it's all a hoax. So it's all really just a matter of following a set of protocols once a magical child has been identified."

"What if you parents don't want you to go to Hogwarts? Are there, like, other options?" Cosima was raised in an environment where choice of school was taken as a given, and suddenly has a sinking suspicion about why there isn't any witch or wizard studying magical genetics. Still, she doesn't want to judge too much too fast. After all, she is the opposite of any sort of expert where magic is concerned.

(On the other hand, she can imagine how well Sarah wouldn't take it, for example, if a witch turned up and informed her Kira would be going to school in Scotland.)

"Options... exist." She might not call them options, since there's only so much that can be done in that particular case, but there's at least a choice to be made.

"Because uncontrolled magic can be highly dangerous if the wizard or witch doesn't know how to control it, Muggle parents are highly encouraged to send their children to the nearest magical school so they can pose less of a risk to the community at large. After all, no parent wants their child to be hurt or to accidentally hurt other children, and so it's really in everyone's best interests to see to it that young witches and wizards get the best education they can manage. Parents aren't forced into anything, of course, and if it so happens that they can't be convinced to send their children to a proper magical school, they're made to understand that they're accepting full responsibility for any improper use of magic displayed by their child so long as they're underage, and once they reach full adulthood, their child will be held fully accountable for their actions under wizarding law. From what I understand, when put in that light, most parents ultimately decide that it really is best to send their children to school, though they may occasionally have to have withstood a few infractions before coming to that conclusion."

"Hm." Cosima looks a bit dubious, but what Hermione's describing is, at least, less compulsory that the Circle system, as far as Cosima's been led to understand it. It's not a great choice, but it is a choice. Mostly. And it's not as if she'd know how to keep a child who could do magic safe, left to her own devices.

"What about postsecondary education? Since magic is secret, I can't imagine that like, Oxford will take a transcript from a wizarding institution."

Mages in the Circle weren't allowed to see their families ever again; at least Hogwarts lets the children go on holiday and is no more restrictive than the average boarding school. She'll take that over being ripped away from her parents without any explanation any day.

Hermione cracks a small smile at Cosima's question, explaining, "Most people in the wizarding community choose occupations within the wizarding community, and unless they want to go in for a specialized trade - in which case, there are certainly schools and conservatories for that sort of thing - there's usually no need for higher education. That's not to say you couldn't go, however! Hogwarts has advisors just as any other school might, and if a student really wanted to continue their education in a Muggle institute, there are procedures involved. The advisor would look at the student's overall grades in Muggle Studies to ensure that they're a good match for a Muggle school, assuming they're not Muggle-born. Then, with the help of the Education Office of the International Confederation of Wizards, a transcript is put together citing private education in whatever manner fits the educational guidelines of the specific nation."

"So there's hope for a witch geneticist one of these days," Cosima says with a smile. It's a joke, mostly, though given her own interest in epigenetics, she'd have been very interested in the relative heritability of magical skill if she'd known about magic at home in the first place. It was an interesting puzzle (though, at the same time, she fervently hopes Dyad does not know about magic).

"Do you think you'll go on, assuming you get back home and it's an option?"

"Someday," Hermione asserts, though she doesn't really mean it as a joke. Really, she hopes that someday someone from her world can figure out how to bridge the gap between magic and science, though it probably won't be for a while yet. First they have to concern themselves with everything settling after yet another major wizarding war just twenty years after the first.

"I don't know if I'll ever really stop being an academic, though if I do end up working for the Ministry, there really isn't any sort of official institution to go into for that. They just sort of throw you in and give you real-world experience. Which is fine; I want to be active in the magical community, so any interests I have outside of that can simply wait a bit until I'm settled enough in my career to take night classes when the time allows for it."

"That's fair. You need someone to help that geneticist secure funding, too, right?" Government service has never been on Cosima's radar, in particular, but it's something she can (mostly) respect. Especially because even on glancing acquaintance, it's clear Hermione is the type to try to make things better, not accumulate power for power's sake.

"I think my parents have just resigned themselves to the fact I'll always be in school, which is an exaggeration, I'm eventually gonna graduate when I finish my dissertation. But if you're interested in learning stuff it's also kind of true." She grins. "Maybe with less 'juggling your funding sources so you don't have to take out yet more student loans' in the future, though."

Hermione cracks a small smile in response to that. "Considering that most wizards have the same sort of faith in Muggle science that the average scientist might have in magic, I'd say getting any sort of government funding for that sort of thing might take a fair bit of convincing. But the magical community is also a curious one, so they might be willing to budge on that before too long."

Tilting her head a little, Hermione asks, "What exactly is your area of expertise, Cosima? Science, obviously, with an emphasis of sorts in genetics mostly likely, but I know that anyone who spends so long in school usually tends to have a very specific field of interest."

Cosima lights up, a little, at an audience who might actually have some grasp of what she's talking about when answering this question. "Yeah, I'm evo devo - evolutionary developmental biology. The field basically uses how organisms develop to infer their ancestral relationships - sort of trying to reverse-engineer a most likely evolutionary course that way. My dissertation in particular is about epigenetic influence on clone cells. The old nature-nurture debate in miniature, kind of." She's simplifying, of course, but at least she trusts that Hermione knows what evolution and genes are. "After all, if we're trying to pinpoint evolutionary relationships, we need to have a solid grasp on how much environmental differences can influence development, because gene expression is the basis of a lot of what we do."

Most of what Cosima says actually goes far over Hermione's head - chalk it up to her never exactly having a proper science class unless one wants to count Potions as chemistry or Herbology as botany or Astronomy as-... well, really, Astronomy was about as scientific as they truly got at Hogwarts. But while she might not properly understand the majority of it, she does understand enough to get a vague idea of just what Cosima is studying and to ask questions to hopefully make it a little less vague.

"So essentially... you're trying to figure out where we all came from? I'm afraid I can't say I've ever actually heard of epigenetics, though if I'm going to break down the etymology and use what you just said as context, I imagine it has to do with how the outside world - from climate to culture and so on - impacts the fundamental building blocks that are our DNA?"

"Oh man, yeah, no, sorry. I just got excited not to have to start with germ theory. But yeah, epigenetics is almost exactly that." She gestures in a vague way, and wishes that scrap paper were a thing she didn't feel guilty about, given the price of parchment.

"So we've got DNA, right, which is like the fundamental instructions for how to build an organism. Genes are specific sequences within that DNA that tell your cells to make certain proteins. The classic genetic trait is eye color, right? You get a certain combination of chromosomes from each parent and together they determine whether you have blue, green, hazel, brown, whatever. But a lot of genes can be, um, basically switched on or off by a whole ton of environmental factors. So like, if you're a mammal, what your mother eats while she's pregnant with you, for instance."

She adjusts her glasses, shrugging. "So with clone cells, you've basically got a control. You know the genes are identical, so if you expose them to different environmental influences, you can see the epigenetic effects really clearly. At least in theory."

While Hermione likes to take notes, she doesn't really need scrap paper, not for this. She might not know how many times Cosima has tried explaining her research to other people here in Thedas, but she's almost certain that she's one of the few people who actually understands what the other woman is talking about, without thinking of it as some form of creation magic. Which isn't to say that Thedas is backwards, but well... most here hadn't even understood Hermione when she'd tried explaining the law of conservation of energy.

"What do you mean by clone cells, exactly?" she asks, given that it's the only thing that sounds a little past her own world's scientific breakthroughs. "Do you mean identical cells, such as in the case of identical twins? Or has cloning technology been perfected for routine use in a laboratory, where you're from? As far as I know, the scientists of my version of Earth have managed to successfully clone a sheep, but if there's been any experimentation on human biology with it, I haven't heard of it. Not that I would be surprised, because it isn't as though most scientists would be satisfied with spending so much time and money simply cloning livestock."

Cosima definitely should have expected the question -- it's a logical one, after all -- but it gives her pause. She's told people about her background in Thedas, but mainly people who don't really have the context to understand all the implications. It's been a strange sort of freedom. Hermione, though, is from Cosima's world, or one very much like it. The stakes seem higher, somehow, in her decision of just how honest to be.

"So by about 2013 or so, clonal colonies of cells are pretty common in lab-based settings," she starts, because that part is easy. "You can grow them in a culture -- like a Petri dish. It's something you see in nature, even. Lots of tumors are actually one mature cell just making identical copies of itself out of whack, they're technically clones."

Cosima exhales, then goes on: "So, as far as the general public knows, the sheep was it for us too, as far as big multi-cellular organisms go. But there has been experimentation with human clones in secret. There was, uh, a successful trial about thirty years ago. You're looking at the proof." It's still weird. It will always be weird. Especially now that her brain perversely chirps 324B21 silently every time it comes up.

Hermione's never been one for science, really - not because she doesn't like or understand it, but because most of her adolescent and young adult life has been spent trying to work her way around the history and culture of the magical world. She might be a fast and avid learner, but there's really little reason to get too heavily involved in the sciences if they likely aren't going to play a part in her adult life.

Given that, she understands most of what Cosima says very well, even if it's not her particular area of expertise. But that end bit is where things get a bit hazy.

"Thirty-... but if you're from-... sorry, I didn't catch the exact year you're from, but if it's sometime after the 2000s, that would mean that a successful human clone had been created while I was still a child. Secret or not, there's no way to keep that sort of-...." And then the rest of it seems to catch up with her all at once, and she blinks, looking Cosima over a bit curiously. "When you say I'm looking at the proof, do you mean you're a clone of someone else?"

"1984," Cosima confirms. "Assuming we're from the same world, but yeah, it was kept secret from the general public. I didn't find out until recently myself. My parents thought they were getting regular IVF, there were a lot of ethics violations -- and a lot of money -- involved." She rubs her hands together, an absently self-soothing gesture. "But yeah, I don't know who our original is, but there's over a dozen of us. I've met about five personally. It's as intensely weird as you might expect. And as legally as well as ethically murky, since whoever made us has attempted to patent our genetic structure."

Meaning Cosima and her sisters are, technically, someone's property. Or at least someone would argue that they are, though Cosima's dubious it would hold up in court if things ever came to that.

Shocked by the revelation, Hermione looks Cosima over for a brief moment, though hopefully not long enough to make the other woman feel uncomfortable. "Over a dozen?" she echoes. "Using the same genetic code? Meaning there are over a dozen women who look and sound exactly like you, living their own lives? What would anyone gain from such a thing, especially from doing it outside a laboratory? I mean... yes, you're clearly a very smart, beautiful woman, but over a dozen clones outside of a controlled environment is overdoing it a bit."

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