born to die

I bet a galleon you can’t do it.

Two says I can.

Okay, I think we might be in over our heads here. There’s no way we’re actually going to get this to work.

We worked hard on this, do you really want to give up now?

It’s not their job to spoon-feed us thing we can find out for ourselves. 

It's their job to make sure you're doing the right thing. Even if that means spoon-feeding you with statistics. But whatever. If you want to speak to Georgina about the statistics, she should be free before you need your paper done.

We do the research on our own. Every Unspeakable has a different topic — there’s no point for them to have those statistics, because then they’d have to have stats for everybody else as well. It’s all individual.

It's not hard work for them to hand out statistics to the employees, you know. But I can see how your heads of departments would be so busy together.

It’s not specifically related to what your department does. It’s the numbers I need, not the ages or blood statuses or criminal records or whatever. I need those numbers to theorize something completely unrelated to what the core purpose of your department is.

Then shouldn't your head of department have those statistics ready for you?

But then we’d never create new things, challenge things or anything. We wouldn’t be using our brains to the best we could.

Some people don't use their brains anyway, what's the difference. Challenging things is not necessarily a good thing.

Well, no. You are a person. Though I did expect that question to keep things going for longer. Do you usually just sit solidly on matters like this?

Yes, because I honestly believe the world would be a much better place if we just accepted things with one definition and got on with it.

Unspeakable business. Part of one of my papers.

I somehow doubt that. If the Ministry had a whole department dedicated to what we do, why would they need Unspeakables to do any sort of research on our findings if we do enough of it ourselves?

That was important. Still, you’re not exactly in a hurry. Half an hour is a long time, not to mention you can just apparate there within seconds - if you can, that is. And it would be rude just to leave our conversation there.

True. Where did you expect this conversation to go? I'm not going to debate anything with you, if that's what you want. I'm not an idea-bouncer.

Huh. Confidential. 

Perhaps. Depends on how well the meeting goes. I wouldn't count on it, though. Why do you even need to know?

How many reports of underage magic has your department dealt with in the past year? No need for an exact number, just ballpark it.

That's confidential information. You want answers you go to the head of department, not it's workers.

No, not what’s the time. I already know that. What is time?

A motion in which events can be ordered, I suppose. You know, from past all the way to the future. It's a measurement, can measure said events and intervals between them. I don't know the actual definition. It can also measure the spent period in useless conversation about philosophical questions I simply don't care about. Now, did you need something important?

What is time?

Are you serious? It should be around twenty to four, if I'm correct.

Yes, yes it is. It’s absolutely imperative that you answer my question right now.

This better not be a waste of my time.

Important compared to a meeting with your boss? For me, yes. For you, maybe not.

Go on then.