He wasn't actually having fun with the fowl. As will come out in the next chapter, he was counting them - and needed the space in the largest room in the house. That's the kind of dumb idea a bored, lonely kid is apt to come up with.
Well, but isn't a steaming red magical locomotive as steampunk as they come? Or a flying Ford Anglia, even?
Numbered points: 1) You are quite right, of course. Must clarify. 2) That is part of the institutional weakness of the Italian Ministry. Traditions and disciplines vary from place to place, almost from family to family, and enforcing a nationwide discipline is not easy. The Attanasios themselves would be the first to complain if their own ideas of when to give a child his wand were interfered with. 3) Heh... heh... heh... 4) One thing that will come out in this story is that Ricky's father is not only minister, but quite a powerful wizard in his own right. Ricky has an exaggerated idea of what he can do and of what punishments are possible in the Wizarding World, caught from storybooks. And besides, remember that children of that age have no sense of humour, and in particular no idea of irony. I well remember that at that age, the harmless city of Verona became one of my own chief terrors, because an exasperated nun (dinnertime at junior school, you do the maths) had threatened to put me in a suitcase and ship me there.
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Date: 2010-03-26 07:46 pm (UTC)Well, but isn't a steaming red magical locomotive as steampunk as they come? Or a flying Ford Anglia, even?
Numbered points:
1) You are quite right, of course. Must clarify.
2) That is part of the institutional weakness of the Italian Ministry. Traditions and disciplines vary from place to place, almost from family to family, and enforcing a nationwide discipline is not easy. The Attanasios themselves would be the first to complain if their own ideas of when to give a child his wand were interfered with.
3) Heh... heh... heh...
4) One thing that will come out in this story is that Ricky's father is not only minister, but quite a powerful wizard in his own right. Ricky has an exaggerated idea of what he can do and of what punishments are possible in the Wizarding World, caught from storybooks. And besides, remember that children of that age have no sense of humour, and in particular no idea of irony. I well remember that at that age, the harmless city of Verona became one of my own chief terrors, because an exasperated nun (dinnertime at junior school, you do the maths) had threatened to put me in a suitcase and ship me there.