Lirenna had originally hoped that Derrin would be able to stay in the tree with them, but there just wasn't room. The tree only had the one bedroom, which was only just large enough for the two adults. Their son would have to move into the dormitory with all the other students, therefore, which was what the University preferred in any case. They made an appointment with the housing secretary, therefore, to have him assigned a vacant room, and while they were there Thomas made a few enquiries, to let the wizardly community know that he was looking for useful employment. If the enrolment secretary was right and younger wizards were in short supply in the University, then he expected the offers to come flooding in, allowing him to pick and choose; to name his own terms. He looked forward to it eagerly.

     Derrin protested loudly when he saw his room, which he was going to have to share with three other students, and Lirenna patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. The room was small, with two bunk beds covered by coarse, threadbare blankets, a single wardrobe and a chest of drawers. The dark wood of a table, stained by spilled drinks and potions, was chipped and scored with the names of former occupants, and beside it stood two simple wooden chairs; about as basic and rudimentary as a chair could be and still fulfill its prime function.

     The floor was bare wood, also stained with drinks and potions but polished to a fine sheen by generations of feet which tended to be bare more often than not. The walls were bare brick, pitted and scratched over the years by bored students armed with sticks and knives, and the single window possessed only a single curtain, yellow with age and worn so thin that, even when drawn, it could do little to protect the students within from prying eyes in the gardens below. The only thing that marked the room as being the abode of potential apprentice wizards, rather than common farm labourers, was the small globe of polished white marble that hung from the middle of the ceiling and that shone with a soft, pearly light. It shone continuously, which meant that when the students wanted to get some sleep they would have to shut it away behind a trapdoor in the ceiling.

     Thomas felt a lump rising in his throat as a wave of nostalgia swept over him, while Lirenna shuddered with horror as her own memories of her five year stay in a room like this came back to her. "Can't I stay with you in the dwelling tree?" begged Derrin, his huge blue eyes fixing his parents in the almost hypnotic way that had so often gotten him what he wanted in the past.

     "I'm sorry," replied Lirenna with heartfelt sympathy, "but there's just no room. You'd be sleeping on the floor."

     "I'd rather sleep on the floor than here! It's horrible!"

     "I know it is," agreed his mother, "but there's no other way if you want to be a wizard. I hated it too when I was an apprentice, but I had to put up with it and now I'm an enchantress and one of the guardians of Haven." She put an arm around him and stroked the skin of his forearm. "It won't be so bad, you'll see. I'm sure your roommates will be very nice, and that the four of you will soon be the best of friends. Soon, you'll be right at home here. You'll look forward to coming back here at the end of every day, larking about with your friends and neighbours, getting to know them... How will you get to know them if you only see them in class? Think about it. You'll be making friends with people from all over the world!"

     Derrin nodded doubtfully, but there was still a look of muted horror on his round, pixie face as he swept his gaze around the sparsely furnished room.

     "My first room used to be in this block," said Thomas, grinning as all the memories came flooding back. "It was for full blown apprentices back then. Let's go have a look, see if the old place has changed."

     He left the room, and Lirenna and Derrin followed him to another room about twenty yards further on. This room was occupied, although the students assigned to it were away at the moment, and a strong smell of iodine and sweaty socks hit them in the face as they entered. The two demi shaes wrinkled their noses in disgust and hung back in the doorway, but Thomas swept right in and went straight over to the single small window overlooking the courtyard below.

     "The vine's still there!" he cried in delight, pressing his face right up against the glass and looking down. "That vine saved my life more times than I can remember. Loads of times me and Harry were late back from the labs or the zoo and the doors had been locked. We'd have been in hot water if the Proctors had caught us out late. We had to climb up that vine and squeeze in through this tiny window." He bent down and pulled back the small, threadbare rug, exposing a loose floorboard. "Our little hidey hole!" he cried ecstatically. He pulled up the floorboard, but the small hole underneath it was empty. He dropped it in disappointment.

     "They've changed the table," he said, running his hands over the new wood, adorned by only a scattering of half hearted carvings. "I had my name carved just under the drawers here, so that everyone who used this room forever afterwards would know that Thomas Gown had been here. Must be in one of the other rooms now, unless they've chucked it out. It was rather old and decrepit. There was a message carved on it by a chap called Alabaster Carthos. I looked the name up in the archives one day, just out of curiosity, and found that he'd lived in the first century after the fall of Agglemon. Two hundred years ago!"

     Suddenly Lirenna backed away guiltily to allow a large, matronly woman with a scowling face to enter. "Do you have business here?" she demanded. "If you're looking for Eddrus he's in Alchemy class and won't be back until midday."

     "Er, oh, sorry," said Thomas, slinking out under her baleful gaze. "I suppose I'm not supposed to be here. This used to be my room once, you see, and I was just reliving a few memories."

     The matron stared at his face. "Thomas Gown?” she said after a moment. “Thomas Derek Gown?”

     “You remember me?” cried Thomas in astonishment. “It was thirty years ago!” Then his eyes widened even further. “Thelmia?” he said. “Matron Thelmia? You're still working here after all this time?”

     “And I intend to be working here for a good many years yet. And as for remembering you, I remember them all. We get the same memory augmentation you apprentices get. You were one of our more difficult students, I remember. You almost got yourself expelled on half a dozen occasions."

     "Did he?" cried Lirenna in delight. "You never told me!" she told her husband accusingly.

     "She's exaggerating," said Thomas, his face turning crimson. "There may have been one or two...little incidents, but that was all. Matron Thelmia always had it in for me."

     "I treat all apprentices equally," protested Thelmia indignantly. "If an apprentice breaks the rules, he pays the price." She lifted her chin in a defiantly self righteous pose. "Rules are made to be obeyed. Where would we be if people could ignore the rules and behave however they pleased?"

     "Quite right, Matron Thelmia," agreed Thomas with a grin. "Can't have people going around enjoying themselves, can we? Who knows what harm might be done if people were allowed to have a little fun now and then." The matron's face stiffened with outrage and her chin rose even higher.

     "I'm sorry, Matron Thelmia," said Thomas, becoming serious. "Perhaps you're right. Maybe I was a little, er, undisciplined now and then. Maybe you were right to report me to the proctors. It's wrong of me to mock you for it." He paused for a moment, as if in indecision, and then said "I'm sorry I put lizard powder in your tea."

     Lirenna's jaw hit the floor, and Matron Thelmia stared at him in shock and surprise. "That was you?" she cried. "I should have known! My face was green for a week!"

     Thomas hung his head in shame, but then was astounded to hear laughter and looked up to see the matron dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief. "Every morning until the effects wore off, I checked to make sure I wasn't growing webbing between my fingers and toes!"

     Thomas could only stare at her in astonishment. He'd never heard her laugh before. He hadn't even known she could laugh!

     "You were the worst behaved student in your year!" she continued. "The number of times we caught you sneaking into the library or the museum out of hours. And yet somehow I never had any doubt that you would graduate. There was something about you. A spark of brilliance that none of the others had." She turned to look at Lirenna and Derrin. "And now you're married, with a son. Well, that ought to calm you down a bit. Teach you some responsibility."

     "It has," replied Thomas. "I'm sorry I was so awful to you. You were just doing your job and I blamed you every time you reported me. It was only in my first year. I was euphoric about being accepted as an apprentice. I know that’s not an excuse...” She nodded, her eyes hard. “I did settle down,, though,” Thomas continued. “After I moved to the Cartwright building. That's when the weight of what I was doing began to sink in. By the time I got to my fifth year I spent virtually every day in a state of terror. Anyway, I hope we can put all that behind us now. I was bad and disrespectful, but now I'm a man with, as you say, responsibilities. I'd like us to be friends."

     Matron Thelmia stared at him suspiciously, suspecting some new trick, but then she nodded. "Boys will be boys," she said, "and there were others worse than you, both before and since. If you have truly changed, settled down, then it would be wrong to hold all your childhood pranks against you."

     Thomas grinned in gratitude and the two of them shook hands to seal the truce. "This is my son, Derrin," he then said, beckoning the boy to come forward. "He's starting as a student today, and he'll be an apprentice in a couple of years, carrying on the family tradition."

     "Ah, yes," replied Thelmia, bending down to study him. "I heard we had an unusually young student starting today. Sixteen years old, is he?" Thomas nodded. "He looks more like six!”

     “I do not!” the boy protested indignantly. “I've been told I look ten!”

     “You look young,” the Matron insisted, “And it's a fact that you're small. You'll need looking after, someone to see that the bigger boy’s don't pick on you.”

     ”Let them try!” said Derrin defiantly. “I know maltano!”

     “He's reached the eleventh circle,” said Thomas proudly.

     “Maybe,” said Thelmia, “but the fact remains that he’s small.” He took one of the boy's hands and stroked his palm with her thin, wrinkly fingers. “And he'll have to lose these calluses if he wants to have supple hands for spellcasting. We get boys trained in armed and unarmed combat now and then. They almost always forget their training once they start their education in earnest.”

     “She's right,” Thomas told Derrin. “If you have to choose between maltano and your studies, give priority to your studies. You understand?” The boy nodded soberly.

     “I'll keep an eye on him,” Thelmia promised his parents. “So long as he’s in my building I'll look after him, I promise. Just so long as he doesn't carry on too many of your family traditions.” She crouched down to look into the boy's eyes. “What do you say, young man? Are you going to be well behaved and studious, or are you going to be a little monster like your father?"

     "I'm going to study very hard," said the boy earnestly, looking up into her stern, critical gaze. "And one day I'm going to be the greatest wizard who ever lived!"

     The matron smiled again, revealing the side of her character that Thomas might have seen thirty years ago, if he'd taken the trouble to look for it. "I'm sure you will," she said, studying him hard. "You've got the look to you. The same look your father had." She looked up at his parents. "Why don't you leave him with me. I'll introduce him to the rest of the beginners class and see that he has everything he needs."

     "Thank you," replied Lirenna gratefully. "That's very kind of you." She crouched down in front of Derrin. "You have a nice time now," she said, "and we'll come to see you tonight."

     "Okay," replied the boy doubtfully. "See you later."

     Matron Thelmia led him away down the corridor, towards the stairs, and his parents watched anxiously until they turned a corner and passed out of sight. "Do you think he'll be all right?" fretted Lirenna when they were gone.

     "Of course he will," replied Thomas confidently. "He's going to have a great time! Come on, let's have a look around. There's so much I want to see!"

     Lirenna nodded reluctantly and they set off in the opposite direction, towards the building's exit.