With a bit of distant, morbid amusement, Jason wonders if he might have done better as a boy if he'd had a wand.

Not bloody likely.

He listens. He's intrigued; the apathy he'd felt as a boy has long since been replaced by a desire that borders on the obsessive to learn all that he can, everything that he can, anything that might help.

"No," he says with a little incline of his head when Lupin pauses. "I did ask. You have nothing to apologise for, Mr. Lupin. Unless that is your way of saying you would just as soon get on with the reading."