Strange doesn’t make a noise, or jolt, or yelp, but he immediately straightens up in his seat and leans forward in fascination. Locked in. “Oh, that’s— I’m jealous, I used to be able to— but of course you knew that already. I don’t have a Sling Ring here, so no portals for me.”

London to the Forest of Dean. Rueful: He used to be able to take people off-planet.

“What you just did looks similar to the way local mages step through the Fade for short distances, which might be exactly what you’re doing— fascinating, I’d like to watch you practice that sometime, if you don’t mind.” Later, he will run Hermione through Apparition drills, watching her technique over and over, trying to piece it together. That hook lodging on the Fade. The way reality folds around her.

How to reproduce it himself, someday.

“That said, sorry to break it to you, but I don’t know of any mage here at all who can do anything cross-continental. It’s like… our will directly warps reality using the Fade. But that means needing to be physically present to do it. Your weight and exertion on the Fade, pulling on it, to make your intentions real. The further away you are, the harder or near-impossible it is. Regretfully.”

It’s not to get her to stop trying or to quash her hopes; it’s to realistically temper expectations.