"Course it does. My brothers are smart. So which house do you want to be in -"

"Ravenclaw like Mum would be nice but I think I'm probably going to wind up in Slytherin. I'd be really surprised at either of the others."

"Aaron's in Ravenclaw and Theodore's in Gryffindor but my oldest two brothers are both Slytherins."

"Do they like it there?"

"Yeah, they're the type." 

"I do think that's kind of the idea."

"Sometimes in pureblood families you just sort of end up there if you're not an obvious fit for anywhere else. But Timothy's the Slytheriniest Slytherin who ever Slytherined and Michael would be too if he had a more respectable hobby."

"What's his hobby?"

"Singing! And playing instruments, too. He's great at it but it's not very - you know, dignified and guardian-of-an-ancient-noble-heritage and all the things we're supposed to be..."

"Well, it sounds like there are enough of you that at least some of you can have other interests."

"There are seven of us."

"What's that like? I'm an only child."

"Nice. It's great to have a lot of people you can just trust no matter what. And it's less pressure, like you said, to do everything right..."

"Mum's pretty laid back, I'm not sure how I could be under less pressure actually."

"Well. You're not from a good family."

"I'm not from a good English family."

"My apologies."

"Apologies accepted."

"English important families mostly have more than one kid, I don't know if it's because we're a lot of pressure or just because lots of kids means a stable line and so more power." Shrug. "My grandfather should have stopped at one but I'm not sure everyone should."

"Why should he have stopped at one?"

"Do you not know the story?"

"I knew about the train, I don't know everything about your family."

"I wasn't sure. People gossip a lot. So my grandmother Muriel nearly died giving birth to my father and she had a slow recovery afterwards and she couldn't have any more children. And my grandfather was really sad about that, and he was also upset because she was sick and taking so long to get better, so he left her for someone who could give him more children and she died alone shortly after and he remarried three months after she died."

"...oh."

"Shoulda just stopped at one."