"Okay, but how'd it get as far as a duel in the first place?"

"I was just talking."

"I went to see it when Alcius Potter killed Deleven Slang in that big public mess three years back and that started over pastries."

"Pastries?"

"If I recall the whole chain of events she brought some to a party and he declined them with what she took as an implication she might have poisoned them and she demanded an apology and he said he didn't answer to someone whose surname was probably a courtesy and there you go, one person dead and one in St. Mungos convinced he's a migratory goose."

"Was her surname a courtesy -"

"I am not sure how I should know. It seems like either way they'd both have been better off with evener tempers."

"He just punched me, I wasn't even talking to him, but if I didn't know his mother was a Muggle before I do now -"

Nod. "If you were a Slytherin and this were my problem I'd say to you 'and what do you want, and how are you going to get it' -"

"Hat didn't even think about it. I might've expected this in Gryffindor but I thought Ravenclaw was supposed to be civilized."

"Mmmhmm. And what do you want, and how are you going to get it?"

"I want to be able to talk with nobody up and hitting me like a Squib who wandered into the wrong building."

"Did anything bad happen to Corner because he punched you?"

"Potter told him to cut it out, that's all."

Nod. "That'd really bother me, feeling like one of my roommates could just punch me and wasn't sorry and it'd probably keep happening -"

"I don't know any good hexes yet."

"I could help you pick a couple up but settling your disputes like civilized people would really entail not resorting to violence over them at all, not just resorting to more refined violence. You have to live together for seven years, an arms race is a bad way to spend them."

"I didn't start it. I was just talking. It's Ravenclaw, aren't we supposed to like talking."

"I'm not a Ravenclaw. If I said something and one of my housemates punched me over it here's what I'd think: that I'd won, because everyone could see he'd responded that way; that I knew something which bothered him, which was good to know for if I ever wanted to bother him and good to know in the meantime because I could avoid doing it by accident; and that it ought to be clear punching me wouldn't work, so I should pick up something that turns hands to cabbages or similar. But I wouldn't keep offering provocation, because that doesn't get me anything I want."

"You just said not to get into an arms race."

"And I mean it! I'll be honestly disappointed if you have to use the spell, but in your place I'd learn it."

"I don't want to just not talk about entire topics because Corner can't control himself."

"I bet you can talk about them without offering provocation, like Alcius could have turned down the pastries without any implications or Deleven could have come up with a biting joke instead of demanding an apology on the spot."

"I wasn't even talking to him, I said!"

"What'd you say about people who marry Muggles?"