He nods. "Well now I'm feeling like you stole the title of Most Slytherin Hogwarts Student. What am I gonna be? Who am I even? What's leeeeeeeft?"

"Oh, come on, there's got to be somebody more Slytherin than a literal Ravenclaw."

"More Slytherin than someone who threatened the Hat to get away from Slytherin? Weren't you just saying something along the lines of it not being a hard categorisation anyway and stuff?"

"It wasn't close for me, that doesn't mean it's close for everybody who does wind up in Slytherin! And I think wanting it would exemplify the House more, I don't know, cleanly."

"No, wanting it is probably more likely to mean you think you exemplify the House more cleanly. I'd be hard-pressed to vouch for the self-awareness of most members of my House. You could probably out-Slytherin a committee including all seventh—and sixth-year Slytherins if they were coached by the ghost of Salazar himself." He doesn't actually know that for a fact, but that's not stopping him from saying it anyway.

"What, because you like how my mind works? I think that's pushing it. You don't even know all those students."

"I'm pretty sure Slytherin's rep wouldn't be this bad if we had had two consecutive years of competent Slytherins at some point in the recent past. The Proper Slytherin Behaviour speech was given by a seventh-year! And the others were nodding along sagely as if we were being imparted wisdom handed down from Merlin himself! Also yes, I very much like how your mind works, it's a very good mind."

"There would only have to be one to beat me in a Slytherining fight, and 'keep your head down' isn't necessarily a bad strategy if you can't leave the House or the country."

"Terribly good points, you beat me once again, I can't compete with your Slytherin might."

"Argh," says Miranda flatly.

He laughs.

"It's okay," Karen says, patting Miranda's arm. "You can be a Ravenclaw."

"Yeah, they won't even suspect that when we fix Slytherin's reputation together it'll all have been you!"

"Argh," Miranda says emphatically to Sadde. "Thank you, Karen."

He giggles. "Well, speaking of which, now that the cat's out of the bag, do you have any more useful ideas on how to fix Slytherin?"

"Better internal policing. I couldn't put up with the attacks you're getting - I might get fewer because I'm less provocative and I'm not Muggleborn, but it still seemed less likely to be a problem in pretty much any other house. And chasing me away is definitely a symptom of the broader Slytherin problem."

"Better internal policing? How would we enforce that? And I'm being a bit more provocative than I otherwise might, actually. Drawing the bullies' attention to myself, because I know I can take it, style of thing."

"Have the prefects actually do anything, maybe. Or Slughorn. I don't know what the policy actually is, just that it isn't doing that much."

"I wonder if I could form a type of conspiracy with the other firsties. There are way fewer this year than any other year, might be easier to coordinate. And then I'd be King Firstie!"

"How would that help?"

"Dunno, I just like the idea of being King Firstie," he giggles. "Although actually maybe uniting them for a common cause that is not evil could be useful, to offset the examples of older years when new students join the House."

"So this might mostly be useful if you arrange to form a buddy system with next year's firsties. If you don't have another cause in mind."

"You mean other than making everyone immortal and possibly releasing a species of slaves?"

"I mean other than things you probably can't do yet at age eleven."

He pouts. "I don't currently have another cause in mind, but given that I've collected three of them in my first week, I make no promises. Anyway, why would having another cause mess this one up?"