"So don't tell Heller, there's half a dozen prefects and that's just in Slytherin, you can try the other Houses' prefects with some things. Maybe not this thing since it's disciplinary. Molloy's not bad, or Carew."

"Okay," she says doubtfully. 

Molloy tells Black not to use first-years for spell practice. He complains that Muggles shouldn't count; she agrees that Muggles wouldn't count "- but she's a witch and you know it."

"No, she's not, and indulging the delusion does her no favors."

"Does Memory Charming her do her favors, since that's what we're driving at?"

"Yeah, actually," Black says. "The best thing to do about them would be to let them be Muggles who weird things occasionally happen to."

"And then you have an entire family of Muggles-who-weird-things-happen-to, because Muggleborns don't have fewer half-bloods than anybody else. You want to keep those out too?"

He rolls his eyes. "I actually wouldn't object to setting up a school for them, if it weren't Hogwarts and didn't tell them they're as good as any born wizard."

"Well, when you're out of here you can start one or fund one or something, fill the void, in the meanwhile locking firsties out of the dorm isn't helping anybody."

"I told her to go be a Hufflepuff."

"Because that'll go over real well. Lobby Twimble about re-Sorting, see if you get a different answer than the last twenty people, you're a Slytherin and I'm sure policy changes like that for which you have such well-formed arguments won't be beyond you."

"Twimble is very traditional, and I respect that. But it means the only way to keep Muggleborns out of this house is to make this house the wrong place to sort them into."

"Lobby the Hat. Dazzle it with your knowledge of personality variance in Muggleborns. But this one's already here."

"Have strong feelings about Muggleborns, Swan?"

"I have strong feelings about Memory Charms and crying firsties."

"I certainly won't go out of my way to bother her again."

"Good. I'm confident it's a waste of your time."

A week later the first-year, Genevieve Stoller, misses class because someone soaked her robes through with a laundry charm while she was wearing them.

"I didn't go out of my way," he says, "she got in my way."

"I don't want to have to give you a detention for bullying an eleven-year-old," Molloy said.

"I want to be able to enjoy my own common room without smelly Muggles around."

"Have you been sniffing people, Black?"

"You could smell it from across the room. They live in their own shit, you know, Muggles."

"They lack the advantage of house elves, but here those are included in the tuition and we all use the same ones. Do I just have a terrible sense of smell? Where did you even learn to do your own laundry charms, I'd think the Blacks would have elves at home too."

"I looked it up after she started stinking."

"Because you don't know the Bubblehead?"

"Because I shouldn't need it in my own common room."

"Well, she was trying to get out of the common room and go to class, but you've neatly foxed that plan."

"Angling for prefect, Swan? It's nothing to do with you. You might be half Muggle but you at least manage not to stink like it."

"That's out of line," Molloy says.

"If you wanted people to leave it alone you shouldn't have started by locking her out of the dormitory where anybody might wander by and find it affecting; I'd think that was pretty obvious. Maybe you should switch houses?"