"It didn't talk to me either," Alli says with a nod at Karen. "Which means, I have no clue. I don't know what I would fit better, though, and it's not like people are exactly lining up to be in Slytherin nowadays, so maybe it just took what it could get?"

"I got a couple sentences," Emma offers. "It, um, mostly just said I didn't have an opinion so it was picking for me."

"It told me it doesn't see many Metamorph people," Jenny adds. "And that if I wasn't Hufflepuff I would have been Gryffindor."

"I wonder how it gets the numbers even, if people later in the alphabet get sorted differently because it knows how many it still wants for each of the houses? Not that the numbers are very even this year but I think they're supposed to be."

"I thought it just- knew, somehow," Emma says. "I guess we don't really know how it works."

"You're the one who brought up re-enchanting the hat," Alli points out to Karen, "got any thoughts?

"I have no idea how the hat works or how to re-enchant it! I've only been studying magic for two weeks."

"I think it lives in Professor McGonagall's office the rest of the year. Maybe she'd let us ask it, if she didn't just get annoyed about us taking up her time on that."

"I don't really care all that much," Alli admits. "I can't change it now. I just have to live with it."

"Is it really bad?"

"Not now. I don't know if that'll change? They don't care much about first years, they call us the 'baby idiots'. And being ignored is fine. They might care more once we're older, but then there will be less of them and more of us. Hopefully."

"Do they spend as much of their time as you'd think talking about blood purity or is that thoroughly out of fashion?"

"I don't hear it much. I don't think fashion would matter, at least not in the common room, but. A, 'baby idiots'; they don't talk to us. B, I don't know if it's less of a thing or just assumed we all agree. Guessing six of one, half-dozen of the other."

"Are there any Slytherin Muggleborns?" wonders Karen. "I think there are Slytherin half-bloods and so on, but outright Muggleborns - the hat would have to be kind of mean to do that to them even if they wanted to be Minister of Magic by the time they were twenty-two and talked to snakes and - and - I don't know. If they were otherwise very Slytherin."

"I think there might be one in my year. One of the Asian girls. But it's really hard to tell, cause the Asian wizards kind of keep to themselves, so no one knows the families or anything, and she's really quiet." She shakes her head. "Older students- I don't know of any, anyway."

"You'd think this would be a particularly nice time to be Muggleborn regardless of House, relative to before, but I've heard people talking about how newer Muggleborns don't - like - understand how to talk sensitively about war things, or - someone complimented Renée for being a 'sensible Muggleborn' when I told them about how we left the country, because - they seemed to think that was only reasonable, for Muggleborns and their families to go if the Dark wizards wanted them to so badly, like it was Muggleborns insisting on hanging around that caused the entire problem, like that was it. It's a mess."

"That's horrible!" Jenny says, looking distressed. "How do they not know to be careful what they say? ...have I been insensitive about war things? You would tell me, right?"

"You've been okay, except for like - needing things explained, and you can't help that," Karen assures Jenny.

"You're a Muggleborn? Oh, won't that just bite the Slytherins," Alli cackles, "the Metamorphmagus is a Muggleborn. They'll hate that. You're so much cooler than they are."

"Don't tell them!" Emma insists in alarm.

"Why in Merlin's name would I do that? I avoid these people. They can suffer on their own time."

"How much of this are you following?" Miranda asks Jenny. "I don't think it ever occurred to me to give you, like, an introduction to blood prejudice..."

"Some...?" Jenny says uncertainly. "I mean, I know Slytherins don't like Muggles, I was warned, just not... details."

"It's not even just Slytherins, actually, there's blood purists in any House, but it should be a lot quieter these days, because the bad guys in the war were very into blood 'purity'. So - there's Muggles. There's Muggleborns, like you, or Renée. There's half-bloods, who have one magic and one Muggle parent. There's Squibs, who have one or two magic parents but aren't magic - they aren't quite Muggles, but they can't do spells or make potions or produce accidental magic anything. And there's 'purebloods', who have two magic parents and are magic, and if all their grandparents and all their great-grandparents and so on and so on were also magic then they are extra pureblood and some of them are huge racists about it. If Renée walks down a street in Muggle London sometimes she gets yelled at by stupid people for being black, and that would never happen in Diagon Alley, but she will get yelled at for being from a Muggle family. I get less of that, but still some, and Karen wouldn't get any at all unless she was hanging out with ultra-snobs."

"...Are black people the equivalent of Muggleborns for Muggles? What?"