"Might share an origin as words, then. My father might know."

"She still won't have the abilities even if nobody thinks she's yours though."

"Yeah. Then people won't be expecting it, but that won't necessarily make them more polite."

"If she's expecting it -"

"We'll have to tell her. And Timothy will guess."

"Timothy?"

"My older brother, I have six but the rest are younger. Timothy's - I could maybe get a lie past him once if I orchestrated it really carefully, most people can't even do that."

"Well. I don't know yet, how quickly do I need to decide -?"

"What we're telling the world can wait a while, what we're telling my family less so."

"I don't want them telling her she'll be able to turn invisible when she grows up if she won't, either."

"Then my family at least should know. They'll be all right about it - might actually be less mad at me, really..."

"How mad are they going to be, I was assuming they were pretty lenient if you were considering it at all."

"There's no risk at all we'd end up estranged over it but they will probably be very concerned and disappointed at me, probably not in front of you."

"Well. Thank you for whisking me off anyway, I'm not actually sure I could have gotten all the way away, let alone with Catherine."

"It sounded like the kind of thing that'd be hard if you were a Muggle. And - firstly if I never did things that concerned and disappointed my family I'd be very bored and secondly - the reason they'd be is -

- imagine if you knew an established man of thirty or so who was courting a girl of, say, fifteen, even if he did nothing wrong you might assume part of the appeal was having someone he could run rings around - that's how people who aren't outright prejudiced see marrying Muggles -"

She makes a face. "I was analogizing it to having a lot of money. You look about my age."

"I'm seventeen. Having a lot of money sort of gets at it but even if I married a very poor witch she could throw me across the room if she pleased - or needed to -"

"Men can do that anyway, more or less, unless one is some hulking farm girl with a milkmaid's grip strength -"

"I'm not liable to lose any sleep over the  disparity, it shouldn't really matter much. My point was more, they'll be concerned and disappointed but then if it looks all right it'll be all right."

Nod. She switches Catherine to the other side.

"What will she need, we haven't had babies at the house for a long time -"

"I'm not sure if she's actually getting anything but you said there was a potion. My family usually puts babies in bed with the parents but some people have cradles. Nappies, obviously. She's not old enough to want dolls or anything yet."

"There's a potion and I doubt we have it on hand but I bet the house-elves'll know where to get it."

"Are those like - brownies or something?"

"I don't know much about the Muggle mythology? Most wizarding families have a bunch - my family has six and some children - and they do all the chores and laundry and cleaning, they're a couple feet high and have long pointy ears and talk a little funny -"