He asks Miranda the same question a couple days later; they're out flying.

"I don't have very strong feelings about it either way."

Nod.

"Do you?"

"Yes definitely but I'm not the one who has to go through the horrible bit. And it's not. Solved. Yet."

"A lot of people do it multiple times on purpose. - If this is about Rebecca witches are just more, y'know, durable."

"I know."

"I'd want to wait till we're older than Michael is now probably, be more established."

"Yeah, definitely. House and careers and everything."

"Do your parents have a gender selection thing or is it a coincidence."

"They have a gender selection thing. Would you want one or the other in particular?"

"A mix but probably start with a boy in case it's intolerable after all and we only have one, I think."

Nodnod.

"Your parents took it a little overboard I think, we'll have to stop addressing people by surname at all if it carries on."

"They really did. I think maybe things were worse twenty years ago when they decided it'd be better for a kid to be a boy than a girl, I don't think there's much difference..."

"There's some. If a girl acted like Michael she wouldn't have been making a particularly radical choice in marrying a Muggle, but he could probably still have snagged a pureblood if he'd wanted one."

" - yeah, that's true. I think he'd have been more conservative earlier if it was closing off options. I haven't actually asked him."

"Bit moot at this point."

"Little bit."

"I wonder how it'll all end up, your brothers and for that matter your cousins - maybe Theodore will find some girl who also thinks everyone is terrible -"

"Who everyone'll marry, you mean?"

"Yeah, and if scandal limits any of 'em meaningfully."

"Timothy could probably still land someone important if he set his mind to it. I don't really know what he's looking for, though. No one else'll care. I guess it could be incidentally relevant."

"I don't mean is anybody specifically hoping for someone important, I mean if somebody important were incidentally appealing."

"Must be weird not knowing who you're going to marry as soon as you meet them."