Ohh… so that’s why Heath couldn’t guess which single historical figure tied the items on the board together. He was right in thinking they applied to more than one person… specifically the Gaunt family. Bunch of evil blood supremacists, the lot of them! An uncomfortable feeling settled in the pit of his stomach, and that feeling only got worse as he heard the question. Why were they talking about this? This felt like a topic that would’ve come up last term, so much so that painful memories came rushing back to him, and he glanced frantically around the room just to be sure Rosier and his Hoods were really gone.

He kept his gaze fixed on his desk, trying to push away his feelings on the blood status issue to focus on Professor Recard’s question, but that Gryffindor girl’s (Emmerson) comments caused his head to jerk up. He could not believe what he was hearing! Did she have any idea how that statement came across?! Saying there were purebloods who “know better than to tangle up with muggles” implied that those who do choose to associate with them are stupid or reckless for doing so, and he could not for the life of him understand why someone who’d been here last term to witness the damage caused by that line of thinking could believe that! He was beginning to understand why Aboli Song snapped at that girl a few terms ago. He was sorely tempted to do the same!

Instead, he made his feelings on the subjects known in a more factual and non confrontational way. “Some of the families, most notably the Weasleys, protested their inclusion in the Sacred Twenty-eight,” he said after raising his hand. “The Weasleys argued that they almost certainly had muggle ancestry somewhere, and that it was nothing to be ashamed of.”