Since this seemed to be a pureblood thing that Neville, at least, had done too, we played along and introduced ourselves to Draco Malfoy and his prepubescent goons around the compartment. He tried not to sneer at the Weasleys and mostly succeeded, and failed when he was introduced to Hermione. I wondered if he was actually trying to control his prejudice, or whether the firsties would have had a much different reception if it had just been them in the compartment rather than having several much bigger boys in with them.

"Well, I suspect that none of the three of you are expecting to be in Slytherin with me, so I'll look forward to being rivals with new Gryffindors." For a moment, the tiny aristocrat looked like he wanted to say something to me in particular, but changed his mind, nodded, and headed on his way. What a strange child. Maybe all rich purebloods were this eccentric.

"That went better than it had any right to," quipped one of the twins, when the door was closed again.

"What's up with that kid?" asked Oliver.

"His dad's Lucius Malfoy," the other twin supplied. "Former Death Eater. Bought his way out, and now owns a bunch of businesses and about half the Ministry."

"Our dad's always trying to bust him," Ron interjected, before the first twin could tag back in. He gave a smug look at his brothers for interrupting them.

"Why… why did he sneer at me like that?" asked Hermione.

There was a tacit passing of the buck around the compartment about who wanted to break to the girl genius that she was a second class citizen. Oliver and I, as the oldest, were silently daring each other to take it, when Neville stepped up, unprompted. "Did you read about the Wizarding War in any of your books?," he asked.

She thought about it for a second, "The recent one? I haven't had a chance to read about it thoroughly, yet, because our first-year history textbook is pretty high-level about the last few decades, but it was against a dark lord that nobody wants to name, right?"

We all nodded, and Neville continued, "It wasn't just a war against a dark lord. There were a lot of witches and wizards on his side. Most of them were from old wizarding families that wanted…"

It wasn't that his courage let out, but that he seemed to lack the vocabulary to sum up institutional prejudice succinctly. I barely understood it, but I tried to jump in and help, "Wizards live for a long time. There are a lot of them alive that were kids in the Victorian era. They keep to themselves. They've missed all the things science and technology have come up with in the twentieth century. They think the non-magical world has nothing to offer the magical one, and they should stay separate."

Neville nodded in thanks, and picked back up, "At some point, around the time my Gran was in school, she started to notice that the muggleborn–" he paused long enough to be sure that she knew that meant her and he didn't have to explain it, "–didn't want to start at the bottom and treat the pureblood families as their natural superiors, like they always had before. They wanted to be treated equally."

"But why wouldn't they want to treat other human beings as equal? Can't muggleborns do magic just as well as purebloods?" she asked, halfway between anger and fear.

None of us had the understanding of the world to explain it to her, but it was actually Ron that saved the day with what would turn out to be an ongoing fixation on food. "Well, it's like... you have a birthday party every year, right? With the same kids. And you each get a big slice of cake. And it used to be, if there were any leftovers you didn't want, you'd maybe give them to the poor kids next door. But then, those kids want to be invited to the party, and they want as much cake as you're getting, not just the scraps."

The little witch turned it over in her head, and was smart enough and focused enough on fairness that she eventually figured it you. "But it's not really your birthday party is it? It's magic's birthday party, and magic invited all its friends, and you just happened to live in the house where the cake has been showing up the longest."

Everyone thought about it and, eventually, nodded that her point made sense too. I just pointed out to her, "Sadly, most wizards aren't as smart as you. They don't even teach philosophy at Hogwarts. Basically, we agree with you that it's stupid, but to let Neville continue the story, just take as given for now that there are some purebloods that resent muggleborns because they don't want to share."

"Right," Neville said, picking back up the thread, "There was actually a bigger war that had a lot to do with that a long time ago, but defeating Grindelwald didn't solve all the problems. So more recently, when most of our parents were still in school, a new dark lord rose up and said he was finally going to take back control of the wizarding world for the purebloods."

"It was a hard time," Oliver said. "I can remember a little at the end of it. It was scary. Even though most of the country was against the Death Eaters, in general, there weren't enough people willing to fight instead of hide, and nobody could figure out how to kill the dark lord and end it."

Neville continued again, "When they finally did beat him, some of the Death Eaters, like Malfoy's father, claimed they were mind controlled so they wouldn't go to prison. And there are still a lot of purebloods that agreed with them, but just didn't do anything illegal."

Hermione looked scared, so I stepped back in. "Hermione. Most of the purebloods you're going to meet are like Neville and the Weasleys. They don't care that you're muggleborn. But I'm not going to lie to you and say there aren't going to be assholes out there that do care. And it sucks because most of them are rich and important. At least one of those racist jerks is an auror that's trying to lock me up for something I'm not guilty of, and I bet he wouldn't be working so hard if I was a pureblood instead of a half-blood." I didn't think I'd made her feel much better, so I tried hard not to ruin this little girl's greatest day ever, "Buy you know what?"

"What?"

"You're going to have to put up with some mean people. And it's going to suck. But you're still one of the rare people in the world: you have magic. It's worth it."

That seemed to allay some of her fears, and she nodded, thinking it over. Finally, she smiled, as if thinking about how much she loved magic already. After a minute she asked, "How did they kill the dark lord? Hogwarts: a History rather glossed over it."

I wasn't really sure either, since I'd been a six-year-old and in America at the time, but Oliver explained, "For some reason, he decided to go after Lily Potter and her family. She was muggleborn, like you, and they said she was the greatest witch of her generation. He killed them all: Lily, her husband, and her baby son. But they nearly defeated him in the battle, and he was gravely wounded. When he retreated to his base, he called his potions master, Severus Snape, to heal him.

"Severus Snape had one good quality. Lily Potter was his childhood friend, and he loved her. Snape had begged the dark lord not to kill her, but he'd done it anyway. Instead of healing potions, Snape brought his most dangerous elixirs, and blew up the entire house, with both of them and several other Death Eaters in it."