Note: Alas, only a short one tonight since I've spent most of the day (and probably night if the idiot on Line One is anything to go by) arguing with Hotels. Which reminds me, I won't be here from Friday morning through till Monday/Tuesday, I'll be in Edinburgh. Where I fully expect JK Rowling to hunt me down for my autograph… Okay maybe not. But hey. The good news, or bad news depending on your perspective, is that I get impatient while travelling and will probably have about 700 of these written out when I get back.

Other note: Yes I am actively arguing with my Hotel while posting fanfic. Look I get bored easy and they're piping a poor imitation of Mozart's requiem through, while they keep me on hold so I can talk with a perky happy person called Claudia who is -quite clearly- hooked up to a Morphine Drip. So what would you do in my position? Uh-huh. Thought so.


10 GOLDEN RULES FOR PUREBLOOD PARENTS

1. When naming your child try to be obscure. Remember that your child's name will stay with him for the rest of his life and so, if you want him to be a snotty git you should name him accordingly. Same goes for a child likely to be bitten by a werewolf.

2. Make use of assonance.

3. For no real reason other than to put undue pressure on your child and uphold your imbecilic notions of what makes a good heir, you should make it clear from birth which house you want your child to be sorted into. Disregard their personality while doing this.

4. If your child has reached the age of eight and is still unable to perform great feats of magic, then child endangerment is perfectly acceptable. This extends, but is not limited, to dangling children out an upstairs window by their ankles, pushing them off piers, attacking them with foam bats and allowing gangs of large children with no necks to chase them onto a roof. You are doing this for their own good.

5. If you are part of an illegal terrorist group dedicated to the service of an albino, geriatric moron with a snake fetish, you should automatically assume that your child will be ready, willing and eager to do the same. Even if this would mean prostrating themselves almost constantly and acquiring a truly heinous tattoo placed on their person.

6. Be surprised when they tell you to stuff it.

7. If you have a son and his father is vaguely intelligent, give him a classical education. If his father is incapable of doing anything but grunt in agreement with his superiors, teach your son the basic principles of writing, reading and the four times table and then give up. They won't be getting smarter anytime soon.

8. If you have a daughter you may educate her to the point where she's capable of graduating from Oxford at the age of ten. It won't matter. If you've convinced her that her only purpose in life is to marry a Pureblood and have lots of little Purebloods to, quote unquote, "Carry on the family name", then she will be a simpering fool no matter what her exam results may say.

9. As a Pureblood parent, you and your spouse must possess the same hair colour. This even holds true for "blood traitors". If you are not intending to produce offspring with your partner, then hair colour becomes irrelevant.

10. If your blood is as pure as the driven snow, and your spouse has a Wizarding line dating back to Charlemagne, and one of you is bitten by a werewolf then your child will be considered a halfblood. No one is clear on the logic behind this, but hell logic has never really been our strong point in Wizarding society anyway. Just go with it.