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Jess shrugged as well. "I've been taking Cooking with Magic since third year; gotten pretty good at it now, I just don't get much of a chance to cook, being at school all year except breaks, so unless I bug the house elves into letting me use part of the kitchens..." she gave a short laugh, but her eyes brightened in interest when he mentioned being muggleborn, and no cousins, either. She'd always known he was a triplet, the three similar looking, though hardly identical boys with blue hair were tough to miss, even if they were all in different houses.

"Halfblood," she indicated herself. "Mum's a witch, Da's a muggle. Healer and doctor. Three brothers-," she was accustomed to saying 'one sister' here, but she paused and caught herself. "One's adopted, so he's got a different last name than us, he's Head Boy, actually, Uriel. In this house, too, you've probably seen him before. Blond hair, blue eyes, ridiculously young face, often looks exasperated. And one cousin who lives with us. The cousin who just got sorted- Evander Lillantine, is the cousin who lives with us's cousin, so so sort of our cousin, not that Mum and Da like to admit it. You know. Family drama and all that," she commented lightly.

"I can understand. Maybe. My parents weren't really expecting anything. Never mind twins." She could have added that they'd thought they couldn't have children, but that seemed a bit too personal to mention, even for her, an oversharer. He sounded a little... down about it. What, was he the troublemaker of the bunch? She and Toby had certainly been guilted by their parents for being the "problem children" before. She'd learned not to take it too much to heart- she and Tobes had never done anything seriously bad, anyways, but they'd always been the ones looked to when something happened, even if, for once, it was someone else's faults. She felt really bad for Eleazar, currently, because he was being treated like broken glass right now, and handled carefully, but that could make anyone feel like a mess that needed to be constantly cleaned up, all the same, even if it was done warmly and gently, with hugs and kisses and kind words.

She understood more than her brothers gave her credit for, anyhow.

She watched the color drain from the rest of his face and congregate in his cheeks, and it was alarming, but almost fascinating all the same. She was sure she should feel worse about making him feel uncomfortable than she actually did, but she was just so grateful he didn't ask any more. "Ah," she said quietly, knowing better than to pepper him with questions. "I- I'm sure they'll come around eventually. Or I'll get together a team of Puffs to break you out," she promised, some humor returning to her voice. "I take Wandless, dropped Wandlore because the last professor was a douche, purposefully failed my OWL, actually," she admitted a little proudly, "I like Care of Magical Creatures, though my twin is way more into it, and I don't take Ghost and Ghoul Studies. Don't worry, I basically did the same when I was a third year," she assured him. "Still doing the same thing, honestly. Dropped all the ones I was bored with. I mean, sixth year should be fun, right? No OWLs, no NEWTs, just lot of grim predictions about my future," she joked, though she was only half joking. What was she gonna do? In the long run? She'd never been that good at planning things for the years ahead. She lived firmly in the present.