"I have a feeling that they're going to suddenly get a lot harder after Christmas - this is just lulling us into a false sense of security." And yes, that was actually a joke, albeit a little twisted by the way Theo's mind worked.
He smiled at Tracey's query over his wellbeing but as fond as it was at first - Tracey was really too sweet to him - it had lost all it's humour as he answered. "They don't make things easy." he said, referring to most of the student body. "But no, no Hell..." he didn't think anyone really could any longer; if he hadn't been there he'd certainly circled it. It was funny to think that any of his peers could even try to match the sadist that was his father. "...although I feel slightly bad for you. All the journals I've seen with people acting like overexcited puppies about this whole thing have been from girls in our House. I can't imagine that's any fun."