Chive Chicken & Milk Thief (Part 2)
The subway was full of rats.
Compared with humans' increasingly low birth rate, they reproduced very quickly.
There was a demographic known as the subway population, meaning lower- and middle-income people living in metropolitan areas who needed the subway for commuting and getting around.
The Malfoy family had only Draco, while the Weasley family had seven children, and Ginny was very fertile. In the future, the Potter family would become as populous as the Black family once had been.
Besides the birth rate and live birth rate, there was another very important figure: the total fertility rate. Muggles had calculated it at 2.1, meaning a woman needed to have two children to sustain generational replacement.
The Malfoy family clearly fell short, but there was nothing Lucius and Narcissa could do even if they wanted more children. The conflict between the Malfoys and the Weasleys was largely related to this. If Draco and one of the Weasley twins died, Narcissa would not merely be as sad as Molly. She would cry until she wished she were dead; she would rather die herself.
Barty Crouch Jr.'s mother had likewise accepted the Dementor's Kiss in her son's place out of that same feeling. The Barty Crouch family had died out without issue, and under British law their estate was to be confiscated. This was also one of the Ministry of Magic's sources of income.
Cedric Diggory, who had died in the Triwizard Tournament, had also been his parents' only child. To avenge him, his elderly father transferred from the comfortable Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures to the Auror Office. He swore to find Wormtail.
France was a major European country by population. Its total fertility rate had long hovered around 1.8 to