A/N: Hey everyone, how are you all doing?
First off, shoutout to one4one2 for the question, really appreciate it. he asked what I think about the new Harry Potter cast. Short answer: I mostly don't really care. The casting doesn't feel amazing to me, but I'm not too invested either.
That said, I'm not really a fan of the Black Snape casting. For me, part of what made the original work so well was that J.K. Rowling kept the cast fully British—it just felt more authentic and consistent.
With Snape, my issue is more about how the character works in the story. In the books and movies, Harry just naturally doesn't trust him, even if he can't explain why. If Snape ends up being the only Black teacher, that dynamic could come across differently than intended. Because of that, I feel like the writers might have to tweak parts of the story a bit.
And yeah, when you start changing a core character, it usually leads to more changes overall. So I'm worried it might turn into modern political stuff instead of just focusing on telling a good story.
But I could be wrong. Maybe it'll be decent—not amazing, but still watchable. Or it might just be so bad that original fans ignore it completely.
I love the books and i love the movies, I hope they do justice to the show but i fell that's a wishfull thinking on my part.
Anyway, that's my take.
And as always, thank you guys so much for reading the fic—it really means a lot. If you're enjoying it, please drop more comments like this, leave a review, and send some Power Stones. It honestly helps a ton and keeps me motivated to keep writing.
********
"As I understand it, love is like voluntarily lowering your wand for someone—" Ginny Weasley lay stretched out on the sofa, reading with great feeling, her eyes soft with the particular longing that belongs only to girls her age.
"Ginny, I enjoy listening to you read aloud, but that doesn't mean I agree with what you're reading," Hermione said from her armchair, Crookshanks a warm, motionless weight on her knees.
"Don't you find it romantic?" Ginny asked dreamily, continuing: "Knowing that the other person could destroy you at any moment, yet you'd still surrender your wand — that kind of reckless—"
"We should never surrender our wands to anyone!" Hermione said firmly.
She turned a page of the latest issue of Transfiguration Today and said, without looking up, "Tell me — which novel is this, full of such thoroughly bad advice?"
"The author from last time — the one who signs as '339' — has written a new one called 'The Disarming Charm of Love.'" Ginny hugged the book to her chest. "Hermione, can't you suspend your critical faculties for one romance novel? Readers want that pure, innocent feeling!"
"If you'll excuse my bluntness, voluntarily surrendering one's wand to another person is completely irrational — how is that any different from losing yourself entirely?" Hermione said seriously.
"Hermione, can you not be romantic for even five minutes?" Ginny looked at her with the focused intensity of someone trying to will another person into agreement. "If I had a boyfriend, I'd absolutely try it."
"Well then — by all means, give it a go—" Hermione wasn't about to let Ginny off so easily. She turned another page and raised an eyebrow pointedly at the dark-haired boy in the corner. "Shall I warn Harry to keep a hand on his wand?"
"Hermione, what are you saying?" Ginny went scarlet, shot a panicked glance toward where Hermione had raised her eyebrow, and lunged across the sofa to clap a hand over her mouth. "Keep your voice down!"
"All right, all right!" Hermione raised her hands in surrender, then asked more quietly, "But you really can't go on being so shy forever, Ginny. You need to say something to him — properly, confidently, like yourself. Have you actually had a real conversation with him lately? Even once?"
"Not really," Ginny admitted, wrinkling her nose. "He said something oblique to me yesterday at noon — I'm fairly sure he knew I heard — and he smiled at me, although technically he was smiling at my mother."
"He smiled at you. That's a good sign."
"It was barely a smile," Ginny said, half smug, half mortified.
"Speaking of which," Hermione said, studying Ginny's face with genuine curiosity, "how exactly did you manage to convince Krum's parents yesterday? That couldn't have been easy — getting two people who don't know the country, don't speak English well, and have no particular reason to trust a Hogwarts student, to believe you quickly—"
"Remember those dozen or so autographs I got Krum to sign? The ones I used to help distract the crowd?" Ginny asked, with a sly smile.
"I do," Hermione said sincerely. "Thank you for that, by the way."
"And you remember how I borrowed them from Ron under the pretence of some mysterious personal project?"
"I remember you said something about a dough-kneading ritual," Hermione said, with a pained expression.
"That's right. So I showed them the entire stack — all of it — to demonstrate that I was a devoted, lifelong admirer of their son, full of heartfelt concern for his wellbeing." Ginny grinned. "They believed me instantly. Who keeps collecting someone's autographs unless they truly care about them, right?"
"Ginny, that was absolutely brilliant!" Hermione said, genuinely impressed. "Far more convincing than marching up and launching into a stiff explanation of the circumstances! I'm rather in awe of you."
"Oh, it's nothing," Ginny said modestly, waving a hand in a way that suggested she knew perfectly well it was something. "When it comes to persuasion, I've never lost. How do you think I got Mum to buy me that new dress for the Yule Ball?"
"Since you're so wonderfully persuasive," Hermione said, half-smiling and half-serious, "why not persuade yourself? Look him in the eye, greet him without going red, and manage one complete sentence. At this rate, when exactly are you planning to try that disarming charm on him?"
"You have a boyfriend and you've never tried it yourself — so you can't laugh at me!" Ginny retorted, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Don't you want to test whether he loves you or not?"
Love — such a weighty word. How could it be tested or verified so easily? Hermione thought privately, even as her heart gave an involuntary, inconvenient lurch.
"Don't you want to see Malfoy defeated by you, or willingly hand his wand over?" Ginny went on wickedly. "Oh, I promise the look on his face would be spectacular—"
"What a dull thought!" Hermione said firmly. "Why on earth would I want to disarm him out of nowhere? Why must couples be so combative? Can't two people simply get along in peace?" She set down her magazine. "Wizards are deeply attached to their wands — and I believe he's no exception. Treating something so personal so casually, just casually drawing your wand for a duel or demanding someone surrender it—"
Can love really be tested with an Expelliarmus?
Putting herself in his position, she knew she couldn't stand being disarmed herself — so how could she possibly expect him to accept it willingly?
Besides, hadn't Cedric said no one had ever successfully disarmed him?
Why invite that sort of trouble? What if he disarmed her instead? She'd be mortified. Hermione thought, with a decided drop in confidence.
"Hermione, you simply don't have the nerve, and all that logic is just an excuse!" Ginny said, with a superior smile.
"Trying to goad me won't work, Ginny," Hermione said coolly, and returned to her magazine.
---
It was Sunday — the day after the Triwizard Tournament had ended.
The sun was already well up, but the Gryffindor common room was mercifully quiet, the peace of it bearing absolutely no resemblance to what had happened in it the previous night.
The celebration had gone until the small hours — music, shouting, Butterbeers, and more than a few things that Hermione was certain Professor McGonagall would not have approved of. Even now, well into the morning, many students were still sprawled across their dormitory beds, nursing heads that felt as though they'd been inflated and gently squeezed by a Cushioning Charm gone wrong.
Only a few people had ventured downstairs.
Harry was tucked into a dim corner of the common room, flanked by the Creevey brothers, whose eyes shone with the luminous fervour of people whose ambition had at last been fulfilled. He was bent over a sheet of parchment in their hands, answering questions in a low, slightly harrowed voice.
Hermione suspected that Colin Creevey had finally achieved his longstanding dream of securing a proper Harry Potter interview.
At the large round table beneath the bright window, Ron was playing Wizard Chess against someone whose head and most of their face was swathed in bandages.
"Seamus," Ron's voice drifted over, "are you sure you want to move there? It's not nosiness, but that's right on the edge — you'd be better off in a covered square."
"Of course I know that!" Seamus Finnigan said, in a voice muffled by bandaging and considerable indignation. "The problem is I can only see through the gaps — it's absolutely wrecking my spatial awareness."
Neville, staring at the chessboard with the intense concentration of someone who had not been challenged nearly enough by life, said solemnly, "I don't think Seamus made a mistake, actually."
"Neville, mate, you're still a little bit drunk," Ron said, grinning broadly. "I still can't believe you drank half a barrel of Butterbeer upside down yesterday—"
"And then performed a tap dance in the middle of the common room," Seamus added, from behind his bandages, with a hint of fond hilarity. "Neville, honestly, you're a completely different person when you've had a few. You should consider making it a regular thing."
"Hang on — who are you?" Neville said in a trembling voice, staring at the bandaged figure beside him and clutching his dizzy head. "Are you the mummy my gran used to warn me about?"
He began frantically patting his pockets. "Where's my Remembrall? Why can't I remember anything?"
Hermione and Ginny exchanged a glance and couldn't help but dissolve into laughter.
Hermione hadn't touched a drop last night, nor had she stayed up particularly late.
After Draco had walked her back, she'd lingered in the boisterous common room long enough to celebrate with Harry once he finally came down from the Headmaster's office, and then gone upstairs to rest.
The rest of her evening had been spent exchanging messages with Draco through their enchanted rings — a full quarter of an hour of nothing but goodnight, and then goodnight in return, and then one more goodnight, back and forth.
Wholly unlike either Hermione Granger or Draco Malfoy.
An entirely wasteful and entirely worthwhile use of time.
She'd smiled at her ring until her eyelids grew heavy, and let her consciousness slip quietly into the warmth behind the curtains of her four-poster bed.
Yesterday had been long and exhausting — for both of them.
But he'd been there.
He'd stayed beside her through all of it: searching for evidence, waiting in the stands, running between the maze entrance and the referee's platform, arguing with Professor McGonagall—
He'd made the whole of yesterday considerably more bearable. Hermione stroked Crookshanks's untidy fur and thought of him with quiet contentment.
---
"...I see your face before me, as I lie on my bed. I kinda get to thinking of all the things we said..."
The song drifted through the small speakers on his bedside table. The boy slowly opened his grey eyes and lay still in the cool shimmer of reflected light from the Black Lake outside the window.
Beside his pillow lay a Muggle music cassette — the album "Picture This" by Wet Wet Wet — with a note from Hermione Granger tucked carefully inside: "Try something with soul. Wet Wet Wet use Scottish instruments you wouldn't expect — bagpipes, organ. Let me know what you think."
As the music played, Draco closed his eyes again, feeling a quiet, unexpected peace settle over him.
Last night had been rare. Nothing terrible had happened. The worst had not come to pass; his life had not been abruptly altered; and everything seemed, cautiously, to be moving in the right direction.
Their future — his and hers — was moving in the right direction.
"...It's written on the wind, it's everywhere I go. So if you really love me, come on and let it show..."
The music ended.
The soft bubble of warmth remained, humming something wordless in his chest.
He couldn't help but smile.
Still half-lost in thought about her face, he murmured something to the ring on his hand, letting the words travel from the Slytherin dormitory deep beneath the lake to the ring in the Gryffindor common room, high in the tower.
---
In the armchair above, Hermione Granger paused mid-page and glanced down at the warm words appearing on the inside of her ring with a private, involuntary smile.
"What are your plans for today?" Ginny asked idly, rustling the pages of the romance novel she had not actually stopped reading. "The usual — sitting in that armchair, growing mushrooms?"
"No, actually — I have plans this afternoon," Hermione said, her eyes still bright.
"I can tell exactly who those plans involve just by looking at your face," Ginny said, clicking her tongue. "Think of us poor single people before you go about looking like that."
She stuck her tongue out at the large ginger cat, who was purring contentedly on Hermione's lap. "Crookshanks, come here. Your mistress is busy being nauseating. Come and keep me company."
Crookshanks seemed to understand perfectly.
He opened one yellow eye, regarded Hermione with quiet feline judgment, then leapt nimbly from her lap to the arm of the sofa and began investigating Ginny's long red hair.
"Ginny, it really isn't what you think — we have serious matters to attend to!" Hermione said, with a slight blush, already getting up and making for the portrait hole before the teasing could escalate.
"Right!" Ginny called after her, expression gleeful. "The day after the final examinations, two top students claim to have serious business. I'm just over here with nothing serious to do but read!"
She shook her head at Hermione's retreating back, then turned to Crookshanks with interest. "Smartest cat at Hogwarts — tell me, where is this serious business taking place?"
Crookshanks looked at her, hopped off the sofa, and trotted purposefully over to Harry's feet.
He sat there, raised his head, and fixed Harry with a look of profound, unblinking intention.
"Crookshanks!" Ginny leapt up from the sofa and called to him in a low, urgent whisper — which caused Harry to look up involuntarily.
She met those startling green eyes for one unguarded second, let out a silent internal shriek, and buried her face in the novel again.
---
Hermione hadn't been entirely lying to Ginny. She and Draco did indeed have something important to attend to.
The route there was, however, somewhat against school rules.
That afternoon, she followed Draco out of Honeydukes with the ease of long practice, crossed the sun-baked streets of late June, and slipped upstairs to the private room at the Three Broomsticks.
She drank two full glasses of ice-cold Butterbeer before listening to Sirius recount everything he had witnessed after arriving at the graveyard — followed by everything that had happened in Dumbledore's office. All three of them went back over it again and again, each time catching something they'd missed.
At last, the most important part of the puzzle Hermione had been piecing together for months was finally complete.
Behind the whole convoluted affair lay the terrifying truth: Voldemort had escaped a second time.
"He escaped — yes. But another Horcrux has been destroyed. That's a significant step forward," Sirius said, leaning back.
Hermione nodded.
"The diary, the diadem, the cup, the locket, the ring — five are gone now." Draco pursed his lips, thinking. "That's most of them."
"Which brings something to mind, actually." Sirius raised an eyebrow. "There's merit to your theory about the relative strength of the fragments. The diary Horcrux was probably the most powerful — almost certainly the first he ever created. The Gaunt ring is likely the second. That one killed old Tom Riddle Senior and his family; it had deep roots, and it wasn't easy to destroy. Even someone with Dumbledore's mental fortitude was briefly unsettled by it."
"What was it like destroying the cup?" Draco asked. "You've never told me in detail."
"Difficult, but somewhat easier than the ring," Sirius said. "I wasn't fooled outright — just momentarily distracted."
"When the diadem was destroyed, it kept trying to persuade me to put it on," Draco said quietly. "I was a little distracted at the time."
He thought privately of the Grey Lady's stern warning at exactly the right moment — without which he wasn't certain he'd have resisted.
Hermione looked at him steadily over her Butterbeer as he spoke in that neutral, matter-of-fact tone.
While she'd been completely unaware of what he was doing, he had already been quietly dealing with those dangerous objects.
She thought of him in his first or second year — so young, always wearing that cold, bored expression that had seemed far too old for his face.
He must have had a very hard time then.
And she had actually thought he was some sort of vicious little dark wizard. How foolish she'd been. Hermione felt a flash of annoyance at her younger self.
"The locket is a rather special case," Sirius said.
"Yes — that one is strange," Draco said, and there was something in his voice, a faint residue of unease. "When you're near it for any length of time, you start to feel — darker. More pessimistic. More irritable and extreme in your thinking." He paused. "I'm well aware of that."
Hermione looked at him immediately, her expression shifting to concern.
She suddenly remembered that period in third year, before that incident in the corridor — how unusually low his mood had seemed.
Can a Horcrux really alter someone's thinking to that degree?
Draco felt her gaze.
He lifted his eyes and gave her a reassuring smile. "I'm all right now. It wears off once you're away from it."
He turned back to Sirius and said, "Now that you mention it — I think I finally understand why Kreacher treated you so badly all those years. That kind of behaviour would be almost unthinkable for a house-elf; loyalty is bred into them."
"I've never been his favourite master," Sirius said with a shrug.
"Even so, that wouldn't account for the extent of it," Draco said. "Ill-feeling is one thing. What Kreacher displayed was something else." He steeled himself and pressed on, ignoring the indignant sound he heard from Hermione beside him. "He spent years alone in that house with that locket as his constant companion — breathing it in day after day—"
"That does make sense," Sirius said, with a more thoughtful expression than he usually allowed himself. "He has been better since it was removed, actually. He still mutters all the charming things my mother drilled into him — that seems to be permanent — but he's less... hollow. He's even begun attempting to look after Grimmauld Place of his own accord."
"He must be quite elderly at this point — can he really manage much?" Hermione asked hesitantly.
"If Kreacher decides he wants to do something, the results will surprise you," Sirius said, with a slight smile. "He's as nimble as a Niffler when he's hunting through the things I've thrown away, and about as strong as a full-grown Re'em when he actually picks something up."
Hermione frowned into her Butterbeer and drifted into thought.
Draco gave Sirius a disapproving look. "You really shouldn't have thrown so many things away — you very nearly threw out a Horcrux! If I were you, I'd have examined every single object in that house for anything that felt wrong."
"I know," Sirius said, with mild impatience. "But a careful man like Voldemort wouldn't put all his precious eggs in one basket. Entrusting one Horcrux to a family is already an enormous mark of favour. Two would be out of the question."
"In that case," Draco said slowly, "perhaps we should think about which families were particularly close to him — his earliest supporters, and those who rose to prominence later — and see whether any of them might have been given something to keep."
"That's one approach," Sirius agreed. "Though I'm afraid it means drawing up a list and working through it one by one. Those original followers who joined him from the very beginning, the later core members who came in through family connection and wealth—"
"That's going to be a long list," Draco said, already looking slightly pained. He loosened his collar and took a long sip of sparkling water.
"Fighting Voldemort is never a single swift blow — it's always a war of intelligence, patience, and endurance," Sirius said, with the serene air of a man who has had years to make his peace with this fact. He dropped a few ice cubes into his Firewhisky and watched them sink.
"Speaking of endurance," Draco said, lazily, "you're remarkably composed for someone who had an absolute meltdown last night over Harry's disappearance. Almost as if that never happened."
Sirius met his gaze with perfect equanimity. "Everyone has one or two weaknesses."
His eyes slid briefly toward Hermione — who was quietly absorbed in her own thoughts — and then back to Draco's face. The look said, plainly: You're not exempt.
Draco had no good response to that. He covered his loss with a dignified cough and a sip of sparkling water.
"I'll put together a list as soon as possible," Draco said more seriously. "Wizarding families with Death Eater ties, the ones I know of who might still consider supporting a return."
"Good," Sirius said. "I'll compile what the Order has — several of our members in the Ministry have access to files that were never made public."
Draco nodded.
The conversation turned, as it inevitably had to, to Harry and his scar.
"I think Dumbledore has already begun to suspect something," Sirius said. "The first thing he asked Harry when he walked into the office last night was — did your scar hurt when you approached the shadowy figure?"
"He's noticed the pattern," Draco said.
"Harry's scar really did hurt," Hermione interjected, her brows knitting together. "He said the pain was unlike anything he'd felt before."
"What has Dumbledore said about it directly?" Draco asked, his expression carefully neutral.
"Very little. He seems to be deliberately skirting around the subject," Sirius said, puzzled. "He probably didn't want me to start asking the wrong questions. I'd been planning to bring it up with him."
"So what are we left with?" Draco said, with a slight edge. "Everyone dancing around the question of Harry's scar? A collective conspiracy of avoidance?"
"I don't want to discuss it either — not until I've found some method of actual use," Hermione said wistfully. "I've found almost nothing in the library — a few spells for physical separations, and almost nothing on the soul."
"We'll have to take this slowly. Dark magic at the level of the soul requires patience and specialist knowledge." Draco looked at her. "I'll go through the family library over the summer."
"I'm sure you will," Hermione said, letting out a small, longing sigh as she finished her Butterbeer. "A library with centuries of accumulated texts..."
Draco smiled privately. Her expression at the mere mention of the Malfoy library was rather endearing.
He glanced at Sirius and said seriously, "While we're on the subject — please look for the dark magic books that might be tucked away in the corners of Grimmauld Place. Don't throw them out again."
"Do you think I've had time to go rooting through all that?" Sirius said. "I've already sent Kreacher to have a look."
Draco snorted in grudging approval and pushed a fresh glass of cold Butterbeer across to Hermione.
"How many of those have you had?" He studied her with mild suspicion. "You're not getting drunk—"
"It's so hot, and I need something cold to think with!" Hermione said, inserting a straw into the new glass with great purpose. "I'm working on a problem — the question of shared consciousness that Bagman described."
"There is something to that," Draco said. "Harry's dreams — seeing things through Voldemort's perspective, essentially. We've discussed how serious that is. Now, based on what Bagman went through, the possibility that Voldemort might one day see things through Harry in return is looking increasingly real."
"That's exactly what concerns me," Sirius said, his expression darkening. "I originally told Harry that once the Tournament was over, I'd tell him everything — no more hiding things from him. But now — until we can secure his mind, that's got to be postponed indefinitely."
"He's going to notice, and rightly so," Hermione said, with real worry. "He's been remarkably patient, but he has so many unanswered questions. I can see that he's lost and confused right now."
"It's not about hiding everything," Draco said. "We can tell Harry everything that Voldemort already knows. That way, if his mind is ever invaded, nothing unusual will show up. What we keep from Harry is only what Voldemort doesn't know."
"That's more or less my plan," Sirius said, giving him a nod of acknowledgement. "At least until I can teach him Occlumency."
"Occlumency?" Draco asked, with interest. "You want to teach Harry to shield his mind?"
In his previous life, Harry had apparently attempted to learn Occlumency from Professor Snape — reportedly with results that were, by any measure, catastrophic, and which had ended with Snape flatly refusing to continue. Draco had always found it difficult to imagine what exactly Harry could have done to push the notoriously controlled Potions master that far.
He turned to Hermione, who was listening with a curious expression, and explained quickly: "Occlumency is an obscure but extremely practical discipline — the magical art of resisting mental intrusion. It involves sealing one's own mind against external magical influence."
Hermione's eyes widened slightly. "I think I've seen reference to it somewhere in the Restricted Section."
"Many old wizarding families consider it essential for their heirs to learn," Draco said.
"And absolutely necessary in Harry's case," Sirius said. "I'd rather not wake up one day to find that James's son has got sharp red serpentine eyes staring out from behind his face. Or that Voldemort has picked up something from Harry's memories that he could use against us." He shuddered with feeling. "Essential. For Harry's sake and ours."
"Completely agreed," Draco said. He caught Sirius's use of the name and rolled his eyes with quiet resignation, but let it pass. "Harry should remain Harry — foolish and naive and absurdly honourable and brave and irritating — exactly as he is. The further we keep him from any kind of corruption, the better."
He thought, not for the first time, that having spent four years watching Harry from a completely different vantage point, he'd finally understood something he hadn't in his previous life: what a genuinely remarkable person Harry Potter was, and how much he had endured that most people would never know about or understand. If Draco had been handed Harry's life, he privately doubted he'd have come out of it half as intact.
Sirius noticed the uncharacteristic look of something like sympathy on Draco's face and felt a faint puzzlement he didn't pursue.
Instead, he lowered his eyes and said quietly, "I'd originally planned to take Harry away for the summer. Two months, somewhere he'd actually enjoy himself — he's never really had that, not properly. But now it seems—"
"Sirius Black," Draco said, with a flash of something like genuine approval, "you've finally shown some basic sense of what a godfather should be."
"I don't want to be the boring kind who only makes the child study!" Sirius said, looking pained. "I want to be the good kind."
"You can't only think about enjoyment!" Hermione said, waving her nearly empty glass with considerable authority. "Harry is immensely talented, but he is not naturally self-disciplined — he will always choose play over practice if given the option. What he needs right now is a godfather who provides genuine guidance and consistent encouragement! Helping Harry become more capable of defending himself against Voldemort is the single most important thing you can do this summer. Isn't that right, Draco?"
"Absolutely," Draco agreed, with conviction. "This boy needs proper instruction."
As Hermione stood up to use the bathroom, Sirius regarded Draco with a look that was caught somewhere between bafflement and suppressed amusement.
"I cannot begin to imagine how your future children are going to fare," he said.
Draco had not consumed a drop of alcohol all day, and yet a very obvious blush appeared on his face.
"At the very least," he said, maintaining a facade of composure with extraordinary effort, "the child will have a decent name."
"Merlin's beard!" Sirius exclaimed. "Have you two actually thought that far ahead?"
"Since you think that's far off, let's stay in the present," Draco said, clearing his throat. "The real reason I agree with Hermione is that I've been meaning to raise something with you for a while now: Harry is missing a great deal of fundamental wizarding education."
"Come off it — he's done well in most of his classes," Sirius said, waving a hand. "And I know perfectly well what you and Hermione have been teaching him on the side. He's taken to those spells quite well."
"I'm not only talking about spells he should have learned years ago," Draco said, with patience. "I mean the broader things. The family education that comes with being the sole heir of a deeply rooted wizarding line — the traditions, the principles, the practical knowledge of how the wizarding world actually functions. In all those areas, his understanding is essentially blank."
"All that old-fashioned stuff," Sirius said dismissively. "Rubbish, most of it."
"You're wrong," Draco said calmly. "Tell me — how long did it take you to sort out the Black family affairs after you left Azkaban?"
Sirius blinked. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"You had a complete wizarding education from childhood, and you still found it enormously difficult to manage an inherited estate," Draco said. "Can you imagine what it will be like for Harry — who knows nothing at all about 'managing a family inheritance' — when he comes of age and has to deal with the entire Potter estate?"
Sirius stared at him. "You speak like an old man. Or a very small, very shrewd Gringotts manager. Are you certain you're fifteen?"
Draco looked back at him without flinching.
"I mean it," Sirius said, studying him carefully. "Your peers are presumably thinking about Dungbombs and Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder and whether it's theoretically possible to destroy every toilet seat at Hogwarts in a single afternoon — and you're thinking about inheritance law?"
Draco continued to look at him without expression.
Sirius shook his head. "I genuinely cannot fathom what Narcissa and Lucius have been putting into your head all these years."
He said it lightly, but even as he did, something in what Draco had said had taken root.
"Harry will be of age in a little over two years," Draco said, pressing the point. "You need to help him understand what he's inheriting before then. I suspect he doesn't even know that Sleekeazy's Hair Potion was invented by his grandfather — or where the money in the Potter vault actually came from. Is that acceptable?"
"Harry isn't really the type to care about gold," Sirius said slowly.
"This isn't about whether he cares about gold. It's about whether he can protect what belongs to him," Draco said. "Do you want him to suddenly inherit a significant family fortune and a collection of assets, with no understanding of how to manage any of it? With no idea how to recognise when someone is taking advantage of him? Do you want him to go astray, be deceived, or simply fritter it all away through ignorance — not out of malice, but because no one ever thought to explain any of it to him?"
"I understand what you're saying," Sirius said, with slightly less dismissiveness than before. "But you know this can't be rushed. He has rather a lot on his plate at the moment."
"I'm not suggesting you lecture him on inheritance law tomorrow morning," Draco said. "I'm suggesting you stop pretending the gap doesn't exist."
"Aren't you making rather a large issue out of this, Draco?"
"He didn't grow up in the wizarding world, Sirius," Draco said quietly. "Not the way you or I did. How will he understand wizarding society when he leaves Hogwarts? Does he have any real grasp of how money, property, and family standing actually work here? When he inherits — and he will inherit — are you planning to just let things happen? You are his godfather. You are the only person with the right and the standing to guide him in this. Who else is there?"
"He seemed to manage fine not knowing any of this," Sirius said, but it came out less certainly than he'd intended.
"Did he?" Draco said. "Don't forget what his life looked like before you came out of Azkaban. Those years with his Muggle relatives. If he owned a single item of clothing that actually fitted him in all that time, I'll concede the argument."
Sirius frowned.
"Someone told me once," he said quietly, "that early fame, wealth, and status are not necessarily good for a person."
"Sirius Black," Draco said, more sharply now, "Harry has the mind and the judgement to handle these things. He has grown up. He is not that defenceless infant who could be left on a doorstep in the dark to be taken in by people who despised everything he was."
Sirius looked at him, and something in his expression shifted — something older and sadder.
"I always feel—" he started, then stopped. "I should have done better by him. Earlier."
"Pointless regret doesn't help him now," Draco said, without unkindness. "What helps him is that he has you now. You can teach him everything his father never had the chance to."
"You're right," Sirius said quietly, turning the glass in his hands. "I didn't think of it that way. I suppose I trusted that Dumbledore would — that everything would somehow be handled—"
"Dumbledore kept him safe," Draco said. "Keeping him safe and raising him are two different things. On the practical, specific questions of his rights and his inheritance — only you can speak to those things on his behalf."
Sirius was quiet for a moment.
He looked at Draco and found himself, not for the first time, at a loss for a satisfying explanation of who this boy actually was.
These words — this concern for Harry's future, his standing, his inheritance — shouldn't have been coming from an underage wizard. They were the words of someone who had thought long and hard about a child not his own, and reached conclusions that even the adults around Harry had never quite arrived at.
Who, Sirius wondered, had thought to say these things to him?
Not a single person had ever thought to remind him about protecting a family estate when he was navigating the Black inheritance. And no one, until now, had thought to say any of this about Harry, either.
Even so, he had never expected it to be Draco Malfoy.
The boy smiled instinctively as the bathroom door opened and Hermione reappeared. He turned slightly toward her and said, in a quieter voice that wasn't quite meant for Sirius: "You're not just any wizard's godfather, Sirius Black. You're Harry Potter's."
And then, as if completing a sentence he'd been thinking through for some time: "The responsibility you carry is larger than any other godfather's in the world."
Sirius stopped looking nonchalant. He nodded — properly, solemnly.
"Thank you, Draco," he said. "I'll give this serious thought."
---
Hermione Granger had no idea what she had missed.
All she knew was that by the time she returned and finished her fifth iced Butterbeer, it was already past three in the afternoon.
Mental marathons, however enjoyable, do take their toll.
"We should go, Sirius." Draco stood and pushed back his chair. He headed for the door, intending to go down and settle the bill with Madam Rosmerta.
"Put it on my tab," Sirius said, waving a hand.
"I brought my girlfriend," Draco said, with a look of genuine affront. "I'm not letting another man pay for her drinks." He strode out and down the stairs.
Sirius burst out laughing.
"Young love," he said, shaking his head, still smiling as he walked Hermione to the top of the stairs. "He gets all worked up about the smallest things. It's the only time he actually reminds me of a normal fifteen-year-old."
Hermione smiled back at him, slightly pink.
She paused on the landing, then finally asked the question that had been sitting at the back of her mind for the better part of an hour: "Sirius — how did you come up with the idea of taking the Sword of Gryffindor to the graveyard? You didn't know there'd be a Horcrux there — did you?"
"Oh, that." Sirius's expression shifted into something warmly thoughtful. "You'll have to ask Draco. He was the one who reminded me." He lifted a hand in a small wave and went back to his room.
The door closed.
The words hung in the air.
Draco — and there he is again, woven into the thread.
She thought of how he had run after Sirius the previous night. How he'd accompanied Sirius all the way to the stone guardian outside the Headmaster's office. That must have been when it happened.
Hermione descended the stairs slowly, something unfolding quietly in the back of her mind, her eyes fixed on the platinum-blond boy below without quite seeing him.
He was standing at the bar, saying something to Madam Rosmerta in a lazily charming way that made the proprietress laugh and wave her hand. He wasn't lingering on the conversation; he'd already spotted Hermione coming down the stairs and turned to look at her, his expression shifting into something more attentive.
He stood very still and very straight in the dim light of the tavern, and the quality of the air around him seemed different from everyone else's.
His features were sharp and well-defined, and there was something in the line of his mouth — that faint, particular smile — that her heart had never entirely learned to prepare for.
Hermione's heartbeat stuttered and then caught up with itself in a rush. That infuriating, reliable effect.
His smile always did this to her. It pulled her in close enough that she stopped noticing other things — other details — until it was too late.
Someone opened the bar door. A gust of warm summer air crossed her cheek.
Like a small, clear shock, it brought her back.
Something was wrong with him.
He was hiding something from her.
Hermione was absolutely certain of this.
"Shall we head back? We can make it in time for dinner." He took two steps toward her, reaching for her hand.
"Actually, I'm thirsty again." She turned, put her hands behind her back, and studied the small blackboard above the bar — the one listing the summer specials — with what she hoped was a convincingly casual expression. "Another iced Butterbeer, please."
Draco looked at her flushed cheeks with a hint of incredulity. "Hermione — how many have you had today?"
He studied her upright, self-possessed demeanour and privately revised his understanding of Hermione Granger: she apparently harboured the soul of a little drunkard underneath the model student.
"I want to find somewhere to sit for a while and process everything from today," Hermione said calmly, looking nothing like a person who was about to become a problem.
"Shall we take some drinks and walk?" Draco glanced at the noisy booths around them. "We should stop by Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes as well — I have something to collect. All right?"
Hermione nodded, looking at him with an expression he couldn't quite read.
She wore it all the way there, sipping her iced Butterbeer through a straw as they walked.
What sort of conclusions, Draco wondered, was that extraordinary brain quietly drawing from today's conversation?
He didn't dare ask. He simply kept his arm around her waist and carried the bottles, and felt — despite everything — rather pleasantly domestic.
The streets were quieter than usual in the afternoon heat, people sensibly retreated to bars and cool rooms. Draco and Hermione greeted Nigel with a nod from behind the counter and made their way up to the attic.
Draco tapped the attic door with his wand. It clicked open.
"Draco," Hermione said, in a very even voice, "I've heard that no one at Hogwarts has ever successfully cast an Expelliarmus on you."
"After all, I tend to be alert," he said cheerfully, setting the bottles on the table. "They've all learned to stop trying. I think they're somewhat concerned I'd hex them on reflex."
He said it without much thought.
For Draco, the memory of being disarmed in his previous life was among the most wretched experiences he'd carried into this one. He never wanted to feel that again — the loss of the wand, the sudden helplessness.
For Hermione, those words landed somewhere unexpected.
Alert. Guarded. Against everyone?
Did that include her?
Was that the reason he was hiding something from her?
Draco would come to understand, very shortly, that there is a particular and quite terrible consequence of making Hermione Granger feel insecure.
He had his back to her, setting the bottles down, when he heard her voice behind him, quick and sharp:
"Expelliarmus!"
He turned.
His hawthorn wand traced a clean arc through the air and landed firmly in her hand.
The wall clock began to play a little tune. A cuckoo appeared from its door, looked at the room, called out four times, took stock of the situation, and retreated very quickly back inside.
In the attic sitting room, the two of them stood facing each other.
The silence was complete.