Harry Potter: Fire Lord Black

The owl did not return that night.

Edward told himself this meant nothing. Malfoy Manor lay far beyond London, and Draco might be away from home. Even an immediate answer would reveal only that he wanted company in Diagon Alley, not that he shared Edward's hopes for reform.

Still, Edward looked toward the library window whenever wings crossed the morning light.

Waiting gave him time to examine why he had chosen Draco. The first version of his answer was embarrassingly simple: the Malfoys were wealthy, connected, and related to the Blacks through Narcissa. Lucius could place a concern before governors who would ignore a student. Draco already occupied the centre of their year in Slytherin. If he supported an idea, others would at least listen.

Those advantages described a useful ally, not a trustworthy friend.

Edward opened his first-year notebook. Beside each class, he had recorded spells, failures, and observations about the people around him. Draco appeared often. He learned Potions quickly when praise was available, took correction badly in public, and sometimes repeated claims from his father without checking them. He taunted Harry with more enthusiasm than imagination.

The record also contained smaller facts. Draco had stayed on a damaged broom during a house practice until a younger student reached the ground. He had shared notes with Goyle after complaining loudly enough to disguise the help. When Snape corrected him privately, he changed the next attempt instead of insisting the professor was wrong.

Draco was not secretly virtuous beneath a rude performance. His contempt could wound people, and the beliefs he inherited already influenced his choices. Yet he was unfinished. So was Edward.

Kreacher entered with breakfast and found three columns written across a sheet: what Draco offered, what Draco risked, and what Edward owed him if he accepted.

"Little Master prepares a contract?"

"A conversation. The list is to stop me from pretending only Draco will be evaluated."

Under Edward's obligations, he had written honesty about purpose, no coercive oath, freedom to disagree, and no use of family trouble as leverage. He added no punishment for refusal.

Kreacher read the final line twice. "If Master Draco refuses, Little Master will simply let him leave?"

"Yes."

"Mistress Walburga would have called that wasteful."

"My grandmother called many things wasteful when she meant disobedient."

The portrait in the hall began shouting from behind its curtains. Kreacher winced, then looked almost pleased.

Edward's political draft needed similar limits. He unrolled it and added a question beside every office. Who appointed this person? Who could remove them? Who heard an appeal? His proposed Senate gained fixed terms and published votes. The court lost the power to assign social rank. The Chief Justice remained powerful enough to worry him, although he did not yet cross out his own name.

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He imagined presenting the design to Draco. The boy would like the hierarchy, the titles, and the promise that their families could lead without kneeling to Voldemort. He might reject the representatives drawn from people he had been taught to consider inferior. If Edward softened every difficult part to secure agreement, he would recruit Draco's surname while abandoning the stated purpose.

If he presented the plan as finished, however, he would be asking for obedience rather than partnership.

Edward wrote a second heading: questions Draco should be allowed to change. Membership standards. The role of family property. School recruitment. The emblem Draco would inevitably demand. Edward smiled despite himself at the final prediction.

After lunch, he and Kreacher inspected the Black library for texts that could be shown safely. Some family volumes contained defensive wards with legitimate use. Others mixed household protection with blood punishments, servitude, or assumptions that a family head owned every relative's magic. Edward placed those behind a locked screen.

"Master Draco is a Black cousin," Kreacher objected. "He has the right blood."

"That does not give him permission to read every private record. It would not give me permission at Malfoy Manor either."

Kreacher muttered but helped catalogue the selected books. They chose histories of the Wizengamot, comparative school regulations, and Regulus's annotated copy of a book on protective enchantments. Edward did not include Regulus's personal journal or Isabella's letters. Friendship did not erase privacy.

The preparation exposed another problem. Edward planned to invite Draco to Grimmauld Place after shopping, but no adult guardian lived there. Kreacher could protect the house, yet a house-elf was not a substitute for a clear arrangement between families.

Edward wrote to Narcissa and Lucius. He explained that Draco might visit for several hours, named Kreacher as present, described which rooms would remain accessible, and promised to return Draco before dinner. The note contained no politics and no attempt to obtain permission through Draco alone.

"Too formal," Kreacher said after reading it.

"Good. Formality is useful when adults need to know where their child is."

He sent the second letter with another owl.

By evening, doubt had changed shape. Edward no longer worried only that Draco would refuse. He worried that Draco would agree too quickly, attracted by authority and the Black name. Enthusiasm could conceal a failure to understand just as easily as reluctance could conceal careful judgment.

He developed three questions for the meeting.

What problem did Draco think magical Britain needed to solve? Who should have power to make rules? What could a member refuse without becoming an enemy?

Edward wrote his own answers first. The current system protected families with influence and abandoned people without it. Rules should involve those affected and be reviewable by someone outside the first decision. A member should be free to refuse any action that violated the group's written limits.

His answers sounded better than the three ranks he had drawn yesterday. They did not yet resolve how a twelve-year-old expected to change the Ministry, nor why he still imagined himself at the head of it. The contradiction remained visible, which was useful.

Near dusk, the Black owl returned. Two envelopes were tied to its leg.

Narcissa's reply came first. Draco could visit Grimmauld Place after shopping if Lucius met them at Flourish and Blotts and Kreacher remained present. She thanked Edward for asking directly and listed the time Draco must return.

The second envelope bore Draco's slanted hand.

Saturday. Ten o'clock. Do not buy the last copy of anything before I arrive.

A postscript had been squeezed beneath the signature.

And if this is secretly about homework, I am leaving.

Edward read the final line twice, then laughed. Kreacher appeared at the sound as though laughter itself might require assistance.

"Master Draco accepts?"

"He accepts a shopping trip. Nothing more yet."

Edward placed both letters in the household correspondence box. He resisted the impulse to treat the answer as proof that his larger plan had begun. Consent to one meeting could not be borrowed for another purpose.

On Friday, he packed the school list, enough Galleons for the required books, and a small notebook. The locket remained locked in his room. Carrying an unknown family object through a crowded street for the sake of feeling its weight was not caution.

Before bed, Edward reviewed the three questions and added a fourth.

What would make Draco leave?

A partnership worth forming needed an answer to that before it needed an emblem.

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