Kreacher led them through the front hall while naming portraits, sealed rooms, and household rules. Draco examined the silverwork with practiced interest and the scorch marks near Walburga's portrait with genuine curiosity.
"Did Sirius Black do that?" he asked.
"The family record says a dispute did," Edward replied. "No witness signed the entry."
"You make your own house sound unreliable."
"Every family account is reliable about what the family wanted remembered."
Draco glanced at him. "You have been reading too many histories."
They passed the formal drawing room and entered the west library. Edward had left the grand political draft rolled in Regulus's study. The shelves here held only the books he had cleared with Kreacher, along with tea, sandwiches, and the promised Acid Pops.
Draco went directly to Regulus's annotated defensive text. He turned the pages carefully, noticing the different inks.
"Your father wrote all this at school?"
"Some at school, some after. The dates stop before his final year ends."
"My father says Regulus was talented."
"What else does he say?"
Draco hesitated. "That he chose the wrong moment to doubt the Dark Lord."
The sentence was probably Lucius's. Draco delivered it without malice, but also without asking what the choice had cost. Edward closed the book between them.
"Regulus died opposing him. I do not know every reason yet, and I will not turn his death into an argument I cannot support."
"Then why invite me here?"
Edward brought out the rolled parchment. "Because I want to change the conditions that make children inherit wars before they understand them."
They moved to the smaller study. Kreacher remained in the hall within call, close enough to satisfy Narcissa's condition without listening at the door. Edward spread the first draft across the desk.
Draco studied the three ranks before reading the crossed-out sections. "You ruined the interesting part."
"The interesting part gave old families the easiest route and let them write everyone else's examinations."
"Old families have the best libraries and training. Why should that count for nothing?"
"It should count as access and preparation. It should not count as proof that the person learned anything."
Draco pointed to the middle rank. "The Weasleys have old blood and no influence. Granger has no family standing and gets better marks than most of our year. Your scheme would put both problems in the same place."
The observation surprised Edward because Draco did not intend it as criticism. He thought Hermione's performance proved the system needed a way to contain an exception, not that birth was a poor measure.
"Exactly," Edward said. "A rank assigned at birth confuses opportunity with merit."
"Then use examinations."
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"Who writes them?"
"People who know the subject."
"Who decides they know it?"
Draco frowned at the repeated question. Edward showed him the Senate draft, the independent appeals, and the fixed terms he had added. He also showed him Chief Justice with Edward Black written beneath it.
"That position is yours," Draco said at once.
"Why?"
"Because it is your plan. You have the Black archives, Shacklebolt blood, and fire no one else can use."
The answer matched Edward's private justification almost word for word. Hearing it from Draco made the weakness clearer.
"Those facts could make me effective," Edward said. "They do not make me safe from corruption."
"You are not going to become corrupt."
"People rarely write that possibility into their first speech."
Draco paced around the desk. "You asked me here to join, and now you argue against your own leadership."
"I asked you here to examine the plan. If all I wanted was agreement, I could have invited someone who never challenges a Black."
"Kreacher?"
From the hall came an offended noise.
Edward nearly laughed. "Kreacher challenges me constantly."
They returned to the problem. Edward described a system in which access to advanced magical education depended on demonstrated readiness, not surname. Draco insisted family archives remained private property. Edward agreed that reform did not mean confiscating every inherited book. They wrote a distinction between public safety standards and private collections.
"What about magic that can hurt everyone if one person misuses it?" Draco asked.
"Its use can be regulated even when the page remains private. If a family spell poisons a public well, ownership does not erase responsibility."
"And who enforces that?"
"The court, subject to appeal and published reasons."
"With you at the top."
Edward looked at his name again. "For now, in the draft."
Draco smiled. "You like the title."
"More than I should."
That admission seemed to earn more trust than any promise of virtue.
When Edward asked what problem Draco most wanted to solve, the answer was not blood status. Draco hated the Ministry's inconsistency. Lucius complained that officials enforced rules against families they disliked while accepting donations from friends. Draco wanted standards that could not change with the Minister's mood.
"And I want people who know what they are doing in charge," he added. "Not fools promoted because they are popular."
"How do we distinguish competence from agreeing with us?"
Draco opened his mouth, closed it, and reached for an Acid Pop.
"That is a very irritating question."
"It will remain irritating after we write an answer."
The third question concerned refusal. Draco initially said a member who abandoned them in danger was a traitor. Edward agreed that desertion could have consequences, but asked whether refusing an unlawful attack counted as desertion.
"We would not order one."
"Then writing the limit costs us nothing."
They added a clause against attacks on noncombatants and a right to refuse acts outside the written purpose. The language was incomplete, and neither boy understood enough law to close every weakness. They kept the uncertainty visible.
Draco returned to the first page. "You want old families, half-blood experts, Muggle-born scholars, and even beings the Ministry does not treat as citizens in the same Senate. My father will call that surrender."
"Your father is not being invited today."
"He will hear about it."
"I assumed he would. Tell him accurately."
Draco's surprise showed that he had expected secrecy to create importance. Edward refused to build the first bond around deceiving a parent who knew where his child was.
"I still think families like ours should lead," Draco said. "We have resources no one else does."
"Leadership can be earned through using those resources well. It cannot be permanent payment for possessing them."
"That sounds like a way to let Granger order us around."
"If she becomes qualified for an office and we do not, perhaps she should."
Draco looked appalled, then thoughtful, then appalled again.
"I am not agreeing to that part."
"You do not have to agree today. Do you want to keep working on the rest?"
Draco read the page in silence. His finger stopped at the right to leave, then at the prohibition on blood insults in group business.
"You put that in because of the shop."
"Yes."
"And you will not remove it."
"No."
Draco folded his arms. "Then I want a clause that no member is humiliated for a mistake after correcting it."
"Public repair may still be necessary. Permanent humiliation is not. Write the wording."
Draco took the quill.
By the time Kreacher announced that the carriage would arrive in an hour, the parchment carried both boys' handwriting. It was not a constitution, despite Edward's grander thoughts. It was a working agreement between two students who disagreed about half of it.
Edward held out his hand. A small orange flame hovered above his palm, warm but unable to touch either boy.
"No oath," he said. "No binding spell. We work together while each of us chooses to continue."
Draco looked at the flame, then at the amended draft.
He reached forward.
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