show him I trust him, Narcissa.'
'Hasn't he just betrayed that trust?' she asked, looking curious.
'Not really.' Sirius looked thoughtful. 'He's being true to his nature.
The impression I get is that he thought his friend was in trouble -
not just his friend, but his girlfriend. He's never learned to go to adults for help, and I think that by this stage, he's too old to learn it.
He's not just any boy, he's Harry Potter. He might be a child, but he's got adult-sized problems, he always has, and so far he's dealt with them on his own. And dealt with them well. All I can really give him is support, and maybe a modicum of discipline. He's never going to have an ordinary life; there's no point in my treating him like he's an ordinary teenager.'
'It's not easy,' said Narcissa, sympathetically, 'being godfather to a hero, is it?'
'No,' said Sirius. 'I'd much rather he was some swotty little weed who never left the library.'
Narcissa laughed, 'Sirius! You'd hate that!'
Sirius grinned. 'Yeah, I would.' He looked at her curiously. 'I meant to ask before,' he said. 'What are you doing, anyway?'
'I was marking the objects I want to sell,' she said calmly, and touched the tip of her wand to a painting of a dour-looking, pale man in a long black cloak. Immediately, the frame began to glow a faint blue color. 'Take that, Uncle Vlad.'
'You're selling off the paintings? Why?' asked Sirius. It was on occasions like this that it was recalled forcefully to him that he really didn't know Narcissa all that well. Although she did look fetching with her hair in plaits.
'I told you before,' said Narcissa, moving down the hall and zapping another portrait. 'The Malfoy estate is worth a great deal, but most of its worth is bound up in objects. Paintings, furniture, gold…I want to have some liquid capital for Draco to use.'
'When does he come into possession of all this?' asked Sirius, looking around curiously.
'Half when he's eighteen, the rest when he's twenty-one.'
'Eighteen?' Sirius whistled. 'That's young to be worth-'
'Seventy-five million galleons,' said Narcissa.
Sirius choked. 'Seventy-five million?'
'That's counting the worth of the estates in Romania and Turkmenistan as well, of course,' she said calmly.
'Good Lord,' said Sirius, and leaned back against the wall. 'Do you think there's anything we can do to keep him from becoming a complete and utter pill?'
Narcissa put her hands on her hips. 'My son is not a pill,' she said.
'Not yet,' said Sirius. 'But all that money and power-'
'Doesn't even begin to make up for all the things he hasn't had!'
said Narcissa, her expression stormy.
'You're feeling guilty,' said Sirius.
Narcissa looked at him for a moment, then sighed and ran the back of her hand across her forehead. 'I know I am.'
'It's all right,' said Sirius. 'I feel just as guilty about all the things Harry hasn't had.'
'But you were in prison-'
'So were you,' said Sirius.
Narcissa sighed. 'I suppose that's true.'
'They're both,' said Sirius slowly, 'really exceptional boys. And if we can keep them from getting themselves killed-'
'Or killing each other,' put in Narcissa.
'Then they'll practically raise themselves.'
They looked at each other. Sirius was the first to smile, and Narcissa smiled back. 'We're in big trouble, aren't we?' he said.
'Yes,' she agreed. 'When are they coming home?'
'Tomorrow morning. And they're with their friends. The Weasley boy, his sister, and Hermione, of course. That won't be a problem, will it?'
'This house has thirty-seven bedrooms,' said Narcissa. 'It's no problem at all.'
Ginny eventually found Draco lying sprawled on top of a large, flat rock some way from the tents. He was lying on his stomach and appeared to be calmly perusing her copy of Teen Witch Weekly. She knew that he saw her, although how she knew that she couldn't have said.
She climbed up on top of the rock and sat down next to him, looking down at the top of his silvery-blond head, which was resting on his folded hands.
'So,' she said. 'Learn anything from the magazine?'
'Not to wear horizontal stripes,' he said. 'They'll make me look chubby.'
'Please, you could never look chubby. You're — oh, never mind, you weren't serious, were you?'
