Ron practically sprinted out of the Gryffindor common room.
He was moving so quickly that he nearly tripped over his own feet in front of the Fat Lady.
She glared after him with audible disapproval, but Ron didn't hear a word of it. His mind was entirely occupied with Charlie's reply, Charlie had agreed. He was actually coming back.
He almost walked into two Ravenclaw girls along the way, then narrowly avoided stepping on a cat that materialized from around a corner with unfortunate timing.
If his reflexes hadn't been reasonably good, at least one of those encounters would have ended badly.
He found the door to one of the empty classrooms on the second floor standing slightly ajar. Soft voices and the delicate sound of porcelain drifted through the gap.
Ron took a breath and knocked.
"Come in."
He pushed the door open.
Henry sat at the head of the table with an exquisite bone china tea service arranged before him. Draco occupied the seat opposite, with Pansy and Daphne on either side.
All four were holding teacups with the composed ease of people who had grown up doing exactly this.
The room carried the warm scent of black tea and something sweet, freshly baked pastries, Ron realized.
Ron stood in the doorway for a moment, genuinely surprised. He rarely encountered Slytherins in any gathering that looked quite like this.
The way Draco held his teacup, the straight-backed posture of the girls, the unhurried quality of the atmosphere, it reminded him, unexpectedly, of the kind of drawing room his father occasionally described from visits to old wizarding family estates.
These didn't feel like students at all.
"Mr. Weasley?" Henry set down his teacup with mild but genuine surprise. "Is something the matter?"
Draco raised an eyebrow but held his tongue. Pansy regarded Ron with open curiosity. Daphne quietly set down her own cup and offered him a polite nod.
Ron was suddenly very aware that he was a Gryffindor standing uninvited in what was clearly a Slytherin gathering. The awareness made him want to leave immediately.
But Charlie's letter was in his pocket, and it felt urgent.
"Your Highness," he said, crossing the room and holding the letter out, "my brother wrote back. He's agreed, but he asked a lot of questions I can't answer."
Henry took the letter and read it through carefully.
Draco leaned over to glance at it, then withdrew, his expression carrying something complicated.
The Weasley name clearly sat poorly with him, but for Henry's sake he kept whatever he might have said to himself.
Pansy, however, had no such reservations. "Your brother? The Weasley who works with dragons in Romania?"
Ron nodded, keeping his expression neutral. He needed something, which meant he would keep the peace.
"Charlie, yes."
"I've heard he's quite accomplished," Pansy said.
Ron blinked. That was the last thing he had expected from anyone in Malfoy's circle. In his experience, they specialized in a rather different register.
Henry finished reading and looked up. "Your brother's questions are exactly the right ones," he said. "These all need proper answers before anything can move forward. Tomorrow afternoon, we'll meet in the library. I'll have Sir Arnold send the relevant materials over, and we can go through them together."
Ron pointed at himself. "Me? Together?"
"Yes," Henry said. "You brought your brother into this, so naturally you should be part of it. And since these are his questions, you should be the one who helps provide the answers."
Ron opened his mouth but found nothing to say.
Draco made a quiet sound beside him that might have been contempt. "Weasley, His Highness is doing you a courtesy by including you. Try to look a little less bewildered about it."
Ron shot him a look, but before anything could come of it, Daphne spoke quietly.
"Draco." She glanced at Ron with a brief, measured expression. "Mr. Weasley, His Highness is right. You should be involved in matters that concern your brother."
Ron nodded, somewhat at a loss. "I—yes. I understand."
"Tomorrow afternoon, second floor of the library," Henry said. "The usual corner."
Ron turned to go, then paused at the door.
"Your Highness, thank you."
Henry lifted his teacup and gave a slight nod.
The door closed. Pansy looked toward it for a moment, her expression thoughtful.
"The Weasley family has never had any dealings with ours," she said.
Henry set his teacup down. "Now we do."
He looked around at the three of them. "The nature reserve will need more than a strong expert team. It needs support from all sides, connections, resources, goodwill. When you write home, it might be worth asking your families whether they'd be willing to participate in some capacity. I think they would find the proposal interesting."
He paused, then added, "There's something else worth mentioning. My grandmother recently raised something with me. Certain ancestral titles recorded in the Domesday Book were never formally transferred after the International Statute of Secrecy came into effect, because the wizarding families involved stepped back from the ordinary world entirely. The succession paperwork, in some cases, was simply never processed." He looked at Draco. "If I recall correctly, your ancestor Armand Malfoy held the rank of Viscount?"
Draco's eyes sharpened immediately. "Your Highness, you mean—"
A title. A proper ordinary-world title, the kind that appeared in official registers and carried genuine historical weight. The implication was unmistakable.
Pansy and Daphne exchanged a glance, their interest clearly piqued.
They had seen enough of the ordinary world's reach and resources by now to understand the value of standing within it as well as alongside it.
A pure-blood witch or wizard who also held a recognized peerage title, the idea had a particular kind of appeal that was difficult to dismiss.
Henry smiled and said nothing further, lifting his teacup and finishing the last of his tea in silence.
The opportunity was obvious. There was no need to explain it.
The following afternoon, in the quiet corner on the second floor of the library.
Ron had not come alone. Hermione had insisted on joining him, and Harry had arrived shortly after, claiming he had nothing better to do. Cho Chang was already there, as she often was at this time.
Henry spread the documents across the table. Sir Arnold had sent them that morning, a detailed planning file for the sanctuary, considerably thicker than Ron had been expecting.
Henry opened the first page. It was a map.
"The Scottish Highlands, this area here," he said, marking a region with his finger. "Approximately five thousand acres. The terrain is varied, mountains, forest, and several lochs, which makes it suitable for different species with different habitat requirements."
Hermione leaned in to examine the map closely.
"What about the facilities?" she asked.
Henry turned to the next section. "A research center, a veterinary station, and staff accommodation to start. The research center budget alone is—" and he worked through the figures, item by item.
Ron listened with focused effort. The terminology, land area designations, facility specifications, staffing structures, phased budget allocations, washed over him in a way that felt like trying to follow a lesson conducted in another language.
But he kept his attention fixed and his notes careful.
Because Charlie had asked. Because this was, in a real sense, his brother's future.
Hermione interjected with questions at regular intervals, and Henry answered each one without impatience.
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Early chapters: [email protected]/palevolt100