After supper, Drucy settled down underneath Snape's portrait in the Slytherin common room to do her homework. Her sister was nowhere to be seen again. In fact, the entire common room was fairly empty, which meant that she could probably wheedle some Potions hints out of the former Headmaster. Before she could try, however, the wall opened and Roenna wandered into the room with a tired sigh. "Hey," Drucy offered, waving her friend over. "You look beat. I was just starting my homework. Want to join me?"

She didn't regret her lost chance for a moment. Talking portraits were not the rarest thing in Drucy's life. She had spent most of her childhood thus far in her parents' home, and had never really made a friend her age. She had certainly never had a friend quite like Roenna.

Roenna offered a tired smile and settled down in the chair beside Drucy, pulling out her books. "I really do need to get it done. I wish I was clever. At least, I wish I was as clever as my father thinks I am."

"I think you're at least as clever as your father thinks you are," Drucy offered bracingly. "You should've seen me at the Gryffindor table. I threw the lamest comeback ever when that kid Matt Briar started in on me. You would've flattened him in an instant."

Roenna remained silent for a moment, not smiling. She turned and looked out the big window at the quickly-fading light. "You don't really know what it was like," she said. "I'm not being mean, Drucy. It's not your fault, and I don't hate you for it. But you've really been sheltered from what's been going on. You don't really know me, or my family, and I don't know if I can make you understand."

Drucy had to deliberately decide whether or not to take offense. What tipped the scales was Roenna's tone of voice, the way she looked away, and the lack of emotion in her voice. She very obviously did not mean for Drucy to take offense, and Drucy didn't really want to go through the drama. "Why don't you try?" she offered gently. "Maybe I can't understand. But I'm willing to give it a shot, and what have either of us got to lose?"

She gave Roenna the time she needed, remaining silent, leaning back in her chair, against the comfortable green-embroidered cushions. Roenna pulled her legs into her chair, curling up, and started to speak. She didn't look at Drucy. Both girls focused their attention on the fading light and the slowly-waving anemone garden.

"I never knew my mother," Roenna started, the words coming slowly at first, then pouring out like a torrent. "Daddy never said anything about her. Just when I asked, he told me that she wasn't coming back, and he said he was sorry. I don't know why. I don't know why he apologized, why she never came back…

"Anyways, it was never easy. He couldn't get a job. We had a little money, but not for long. I didn't really understand when I was younger. I was cute, and people would say nice things to me, but then they'd see Daddy and they'd just stare, or walk away. I didn't know why at first. He had to tell me when I was older that he had been in the Battle at Hogwarts, and he… wasn't on the right side. He lost his only friends. At least, one of them died, and the other just stopped speaking to him. I don't know why. I think Daddy does, but he would never tell me.

"We just puttered along at first, shacked up in a small apartment, then in a tent for a while, and I just never knew any different. It was my life. I had nothing to compare it to. Then we moved into an old Muggle cottage, this little place that was long-abandoned and falling apart. He had this new kind of energy in him that day, like he was making a daring move. He used a little magic, but most of it we repaired with our own hands. I held things while he was pounding nails into them, and then he held things while I pounded nails in the best I could. We made a little game of it. It isn't 'fixed', really, but it keeps out the rain. I was five when we moved in."

Roenna fell silent for a moment, and Drucy tried to picture it in her mind, the old cottage, falling apart, being put back into reluctant use by two determined wizards working like Muggles. Sweat, splinters… Drucy hadn't done a lot of that kind of work and had never liked it. She looked at her friend with a new appreciation. "It wasn't easy," she offered. "But you have a father who loves you, and that counts for a lot. Mother was usually away on banking trips, and she has a sharp tongue when she's home. Father… understands everything."

Roenna looked up at Drucy and smiled slowly. As she continued her narrative, she met Drucy's eyes, no longer turning away. "Daddy got worried when I got closer to turning eleven years old. He wanted me to go to Hogwarts. He couldn't teach me himself. I don't know if he's all that good at magic, to be honest. He doesn't do it very often. Anyways, he took me out on more trips into and around Diagon Alley. I saw how other people lived, but I couldn't be that jealous of them, because they didn't have Daddy. They just… I wished I could do something for him. We'd come home and he was so despondent, and then he'd buck up and tell me with a fake cheerful tone that we'd find a solution tomorrow. That fake cheerfulness really made me want to cry, but I couldn't, not until after he'd tucked me in.

"His old school friend wouldn't help him. He went very humbly to as many schoolmates as he could, in Slytherin, then in Gryffindor and Hufflepuff… And one day, he took me to see a friendly, eccentric woman about his age, maybe a little younger, with long blonde hair. She was a Ravenclaw, he told me. She looked at me for a long moment when he told her that I had no mother, and she said she would sponsor my way in. Her name was Miss Lovegood. Well, that got me in, and it got me hand-me-downs, because she wasn't really very rich. I got the feeling, from looking around at her home, that she didn't really want to be rich. She had other things on her mind, I guess.

"Anyways, here I am. I think Daddy hoped I would get into Ravenclaw. I felt horrible when I got called into Slytherin. I thought it was my fault somehow. Daddy wrote back – he can write, but not very neatly or easily – and told me that he was glad I'd gotten in and that he was sure I would do very well. I'm afraid of disappointing him, afraid that someday he'll find out that I'm not really as good at my lessons as I think he wants me to be."

Drucy had no good answer for this dilemma. She remained quiet for a long moment. The window was dark now, and gave no answers, nor even a distraction. "Well," she finally offered, "I'll help you with your homework, and we'll just… do the best we can. You know what, if he's like my father, it doesn't mean anything near as much to him as you do."

Roenna looked up at her friend. "Your father is the Lestranges' son. What's he like?"

Drucy tried to put it into words. "Well, he's not very… ambitious. He doesn't like hanging around other people. He stays home, walks in the gardens, just… well, doesn't do much, except with us, with me and with Esme. He plays games with us and shows us stuff. Usually Mom runs the house, but he's the one who said that I had to go to Hogwarts. I don't know if he minds that I'm in Slytherin, because he never seemed to care what House was which."

"He was in Durmstrang, wasn't he?" Roenna asked.

"Yes. He said he was one of the students who came to Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament. He said he loved it here… that he loved it instinctively…" Drucy reached out thoughtfully and touched the rich wood molding on the wall. "That he wished…"

"Maybe he wished his father spent time with him," Roenna offered. "Perhaps that would've meant more to him than his money. You and I, you're rich, and I'm poor, but we're not really that different after all."

The two fell silent for a long moment. Roenna finally spoke, glancing up at the clock. "We'd better get something done that matters."

Drucy smiled at her friend. "I think we already have."