There was a memo stuck to his forehead when he woke up. Which must have bled into the last dream he had had, because he had still been in Auror training, and had just overslept and missed an important training drill and been kicked out and – oh, right. Theo rolled out of bed, shook off the cold sweats by glancing again at the real Serious Memo, laughed for another minute, then got dressed and trudged blearily downstairs for breakfast.

Nat was already awake – and had no doubt already eaten and had been bouncing around for an hour at least – so Theo thought it would be cruel of him to make his brother wait another ten minutes to get whatever important business this was off his chest. He brandished the scribbled summons in one hand and grabbed a piece of toast in his other. “Good day, Nathaniel,” Theo said, inclining his head formally, as if Nat were a proper gentleman. “Shall we step into my office to talk?” He gestured jokingly across the hall from the dining room, at the door to their father’s old study.

(Theo still thought of it as his father’s study – he went in occasionally to fetch an account book they kept in there or the like, but mostly if there was investment work to do he sat at the dining room table. The sponsor’s office at the Chudley stadium felt comfortably his now, but at home, Theo would never be able to shake the association.)

---

Trying not to crack up at Nat’s parrotting of his tone, Theo busied himself by chewing on his toast and opening the study door for them both. He pulled a chair up for each of them – both on the same side of the desk: Nat sitting opposite him would be simply too hilarious to look at – and sat down, trying to look attentive.

“So,” he said, “how can I help?” (His instinct was that Nat had asked his mother for something already, and been denied, and was trying his luck with the Next Most Adult in the house.)

---

Well, whatever Theo had expected – a visit to Honeyduke’s or to ask a friend to the next quidditch match – Nat was (as usual) operating on a different level entirely. Not how Theo could help at all: but how Nat could help Theo.

Theo pretended to choke on his toast in an effort to disguise his threatening laughter; the choking also ruined the solemnity of the moment just a little, but once he was finished spluttering over his shoulder, he swallowed and bit down on the inside of his cheek to look, now appropriately seriously, back at his little brother. “Oh,” he nodded, looking pensive. “That’s very responsible of you. Out of interest, uh, which bits of being-the-man-of-the-household did you want to take on?”

(He was not convinced he should, say, entrust control of their financial investments to the thirteen-year-old of the house, however entertaining it might be.)

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