An Interference of Portraits

There are Portraits that argue... and then there are the Blacks

'Piss off!' I said without any rancour.

'Way I saw, it was Granger did all the reading for you and Weasley.'

I elbowed him in the side for being cheeky and smiled. I also liked his suggestion. 'Probably true. And I know what I'm doing this afternoon, once I've interviewed half of Mr Kreacher's bloody offspring.'

'Mr Malfoy, come back here at once, I was in the middle of talking to you,' Walburga shouted after us as we left the room and headed up to the first floor.

'Busy...' I called over my shoulder.

'Don't forget to show him your bedroom...' sniggered Sirius. Followed by a sharp 'OW!' and a whinging 'Mooonnny, you didn't need to do that...'

I was sure the tips of Draco's ears had gone red. I knew I was certainly blushing furiously.

'Snug...' I said firmly. 'Currently my favourite room in the house.' It was purely because it was warm and cosy with cream lamps and with two deep comfy sofas that faced each other with a low coffee table in between them. And I'd managed to set up a TV in there, much to Walburga's disgust. I wondered about fitting some of the bookshelves in here.

'Jigsaws?' said Draco with a raised eyebrow as he looked at the half-completed jigsaw on the coffee table. 'Luna, by any chance?'

'How did you guess?'

Draco smiled knowingly. 'She's got us doing them too. Says we need to switch off and it's a good way to relax and spend time together. I'm not sure I agree, I get all possessive about the sections I'm doing—'

'Yes, exactly. I nearly shouted at Hermione when she started upsetting my systems—'

'You have systems?'

'Absolutely. Patterns, colours, words, in various parts of the box—'

'Me too.'

We were both edging towards the table.

'Maybe we should come back to the jigsaw,' I mumbled possessively.

We headed out and I showed Draco the Drawing Room.

'I can't decide on this room yet. I guess it will be for occasions, like when I've got guests over or Christmas or whatever but...' I shrugged. 'I wanted to clear it fairly quickly because it had the old Black Tapestry in here. The whole room was infested with Doxies, well, the whole house was, still is upstairs... but I transferred the tapestry pattern onto the walls up the stairs and then got rid of it. I guess I'll think of something once I've got the ground floor sorted. I'm making my way up slowly.'

'You've got a grand piano!'

'Yeah, well...' I mumbled.

'Do you play?' Draco accused.

I laughed bitterly. 'Do you really think that family paid for music lessons for me? Not a fucking chance. I bet you play...'

He blushed endearingly but clearly tried to control his embarrassment. 'A bit,' he said quietly.

'Well, go on then...' I tried coaxing.

Draco sat down and lifted the fallboard and started to run a scale. It sounded terrible and a number of keys were broken. He shut the fallboard with a slam.

'It needs a tune and mending. And you probably need to check whether anything is living under the lid.'

I must have blanched because he laughed.

'Don't worry, probably just mice and nothing nefarious.'

'You don't know this house. I noticed it was locked before, probably for a reason,' I muttered. 'Shall we risk it now?' I asked, drawing my wand and taking a step back.