I'm trying my best.
“I’m aware,” said Nathaniel. “But – it’s about self-control, Jeremy.”
He wanted to say more. He wanted, in fact, to point out that their father, emphatically a not-worthwhile person, had once been here, so one never really knew, did one? If he did that, though – who knew how Jeremy would react? Jeremy still wasn’t old enough to know about it all (a thought Nathaniel didn’t question, even though Jeremy was now older than Nathaniel had been when the whole sorry mess had occurred; to him, Jeremy was always much younger than he had ever been at any point in his life), and even Mama had lied to Nathaniel about what his father had done to her, to them, at the time, and had never taken it back – if he hadn’t overheard her and Uncle Alexander, he might not have known now. So he could not say that. Jeremy might throw a fit and that might draw attention to them both.
“School is…complicated,” he said instead. “You never know who you might need, or what might happen, or who might hear what, or – anything.”
He was slightly surprised, at first, to hear a confident assertion that things at home had been ‘really good.’ He had been worried – there had been a spell when his mother had not answered several letters as quickly as usual, and he’d guessed just from her handwriting on such responses as he’d gotten that she had been feeling badly when she’d written them. Then, however, Jeremy began talking about his Quidditch practices, and Nathaniel reminded himself that there were other things going on here besides just his mother’s health.
It occurred to him it was possible he didn’t think enough about Jeremy. The tutors’ reports went, he assumed, to their mother or to Uncle Alexander, so at any given time, most of what Nathaniel knew about what was going on with his younger brother was whatever Mama happened to mention. Since Nathaniel often only half-believed any report from her that things were going well, this meant that at any given time, he didn’t really know anything about what was going on with Jeremy for sure. Maybe he should talk to Uncle Alexander….
I have to do it right. I have to be good.
“That’s great, Jeremy,” he said, smiling brightly both at the announcement that Jeremy had been deemed good enough for the junior team and that Uncle Alexander had approved of this. “Congratulations. We could use some good Seekers at school,” he added. He shook his head when asked about the Quidditch team. “Not of the whole team, but I might by the time I come home for Easter,” he said. “One of the guys who’ll be in your classes – Julius Astley – is starting a newspaper, and I’ve thrown my hat in,” he said. “The new coach is restructuring the Quidditch team, so I’m sure we’ll cover that,” he explained.