Little Bird

Chapter Forty-Eight

Draco

Only a few weeks after what happened with the Ministry, I woke up late in the morning without Eve beside me.

I laid on my back for a few minutes, wondering why she hadn't stayed in bed with me until I woke up like usual. We always spent the night together despite my parents having set up a guest room for her, but this was the first morning I'd woken up alone. The sheets were still crumpled beside me, so I knew she must have gotten out of bed and left the room not too long ago. Having an uneasy feeling twisting in my stomach, I rolled out of bed and got to my feet quickly. Maybe she'd heard one of my parents downstairs and had hurried back to her room, worried they would catch us sleeping together?

I tugged a white tank top over my head before hastily leaving my room, entering the coolness of the hallway and already starting for the guest room. But the door was opened slightly, and when I peeked inside, the bed was still made. Trying to ignore the bad feeling that was intensifying by the second, I made my way back out into the hall and started for the stairs.

I was halfway down the staircase when I could suddenly hear muffled talking coming from the parlor below. Annoyance pushed its way through my chest when I realized Lucius was probably giving Eve a hard time—why couldn't he just leave us alone for once?

But when I entered the parlor, it was someone considerably worse than Lucius.

Eve had her back to me as she faced Blaise Zabini, so I couldn't see her expression as he spoke to her. The anger flared up hot as I realized she was dressed in nothing but a tank top and shorts, while he was wearing a formal black suit—and he wasn't even bothering to hide the fact that he was glancing down at her legs every once in a while. I was already starting forward when Zabini's eyes flicked past Eve over to me, and his lips curved up into a smirk when he saw my livid expression.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I spat, causing Eve to turn my way when I came up beside her. I was so furious with Zabini that I couldn't break my glare with him, nearly stepping in front of Eve as I tried to put myself between them. "Who let you in?"

"Your mother," he replied smoothly, his right hand casually slipping into his suit pant pocket. "She was pleased to see my mother and I, actually. They're in the dining room now."

I glared fiercely at him, because it had been ages since his mother had come to the Manor—and knowing him, there was probably no reason for him to have come along as well. But Zabini was grinning and nodding his head at Eve beside me, continuing, "I ran into Hawkings on my way inside. We were having a nice chat before you came down here all angry and ruined it."

Glancing over at Eve, I saw her expression was carefully blank to hide what she was really feeling, giving me a tiny smile to let me know she was okay. I desperately wanted to know what Zabini had been saying to her, because it most likely hadn't been anything good. Turning to face Zabini again, I told him in a tight voice, "Well, you need to leave. Now."

"Can't, my mum's talking about something very serious in there," he grinned, clearly amused at the way I was reacting to him being here. "She's discussing what's going to be happening at Hogwarts this year."

I felt Eve stiffen behind me at the mention of the impending school year, but I didn't want her to ask Zabini about it—he'd probably lie and say something just to freak her out. "That's nice," I told him coldly. "Go wait outside, then."

"But I have news. Don't you want to hear it?" Zabini smirked, looking over at Eve instead of me. "Mum tells me you two haven't left the house since the night Dumbledore died. You've probably got no clue of what's going to be happening at Hogwarts next year."