Little Bird

Chapter Forty-Nine

Eve

            Draco looked extremely pale and shaky when he finally got back from speaking with his parents, and he seemed as though he was seconds away from pitching to the floor.

I was pouring out coffee into two separate mugs when he entered the kitchen alone, nearly a half hour after he'd left the parlor with his mother. Turning to face him as I set the half-empty pot back on the stove, I gave a small smile and asked a bit teasingly, "How'd it go? Was it about the firewhiskey?"

But Draco wasn't meeting my gaze or returning my grin, so the smile quickly faded from my lips. I turned away from the stove as he quietly shut the kitchen door behind him, my voice much more serious as I asked, "What's wrong?"

He unsteadily moved farther into the kitchen, stopping on the other side of the counter so the wide span of marble separated us. I watched him carefully as he rubbed his face tiredly, his gaze fixed on the two cups of coffee instead of up at me. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded raspy and raw—like he hadn't used it in days. "It's...it's not good, Eve."

I swallowed hard as I tried not to assume the worst, my mind spinning with anything his parents could have just told him. Draco looked like his legs were barely keeping him upright, so I told him in a soft voice, "Please sit down."

It took him a second to finally pull out the stool on his side of the counter, eventually taking a seat and resting his elbows on the countertop to keep himself from falling off. Draco was staring down at the two steaming mugs without saying anything, so I said nervously, "Just tell me what's wrong. Draco, you're scaring me."

This made his eyes finally flick upwards to meet mine, his grey eyes mixed with specks of gold now suddenly dulled in vibrancy. He reached around the mugs and I automatically took his hand in mine, leaning against the counter so I could be closer to him. "Sorry," Draco said quietly, "I don't mean to scare you. It's just—it's about what's going to happen in the fall. The Dark Lord, he...he doesn't want me to go back to Hogwarts."

I blinked, wondering why something like that was such a bad thing; after all, we'd been thinking that going back to Hogwarts wouldn't have been possible anyway. I began carefully, "But...that's okay right? We can just stay here instead."

Draco visibly winced at the last sentence, and my mouth abruptly closed. That couldn't mean...no.

"He...he wants you to go without me," Draco told me after a second, his words sounding uneven and broken. When I still stared at him blankly, he continued softly, "He wants you to go back to Hogwarts."

I wanted to automatically tell him that it was okay, that I would be okay being alone at Hogwarts, but the lies tangled up in my throat before they could make it past my lips. The idea of going back to Hogwarts alone—especially after what I had done the night Dumbledore died—made my knees feel weak, and I slouched against the counter to keep from falling over.

After long moment of silence, I was finally able to choke out, "...why? Why does he want me to go back?"

Draco's eyes flicked back down to the counter, like he couldn't bring himself to look me in the eye. I couldn't see his expression as he answered slowly, "I don't know. I guess they just...they want to have a Death Eater that's a student."

My stomach lurked then, remembering that Snape was going to be headmaster and the Carrows would both be professors next year. It was obvious that Hogwarts was going to be much, much different from what it had been right before we'd left.

"Why do you have to stay here?" I asked in a tiny voice, but what I really meant was, 'Why do I have to go back there without you?'

"He needs me to stay at the Manor to help," he told me quietly, still looking down at the counter more often than he was looking at me. Carefully, he continued, "I don't know for what, but...it can't be good."