Little Bird

Chapter Thirty

Draco

            I slowly lowered the piece of parchment, staring down at the tiny paragraph as though I could make it longer just by looking at it.

            I wasn't sure what I'd been expecting, but it certainly hadn't been this.

            He didn't even offer me an explanation as to why he hadn't written at all this summer. I'd spent the last month mostly lying around at home, bored out of my mind, and the only times I'd really gone out had been to meet with Ginny and a few others at Hogsmeade—but that had only happened twice—and Draco hadn't found the time to send me a single letter. And now that he finally had, I was reading and rereading it to see if I could try to ignore the cold and distant tone it gave. It was short and to the point—nothing very personal about it.

            'And why', I thought as I clutched the parchment in my hand and looked at the disappearing dot of the owl in the sky, 'why did he want me to meet him at his house? We'd agreed to meet at Hogsmeade; why would he ignore all my letters for weeks and then, out of the blue, ask me to go to the manor?

            I held the letter carefully in my hands and crossed the room to sit back down on the couch, sinking into the cushions. 'I should be angry,' I thought. I should be pissed at him, I really should be. If anything, I should ignore this letter and see if he likes how it feels.

            Of course, I was going to do the exact opposite of that.

            Before my aunt could return home from work, I hurried up to my room so I could write Draco back. I scrawled a quick note telling him that I'd be there tomorrow—because I was going whether or not my aunt allowed me to leave the house—and carefully entered her room to give it to her owl.

            When the bird was disappearing into the sky with the envelope attached to its leg, I returned to my room and curled up on the bed, gently clutching Draco's letter in my hands. I held the parchment up close to my face and read it over again, my eyes tracing over the lines scratched into it, trying to imagine Draco writing it out himself. I shook my head and put it down, telling myself to stop being so weird. It was just a letter.

            When my aunt returned home from work that evening, I asked her if I could meet Ginny in Hogsmeade tomorrow. She automatically agreed and couldn't hide how happy she was for me—I tried to ignore the guilt swimming in my stomach for lying to her. I told her I'd see her when I got home afterwards, and then went to bed with my chest fluttering with nerves. I just had to see how he was doing and find out what was wrong. It didn't matter if I was annoyed; the only thing that was important to me was making sure Draco was okay.

~*~

            The resounding crack from my Apparation into the deadly silent street was loud and seemed to echo off against the trees, and I shivered slightly as I looked around. I could see Malfoy Manor only a short distance away, the black gate just a few feet over down the street. I took a deep breath and started down the empty sidewalk, keeping my hand against the wand deep inside my jean pocket. The entire street felt creepy and slightly off—although it could have just been because of the thin fog that seemed to curl around my legs.

            I reached the gate and hesitated outside of it, unsure if I should wait for someone to come and let me in or if I should just open it myself. But when I reached my hand up to the black spiral of the bars, the gate door unlocked itself and swung inwards, leaving my arm still suspended up in the air. Blinking and starting to feel a bit uneasy, I stepped through the gateway entrance and started up the pathway to the front doors of the building.