Little Bird

Chapter Thirty-Nine

            Eve closed the spell book too, tucking it under her arm. She gave me a small smile and asked, "Want to go? We've been here for way too long anyway."

            I tried not to groan out loud, because I really did want to get out of the Room of Requirement—but there was something I needed to do first. "Yeah, but hold on. There's something I need to show you."

            "...okay?" she said slowly, looking at me carefully as though she was worried something was wrong. "What is it?"

            "Wait here, I'll get it." I was incredibly uneasy as I left Eve by the cabinet to retrieve it, nervously picking up the item covered in cloth and bringing it back over to her. I wasn't sure how she was going to take this. As I walked back over, I told her, "Alright. I was looking around in here a little while ago when I skipped Potions, and—"

            "You went in here without me?" Eve asked, and I realized she sounded slightly hurt.

            Guiltily I admitted, "Yeah. Sorry, I just—I wanted to look around for something. Anyway, I found this, and—" I hesitated awkwardly, looking down at the object in my hands instead of at Eve as I tried to get the words out. "—and I figured we could use it. You know...against Dumbledore."

            There was a silence after I said it, the task hanging in between us like a black cloud. Neither of us had spoken about the second half of the task since the Dark Lord had first given it to us, and this was the first time I was bringing it up again. Eve's face was confused as she looked down at the small wrapping in my hand, asking in a quiet voice, "Wait—what is it?"

            "It's a necklace," I told her after a moment, but when she started to reach for it, I jumped back so quickly that I nearly stumbled. "Don't touch it. It's cursed. I found it in an old trunk somewhere near the door, but it—it didn't look normal, so I went into the Restricted Section later and found out it's some sort of dark object. I guess if you touch it, it's supposed to...supposed to...you know."

            I couldn't say it out loud, but Eve knew exactly what I meant. She stared down at the wrapped cloth in my hands with wide eyes, as though she was scared the necklace was going to slip out from the coverings and brush against my hand. Her usual small smile was gone as she looked at it, saying softly, "Oh."

            "Are you okay?" I asked her worriedly. I was terrified that I was scaring her—although, to be honest, I was scaring myself a little.

            "Yeah," Eve said quickly, dragging her gaze away from the wrapped necklace. "I just—I just thought we were going to wait to do it. You know, I thought—I thought we could wait until the cabinet was fixed and then figure it out when the rest of the Death Eaters got here."

            "I know. But I think it would be safer to do it before the cabinet's fixed," I said carefully, needing her to understand. My voice was hushed now, even though we were completely alone in the Room of Requirement and there was no one around who could possibly hear us. "I don't want to bring Death Eaters into the castle. It could be bad, and maybe more people would get hurt. If we do it before the cabinet's fixed, maybe we'll never have to lead them into the castle at all."

            Eve blinked up at me, and I could tell that she hadn't really even thought about students getting hurt when the Death Eaters came into the castle. She looked past me at the cabinet then, like she was suddenly realizing why I wanted to put off fixing it for as long as possible. Swallowing hard, she looked back at me and asked quietly, "How are we going to do it? We can't just give it to him ourselves—everyone would know it was us."