@sofiazabini
The Zabini Estate [ Nine Hours Later. ]
It would be easy to mistake the creature holding up Sofia’s entryway as a celebratory one, a half-drunk bottle of Moët dangling from one hand and a fortune’s worth of shopping bags stamped with brands in the other. He was beaming for a start, just starting to come apart at the seams of his immaculately put together day, hair drooping just slightly out of place and clothes ruffled, the flush of champagne giddy and high on his cheeks. It was the eyes (and all the rest of it) that gave away the act, manic and dark and barely held together as he stumbled slightly against the doorframe, a riot of uncontrolled giggles arising from that disaster, and from one of the bags came a loud rustling and and indignant little meow.
“Sofia?” he called cheerfully, grandly, seemingly at a loss to how doors were supposed to work, “Darling? I am here.”
Hushing the meowing creature loudly around his laughter (one couldn’t surprise their best, their only, true friend in the world, if the surprise kept giving themselves away) he thumped happily on the door, oblivious to the bell at his side and collapsed against the door as if he couldn’t quite contain his amusement, sliding slowly down it’s length to end in a puddle of designer packaging upon her stoop.
The door creaked open behind him and he spilled backwards, blinking upward at the fretful stare of a tiny misshapen creature who he absently, intrinsically, remembered as Cara. “Hello Darling,” he regarded the house elf with blinking, heavy eyes, “I’ve missed you,” before leaning up to press a greeting kiss to her cheek.
With a squeak and a loud of crack of disapparation, the house elf disappeared to inform her owner of the mess that had appeared in her entryway.