Draco Veritas

Chapter Eight: The Master of Malfoy Manor

No exorcisor harm thee,

And no witchcraft charm thee.

Ghost unlaid forbear thee,

Nothing ill come near thee.

-Cymbeline

***

When Draco was six years old, his father had given him a bird to carry his mail. The other children Draco knew had friendly owls, or the occasional bluebird, but Draco's father gave him a falcon, with bright black eyes and a beak that curved like the mark on a Sickle.

The falcon did not like Draco, and Draco didn't like it either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: for weeks, his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He did not know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But Draco tried, because his father had told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father.

He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he could not do it-instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. He fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat: later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But he was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if it had to consume his blood to make that happen.

He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like forked lightning. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he nearly cried with delight. Sometimes the bird would hop to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father, and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud.

Instead, his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands, and broke its neck. "I told you to make it obedient," his father said, and dropped the falcon's lifeless body to the ground. "Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: they are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken."

Later, when his father left him, Draco cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a house-elf to take the body of the bird away and bury it. Draco never cried again, and he never forgot what he learned: that to be loved was to destroy, and that to love was to be the one destroyed.

***

Blaise's trunk was overturned; the contents spilled out onto the floor at Draco's feet. He sifted through them with a leisurely hand: books, makeup, jewelry, parchments, stacks of photographs. Nothing terribly interesting. He'd pulled the drawers of her bureau out as well, and her clothes were tossed haphazardly on the bed in a heap of blouses, skirts, camisoles, and expensive silk underthings. Her journal, a pale green book with a butterfly-shaped lock, had also fallen onto the bed, but some obscurely motivated chivalry prevented him from opening it.

"Are you done yet?" Blaise asked, breaking a half-hour's worth of silence. Her tone was cold and sharp. She sat where he had put her: propped against the wall, her hands still bound behind her back. The look on her face was one of such withering contempt that even Draco, no slouch at sneering himself, was somewhat daunted.