Кассандра Клэр - Draco Veritas

Draco raised an eyebrow. "You started a rumor you were snogging that weasel-faced tosser just to annoy me? I'm touched."

"But not annoyed."

"Not particularly," he said.

Blaise shook her head. "Get out," she said. "I never want to see you again."

"Oh, no," Draco said, in a bored, deadpan voice. "Please reconsider."

Seizing a glass candlestick from the table by the bed, Blaise flung it at his head. Draco ducked, and it hit the wall and shattered. "I said get out!"

"You'll wake up Pansy," he said.

"She's…not…here," Blaise snarled.

"Good," Draco said. "Then she won't stop me from doing this," and he waved a hand at her. Silver cords sprang out of the air and snapped around her wrists and ankles. She shrieked in surprise, and sat down hard on the floor, struggling against the cords. "What is your problem?" she hissed at him, her green eyes full of rage.

"I don't know," Draco said thoughtfully. "I guess I'm just not a very nice person."

"I hate you," Blaise snarled, but he had set himself to ignoring her.

Walking quickly, he crossed the room and flung open the trunk at the foot of her bed. He kicked it, and it fell sideways, spilling clothes, books and papers all over the floor.

Blaise shrieked out loud. "What are you doing? You — leave my things alone! Leave them alone!" Her voice rose into a piercing scream. "I hate you, Draco Malfoy, you lying, cheating, stealing, pointy-faced bastard! I hate you!"

Draco glanced over at her and smiled. "Scream if you want," he said pleasantly. "It won't make any difference. I'll stay here until I find what I'm looking for."

References:

Rhysenn's quote: "How art thou fallen from Heaven, oh Lucifer, son of the morning?" is from the Bible, a description of Satan's fall from grace. If that doesn't work, groveling makes a solid backup — Buffy

“And a total, total one at that” — Red Dwarf

— 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.

"Mostly," he replied.

"And did you find what you were looking for?" Her voice held so much frozen scorn, it could have kept a year's supply of Ice Mice from melting.

Draco sighed. If lime green push-up bras had been what he was looking for, he would have been in business. Alas, they were not. "How come you never wore any of these things while we were dating?" he asked, lifting a transparent black something or other off the bed with a crooked finger.

"Maybe I did. You never got far enough under my clothes to find out."

"Disappointed, are you?" Draco dropped the transparent lace object and looked narrowly at her.

"Not at all," she spat. "You're disgusting."

Draco decided to let that one pass. He got to his feet and went to crouch down beside her so that their faces were on a level. Her dark green eyes, minus their usual sparkle, looked into his with loathing. "In answer to your question," he said, "no. I didn't find what I was looking for. Which leads me to another question."

Her lips tightened. "What?"

"Where are the slippers I gave you for your birthday? Back in October?"

Her eyes widened with disbelief. "Why, do you want them back? You cheap son of a bitch, Draco Malfoy — just because I broke up with you — "

"You break up with me? I believe I was the one who broke up with you."

She called him a very rude name. Draco was impressed. "Nice one," he said. "This is not, however, addressing the matter at hand…"

"What matter? I don't even know what you're raving about now — "

"The slippers. Where are they? Remember them? They were very expensive, embroidered, raw gold silk — "

"They were not pure silk," Blaise snapped, looking haughty again. "They had some cheap material mixed in that irritated my skin. I couldn't wear them."

"So what did you do with them?"

She shrugged. "I gave them to Pansy."

Draco expelled a long breath. He wasn't sure if he felt relieved or not. "I didn't really think it was you," he said slowly. "But I had to make sure."