Chapter 4: Not Quite Hatred
Following their explosive and objectionable beginning, the unwanted room-sharing became somewhat easier. Or perhaps it was simply that, with his ability to demonstrate leniency that Draco had begrudgingly acquired from the wartime, he permitted the intrusion. Permitted, and overlooked the disruption while chanting to himself the words "it's only for a few days, only a few days". It became something of a mantra to him.
The bird – the merlin, as he'd discovered – maintained its wariness. It never seemed afraid of Draco exactly, but nevertheless, whenever they happened to be in the same room Draco would unerringly find himself to be the subject of unwavering black eyes. He couldn't escape them, and not only because the merlin seemed to assume the right to any and every room in the entirety of Draco's small house.
It spent its day in the living room, perched on the back of the couch with head turned towards the single window when not focused on Draco.
It hobbled around the house like an old man, ungainly, limping gait almost comical had the few times Draco nearly unwittingly stepped upon it not resulted in an ear-splitting, objectionable "ki-ki-kee!" and awkward flapping of displeasure. It took less than two days for Draco to acquire a rather unnerving hesitancy to walk about his own house. To walk… around his own house.
It slept in his room, something that Draco had struggled to remain passive about but eventually gave up any further fighting on the subject when he nearly lost his fingers shooing the bird out on the second evening. He wasn't one for sharing, but after his first night of waking up with a stiff neck he resolutely resisted the urge to avoid his own bed in subsequent instances. Thankfully, the double mattress afforded space enough for the both of them on the blankets. Draco wouldn't touch the bird to forcibly remove it and didn't want to risk blasting it off with a spell; he might kill the thing and then where would he be with Millicent?
And it watched him eat in the dining room. Watched, and trained a disdainful stare upon him that was only alleviated when Draco sighed, scowled, and offered it a portion of whatever he was eating. It always gobbled it up within seconds, with a strange chewing motion and bobbing of its head that Draco found horrifyingly fascinating. And not only for the fact that the bird ate pasta, bread and vegetables as often as it did meat. He was sure, now, that smaller birds such as larks and sparrows – Carol had indeed been correct, according to Draco's book – were the staples of a merlin's diet.
He knew this because he'd read as much.
Draco had become something of an impromptu expert on merlins over the course of a few days. Quite without his realisation, he'd accumulated a small library of books on bird handling, birds of prey and British raptors. Each afternoon he left work at six o'clock on the dot and made his way to the Page-Turner, spoke minimally to Carol, and purchased another book, usually under her recommendation.
He didn't know why he did it. He couldn't fathom the inclination to learn more about the bird – the merlin – that had invaded his house. He had no idea why he would take the time that he usually threw into work and spend it reading up on bird facts. He didn't want the bird around, and on Thursday evening, when he realised just how much time he was dedicating to it, he paused in his trip to the Page-Turner and considered.
Why did he do it? Why did he strive to learn so much about the bird? And why on earth did he abandon his workplace for the sole purpose of returning home to the irritating creature any earlier?
The only realistic reasoning he could deduce was that he simply feared the destruction of his house should he leave the bird to its own devices for too long. True, Draco had as yet received no proof to justify this supposition, but it was the only reasonable one he could discern. That, and a genuine fear of Millicent should he happen to mistreat – no, kill – the thing.
By the time the weekend arrived, Draco had a thorough knowledge of the bird that had taken up residence in his home. More than he would ever admit, and it irked and embarrassed him to realise just how much time he'd dedicated to acquiring that knowledge.
He now knew that the merlin was a male. It was too small to be a female and of a more grey than brown colouration that would indicate adolescence.
He knew that they were internationally widespread, and that the merlin he'd unwittingly acquired was of a British subspecies. He'd seen all the pictures.
He had come to the understanding that they didn't build their own nests but instead integrated those made and abandoned by other birds. Upon learning this, Draco had grumbled long and profusely to the merlin, in increasingly disgruntled tones, about how he hadn't abandoned his bed and thence it was not available to the bird's integration. The merlin had actually uttered a clucking chortle in reply; Draco could almost swear it was laughing at him.
He knew now that they were, as Carol had suggested, admired for their agility of flight, engaging in low-level cruising to either flush and chase, to swoop and capture. He knew that, yes, they consumed sparrows and larks, and even ground dwellers such as rats. Had discovered that they'd once been favoured for use in falconry, particularly by ladies, and that males were often simply referred to as 'jack' by their handlers.
Jack seemed as good a name as any. Not that Draco would use a name, of course. But any knowledge was good to have.
What he had come to understand from knowledge outside of the books was that merlin's were smart.
That they could unlock cupboard doors unless charmed shut, and even then sometimes somehow managed.
That the trilling "ki-ki-kee" might have sounded subdued and almost pretty at first but became very annoying after listening to its broken melody for hours on end in the closeted walls of Draco's little house.
That birds had a lot more downy feathers than seemed entirely necessary, and that such down seemed to shed in an entirely excessive and vexing fashion.
That raptors could stare for a very long time, and seemed to revel in their ability to cow the object of their gaze by capturing them in their unwavering stare.
And, most importantly, for a creature so small they had the ability to take up an enormous amount of space. It was like living with another person, Draco realised. Another person who had absolutely no respect for the personal space of their cohabitants and expressed no remorse for such invasions and the discomfort they caused. It was always Draco that had to move should he wish to be avoid the bird, to escape dwelling in the same room, to avoid tripping over him. More often than not the merlin would simply follow him into the adjacent room, hobbling in his old man strut with wings tucked like arms folded across his back. And staring. Always staring.
That stare became less accusatory over the days, more simply curious. A curiosity that became accusing when Draco accidentally stepped too close, but curious nonetheless. It became a common feeling, the weight of those eyes upon the back of Draco's head. No less discomforting, but common.
Which was why, when Sunday morning arrived to find the merlin perched in the open window in the kitchen, bandage picked to shreds and strewn across the dining table, Draco felt… not unhappy, but at a bit of a loss. Because Millicent had been right; the bird had healed by the end of the week and would be leaving Draco. In peace.
Relief flooded through Draco. Satisfaction. An unspoken blessing to whichever bird-god existed that had ensured the merlin hadn't died in Draco's care.
But there was also… yes, a little bit of loss.
It took Draco a solid minute of silent staring at the merlin, as the bird stared straight back at him, for him to register the presence of that emotion. He'd felt it before, come to actively fear the feeling, so he knew what it felt like. It baffled him to no end that he would feel loss for the unwanted guest. The unwanted invader. But as the bird stared at him for a moment, stared and cocked his head before shifting on his feet, spreading its wings and launching through the window with barely a hitch of hesitancy…
Yes. Maybe he did feel a little loss. It wasn't a bad feeling, exactly, but surprisingly it wasn't necessarily a positive one either. In barely a week, and for the first time in months, Draco's mind had been entirely diverted from his work. From dancing around wistful thoughts of his father in Azkaban, of his mother cloistered in her cave-like cottage tucked in the distant reaches of the Reserve. Of how to avoid the world and it's progression towards 'embracing one's former enemies, so long as you didn't have to crucify them for their actions' attitude. Fortunately for Draco – or perhaps unfortunately – he was one of the few that were embraced.
He stared out of the kitchen window into the morning sun, across the open grasslands that faded gradually into forestry, until the distant speck of the merlin disappeared entirely into the orange light. And he stared a little longer. Then he drew his wand from his pocket, heated his kettle to boiling, and took a cup of tea to the dining room table to await his arrival of the Sunday Prophet. His empty dining room, in his empty house that was all his and his alone.
And that night, he resolutely avoided looking at the row of bird books stacked neatly in the bookcase in his room.
The merlin came back. Not for a good month, but he did come back. Draco was so surprised that he forgot to be disgruntled by the fact.
He was injured again. A deep gash crossed his chest, slicing through feathers and matting those remaining with streaks of rusty coloured blood. It obviously pained the bird to fly, for his arrival was a tumbling crash across the path before Draco as he turned once more into Wanderer Lane. The merlin took a moment to right himself, his wings fluttering haphazardly, before clambering onto wavering yellow feet and turning towards Draco. And staring with those deep yet colourless eyes.
Draco stared back. And he thought.
He had absolutely no compulsion to pick up the bird. There was no reason for him to take him home, to nurse him until he was healed. There was no Millicent breathing down his neck this time; she'd been struggling with laughter when he'd informed her that his charge was indeed healed and he had not, in fact, killed the bird in the process of his healing. By the end of his cool announcement, she'd finally snapped and dissolved into giggles that would have left the hardiest man horrified to behold.
"I can't believe you actually did it!" Shaking her head and gasping for breath in between snorts, she'd patted his shoulder fondly. He couldn't shake those fingers from himself faster. "Oh, Draco, you really do have a heart after all."
The fact that Draco had been, to a degree, tricked into saving the bird rather than outright killing him hadn't actually annoyed him as much as he'd thought it would. He was annoyed at Millicent, yes, and made his displeasure known by neglecting to speak to her at all at the bimonthly meet he and his friends still shared at the Lodestone in London. She'd actually been mildly repenting by the end of the evening; she never apologised, of course, but the fact that she'd kept the incident a secret from the rest of their friends was telling enough.
So when Draco saw the merlin once more, his first thought was that he could leave him. That he should leave him. There was absolutely no reason for him to allow the feathered cretin into his house once more, no reason.
"If you're coming, you can walk yourself. I'm not carrying you this time." Draco kept his voice casual, as though he couldn't care less for the whims of the bird. And striding around him, he'd strode the rest of the way home without checking over his shoulder once. Well, he did once, but only once, sparing half a glance to notice that the merlin was hobbling after him. He looked to be treading gingerly, and quickly fell into the distance behind Draco, but follow he did. Draco refused to feel guilty over making him walk himself, though he did leave his front door open behind him.
Draco patched the merlin up to the best of his ability, which was very limited indeed concerning animal healing charms. He couldn't touch the bird – he wouldn't; there were some things he just wouldn't do. Then the merlin remained in his house for two days afterwards. Whether it was simply that time had dampened the dislike the merlin had obviously felt for him, or that a return to the familiarity that had healed him had glazed their antagonistic relationship in rose tinting, Draco wasn't sure. But whether it was his own subdued deterrence or that of the bird, Draco had felt a very distinct shift.
He found he didn't quite hate the bird as much as he realistically should have. And the space he consumed in his house, from the perch on the back of every seat at least once throughout his visit to the nest he squatted in on his nightstand or mattress interchangeably, didn't seem quite so objectionable. He still chose to ignore the merlin at every instance, to resolutely pretend that he wasn't the focus of his gaze while reading, or working, or compiling a simple snack from the rudimentary contents of his cupboard.
Just like how he ignored the fact that, for those two days the bird dwelled at his house once more, he finished work at six and came home to begrudgingly share a portion of his dinner with him.
The bird departed again when he was once more capable of flight. And Draco was left staring out of the window after him, hands wrapped around a cup of tea and staring blankly at the point on the morning horizon where the speck that had been the merlin had last been.
By the third time the merlin returned, barely two weeks after the second, Draco had another embarrassing addition to his library: a book on mammalian healing charms that he would deny within an inch of his life had anything at all to do with the merlin. This time, when the bird presented a mangled right foot for Draco's inspection, he drew his wand and began to cast with the amateur knowledge he'd acquired. The merlin had stared at him throughout, only shifting slightly in unease, and it may have been Draco's projection but he could swear he saw surprise flicker briefly in that black gaze.
Draco liked to think that. He would never tell anyone – never – but he was quite satisfied that he'd picked up the simple healing charms so easily. Nor would he ever reveal the reason why he had acquired such knowledge.
At his fifth visit, the merlin was uninjured. Draco was left baffled. Each time the bird had happened upon Smittson's View it had been in search of Draco's healing hands. Hands that Draco resolutely denied he possessed, both to himself and to the bird at every opportunity. But Jack had not a feather out of place, and when Draco opened his door to a quiet tap-tap-tap, the merlin had simply slipped by him and taken up what had become something of his customary seat on the back of Draco's dining room chair. The chair, most distressingly, had acquired quite a patterning of grooves from the merlin's sharp talons. Not that Draco would bother to erase them. After the first few times, with them simply being reborn once more the instant the bird perched upon the polished wood, he'd given up.
Walking slowly back into the dining room, a frown upon his forehead, Draco had folded his arms. "You're not injured."
The bird glanced towards him, cocking his head inquisitively.
"Why are you here if you're not injured."
The merlin cocked his head back in the other direction. Then, as though answering, he dropped his gaze to the box of half-eaten noodles sitting in the middle of the table.
Draco quickly crossed the room and scooped up his dinner. "No. No, you are not invading my house simply for a meal. I refuse."
"Ki-ki-kee! Ki-ki-ki-ki-ki…" The bird trailed off into clucking grumbles and clicks, fluffing its wings slightly and releasing a shower of that damnable down. The inquisitiveness had faded from his gaze into a pointed glare instead. Draco stared back, but his skills in intimidation had proved negligible when compared to those of a hungry falcon.
Suffice to say that the merlin did end up partaking of his meal. He liked the chicken pieces the most; Draco wasn't left any for himself.
And quite simply, after that, their meetings became regular. Almost every Friday, late in the evening, and sometimes throughout the week, Jack would drop by Draco's house and simply spend the night. He would eat his food and sleep alongside him in his bed, and usually the next morning he would be gone. It was, Draco considered bemusedly, almost like a casual lover's relationship.
Except that it was with a bird. And Jack was not invited.
There were still instances of healing. Jack seemed to injure himself unduly, and often quite severely. On those instances, Draco would find himself with a house guest for several days, and they fell back into their usual stoic yet oddly companionable silences. Draco would never speak to the bird except to mutter begrudgingly or reprimand his behaviour, but…
It was almost comfortable. In a horrifying sort of way.
His little library grew not solely with the texts on law enforcement investigation techniques, the history of the judicial system and contextually relevant sources for his work. And it was not only books on merlins lined the shelving alongside them. Draco had acquired quite an inventory of those pertaining to the healing arts. And if he took efforts to purchase those that mentioned "animalia" on the cover… well, it wasn't like there was anyone to reprimand him.
The last thing Draco saw as he spun on the spot, Apparating home from work on Friday evening, was Harry Potter's face. The usual expression, of exasperated amusement that Draco had come to realise usually preceded a rolling of his eyes, had followed the similarly usual:
"Well, then. Not tonight but maybe next time. I'll see you later, Draco."
Harry just never seemed to get tired of requesting Draco join him for the DMLE employees' 'winding down' night at the Charming club. It was always the same bar, and always at the same time.
And always Draco declined – he would not be caught dead in the Charming – but without fail, like perfect clockwork, Harry would invite him along the next week. Once during the week, where Draco first indicated his lack of inclination, and once more as they walked out of the Ministry on Friday evening. Draco simply couldn't understand Harry's persistence; certainly, they were amicable. But friends? Enough to repeatedly ask with the same answer every time, much to the obvious discomfort of his Weasel friend?
He refused to read more into the friendly invitations than was there. Maybe a few bolts had shaken lose when Harry had been shot by Voldemort in the war.
Shaking his head, Draco stopped by one of his customary take-away diners in Central London. The smell of rich tomato and Italian herbs clung to him in an aromatic blanket and followed him like a shadow wafting from the little container he left with. Draco was still hesitant to engage too strongly with Muggles, but he'd discovered something of a gold mine in their taste in cuisine. It was remarkably more experimental than Wizarding dining, and though such was often not in their favour there were some instance in which Draco had discovered to be particularly to his liking.
It was almost as convenient as having house elves. Not quite, but almost.
The sun had disappeared by the time Draco stepped over the threshold into his house, the chill of winter just managing to seep through his clothes. A wordless charm nudged all lighting into wakefulness. Familiar silence met his ears, amplifying every shuffle of his shoes, every rustle as he shed his heavy outer cloak, hat and scarf and the crumple of plastic as he handled the bag of spaghetti con polpette. The meatball dish had become something of a regular for Draco's Friday evenings, and he resolutely ignored the fact that this was most likely due to Jack's fondness for them. Exactly why a typically bird-eating raptor preferred ground beef and pasta was beyond Draco, but he'd hardly cared for the matter when, not two months ago upon his first time trying it, he'd paused briefly to search for a napkin in his sparse cupboards and returned to the table to find most of the meatballs gone.
Jack hadn't arrived yet, of course. He rarely came any earlier than nine o'clock of an evening unless he was injured. Not that Draco minded particularly. He had always been one to get the majority of his work done at the beginning of the weekend rather than leaving it until the last minute.
Pulling a folded bundle of papers from his briefcase and accio-ing quill and ink from his room, Draco set to annotating the reports before him with a thick patterning of underlines and arrows, idly picking at his dinner throughout.
The tell-tale tap-tap-tap on Draco's kitchen window shook him from his focus. Glancing over his shoulder, he could just make out the shape of the merlin in the gloom. He regarded him flatly for a moment, twirling his fork in his hand for no reason other than that it would force his guest to wait upon his behest. Finally, he rose slowly to his feet, crossed the room and drew the window open with a squeaking shudder.
"Jack. What an unexpected surprise."
Jack clucked in reply to Draco's words and invited himself inside with his hobbling old man gait. He stepped aside for the bird to flutter through the kitchen and take up his usual spot on the back of one of the dining chairs. Draco had just about labelled it as 'Jack's Chair' given the infrequency of other guests to fill it and the increasing number of signature scratches carved into the top.
Falling into the opposite chair, Draco tugged his papers towards himself once more, hefting the quill, while sweeping the mostly empty Italian dish towards Jack. The bird 'ki-ki'ed and, in another flutter, descended upon the meal with relish. For all his poised quill, Draco couldn't help but watch Jack as he picked and nuzzled through the meatballs, almost slurping the strips of spaghetti with relish.
"Chew with your mouth closed, if you would."
The bird paused only for a moment to shoot him a look, a tube of spaghetti dangling from its mouth like a limp worm. He sucked it into a swallow a moment later before promptly proceeding to ignore Draco. For Draco part, he could only sigh, shake his head slightly, and shuffle his reports slightly closer to avoid them becoming stained by tomato sauce.
"You're early tonight," Draco commented. A quick Tempus charm had shown it to be only just past eight-thirty. "What, has your girlfriend kicked you out for the night? Did you have no one else to intrude upon?"
Jack paused in his eating once more to shoot Draco a dubious glare, before deliberately turning to present him with his tail. Draco snorted. "Of course, how silly of me. Such a singularly unlikeable parrot would hardly have a girlfriend."
A snapping of Jack's beak was the only reply Draco received. Shaking his head at his own wit – and then in faint horror as he realised he was proud of trouncing a bird – he turned back to his reports.
The rest of the evening passed like most of his Fridays did. Draco retired to the living room when he'd grown weary of reports and buried himself in his latest novel. Well, it wasn't really a novel. Draco fluctuated his reading material between whatever subjects were most relevant to him at present with work – currently he was focused upon permanent transfiguration curses – and healing charms. What little he'd gleaned from his studies in animal healing had sparked his interest.
Well, there were also those on birds of prey, but he would never indicate a tendency towards reading those. Just as he would never admit that he had any particular interest in animals in general. Which was true; he didn't really. It was simply that birds of prey were relevant to his personal life, in an intrusive and unsought-out way. It was necessity that drove him to become acquainted with such knowledge.
Of course it was.
Besides, Draco would always search whichever books he considered purchasing for direct information on merlins. That was relevant. It would always be better to know of any behaviours Jack was likely to conduct before he did them. Or it would have been, if Jack acted like a normal merlin.
He did not. Not really. And Draco was indecisive as to whether he found such abnormality intriguing or vexing.
Draco lost himself to the history of merlin falconry, the dry, objective words clogging his mind and painting pictures that overrode that of the misshapen results of transfiguration curses. Jack had followed him into the living room and perched huddled on the back of his couch, feathers faintly fluffed and drifting towards sleepiness. Draco spared him only nonchalant notice that became consideration when he thought about the possibility of training Jack to hunt. He shook off the thought within moments, however; Draco hadn't even gone so far as to touch the bird besides the brief confrontations when they'd accidentally stumbled into one another. He could hardly fathom a situation where he would readily allow the bird to sit upon his arm. Even with a leather gauntlet, Jack's claws looked cruelly sharp.
It was nearing midnight when Draco finally decided to retire to bed. Sighing and stretching, he folded his book closed and drifted to the bathroom to ready himself. By the time he'd emerged, Jack had already taken up residency on one half of the mattress. Evidently the nightstand was insufficient in terms of comfort that evening.
Pausing to check that the kitchen window had definitely been left open, Draco climbed into bed beside his feathery companion. The bird had already nestled down to sleep, eyelids shuttered and immobile but for the faint rise and fall of his chest. He didn't even flinch when Draco nearly upended him to lift the blankets.
Flicking out the lights throughout the house, Draco fell back onto his pillow with a sigh. He was, if not exactly happy, content. Yes, content was the perfect word to describe his situation. He was exactly where he wanted to be with work, had a steady enough relationship with his friends and saw them scarcely enough that they failed to get upon his nerves too greatly, and in terms of lovers… well, they weren't exactly hard to come by should he wish to seek a night of passion and release to ease any growing tensions. Draco was an attractive young man; he knew this. There was no arrogance in such a claim for it was simply fact. He was attractive, and should he set his eyes upon someone across the room, it was more than likely that he'd end up with them that night. That was just the way he liked it – temporary, casual, and impersonal.
And then he had Jack. Draco could never quite put a finger on just exactly what Jack was to him. He wasn't a pet; they shared neither the consistency nor the inclination for such a relationship. Besides, Draco highly doubted that Jack would ever submit to such a demeaning title as 'pet'.
He wasn't a stray that Draco had just picked up, but neither was he entirely wild. He wasn't tame by any stretch, but he wasn't feral. They had just enough distance between them to lack any intimacy or fondness. It had taken time to reach such a conclusion, but Draco had gradually come to realise one thing: Jack was a perfect companion.
Sort of.
Sure, there might be times that Draco would prefer for the merlin to reply to his snarky remarks, but he often felt from the expression conveyed by the bird's body language, by the very deliberate stares he turned upon him, that his words were heard to a degree. Or perhaps that was simply wishful thinking.
For whatever reason, far be it from an intrusion anymore, Draco could admit that he was actually quite partial to his evenings with the bird. To himself, at least. And the nights Jack slept silently on the bed beside him… somehow, they managed to seem just a little more restful.