Draco was sitting alone for breakfast. It was the fourth time this week. He'd prepared food, even made pancakes as a means to tempt Hermione, but he hadn't seen her come through the kitchen door once. She stopped eating in the morning.

In fact, Draco had hardly seen her since... since she kissed him. Since they kissed. She didn't even collect his laundry in the morning, and as soon as she got home from work she would hide away in her room.

Draco realised that he was more worried than he expected. He hadn't realised how good this routine was for him, how attached he had become to it. The same applied to Hermione. He missed her. They no longer spoke, they no longer smiled at each other, he no longer cooked for her, he no longer could listen to her talk. He tried to meet her every time she came home from work, but she just avoided his gaze and rushed upstairs. He never forced things–he stayed out of the way, giving her time and space.

Draco didn't dare go near Albert either, for fear that Hermione would shut down even more; he was deeply concerned that she would resent him in some way. He was alone.

He blamed himself, terribly. He felt bad for having taken advantage of a moment when Hermione had seemed so distressed. He hated himself for enjoying those few seconds, which seemed to have lasted an eternity in his mind, when she had been in such a frightened state. He hated himself. He should have been there, hugging her. He shouldn't have stayed still like that, frozen with his lips pressed against hers. He'd ruined everything.

And above all, he felt lost and alone. He didn't know what to do to make things better, he didn't dare push Hermione to talk to him or even ask her to listen to his apology or pleas to go back to their routine. He didn't know where to it better to wait or resign himself?

Because perhaps that was the solution? He so often thought that he deserved her indifference, that he should never have had the chance to be granted the acceptance of her friendship, he shouldn't have got his hopes up. She must have come to realise who he really was. Maybe she'd even wanted to test him with that kiss, to make sure he was who she thought he was. And he'd fallen headlong into that trap, he'd taken advantage of her, he'd– He hated himself.

He'd done something wrong, Draco was sure of it. There was no other option, Hermione was angry with him and was avoiding him because he deserved it.

He buried his head in his hands as the front door slammed behind Hermione and Albert. As he did every morning, he imagined the worst, his mind dragged him into a false reality where everyone he knew hated him. He couldn't help it. The slightest annoyance sent him into the fatalistic whirlpool he knew so well.

Why was her absence such a source of emotion? Why did he feel so bad when he had so many other things to make him happy?

He had tried to put his thoughts down on paper. Perhaps if he talked to Pansy about it she would bring him some clarity, but had found himself unable to describe what he was feeling. It all seemed so insignificant once he'd written it down. He felt like a teenager complaining about a friend who was being unkind to him. Eventually, he would throw away the drafts of his letters and set about preparing the day's meals to forget his torments.

And so, as on the previous three days, he resolved to do just that. Draco put the remaining pancakes away in the fridge and decided to prepare one of the longest dishes in his recipe books: a seven-hour lamb leg in rhubarb jam, accompanied by squash, parsnip and potato purée.

He took the meat and vegetables out of the fridge and set to work. It felt right.

oOo

The bay window was open behind him and he had both feet outside. Draco deemed that this was a big accomplishment. The March wind was strong enough to lift the flaps of his checked shirt and his excessively long blond locks that now fell over his forehead. He was glad he'd put on a thin jumper underneath, because although the temperatures slowly began to warm up, they were still low enough for him to catch a cold.

And he had no desire to spend the day in bed, his nose red from blowing it, his legs heavy and the ceiling as his only view on the world.

As time went by, Draco could stand staying in his room less and less. In fact, he shunned it and spent as little time as possible between these four walls. When he wasn't cooking, he went to the library to read, or to the cellar to rummage through the old boxes that had belonged to Hermione's grandparents. She had allowed him to do this, after all, otherwise they would end up rotting with time.

This way, Draco only set foot in his room when night fell and he had no choice but to go to bed. He would swallow a dreamless sleep potion and the empty white walls of the room would disappear in the blink of an eye.

While at first he had unconsciously done his best not to set foot in the room, he had come to understand the reason for this need. The room brought back too many bad memories. It inspired negative energies, thoughts he no longer wanted to entertain and sensations he would have preferred to bury forever.

The room was impersonal, despite the fact that all his things were stored there and Wynn slept in it. He didn't fit in, the air was heavy when he entered it, it was almost painful.

It was ironic, when he thought about it. Months earlier, he would have been unable to leave the comfort of this room, these sheets, this mattress or these simple white walls. He wouldn't have been able to spend more than a few minutes outside. This had been his shelter, his cocoon, the refuge from all his misfortunes.

But now, this room felt just the opposite. He no longer felt comfortable there.

So he went outside to clear his head and do his best to forget.

Forget. It was such a frightening word but one that had been crucial to him recently. Draco had read that memory was the only mark of our passage on Earth, that it allowed us to bear witness to the passing of time and to engrave forever the loved ones we had lost.

Draco believed this; he knew that without it, no one would have any interest in his late mother, that no one would remember her as he did. She lived on through him, in a way.

But his memory was just as destructive as it was beneficial. It was a reservoir of dark and painful memories. A well of wonders warped by a sinuous past.

Draco hated it as much as he loved it. So he decided to replace it, to forge a wall that would separate his past from the life he had just begun. There were far too many days that he vividly remembered, and he desperately wanted to forget.

And one of the first memories he wanted to create for himself would begin that day. Here, outside, in a place he hadn't set foot in for weeks. A place he'd dreamed of for a long time. He was going there alone, completely alone, for the first time. And he was proud of that.

Of course, his anxieties were there. They accompanied him, they weighed down his shoulders, but not enough to prevent him from moving forward. He had a goal, something he had to achieve to fill the gaping hole in his memory that he had wanted so badly to empty.

Wynn was there, so he wasn't really alone. She was waiting for him, resting on one of the pillars holding up the clothesline. She was right in front of him, the anchor he'd chosen, the element that would prevent him from being off his game and allow him to move forward without stopping.

She was staring at him, her head tilted to the right, as if she didn't understand what he was doing, standing so still. The owl's intelligence surprised him. She seemed to be analysing his movements and actions, as if she intended to do something with them, as if she understood them. Draco fancied that she did, that she knew why he was standing the way he was, why he needed help that day.

She didn't move–she was waiting for him.

Draco turned towards the stable. About twenty metres separated them. In just a few steps, he could reach this new place and discover the two horses Hermione had told him about. Happiness mingled with anxiety. In reality, it was overtaking it, the two feelings were fighting against one another with bare hands in Draco's mind. And happiness was winning. His desire to meet Ares and Hera winned over all competition. In a matter of minutes, anguish was knocked out, declared the loser of this decisive battle.

He put one foot in front of the other and began to walk. He didn't stop. He could feel the top of the grass tickling his ankles, just above his socks. He would have to think about lengthening the cuffs of his trousers.

The wind was still blowing around him, escorting him on his journey to the stable. Time was long, slow, heavy, it didn't seem to pass as he advanced towards his target. It seemed like it was moving away as he approached it, running away from him. But the happiness was there, it had beaten the anxiety, he couldn't panic.

What did the horses look like? Were they rather young? Old? What colour? What breed?

He hadn't asked Hermione any questions, opting to wait for the day he could answer them for himself–when he would approach them for the first time and be able to stroke them. Maybe he would even be able to ride them one day. He dreamed of it. He missed riding. It was one of the memories he didn't want to forget, one that he was reluctantly erasing for a greater good. A happy part of his life that seemed derisory compared to the rest. So it was better to bury it.

He eventually reached the stable gates and stopped in front of them. He'd done it. The anxieties hadn't taken over, they were unmoving, no longer in fighting shape. Happiness, envy, and joy were celebrating their victory in the arena of his mind.

He opened the door to discover what lay behind it.

The stable was divided into two large sections. On one side was a small room containing all the items needed for riding: saddles, rugs, reins, and feed. On the other side were the two stalls where Hera and Ares lived. Each had two doors, one leading to the outside and the other to the inside.

When the front door opened, the two horses immediately approached the gates and swung their heads over. Draco let go of the door handle.

They were absolutely stunning. One was white and the other black. Their names were inscribed on the stall doors. Hera was white, black was Ares. Their manes were long, contrasting with each other. They were very tall, from what Draco could see, which allowed him to guess that they were two shires, a breed he had seen in one of the bestiaries in the library. Stunning.

His memory was not failing him. It was ironic.

They were impressively elegant, almost intimidating in fact. They had that presence that was hard to match, that straight, serious posture that reminded him of Eleazar. He remembered his Granian very well, his superior gaze and his majestic wings. Bloody memory.

Draco stood motionless, he couldn't take his eyes off them. He'd done it. He had entered and was discovering Hermione's horses for the very first time.

He didn't dare move, he was afraid of disturbing this moment, of ruining everything. Again.

So he just stood there, facing them. They were beautiful, majestic and all he wanted to do was get close to them. But he didn't. He waited. For what? He didn't know, but he waited. Time seemed to stand still. He couldn't move forward, couldn't speak, couldn't look away. He was petrified by what he was seeing, by what he had just done.

After a while, the horses moved away from the stall gates, just enough so that they were no longer in Draco's sight. Time resumed its course. He felt his heart beating a little harder in his chest. His anxieties were rising, they were encroaching on his happiness, willing to take a shot from behind as an element of surprise.

They were there again. They were pounding in his ears and falling to the bottom of his stomach. What was he supposed to do now? Leave? That would be tantamount to failure, he wouldn't have achieved much. Go near the stalls? Did he even have the right? He could imagine Granger being angry when she found out, shouting at him that he had no right to go near her horses, that he didn't belong here, that he should have stayed in his bloody kitchen or locked up in his bedroom.

She couldn't respond any other way. She was angry with him, he was sure of it. She hated him, he'd gone too far recently, he'd crossed the line of what she'd allowed him to do. He had taken advantage of her distress, he had profited from her unease. He should have stayed cloistered in his bedroom.

Maybe then he wouldn't have tasted the pleasure of going out and wouldn't be so anxious about returning to the four white walls of his room. Maybe then he wouldn't have to suffer the disappointment of being alone again. Maybe then he wouldn't have to endure Hermione's silence and her destructive realisations.

She had realised that he was worthless, that he didn't deserve her time, her energy, her smiles. She had played with him, given him the impression that she liked him and lured him into her nets so that she could bury him a little lower afterwards.

His breathing became choppy. He was hot, in that too-tight jumper and too-wide shirt.

Hermione was angry, avoiding him. And it was all his fault. He shouldn't have let himself be fooled, let himself be drawn in by her kindness and the possible friendship he imagined between them. He had gone too far, he had believed that such a thing was possible, even though he was nobody to her.

He had deluded himself and now, standing in that stable, his hands trembling and his face contorted by his anguish, Draco realised that she was right.

Perhaps that kiss had been a way of pushing him down a little further, of pulling at the strings that were holding him up. He had plunged headfirst into illusion. She'd played with him and he'd stupidly thought it was sincere.

But Draco didn't blame her. He couldn't blame her. In this realisation, he couldn't help thinking that he deserved it, that she had been right to do all that. She'd had fun, she'd enjoyed herself and he thought maybe it was for the best. For her sake.

It didn't matter to him. She had the right to all this, the right to do what she wanted. He was only passing through her life, and there would come a day when she would decide that he didn't belong there.

He just hoped that day wouldn't come just yet. He wasn't ready to give up on all this.

Draco left the stable with his head down. His anxieties had knocked out his happiness in turn. Once, then a second time, and so on until he no longer felt anything positive. Only his fears and doubts remained in his heart.

Tears rolled down his cheeks as he walked through the bay window into the kitchen. He climbed the stairs to the first floor one by one, thinking again of all the times he had struggled down them. He crossed the corridor, which he now knew by heart, and let his gaze wander over the flowery wallpaper that he had counted and recounted so many times. He entered his bedroom and dropped onto his mattress. He had failed.

oOo

It was only a few minutes after the door had slammed signifying that Hermione had left for work and Draco was already sitting outside, cross-legged in front of the kitchen bay window.

He hadn't planned to go out, at least not any further than here.

He simply wanted to get some fresh air. His head was still full of the previous day's misadventure and he needed to clear it. He didn't want to keep this bad experience engraved in his mind when so many others should have been in his place.

What about his first outing with Hermione? The first time he'd set foot in the snow? The time they'd walked together to her vegetable garden and she'd shown him everything she'd planted there? That had been the day before their kiss.

He still found it hard to think about. He had merely lived in the moment, as if out of time, without thinking about the consequences and meanings of such an act. He still didn't think about it. He knew that it would open the door to a whole host of new anxieties. He preferred to think about the sensations he had felt and the good it had done him to be so close to Hermione.

It relaxed him. Draco stared at the stable from where he was sitting and was busy deconstructing the thoughts that had gone through his mind during his crisis. It had been a crisis, he was aware.

Now that he was calm, rested and his brain was no longer confronted with a new framework, he realised how wrong he had been.

How could he have thought for a second that Hermione could hate him? She had shown the opposite so many times, she had been there for him, more than anyone else. But his fears had stupidly decided to lie to him, to shout nonsense at him that he had forced himself to believe.

It all seemed so ridiculous now. He felt like an idiot.

And yet, he was proud to be able to take a step back like this. He was proud of being able to understand his mistakes and know how to deconstruct them. It was so long ago that only his fears had a place in his body, in his mind, in his being.

Soon, as the sun rose, the significant sound of a portkey echoed in the kitchen, just behind him. Pansy was there. It was time for him to put on a mask of happiness and enjoy some time with her. He wouldn't say anything about his situation with Hermione, about their silence, and their distance. He didn't feel like it. The anxieties were far away and it was better that way. It was easy. It felt right.