𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐆𝐨

𝐗𝐗𝐗𝐕𝐈𝐈

February quickly bled into March after the kiss.

Hermione was kind to Ron and took a day off of studying when his birthday came around on the First (Ron cheered and kissed her quite thankfully).

Draco and I had not advanced on our potion yet. Although we spoke about it often, it seemed that neither one of us had the motivation to complete it.

Our evenings were filled with forehead kisses and his hand in mine, studying quick and short conversations. I think that Draco still remained to find it difficult to talk to anyone—even me—for long periods of time. His eyes clouded over and drooped easily, he dragged his feet and refused to say another word until he decided that it was okay again.

Honestly, I tried my best not to let it get to me, and I would never show it, but it made me quite sad to see that I still couldn't fix him—even with romantic affection.

I tried to initiate most—if not all—of our conversations. But I would keep telling myself that it was okay until it was. If he was okay, then I was too.

It became hard to tell whether he was getting worse or better sometimes. He hid it well, sure. But sometimes, not well enough. There were multiple times when I would burst into our dorm to find him curled in on himself on the floor, quite literally vibrating as he muffled groans of pain.

These were the times when I would get the most worried; watching him be caused pain from his nerves and not be able to do a thing to help him. He wouldn't be touched, and he didn't like it when I spoke to him either, that made him feel obliged to reply.

But Draco was like me: he would never admit to being in any kind of pain until it had him beaten to his knees on the floor, withering and begging Merlin for mercy.

Any form of mercy.

I refused to allow myself to think of it, but I wondered if he would ever be healed of this. The mental toll was just as draining—I could see it in him all the time, everything down to his posture.

All I was allowed to think about was that there had to be a stop to this, and I specifically had to stop this.

***

"Are you ever going to stop this?" Draco asked from my left side.

"Not while we're still here," I replied, "C'mon, we're over halfway through the year now, only a couple more months until we graduate."

"Too long," he groaned.

We continued walking at a lazy pace to Classroom 7A for Draco's Arithmancy class. I wished that Draco would take his classes just a little more seriously now, at least so that I could trust him to go on his own for once. After all, I overheard Professor Vector saying that he was doing splendidly.

Draco looked down for a moment at our feet, then back up at me and smirked.

"Your shoe's untied," he said, still smirking.

I looked down as well.

"Oh, yeah."

I was about to bend down and tie it myself, when Draco shifted quickly and proceeded to fiercely step on the end of my shoelace.

I tripped over, already halfway bent down, and tumbled to the floor with multiple thuds of my knees, hip and arms.

Draco was chuckling above me, I did too once I lifted myself into a sitting position. He leaned foreword and offered me a hand, I gladly accepted and he pulled me to my feet in one tug of his arm.

I expected him to let me go once I was fully upright, but instead, he pulled me into a quick—but compacted—hug.

I couldn't help but take a quick glance at our surroundings in order to be sure that no one was around before returning the embrace just as he let go.

He stared at one of my eyes, and then the other before leaning in and placing a tiny peck on my cheek.

He immediately refreshed his stride towards his classroom.

I stood frozen for a moment, pleasantly shocked by his act of affection. Short, yes, but terribly meaningful nonetheless.

At the hallway coming up to room 7A, Hermione was walking down the other end of the hallway towards us, rummaging through her bag in search for something she must have needed for class.

She saw us, smiled, waved, but didn't make a turn to go into the classroom.

"Hi, Harry! Malfoy." She nodded to him politely.

"'Afternoon, 'Mione," I greeted back, "How's stuff?"

She laughed a little at my poor choice of speech.

"My stuff is just fine, thank you. However, you would know yourself if you would hang out with us once in a while."

"I do!" I protested.

"Harry, the last time I had a real conversation with you was back in February! We miss you!" she sounded slightly angry with me, but smiled anyways.

"I've been..." I chose my words carefully, "Busy."

"Busy? With what?"

I raced through my mind for a believable lie to tell. "You know, we have that whole potion we have to come up with... It's taken up lots of time. Plus, we're making real progress!"

I heard Draco attempt to stifle a laugh.

"Harry..." she shook her head, "I can't believe that I'm the one telling you this... but the potion's not due 'till June."

I looked at Draco, he was carefully observing the wall beside us now.

"Well... We want to finish it early, so we can... you know... relax, and take our minds off it," I excused.

"Hum. Alright then..." Hermione said, but I'm not sure that she actually believed me. She turned away slowly and went to her class, only glancing back at us once.

Obviously, I had been spending a large majority of my time with Draco. I needed him to feel comfortable with me, completely. And to do that, he needed to trust me. I worried that if I left him for Ron or Hermione or Neville, then he would think that I was blowing him off or something.

Worst of all, it wouldn't be long until it was May, and all of our memories that we spent the past year trying to overcome would creep their way out of the back of our minds and take over our bodies once more.

There would be not a lot of talking, I could see it already. Draco would close himself off just as he did at the very beginning of September and at Christmas time. There would probably be some crying, and—if he let me—embraces.

I really didn't want to erase all of the progress that we had made, but I had a feeling that, come May, Draco and everything else would backtrack to the way that it was before.