I am the wind among the trees

I am the wind among the trees

And I am the dew upon the leaves

I am the water flowing free

And I am the moon over the sea

I am darkness

I am light

I am the cloudy sky at night

I am Nature

I am Seed

I am the Spirit in the breeze

And blessèd be the ones that see

---

His hand brushes over the grass beside him, the blades softly grazing his skin. This is his happy place - the one place he can come to be alone. He gently rests his head on the stone wall of the well he's leaning up against. It's cold, like it always is. He closes his eyes, and his mind drifts. He wonders when the last time someone used the well was and whether or not there was still water at the bottom. He wonders if anyone before him had ever made a wish there, and if the coin he threw down had hit solid ground or still water.

He breathes in. He can feel spring blooming into summer around him - it's in the green of the leaves of the trees and the buzzing of the bees on bright flower petals and the grass growing around the base of his wishing well, as he'd come to call it.

He'd found the well on accident a few months ago, right after the winter holidays. Snow had piled up on the edge of it, then, falling between the cracks in the stone like it would fall between the cracks in the steps leading up to the Manor. He remembers walking up to it and peering down into the darkness, wondering just how far it went. Afterwards, he cleaned the edges, gently pushing all the snow into the well; all except the snow embedded in the cracks - that remained, and probably would until the spring came and melted it all away.

It became a routine for him - coming to the well and brushing the snow into it. He didn't know why he did it - there would always be more snow to clean off the next day, and the snow did look rather pretty against the gray of the stone - but he did it anyway. It felt right, like he was doing something right. He liked feeling like he was doing something right.

But it's spring now, so instead he sits next to the well with his back pressed up against the stone, thinking, wondering, and wishing.

He breathes out and a rush of calm runs over him. He enjoys the solitude - enjoys being outside of himself for a while. His spirit lifts when he's here - it lifts out of his body and spreads to connect with every tree, every flower, every piece of grass and bit of soil that is around him. He is something more than his body, and it's beautiful. He gives himself to the Earth, and in return, She gives him Her peace.

He feels more at home here than he's ever felt anywhere else. It's like he could just melt into the ground and live amongst the trees and between the leaves - he could be like the snow, burrowing into the cracks of the clearing so deep that no one can take him away except for Mother Nature Herself.

The breeze whispers in his ear and tickles his neck, soft and gentle, like timid fingertips. It caresses his cheek and brushes his lips, more tender than any hands that have ever touched him. The world around him is alive. The thought brings him solace - purity lives, strong and untainted, and it will continue to live long after his body is given back to the Earth.

His eyes open slowly, and he's met with the blue sky staring down at him. It's a clear day, one of those days where the endless blue above mirrors the seemingly endless blue below in the Great Lake. He likes days like this, where every end feels so far away. He tilts his head down and looks at the forest in front of him. Flowers hug the trunks of the trees, waltzing in the soft wind - idyllic, like a painting; a scene that would bring the artist to his knees.

A sound breaks him out of his reverie.   

His ears perk up when he hears footsteps coming from the other side of the well. Little by little, they draw closer, but Draco doesn't move - he listens. He recognizes the gait; he always walks a little faster than he needs to, the footfalls a breath apart, even when he has nothing to run from. The sound is out of place. The boy, though - the boy belongs.

Draco doesn't know how he knows this, but he does. Harry belongs here, even if he's never seen him here before. He can feel it in his bone marrow and in the tips of his fingers - he belongs. Draco smiles; he never thought he'd belong in the same place as Harry Potter. The idea surprises him, and he almost doubts himself, but the wind whistling through the trees tells him it's true.

He hears the grass shuffle as Harry sits down, followed by a small huff and a deep breath. He wonders if he should say anything. He and Harry had made their peace, this he knows. It was a quiet affair, a laying down of arms too heavy for their already heavy hearts, a whispered declaration of enough. Then, Draco watched as Harry healed, and he thinks Harry watched him, too, as he made amends.

But they never spoke.

Draco takes in a deep breath, letting his eyes close as he lets it out. He brushes imaginary dirt off his robe before clearing his throat, speaking softly.

"Potter, if you'd like to be alone, I can leave."

His words are met with silence, and he continues watching the trees. He remembers going to an apple orchard when he was a boy with his mother and father. Autumn was around the corner, and he was wearing his new navy-blue coat. The apples shone red in the sunlight and fit perfectly in his small, boyish hands. They tasted sweet. His father smiled at him that day.

"No, it's alright. You can stay."

Draco could hear the hesitation, the uncertainty in Harry's voice, but there was nothing unwelcoming about it. A bridge, old and worn, with creaks and cracks, but still a bridge. He wonders if he's insane for trusting it, for wanting to put one foot forward. He decides insanity is how we move on.

"Alright. If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

The sounds of the forest drown out the silence between them. Neither moves to speak, but the world around them whispers for them - there is a faint barely-there hint of birdsong in the distance, the buzz of a dragonfly descending into the well, and the rustle of the leaves, if you listen hard enough. Draco has learned to listen, which he supposes is only fair, given his entire life all he did was speak and speak without thinking. The only person he listened to was his father. Today, he's learned to listen to his Mother instead, and to maybe listen to himself.

"How is your mother doing?" Harry asks from the other side of the well.

Draco's heart clenches at the mention of his mother. He misses her; he misses her dearly. It's hard to imagine her alone in their big, empty, broken home - there's no light there anymore, and he had to leave before they could even try to get it back. He takes the blossom of one of the flowers close to the well between his two fingers, softly brushing his thumb over it. Maybe he could bring some light back home with him from here, convince her to get back to tending her garden. Plant an apple tree.

"She's as good as you can expect."

"You miss her," he says. Statement, not question.

"I do," he answers back, just as simply, feeling like anything more would fail to encompass just how deep a word like miss can run. He runs his hand through his hair and almost laughs at the notion - how does he explain to someone that he wears that awful cologne that she bought him for Yule in fifth year, simply because it reminds him of the fire they kindled in the fireplace the night before while his father was out? He doesn't know, and it feels insensitive to try when Harry's mother is gone but he has a desk drawer of letters from his.

A flock of birds flies through the sky overhead - he envies them. Their freedom, their grace, their courage to fly - the fact that they know where they’re going. He tilts his head all the way back to look up at them and wonders if Harry is doing the same. They're almost directly above the well. They circle around each other once and then continue on in a straight line, leaving Draco to stare at an open sky.

"The birds are beautiful," he says before he can stop himself.

"Yeah, they are." A pause. The dragonfly's buzzing starts up again. "I thought all birds flew in a V shape. These didn't."

Draco breaks out into a grin, "Not all birds do, Potter. Only some fly like that, like geese. These didn't really look like geese."

"Bird expert, are you, Malfoy?" Draco can practically see the smile on Harry's face and it almost makes him laugh. A joke, a tease, lighthearted - no sting, no bite. Things really have changed.

"About as much of an expert as you are about Potions," he says before he can stop himself, and he immediately cringes, squeezing his eyes shut and scrunching up his nose - he had not meant to say that. It was a joke, the kind that he'd drawl out with his friends in the common room, the kind that Pansy would stick her tongue out to and laugh, or that Blaise would counter without a second thought. The kind that would be met with you're one to talk or I'll have you know or didn't really fancy being a teacher's pet, Malfoy, a grin, a playful shove. Banter - teasing - nothing meant to be taken seriously - nothing that he did with Harry Potter.

Before he can apologize, though, he hears laughter coming from the other side of the well, and his heart swells. "So, good enough not to blow anyone to bits, then."

He lets out a soft laugh himself and feels his body relaxing. He finds warmth in the mundane nature of the conversation - light and meaningless. A start. The right kind of start this time.

The two don't say anything for a long time after that, but there was nothing tense about the quiet. They were sharing the silence, not armed with it. With it came a clear sense of security that Draco rarely felt with another person. It was the same feeling he had when he and Pansy would read on the floor beside his bed and all he could hear were the pages turning and their breathing, or when he and his mother would have breakfast with the windows open in the spring and the only sound was cutlery on china. Tranquility - that's what it is, he thinks. Tranquility.

"You were the one that cleaned off the snow from the edges of the well, weren't you?" Harry says after a time, so soft that Draco barely hears him.

"Yes." A squirrel jumps from one tree to the next. "Did it bother you?"

"No." He wonders if Harry shook his head or not when he said it.

"Good."

Beginnings. Today he'd wished for beginnings.

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