In his hazy mind, Cassian remembered a few things, but had forgotten much more.

He remembers waking up from knocking at the door some hours later. By then the rain had cleared, and the room felt cold. A polite servant who hadn’t seen Cass in a few hours called through the door to ask if he’d join the family for dinner or receive it upstairs. The blonde’s limbs felt too heavy and warm to move from their embrace, so he groggily asked for it to be left outside his door. In the general pandemonium that filled the Valenduris household from a half-dozen children and numerous guests, most assumed that Master’s guest Mister Iago left to visit a relative for dinner. Awhile later, the young men shared Cassian’s plate together in bed, though he didn’t have much of an appetite. He asked Vince, a few times, if he needed… anything. If more happened then, the details escaped him for the time being (or, more accurately, he shut that out from memory).

He remembers the next morning. Waking naturally before dawn, before the sounds of the housekeeps picked up. He got dressed, gently shaking the other awake to give him his clothes. Expression inscrutable, because at this time, Cass still felt numb. He walked Vincent to his room like a gentleman, and they took leave of each other.

Cassian did not come down to breakfast some hours later, a fact he chose to not inform Vince of. This move left the young Slytherin at his mother’s disposal, he knew. But the truth was, this “brave Gryffindor” could not tolerate looking in her face - or anyone’s, really - after everything that happened. She loved Vincent anyway, and would speak animatedly throughout their meal as she’d taken a fondness to the boy over the years. She so appreciated how he was with Cass throughout his father’s funeral, after all, which surely helped her son recover from the loss so quickly. She’d praise him for being such a steadfast friend and studious, positive influence over her son’s career at Hogwarts. Her words, while they meant well, took no notice of phrasing that insinuated Vince amounted to little more than a model servant. It was unfortunate Cassian wasn’t there, as he would have strongly objected. Before, anyway.

They did not go to the Quidditch match. Cassian remembers that.

The boys were caught out in the rain yesterday, the servants came to understand, as neither of them wished to leave their rooms, out in the cold for too long, the change in temperature so stark from yesterday’s heat and today’s chill. Now they’ve come down sick just before school. Cassian wasn’t the manipulative or dishonest type, but then, he didn’t have to be. It was impossibly easy to hide behind the trappings of upperclass society to postpone his own sense of responsibility. The young man employed these devices like a national sport. Their “illness” was a convenient way to ensure they could well and truly not see each other at all, which is how Cass preferred it. If he knew anything about his friend, he knew the other would want to seek him out. Want to understand what existed between them.

He remembers noticing Vincent’s cravat, forgotten on the ground between his bed and night table. Watching, but unfeeling, as a house-elf picked it up and arranged it carefully among the rest of Cass’s things.

Servants unwittingly helped build a wall between them, as they swarmed and doted on the heir, made sure he had enough warm soup and pillows. He asked innocuously if someone might check on Vincent for him. Please make sure he had what he needed. That would occupy the other for enough time as well - enough time to think, Cassian hoped (though his wish was futile, really, because there would never be enough time to think through all this).

Before long, it was nighttime again. The blonde found that he could not suffer the way his chest ached whenever he would roll over on the bed and gaze out the window, exactly the same way he did before. A servant dozing outside his door, should the master need anything, startled awake to hear his bedroom door open. Cass dressed in a simple overshirt and slacks, and hadn’t expected to see the servant. He didn’t remember the way he slept for most of the day, a cause for concern to the household.

Though in that instant he really felt like throttling the servant rather than endure the company of anyone else, he swallowed his impulse, and allowed himself to be led to his requested reprieve - the study. They arranged the fireplace for him, a medicinal tea and brandy, and finally, finally, left him alone to his devices.

Cassian didn’t know why he was here. He didn’t know what he planned to accomplish, as he certainly didn’t anticipate reading (at the moment rather put off by sonnets or anything of the like). Blue eyes gazing into the fire crackling in front of him, the reason started to build up in his mind’s eye, though he couldn’t say he was pleased with the understanding he came to. He knew… he simply had to stay still. That it would not take long, not ever, for Vincent to find him again.

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   Vincent Iago