Montane Hope

Chapter 2 (of 16)

Draco parked the car and rolled the windows up. Stuffing the wand back under his T-shirt he looked at the hill. He couldn't see the top. Trees towered over the carpark, blocking out the jagged peaks and much of the sky. He fingered his wand, tempted to apparate to the top and see what it was like. What's the point of that? You came to learn the other magic. Muggle magic. Draco shuddered at the thought, but it was true. Dylan's mum - his auntie - was a Muggle witch. She plucked herbs and burned incense in the evenings but couldn't summon the sort of power needed to use a wand. Sort of Sybill Trelawney type of magic - Draco doubted whether Sybill could use a wand either.

He let his arms swing as he started walking. Draco had designed a couple of straps to hold his wand under his T-shirt when he was wearing Muggle clothes. He'd never quite forgotten his mother's story of how one of the Ministry's best aurors had nearly caught his father, back when he was just a baby. The man had been chasing him down an alleyway and had tripped over his trousers - fallen against a wall and... The first time Draco had heard the story he'd thrown up, but that might have been because of the carrot ice-cream he'd been eating. Narcissa was certain that particular auror had only had one buttock since - there wouldn't have been any pieces big enough to save.

He couldn't possibly have worn muggle clothes since his accident. Draco clapped his hands over his own buttocks, checking that they were both still there. He could just imagine... Control your thoughts, Draco! An image of a certain willowy, bushy haired young lady in tight green jeans was banished. Out. Gone.

Last summer was the first time he'd entered Muggle London without his parents - his mother had become... distracted while she was supposed to be buying his clothes, and hadn't even noticed when he slipped away. Lucius had only been in prison a few weeks at that stage and she clearly didn't miss him at all - the memory still made him angry. On impulse he'd changed some galleons for the crisp paper notes Muggles used, and slipped out through the Leaky Cauldron. Five hours later he floo'd back to Malfoy Manor exhausted, astonished at all the weird things he'd seen and with a bag full of new clothes. His mother hadn't returned home. He went back several more times before school started, introducing Vincent and Gregory to the wonders of the outside world as he killed the long, dreary days of summer. He'd thought that once school started and his father got out of Azkaban he might never have to speak to another Muggle again. And now look where he was. How did a nice boy like you get into a mess like this? Three Muggles walked out from among the trees, calling a cheery, Kia ora as they passed. He replied in kind, enjoying the way the Maori words slipped off the tongue.

*

Snape's words had been unusually confiding - even Draco, as his favoured student, was rarely privy to what he was thinking. Perhaps it was because of that Draco now remembered his words so clearly. Just before the holidays he had summoned Draco to give him the books saying, "Professor Dumbledore asked me to pass these on. They will help you learn Neorancia." Draco glanced at the smaller of the two books. It was unusual, written on thin paper in close black type. The lady on the cover photo stared unsmilingly, as if frozen in place.

"Is that written by...?"

"Yes Draco, we don't call Albus Dumbledore the Muggles' friend for nothing." Snape paused for a moment. "I don't know why you asked to learn Subneorancia, but I am quite confident that you did not know what you were asking. I began to study Subneorancia, then Neorancia when I was just a bit older than you are now. Learning Neorancia created a hope that did not centre in the Dark Arts. I warn you now Draco, if you follow my instructions you will not be the same wizard when you return to Hogwarts. You may despise Professor Dumbledore now but your studies will soon show you what manner of wizard he is."

* * * * *

Madam Pomfrey stood with her arms folded at the door to the hospital wing, glaring at Draco. "I don't see why I should let you in,' she declared. "Half of these poor students would be at their lessons now if it hadn't been for you." Draco started to feel shrivelled up inside again. Perhaps I should just go. It'd be easier. 'S not as if I care much anyway. He started turning away, but to his surprise Madam Pomfrey was speaking again, in a softer voice. "Five minutes. Vincent and Gregory are at the far end, don't speak to anyone else." He looked at her, puzzled, and she smiled warmly. Uneasily he walked through the door that she held open and along to the two end cubicles. It was true, most of the people here he had injured. Not Crabbe and Goyle though, Potter, Weasley and Longbottom had come looking for him after he'd dive-bombed Granger during Quidditch practice. He would have taken the three of them on single-handedly if those two idiots hadn't got in the way.

They sat up, beaming excitedly as he approached. Crabbe's face still had little tentacles hanging off it and Goyle had a pair of leathery grey ears - and a tooth missing. Draco handed them each a chocolate frog. "Saved them for you special," he said. "My mum sent me a box this morning." His eyes flicked beyond Goyle. Hermione Granger lay in a drugged sleep, muttering and turning over every once in a while. Her face and neck were bruised black on one side.

"She good company?" he asked.

Goyle snorted. "Nah, Pomfrey only wakes her for meals. She can hardly sit up - I don't think they've found all the broken bones yet." Exhausted by this speech he slumped back. Draco handed him another chocolate frog.

"Here, have the lot," he said, pulling the whole bundle out and dumping them on the table between them. Their eyes lit up. It's a good thing they don't know about the stack under my bed, Draco thought. He'd stopped eating the sweets his mum sent, ages ago. It just made him feel sick, knowing what she was doing. I can't wait to get out of this place. Did he mean the school, or the world? He didn't know. He glanced at Granger again before he left. She was lying on the bruised side now, her hair tumbling over the pillow. She didn't look so bad.

"Draco Malfoy!" Madam Pomfrey stopped him as he reached the door. Gently she took his arm. "Come with me, I've mixed up a potion for you." Draco tried to shake her off, but her grip was firmer than it appeared.

"I'm not sick," he protested, trying to ignore the headache that hadn't quite gone away. She clucked her tongue, shaking her head gently as she handed him the full beaker. The potion was bright pink and sparkled. It smelt like strawberries, and tasted like them too.

"Come back if you want any more," she said. Draco couldn't stop grinning. He felt as though bubbles were rising in his lungs, light enough to lift him off his feet.

He rushed to his dormitory, crashed onto his knees on the floor and buried his head in the covers to hide his sobbing. After a few moments the floods of tears had stopped, but he didn't know how to get rid of the hiccups that remained. What is up with you? he thought angrily. You must have let that stupid woman bewitch you. Draco scrubbed his face in cold water and looked in the mirror. His eyes were still sparkling. He smoothed down his hair, parting it carefully to the side. As he looked the colour faded from his face and he began to look more normal. The hiccups continued and it was nearly time for his Astronomy lesson. He paced around the floor, trying to remember what to do. Surely there was a way to stop them. He nearly jumped out of his skin when a door slammed downstairs. "Honey, I'm ho-ome," floated up the stairs. Blaise! Draco rushed to pull his bedcovers into their normal flat perfection. The hiccups had vanished, much to his relief.

"Hey Draco, you should have come with...wow, what are all those books?" Pansy had joined Blaise and they walked into the boys' dorm and sat on Blaise's bed. 'You really did go to the library."

"Yeah. You going to class now?"

Pansy smiled and held out her arm.

* * * * *

The Muggles sat down on the grass, untying their laces. Draco looked down at his own walking boots. He'd never worn boots like this before. These were Dylan's; he had shrunk them slightly to make them fit. He had unconsciously slipped back into a slouch and realising this, he corrected his posture so that he walked with arms swinging freely and head held high. The boots pinched slightly across his toes, their rubber soles cushioning him from the ground so that the gravel felt strangely soft as it crunched underfoot. Today was the day. He was determined to enter the darkness under the trees, learning whatever it was that Nature had to teach him. "Some people think well, others observe well," Dumbledore had said. "You're the thinking kind. You won't understand other people, or master Neorancia until you learn to observe things. Observe closely. Nothing is unimportant."

So he noticed the lush green grass, the soft ground underfoot. He crossed a marshy patch and then stopped to listen to a rolling, sparkling noise. It was a natural spring. He turned his head slightly as a large bird sitting above the spring, under bushes, flapped its wings. He couldn't see the water, but it enticed him forwards as surely as if it was whispering 'Accio, Accio.'

The path turned uphill over a stile and disappeared into darkness. Draco was greeted at the beginning of the track, on the edge between light and dark, by a sentinel tree. The split in its trunk was as wide as Draco and revealed a roomy interior, the result of damage when the tree was young. Draco's eyes swept up the tree. Little twigs curled around it, moss and leaves clinging tightly to the bark. A bird chirped overhead. Wings fluttered. The noise of the water reminded him of crystal glasses, or sparkling wine. He turned and looked back at the bleached, sunlit landscape he had come from, yellow with flowering gorse. He was finished with that now. Gingerly he started stepping over the roots of the sentinel tree. Forget yourself, Draco, he thought. You came here to learn. "Make wise improvement on the little you receive and in time you will understand the laws of Nature and Magic." It didn't sound easy.

The atmosphere inside the wood felt light and welcoming as though a loud buzzing noise had suddenly stopped. The little movements that caught his eye were just leaves, stirring in a slight breeze near the ground. Webs glittered in sunbeams. A large orb web linked two trees, fully five feet apart. Draco looked at it and blinked. The spider must have jumped that, he realised. He knew that once the first line was across the spider would use it to walk along with the next line - but for the first thread of silk to be attached it had to leap into space. Five feet. I wonder how many attempts that took?

Dylan would be outside now, fencing. Draco had helped him a couple of times over the last few days, but he found it hard to cope with the manual labour. It was a slow, patient job and Dylan was very thorough. He had stood in a paddock and a large jersey cow had detached herself from the herd and stood slobbering all over him while he scratched her back. "This is Mary," he'd said affectionately. "What are you grinning at Draco? She's a beauty, isn't she? That's Sue over there." Draco had declined to step over the fence and join them. The whole scene reminded him amusingly of Hagrid and his Thestrals - or his Hippogriffs - or even his Blast-Ended Skrewts. The old man was dotty and Draco certainly didn't want to join in with that kind of idiocy. Sue reached over the fence and blew grass-smelling breath in his face. He stared at the drops of water on her smooth black nose, the clean beige skin with the hairs all flat and smooth. Then she spoiled the illusion of beauty by sticking her tongue up her nostril.

Sunlight now blinded him for an instant, sweeping through the branches. Then it was cool and dim green as he passed, walking on. Dead logs lay everywhere. Messy. He looked up. Discs of something that looked like white parchment hung 30 feet above the ground. Around it the living leaves glinted yellow and white.

He'd never noticed such colours before. He dropped his gaze to the balls of bright orange fungus sprouting out of a dead log. I've only walked six paces. Better get on, I'll never reach the top at this rate.

* * * * *

"Ooh, it's a monster," squeaked Pansy. Draco turned and looked round. Pressed against the door were three rather strange white circles, and two very large black ones - whatever it was, it looked grotesque. Then the girl stepped back from the window she'd pressed her face against, and opened the door. Draco turned the pages of his Arithmancy textbook to hide his smile. "Lisa, come and sit here," called Pansy. A couple of the other girls beamed at her, and Draco thought she would choose to sit by Su Li, but she slid gracefully into the empty seat next to Pansy, directly in front of Draco. She turned round to look at him. "Hi."

"You're in a dangerous place Lisa." Padma had leaned over to whisper, but Draco heard quite clearly. "Hermione still isn't back." Lisa shrugged and started taking her book out.

Crabbe and Goyle had returned to classes the previous day, but Draco was finding they irritated him. Now that his head was taken up thinking about Neorancia, he couldn't seem to fit in their stupid comments as well. At breakfast this morning they had sat with young Marv Elddir, a second year of all things! The kid had bullied them exactly as Draco would have done - last year - and they just sat there lapping it up.

"Hey Lisa," he whispered. She turned around again. "What you doing after Potions this afternoon?"

She raised her eyebrows quizzically as she answered. "Practice. Charms classroom. See you there if you like."

Draco's mouth twisted into a smile. Did I just ask her out or did she just ask me out? And why? She's not even pretty. Although he couldn't put it into words, he knew why. Where Lisa went, laughter followed. And his head still ached from studying, he needed cheering. What does she practise? he wondered.

*

Hermione Granger didn't return to her classes until Potions was nearly finished that afternoon. "Miss Granger, you're late," Snape said acidly, as she limped carefully towards her usual seat. He didn't give her a chance to say anything, walking over and slamming a copy of their homework down on her desk. Good one, let her get started she'd never stop talking, Draco thought, looking over at Potter. He looked furious. Draco smirked. The dream team could just be so - emotional. Sure makes it easy to wind them up. He had carefully kept his face blank, watching for her reaction as she walked past him. There was none. Interesting. You'd think she'd show anger, if not fear.

He didn't waste time wondering though. The potion was a tricky one and he didn't want to fail Potions altogether - as he surely would if he messed up another lesson. Snape nodded curtly as he collected the sample flask at the end of the lesson, saying "You'll pass this one." It wasn't quite the shade of cerulean it should be, more a pale cobalt, but probably the closest he'd got this term. He left quickly. Granger had catch-up work to collect, and he had no wish to be tempted into antagonising them - as he surely would if he remained. Besides which, he seemed to recall agreeing to a tryst in the Charms classroom.

A screechy noise emanated from the classroom as he approached. Could it be a Banshee? He peeked through the door, seeing only Lisa sitting in a chair with her back to him. Opening the door and laying his bag down just inside it, he went to sit in Professor Flitwick's box of cushions. "Well," he said, "I'm here. You're here. What now?" Lisa laughed, laughter that bounced off the walls and made the glass in the door quiver. "Hey, what is that thing?" asked Draco.

"It's a cello." Lisa finished tuning it, and laid her bow across the strings, gently manipulating them with bow and finger so that a deep hum filled the room, the melody rising and falling, trickling and soothing. For half an hour she played then she set the cello aside, stood up and pulled her robes over her head. "Wha..." Draco had thrown his hands up over his eyes, as soon as he realised what she was doing, but now he peeked through his fingers and then removed them altogether. Lisa was wearing a blue satiny tunic, tight enough that he could see the outline of her ribs. "Did I give you a fright," she giggled. "Come on, you can help me." She moved over to the side of the classroom and at her direction he used his wand to stack the desks and chairs out of the way - all except one chair. "No, leave that one as well," she said as he started moving the second to last chair. "I'll show you some of these exercises. Don't worry, you can keep your robes on."

She started alternately bending and stretching. "It's a waste of time really," she said, standing on one leg, "but at least it keeps me fit. Here, you try this. Hold onto your chair and bend your legs - like so." Draco could feel his face going pink. Was he really doing this? Whatever could have possessed him to come into a classroom, listen to soothing music and look like an idiot when he could have been building up that headache trying to cram in more information. He tried, but could only bend a little way. "You're really supple," he said in awe as she raised a leg almost as high as her head, standing perfectly still and leaning only lightly on the back of the chair.

After another half hour he collapsed among the cushions again while she packed her cello away. The headache might have gone, but every other muscle was aching. "Nearly dinner time," she said, sitting on the edge of the cushion box. "I come here every day. Don't know why I bother really, but I don't like to give up all my training. Might come in useful some day. You come if you like - you'll feel better for the exercise, and you can always do homework or something while I play."

"All right." What am I letting myself in for now, he wondered. "How come you do all this stuff though? It's not exactly curriculum."

"My parents," she said. "They made me do gymnastics, ballet, the lot. They had me enrolled at The Royal Academy of Music and Drama. Man, I was glad when I got the letter to come here." She turned to look at him, leaning back and holding onto the edge of the box with her hands. "Yeah, they're wizards all right," she said in answer to his accusing stare. "It's just they were from Moscow originally, and things are a bit different there. So that's my life history, how about yours?"

He sat and stared at her. He'd thought her knew her, this tiny girl with short black hair, freckles and a crooked nose. He tried to answer, but the words were lost in an unexpected fit of laughter. She grinned and jumped in among the cushions, rolling over and over so that the cushions jumped and spun. Draco pulled his wand out, stopped one it mid-air and turned it round and round, then sent it gliding like a butterfly around the room. "You'll have to teach me that," said Lisa. "Charms must be my worst subject." The cushion fell to the ground as he took his eyes off it.

"Monday afternoon," he said, when they had returned all the cushions to the box. She nodded, and sped off in the direction of the Ravenclaw tower.