White Horses

THE CONVERSATION HAD DIED BETWEEN the two boys and even the taxi driver didn't dare intrude on their silence. (All the talk of killing and torturing might've put him off, to be fair.) Harry sat uncomfortably stiff. He could feel Draco's body heat next to him, hypersensitive to the boy's presence. And, although the Slytherin seemed to have no difficultly with a several hours long trip spent in silence, Harry couldn't stand more than a few minutes of it.

"Tell me something."

Draco looked at him out of the corner of his eye. He asked Harry tiredly, "What, Potter?" but the Gryffindor just shook his messy head.

"No, it wasn't a question. Just talk about something. I don't care what." The blonde looked at him condescendingly and Harry sighed, a slight burn in his cheeks. He shifted on the hard car seat and tried to explain, "Talk about something. Explain Slytherin house politics or talk about quidditch or teach me dirty French. Just something; this is a long ride."

Draco looked sceptical, but he said, "All right then, Potter. French it is. Repeat after me: Je suis un travelo."

Harry tried to repeat what Draco had said but ended up with something that sounded more like, "Just sweet on travelling," than anything a Frenchmen had ever uttered. After several repetitions, he sounded at least intelligible and was even laughing at himself. Caught in his bright smile, he asked, "So what does it mean?"

Now the blonde laughed as well and told the Gryffindor, "You're saying that you're a drag queen." Harry frowned at him and the silence washed back over the two boys.

Finally, Draco was the one to ask, "So did you mean it?"

The Gryffindor was still sulking and he asked shortly, "What? That I was a queen?"

Draco smirked briefly and then said, "No. Did you mean what you said earlier?"

Harry sighed, letting go of his petulance, and told him, "I generally mean everything that I say, but what specifically?"

The silver eyes were watching again and he heard the Slytherin ask, "About coming with me. Would you really?"

Harry blinked and replied quickly, "Yes. It's got to be better than a summer of being mugged in Diagon Alley."

Of course, that wasn't really true. Even as Harry said it, he knew that staying with Draco could be unimaginably worse. What would happen between them, or what could? If the two and a half months of the hols would be spent in awkward silence, maybe that lonely infamy at the Leaky Cauldron didn't sound too bad this year. But if the two and a half months could be anything like the time they spent together last year, it had to worth the try, didn't it?

Even if things went poorly with the Slytherin, he could probably get away. He was young, relatively rich (in the Wizarding world, at least), and free from the Dursleys. Why not take a chance?

"Do you want me to come with you, Draco?"

He'd said it aloud and straightforward. Such a brave little Gryffindor. Draco started to make a snarky comment, saying, "Why would I want some hopped-up hero to-..." He broke off though, and Harry waited expectantly. The blonde was remembering his mother's words, "No one would want something so flawed."

But somebody wants me here.

A strange expression fluttered over the boy's face, too new and quick for Harry to understand what it meant, and Draco said coolly, "Yes, I think that I do."

The black-haired boy smiled tentatively and Draco turned to the driver to rattle off a new set of instructions. None of the directions meant anything to Harry, but they certainly weren't heading to London anymore. Feeling inexplicably happier, Harry asked the boy riding next to him, "So how do you say, 'I'm a poncy French bastard'?"

THEY HAD SOON EXHAUSTED THE limits of Harry's memory and Draco's patience, and so dirty French was out as a means of entertainment. The wary silence crept back around them again, as Draco stared moodily out the window and Harry leaned tiredly against the taxi's door. At some point during their easygoing French lessons, they had ended up on separate ends of the bench seat.

Harry eyed the space between them. A quick glance upward confirmed that Draco wasn't looking at him, and so he allowed himself to stare without reserve at the blonde Slytherin. The interior of the cab was dark, but the lights shining in the through the window threw bars of yellow light across the boy, which died as soon as they caught an edge of his sharp face.

The Gryffindor was sure that his memory wasn't simply faulty; Draco really did look like he had been through a nightmare. He was noticeably thinner, his face showing it the most - the old planes and angles seeming even harsher than before. His voice was a bit lower then before, and scratchy. Harry couldn't help wondering if that new burr had come from months of screaming. And the blonde had that strange new expression on his face again and now Harry took the time to try and understand it.

The muscles around Draco's pale lips were strained, as if the boy were clenching his jaw shut. He seemed to be. His lips were pressed tightly together, and there was no invitation to talk there. The Slytherin was sitting straight and tall, as he always had. The years of training ensured that his posture was always impeccable, without him even being conscious of it. Harry was suddenly aware of how he was slouched against the hard car door. He shifted slightly, trying to appear to straighten casually. Draco still didn't look away from the window.

The blonde's hair was longer than perhaps Harry had ever seen it. Last year it had usually brushed the tips of his ears, but now it was long enough that the boy had it pushed behind his ears, the impossibly fair strands curly slightly around his lobes. It looked as it had been cut without much expertise; the ends were rough and uneven, jaggedly trailing across his white skin. That was also a first for the Malfoy boy. He had never looked less than perfectly groomed in public.

There were deep shadows underneath Draco's silver eyes, which seemed to be held in a permanent wince now. The pale eyes flinched away from light, drawing those long black lashes down to shutter the offending brightness, as if the light were something unusual and unexpected. The few times that he had looked Harry in the eye that day, the light reflected back in those glassy eyes had obscured his pupil - leaving only the mirrored silver of his irises to stare back at the boy, like some sort of wild animal.

Staring at the white brows that were slightly drawn in over those wary eyes, Harry thought that the boy looked faintly dismayed, but something about the twist in those tightly clamped lips made Draco looked frightened. The Slytherin looked faintly nauseated, but it seemed to be due to his thoughts, not the car ride, and Harry was so caught up in his study that he started in surprise when the other boy suddenly spoke.

"You know, I can see you staring at me," the Slytherin conversationally pointed out.

Harry swallowed hard. Draco's eyes shifted so that his reflection on the window was staring back at the Gryffindor. The night sky had created a perfect mirror out of the clear glass and apparently the other boy had been using it to study Harry just as intimately as he had been studying Draco.

"Draco..." He licked his lips and then blurted out the first thing that floated to the top of his jumbled thoughts, "Malfoy, what's happened to you?"

The blonde's eyes moved away, focussing again on the passing shapes of dark trees and spindly street lights. "I believe I told you what happened to me."

"No," Harry shook his messy head, his glasses sliding down his nose, "you told me where you'd been. I still don't know what had happened to you. I still can't understand this."

Draco continued to stare out the window. After a few minutes, he said, "No, you can't."

IT WAS WELL AFTER NIGHTFALL when they arrived in a small Muggle town in the foothills. Draco had to scoot across the wide bench-seat to nudge Harry awake from where the boy had fallen asleep in a cramped position against the door. "Wake up, you lazy sot," was all he said. No sweet nothings, not anymore.

Harry blinked up at him and asked sleepily, "Draco?"

The blonde was surprised when Harry jumped upright and grabbed his wrist in a bruising tight grip. The Gryffindor repeated uncertainly, "Malfoy?"

He knew his eyes were wide as he asked cautiously, "Yes, Potter?"

The dark-haired boy sagged back into the seat with a sigh. He reached feebly for the glasses in his jacket pocket, saying, "I thought for a moment... I thought it was a dream." He pushed his lenses back on and looked down at his hands.

Clearing his throat, Harry tried to change the subject by asking, "What's happening?"

The Slytherin was still eying him warily as he said quietly, "We've arrived." He leaned closer and his voice dropped lower, "We'll get off here and walk the rest of the way, just in case."

Harry couldn't help raising his eyebrows at this rather paranoid plan of action, but he wasn't going to argue. The driver dropped them off in front of a small convenience store, on what seemed to be the main drag of the town. Draco settled the accounts while Harry looked around wearily, then the taxi driver sped off into the night with one last strange look.

Still blinking sleepily, Harry frowned resentfully at his awkward trunk and sighed. Thanking the powers that be that there was still a lightening charm active on it, he hoisted one side up. Draco grabbed the other handle and started to lead the way up the dark road, as they painfully banged their shins and knees against the unwieldy luggage.

It was only just past ten, but all the shops they passed were closed and dark. There were no cars on the road, either. Harry thought to himself bleakly, How the hell did I end up in some Muggle ghost town, dragging my trunk around with the presumed dead Draco Malfoy? Aloud he asked, "And what do you call this little bit of suburbia?"

"This is Hoodsport."

"'Hoodsport'?"

"Yes, Potter - are you hard of hearing since I saw you last? Hoodsport. Completely Muggle, population of approximately six people, two cows and an overly large eggplant." Harry's look clearly suggested that he thought those months in solitude had helped neither Draco's disposition or his humour.

The Slytherin dropped his end of the trunk and Harry followed suit after nearly having his arm dislocated. Draco heaved the trunk up on its end and it was nearly as large as he was. He muttered, "Bugger all," and then he Disapparated with a soft pop. Harry's eyes attempted to separate themselves from his head.

After staring into the dark space that Draco had occupied, the Gryffindor plopped down on the curb with a sincerely expressed, "Fuck." He grumbled to himself as he peered into the darkened storefronts, "Great, Potter. Now you've been abandoned by your Death Eater ex-boyfriend in some Muggle ghost town - and he's taken all your things with him. This is such an improvement. Abso-bloody-lutely brilliant-" Luckily Draco reappeared in front of him right then with another small popping sound.

He dropped next to Harry on the side of the road and continued his description easily, as if he hadn't just nearly abandoned Harry in the middle of nowhere, "My father has a home nearby. I'm planning to crash there, since I don't think my mother knew about this estate - and my father left a great number of wards and charms to ensure that she didn't find out. And now that we are free of that truly cyclopean trunk of yours, we can get there a lot quicker and easier."

The Gryffindor was glaring at him and Draco asked simply, "What?"

Harry didn't reply, though he got up and started down the road in what he hoped was the right direction. The Slytherin pushed himself up and trailed after the boy. "Whaat? Potter, what are you sulking about?"

Harry waited for him to catch up, mildly surprised at the boy's mood swings. Apparently Draco was feeling jocular again, and Harry resented the hell out of it after that excruciating car ride. But instead he said, "It's nothing. Just give me a little warning next time you're going to disappear and leave me alone in some unknown place." His voice wasn't angry though, because he didn't want to start another fight already.

Draco was a bit abashed and he settled into an easy pace next to the slighter boy. He said slowly, "I guess it must have shocked you when I disappeared."

Once again they were implying unsaid admissions and Harry agreed with him before he started out, "Draco..." But he didn't know what to say. There was too much between them, so that it seemed that the jumbled mess of things he wanted to ask and say was choking him into silence. The words lodged in his throat were a sharp pain, when Draco caught his arm in the dark. The Slytherin ran his grip down until he found Harry's hand, wrapping his fingers around the other boy's familiar digits.

As they clasped their hands tightly, Harry tried to see the blonde's expression, but the night was too thick. Draco said softly, "I know, Harry." The Gryffindor wasn't sure just what that was supposed to be read as. The Slytherin's almost bi-polar attitude was confusing him more than he could deal with. Earlier that day he'd been cold and telling Harry that the boy couldn't possibily understand what he'd been through, and now the boy was trying to comfort him? He couldn't tell if Draco really meant his gesture or if it was just pity, but whatever it was, he was grateful for it and for the night that would hide his inability to school his face.

Truthfully, Draco could see the confusion and pain reflected on the boy's face in the watery moonlight, but he didn't make any mention of it. He led Harry through the dark country roads confidently, although he wasn't entirely sure where he was going - it never did to show that you were making it up as you went along. The roads were only vaguely familiar in the day and at night, without a light, it was damn near impossible. Eventually, though, he found the road sign that he thought read "Dosywallips." They trekked up the narrow dirt road until Draco recognized the isolated house at the end.

He allowed a quick smile that he had found the place in the dark. There, sitting on the front veranda, was Harry's trunk where he had left it. He placed his left hand on the door's handle and said questioningly, "Puis-je entrer?" There was a click, then Draco turned the handle and the door swung open easily.

Harry spoke tiredly from beside him, "Somehow I don't think that little trick will work for me."

Draco smile flashed briefly again and he said, "Don't worry, I won't lock the door after me. There's not much need, out here."

The boys let go of each other to drag the trunk inside and they stumbled in through the doorway, leaving their muddy shoes in the entryway. Draco wasn't familiar enough with the house to navigate in the dark, but at least he had a better idea of the layout than Harry did. He led the Gryffindor to the bedroom and pushed the boy in the door, toward the bed.

He told Harry, "Here. Get some sleep; we can talk in the morning." Then he quickly left the boy alone in the dark, to try to locate the couch for his own bed.