White Horses

Jackie Stevens

Story Summary:
[COMPLETE] They say that there are no white horses - those that we think of as white are really just a faded and deceiving grey. Names can be misleading, and definitions can be false, and yet through the maze of artifice and deceit, we might just find something true. When Harry returns for his last two years at Hogwarts School, he will find that boundaries are shifting and not everyone is who he thought - including himself. He will have to learn that change is like those elusive white horses: swift, beautiful and irretrievable.

Chapter 39

Chapter Summary:
Restless ghosts.
Posted:
07/01/2005
Hits:
4,201

HERMIONE STOOD IN THE DRIVING rain, feeling it soak through her thick hair and drip coldly onto her skin. Draco's arm was a stubborn weight on hers and she breathed apprehensively, barely louder than the rain, "What?"

"It was me, Hermione." Draco's grey eyes burned silver in his tight white face and the rain fell down his cheeks like tears. "I did it."

Frightened by this strange Malfoy, Hermione pulled her arm back and cradled it against her as she asked, "Did what? Malfoy, let's just go to Hagrid's, okay?" She looked worriedly toward the bright light of Hagrid's small hut.

The hiss of the rain was the only sound as she started to back away from the Slytherin, then Draco's calm voice whispered, "I killed her, Hermione. I killed my mother."

Hermione had a flash of understanding: Of course, the funeral was today - he must be feeling guilty about what happened to his mother. "No, Draco," she said aloud gently, using his given name, "you didn't kill her." She stepped closer, holding out her hand, "Come on. Let's go to Hagrid's. You're going to make yourself sick in this rain."

Draco shook his head, but he took the hand that she offered and ran with her through the blinding rain, following her to the isolated little hut. Hermione was the one to knock on the heavy oak door, while Draco dropped tiredly onto the stone steps, tasting rainwater on his lips. There came no response from inside, so the Head Girl tentatively opened the door, calling out, "Hagrid? Hagrid, are you here?"

The fire was burning merrily and there was a mug of tea on the table, next to a plate of biscuits. A hollow pile of blankets were rumpled on the bed. Hermione moved slowly into the room, but it seemed as if Hagrid had just stepped out. She said as much to Draco as she pulled him inside.

The Slytherin felt the cold mug of tea and spoke again in that frighteningly calm voice, "No, I don't think so." When Hermione looked at him suspiciously, he explained, "This tea has gone completely cold, and that stew on the spit has boiled over and burnt. I don't know about the giant's regular housekeeping habits, but I would guess that means he left in a hurry and hasn't been back."

Hermione nodded slowly, feeling a bit apprehensive again about being alone with Malfoy when the boy was in this mood. She went over to the hearth to take the burnt stew off the fire and while her back was still turned to Draco, she asked, "So why did you say that... why do you feel responsible for your mother's death?"

"Because I was the one who killed her."

The rain continued to pound on the little hut and Hermione felt her damp hair curling around her face as cold sweat mixed with the rainwater on her skin. She left the crusted pot on the hearth and slipped her hands into the pockets of her robes as she turned back to face Malfoy, wet fingers wrapped around her wand. Her voice was thinner than she would have liked when she asked, "What do you mean? You couldn't possibly have..."

He smiled faintly, seeing her grip her wand in her pocket as clearly as if she were to brandish it in his face. He waved a hand at her and the girl was shocked to feel her own wand slip free of her grip and fly out of her pocket. Draco caught it and placed it on the table in front of him.

"Please, Hermione, just hear me out without trying to hex me to pieces." His expression was peaceful, only his burning silver eyes seeming alive as the water continued to drip down his still face. "I really did kill her, six months ago, when I escaped from the manor."

Hermione couldn't seem to breathe properly as she watched Draco sitting on the huge bed, with her wand in front of him. She didn't even glance toward the door; she knew Hagrid's hut after all these years and she knew precisely where the door was - and that was just out of her reach. She wrapped her empty hands tightly in the cloth of her robes and heard her heart pounding in her ears as she whispered, "Why are you telling me this?"

Draco gave that same faint smile again and said almost pleasantly, "Because you're the smartest witch of our age and I need to know what to do."

"What... to do...?" Hermione repeated his words faintly.

The Head Boy's face was still calm, but his voice was tinged with something desperate as he told her, "Yes, Hermione. I need to know what to do. You have to tell me what I should do. How to make this right..."

His smile melted away, leaving him pained and shivering in his wet robes. Hermione continued to stare at him wordlessly and so he spoke, needing to fill the terrible silence, "Harry always told me you could fix anything - now I need you to fix this."

She stepped closer to the door, standing opposite her Head Boy. Seeing the pain in him, she no longer feared so much that he was going to harm her. But she had no idea what to tell him.

"Harry told you that...?" she muttered, trying to make some sense out of what she was hearing, "Harry... is this, is this anything to do with why you broke up with him?"

Draco shook his head and stared unseeing at her wand in front of him, "No. Yes. I mean, it was part of it, but... but then after I Saw Harry like that..."

Hermione felt the rain that had soaked her hair dripping down her bare back, beneath her robes. The door was just to her left, she could try to make a break for it, but now she was a bit intrigued by what Malfoy was saying. She asked, sounding bewildered, "Saw Harry like what? Was he doing something wrong? What could you see him do that would make the two of you break up?"

"Ginevra didn't tell you?"

"Ginny? No... She knew what happened between you?"

"No, she only knew that I had Seen Harry."

"But seen him what?" Hermione asked in exasperation, her earlier horror temporarily forgotten.

Draco sighed, "No, you don't understand. I Saw. I have the Sight."

The silence stretched without relief between them, as the heavy rain pounded on the thatched roof of the cabin. Hermione dropped limply onto the bed next to Malfoy. She said weakly the first thing that rose in her mind, "Draco, we're speaking as friends, aren't we?"

"Yes."

"Then may I have my wand back?" She looked at the thin vine wood stick between them, and he slid it toward her without a word. She felt better with the flimsy piece of wood and dragon heartstring in her hand, and she tapped it against her knee meditatively. Finally she said, "You need to explain everything from the start."

The blonde nodded, but let her take control of the discussion. She asked directly, "You're a Seer? And no one ever knew that? Not even Harry, not even the Professors?"

Draco leaned back and closed his silver eyes, "No, I am not a Seer. I was not born to the Sight; I somehow was afflicted with it. Pomfrey knows, and I suspect she's told Snape. The only person whom I've told is Ginevra. And no, no one knows how I could possibly have contracted it and, yes, it should be impossible according to the literature. It started when the Slytherins blinded me, so it might have had something to do with whatever spell they used."

Hermione was nodding along, as little unexplained pieces fell into place in Malfoy's great puzzle. "Of course... the untested after-effects of Dark magic curses, or a latent trait, perhaps, that only became active when you lost your physical sight... That would explain your violent reaction when Pomfrey restored your sight, and," she looked at him questionably, "your little outburst when we were last in the hospital wing with Harry?"

Draco nodded, but didn't elaborate. Hermione bit her lip, then asked tentatively, "Why did you grab my hand like that? Did you... See something?"

He nodded again and explained cryptically, "There was a ring on your finger, that's all. I was just curious to see it."

She didn't ask for anything more. Although Draco's mention of a ring made her horribly curious, Hermione didn't believe in Divination. Or so she tried to remind herself, even though a True Seer couldn't fairly be lumped with Diviners - their power was far greater than simple guesses and interpretations of signs.

Hermione tried to recall the things that Harry had told her and she continued to worry with her wand as she started out, "Harry told me toward the end that the two of you were having trouble getting close - he said that you were always pulling away...?" Even as she left the statement hanging in the air, she remembered when Harry had first admitted that to her and Ginny. She had sent him to confront Malfoy and Harry had found the blonde in the library, surrounded by books on divination...

"Yes," Draco sighed, interrupting her ruminations, "even then, I kept Seeing Harry... dying." Hermione's chocolaty eyes flew over to search his face and he continued, "That's what I've been Seeing these last couple months: Harry dying, over and over. It's always a little different, so I don't think they are True predictions - more like warnings, or symbols...

"But the Truest vision I've ever seen, the only one that I've felt undeniably to be true, was when we were in the Hospital Wing with Potter last time. When he collapsed and I was..." He broke off and looked at his long, graceful hands, which had poured his own life's magic into Harry. "I Saw Harry lying dead on that hospital bed, and I knew absolutely that it would happen."

"But it didn't."

"Not yet."

They stared at one another, each trying not to believe the certainty in Draco's voice. Hermione tore her eyes away and spoke to the opposite wall instead, "So you constantly had visions of Harry dying and could no longer bear to be near him. And then you broke up with him?"

Draco also focused his silver eyes on the far wall. "Yes, I could not stand seeing him like that."

They both stared at the hut's wall, as they sat side by side on Hagrid' wide bed. Hermione asked, "And your mother?"

"Dead," Draco confirmed blankly, "Long before all this. When I escaped from the Malfoy dungeons, I tried to get out of the manor without giving myself away. But I was not in my right mind and I ran immediately into her. She wasn't going to let me go, she was going to put me back into that hole."

The Slytherin rubbed his hands together. He could still remember what the dried bones had felt like beneath them. He told Hermione, "I didn't really mean to do it. I just wanted her out of my way, so that I could get out of that forsaken house. But I hadn't been using magic for months and there was just too much power... before I knew what had happened, she was gone.

"That whole summer, I kept expecting an Auror around each corner. Surely someone would know it was me, and I would be packed off to the new prison to join my father."

Hermione finally turned back to him, "But everyone thought you were dead, of course. So you were never even a suspect when she... disappeared."

Draco agreed silently and Hermione continued to fiddle with her wand. She said thoughtfully, "There was no body?"

"...No. There was nothing left."

Hermione rolled her vine wood wand between her tapered fingers. She stared at her nails, realizing that they needed to be cut. She thought about the fact that a corpse's nails continued to grow for several weeks after death. Finally, she asked slowly, "So why are you telling me all this now?"

The Slytherin licked his white lips, "I don't know. A combination of things, really. My cousin, Nymphadora, was hassling me, and I suppose that got me thinking. And my father..." Draco swallowed visibly, "My father showed up as well. He knew."

She took Draco's word for it. She still remembered the first time she had met Lucius Malfoy, over five years ago in Flourish & Blotts. Back then she had still hated all the Malfoys with a passion, but despite that aversion, even she had felt something like pity when she saw how cold Lucius was to his own son.

"And what did Tonks want with you?"

Some of the tension eased out of the boy's face once he saw that he wouldn't have to answer questions about his father. He explained haltingly, "She... uh, she wanted to know what I was doing. With Potter."

"And... what are you doing?"

Draco finally answered that question honestly, "Making him miserable, it seems." He talked without any prompting this time. "I have no idea what to do. Do I still care about him? Yes, more than I think you could realize. But I've hurt him so much and it kills me to have awkwardness between us. Since we've come back to school, nothing has gone right." He closed his eyes and said aloud what he'd been thinking for weeks, "We fell apart in the real world, Hermione. So tell me, what good is a relationship that can only exist in a dream? Because that's what I can't figure out."

Hermione frowned as she chewed on his words. She couldn't help thinking of her last argument with Ron that morning. She mused aloud, "I suppose it just depends on how much you want it. I don't believe that any relationship is easy. The people who think that if you really just love one another than everything will take care of itself are idiots - stupid, low self-esteem, backwards, ginger idiots." She took a deep breath and forced her voice back down an octave. "What I mean is, do you care enough to make things work? It really is work, but it can be worth it. I can't speak for you, but from what I've seen as an outsider, what you and Harry had seems worth it."

Draco's voice was barely louder than a whisper when he asked her desperately, "But how? How can I make it work? What if it's too late, and he won't take me back?"

"Well, then at least you know you tried." She stood up and checked the window. She had stopped hearing the pounding rain a while ago and it looked as if it had died down to a weak drizzle. "I think," she told Draco, "I think you need to tell Harry everything. He's been confused for months. He deserves to know the truth and once he knows everything, then-"

She was cut off by the thick door banging open and causing the whole unstable hovel to shudder. They both looked up from the bed to see damp Hagrid filling the door way, a faint steam raising from the scraggly beard that covered most his face as he entered the toasty little room. "Hermione! And... Malfoy? What are you doin' here..."

Draco immediately got to his feet in the presence of huge, wild man. His blank expression was firmly back into place but he didn't say anything, leaving the niceties up to Hermione.

The Head Girl also stood and went over to her large friend, "Hagrid! I'm so sorry to barge in on you like this, but we were caught in that downpour and were trying to get out of the rain. I was coming here, looking for Harry, when I ran into Draco out on the grounds." She was very aware of Draco behind her as she asked, "Have you seen Harry today? He left me a note that he was coming down here, but..."

"Harry? But he... he's in tha Hospital Wing, of course! Carrying on the way he was..." Hagrid shook his head in bewildered concern, "He was here, all righ', but I packed him off to Pomfrey's hours ago. Bin there wi' him all this time."

This time, Draco spoke up to his ex-professor and asked urgently, "What do you mean, he's in hospital? What the hell is wrong with him?"

Hagrid's beetle-black eyes narrowed at the Slytherin suspiciously for a moment, but then he eased up, "Well, he was sick as a dog, Harry was. He was whiter than yeh, even, and coughing somethin' awful. He collapsed here and I couldn't get him to come round, so I took him to the Hospital Wing, of course." The half-giant shook his large head sadly, "She's still tryin' to rouse 'im."

Draco went several shades whiter, seeing his vision of Harry's dead body lying in the hospital wing swimming before his silvery eyes. He shoved past Hagrid and set off across the grounds, leaving Hermione to shore up some hasty apologies and dash after him, running toward the castle and Harry.