White Horses

FOREVER...

The word seemed to hang in the air between them. Draco didn't loosen or tighten his hold on the boy, but simply sat there, completely blown away. Before he had recovered enough to respond, the door to the small room opened and Hermione stepped in with Madame Pomfrey in tow.

Hermione started when she saw the two boys together on the bed, then the corners of her lips twitched into a tiny smile. Pomfrey wasn't nearly as amused and she fumed, "You better not be exciting my patient, Mr Malfoy, or you will be banned from this Hospital Wing."

Malfoy stared at the two witches with wide eyes. He couldn't claim that he thought at all before casting an impenetrable bubble around him and Harry on the bed. It was a low-level Dark spell that wouldn't allow the women to hear them or come near - not without the danger of some unpleasant side effects.

He turned back to Harry and continued to consider his answer, ignoring the racket that Pomfrey was making outside his ward. He opened his mouth, but couldn't manage anything more than, "Yes, Harry. I would."

The Gryffindor gave a small smile, though he still didn't open his eyes. Draco asked, "So, does this that we're trying?"

Harry whispered softly, "Yes, Draco. We're trying."

They listened for a moment to Pomfrey threatening to bring the headmaster down on Draco, and Hermione trying to calm the woman. Finally Harry suggested weakly, "You might want to let Pomfrey back in, before you end up in your own private room."

Draco nodded and took down the bubble at once. Pomfrey immediately stepped forward and waved her wand at Draco, who found himself lifted off the bed and away from Harry. The mediwitch dropped him unceremoniously on the floor, then shooed both he and Hermione from the room with cries of, "Out! Out, both of you - out! I won't have any more disturbances in this room!"

She pointed her stout wand at Draco, who was just picking himself up off the floor. "And don't even think of sneaking your way back in here, Mr Malfoy. If you enter this room without my permission again, you'll wish you never had."

The two Head students retreated back into the hallway, though they wouldn't go any further than that. Leaning against the stone walls, they tried to catch up on what had happened in the crazy last forty-five minutes.

"You found Pomfrey?" Draco asked, though the answer was quite clear.

Hermione nodded and patted the pocket of her robe, the sound of crinkling parchment escaping from her rustling robes. "Yes," she explained, "I found her in the halls. She had been at Snape's, she told me, asking for a potion for Harry. Though I doubt she would have mentioned Harry by name - not if she wanted something other than poison, that is."

Draco nodded in agreement; he held no illusions regarding Snape's feelings toward he and Harry both. He asked, "Did you ask why Harry was left back here by himself?"

The Head Girl looked down at her scuffed shoes, which had taken quite a beating during their dash here. She told Draco what she'd heard from the mediwitch, "Apparently she had to move him back here. When he and Hagrid were out in the main hall of the Wing, it seems they were getting troubled. Nothing so much - just nasty comments and the like.

"Of course, it didn't matter a whit to Harry, since he wasn't even conscious at the time. But Madame Pomfrey was worried what would happen when Hagrid had to leave, so she tucked them away back here. She told me that she'd done all she could for Harry, but that he wasn't responding to anything she had, so she ran off to Snape to get him to whip her up a potion."

"So, she still doesn't know what's wrong?"

Hermione frowned and said staunchly, "Well, she must have some idea, mustn't she. Or she wouldn't have known what sort of potion to ask for."

Draco wasn't sure that was infallible proof, but didn't question it either. After all, Pomfrey had saved both his and Harry's skins more times than they could count on both their hands - hands which were still present and functional thanks mostly to the mediwitch. Now that Draco was out of questions though, Hermione had some of her own.

The Head Girl turned her chocolaty brown eyes up to the boy and allowed a small smile to escape, "So, it looked like things were progressing between you and Harry...?"

Her words hung tantalizingly between them and Draco's lips twitched in an effort to return her smile, but his heart wasn't in it. He told her in a faint voice, "Yes. I did as you said and told him everything. I still don't know how he feels about all of it, since we didn't have time to talk about it at all. But we did decide to try."

Hermione raised her eyebrows questioningly and repeated, "To try?"

"Yes," Draco replied, in a voice barely louder than a whisper. "To try. For forever."

Hermione felt her eyes widen despite herself and she breathed in surprise, "Oh. Things went quite well then, I would say." She shook her head of thick hair, "Boy, you two just pass from one extreme to another, don't you? From broken up and heartbroken to talking about forever?"

He heard the wonder in her voice and wanted to smile at it, but he was still too weighed down with worry. Although his confession had gone off without much trouble and he felt a deep, calm relief knowing that things were going to someday be all right between he and Harry, it was all drowning under the inescapable feeling of dread that he just couldn't pull himself free of.

DRACO SAT ON THE FLOOR of the empty hallway, studying the moonlit lake out the wide windows. Hermione had gone back to her room - it was a school night after all. He had no where else to be, though.

Pomfrey still hadn't come out from Harry's room. It must have been less than an hour, but it felt like he'd been sitting there, watching the moon set, all nights. Perhaps Harry was being occupied by Pomfrey's pestering and examinations, but alone in the silent hall, Draco had no relief from his thoughts.

If Harry was thinking, if he could, what would he possibly be thinking? Was he questioning the decision to get back together? Was he realizing just how horrible the things Draco had done were? What would Draco find if he were ever allowed back in that room - his Harry welcoming him with laughing green eyes and sweet kisses, or a strange Harry with wary fear in his eyes?

Of course, the latter was the Harry who had greeted him for months, even before knowing about his mother and his visions, so he oughtn't to really be expecting much else. But when Harry had said that he l-... when he had expressed how he felt about Draco, the blonde had felt hope surge through him: a completely unfounded hope that they could go back to the way they had once been.

The door opened next to him and Draco glanced up. Madame Pomfrey walked through the doorway and noticed him on the stone floor there. She kept walking without a word, her long matronly skirt brushing past his face.

The Head Boy shoved himself off the wall and ended up trailing next to her with just a few tripping steps. He ventured diplomatically, "Madame Pomfrey...?"

She looked over at him with an empty, cool gaze and said briskly, "Go back to your rooms and sleep, Mr Malfoy. I wouldn't want you to make yourself ill." She showed a tiny hint of her usual biting humour and said, "It would make more work for me."

She stepped into her office and closed the door softly but firmly in his face. Draco stood wordlessly for a moment outside the small office. He toyed with the idea of banging on the door and demanding information, but quickly rejected it. He didn't want to antagonize Pomfrey and cause her to ban him from the hospital wing. He didn't even want to offend her in general, since she had been one of the only staff members to have no problem with his and Harry's relationship.

He stared down the dark hallway toward the closed (and probably locked) door with the number twelve inscribed on it. Would Harry be waiting up in there, expecting him to flaunt the rules like usual and sneak in to continue their conversation? Even if Harry were waiting, that would fly right in the face of Draco's determination not to piss the mediwitch right off.

He continued to stand there for several more long second then, feeling slightly sick with himself, he walked out of the hospital wing. He couldn't help wondering, as he left, if his decision to obey Pomfrey's decree had less to do with a newfound respect for authority and everything to do with his own fear of having to take that next difficult step toward reconciliation with Harry.

IN HER DIM OFFICE, POPPY Pomfrey watched anxiously as Draco's shadow wavered in front of the frosted window on her door. Finally it moved away and she heard soft, considerate footsteps trailing out of her wing. She sank into her worn leather chair with a relieved sigh and reminded herself again to be careful around the Malfoy boy.

After the last time he had forced himself into one of Harry Potter's hospital rooms, a little over a month ago, Pomfrey had realized that she couldn't truly stop him if he wanted otherwise. She was glad that he'd listened to her this time, but more concerned with her diagnosis of Harry. None of his symptoms were quite right and more than that, the instincts that made her an outstanding mediwitch rather than simply a great one were telling her that something was very wrong with young Mr Potter.

DRACO DIDN'T SLEEP WELL THAT night. He saw endless dreams all night, instead of the peacefully dead sleep of the happy, but didn't remember any of them the next morning. The only good thing about his restless sleep was that he woke up so early that he had time to dash to the hospital wing again before his classes started.

Once there, he found that Pomfrey still wouldn't allow him into Harry's room and she certainly wouldn't hear of him skipping his classes to spend the day waiting in the hall, and so he only asked grumpily, "Well, will you tell him that I did stop by, if he wakes?"

With only the mediwitch's reluctant promise to satisfy him, Draco sat through his hours of class. Snape of course gave him hell about missing the previous day - his mother's funeral not being nearly a worthy enough excuse to miss a session of N.E.W.T. Potions - but Draco ignored him, much as he ignored all his teachers that long morning.

It would be nice to say that he was consumed with worry about Harry being in the hospital, but it wouldn't b entirely true. He was of course worried - especially because of his renewed premonitional feelings the night before - but he was confident enough in Pomfrey's skills that if she hadn't sent Harry to St. Mungo's, then this must be something she could cure.

Rather than being stricken with worry, he was actually being worn down with an uncomfortable and nauseating self-doubt. Why was it that he had given into Pomfrey the night before, when he had probably never followed her commands in his life? Why was it that he had felt a trickle of relief when she had shook her head at him that morning, refusing him entry?

Draco sat through his horrendously demanding classes without sparing them a single thought. He was completely occupied with the question of whether he was purposefully avoiding Harry. Was that why he didn't feel too worried for the boy - because he was actually afraid to meet him?

He knew that, on some level, he was afraid to face Harry again, after what he'd told the boy during the dark hours of the night. Yes, Harry had said that he loved Draco, that he still loved Draco, even after what he'd heard. Did that mean that everything was all right now?

Draco wasn't nearly naïve enough to think so. And he had a sinking feeling that was telling him Harry had also grown up enough in the last year that now he would realize their need to talk as well.

T

he Slytherin's silvery eyes forced intently on the blackboard at the front of them room, covered with complex diagrams and illegible scribbles, but his mind was far away: somewhere a few floors down and couple dozen meters to the east, in the Hogwarts Hospital Wing.

HERMIONE CAME OVER TO THE Slytherin table during lunch, where Draco still sat quietly alone. He had a book out in front of him, but didn't actually seem to be intent on it, since he immediately noticed her approach.

She gingerly sat on the very edge of the Slytherin bench, as if expecting it to either burst into flames or simply collapse beneath her very resolutely Gryffindor behind. It did neither, and Draco asked her, "Have you heard anything?"

The Head Girl shook her head guiltily. "No, I haven't even had the time to make it down yet today. You?"

Draco rapped his fingers lightly over the open pages of his book and said plainly, "I went down this morning, before breakfast, but Pomfrey still wouldn't let me in at that point. But I assume she would have mentioned something if Potter had, you know, died or whatnot."

Hermione gave a tight smile that looked more than a little upset by that comment. Her voice was also filled with warning as she suggested, "Are you going to go again? When does your next class start?"

The blonde continue to tap his fingers in an annoying pattern against the old parchment of his book. After apparently several moments of contemplation, he admitted, "I don't actually have any afternoon classes today, just a study period."

Hermione was getting annoyed with his cool attitude and beginning to wonder why she had thought it a good idea to help him out the day before. She demanded, "Then what're you doing here? Why don't you go down and see him, for pity's sake?"

His long fingers stilled. He looked up to her with serious grey eyes and asked blankly, "What do I say to him?"

Hermione's ire melted away as quickly as it had formed. She threw up her hands and told him bemusedly, "I don't know, Draco. Ask him how he is. Show concern. Act like you care, and don't even think about pulling this iceman crap that you do most the time."

The boy sighed in defeat and closed his book. He slid the thick volume into his sack, and then pushed himself up from the table. "Fine," he said, with a tiny quirk to his lips, "but you better come visit sometime as well."

She waved him off, assuring him that she would of course. Watching him walk out of the Great Hall, she wondered if those two were ever going to get things straight. She realized that she was still sitting, quite alone and uninvited, at the Slytherin table. But when she looked over at her own house table and saw Ron's stiff back, she didn't feel much like moving. And as she sat there, perhaps absorbing the wily maliciousness that must have been imbued into the very wood by generations of Slytherins, she thought of a possibly unwise and perfectly underhanded idea.

DRACO LET HIMSELF INTO THE Hospital Wing for his third time in the last twenty-four hours. Pomfrey looked up from a first year whose arm she was bandaging and gestured for him to wait. After a few quick waves of her wand and several stern words to the student about jumping off of a moving broomstick, she hurried over toward the Head Boy.

Suddenly and inexplicably, Draco felt a painful nostalgia as he looked over at the flustered little boy. Even though he had always tried to pretend to be one when he was a child, he had somehow become a grown-up with out even meaning to. He could see it in the wary awe that the student shot at him and remembered how old the seventh years had seemed when he had been that age himself.

He turned towards to Pomfrey and noticed for the first time how they treated one another other nearly as equals - when had that happened? "Madame Pomfrey, I wonder if there's anything new you can tell me about Harry's condition."

The mediwitch seemed pleasantly surprised by his civil approach, certainly improved from that morning, but she asked shrewdly, "Shouldn't you be in a class, Mr Malfoy?"

He grinned dangerously at her and said darkly, "No, I'm afraid you're stuck with me. I have no afternoon classes today."

Seeing the boy in a better mood (though it was still a strange sort of mood, since it was Draco Malfoy, after all), Madame Pomfrey couldn't help but capitulate and said with a small smile, "Well then, I perhaps have some news for you." Her smile faded and she started leading him down the small, empty hallways he had sat in the night before.

"It seems that Mr Potter has come down with pertussis, though I'm not sure where he would have been exposed to it." She saw the blank look that Draco was giving her and amended, "Pertussis is usually called 'whooping cough' by laymen; perhaps you are familiar with that name?"

Draco blinked in surprise. Of course he had heart of whooping cough, most people must have heard of it at some time, but he knew next to nothing about the actual illness. He asked incredulously, "People still get whooping cough? I thought that was a thing of the past."

Madame Pomfrey shook her head and a familiar expression of frustration came over her face as she told him, "No, not hardly. Among Muggles it is quite rare, since they actually immunize their children. But Wizardkind still doesn't practice much preventive medicine, since we can fix most things with very little trouble at all. So someone will have to get wretchedly sick before we do anything about it."

Draco asked earnestly, "But there is something that you can do about it?"

They stopped in front of the door to Harry's room and Pomfrey smiled briefly, "Yes. There is a potion, rather nasty to make and to take, but it clears up the symptoms in three days. I imagine Mr Potter will be up and scandalizing the school again in no time."

She placed her hand on the doorknob, but kept it there for a moment while she warned him, "One of the potion's side-effects is extreme lassitude, and Mr Potter needs that rest. Don't keep him up for too long." Then she opened the door for him and left, bustling back to the main hall and her daily patients.

Having dithered about all day, Draco didn't hesitate now to face his possible boyfriend again. He slid into the room, closing the door gently behind himself, and walked over to the bed. Harry was dozing there in an uneasy sleep and Draco reached out to push the boy's wild hair off his face. The cool touch roused Harry slightly and he mumbled groggily, "Draco?"

The Slytherin eased his weight onto the bed so as not to disturb the boy and said, "Good morning, Harry. How're you feeling?" He almost always listened to Hermione's advice, inexplicably.

Harry's lips almost curved into a smile, but the muscles gave up before they ever really got there. It took him several seconds to respond, as he began to slowly come out of his potion-induced haze. "I feel... tired. And kind of fuzzy."

Draco had to smile at the boy's description and repeated, "Fuzzy?"

"Yes," Harry said in a childishly stubborn voice, "Fuzzy. Quite so. Also heavy - like my body is not quite listening to me. I'm telling it to sit up and open my eyes and speak clearly, but it's apparently not doing any of these things."

Draco relaxed a bit, in his spot on the side of the bed, and agreed, "No, it definitely is not. Especially not the last."

Harry's brow furrowed, as if he was struggling to remember the last thing he'd said. Draco wiped the wrinkles away though and said softly, "Don't worry, I'm just insulting you as per usual. It's really far too easy."

This time the Gryffindor managed a tired little smile and said softly, "Ha-ha. Funny."

"Harry?" Draco asked suddenly, sinking into the almost hypnotically relaxed atmosphere of the room, "Do you miss flying?"

"Yes."

"Me, too."

HERMIONE STOPPED BY THE HOSPITAL wing after she'd finished her dinner in the Great Hall. She felt a bit bad about not coming to see Harry all day, but she'd been quite caught up in her new 'project.' And she knew he would be fine with Draco there.

She had spoken with Madame Pomfrey, who had told the Head Girl the same things she'd told the Head Boy, and then been waved on toward the side hall. Heeding the Madame's warning that Harry might be asleep, she silently swung the door open. As soon as she stepped into the room, she found that Malfoy had taken her advice to visit, and apparently had never left either. He was laying on one side of Harry's bed, on top of the hospital sheets. Harry lay next to him, both of them deeply unconscious and breathing evenly in the quiet room.

Hermione stepped up to the other side of the room and set her bag down on the floor. She reached out and smoothed Harry's hair down, then looked at Draco. Hesitating for only a moment, she took a hold gently of the boy's glasses and slid them from his sleeping face, quite practised with the move since she had done it for Harry so many times.

She walked around to Draco's side of the bed and set the boy's charmed eyeglasses on the small table that squatted there next to the bed. Then she walked back to the empty side of the bed and without considering her movement for a moment, slid onto the bed herself. It was by no means a large bed, but they were three very small and very close people, and so for that brief time they shared the one bed - with Draco and her both curling protectively and needily around Harry.