White Horses

IT WAS THE THIRD DAY of Harry's treatment and Hermione was paying her evening visit, as had become her pattern since her friend had wound up back in the hospital. Most the time he wasn't awake and even when he was, he wasn't really awake - more like talking in his sleep. But today was a bit better; he had taken the last of his three-day series that morning and since he didn't have to re-dose, he was actually fairly lucid this evening, as the effects of the potion began to fade.

Hermione was dictating to him the class-work from the last several days so that he would be able to catch up over the winter holidays hopefully. She would go over all the lectures he'd missed later, but right now it seemed a bit asinine to try to teach him when he was only slightly better than comatose. Instead she was keeping to light subjects of conversation, so that it wouldn't matter whether he remembered them the next day or not.

She'd talked to Pomfrey when she'd arrived in the Hospital Wing and the mediwitch was hoping to release Harry the next day. After he slept off this last dosage of the potion, he should be in nearly perfect health. Hermione wouldn't expect much less, after the boy had slept for nearly seventy-two consecutive hours. They could have probably even sent him back to his dorm that night, but one more night in the hospital wing wasn't going to hurt anything - especially now that the holidays had begun and it didn't matter whether he was up for class or not.

As she recounted the small news of the day, the door to Harry's room opened and they heard a familiar voice asking Madame Pomfrey, "This is the room, right?" But Ron Weasley stopped his familiar voice and his familiar lanky body in the doorway as soon as he saw them. He looked between Harry and Hermione, his ears burning, and stuttered, "Oh... I'll come back later." He stared hard at Hermione and grunted, "Sorry."

After Ron had backed out the door, Harry turned bewilderedly toward Hermione and asked, "What was that?"

His friend was still staring at the door that Ron had just gone through and turned back toward Harry distractedly. She reluctantly explained, "Well, actually... Ron and I broke up nearly a week ago. He's been taking it really hard."

Harry's eyes finally popped all the way open and he breathed, "What?"

Hermione walked toward the door though, instead of answering. Perhaps she hadn't even heard the soft exclamation. She hurried out of the room and into the hallway. Ron was just disappearing down the hall and Hermione called after him.

"Ron!" He kept walking and she rushed over to him, "Ron, please. I'll go now, so please just visit with Harry. I know he'd love it."

The Weasley boy looked down at her silently and she wanted to flinch away from the pain that she saw in his eyes, but she wouldn't. Long seconds of the awkward tension ticked away, and then he nodded once and turned back to Harry's room without a word. Hermione watched him go sadly and wondered if she had ruined their Trio forever.

HARRY WAS SITTING UPRIGHT IN his bed, trying to fight the potion's drag on him. If he was left without anything to distract him, the soporific effects of Pomfrey's medicine would drag him back under within moments. Luckily Ron walked back in the door before Harry made an ass of himself by falling asleep after that rather shocking display.

His tall, ginger friend walked over to the bed and then looked around futilely for something to sit on. He settled for standing stiffly next to the bed and asked, "All right there, Harry?"

The slighter boy gave him a bemused smile and assured him, "I'll be fine enough once I stop having to take this awful potion. What about you, Ron?"

His friend seemed to accept Harry's invitation to talk at full value and started pouring out the events of the last week. Apparently Harry had missed quite a bit of what Hermione had been doing, even though he'd been sequestered in her room half that time.

As it turned out, Ron and Hermione had been fighting quite a bit - especially about her plans to go away to university the next year - and Hermione had finally decided that they were just headed in too different of directions.

Ron griped bitterly, "I just don't understand it. How could she want to break up? Everything was going great."

Harry listened with a friendly ear, but even in his foggy state, he could recognize that everything had not been that 'great.' While they were all still students and tucked away at Hogwarts, it might've seemed all right, but as the end of their schooling years approached, their different paths seemed to be diverging further and faster than ever.

Ron would always have huge dreams of being a professional quidditch player or an adventurous auror - but they would stay dreams all his life. Ron would be content to live a small life like his parents, working for the Ministry in some capacity or another and helping populate the world with lots of ginger little kids. Harry had thought for a while that Hermione might have been content with this idea as well, since the two of them had been dating for so long, but when he lent even a little thought to it, it seemed only obvious that two of them would split.

Although it was uncomfortable to admit, Harry knew that Ron was the sort of person who would rather admire and envy their dreams from afar than actually put themselves on the line fighting for them. That wasn't to say that the boy wouldn't fight for anything. He would fight to defend something he believed in and he would absolutely die for a friend. But he wouldn't carry that same daring over to his own life and that was why he had lost Hermione: he wouldn't fight for anything of his own, not even her.

Hermione was going someplace - everyone always said it: she was the brightest witch of her age. And although Ron had always and would always be denser than her, Harry thought she might have really stuck with the boy if only he'd tried to keep up with her.

Harry continued to listen quietly to his friend whinging on about his 'heartless' ex-girlfriend and tried to keep his fatigue at bay. Nodding in commiseration, he decided that this certainly wasn't the time to mention that he and Draco were getting back together.

The next morning, Hermione stopped by hospital wing in the early morning. She popped into Harry's room and hesitated, half-hidden behind the door, and asked, "Is the coast clear?"

Harry had been woken from his light sleep by her opening the door and he laughed reluctantly when he heard her question. "Hermione, that's not awfully nice."

She said almost fondly, "As if the great sot would be up at this time of the morning." That, combined with her slightly forlorn look, forced Harry to realize that she wasn't completely as unfazed as she was acting.

"It's been tough, eh?"

Her sad little smile brightened into a more normal expression, "A bit. But not that tough, and that's maybe the saddest part of it all, really." She turned her eyes up to him and asked, "But I'm here, of course, to ask about you. How do you feel this morning?"

Harry gave a surprised little laugh and exclaimed, "Awake! Gods, I feel properly awake for the first time in days!" But then that soft little laugh turned into a cough and Hermione quickly frowned.

She half turned toward the door and mused aloud, "Perhaps I should get Pomfrey?"

Harry waved her concerns away, already recovered from the brief fit, "No, no, it's nothing. Even with magic, you can't really expect an illness to disappear without any lingering symptoms, can you?"

Hermione shrugged but came back to the bed as she said, "I really don't know, but I'd rather expected that it would all be nicely wrapped up and we could just take you back to the dorms."

Harry tried to smile at her but seeing her confidence shaken disturbed him a bit as well. He directed the subject away from himself and said mildly, "Ron was quite a mess last night. Has it been really awkward in classes and all?" He continued in a falsely light-hearted tone, "I just need to know what I'll be getting myself into when I'm forced out of here and back into Gryffindor's den."

Hermione laughed a bit at his description and leaned forward so she could rest her elbows on the bed to hold her weight. "Well," she chose her words slowly, "it's not awful. He hasn't been outright antagonistic or anything that I've seen. But things are quite unbearably uncomfortable between the two of us. Luckily we only have Potions and Charms together any longer."

She bit her lip for a moment and admitted, "I'm actually worried what will happen when you're back in the picture." She waved her hands weakly, though they couldn't move far with her elbows dug into the mattress. "Not that I'm worried for myself, not at all. For you, Harry - well, you and I both know how Ron is. He always wants people to pick sides. He'll be crushed if you hang out with me."

The Head Girl looked down at the sheets beneath her hands thoughtfully and said, "Of course, I won't get offended by anything like that, so if he's going to make trouble, you can always go with him rather than me." She patted her friend on his covered leg a bit sadly and told him, "I know that you and I are friends, Harry, and that we will continue to be, even if we don't spend much time together."

Harry felt his eyes burning painfully as he looked at the skinny girl, her thick brown hair falling around her tight face. Most people assumed that the Head Girl, with all her intelligence and confidence, was perfectly content with nothing more than a good book. But Harry still saw the painfully lonely little Muggleborn girl who had forced her way bossily into their train compartment and their lives seven years ago. Although she had a certain camaraderie with all the Gryffindors of their year and a close friendship with Ginny, Harry thought she would be heartbroken if she lost both of her two best-friends.

"Hermione, you and I will always be friends. Even if we don't talk for months or years at a time, I have no doubt that we will be just the same as soon as we get together again." Hermione's head came up so that her eyes could meet his and Harry smiled into her deep eyes as he said, "Not that I'm encouraging us to not talk for months or years. After all, you're going to be my only friend in the States."

She thanked him wordlessly with a bright smile and said laughingly, "Well, that's true. So, you won't want to be pissing me off. Though you may have more friends in the States than you think." She winked at him in the quickest flutter of motion, so that he wasn't even sure if he'd seen it or not. His brows came down over his eyes quizzically and he was about to ask her what she meant, but Draco walked into the room.

"Morning, Gryffindorks. My, Granger, you even beat me here. Do you never sleep?" With his breezy greeting still in the air, Draco strode over to the two on the bed and leaned on Harry's other side, mussing his hair affectionately.

Hermione glanced at her watch and the thin silver hands were pointing to eight-twenty - which was just about what she'd expected. She protested, "It's past eight, Draco; hardly so early."

"Ah, but for most regular students, this is the first day of the holidays, of course. I recognize that you've never been a regular student, dear Miss Granger, or you wouldn't have that shiny Head badge on your modest chest, but still most people would be going for a lie-in today."

Hermione looked down at her own chest - which was rather small like the rest of her - and repeated speculatively, "Modest? Draco, you're being kind - how unlike you. I think even 'modest' would be quite an exaggeration to waste on me." She rolled her eyes and drawled, "But I least I do have this spiffing badge to make it all better. Of course, that's what I worked all these years for: to draw attention away from lack of endowment."

Harry felt warmth spurt through him as he watched the two of them banter light-heartedly. It was still rather shocking, but Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy had become quite the bosom-buddies since coming back to school this year. He knew that the three of them would never be like the Trio, and he wouldn't want them to either. It wouldn't be right to simply replace Ron. But he was reassured that Hermione had at least gained one more true friend, impossible though her choice might seem.

He let them continue to poke fun at each other, content to simply watch on the outskirts of their conversation, but soon Draco turned back on him. The blonde asked in a comically imperious voice, "So, when do we drag your arse out of here, Potter? Isn't there a schedule or anything?"

"Hardly," Harry replied dryly. "I imagine Pomfrey will be coming round to check me sometime a bit later but, as you said, most everyone is taking a lie-in and I wouldn't be surprised if that included our illustrious mediwitch as well." He grinned wolfishly and suggested, "So why don't you run and get us all some breakfast then, since we're apparently the only ones up in the castle?"

Draco looked affronted and said incredulously, "Me? What, do I look like a servant? Get your own damn breakfast, you lazy little rotter. We can all go down - it's not like anyone forbade you to leave."

Even while Harry struggled to get up, Hermione tried to dissuade him with, "Well, I think it was taken as common sense, rather. Who would be stupid enough to go traipsing around the castle in such a state?"

Draco was holding onto one of Harry's arms as the boy slid off of his bed but didn't say a word. After all, Harry's determination to go was illustrating quite clearly enough just who here was stupid enough to do such a thing.

As soon as he had started moving, Harry had felt the familiar weakness in his body, which had been plaguing him for weeks. Determined to believe that he was better, though, he placed his bare feet gingerly on the stone floor and tried to stand, with Draco's help. His thin legs shook slightly but he didn't seem like he was immediately going to topple to his death.

With Draco's arm still under his for support, Harry attempted his first step forward. As soon as one of his feet left the floor, the room seemed to tilt dangerously and he grabbed wildly at Draco's steady frame. His eyes fell shut, but immediately popped back open when he found that closing them made the his lightheadedness increase several times over. He hung from Draco's strong arms limply, unable to see the room spinning around him through the darkness that had filled his eyes.

"Didn't I tell you no one would be so stupid," Hermione fumed at the two boys as she sprang to their side and helped hoist Harry back onto the bed. They laid him out flat and she pulled his sheets up over him with a mother's worried care, and then punched Draco in the shoulder without holding back. "I can't believe the two of you!"

Harry's eyes fluttered dazedly and he spoke out, since that seemed all he was capable of right now, "It's all right, Hermione, it's all right. I just became really lightheaded, that's all." But then he started to cough weakly. It wasn't as fierce as it had been four nights ago, but it was enough to put a dark expression on Hermione's face. She glared at Draco with a look that promised excruciating bodily harm.

The Slytherin caved under Hermione's fierce eyes and said, "All right, I'll just go get the food by myself then. Harry, you've got to eat something - you haven't eaten anything proper since you came to hospital."

From his spot on the bed, Harry protested, "But I've just not been hungry..."

Draco gave him a hard look and shook his head, "Fine, I'll just pick something for you then. Be back in a moment."

He left the room, already hearing Hermione start in on the ill boy with, "You haven't been eating since you got here? Oh, that settles it; you're eating whatever it is he brings back. I don't care if they're Hagrid's rock cakes even."

Draco hurried down to the kitchen's entrance, trying to think of nothing but what sort of food he should get, but the truth was that he was worried. It had really seemed that the potion was making Harry better. He'd been free of that horrible cough since he'd started taking it and although he'd done nothing but sleep, he'd just somehow seemed better. But would things go back downhill as soon as he was taken off the potion?

The Slytherin boy received his basket of food from the house elves and rushed back to the Hospital Wing as quickly as he could without looking ridiculous. By the time he got back though, Pomfrey had already arrived and was checking Harry out.

Draco glanced toward Hermione as soon as he walked through the door and the Head Girl at least seemed to have given up her desire to inflict intense physical pain on him. Pomfrey glanced up toward him and noted, "Ah, food. Very good, Mr Malfoy." She turned back upon Harry and told the boy, "Your progress isn't quite what I'd hoped for, Mr Potter. You've got to build up your strength to help your body fight this. I'll be getting you a fortifying potion in just a minute, but you also need to start eating properly."

Draco smirked as the mediwitch strolled over to her storeroom and drawled, "See? What did I tell you? You need some real food in that flat stomach, Potter."

Pomfrey swept back through the room, forcing a large cup of melon-green potion into Harry's hand and instructing him to drink the whole thing. With a few more threats to him about eating as well, she left the three students to their own devices and went back to her office to research what could be causing Harry's slow recovery. She wouldn't be letting him go back to his dorm until she was certain that he was in perfect health again.

Draco set his heavy basket on Harry's bed, narrowly missing the boy's legs, and waved at Hermione to unload it all. Sighing in exasperation, the girl conjured up a little laptop table for Harry and started piling dishes onto it. As per usual, the house elves had packed more than twice as much food as was necessary, but at least it would provide Harry with a wide variety to choose from.

The dark-haired boy sat wordlessly on the hospital bed, looking at the food in front of him with a faintly repulsed expression. Hermione and Draco took up their usual spots to either side of him and started talking over Harry's head about some incomprehensible theory that apparently had something to do with their arithmancy class. As they talked, they both ate off of the plates, since this was their breakfast as well. But as they argued in gibberish, neither noticed that Harry only picked at the food, never actually eating a bite.

HARRY HAD TO STAY ANOTHER night and the next morning Pomfrey come to check on him again to see if he had improved at all. She had been checking him all through the previous day, of course; she was a very attentive mediwitch. A full night's sleep, however, often did wonders for an ill patient, and so she hoping it would be for Harry as well. It wasn't, though.

Even after another long day of bed-rest, a fortifying potion and a full ten hours of sleep, Harry hadn't gotten any better and his cough was actually coming more frequently again. She was concerned, but not overly worried. He was still better than he had been and didn't seem to be in horrible condition, but she was disturbed that the potion had proved so ineffective for his cough. She'd been quite certain that it was pertussis - what with that distinctive cough - but could it be something else?

She left his room with a troubled expression on her face. Back in her office, she piled every single book which might contain likely afflictions on her littered desk and started going through the familiar pages. Several hours later she heard a faint knock on her door and opened it to find Miss Granger standing politely before her.

"Madame Pomfrey, I'm just on my way to visit Harry and thought I'd ask you if you think you'll be releasing him any time soon."

The mediwitch invited Hermione into her office, an off-limit room which most students never saw. She cleared the pile of reference books off her single visitor's chair so that the girl could sit, and then moved back around her desk to her own chair.

"I have to tell you that I'm not sure when I'll be able to release Harry. He's not in a bad state right now, but he's not improving and that is a bit concerning. The potion that I gave should have completely cleared him off his cough but it's still persisting even now that he is done with his series. He's also still complaining of a constant feeling of weakness, light-headedness and a lack of appetite. Of course, the weakness and the light-headedness might be contributed to his not eating, but I'm not sure why he won't eat. That's not normally a symptom of pertussis."

Hermione asked unaccusingly, "Do you think you may been wrong with your diagnosis?"

Pomfrey smiled slightly but wouldn't admit to it, saying instead, "There may have been other factors at play. I'm keeping Harry on fortifying potions for now, as I consult the relevant texts and contact my colleagues at St. Mungo's. But as of now, I don't want to put him back on the potion for pertussis."

"Why not?"

"The potion will suppress his cough, that's true enough and we've seen how effective it was. But it will also keep him in that semi-conscious state of lethargy for as long as he's on it, and having a patient unconscious all the time is not particularly helpful in the long run."

Hermione nodded her understanding and got up from the chair. "I see. Well, I hope we can find something before the holidays are over." The skinny girl frowned disapprovingly and said, "He really can't miss any more class."

She excused herself and left Madame Pomfrey's office to continue down the hall to Harry's room. Hermione wasn't quite as unbothered as she was playing at though. Although she didn't want to, she kept thinking of the things that Draco had told her.

THE NEXT DAY FOUND BOTH Hermione and Draco in Harry's room again. The Boy Who Lived himself was lying in a drugged sleep in front of them. His cough had become so disturbing again that he couldn't sleep through the night without something to knock him out. The one good thing about it was that he couldn't hear the two Head students' stressed conversation at the foot of his bed.

"Would you stop looking at him with those damned knowing eyes?"

Draco stared at Hermione in surprise, since her angry comment had come completely out of nowhere. He said incredulously, "Sorry?"

Hermione was chewing on her lip and she stopped to say, "It's just that... all that crap you were saying about Harry dying. I can't forget about it, and every time I look at you and your damned eyes like that, I'm reminded of it."

Draco's silvery eyebrows shot up and he said slowly, "Well, I can't really do much about my eyes. Perhaps you could try not looking at them?"

Hermione chuckled shortly. She was sitting on a chair that she dragged in from the main hall and leaning on the bed, her head resting on her folded arms atop the mattress. She turned her face to look up at Draco and asked, "You don't still believe it... do you, Draco?"

The blonde didn't say anything and that was reply enough. Instead of getting angry this time though, Hermione asked seriously, "But you can't See what's wrong with him?"

"No, I can't just do it on command-..." The boy had started but then broke off suddenly. He looked at her seriously and said, "Actually, there might be something."

"What?"

The Slytherin stood up and started pacing across the small room. He told Hermione, "When Pomfrey first tested me for the Sight, she gave me some awful tasting potion which she said would make me more 'receptive' to the Sight, or some crap. Perhaps with that..."

Hermione waited to see what the boy would decide. Draco had only half believed in his own Sight until now. He accepted what he saw about Harry only because there was no way to deny such an overwhelming feeling, but if he did this - if he willingly called the Sight and used it for himself - it would change his relationship with this curse of his. He wouldn't just be a (relatively) regular wizard who was occasionally plagued with strange visions and feelings. He would be a Seer.

He made up his mind. He didn't have choice really, if it were for Harry.

Draco walked out of the room and checked out the hall, but it was empty of course. He forced his way into the storeroom that he and Hermione had found on Wednesday night when they were still looking for Harry. The room was filled with an astounding number of potions, powders and ointments, but he limited himself to the potions.

Ignoring the many that were in opaque bottles, he searched for the sparkling French blue that Pomfrey had brought to him all those weeks ago. He found several of a similar shade but only one with the same vanilla smell that he remembered. He was an adept enough student of Potions to recognize a potion on sight, and he was also a wise enough student of Potions to know it was stupid to trust that your ability recognize a potion on sight.

Knowing that he might make himself horribly sick or even worse, he dipped his little finger into the potion. It made his skin tingle slightly and he tasted the small dab of potion with the tip of his tongue. It had the same shockingly bad taste that he remembered and with only that assurance, he took a large swig from the bottle. Resisting the urge to spit it back out, he placed the bottle back on the shelf where he'd found it and hurried back to room twelve.

Hermione sat up and looked at him when he came in. She asked unsurely, "Did you find the potion you were talking about?"

Draco nodded and so she asked even more hesitantly, "And did you... did you take it?"

The boy nodded again but didn't take his eyes from Harry. He heard Hermione asked him if he could See anything but so far everything looked exactly the same as when he'd left. Could he have taken the wrong potion? If he had, what would it do to him now?

"It... it's not working."

Hermione laced her hands together thoughtfully and tried to gather her huge reserves of knowledge. Finally she came up with, "Your glasses."

"Pardon?"

She looked at the thin silver frames that Draco had taken to wearing all the time. She asked him, "Didn't you ever wonder why Madame Pomfrey was so insistent that you wear your glasses all the time?"

He shook his head with a mystified expression, "No. Not at all. I thought she was just being difficult, like usual."

Hermione was tapping one of her fingers on the back of her hand as she recalled her readings, scarce though they were, about Divination and Seers. "I believe your glasses are probably charmed to keep the Sight at bay. I believe many Seers use such eyeglasses so they can make it through daily life. Even Trelawney, fraud though she may seem, wears those ridiculously thick glasses to keep from Seeing every little thing. Not that I think she would See that much, but she probably likes it to look as if she would."

Draco protested, "I don't know when Pomfrey would've been able to, but..."

"But have you ever Seen with them on?"

The blonde struggled to remember. He had hardly worn them at first and it was those first several weeks when he had Seen so much. Since he'd started wearing them two weeks ago, since Harry and he split up, he hadn't actually Seen anything. He'd had that staggering feeling on Wednesday night, but hadn't actually Seen. He shook his head mutely and Hermione looked at him expectantly, saying, "Humour me, then. Try it without your glasses."

Swallowing the nervous nausea that was creeping up his throat, Draco took off his glasses and the world shifted. He'd had no idea that the fragile piece of metal and glass had been keeping so much at bay. Suddenly everything in the room seemed somehow more alive. The afternoon sunlight seemed like palpable energy streaming in the window, and the light, Hermione, and even the stone of the castle itself was pulsing with magic. Everything was in the room - but Harry.

Hermione watched Draco step toward the bed. The boy's silver eyes seemed inhuman as his pupils contracted to almost nothing, leaving only the tiniest speck of black in the centre of each orb. There were tears dripping down his blank face and Hermione knew that that boy had no idea he was even crying.

Frightened by those tears, she prompted him softly, "What do you See?"

"I'm not sure. It's not so much seeing as it is a feeling. It's like everything else around me is full of life, even the damn castle. But from Harry there's... nothing. No energy, no magic, no life." Draco stepped even closer and reached his long fingers toward the boy on the bed. They stretched toward the boy in his familiar move to stroke the black hair, but then he shrank back.

Forcing himself to push back the silky hair, he hissed, "There." He'd bared the infamous curse scar on Harry's brow. "I can't say why, but this scar... it looks just like it always has, but it feels as if it's..." Breaking off, Draco shook his head wordlessly and struggled to come up with words for what he was feeling, but he'd never felt things like this before. He explained haltingly, "It's like... like hunger. If you could feel hunger in something else."

Hermione had gone pale as she had a wild idea. She didn't think it was possible, but she had to check. She snapped at Draco suddenly, "Draco. Focus on me for a moment. Do you think you can handle magic right now?"

The boy turned his blinding silver eyes on her and nodded slowly. Not waiting for anything more, Hermione raised her wand and repeated a charm that she'd never thought she would need again, "Aposiopesis."

As soon as the word left her mouth, Harry was suddenly suffused with a blinding and dark green glow. It was a type of light but it somehow seemed dark, as if there were really such a thing as black light. Hermione shook her head as she stared at her best friend, covered in a thick film the colour of Avada kedavra, and whispered brokenly, "It can't be."