White Horses

DRACO STARED AT HARRY WITH his wide, silvery eyes. He couldn't explain what it was, but something about the green light surrounding the Gryffindor repulsed him. It felt oily, as if simply being near it would leave a dirty residue on his own skin.

He asked the girl next to him, "What is it?"

Hermione fell back into her chair and continued to gape at Harry for several moments before she could reply. "It's... it's Avada kedavra."

Draco spun around and demanded, "What?"

The girl continued to stare at Harry's sleeping body, so intensely that her eyes were filling with water. "I don't understand this... Last year, we preformed this same spell on Harry. It's a spell which shows magical influences on a person - of any sort. At the time, I used it to be sure that you weren't manipulating Harry with magic."

She reached out and laid a hand gently on her sleeping friend, as if to check that he was still there. She continued her explanation, "When we did the spell, we found something else. We discovered that Harry had two colossal spells fighting in his body. One was his mother's charm, which kept him alive when Voldemort first attacked him as a baby. The other was Voldemort's killing curse, which could never be completed with Harry's mother's charm in place."

Draco was listening with a tight face, not sure of what he was hearing. He waited for Hermione to continue to explain, "That was the first time that any of us ever realized that the curse was still on Harry. The only reason it hadn't worked on him was because it hadn't been completed. But it was still there.

"The two spells seemed to be evenly balanced - but I warned Harry at that time that if he were near Voldemort for any length of time, it was likely that Voldemort's influence would become stronger than the protective charm and the curse would be completed."

Draco accepted Hermione's presumption without question and still said stubbornly, "But he was never even around the Dark Lord that much. The last time they ever met was when we killed him and that could have only been ten minutes. Probably less."

They were both silent for a moment, listening to Harry's even breathing when suddenly it stopped and the Gryffindor spoke out unexpectedly, "I might know what happened."

The two Head students jerked about to look at the boy on the bed, and Hermione exclaimed disbelievingly, "Harry! You were awake?"

He nodded and the girl started to ask, "So then you heard-"

"Obviously he heard," Draco cut her off brusquely, strangely angry when he realized that Harry now knew what they'd been talking about. He shouldn't have found out like this.

Hermione looked a bit offended by Draco's suddenly harsh tones, but ignored the blonde to instead ask Harry, "What do you mean you know...?"

And although Hermione was the one who asked, Harry turned to Draco to answer - since the Slytherin was the only other person alive who had been there, "You remember of course when we killed him." The words felt strange in Harry's mouth. He hadn't ever talked about what he'd done on Christmas Day. "How I had to hold him down. He knew he was dying, and he wanted to kill me, he was trying to with every ounce of magic he had-"

Harry broke off and had to force himself back to the relevant part of the story. He summarized some of the worst pain of his disaster-ridden life by saying simply, "When he did finally die, it felt like all of his power went through me, along with a great pain in my scar."

Hermione understood what he was suggesting and asked critically, "So that extra hit of magic would have been enough to set off the curse...?"

Looking between the two Gryffindors, Draco protested, "But that was nearly a year ago!" Draco - who had been the one prophesizing Harry's death just last Wednesday - wasn't ready to accept the possible truth of it. He asked desperately, "How could it only be affecting him now?"

Harry didn't say anything. He'd used up all his words already. He waited for Hermione to speak, listening to the conversation around him as if it weren't his own life they were discussing in such calm tones.

As he'd expected, it didn't take long for Hermione to form a new theory. She suggested, "Well, from the start, it wasn't as if we had any idea how the curse would be completed. When we saw the two spells on Harry, I only assumed that the killing curse would be completed in the same manner and speed that it usually is. But perhaps that would be impossible. After all, he still had his mother's charm on him - that would never leave him.

"But if Harry really experienced this surge of Voldemort's power, well..." She chewed on her lip for a moment and got up from her chair, pacing deliberately. "It wasn't enough to trigger the curse in his body immediately, but perhaps it was enough to give Voldemort's curse a bit more weight than his mother's charm. Once that balance was lost, the curse would have slowly spread, choking out his mother's magic piece by piece. But it would have taken time.

"My assumption is that whenever Harry used heavy magic, though, it weakened his defences and allowed the curse to spread further." She turned toward Harry and asked, "When I first taught you to apparate, you had a strange reaction, didn't you? And ever since you lost all your magic to the boggart, you've been feeling poorly, haven't you?"

Harry nodded silently, but Draco was shaking his head in denial. The blonde whispered softly, "No." Then he repeated more strongly, "No. It still doesn't make any sense. Potter's been carrying this curse in his body for years and years? No one could carry the killing curse! And why would this happen now?" The boy's voice broke. "Now when we're free of Him?"

He turned his burning silver eyes on Harry. The dark-haired boy was looking down at his hands blankly, his face calm. But thanks to the potion that was still boiling in his veins, Draco could somehow sense that beneath that quiet acceptance was a screaming, wild fear. He could feel it roiling around the room, pouring off of Harry in waves mingled with anger, pain, and grief.

Draco realized that he was making things worse. He pressed his lips tightly together, closing himself off from Harry's crushing emotions. Finally he said more reasonably, "So did this happen because you had to hold him when I shot him?" Although he hadn't meant it to, it came out sounding petulantly like, Is this my fault?

Hermione bit her tongue and then with a strange expression said quickly, "Never mind why it happened. If it did really happen, we need to find a way to fix it."

Draco had to struggle not to allow his disbelief into his voice when he said, "Fix it? Is there a way to 'fix' the killing curse? I've never heard of one."

Hermione looked at him sharply and said, "Well, we'll certainly be the ones to find one then, won't we?"

Harry was watching them with bright eyes, and Draco could still feel everything that the boy wasn't showing. He had to do something. The blonde swallowed hard and asked awkwardly, "Hermione? Could you give us a moment?"

Both of the Gryffindors looked at him with a bit of surprise, but Hermione stepped away from her chair. "Of course. I'll go up to the library and start gathering books to research, then I'll go to our study-room. Come meet me when you can."

Draco nodded and told her that he would meet her later in the private room that their group favoured, tucked away in the stacks of goblin history. Then Hermione left.

Harry looked expectantly at Draco and the blonde sat down on the bed next to him. "Harry..." he started weakly, unsure what he even wanted to say. Without another word, he scooted across the bed and put his arms around the dark-haired boy, his fingers digging into the boy's thin back.

"Draco, it's okay." The Gryffindor's voice came out soft and controlled as he tried to reassure the other boy, "Don't worry. I'm sure that we'll find a way to fix this."

Draco held on even tighter and whispered angrily, "Don't lie. Not to me. You can act strong and unbothered in front of Hermione, but don't ever lie to me and say that you're fine when something's wrong."

"But it is fine," Harry tried to maintain, though he was beginning to shake in Draco's unrelenting hold.

Draco pulled back to take Harry's face firmly in his hands. He repeated feircely, "Don't lie!" Then he wrapped himself around Harry again and told him, "I can feel it. Everything that you're hiding - I can feel it and it's horrifying. You can't keep all that inside."

"You... you can feel it? You mean, because of your..."

"Yes."

Harry stared over blonde's shoulder and struggled to speak. He wanted to tell Draco everything. He wanted to cry and scream and hit something and wanted Draco to hold him the whole time, to not be alone with this. But the seconds were ticking away and it felt more impossible to speak with each passing moment - the pressure of his own silence was smothering him.

Draco shook the boy in his arms and said fiercely, "I know that you're scared, Harry. So am I. Don't be scared alone."

The Slytherin waited patiently until Harry's arms finally came up to hold Draco as desperately as he was being held. He felt a warm tear drip down his neck and wanted to squeeze Harry so tightly that they would both break into a million pieces. Then maybe they could be put back together properly.

The smaller boy started whispering to him, confessing everything, "I don't understand. How can I be dying? I'm alive right now, aren't I? We got rid of Voldemort, right? So how can I be dying?

"When I realized what you two were talking about, I felt almost like I knew it already. I always knew he would kill me. I thought I was prepared for that - but now I'm not. I thought that I could have a normal life now. I wanted to so much."

The tears were falling steadily onto Draco's skin now and he held silently onto the trembling boy, listening to Harry speak.

"I'm so scared. Oh my god, I'm so scared. I can't do this; I can't face this. I don't want to die. I don't want to leave you alone." He sobbed into the blonde's shoulder, "I'm so sorry to leave you alone."

"No, no, no." Draco rejected Harry's words and told him, "Don't even worry about me. I'll be all right, because we're going to find a way through this, Potter. We've made it through so much already; we won't lose to this."

Harry cried heartbreakingly into Draco's neck and whimpered, "I'm so sorry. I love you so much."

Draco swallowed, hearing those words again. He still couldn't say them back. He'd never said them to anyone and it was as if his lips had never learned to form them. Instead he squeezed Harry so tightly that he had to wonder if the boy could still breathe and whispered the boy's name again and again.

THEY SPOKE IN LOW VOICES about their fears and the future, and it wasn't until nearly an hour later that Draco finally left to meet Hermione in the library. It would be the start of whole days and nights spent pouring over old, fragile books. Together, Draco and Hermione would read through every single book in the library that could possibly mention curse scars, the killing curse, latent curses, protection charms, or healing magics. At times they would haul the books with them down to the hospital wing - though they never told Pince about it - so that Harry wasn't alone all the time.

After nearly another week, Harry was released from his private hospital room. As far as Pomfrey knew, there was nothing wrong with him but his persistent weakness and a slight lingering cough. She let him go with only warnings that he should come to her if he didn't get back to regular health after taking it easy for the several weeks left of the holiday.

The three students had been torn over whether to confide in the mediwitch about what they'd discovered. But they knew that if they told her, she would whisk Harry off to St. Mungo's and they might not be able to see him again - ever. Draco was the one to decide ruthlessly, "She had her chance. She didn't heal him when he was with her, now it's up to us."

It was inconceivable for Harry to stay in the seventh boys' dorm, and instead he lived in Draco's room from the day of his release. Strange though it might seem that the best place for the Gryffindor was in the very heart of the Slytherin dungeons, it was true. And because Hermione and Draco had a direct link through their Floo-connected fireplaces, Draco's room soon became the new headqaurters of their operations.

The days crawled forward, filled with the mouldering, obtuse texts for the three students. Draco had snuck into the Potions dungeon, with the aide of Harry's magical map of Hogwarts, and made up whole cauldrons of restorative draughts, magic-boosting potions, and energizing brews. The sparkling bottles were arrayed in neat lines on his desk and, together with Hermione, he bullied Harry into taking several a day.

Despite both their efforts, though, the dark-haired boy was still going off his food and refusing more than a few bites, no matter what they brought him. The numerous potions were probably the only thing keeping him going. That and his desperation as he poured over the rustling parchment pages with his two confidantes.

But even desperation could only take you so far. Less than a week after his release from the hospital, he was unable to focus on the texts for more than minutes without slipping frequently back into uneasy sleep.

For all practical reasons, they were down one researcher and they had still found nothing remotely helpful. And so, nine days before Christmas day, Draco went to the Weasleys for help. He found out when the Gryffindor team had scheduled quidditch practice out on the pitch and went to intercept the ginger siblings.

It felt odd to walk the familiar path to the pitch after so long and especially with what was going on in his head now. Every step he took away from the castle and their research felt like he was abandoning Harry. And yet he couldn't deny the thrill of envious nostalgia that swamped him when he first saw the tiny figures flying above the pitch.

That should be Potter and I up there.

The thought was enough to propel him the last fifty meters to the tall stands surrounding the pitch. Someday he and Harry would be able to fly together again, and for that he was going to need more help.

The Slytherin climbed up the narrow stairs to the top of the stands, finding himself in the Slytherin section without even thinking about it. It didn't take long for the Gryffindors to notice the lone figure sitting in their rival's section and soon half the team was hovering before him. Ron was still across the pitch and making no movements toward them when the two Beaters arrived, fondling their bats eagerly.

"What's this then? A Slytherin spy? Or just a filthy pervert?"

Someone laughed nastily and the other Beater pitched in, "Yeah. We've all heard how you and Potter split up. You sniffing around the pitch for something new? Seems you've a taste for Gryffindor quidditch players."

The first boy gestured graphically with his club and suggested, "You won't find any of us willing, but if you're really panting for it, I'd be happy to shove this club up your-"

The Gryffindor was cut off when he was nearly knocked off his broom by a flaming red streak. Ginny had side-swiped the boy and was now glaring at her team-mates furiously, her ginger hair crackling around her face and her dark eyes burning as brightly as her red Gryffindor robes. She hissed in a voice like liquid poison, "Get lost."

Once the other players had scattered with hateful glares and much dark muttering, the girl turned back to Draco. Her shoulders were tense and she was humming with angry energy, but none of it was directing at the blonde in front of her. She sighed and tried to let go of some of her tension, "Sorry. They are complete wankers, the lot of them. If I didn't love quidditch so damn much, I would quit the team."

She looked curiously at the Slytherin and asked in an incredulous voice, "But what the hell are you doing here, Draco?"

The Head Boy tried to force his face into a pleasant expression, but he couldn't manage anything better than a rather stressful grimace. "I'm here to talk to you - and your brother as well, if he's willing. He probably doesn't want to see me and we knew he definitely wouldn't talk to Hermione, but we need all the help we can get."

Ginny blinked at the boy's cryptically gloomy words and asked unsurely, "With what?"

Draco looked up at her seriously, his silvery grey eyes brimming with grief, and said simply, "With Harry. Harry needs your help."

AND SO IT WAS THAT, with the two Weasleys help, the two Heads continued to burn through every book they could get their hands on. The Weasleys worked in the library or their common room, since Ron was still unwilling to spend any time around his ex-girlfriend, and the two Heads worked tirelessly in Draco's room. Their piles of unread books were getting smaller and smaller, but they had still not found anything remotely useful or even hopeful.

There were of course no counters to Avada Kedavra. The spell was usually completed instantly, so there was no time to cast a counter-curse. And it was no furnunculus curse, which could be removed without much lasting harm - this curse was irreversible.

There were whole troves of books which discussed possible ways to protect against the curse, but none which could be put into actual practice. It had always been a popular branch of research, for who didn't fear death? It had gained even more fervour when Harry had apparently lived through the curse with no harm - the first living test subject. But no one before Hermione had realized exactly how Harry had lived through it and there were nothing but theories as to how it might be possible to thwart the curse.

Similarly, any mentions of curse scars or latent curses were patently useless, since no one else had ever had a curse scar from the killing curse. Most were caused by relatively harmless curses and so magical scholars had never even pursued what happens to a failed curse in such a situation.

Of course, Harry's situation was so unique, that if there had been research, it might not even be applicable to him. But that didn't satisfy the students as they searched desperately for a cure for their friend. It was impossible but to believe that there was something useful in the hundreds of thousands of pages, and it was only their fault for not finding it.

"Maybe there's really nothing to be done," Harry said unexpectedly one afternoon, interrupting Hermione and Draco in a half-hearted argument about their lack of results. "What if this is the prophecy?"

Draco had turned to Harry when the boy spoke up and now he turned back to Hermione, who was nodding knowingly. The bookish girl said, "You knew that Dumbledore told me about the prophecy last year - and I've thought of the possibility that it might have something to do with our current situation, of course - but I don't believe that it could be to blame."

The Slytherin's silvery eyes were narrowed and he jumped into the conversation with an accusatory, "Excuse me for being left out of the circle, but what the hell are you two talking about?"

Hermione glanced at Harry with eyes that clearly said, "You didn't tell him?" Even Draco could see it and it only irked him further. Apparently he hadn't been the only one holding onto secrets.

The Gryffindor boy tried to placate him, seeing Draco's mounting annoyance, by saying, "You weren't 'left out' or anything. There just was never a particular reason to talk about it. I think I must've mentioned a prophecy to you once or twice, at least jokingly." Draco did have a vague recollection and nodded grudgingly, before Harry continued, "See, there was prophecy made just before I was born. As prophecies seem to go, it wasn't terribly clear, but it set up me to fight against Voldemort. To kill him."

"You were prophesized to kill him?"

Harry's face scrunched up unsurely. "No, not exactly. What the prophecy said was, 'either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.' Dumbledore has always interpreted it to mean that one of us would have to kill one another."

Draco stared intently at the crumbling book in front of him and spoke slowly, as if testing the words out even as he said them, "You had to kill one another. So what you're saying is that since he didn't die by your 'hand,' you are now dying by his?"

Harry let out of huge breath and it seemed to be a strange sort of relief to say, "Yes."

"That's crap, Potter."

Hermione made a distressed little sound of protest, but didn't interrupt the two boys. Draco continued angrily, "You did most the work, it was only thanks to you that I could shoot him. If you hadn't kept your hold on him, I am certain that he would have killed me and slunk off to heal himself. It is the same thing as if you did it yourself."

Harry visibly wavered as he listened to Draco's words. His face was twisted in a painful uncertainty and he struggled against what Draco was saying. If Draco was right, and it wasn't the prophecy's fault, then there was no reason that he was dying. And that seemed so much worse. There had to be a reason, something to blame and something to hate.

"No," he protested in a shaking voice, "You don't even know all of the prophecy. You don't understand."

Draco struck the book lying on the floor in front of him and exclaimed more fiercely than he meant to, "Then tell me, dammit!"

Harry gaped wordlessly for a moment, staring at Draco's hard profile, and then he repeated from memory, "'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not. And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives.'"

Hermione shivered when she heard those words, just as she had a year ago in Dumbledore's office. She hated divination. She didn't believe it for a moment, but it frightened her - it frightened her the way people believed in it: blindly and hopelessly.

Draco was turning the words over in his head, and muttered to himself, "Power the Dark Lord knows not..." He shook his head of short hair, which was growing a bit spiky and ragged since he hadn't done anything with it in the three weeks since he first cut it short. "What if that is what happened? After all, you had me. The Dark Lord didn't know that I would be on your side, and that's what allowed us to kill him. Wouldn't that fit the prophecy then?"

Harry chewed on his cheek and said weakly, "I can't be. Because he is killing me, isn't he? That couldn't have counted."

Hermione piped up again, after holding her silent for as long as she could stand, "But, Harry, it's just a prophecy! It's only your belief that makes it come true. If you search hard enough, you can make any bit of divination seem true, but its just rubbish. He is not the one killing you. A curse is killing you, but even that won't succeed. Because we are going to find a way to beat it, and you are going to get over this, and finish school, and we are going to go to university together, just like we planned!"

Draco took up his place beside Hermione, the two of them trying to trample Harry's need to blame the prophecy into the dirt. "That's right. And I'll be bored and filthy rich, so I can come harass the two of you whenever you want."

Hermione turned to look at Draco and said seriously, "I don't think you'll be that bored. After all, you're coming to university with us."