The Horse

by Elsa2

Looking after a Muggle animal should be easy compared to saving Hogwarts from Voldemort. Harry and Draco might disagree with that. Featuring Luna, Marauders, peppermints and, of course, a tall, black, badtempered horse named Simon.

43. Chapter 43

Disclaimer: What, we're at chapter 43 and I still need to tell people that these characters aren't mine, they belong to JKR and Warner? Well, okay… if it helps…

ooOOoo

Chapter 43: Rain

The rain continued for a several more days. Harry gave up on getting anything approaching a friendly conversation from Draco, who seemed to be taking the rain personally and had become as moody as Simon, who was even more snappish these days. But at least Draco didn't bite and didn't object to the near-constant presence of a large black dog when he and Harry went up to the paddock to check on Simon. Simon himself seemed to be becoming more accepting of the dog, although Harry noticed Snuffles didn't hang around when he or Draco weren't there.

Things hadn't improved in the Gryffindor common room, thanks in part to a new Hogwarts hobby of writing letters – whatever source or reason lay behind it escaped Harry, although he vaguely recalled Hermione commenting on proactive therapy and writing being very beneficial, but Harry was too busy floating in his own personal private invisible pink cloud to care. And whenever the Happycloud threatened to dissipate under grey skies and glowers from classmates irked that someone was happy under the Blockade (particularly Harry Potter, who should have done everyone a favour and bumped off You-Know-Who by now, the lazy sod), he'd have another kiss from Luna to bring it all back together, sweeter than candyfloss and far less sticky. The people who mattered were there. Ron hadn't even needed to ask Harry if things were all right – Harry walking in to the common room with a big beaming grin on his face must have been a bit of a clue. Hermione was smiling more often, too, now that Harry was happy. From somewhere in the pink Happycloud Harry dimly recognised that Neville and Ginny might be generating their own twin Happyclouds, and was pleased for them. And as for everyone else in the universe (who didn't matter), Ravenclaws like Terry Boot watched him quizzically then decided that maybe Harry wasn't so bad and certainly wasn't a threat to one of their own. Hufflepuffs shrugged and got on with things. Typically it was Gryffindors who cut him the least slack, although some of the Slytherins seemed to want to stick to the old traditions. When a third year boy made some obscene comment about stupid breeding with crazy and how they'd be neck-deep in miniature menaces now that Harry was with Luna, the castle buzzed for two days about how that little firstie Trudi whatsherface smacked him over the back of the head with her Transfiguration text and in a shrill strident voice (the likes of which had not been heard since the last Howler from Molly Weasley) told him to get a life. Amongst many other suggestions ranging from personal hygiene to hex-proof vests, the importance of investment in.

(There might have been an immediate and brutal response to the unsolicited advice of a puny first year except that a certain blond Slytherin had been attracted as per usual by the sound of shouting. The third year might have been willing to tackle someone half his size, but wasn't stupid enough to go up against someone twice as big as him, especially given the rumours of how Engel Myers' head still wasn't on quite right after his last encounter with Malfoy.)

Harry heard about it one evening after dinner when he was on his way up to the library to meet Neville and Ginny. He would get Trudi an extra big box of chocolates, he thought, then was distracted by the sight of Luna coming down an empty corridor towards him. He held out a hand and, grinning, lifted it so that she twirled into his arms, laughing. One kiss, and they parted, each on their own way. Harry hoped Luna had taken as much happiness from the wordless encounter as he had. Passing three Gryffindor seventh year girls and the Patil twins, who gave him a group Hard Stare made him laugh.

"Mental…" someone said as he rounded the corner.

If this was crazy, Harry embraced it as he wanted to embrace Luna and skipped around the corner, bumping into someone.

"Oops, sorry." Crash. Reality. Dammit.

"Harry. Going up to the library again, are we?" It was McGonagall, looking slightly less stern as she readjusted her spectacles and eyed him. "That's a lot of research you've been doing this past week or so. Not thinking of taking another little jaunt through time again, are we?"

"Not a chance," said Harry candidly. "The last one cured me of any desire to try again."

"Hmm. Just keeping yourself busy, are you?" But she looked more amused than openly suspicious. Perhaps she'd been talking to Sirius about him and he'd told her about Luna.

Harry sincerely hoped not. Having the rest of Hogwarts know about him and Luna was one thing, but McGonagall was old.

"Yeah. Did you know that horses are edge creatures?" said Harry quickly, hoping to deflect embarrassing questions about his social life.

"No, I don't believe I know much about Muggle animals."

"Malfoy thinks they're not totally Muggle-ish."

An eyebrow raised. Harry waited for the inevitable warning about the dangers of associating with Malfoys and other undesirables.

"Young Mr Malfoy's done extremely well looking after this horse of yours, or so another mutual four-footed friend tells me."

So she had been talking to Sirius. Harry couldn't imagine Remus being up with the play on the 'Simon and Draco and Luna and Harry' situation. And Firenze hadn't been seen since the barrier went up. He'd made some form of peace with his herd, but Harry still occasionally worried about the centaur who'd been a friend to him in the past. Other than the centaur who had spoken to Draco the night they fou- the night Simon found them, Harry hadn't much idea if the centaurs were all still alive or not. Voldemort wouldn't be a friend to them, he didn't doubt. "Not my horse. Luna insists he's his own horse."

McGonagall's eyes crinkled at the corners. "Yes. Miss Lovegood. I don't know who she's done the better job of gentling – that wild animal or… Ah, Mr Malfoy."

"Sorry?"

"Not you, Potter. Hello, Malfoy, I was just asking about the horse. Is he doing all right, or do you need anything extra for him?"

Harry turned to see Draco, cupping an elbow and looking shaken at such unusual solicitude from the Gryffindor Head.

"Er… unless you can bring him some fine weather, I think he's not lacking in anything."

"Peppermints," Harry put in.

Draco snorted and rubbed his elbow. "I stand corrected. We've run out of peppermints. Which might be why he's gone from moody to sullen to downright unsociable. Which is why I'm on my way to see Madam Pomfrey."

Harry gave him a sympathetic look. "Run out of bruise salve? Me too."

McGonagall's brow creased. "Has the creature attacked you, Draco?"

Draco, now seemingly even more rattled by the solicitude, said, "No… just the occasional nip if he feels in the least bit slighted. Nothing bad, and nothing I can't handle… or let him get away with."

Shocked, Harry said, "You didn't hit him?"

Draco folded his arms and narrowed a gaze down his pointy nose at Harry. "No. I did not hit him," he said in a glacial tone. "And thanks for the vote of confidence. What, do I look suicidal? But it's not hard to let him know his behaviour is unacceptable… haven't you even read that book you leant me?"

"Oh, right… I forgot I lent you the book…" That had been the day before yesterday. "Don't tell me you read all of it already?"

"What book?" asked McGonagall, before Draco could take umbrage at this slur on his reading abilities.

"Er… it's a book by an American wizard – he's a horse mutterer," Harry said, hoping she wouldn't ask him to take it back. It was badly overdue. Harry was becoming a little too possessive over it and the fact that Draco had had it for two days was irksome. Maybe another kiss from Luna would help…

"Harry? Did you miss dinner?"

"I think he's off on Planet Potter again," Draco was saying. "Population: two: himself and Luna Lovegood." He smirked at the glare he got as Harry was jerked back to reality.

"Ah. Well, I suppose it's time we had that talk, Harry…"

Harry's mortally crippling horror must have showed a little. He realised she was joking when the corner of her mouth twitched. It didn't help that Draco guffawed.

Harry flushed. "Ah… if you'll excuse me, I've got to go and help Neville and Ginny in the library."

"Why?" Draco put in. "Do they need The Talk, too? No Talking in the library, though. I know – Professor, perhaps you could give all the upper years The Talk – we could have a special class for it. And let them know it's on Potter's behalf." He smirked.

A month ago Harry would have hexed Malfoy for that, presence of a teacher or no presence of a teacher. "Get lost, Malfoy," he replied agreeably instead. "You're just jealous."

Draco gave a one-shoulder shrug and batted his eyelashes at Harry. "True. I hope Luna knows how lucky she is."

Harry pressed his hand over his eyes. "I'm not a part of this conversation."

"You could round out the talk with something about prudishness," added Draco helpfully.

"A marvellous suggestion."

McGonagall couldn't possibly be working with a Malfoy against Harry, could she?

"Sod off, Malfoy."

"See? How Freudian was that? He's in denial," Draco told the professor solemnly.

McGonagall's face was a stranger's when she was trying not to laugh. "Really, you two," she said, trying her utmost to sound stern. "That's enough. Although it makes a change from duelling in the corridors…"

"Oh, we've outgrown that," Draco told her airily. "That's so fifth-year."

"Neville and Ginny waiting… got to go. Bye." Harry marched off towards the library, bouncing off a suit of armour which rattled its sword at the impertinence.

Maybe Luna would be in the library.

From the corridor behind him he heard Malfoy say, "He's much more fun now he's got a girlfriend."

Harry's pace quickened before he could hear McGonagall's reply.

ooOOoo

The rain continued through the full moon. The staff were extra jittery, which communicated through to the older students via the prefects. The last attack by the Death Eaters had been a month ago, after all, and Hogwarts was now down by one defender – two, once it was taken into account that the first loss, Snape, had been a contributor to controlling another member of staff.

There were more study periods for all years over the days during and immediately after it: classes were being taught even though they should have been into exams by now. With no let-up in sight for Hogwarts, the staff were taking the philosophy that it was the perfect opportunity for more study. Only Hermione didn't complain. The younger students in particular were pleased to have the full moon give them some easing of their workload: Professor Lupin hadn't had any Wolfsbane potion and at his request was completely isolated from the rest of the castle for that time. Harry didn't remember him being this paranoid about it before. Was Lupin taking it as an excuse to take a break from everyone else? (Many of the students were taking gloomy pleasure, and some enterprising Ravenclaw had started a betting book on the chances of Lupin killing a Death Eater while in wolf form, eating a student, eating a professor – odds were on Trelawney, but maybe that was wishful thinking – or killing himself. There was even a category for 'he'll eat his dog and die in a fit of remorse' but not many takers on that.)

He didn't want to ask Sirius, even though he saw Snuffles every day, either trailing around the grounds checking the wards or accompanying Harry, Draco and Luna up to Squirrel Hill to let Simon know he wasn't forgotten.

For whatever good visiting the horse, prowling alone in its morning and evening shrouds of fine, misty rain, did – Simon's temper had gone from bad to worse. It wasn't until Luna finally decided to take matters in hand that the atmosphere lightened. She tacked the horse up and took him down to the meadow, slushy and slick with wet grass and wetter earth. There she sent Simon out on the end of the long rope and let him run, kicking up his heels and sending clots of mud flying as he worked off some energy. Harry, Draco and the wet black dog went with them and put up a small shield against the rain, and strengthened it after Draco was hit in the face with a clod. Draco, whose temper was occasionally as bad as Simon's, grumbled, wiped himself off as Harry struggled to keep a straight face, and asked Luna why she didn't just ride the horse instead. Luna wondered loudly why people thought she was the one who needed her head read. And after the sight of Simon putting in a massive corkscrewing leap on the end of the longe-line like a marlin, nobody made that suggestion again.

But the exercise had Simon in a better mood. Luna decided to longe the horse twice a day. It was a good intention, but unfortunately she blew up glasshouse two and was given detention for a week.

Nobody else ever found out why it happened. And Luna wasn't talking. The best Harry got out of her was that she'd been curious about the effect mandrakes might have when grafted to something that sounded like 'mutter-mutter-mumble.'

Harry didn't press. Luna only got even more vague when she was being asked questions she didn't like and rushed off for uncertain reasons rather than staying and kissing Harry.

A big disincentive for asking questions, in Harry's opinion.

The surviving mandrakes were eventually found cowering in one of the dented watering cans. It was the first time in Sprout's long career as a herbologist that she'd come across mandrakes that didn't make a peep.

Harry offered to take over exercising Simon in her stead, deciding not to worry about tacking the horse up (rain did nothing good for the leather saddle and bridle), clipping the thirty-foot longe line to the ring of the headcollar under Simon's chin. In one of the books Hermione had found, longeing had been highly recommended. Robert Python (Harry suspected the man had a halo hidden under his cowboy hat) had stressed its importance without actually mentioning how it was done, which was one of the few times the book was unhelpful, although he preferred free longeing, which could only be done in a big enough enclosure – and Simon flatly refused to set hoof in the pen behind the barn where Hagrid had captured him. Luna had also used it early on when giving him and Draco their first riding lessons. In the books it showed photos of the person holding a long whip like a circus ringmaster's. Luna hadn't used one, waving Simon away in the direction she wanted him to go with the coil of the longe line and the angle of her shoulders.

A long stick would be easy enough to find at the edge of the forest, but Harry expected that if Luna hadn't used one with Simon, he'd be a fool to pick one up and wave it at a temperamental stallion whose approach to annoyances was to flatten them.

It was nice to have something almost mindlessly physical to do after classes, too. Hermione was hot on a theory she'd only mentioned in passing to Harry at breakfast one morning: she thought that the Death Eater attack last month had been to get to the third tree – the one Draco had found with the Mendeleev gloves – and thus set the previously nebulous wards into the standing barrier. She'd already suspected the barrier hadn't been complete until after the attack – owls had been able to get in and out fairly regularly compared to the past month. Everyone had thought the barrier had gone up fully-formed, but what if it hadn't? That opened up some new possibilities, like a partial dissolution if they uprooted the spell from the anchoring tree on Hogwarts grounds. And it also explained why Mad-Eye Moody and all but two of the Aurors had disappeared. When she asked, Dumbledore had reassured Hermione that Moody and the Aurors were fine – an owl had come in from Hogsmeade the morning after the battle, giving their account of the events.

The second evening of Luna's detention, Draco joined Harry and Simon, wearing Muggle-style trousers and boots and a long coat spelled so that water beaded and shivered away.

"I need to get some exercise, too," was Draco's explanation for insisting on saddling and bridling the horse and leading him down to the meadow, where he told Harry, "You can stand in the middle and make sure he doesn't run off or do anything daft if I fall off."

"Speaking of daft things, you're really going to ride him? Shouldn't we have Hooch along? Better yet, how about Pomfrey? She's good at mending broken bones."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, but we'll be fine. The ground's pretty soft and I don't think Simon would let me fall too hard. If he lets me fall at all, for that matter."

Harry exchanged a look with Snuffles. The dog shrugged. It's his funeral, Harry interpreted.

"I'll let him run off some energy first, then see how we go."

"Fair enough."

Simon trotted and bucked and cantered and plunged and leaped and even managed a skidding, sliding gallop, tearing great gouges through the soft turf with his silver shoes, blowing great plumes of steam like a whale as he snorted.

Harry coaxed him to trot for a few minutes, one direction then another, until the horse turned clockwise to anticlockwise and back again on his request and walked, trotted, cantered and slowed back to a walk again. Fifteen minutes a day of regular consistent exercise and training was, Mr Python claimed, better for a horse than a whole day spent under the saddle once a week. Simon seemed to be proving this. He'd been a little leery of Harry's instructions at first, but now that Harry had proven he wasn't going to suddenly change the rules on him or do anything equally bizarre, Simon was being fairly obedient.

(Of course, Robert Python had warned, if the horse gets bored this could change in a heartbeat. Harry had to hope that two and a half days of being longed morning and night wouldn't be boring yet. And it made him wonder if Simon's increasing sullenness wasn't simply because the horse was bored out of his mind.)

With some misgivings (but reassured by the watchful presence of Snuffles), Harry brought Simon in to the middle of the circle as Draco walked over. "Are you sure about this?"

Draco blinked in a particularly obnoxious way. "I don't want to get out of practice."

Harry rolled his eyes. What could matter about Malfoy finding himself unable to ride a horse? "The world should stop spinning and tilt on its axis should you be out of practice at riding a horse."

"Save sarcasm for those who can do it with class," advised Draco. He sounded friendly enough, but that could have easily been because Simon was nearby and definitely within nipping range.

"Nice trousers, Malfoy. Shame to get them covered in mud. You saw those jumps he was doing this morning, did you?"

Draco sneered and unbuckled the reins from around the horse's neck, where they'd been looped to stop them getting trodden on. He checked the girth to make sure it was tight enough, then did the straps up a little tighter. Simon didn't like a tight girth and had a nasty trick of taking a deep breath to stop it being done up too tight. Draco eyed the marks the buckles of the girth had left behind on the girth straps of the saddle. The oldest ones were two notches higher than the holes the buckles were on currently. "I can't do it up tighter. Is he blowing out his ribs again?" He smirked, probably remembering the time Harry hadn't checked the girth properly and ended up hanging under the horse's belly. Simon's sneer had been epic and Draco had fallen off the log, howling with laughter.

Harry wouldn't get that one wrong again. Luna had taught him the trick of it.

"Hang on." Harry jabbed Simon in the ribs with his thumb knuckle, which made Simon snort and breathe out. The horse gave him an indignant look. Draco pulled on the straps and shook his head.

"Only one hole. I guess he's just getting fat."

"No he isn't," Harry said, almost as indignant as Simon after being poked in the ribs.

"Less skinny then. Face it – this is a horse who could stand to gain a little weight. And he's been standing around stuffing his face for a week. He could give Goyle a run for his money in the 'standing around stuffing one's face' stakes." With a snap Draco pulled the stirrup down and went around to the right side. There was another brisk snap and a slight rocking of the back of the saddle (cantle, Harry reminded himself – Luna thought it important to get names right) as the other stirrup went down. Draco ducked under Simon's neck and returned to the horse's left (near side), straightening his hood. Left foot in the stirrup, reins and a handful of mane in his left hand, right hand on the seat of the saddle, Draco swung himself up onto Simon's back. "There," he said with satisfaction, looking around through the drizzle, drawing himself up for some invisible audience.

Poser, thought Harry, but with private amusement. I wonder if Draco knows about all those Muggle statesmen and soldiers and what-not who have pictures or statues done of themselves on horseback. More seriously, he said, "Try to bounce."

Draco slanted a look of amused hauteur down his nose at Harry. (Bloody Malfoy, thought Harry.) "Simon's not going to hurt me."

"Not on purpose, no."

"Honestly… " Draco clicked his tongue at the horse and Simon moved forward as Harry stepped back. "Just keep the rope in hand, will you?"

"Drop the reins, then," Harry challenged. "Two people controlling him will just confuse him."

Draco looked at him, grudgingly acknowledging Harry's point. To Harry's surprise he knotted the reins and let them drop on the horse's withers. "As you say."

Simon moved out at an easy walk, muscles sliding easily under hide wetted by misty rain; oiled midnight.

And proved Draco right, to Harry's combined relief and disgust. The horse wasn't going to endanger a rider – not deliberately. Draco rode around Harry in a constant circle at walk, trot and canter, until they unclipped the longe line and Draco rode the horse in figure-eights, smirking.

"He's going to be insufferable," Harry muttered to Snuffles. The dog's pale eyes gleamed in amused agreement as the muzzle dipped.

ooOOoo

The next day a miracle happened: blue skies.

Draco, who was, as projected, insufferable after being proven right about Simon, told Harry he'd be fine exercising the horse by himself that evening. As Harry was planning on being busy researching temporal dislocation spells with Hermione (and even a day full of blue skies couldn't make up for not having the detention-serving Luna around when he went up to the paddock in the dusk), he didn't argue.

And late that evening, close to curfew and after Harry had spent most of the evening bent over books in the library with Neville, Ron and Hermione (they were getting close to the application of the mistletoe potion, he was sure), he went to get his horse mutterer book back from Malfoy. He searched the castle and the grounds as far as the paddock and found that Draco wasn't just insufferable.

Draco Malfoy was gone.

As was Simon.

ooOOoo

Fearing the worst, Harry asked Ron and Hermione to help him look. He couldn't find Sirius (presumably Sirius was already out patrolling with Lupin, who was up to a little light exercise now), so went out by himself. They took the charmed coins Hermione had made last year for the DA to notify each other about meetings. After half an hour's fruitless searching (and now past curfew and past caring about being out after hours), he found Luna and Hermione at the paddock. The moon was high above the trees now, smaller as it got higher, and Luna was distraught. Hermione had one hand on the younger student's shoulder, trying to sound comforting as she said, "He can't have run off. We'll find him…"

"No, he hasn't run off! He wouldn't. He likes it here," Luna protested, wiping her eyes. "It's that utterly bloody Malfoy. He's gone and done something stupid that'll get him killed…"

"Malfoy's got a knack for surviving," Hermione said soothingly, raising her eyebrows in relief when she saw Harry.

Luna shot a watery glare at her, her pale eyes red-rimmed. "Oh, I don't care about ferret-features! He can rot in a ditch for what he's done. Or about to do. He's going to get Simon killed!"

And she sat down on the ground and burst into tears.

This was one of those moments Harry should have had a handkerchief to offer. Hermione came through, as she usually did.

"Here."

Luna took the hankie and mopped her face. She blew her nose with loud honking noises that sent a pair of blackbirds flying away from a nearby tree in search of somewhere quieter to roost for the night. "There's Professor Lupin's dog," she said, looking down the hill.

Snuffles, almost invisible in the gloom, barked up at them and turned away, looking back over his shoulder to see if they were following.

"Come on," said Harry. "Maybe he's found them."

They hurried down the hill, bracken and long grass that still clung to the rain soaking the hems of their robes and sending into their feet the chill of a winter that didn't want to let go of the land just yet, summer or no summer.

The dog loped around the castle and down the road towards the front gates which shimmered slightly in the moonlight. It wasn't until the students got closer that Harry realised why they didn't look right: the gates were open.

Beyond them was the barrier, milky and uncomfortable to the eye. Leading up to them on the wet ground was a line of hoofprints, spaced at the walk. Harry hadn't brought Simon out this way this morning. On the road was Snuffles, casting about to find the scent. He followed a trail invisible to anyone with limited sense of smell up to the gates, where he stopped. He looked back at Harry, whining a little.

"Oh shit."

Snuffles growled softly.

"Sorry," Harry said absently, running his fingers through his hair. "That complete pillock Malfoy… what's he done this time?"

"Did you tell him my theory on the incomplete barrier?" asked Hermione. "Simon could have walked through the gap, then it would have closed behind him when the third anchoring spell was activated…"

Harry shook his head mutely.

"So Malfoy doesn't know Simon must have come through a gap before the barrier was fully formed… and so now he's tried riding him through the actual barrier itself… but he'll nev-" but Hermione closed her mouth with a snap, seeing Luna tearing up again.

They stared at the filtered world through the barrier. The ghost of the road they could see was empty. Ignoring Snuffles' growl, Harry stepped up and gingerly touched the barrier, the first time he'd dared come this close.

He gasped in shock as it screamed through his fingers.

He jerked his hand back. It was almost as bad as the time he'd accidentally touched a live wire from a kettle.

"He can't have gone through that," said Harry adamantly as he shook the pain out of his hand.

"But he has," said Luna in a hollow voice.

"What do we do now?" Hermione asked.

Harry bowed his head in thought, glaring at his greying sneakers. "I'd like to talk to Hagrid for starters." He looked up and into the mist that distorted the road into something else – something that wasn't meant to be walked on.

"Want me to go and get him?"

"Please."

Hermione jogged off.

Luna watched Harry solemnly, wiping her cheek. "And what do we do?" she asked.

Harry put his hand on Snuffles' head as the dog sat down next to him with a sigh.

"I guess we have to wait."

Luna leaned into him as he put his free arm around her waist. She shivered a little and something in Harry burned, a small, tight rage that the world had done Luna a hurt.

ooOOoo

The moon had just risen over the trees when Draco led Simon down the hill. High clouds which dimmed the bright circle condensed in the west and sucked the light out of what should have been a lengthy northern summer evening.

Perfect.

Draco was wearing a black travelling cloak over his conspicuously pale hair and face. As well as activating the spell he'd forged into the shoes, he'd saddled and bridled Simon up at the paddock. But he didn't want to ride him down the hill just in case the horse decided it was a prime idea to go for a run sooner rather than later. Besides, the sack Draco had tied to the small D-rings on the front of the saddle bumped a little, and he wanted to be sure it wouldn't spook the horse.

Simon didn't seem to mind the sack, although he sniffed at it and then tried to chew the hemp, pricking his ears at the dry rustle from inside when the sack shifted.

"It's not tasty," Draco smiled. "Not for horses, anyway."

Down in the meadow, Draco scrambled into the saddle while the horse snorted at his inelegance and then sidled noiselessly, picking up on his rider's unease.

Draco rode him in circles to calm both of them down and test the spell. The horse moved silently across the ground, although dark marks were left in the softer parts of the turf. The forging of the shoes had worked, then.

Now Draco had to find out if his other theory would be correct.

He turned the horse's head towards the front gates of the castle and drew up his hood. Everyone was inside eating dinner or studying, he hoped. He'd snagged a hot buttery roll fresh and delicious from the ovens and some slices of ham and cheese before he left (along with some carrots which Simon had appreciated as much as Draco had appreciated the roll). What had been tasty ten minutes ago roiled in his stomach. Maybe the ham and cheese had been a bit much. He checked the tie on the sack again. Wouldn't do to lose it.

One last look back up at the lights of the castle – not really a last look, merely a glance to make sure no-one had spotted him because he'd be back soon enough, he told himself – and Draco turned Simon towards the gates. The horse walked without sound on the stone and stopped with his nose at the gates. Draco managed by careful use of heels and reins and luck (and possibly good guessing on the part of Simon, who was being unusually co-operative) to persuade Simon to turn on the spot and allow Draco to push the gates open.

Simon snorted leerily at the barrier just a few feet beyond. Even the gates wouldn't touch it, which was annoying. Draco would have liked the gates to open wider. As it was, the gap between them was only two meters, he judged, although even this close it was hard to judge distances as the darkness crept in thicker and thicker.

He turned the horse and trotted him back up the road a little. He reined Simon around and eyed the gate. Simon blew one of his low, rolling snorts which meant he knew something weird was going on. Draco wrapped his hands in the mane. It meant he wouldn't be able to steer, of course, but Simon always seemed to know how to do the right thing and now that Draco had his sight back the horse had an uncanny ability of knowing where Draco was looking and heading in that direction. Luna had shrugged when Draco had asked her, and said that it wasn't unusual for horses to be that sensitive to their riders – nothing psychic or magical about it. Draco privately thought it was more – Simon was the best of horses; he had to be. Because if all horses were like him, more wizards would know about their uses, not just odd-ball American colonials.

Simon was beyond special. And he'd come to Draco in the Forest – he belonged to Draco. If some other wizard showed up looking for him, Draco had money of his own he'd put aside. Stocks and shares. Gold would be doing especially well right now. He'd buy Simon. And if the wizard didn't want money… well, the Malfoys had connections beyond the obvious. Mother would take care of that if Draco begged.

Much as Draco had hated blindness, he'd learned from it. And one of the things he'd learned was to trust Simon blindly when he had to. And that Simon could trust him.

What they were about to do might seem foolish to anyone who didn't know how brutal the philosophies of the Dark Lord and his followers were. When the Blockade ended (as it would – no blockade lasted forever), Draco wanted to make sure it ended on his terms. Those terms involved safety for himself and his own. Simon was his. If the Blockade ended on the Dark Lord's terms, Simon would be lucky to be given a quick death. So although this was a short-term risk, if it worked out Draco hoped to have some very significant gains.

It would work. Simon would make sure of it. Draco – well, Draco just had to hang on. And maybe top up the silencing spell on the shoes occasionally. And if all else failed, tell an incredibly tall story that would get him out of trouble. And… Draco rubbed his hand over his damp face. And stop procrastinating.

Simon stamped.

"It's all right," Draco murmured. "We're going to be fine."

Merlin, but how his father would laugh. Or probably not, actually – the thought of a Malfoy giving such trust to a Muggle beast would have Lucius beat his son black and blue… Draco held on to the flush of anger and felt satisfaction as Simon picked up on it too: tail swishing, one back leg raising and striking the ground in warning. Lucius would not hit Draco. And I won't let him touch you either, my horse.

Draco shook his head to clear it of disturbing thoughts. He was finding ways to put off the inevitable again. It wasn't like he didn't have enough to worry about right now, and if he had to procrastinate surely there were better ways…? "You came through it once," he muttered, Simon's ears swivelling back to catch his voice, "now let's see you do the same trick… Gee-up!"

Simon leaped forward, straight into a canter. As they came up to the gates, sack bumping against his knee, Draco shut his eyes.

Simon slewed to a stop, hunching up his back so that Draco bounced uncomfortably and nearly went between the horse's ears. It definitely opened his eyes. This close up he could see the road to Hogsmeade stretching out beyond the gates. But it looked unreal. It was there in one version of fact, but, as Hermione postulated (and Draco agreed with the know-it-all on this one), that factuality was not a part of real time.

It hurt looking at it.

"Ow," Draco grumbled, looking away. His right hip felt mildly wrenched. He found his stirrups and his balance again. "Coward."

Simon flicked an ear back at his rider, then forward at the barrier, lowering his head a degree as if to say, 'You have got to be joking.'

Draco sighed gustily. "Do you know something I don't? Come on… you won't give it a try?"

He gave the horse a hopeful nudge with his heels.

Simon's muzzle wrinkled bad-temperedly. He swung his head around and Draco could just make out the faintest movements of the wide nostrils as the horse took in the scent of the night and the barrier.

Draco thought maybe Simon seemed a little less uncertain. He wasn't sure how he knew – maybe this whole horse-knowing-what-rider-thinks business could go two ways.

Maybe another run-up would do the trick?

And this time Draco would make himself radiate confidence. That way Simon wouldn't even consider stopping – Simon would be doubly sure because his rider was sure, too.

(Draco did wonder for a brief second if a horse could be persuaded to do something insane simply because it trusted its rider to the brink of suicide and beyond, but dismissed this in the next second as beneath Simon's intelligence.)

He wheeled Simon around and back up towards the road a little way, then back facing the gates. This time he didn't halt Simon – he didn't want his doubts getting in the way of the horse's confidence.

Confidence.

That was the key to this lock the Dark Lord had placed around them.

"Gee-up, Simon."

Simon cantered the few strides down the road. At the last moment Draco remembered to hold onto the mane.

He didn't close his eyes.

Horse and rider passed silently between the gates.

Pearlescent magic closed around them in the space of a heartbeat, breathing them in and swallowing them up with a last dark swirl of cloak and tail.

Clipped by one passing stirrup, the iron bars of one gate rippled and writhed where they touched the barrier.

And the road that didn't exist in proper time lay beyond the gates empty as the night above.

ooOOoo