CHAPTER TWELVE

Harry woke the next morning to a doctor taking down a few more notes and detaching the wires connecting him to the monitor screen. Louise woke up and stretched, she saw the doctor and tried to flatten her bed hair down.

"What's the word doc?" She asked moving next to harry and finding his hand.

"We want to give you some medications to help Mr Potter sleep better. We would normally give a Grornan sleeping draft but Dr Parker doesn't want magical treatments for any of her patients without her consent and sleeping drafts she never says yes to, so I think we're going to try some muggle alternative. We have a prescription zopiclone, it's a sleeping tablet and we're hoping it will help." The doctor handed over a small packet with a box of tablets in it. Louise took the tablets and popped them in her bag.

"You can get your things together and then report to the main entrance where a portkey will be made ready for you." The doctor left them alone to get ready.

Louise packed away their things into a bag with she'd bought from the hospital gift shop. Harry double checked the room before he took Louise's hand and they walked through the hospital to the main entrance. Harry struggled through the room where a hundred eyes were watching him. He took the match stick off the front desk and moved to a quiet corner.

"How long do we have to wait?" Asked Louise

"Two minutes." said Harry trying to ignore the whispers around him.

Two minutes had never passed so slowly, Harry and Louise sat holding the match stick between them until Harry felt the strange tug behind his navel and whizzed through the air. He landed in a heap on his bed Louise landed on top of him and rubbed her elbow from where she smacked it off the bedside table. Harry looked around the room, it was tidy but lived-in. The bedding was dirty and crumpled. There was a layer of dust on around as they hadn't been in the house for over a month, since they'd been in the hospital. Louise climbed off her fiancé and wiped the nearest surface to her and sent a cloud of dust into the air. Harry started to strip the bed he piled the dirty sheets in the corner and pulled a fresh set out the cupboard.

"Do… Do you think you could…?" Harry pointed at the bedding, "With magic I mean."

Louise looked Harry up and down, it had been seven years since Louise had been able to do magic around Harry. She waved her wand over the folded sheets and they watched as they floated up and made the bed perfectly.

"You OK?" She asked.

Harry was clutching the edge of the bedside table taking very deep breaths. He relaxed a little and nodded.

"I'm OK." He gave her a small smile and sat down on the newly made bed.

"So what do you want to do today?" Asked Louise sitting next to him.

"I don't know, I don't feel strong enough to go outside, I'm sorry." Harry started shaking. Louise took his hand.

"It's OK," She reassured him, "Why don't we do something together?" asked Louise

Harry thought for a moment.

"Yeah that would be good, the only thing I can think about doing is how much this place needs a clean. Don't you need to go to work or something? It's been ages surely people are worried about where you've been all this time?"

Louise shook her head "I sent in a letter when you were first at St Mungo's letting them know that you'd been in an accident and wouldn't be in work for a while. My boss is a good guy, he'll understand."

She gave him a hug and laid her head on his chest. His heart beat was so soothing to her. She let her mind drift back to when things were good between them, she didn't know what went wrong, it happened so suddenly. Harry stroked her hair.

"You should go into work." He said after a while. Louise nodded. It was 12 o'clock so she could go into work for a few hours. She grabbed her mobile phone from the bedside table, it's battery was flat but she waved her wand surreptitiously over it and it sprang back into life.

"Are you sure you're going to be OK?" She asked pulling a change of clothes out the wardrobe.

Harry nodded and kissed her. Louise got changed quickly and headed out to the car. She watched Harry standing in the window until she was around the corner and the house had vanished from view. She hoped she was doing the right thing.

She pulled into the work car park and took a few minutes sitting in the quiet before heading into the office. She walked in and put her bag down on her desk.

Mr Workinham walked over to her and gave her a huge hug.

"So sorry my girl. How is he? How are you?" He lead her into his office and sat her down, passing her a cup of fresh coffee.

"He's OK, thank you sir. He just was let out the hospital today."

"You should be with him still!" Cried Mr Workinham, shaking his head.

Louise laughed, "It's OK, he wanted me to come in, make sure everything was OK with me being off for so long at such short notice." Louise played with her fingers, she was fully expecting to be fired.

"Don't be silly! I'm glad to have you back and that Harry is OK. I was worried. The temp girl we had was awful I missed three appointments and had to cancel a couple as she'd double booked me. I mean I know I'm good but two places at the same time?"

Louise laughed again and took a big swig of coffee, it was good to laugh again and get away from being under stress 24/7 although she felt terrible for thinking it.

Mr Workinham checked his watch, "Well I'm glad to have you back, the other one really was useless but please don't feel like you have to work at the moment." He smiled kindly, "Anyway I have to go, I have a meeting." He squeezed her arm on the way past.

Louise took a few deep breaths and walked back to her desk. She flopped down in her seat and looked at the huge pile of paper work. She pushed it to one side and fired up her computer. Her email box was over flowing. Over a thousand emails were waiting for her attention. She immediately deleted all the ones in her spam box and clicked on the oldest one first. It was out of date, she deleted it. The next three were the same, a couple of angry ones from a missed client. Reviews were forwarded to press department. She continued going through her emails until at last, after five hours, two lost clients, four threatening to leave and a lot of contradicting appointments, Louise shut the computer down and called it a night.

She slid into her drive way and walked in through her front door. She stopped for a moment to breath in the wonderful smell of cinnamon and hot apples. Harry came through from the kitchen and wrapped her in a big hug.

"How are you?" Asked Louise looking around, the place was spotless, no sign that they hadn't lived there for weeks.

Harry shrugged, Louise nodded understanding. She followed Harry through to the kitchen where a hot chicken stew was waiting for her. He dished up big platefuls for them both and sat down. Louise spooned the stew into her mouth. They both helped themselves to fresh baked bread to mop up the gravy.

Louise smiled as she saw Harry empty his bowl for the first time in years. She wiped her mouth and pushed her now empty bowl away. Harry stood up and replaced the empty plates with bowls of hot apple pie and cream.

"You seem to have had a good day." Said Louise, trying not to stuff the whole helping of apple pie in her mouth at once.

"Yeah it's been OK. I've enjoyed baking." Harry smiled, "I've still not had any luck on that diary thing though." He said looking down.

"Don't worry about it, just do it if you feel like it." Louise smiled, she was worried about the amount of stress this diary seemed to be putting on harry.

"How did work go?" Asked Harry finishing the last of his pie.

"Good, well mostly. They'd had a temp in while I was away and she was awful, couldn't do the job at all. I've had over a thousand emails to go through and I'm going to have to completely re-do is schedule. Sorry, am I moaning?" Asked Louise, kicking herself for going on about such stupid things.

"No it's OK" Harry smiled softly, "I actually like listening to what you've been up to. I can't imagine going through a thousand emails." He smiled and squeezed her hand. Louise ate her last mouthful of pie and put her dishes on the side, she watched Harry out the corner of her eye, he stiffened but took some deep breaths and relaxed. He put his bowl up with hers and started on the washing up.

"Do you want me to go to work tomorrow?" Louise asked

"Yeah if you want to. I'll be OK I mean, if you want or need to go in." Harry didn't turn around. Louise decided to see how it was in the morning. They snuggled down into bed and watched a movie. Harry took his pills and was asleep in just a few minutes for the first time in years.