A/N: I'm so sorry it's taken so long:-(

The next day a dark-haired man dressed primly in a suit stopped by. He held a miniature briefcase in one hand, along with a tablet of paper and a pen. Draco knew instantly who he was, and cringed when he was introduced. Harry had spent the night crammed into a nearby chair, and as usual, neither of them had managed to sleep, though they both pretended they had, for the other's sake.

"I'm Healer Gulewicz," the man claimed, and held onto Draco's hand a moment longer than was necessary. Draco narrowed his eyes and jerked his hand away. Harry, seeing Draco's reaction, sat up cautiously, fully prepared to kick the man out at the slightest hint from his charge.

"Draco Malfoy," Draco replied, and forced his face to remain impassive. Something about the guy was creeping him out. He was sure he'd never seen the man before, but he seemed to have a self-satisfied smirk which just begged to be punched from his lips.

"Draco, it's a pleasure. So, have they been treating you well here?" he asked genially. Draco forced his head to nod up and down.

Gulewicz seemed undeterred by Draco's reticence. "Excellent! Well, they've spent the last few days, I'm sure, checking you out to make sure you're not injured. It's now my job to poke around your brain to make sure you're progressing properly. Now, I understand that you're not going to want to talk to me openly just yet…"

Or at all, Draco added silently, and forced his lips not to pull into a sneer.

"…but I want you to know that you can tell me anything, I mean anything, and I won't tell a soul. In fact, legally, I can't."

"I know," Draco bit out. "I was raped, not brain-dead."

Healer Gulewicz rocked back on his heels and cocked his head, before turning to Harry.

"Mr. Potter, sir," he began, his voice barely containing his annoyance. "It seems your presence here is upsetting my patient. I'll have to ask you to leave."

"Like hell!" Harry snapped out coldly. "I'm staying right here."

"He's staying," Draco confirmed, and glared at the healer. "It's not him that's pissing me off."

Gulewicz sucked his teeth and raised the tablet, scribbling for a moment before turning his attention back to Draco. "Whatever you'd like, Mr. Malfoy," he agreed. "If you're more comfortable with Mr. Potter here, then so be it."

"I am. Now say your piece," Draco requested. He was sure his voice at least partially hid his disgust with the man, and still the little bastard scribble furiously for a few moments before once again raising his beady eyes to Draco's.

"Listen, Mr. Malfoy, I have to clear you before you can even think about getting out of here. Just you keep that in mind and cool your temper with me. Now we're going to do this right and proper and we're going to eliminate distractions. Alright?"

"Alright," Draco nearly snarled.

"So, Mr. Potter, please leave."

Draco cried out in indignation. "No! You just said he could stay!"

"But you're displaying a rather short temper, and I'd have to report that you're prone toward violence, and I don't want to do that. I have to know how you react to just the two of us, Draco, without interruptions or distractions."

"I never said you could use my first name," Draco snarled out, then snapped his gaze to Harry, questioning.

Harry shrugged, as if to say "it's up to you."

Draco sighed. "I'm fine, Harry," he decided. "And I'm sure you have things you should be doing right now. Thank you for sticking around."

Gulewicz sucked his teeth again and nodded, satisfied, while Harry stood to leave. "If you need me," Harry assured Draco. "I'll come."

Draco allowed his lips to twitch into a smile. "I'm sure of it," he agreed.

"So," Gulewicz began as the door clicked closed behind the "distraction." "How long have you and Harry been involved?"

Draco wasn't sure he'd heard right. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Gulewicz sucked his teeth once more, which was seriously starting to annoy Draco. "I'm sorry I had to kick him out, Draco, but I've seen one too many instances of a lover getting defensive, and in the end the experience is only more painful for all involved."

"Harry is not my lover," Draco growled, his voice leaving no room for argument.

"But… I… in the Daily Prophet…"

Draco felt his skin go cold. "What was in the Daily Prophet?"

"A picture of you and Harry, here in this bed. The reporter said that after he took a picture with his primary camera, he tried to get a close-up with his secondary, at which point it was ripped from his hands and crushed by one of your guards. He explained that he couldn't…"

"Do you have a copy of the paper?" Draco interrupted.

The healer seemed confused, and dug into the little briefcase he'd brought with him. "Sure, I have one right…"

Draco ripped the paper from the healer's hands right as he heard a bellow of rage echo through the halls. Draco froze, but the picture caught his attention, and he reluctantly skimmed the article and caption. What Gulewicz said was true. The article never outright said it, but it hinted that Harry Potter had reacted violently in defense of his lover, Draco Malfoy.

Draco kicked off the blankets and clamored to his feet.

"Dean!" he called out, racing to the door, ignoring the fact that his gown gaped open behind him.

Ron raced to Draco's side. "What is it?" he asked somewhat irritably.

"Where's Harry?" Draco asked, undeterred.

Ron rolled his eyes, and Draco understood that it was nothing personal. He was simply frustrated with his volatile commander. "I don't know, that's what we're trying to find out! He'd just sat down to read the paper when he suddenly pitched a fit and stormed out of here."

Draco thrust the healer's copy of the paper into Ron's hands and poked the article with one finger frantically. "That son of a bitch had a picture in a different camera, and ran the story! Only we were wrong, he wasn't just trying to make me look like an idiot, he was trying to make me and Harry look like flaming homosexuals!"

Ron paled as he quickly read the article.

"Ron, Harry's probably gone to either the Minister's or the Daily Prophet. Do you have any idea how pissed off he's going to be because of this? You have to stop him!"

Ron nodded and scampered away to find the others.

Draco sagged against the doorframe and growled in frustration. One more thing Harry had to worry about, and once again, it was his fault.

"Well," Gulewicz chuckled. "You just made my job a whole lot easier."

Draco scarcely had time to gasp in a startled breath, let alone time to pull away, as the healer clasped a hand around his wrist and apparated away.

Harry raged into the Daily Prophet headquarters, his fury crackling out in front of him as he ripped his way through the cubicles, bellowing the name of the slimy son of a bitch who had printed the article.

"Avery McCullough, get your ass out here, you worthless pig! We have to have a little chat!"

Ron and Dean arrived only moments behind him, and easily followed the line of strewn paperwork and crushed computers to where Harry was screaming his head off.

"Harry!" Ron snapped, and jerked Harry to a stop. "Be rational! You're going to get yourself arrested."

"No, I'm going to get that sleazy little son of a bitch arrested! He was ordered not to print that goddamned article, and he did it anyway! And not only that, but he made that bullshit up! That's against the fucking law!"

"Harry, actually it's not," Dean reasoned. "He never said anything outright. You have no legal standing here, Harry. Just calm down and think about it. Already the ministry is looking at you disapprovingly because of what happened with Mike. If you get arrested, the Minister will just have one more reason to make your life difficult. Don't let him have the satisfaction."

Harry growled but saw the logic in that. He glanced around and saw the damage he had already wrought.

"Shit," he groused, and waved his wand. The papers flew back to their rightful positions and the crashed computer monitors melded themselves.

One of the reporters finally found the courage to speak up. "Ah, Mr. Potter, sir, Avery took the day off," he explained, before ducking behind a filing cabinet in fear.

Ron smirked at the little man. "Probably because he knew you'd come looking for him," he told Harry, his voice laced with amusement.

Harry snorted and forced himself to calm down. "I'm sorry, people," he announced, and turned to his friends.

When he saw them both there, he froze. "Who's with Draco?" he snapped.

Ron and Dean exchanged glances. "Ah… the healer. Draco asked us to come make sure you didn't do anything stupid."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "That guy is a quack," he bit out. "Why did you leave Draco there alone?"

Dean tried to calm the once more irate man. "Harry, the guy's a healer, Draco is fine."

The panic in his heart, which he had initially thrown in with the fury of finding the article in print, roared to life, and once again, Harry felt the stifling pain of Draco's fear. "No, he's not!" He bit out, and apparated.

Ron and Dean followed immediately, their reflexes trained by years of experience as aurors. They appeared in the hallway to Draco's room and pushed in after Harry.

The room was empty.