Chapter 33

Several people piled in to the hospital ward, filling the room with their good humor and laughter.

A chorus of "Malfoy!" went up, as Draco was suddenly surrounded by Hufflepuffs.

Potter entered last, still in his Auror gear, as if he'd just gotten off duty.

"A few people wanted to see you. I told them you were 'dying' for some company."

Draco glared at him, both for the really poor joke, and for the way he'd just dumped a bunch of unwanted guests on him.

Before he could fire a retort at Potter, Ernie clapped him heartily on his injured shoulder, and he hissed in pain instead.

"Oh, sorry, mate! Wasn't thinking! Ooh, is that Honeydukes chocolate?"

"MacMillan," Draco growled warningly, "what happened to our rule?"

"What, the five-feet-away rule?" Ernie asked. "That's only out in public. Surely you don't expect me to keep to that here in the hospital!"

Draco growled again, his hand twitching towards his wand. Ernie laughed, but quickly side-stepped to stand behind Susan, who rolled her eyes at them both.

"How are you feeling, Draco?" Hannah asked, her sincere tone causing Draco to swallow back his initial sarcastic retort. The blonde Hufflepuff was one of the few people Draco could not bring himself to be rude to. She was far too kind for him to justify it. She'd never once brought up her mother, and though her eyes slid from his arm on the rare occasions she'd glimpsed the remains of his Dark Mark, she never lashed out at him for any of it. He was often ridiculously grateful for how her warmth never wavered.

He thought, crankily, that he was getting soft.

"Terrible," he answered truthfully, his voice only slightly less gruff than usual. "My whole body hurts and my arm feels like hell."

"Told you he was fine," Justin said, clearly continuing a previous conversation they'd been having.

"How could me saying I feel terrible possibly translate in your little mind to being fine?" Draco asked, incredulously.

In response, Justin clutched his arm in exaggerated pain, his voice suddenly high-pitched and whiny. "Oh, it hurts! It hurts! I might lose my entire arm! My father will hear about this!"

All the Hufflepuffs and Harry roared with laughter at this impression of Draco from their third year, after he'd been injured by a Hippogriff.

"See?" Justin grinned at him, his voice returning to normal. "That's how we know you're fine."

Draco's only response was to glare at all of them, even Hermione, whose lips were twitching like she was trying not to laugh.

"I'll have you know," he said loftily, lying through his teeth, "that my arm really was in terrible condition for the remainder of that year from that insufferable beast."

The crowd only laughed harder. Ernie collapsed into the closest chair, his shoulders shaking.

"Oh, Draco, stop," Susan gasped, wiping at her eyes. She snorted with laughter again when Draco huffed in indignation.

She leaned over to put a kiss on the side of his head. "I'm glad you're feeling better, though. We were all worried about you."

Her quiet words took the ire right out of him. Once again, Draco couldn't seem to bring himself to be rude any further, even though he still thought the group was having far too much fun mocking him.

His eyes darted over to Hermione, and her soft, indulgent smile made him flush slightly. If he kept acting like this, she was going to be convinced these people really were his friends, instead of an infestation he couldn't seem to shake.

"Yeah, mate," Ernie said, suddenly serious again, "you really worried us. You couldn't have left us a more obvious sign? Lost a year off my life digging you up out of your self-made grave." He shuddered at the memory.

Susan grimaced. "We wouldn't have figured it out if not for Harry. It's a good thing he didn't listen to Kingsley and insisted on going back out into the field. Even though he could barely stay on his broom." She rolled her eyes at this foolhardiness. "But he absolutely refused to leave until you'd been found."

"Oh, Hermione did all the hard work," Harry protested, modestly. "She knew what the flowers meant."

"Yeah, but you were the one that put it all together," Hermione admitted. "If I'd been thinking clearly, I might have made sense of it, but you were the one that realized what the point of the message was."

Draco sneered at the way they all took credit for what was ultimately his own brilliance in coming up with the message in the first place.

"How did you know Harry would even notice the flowers?" Hannah asked, having been apprised of the entire story. "He could have flown right past them and never seen anything amiss."

"Oh, that was the easy part," Draco scoffed. "I made them the exact same shade as Ginny Weasley's hair."

There was dead silence while the entire group contemplated this ingenious stratagem. Then the room erupted in shouts.

"Brilliant, mate, just brilliant!"

"Good thinking! Harry was sure to notice!"

"That's Ginny Potter now, Malfoy."

"Well, you have to admit she's got Weasley hair."

Draco couldn't help grinning at the goodwill from the group, even when Ernie slapped him lightly on his shoulder again. He didn't even remind the man to step back to the required five feet of distance.

"Oh, and don't forget," Hermione pointed out, "how Ernie tossed Auror Edwards out on his vicious, back-stabbing arse."

"Hear, hear!" the crowd cheered.

Ernie took a fake bow, though his cheeks pinked a little bit at the enthusiastic congratulations of his uncharacteristic aggression.

Draco tried to ignore the warmth that flowed through him as he looked out on the friendly faces. This was a very far cry from the last time he'd been stuck in the hospital.

He almost liked it. The exuberance, the camaraderie, the laughter, even the pats of affection on his arm. Maybe if the room wasn't filled with a bunch of Gryffindorks and Hufflepests, he'd be more pleased.

"Don't suppose that's earned me a piece of chocolate?" Ernie asked slyly. "I did defend your honor and all."

Draco started growling again and reached up to snatch the chocolates out of stealing distance. But his reflexes were slow, and Hermione had already taken one of them from his tray.

"Of course, Ernie! Draco would want to share with his best friend."

Ernie squeaked excitedly at her words.

Draco started to protest, "He's not my—" but quickly shut his mouth when he saw how pleased Ernie was. The man looked like he was about to cry, and Draco didn't have the heart to disabuse him of the notion that they were friends in front of everyone.

He could always blame it later on the potions and the injuries, instead of him being weak from spending so much time with non-Slytherins.

Hermione grinned at him, clearly knowing the dilemma he was having in his mind. He scowled at her, promising retribution later.

"So when are you getting out of here?" Hannah asked. She looked around at the mostly-empty room. "Not that the accommodations aren't nice, but you must be antsy to get home."

"Not till he's properly discharged," Hermione said, a warning in her voice, as if she expected him to bolt any minute.

Ignoring her, he answered the question. "Actually, I expect I should be able to leave any time. The only time I'm not feeling well is when cold, unfeeling Healers," he paused to glare significantly at Hermione, "force me to take the potions for my arm."

Hermione just smiled serenely at him. "I'll be sure to tell Healer Robbins you said so."

That caused him to recoil in distaste. She'd probably make him take a double dose next time.

"Well," Hannah said, politely, "whenever the Healers say you're ready for duty again, of course."

"And don't worry about Harry," Ernie chimed in, as if Draco was actually concerned about the foolhardy Gryffindor. "We're taking care of him until you get back."

"You're his partner?" Draco couldn't quite keep the horror out of his voice.

"Nah," Harry said, "it's not like you'll be out more than a few days. I've taken a page out of your book, and I'm flying solo right now."

Susan and Ernie looked at each other and laughed.

"He likes to think he is," Susan said. "But actually, there's three teams assigned to him, since he's not entirely recovered from his own ordeal. So instead of a partner, he has more like an entire Quidditch team."

"Just like old times, then, Harry," Justin said, making everyone laugh again.

When the good-natured ribbing finally died down, Susan started ushering everyone back out again. "Can't have us taking all your energy for too long," she said. "You need it for your recovery."

Everyone gave him hugs as they took their leave, which Draco awkwardly accepted under Hermione's knowing gaze. He didn't even make a Hugglepuff joke, but that was mostly because it was very overdone, and would possibly open him up to more and fiercer huggings.

Harry was the only one of the visitors who didn't leave. He pulled out a chair like he meant to settle in for longer.

Once the room was quiet again, Harry asked, "How would you feel about getting out of here early?"

Draco's eyebrows shot up into his hairline. "Got a plan to break me out of here, do you?"

"Absolutely not!" Hermione interjected. "No Invisibility Cloaks, no staged diversions, no steamrolling the Healers with your fame."

Harry ignored her protests good-naturedly. "Really, how's the arm, Malfoy?"

"About as well as could be expected," Draco hedged. "How's yours doing, Potter?"

Harry flexed his arm out, as if to show that it was doing fine. But Draco noticed that there was a glove still covering his hand.

By unspoken agreement, neither man mentioned in front of Hermione that while their bleeding had slowed to a trickle, it wouldn't stop completely. The Healers had been fussing over them both, trying various potions and spells, but the wounds just wouldn't seal.

Harry was fortunate that it was mostly just his hand with the slow bleed, while there was some spiderwebbing and bruised veins running up his forearm.

Draco had a bandage over his chest that required changing twice a day, with heavy purple bruising up his shoulder and down his arm. Since Draco made sure Hermione wasn't present for the bandage changes, she wasn't aware that the magical bandage was hiding how much blood he was still losing.

Blood-Replenishing Potions were going to be a staple of his diet for the foreseeable future.

"I'm mostly on desk duty at the moment, trying to analyze the information we got from the raid." Harry's eyes flicked over to Hermione, clearly trying to gauge how much information to say in front of a non-Auror. "I could use another opinion on some things and a fresh set of eyes."

"Meaning you need me to do your homework for you," Draco said, trying not to be pleased that Harry seemed to be asking him for help.

"Only if you think you're up to returning to duty," Harry challenged, letting the teasing remark pass him by.

"Ready when you are."

Harry nodded, but Hermione wasn't convinced.

"Wait, you haven't said what your plan is, yet, Harry!"

He turned to her. "It's basically just an agreement to be monitored constantly and have your health data recorded. Since the hospital has done about all they can do, there's no use having you sitting around taking up space and attention."

"Monitored by whom?" Draco asked, suspiciously.

Harry shrugged. "A Healer, ideally. A particularly thorough and overprotective family member, otherwise. Ginny basically asks me a hundred questions and performs diagnostic spells on me just about every 10 minutes." He released a long-suffering sigh.

Draco knew he must be exaggerating, though, since obviously Harry had been in his room for longer than 10 minutes, and the ginger hadn't popped up to report on his vital signs.

He thought this over. "So basically, I find someone capable, practical, conscientious, and meticulous," he could tell his words caused a set of ears beside him to prick up, "to agree to watch over me at all times and make sure I don't die, and then I can go home?"

Harry's lips twitched in his amusement. "Basically. Assuming there isn't someone like that in your life—because who would want to be around you, after all?—you could always hire a mediwitch."

"Harry," Hermione chastised. "I'll do it, of course."

"I couldn't ask that kind of sacrifice of you, Hermione. No, we'll hire someone. I'm sure Malfoy can afford it."

She giggled and then said she'd go talk to the mediwitches and get the exact parameters of the monitoring requirements.

As soon as she left the room, Harry turned a hard look onto Draco. "You sure you don't want to hire someone, Malfoy?"

Draco scoffed. "Mediwitches are rude and mean. I need someone far more gentle putting their hands on my delicate Malfoy skin."

Harry made a face at the image. "At least I know Hermione will alert the hospital the minute, the very minute, something unusual happens. You haven't had any weird physical reactions since the incident?" He switched from teasing to serious very quickly, knowing that Hermione was going to be back soon.

"No," Draco replied, honestly. "My energy levels are not quite up to their full amount, and the potions for speeding up the healing hurt like hell."

Flexing his own arm in sympathy, Harry grimaced. "Yeah, I don't think those are working. The Aurors analyzing the Dark Artifact are saying how the Artifact itself prevents the wounds from healing. But they can't find any traces of a curse in the wounds. They haven't figured out how it made the wounds, either. The whole department is in a dither."

"We can do some more research into the rites the Death Eaters were performing," Draco suggested, trying to remember what he'd seen in that clearing in the forest.

"One more thing," Harry said, his glance sliding to the doorway as if to confirm that Hermione wasn't coming back in yet. "My magic levels haven't been as strong."

"What?"

"While running through the standard Auror spells, to make sure I was fit for duty, I noticed that all of my spells were coming out slightly weaker than normal. They still do the job, but it's like my magic is also weak and recovering like my arm is. I haven't figured out the connection yet."

"Have you mentioned this to Kingsley?"

It was Harry's turn to scoff. "Of course not, he'd take me off duty. And this isn't the time to be worrying about that. I can still do all the things I need to do. I'm just letting you know to keep an eye on your strength. If your experience is anything like mine, you might have the same effects. So don't rely too heavily on any spells you haven't tried recently."

Draco thought solemnly about spells failing them in battle. If Harry was right, this was a serious matter. If something reduced their magic levels, they were in trouble, and there was no guarantee their magic would return as strong as it had been. But if they told Kingsley, he'd take them off-duty for sure, and then they wouldn't have the chance to figure out what was going on. He didn't trust the other Aurors to have the same instincts for getting to the root of the problem.

He nodded, having come to the same conclusion that Harry wanted him to.

"Is this what it feels like?" Draco asked.

"What what feels like?"

"Keeping secrets and making plans, in an effort to save all life as we know it, racing a clock of death."

Harry laughed at Draco's overly dramatic statements, his boyish grin causing Draco to flashback to their school years. What an odd feeling to be the recipient of the laughter, rather than a victim of it. He might never get used to being a team with Harry Potter.

"Pretty much, it feels exactly like this. Scary and exhilarating at the same time, right, Malfoy?"

Ugh, Gryffindors.

Then Harry glanced at his wrist cuff. "Ginny's calling me back so she can do her check-ups." He tapped the silver item on his wrist. "Now that you have one, make sure you stay in touch. If anything changes, let me know. And I'll keep you posted on anything I find out."

Draco looked at his own wrist cuff, noting Harry's old message had already been wiped away. It was only the sleek little animal sitting there waiting.

He looked up to see Harry had leaned over and was examining the workmanship on it, too.

"Nice, I see she's updated the style a bit."

Alarmed at how close he was, Draco sneered at him. "Not a word, Potter." He had to refrain from self-consciously covering up the design with his other hand.

Harry just grinned and peered closer at it. "And look, Hermione even signed it with her otter." Considering, he added, almost to himself, "Probably put some extra wards in it, too. I bet she finds a way to make it give her the vital signs she needs for monitoring."

Draco's eyes narrowed. He glanced down at the cuff again, and the beaming little animal design. Looking up at Harry, Draco asked, "That looks like an otter to you?"

"Of course," Harry said, surprised. "What else would it be?"

Draco continued to stare at him suspiciously. The open, innocent look on Harry's face was almost too innocent.

"Hmmpf," was Draco's only contribution.

Harry looked at his own cuff again, just as Hermione came back in the room. "Ginny's calling, gotta go." As he headed out the door, he turned over his shoulder and said, "Even if you go home, take at least one more day off, and come in on Friday."

"Bye, Harry!" Hermione called out to him.

Then she turned to Draco with a big smile. "I talked to Healer Robbins and we got it all worked out! I have a big list of items that need constant checking." She waved a sheaf of parchments at him, before stuffing them into her bag. "But they said that you can be cleared to go, and we'll take a supply of your potions for later."

Draco made a face.

"They also said you were free to eat whatever you wanted," Hermione continued. "And you can even do moderate exercise, as long as you don't tire yourself out, or use your arm too much. Not that you really ought to be doing much, since Harry said you two would most likely be on desk duty, anyway."

Draco pretended to consider those limitations very seriously. "I do have a few things in mind that require a bit of exertion. But I'm sure I can creatively find a way not to rely on my arm too heavily."

"Sure," Hermione agreed, readily. "I can probably help with some things, too."

His smile was very wide at her words. "Oh, good. I was so hoping you would say that. I will definitely require your participation."

"Why would—oh!" she said, suddenly coloring up as he continued to leer at her.

Her flushed and embarrassed face was adorable. Now that he knew for sure he was going to go home, he had a very good idea of how he wanted to spend his first evening back.

"Er," Hermione said, avoiding his eyes, "the Healers probably didn't mean that."

"'Moderate exercise,'" he quoted. "As long as you don't pick any particularly strenuous positions, I think we'll be fine."

"Draco!" Hermione's face managed to get even pinker, a good sign that she probably had a position in mind. He would make sure to find out what it was before worrying about things like Dark Artifacts and Death Eaters and lost magic.

He smirked at her, suddenly very energetic indeed as he tossed the bedsheets back. "So when do we leave?"

A/N: Ah, Hufflepuffs! Did I ever tell you all that I'm a Hufflepuff now? I wasn't when I started writing this story. I wasn't when I wrote all the Hufflepuffs into Chapter 24. But then I had to reopen my Pottermore account, and it sorted me Puff, and I have never been the same. So I'm extra fond of the Puffs in this story.

Special thanks to AkashaTheKitty for coming up with "Hufflepests" just when I needed a new nickname. And to SleepyGrimm for all her covers. And my regular support team of Inkers, and my bestest beta brandinm05.

And now, an outtake that I wanted to put in, but the references were so obscure, there was no way I could make it fly. But I can't not share it for all two of you who will find it amusing.

[From the scene in the hospital ward]

Harry: The wheel weaves as the wheel wills.

Draco: What are you talking about?

Harry [to Hermione]: I thought you said he had the books?

Hermione: I'm sure he hasn't gotten around to reading them, yet. Stop bugging him, he needs his rest.

Harry: I just wanted to know what Ajah he's in, is all.

Hermione: Harry!

Draco: What WHAT I'm in?

Harry: I'm Green, of course.

Hermione: You're being ridiculous. Of course you're not Green Ajah. You're surely a Warder.

Harry: Can't. I'm pretty sure Ginny is Red.

Draco: What are you both on about?

Harry: Draco's probably Red, too. Probably thinks he's the Highest.

Draco: Whatever it is, I probably AM the highest.

Hermione: Harry, just go and let Draco recover in peace, please.

Harry [salutes]: Yes, Captain-General.

[Harry leaves]

Draco: I may not have figured out this whole Ajah thing yet, but one thing I know is that there's no way Harry Potter is not Lews Therin Telamon.

Hermione: You really are Red, aren't you?

S&R: CONSTRUCTIVE REVIEWS WELCOME (CRW), which means all reviews are welcome, and if you feel inclined to leave me some constructive criticism, I'd be happy to receive it.