A/N This chapter isn't quite as long as it seems, because there's a long a/n at the end…
The nurse stared down at Harry with a mean glint in her eye.
"And how often would you say you take inventory of these items?" the nurse asked brusquely, her quill and paper hovering by her in the air.
Harry looked up at her from his position on the bed, feeling incredibly lacking in authority and power. The fact that Malfoy was sitting in the chair by the bed, resting his feet on Harry's pillow and eating Harry's share of hospital pudding was not helping his sense of control over the situation.
"Maybe-" Harry paused and cleared his throat. "Maybe twice per month? Since, you know, you're never sure if they're going to run off." The nurse stared at him. Her quill began to write with the ferocity and speed of Rita Skeeter's Quick-Quotes Quill. "Because they do that," Harry continued. The quill sped up. "It's not a bad thing! They just do." He trailed off, refusing to continue justifying his actions to a quill.
"Please outline your physical symptoms in the event you do not complete this bi-monthly inventory."
Harry gaped at her. "Physical symptoms? I don't have any. I mean, I've never missed an inventory. I mean, what does it matter? I'm just checking them."
"Ask him about the heads," Malfoy mumbled around a mouthful of pudding.
The nurse's expression drew, if possible, tighter. "Do you have shrunken heads in your possession?"
"Only seven," Harry answered quickly.
"Do they speak?"
Harry threw his head back and groaned. "No. I've already been through this with the doctor. Do I really need to go through it all again?"
"Yes," Malfoy and the nurse spoken in unison.
The quill finished writing with a flourish, and the scroll rolled shut, dropping into the nurse's outstretched hand.
"You'll need to report for weekly check-ups," the nurse informed him. "And abstain from all manner of dark material. St Mungo's will write a letter detailing these requirements should you need to inform your employer."
"I don't need to inform my employer," Harry said quickly. "I'm not around dark objects at work."
"He's around potions," Malfoy interjected. "He'll need a note."
Harry swore violently. "They're not dark!"
"Not yet," Malfoy retorted, staring at Harry haughtily over his pudding spoon. "You'll need a note, in case."
The nurse snapped her fingers, and a scroll appeared on the bedside table. "Please sign the discharge forms at the front desk on your way out, Mr. Potter," she said, before leaving the room.
Harry pushed back the bed covers and stood up. Before he'd made it two steps across the room, the door opened again and someone burst through and attacked Harry.
Malfoy leaped to his feet and drew his wand, but Ron's entrance a second after Hermione stopped him just before he utterly destroyed his probation by hexing a pregnant lady. He sat back down again with a sneer, muttering something under his breath that sounded to Harry to be very much like "hormones".
Harry held Hermione back at arm's distance. "Hermione? Are you okay?"
Hermione wrestled out of his grasp. "Am I okay? Harry James Potter, are you insane? You're committed with Severe Proximity, and you're asking if I'm okay? It's worse than I thought." She turned to her husband. "Ronald, it's worse than I thought."
Ron held up his hands. "Don't Ronald me," he said defensively. "I haven't done anything."
Hermione glared, but turned back to Harry. Harry took a step back.
"When were you going to tell us?"
"Hermione, don't you think you should try to avoid getting worked up in that state?"
In the background, Ron dropped his head into his hands.
"What?!" Hermione shrieked. "You pull this sneaky, deliberate subterfuge, and then tell me to avoid getting worked up?"
Malfoy sighed and stood up. "Granger," he said calmly.
Hermione whipped her head toward him. "It's Weasley," she hissed.
Malfoy shrugged. "You'll always be Granger to me. Now, Granger, we all know that Potter is an idiot. I know it. You know it. He knows it, though he fights it every day, bless him. So if we can agree on this, and not bother with the whys and wherefores, I think we'll find this conversation a lot more productive. Potter has been discharged. He will not be allowed near dark artefacts for several months, until their residual taint has entirely disappeared from his magic."
Hermione frowned. "But, surely he can't be that tainted? How long has he been exposed to the collection?"
"Remember, Granger. He is an idiot."
"I'm right here," Harry reminded him, somewhat indignantly.
"Yes, so you could back me up, you know. You are an idiot, and you've been building your collection for several years, because you are an idiot."
Harry sat back down on the bed and groaned, while Hermione turned to him with a horrified expression.
"Years, Harry?" she whispered. "When were you going to tell us?"
"Maybe when I thought you might be able to have an adult conversation about it?" Harry snapped. "So what? I was collecting things. It's interesting. It's even helped me with my work. People have entirely the wrong attitude toward the dark arts. We should be working to understand it, so that it can't beat us."
"Yes, but that doesn't mean we let it into our homes."
Harry threw his hands up in exasperation. "Fine. I'm an idiot."
"Thank you." Malfoy shot him a grin.
Harry ignored him. "But it doesn't matter anymore, does it? They're all gone. Malfoy burned the whole damn lot. So I'm going cold turkey on the path to blissful, bloody ignorance, just like the rest of you."
Hermione frowned, but seemed to have run out of arguments. Ron stepped forward. "How are you feeling, mate?" he asked, after a tentative glance at his wife.
Harry smiled gratefully at him. "Pretty good, actually," he said. "I'll just go home and have a sleep or something."
"You should come back with us," Hermione suggested. "It will take several days for the cleansing spells to drain your apartment. It's best if you're not around them while it's happening."
"He's coming home with me," Malfoy interrupted. Harry looked over in surprise.
"Er," he said, while Hermione and Ron gaped at him. "Yeah. I'm going with Malfoy."
There was a pause. "I know you work together," Ron said carefully. "But, living together? Won't you kill each other?"
Ron had tried to understand Harry and Malfoy's work relationship, but had only ever been able to listen as far as "we still insult each other, but we don't really mean it anymore," before he was too drunk to comprehend anything further. Admittedly, Harry needed to be just as drunk to explain it, so they had quickly stopped trying.
"He'll be the perfect house-guest, I'm sure," Malfoy said drily. "And if he forgets to put the toilet seat down, I'm sure I'll manage."
Hermione finally nodded, although Ron still seemed perturbed, and they eventually made their way to the front desk to sign out.
"And you'll be careful, won't you, Harry?" Hermione asked seriously, after giving him a long hug goodbye. "You won't forget and accidentally go near any dark artefacts? I know it feels completely safe, but once they've tainted your magic, it's really hard to get rid of in one go. And you won't even notice it."
"I'll be fine, I promise," Harry assured her.
Ron and Hermione waved an awkward goodbye to Malfoy, and then they were apparating home to Malfoy's flat.
Harry stood in the hallway, unsure what to do now that the storm seemed to be over. Malfoy shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded his head down the corridor.
"Spare room's at the end," he said. "It's ready for you. I mean, it's ready. In general. So you can go straight to sleep if you want."
Harry was surprised to notice Malfoy's cheeks had gone a little pink. He'd never seen that before. He shook his head and moved down the corridor. "Yeah, thanks," he said. "I think I've crashed here before, haven't I? Though I was pretty drunk at the time."
"Yeah, probably," Malfoy's muffled reply came from the living room.
Harry went to the spare room, took off his shirt, and lay down immediately. He felt drained and confused. So much had happened so quickly, and he had no idea what he thought of it. Severe Proximity? He'd never even heard of that before. The idea that dark artefacts could taint your magic with prolonged exposure was something he'd simply never come across. Which seemed a strange concept, until he acknowledged that dark magic texts were hardly going to warn you away from them. Maybe he should have spent a little time reading the other point of view as well, even if he did disagree with most of it.
He shut his eyes. It didn't matter now, anyway. It was all over. He'd just stay here for a few days, sleeping beneath invasively green bed sheets, and trying not to think about the fact that Malfoy was sleeping only a few metres away on the other side of a wall.
His eyes snapped open. Where had that thought come from? The memory of Malfoy's pink cheeks forced its way into his head, and he sat up abruptly.
He didn't look at Malfoy that way. He didn't think about Malfoy that way. Where had those thoughts come from? He remembered the way Malfoy had looked at him, just before they had left for the hospital. He took a deep breath. It must simply be that he'd never had anyone stand up for him before, not like that. Hermione always did what she thought was right, but she never listened to what he had to say while doing it. She just doggedly went ahead with her plan unless proven wrong.
But Malfoy had looked at him, actually looked at him. Malfoy had cared about him. Cared enough to fight him, but to listen as well. Harry wasn't sure he'd ever had that before. Clearly it was confusing him. His thoughts were entirely muddled.
He got out of bed and made his way back to the living room. If he slept now, his thoughts would be full of Malfoy, and that was plainly unacceptable. He needed to remind himself just how much of a git Malfoy was, visually and intelligently, and then he'd be able to sleep soundly. Like a baby.
He grinned to himself. Fool-proof.
"Malfoy?" he called as he neared the doorway to the living room. "You in there or the kitchen?"
He rounded the corner and stopped at the sight of Malfoy standing in front of the fire and staring blankly ahead. His eyes were wide and unseeing. But more than that, there was an emotion there that Harry had never witnessed before. For all the apathy and boredom that Harry knew the two of them displayed on a daily basis, he had never seen Malfoy look so completely lost and afraid.
Then he noticed Harry. The expression was gone in an instant, so quickly that Harry could almost have sworn it was never there to begin with. Malfoy opened his mouth to speak, but stopped suddenly. He looked down at Harry's shirtless torso and swallowed.
Harry had the sudden, inescapable image in his mind of Malfoy's hands running across his skin, tracing the path his eyes had just taken. Harry's stomach jolted in approval.
It was too much. He turned and fled back to the spare room, yelling "G'night!" behind him.
A/N Hi all, so this a/n is a little bit of a downer. I debated a bit before deciding to write it, and you'll see why rather quickly. As often happens with things that I write (I'm guessing this is a writer thing, rather than being unique to me), it soon becomes apparent that the themes/ideas/whatever that I'm drawing on suddenly - and weirdly - become present in RL. Unless you're living under a rock, it should be obvious that I'm drawing parallels in this story with drug addiction. Well, shortly after starting this story, I learned that my closest friend is struggling quite heavily with addiction - heroin and ice. Largely, this revelation has had no impact on this story, although I am emotionally aware of it as I write certain scenes and draw on certain experiences. Honestly, this story is quite cathartic in that respect. However, recently things have gotten quite bad in RL, and I'm not 100% convinced that this real story is going to have a happy ending. Why am I telling you all this? Because I'm a stupidly honest person. And because, from now on, there might suddenly be long gaps in chapter releases, and I feel that if people are questioning it or getting upset, it will make me feel dreadful to suddenly drop this bomb on people who are not expecting it. Or to sit there in silence while people wonder where I am. All this being said, I actually don't expect I'll be any slower updating than usual… this story truly is cathartic, and when you're dealing with something like this (some of you may know), life has this strange way of carrying on even when you feel like all time should stop and space should come crashing down on our heads. So, when you read the humor in this story, please don't think "wow, what a heartless bitch, she's clearly ignoring the very real danger going on". That's not what's happening. This story is just largely removed from the real situation, and I'm able to lose myself in these characters and their choices, which will have a happy ending. But RL might not. And I might disappear suddenly. And I might not be able to write certain scenes with where I know this is going. So please bear with me if that happens. I'm sorry for over-sharing something so dramatic and largely unnecessary; I'm a sharing, talkative sort of person, and this story has been so relevant to everything that I wanted to add something now, since I don't know what will happen in the future. Sometimes things look up. Sometimes things look down. That's the nature of drug addiction. You take it one hour at a time. Also, if you were all set to make a happy comment about the chapter, please still do. I don't want to change how you feel about this story. And I still want to hear that you enjoy it. I would prefer you comment on the story and totally ignore this note, rather than the other way around. Even now, I'm thinking of removing this bloody a/n because I'm anticipating responses that assume I'm writing it for the drama and attention. A valid point, and certainly not unheard of on the internet. I assure you, I'm not. But if you think I am, please feel free to ignore this note entirely, thereby not giving me the 'satisfaction' of the attention you think I'm craving. I really don't care. It's just a note. It's past midnight, and I want to say it.