A/N Thank you so much, all of you, for the lovely things you've said :) You're all absolutely amazing people and I'm so grateful that for some bizarre reason you're still here reading this and being supporting of a complete stranger. I didn't mean to disappear for so long between updates. Just haven't found the time or energy to sit down and move on with this one, particularly with the Quidditch League coming up to finals. But it's moving along now! (Update - she's doing well at the moment... It's been a messy month, but things are looking okay for now.) (This is unbeta'd, since I just wanted to update...)

When Harry woke up, it took him several minutes to work out that it was Sunday and that he was lying in Draco Malfoy's spare bed. He froze, trying to work out why that thought made him uncomfortable yet strangely tingly at the same time.

The image of fingers on skin ran through his head again, and he leaped out of bed with a yelp.

Footsteps sounded quickly in the corridor and the door suddenly burst open.

"Potter?" Malfoy ran through, looking all around the room as if expecting it to be full of people. "What happened? Did you bring some of it with you?"

"What?" Harry snapped, crossing his arms to cover his chest. "No. What the hell, Malfoy?"

Malfoy finished his assessment of the room and visibly relaxed. He turned to Harry, his usual sneer falling back into place. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I just think the worst of someone who has so far proven to reckless, impulsive, and generally pig-headed in the face of their own health? My mistake. I guess I should give you the benefit of the doubt."

Harry ran his hand through his hair, relaxing now that his ears and eyes had happily reminded him that Malfoy was an arsehole. "Sod off," he said with a grin. "What's for breakfast?"

Malfoy left the room, talking to Harry over his shoulder. "I only cook for people with basic human etiquette. Put a shirt on."

Harry rolled his eyes, but grabbed a t-shirt from his hastily packed bag on the floor. By the time he had made it into the kitchen, Malfoy was already poaching eggs, with bacon sizzling in another pan. Harry found it surprisingly domestic.

"So, I had to cancel on Pavarti last night," Malfoy said casually. Although there was no accusation in his tone, Harry felt guilty. "So we're going out for lunch. Do you think you'll be alright here on your own?"

Harry looked up to find Malfoy watching him. He was momentarily taken aback by the intensity in his eyes, and it hit him again just how strange it was to have Malfoy caring for him. Light hearted, vaguely insulting camaraderie was one thing, empathy and concern was another. And yet, it didn't feel as strange as it should.

"I'll be fine," he said. "Enjoy your date."

Malfoy watched him for a beat longer, before turning back to the eggs. "You'll feel a little light headed for a few days," he continued. "But since we destroyed everything, it should pass without you experiencing too many symptoms."

"What sort of symptoms?" Harry asked, taking a seat.

Malfoy made an exasperated noise. "Honestly, were you even paying attention last night? The itching, the restlessness, the inability to concentrate, and, of course, the undeniable urge to dabble in the dark arts." He gave Harry a pointed look.

Harry remembered the offering he had made and stayed silent. As much as it hurt, it probably was a good thing that his entire collection had been destroyed.

"You'll also likely be a temperamental arsehat," Malfoy added. "But we're used to that, aren't we, dear?"

Harry threw the salt shaker at his head. Malfoy floated it onto the shelf with a casual flick of his hand. "No need to prove my point with a demonstration. No one was questioning it."

They ate their breakfast in relative silence. Malfoy seemed oddly moody, which Harry attributed to him missing his date with Pavarti, and Harry was in no mood to talk either. Now that Malfoy had brought it up, he felt restless and irritable, though he didn't know if he was bringing it on himself by expecting it.

"Right," Malfoy said, standing up. "I'm going to get ready and leave. I know I destroyed your apartment, but please don't return the favour while I'm gone. You deserved it; I don't."

Harry raised an eyebrow in response.

"And I can see the temperamental arsehattedness has already begun," Malfoy said with a smirk. "Perfect time for me to leave." He sent the dishes to the sink with another wave of his hand, and left the room.

Harry stood and looked around awkwardly. If he were at home, he would have had any number of books to read or objects to investigate. Or at least, he would have before yesterday. But here, at Malfoy's flat, he didn't know what he could look at without it being considered prying.

He moved into the living room and sat down on the couch. There was a well-stocked bookcase by the fire. Surely that was acceptable? He stood and read some of the titles.

"Westerns? Are you bloody serious, Malfoy?"

"Yeehaw!" Malfoy yelled from the bathroom.

Harry pulled a book down and flipped to a random page. He read a paragraph and shoved it back, his lip curled in disgust.

Malfoy leaned around the corner of the doorway, running a comb through his hair and bringing a cloud of cologne with him. "They're utterly fascinating," he said airily. "Clumsy dueling, macho dialogue that is clearly an overcompensation. I can't get enough of them. Consider them a guilty pleasure."

Harry stared at Malfoy, his mouth hanging open. Never in his life had he pictured that Malfoy would have a guilty pleasure, particularly one as tacky as this. Who knew that living with Malfoy would so quickly reveal more about his Auror partner than four years of close quarters had done.

Malfoy finished combing his hair and straightened his shirt. "There are classics in there too, if you're going to be a snob about it," he said with a smirk, turning back to the bathroom.

Draco Malfoy had just called him a snob. Harry ran his fingers through his hair, wondering if he could put this morning down to withdrawal symptoms.

"I'm off. Don't wait up," Malfoy called after him.

Harry heard the front door slam, and then he was alone. He went to sit on the couch, and then stopped at the last second, moving instead to the armchair by the fire.

He was not reading a Western; he was sure of that. He drummed his fingers on the armchair, staring around the room. He could play cards, but that was boring. Hermione and Ron were busy - they had told him that last night. Regrettably, of course, but nonetheless - busy. He could owl Amy, but he didn't feel like a last minute date.

He didn't feel like a last minute anything. He didn't want to see anyone, but he needed to move. To do something. He scratched idly at his arm, before he realised exactly what was happening and smacked himself in the forehead.

He looked down at his arm and saw small droplets of blood swelling to the surface. He frowned - how long had he been scratching? Until now, he hadn't particularly thought much of his apparent illness. He had been told he had Severe Proximity, but what did that really matter? Malfoy had destroyed his possessions, and he could move home in a few days. It was all over.

But here were the symptoms Malfoy had mentioned. Maybe this was going to be more uncomfortable than he had thought. Maybe it was time he took this seriously.

He pulled down Moby Dick from the bookshelf and began to read.

One hour later, he realised just exactly how seriously he needed to take this. His arm was covered in long gauges that he couldn't bring himself to heal, for fear that he'd just make them again. He felt like wasps were buzzing beneath his skin, he had such an intense need to move, to do something. Anything.

Well, one thing, mainly.

He threw the book across the room and began to pace. This couldn't be right. He had never felt like this before. This had to be because Malfoy had destroyed his collection. What had Malfoy said? He removed one item as a token effort, and the rest protested? Well, something was certainly protesting now. There had been things that Malfoy couldn't destroy, that he'd simply vanished instead, and of course Harry would still be linked to them. They would still be affecting him.

He needed to find them. He needed to stop what was going on in his head and in his skin so that he could think clearly and figure out how to fix this. Clearly, sudden abstinence was madness.

And really, the problem was that they were in his house. Not that he had them at all. Malfoy had said that destruction was the only way, but he had destroyed more than two thirds of them. It would be fine. Malfoy was just overreacting.

He began searching through the cupboards in the living room before realising that there was no way that Malfoy would keep anything in here. Harry ran his hands through his hair and tried to think through the buzzing. He would have to have stored them far away from here. In all likelihood, Harry wouldn't be able to find them. Particularly since Malfoy couldn't be found in possession of such items anyway, or the Ministry would revoke his pardon.

Which meant Harry would have to get something new. He ran through his list of suppliers in his head, settling on who would be the most likely to have current stock available at the last minute. He ran to the spare bedroom, grabbed his Invisibility Cloak, and disapparated.

Forty minutes later, he stored the knife safely in Kreacher's closet at Grimmauld Place. His supplier had assured him that the knife had been used in Death Eater rituals from Voldemort's first reign, and had a reputation of bringing ill luck to the owner. Harry had owned plenty of ill luck items, and none of them had ever made a difference to his own fortune. It was silly superstition.

But the knife was perfect. Harry had run through several blood magic spells, before settling on another strength giver. It gave him an odd sense of satisfaction, to use the very instruments that were apparently destroying him, to help him overcome them. He adjusted the knife on its cloth bed and left.

Arriving back at Malfoy's flat, he suddenly found the Westerns far easier to stomach. Humorous, even. His head felt clear for the first time in days, and when he healed the cuts on his arm he had no desire to make them again.

He read several chapters of a Western titled Gunslinger, before putting it down and leaning back with a contented sigh. He'd been wrong to get caught up in Malfoy's fear. After living with Voldemort for so long, and with his probation resting on his choices, Malfoy was understandably against all forms of dark magic. And Hermione - of course Hermione would be dead against him touching even the slightest artefact until this Severe Proximity, whatever it was, was out of his system.

But he had lasted four years before anything had gone wrong. He didn't need to go cold turkey; he just needed to distance himself from it and keep it out of his house. Coming to that realisation made him feel such a sense of relief and calm that, for the first time, he felt confident about the way forward. They were just overreacting because they were scared and used to the need to be cautious.

He felt his eyes droop, and wondered if he should feel guilty at the thought of a nap. He decided that no, he had earned it. He wriggled further into the chair, searching for that comfortable position that would let him drift off. Something dug into his back.

He reached down behind the seat and pulled out a small book with a red cover. He moved to toss it aside, when the title caught his attention.

The Cowboy's Choice

This didn't sound like the other Westerns Malfoy read. Harry opened it up in the middle and began to read.

Billy's eyes slid up to Jed's, and he became painfully aware that there was no one left in the house but the two of them. Without looking away, Billy moved his hand lower, to the band of his jeans. He hooked his thumb through one of the belt loops and let his fingers fall idly to the front.

Jed's eyes followed the movement, his pupils wide and dark.

"I was thinking," Billy said quietly.

Harry yelped and dropped the book. For several long minutes, Harry stared at the book in his lap as if it might suddenly grow fangs and attack him. The sound of his heartbeat thudded in his ears, and when he swallowed he swore it must be audible through the entire flat.

Malfoy was reading this. The words 'guilty pleasure' flooded Harry's brain until he could think of little else.

This was more than a guilty pleasure. This was…

… this was something he had never considered. In all the dates he had gone on, in all the idle dreams he had dallied in while stroking himself to completion, he had never imagined that his partner could be a man.

Even last night, when thoughts of Malfoy had…

He swallowed again, the sound echoing in his ears. It had been a passing thought, not a possibility. He knew that people were gay, of course. He wasn't living under a rock. But for some reason, while growing up, he had never considered it as something that could apply to someone he knew. Certainly not to himself. Oddly, he had found himself a little too preoccupied with death to be focusing on things like that.

And then, by the time he had grown up, all of those details were clearly already worked out, so he had never spared it another thought. The fact that his dates were always somewhat lacklustre was simply due to the fact that he hadn't found the right woman yet. His thoughts of Malfoy were an obscenity brought on by stress and the well overdue need for a proper date.

Unless they weren't. And if they weren't, it was clear that Malfoy wasn't exactly… adverse to the idea.

Harry picked up the book carefully, between his thumb and forefinger. The Cowboy's Choice. It wasn't a choice, but you could choose to ignore it. What if Harry had accidentally chosen to ignore it, because he was too preoccupied with Voldemort? What if Harry had ignored it for all of his teenage years, and then, by the time he was ready to date properly, he had just assumed that he was straight? Because for christ's sake, he'd have to be an idiot to not know his sexuality by then.

No. This was too illogical. He would have to be an idiot. Surely he would have noticed. His hormones should have kicked in, if nothing else. A preoccupation with Voldemort could not justify this, no way.

But then, he had been somewhat preoccupied with someone else for his teenage years, too.

Harry's heartbeat quickened, his mind racing to keep up. Thoughts of Malfoy, bantering lightly with him in the pub, filled his mind. He remembered Malfoy standing up for him, respecting him. He remembered, more recently, Malfoy caring for him in a way that no one else had quite managed to do.

Tentatively, he brought to his mind the images he had fought to repress - Malfoy, running his hands along Harry's bare skin. It wasn't unwelcome. It was really, really not unwelcome.

Fuck. He wasn't just gay.

He was in love with Draco Malfoy.