Title: What Can I Do?

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.

Information: Non-epilogue compliant. Features Draco and Harry as Aurors. No previous DM/AG, only very vague, brief references to previous HP/GW.

Warning: Male/male pairing and smut. You have been warned.

Summary: Draco has been hit by a curse. He needs some serious looking after and guess who's volunteered?

Author's Notes: I've not posted anything for a long time and I have no beta so I apologise for any mistakes in advance. I've no idea where this came from but I hope someone enjoys it!

Chapter 1: Cursed

"I'm sorry Mr Malfoy, there is nothing more we can do."

Those were the words Draco had been dreading and half expecting, though he still refused to believe them, even as his heart sank to the bottom of his Auror issue boots. He scowled and tried to gesture angrily, before he realised that no, he still couldn't move or feel either of his arms. They hung uselessly by his sides, numb from just above his elbows to the very tips of his fingers.

Merlin, there had to be something they could do. His throat worked frantically as he tried to form words, but his tongue seemed to have glued itself to the top of his mouth and his throat was so dry he thought any noise he managed to make might simply result in a coughing fit. He wouldn't even be able to cover his mouth if that happened, he realised grimly.

"You mean he's stuck like this forever?"

Draco didn't realise he'd closed his eyes until he was forced to pry them open to look over at Potter.

Stupid Potter. It was his fault he was in this mess in the first place. Well, his and Weasley's and Peterson's. Draco held them all responsible for the fact that he had been on the receiving end of a curse from a very pissed off dragon smuggler they'd been tasked with capturing. Potter's only redemption in this instance was that Draco didn't blame him quite so much as he blamed Peterson. Peterson was Draco's Auror partner; he was supposed to look out for him. He was supposed to fling himself in front of him when a curse came his way.

Not that Draco would have done so for him, but then Peterson always considered himself more heroic. Surely he should have done something like that?

No, of course not. He wouldn't risk his life for a former Death Eater any more than any of the rest of the team would, even if the two of them had managed to reach a level of partnership akin to mutual tolerance in the year they had worked together. It wasn't even helping his frame of mind that Potter and Weasley had run through the door a moment later and Potter had managed to hit the man with a curse that had temporarily turned him into a giant sea urchin. Draco thought rather smugly that Potter would probably get in trouble for that – it certainly wasn't in the standard Auror arsenal of spells.

Actually Potter didn't seem to be concerned about that at the moment, in fact he was looking at the Healer with a sort of frantic desperation, as if he couldn't believe that her words were really true.

Probably feeling guilty, Draco thought, his smugness at that tempered somewhat by the fact that he was the one in this ridiculous situation, possibly forever.

"No, not forever!" The Healer seemed surprised that anyone would have taken it that way and she gave a small laugh, which she clearly thought might diffuse the tension, but which was only earned her the glare of four very stressed out Aurors. "The curse should wear off naturally in about three months."

"Three months!" Draco shot to his feet so fast that he nearly overbalanced, especially with his arms out of action. He managed to right himself though and fixed the Healer with his most imperious glare. "What am I going to do without the use of my arms for three months!"

"Well, um…" The Healer actually seemed to be at a loss. "You won't be able to work and someone will have to take care of you obviously, but apart from that you can just carry on as normal."

"Normal? Normal! Since when is not having the use of your arms normal? What the hell am I meant to do for three months? How am I going to eat? How am I going to dress myself? How am I going to…?"

Draco groaned and sank down on his chair again as a list of things that he wasn't going to be able to do scrolled through his mind. It included things he was definitely not going to say out loud. Things like, going to the toilet, which he really needed to do right now.

Over to his left Weasley blanched, as if he'd mentally finished off the sentence Draco had left hanging and hadn't particularly liked the results. Potter however just looked grim.

"Thank you Healer Fenton. If there really is nothing you can do we'll take him back to the office with us. We've got a report to make and I'm sure we can work something out."

The Healer nodded in response to Potter's words and started to head for the door, ignoring Draco's weak entreaty to wait because the Chosen One had all but dismissed her and no one was going to turn back for a former Death Eater once he'd done that.

"I wanted to speak to her Potter," he spat the moment she had closed the door.

"You heard her Malfoy. Yelling at her isn't going to help."

"That's all very well for you to say Potter. You aren't the one who can't use their arms for three months. What the hell am I going to do? And why am I always the one who gets hit by these things anyway? It could have been any of us. Why did it have to be me?"

At least Potter had the grace to look slightly guilty at that, but a moment later he was gripping Draco's upper arm so tightly that even when Draco tried to wrench it from his grasp he couldn't quite manage it. There was the sensation of apparition and the next moment Draco found they were in the Ministry Atrium and he was being marched along behind Weasley and Peterson.

"I can walk by myself thank you," he snapped, this time successfully freeing his arm from Potter's grip, even if the action did nearly overbalance him. Merlin he hadn't realised just how much he relied on his arms for balance during sudden movements like that. He was really going to have to be more careful if he didn't want to end up in an ungainly sprawl on the floor.

Potter gave him an unreadable look but said nothing and Draco tried to maintain a dignified posture until they made it down to the Auror office on the fourth floor.

"I still don't see why I have to stay with you."

Draco knew he sounded whiny, but right now he didn't care. He was stood in Potter's living room, having just come through the Floo and it really wasn't fair that he'd had to rely on Potter's ability to catch him in order to not fall on his face when he did so.

"Look Malfoy, you can whine all you like, but this is the way it has to be, unless you can think of someone else who's going to be willing to take you on?"

Draco ran through the possibilities in his head and concluded that no, there was no one else. None of the few friends he'd kept since the War would be willing to look after him, and frankly Draco didn't want them to. His parents were also out of the question, partly because they were in France and partly because Draco refused to have his mother dressing him like he was some small child again. The problem was that when Head Auror Robins had declared that it was up to the Aurors who had failed to prevent his injury to make arrangements as to his care for the next three months Draco hadn't really expected Potter to volunteer his services.

Nor was he really sure why Potter was now sitting in an armchair, rubbing the bridge of his nose as if he didn't even know the answer to that question.

"Look Malfoy," he said for the second time, "You know there's no one else and this was the best option. Ron wouldn't have you and I don't think you'd want to stay at his house with him and Hermione anyway. Peterson probably could have done it, in fact I might send you there after a while if you're too much a of a pain, but he doesn't have a house-elf. I do."

"You have a house-elf?" That was unexpected enough that it jerked Draco away from his own problems. Problems like how he was going to cast any magic when he couldn't even hold his own wand. This was much more interesting right now. He'd have thought Granger would have raised some pretty strong objections to Potter owning one of the very creatures she was trying to free.

"Yes I do. I inherited him with the house." Potter had raised an eyebrow and was giving him a look which suggested he knew what Draco was thinking and would really rather he didn't mention it. "Kreacher can look after you whilst I'm at work, and most of the rest of the time if you want. You don't even have to see me really. This is a big house; you can do what you want. Kreacher will do whatever you ask of him. This was the best way."

Draco let out a long slow breath. Potter was right. It did seem the best solution. Since there was nothing he could do right now about the problem with his arms being looked after by a house-elf rather than a human certainly seemed to be the obvious solution, and if Potter was right and this house was big enough that they could avoid each other then maybe it would be quite so bad. Potter would be at work most of the time and he would have the house to himself and he could almost pretend he wasn't living with his old schoolboy nemesis. Maybe it would be ok.

Who was he kidding? It was going to be a nightmare. What the hell was he supposed to do without the use of his arms for three months? Frankly he thought he'd rather face the cruciatus curse than this.

"I'll have Kreacher pick up some of your things from the Manor and then we can have dinner." Potter was saying, when Draco finally decided he might as well pay attention again.

"How am I supposed to eat Potter?" Draco couldn't help the sneer when Potter's eyes snapped to his face, his vaguely guilty look suggesting that he hadn't even thought of that difficulty.

"I guess…" He looked around vaguely as if expecting a solution to come through the walls. "I guess Kreacher could feed you. Maybe you'd like to eat in your room?"

"What I'd really like Potter is to take a piss, how the hell am I supposed to do that?"

Draco thought that the blush that rose to Harry's cheeks at those words was probably going to be his only source of entertainment over the next three months and he was determined to enjoy every last second of it. He gazed savagely at him until finally Potter sighed and turned his head away a little.

"Kreacher." The house-elf appeared immediately and Draco tried to tune out Potter's explanation of exactly what had happened, simply because right now he didn't think he could bear to hear it. The upshot was that Kreacher took him to the bathroom and Draco had to endure the most embarrassing few minutes of his life whilst they tried to work out the best way to go about the whole thing. Draco wasn't sure if Kreacher's obliging, slavish attitude made the whole thing better or worse, but he was more than a little relieved when they worked out that pulling his trousers down completely and him actually pissing whilst sitting down was the only way to prevent accidents and further embarrassments.

With that hurdle negotiated further embarrassment came in the form of having to be fed, which Draco refused to have happen anywhere other than in the room Potter had assigned him, and then Kreacher had to undress him and redress him in the pyjamas he'd fetched from the Manor and brush his teeth and actually help him get into bed. By the time he was lying with his head on the pillow and the covers tucked around him in a way that wasn't entirely familiar or comfortable Draco's whole body was burning with humiliation.

He couldn't decide if the tears running down his cheeks added to that feeling or whether he was so far along the way that crying like a child over the whole thing made absolutely no difference. In the end he cried himself to sleep only because he felt physically and emotionally exhausted by the whole ordeal.

The humiliation didn't lessen. Draco had thought he might have got used to it after a few days, but in fact it only seemed to get worse. The low point had been when Kreacher had tried to shower him, something that had resulted in Draco getting so frustrated that he'd yelled and screamed and sobbed at the little house-elf until he'd been cringing in the corner and Draco suspected that only some very strong and definite order on the part of Potter had prevented Kreacher from punishing himself.

That had been the evening Potter had come to see him.

"You can't stay in this room for three months Malfoy, you have to come out sometime," he'd said, after Draco had consented to allow him in only on the basis that this was actually Potter's house and he would probably have just forced his way in anyway if he'd been refused. Better to at least maintain some show of dignity by not allowing it to come to that.

"Yes I can," he'd said dully.

"No you can't Malfoy, it's not healthy. You need some social interaction."

"No I don't." The wall was strangely fascinating when you really looked at it, Draco had noticed.

"Look Malfoy, I know its hard for you but…"

Draco had very nearly heard his own sanity snap at that point.

"Hard? You don't know the bloody meaning of the word Potter! You want to know how hard this is? Maybe you should try it. See how you like not being able to do a single bloody thing for yourself. Not being able to wash or dress or even take a piss on your own. I feel like a bloody child!" Not being able to wave his hands around whilst he was ranting had been the most frustrating thing of all. Kicking a chair across the room had only relieved some of his feelings. "Ugh. How could I even expect you to begin to understand what this is like? You're Potter. The bloody boy-who-lived. Shit like this doesn't happen to you, does it? You get your perfect little life and I get this fucked up shit."

"My life is far from perfect," had been all Potter had said, and then he'd nodded thoughtfully and left the room. Draco had very much wished he'd have yelled back, if only because then he'd get to work off some more of his frustration.

That had been three days ago though. A week now since he'd started living here and much as he hated to admit it Draco was beginning to realise Potter was right. He couldn't stay in this room for three months. Hell, he couldn't even live like this for three months. Kreacher was driving him crazy.

It wasn't the house-elf's fault. He was doing what he was born to do. Waiting on Draco, fulfilling his every whim, trying to make him feel better about life. Unfortunately having someone doing things for him with such obvious reverence and adoration when Draco didn't particularly feel that he was in any state to warrant either of those things was really beginning to grate on his nerves. It seemed to be just one more form of humiliation.

Draco was going to have to put a stop to it. Potter had taken him in hadn't he? Well he could damn well do some work.