Ginny looked up from her textbook and sighed, idly reaching to knead at the sore muscles in the back of her neck.
She had spent an endless evening in the Gryffindor common room, doing her best to study for her Herbology test. Unfortunately, her mind had remained with the young man lying unconscious in the hospital wing, and facts that normally would have taken a few hours to learn still eluded her.
But it was midnight, and her eyes were gritty with weariness. Suddenly not caring whether she passed the test or not, she closed her book and set it aside.
A few minutes later, Ginny tiptoed into the hospital wing.
The curtains around Harry's bed had been drawn closed, but she could see Madam Pomfrey's outline as she sat in her office, slumped over her desk. The healer was snoring, her cheek pressed against the pages of the book she'd been reading.
Creeping closer, making absolutely sure she didn't make a sound, Ginny peeked at the book, noticed the title chapter: Coma After Head Trauma. The book, with its static, two-dimensional photographs and tiny text, was clearly a Muggle publication.
Careful not to awaken the healer, Ginny slipped silently between the curtains.
At last she was standing beside Harry. It was all she had thought about all day: getting through her classes - during which she hadn't been able to concentrate at all - and getting back to Harry. She'd been terrified of the thought that Harry might think she wasn't coming back.
Weariness washed over her, and she sat on the edge of the bed; dizzy from fatigue, she gingerly lay down to rest her head on the very edge of Harry's pillow.
For a moment, she just enjoyed the feeling of being this close to him. She could hear his breath, slow and shallow, and when she gently lay her hand across his pyjama-covered chest, she could feel his heart beating beneath her fingers.
She imagined them years in the future, lying like this on a lazy Saturday morning, in a flat of their own. Resting with their heads together, as she watched him sleep, just as she did now.
Harry's steady, quiet breathing lulled her nearly to sleep, and her eyes slipped closed.
"I'll just rest for a moment," she whispered. "And then I'll go."
But she had no chance to rest; at that moment, Harry's breath began to quicken, and the heartbeat began to race.
Ginny sat up, peering into Harry's face. She cried out in surprise.
Harry's dull and glassy eyes were half-open.
"Harry! Harry, can you see me?" She reached to take his shoulder, to shake him a little as if she could pull him from his stupor. She heard the footsteps beyond the curtains, and she leaped to her feet. "Someone's coming," she squeaked.
She could only imagine the amount of points that would be taken from Gryffindor if someone found her in the hospital wing at this hour.
As Ginny parted the curtains to find a suitable hiding place, she heard a voice croak,
"Gi... nnnn..."
She whirled around, suddenly not caring who discovered her, and saw Harry looking straight at her, his lips tremoring with his effort to speak. She rushed back to his side. "Harry, I'm here... Harry!"
Harry's eyes rolled and he threw his head back as if he'd been plunged into ice water. His arms and legs stiffened, then locked as the rest of his body began to tremor. Strangled, almost inhuman sounds tore from his throat.
A moment later, Madam Pomfrey threw back the curtains. "Mr. Potter!" she yelled, as if she could get his attention. She could not; his eyes had closed and his head was banging rhythmically against the headboard, the veins in his neck bulging from the overextension.
Madam Pomfrey uttered a protection charm, and immediately metal bars appeared at the sides of Harry's bed, preventing him from tumbling to the floor. The bars rattled as his body flailed wildly. The healer tried to conjure a calming charm, but it had no effect. Harry's lip began to bleed from where he'd bitten it.
With horror, Ginny realized Harry's face was turning blue.
"No!" the girl cried, and Madam Pomfrey turned to her, as if seeing her for the first time. The healer was mortified that a student was witnessing such violence. "To your house, Miss Weasley!" she shouted.
Ginny backed away, tangling herself in the curtains, nearly falling in her haste to do as the healer demanded. Once she managed to free herself, she ran through the shadowy hospital wing, toward the doors. In the dark hallway outside the hospital wing, she could still hear Harry's choked sounds and the rhythmic banging of the metal bars on his bed.
Covering her face with her hands, Ginny backed against a wall and slid feebly to the floor.