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Author: valeriean Story: Follow Your Heart Rating: Everyone Setting: Pre-DH Status: WIP Reviews: 14 Words: 81,835
Harry Potter could do nothing as he was poked and prodded at by various healers, examining his weakened body for any signs of what had been wrong with him. He was still too weak. And the source of his strength was nowhere to be seen. Ginny. Where was Ginny? She was here just a while ago. Panic started to shoot up Harry’s body, and he frantically twisted his head around looking for her. The healers backed away with his actions. They had a pretty good idea what Harry could do to them if they displeased him. Not that they thought he would harm them, but well, Harry Potter was still, in a word, unstable. “Where’s Ginny?” he asked, barely recognizing his voice as it was still raspy from two weeks of non-use. Hermione lay a hand on his arm. Harry quickly pulled away at the touch. “Where’s Ginny?” he repeated, feeling a little twinge of guilt at the look on Hermione’s face when he pulled away. Ron walked up to Hermione’s side, and placed an arm around her shoulders, as if trying to absorb the hurt that Harry had unwittingly inflicted on her. “Ginny went home, mate. It’s been a long two weeks for her.” “Two weeks?” Harry asked confused. A fresh wave of guilt washed over him as he realized that he had been unconscious for two weeks. Merlin! His friends must have been worried sick about him. He pushed his hands into Hermione’s grasp. “Sorry.” “Oh, Harry!” Hermione started to cry. “You have nothing to be sorry about.” “Yeah,” Ron grinned at him, pulling Hermione closer to him. Harry felt himself smiling back. His first real smile since he and Ginny…Merlin…Ginny. He missed her terribly. The past year had been awful for him; seeing Ginny in the halls of Hogwarts, but not being able to touch her, or kiss her, had been hell for him. She was constantly on his thoughts, and it broke his heart to see her date Dean Thomas again. Harry’s mind wandered to his seventh year at Hogwarts. As expected, it hadn’t been normal. McGonagall had offered him, Ron and Hermione teaching posts at Hogwarts. She cited their exemplary work in the DA as her reason for wanting them to teach. Harry personally thought it was their way of making sure that the Order knew where he was. And so, they had taught Defense to the lower year levels in Hogwarts. Mad-eye Moody and Kingsley Shacklebolt had been there to help them with lesson plans and to provide additional training to the Seventh-years in case Hogwarts needed to be protected. At least Kingsley did those things. Moody had other plans. Whenever Harry, Ron, or Hermione were free from their responsibilities, Moody would have them deep in defense training. The three learned to fight like an Auror – magically and physically. They learned obscure spells dug up by Hermione in the Hogwarts library and Dumbledore’s own library. Their time had been divided between teaching, training, and taking their other classes. Harry and Ron had wanted to drop their other classes all together, but Hermione had been insistent that they continue with their studies. Due to this, the three had been unable to participate in extracurricular activities such as Quidditch; and to Ron and Hermione, prefect duties. He’d always thought that Hermione had been put out at not being able to become Head Girl, but she hadn’t mentioned it. He also missed playing Quidditch, but he hadn’t mentioned it to his friends either. He knew, and he knew Ron and Hermione knew, that there are more important things to do than play Quidditch or be Head Girl. Oh, they still lived in Gryffindor Tower, if you could call climbing through the portrait hole a little before midnight before lumbering up the spiral staircase in a zombie-like fashion and then crashing into bed ‘living’. They would wake up at an obscene hour the next morning to begin their regimented run along the lake. That was the most they had seen of their dormitory. Most of the time, they were in training, or in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom marking homework or going through lesson plans. But all that was in the past. Ginny was here now. Ginny had been here when he woke up, holding his hand tightly, as if willing him to hold on to her and live again. “Harry?” Hermione’s voice shook him out of his reverie. “Hello?” “Oh, sorry,” Harry grinned at her. He squeezed her hand. “So, you and Ron, huh? When were you planning on telling me?” Ron’s eyes popped out of its sockets. “Wha --?” His ears started to turn red. “You knew?” Harry’s grin widened. “Of course I knew. The number of bickering suddenly dropped to once or twice a week. Who wouldn’t notice?” Hermione’s face was also turning a decidedly Weasley red. She rounded on Ron. “I told you we should have told him!” Ron just had a goofy grin on his face. “Well, he knows now.” He leaned over and kissed Hermione quickly on the lips. Harry felt something pull in the middle of his chest. He missed Ginny. Terribly. “When is Ginny coming back?” Both Ron and Hermione sobered down. “Er --,” Ron stammered. “I’m not really sure.” “We’ll let her know you asked for her, Harry,” Hermione assured him. “’Kay,” Harry suddenly felt his eyelids growing heavier. “Wish she was here, though.” He closed his eyes, and fell asleep dreaming of his future with Ginny. -.-.-.-.-.- “Ginny?” Ginny groaned, as she felt someone shake her asleep from her nap. “Five more minutes.” “Ginny!” The voice grew more insistent. She opened her eyes, and found her mum staring down at her with a concerned look on her face. “Sweetheart, you ok?” Ginny supposed her eyes must’ve been red from all the crying she had been doing. “Yeah.” She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. Her mother hesitated. “Ginny, Harry’s asked for you.” Ginny’s heart leapt to her throat at the mention of Harry. No! He mustn’t do that to you anymore. “So?” her voice was nonchalant. Mrs. Weasley’s face fell. “Oh, Ginny, we were hoping –-.” “-- that I’d come at his beck and call?” Ginny interrupted her mother. “We can’t all be his slaves, Mum.” Ginny knew she’d gone too far, even before her mother’s brows creased into a frown. “Ginny!” “Look, Mum,” Ginny started, sitting up from her bed. “You wanted me to come to Harry. I did. And it’s over now. He’s going to be ok. He doesn’t need me anymore.” She crossed her arms over her chest, a determined look on her face. “And, frankly, I’m not sure I want him to need me.” -.-.-.-.-.- “Look, I’ve faced Death Eaters, destroyed the Horcruxes. I’ve defeated bloody Voldemort, for crying out loud. The least you can do is tell me the truth!” Harry was annoyed. It had been three days since he had woken up. In those three days, he hadn’t once caught a glimpse of Ginny. The rest of the Weasley family, yes. Remus, Tonks, Hagrid, even Professors McGonagall and Flitwick had come to visit him. But not the one person he most wanted to see. “Where is she?” Ron and Hermione looked uncomfortably at each other. Harry’s voice had taken on an ominous tone. It was the voice he had used in dealing with Death Eaters. His voice alone radiated with so much power that low-level Death Eaters had cowered at the sound of it. “Harry, we told you,” Hermione said bravely. “Ginny is at the Burrow.” Harry was silent. Ginny had been at the Burrow for three whole days now. She hadn’t come to see him. Didn’t she love him anymore? Harry suddenly remembered the ultimatum Ginny had served him a long time ago, and panic began to set in. Has she truly moved on? Does she have a new boyfriend? Is it Dean? To be honest, he hadn’t actually thought that he was going to come out of fighting Voldemort alive. And he had wanted to spare Ginny the pain of losing him when he died. That and her safety had been the foremost things in his mind when he made his decision. But when he had woken up to her beautiful face staring down at him… He was nearsighted, and her face had been crystal clear to him when he had opened his eyes three days ago. Merlin, she was gorgeous. He hadn’t had the chance to study her face up close in the past year, and seeing her like that for the first time in a long time… It was like he was a hungry man with a banquet before him. And he wanted more. Where was she? He wanted to see her like that again. He needed to see her. Not just her face, either. Her mere presence calmed him. She made him feel whole, and peaceful, like he could take on the world and come out alive. Just the thought that she was safe and sound had given him the strength to fight the most evil wizard to ever walk the earth. She gave him the strength to make the world a peaceful place to live in so that she would have the chance to have a family of her own. Preferably with him, but at the time, he wasn’t holding out for too much hope. “Harry?” Hermione asked tentatively, putting a hand on his arm. He didn’t pull away. He was getting used to the touching now. He was glad for the company of his best friends. And was very grateful that they were putting up with his moodiness. “I’m fine,” Harry said gruffly. “I probably shouldn’t have expected much.” He gave his best friends an empty grin. “You two know what I did to her.” “Yeah,” Ron agreed with him. He for one had a row with Harry when he found out what had happened between his sister and his best friend at Bill and Fleur’s wedding. Hermione smacked him behind the head. “Ron!” “Ouch, Hermione!” He gave Harry a big grin. “You’d think a little snogging would have prevented her from doing that, but I think she just likes to get physical with me.” Hermione gave him another smack. “Shut up, Ron!” “See what I mean?” Ron rolled his eyes at Harry. Harry gave a wide grin. It reached his eyes this time. “I take it everything’s all right now? I mean, you two are bickering again. I was starting to miss it.” Hermione gave him a smack on the arm as well. It didn’t even hurt a bit. “Watch out, Ron. I’m getting special treatment from Hermione.” He turned to her, grinning at his own cheek. “Don’t do that again.” Hermione only smiled sweetly at him, and patted the spot on his arm that she had hit lightly. Harry sobered up properly. He decided it was now time to ask the questions that had been plaguing him since he regained full control of his mental faculties. “All right, let me have it. Did we lose anyone?” His best friends lost the smiles on their faces as well. “A few deaths,” Ron spoke up first, his expression solemn, “and a whole lot of injuries.” “Seamus, Terry Boot, Susan Bones,” Hermione whispered. “Professor Sprout.” Harry nodded. He presumed these were the ones who died. “Almost all of the others who were injured have already been patched up and released,” Hermione went on. “Professor Snape is continuing his Cruciatus treatment at Hogwarts with Madam Pomfrey.” Professor Snape turned out to be on their side after all. Dumbledore had left a letter for Harry inside his secret library at Hogwarts, explaining why he had trusted Snape: he found out that Snape had been secretly in love with Lily Potter. It was the realization that Voldemort was going after the Potters that made him place his fate in Dumbledore’s hands. Harry had spent a week in a rage when he found out about that. So that was the real reason Snape hated him! He was the living proof that Lily didn’t return his love. But that revelation earned Snape Harry’s trust. Snape contacted Harry, and started giving him information about the Dark Lord’s whereabouts. He had even killed Nagini when the time came. This action, unfortunately, earned Snape Voldemort’s wrath. He suffered multiple Cruciatus Curses just before the final battle at Hogwarts began. Hermione, oblivious to the turn of Harry’s thoughts, flicked a finger at Ron. “Ron, here, was released a week ago.” “Suffered from magical exhaustion,” Ron said proudly, his chest puffing out in a very Percy-like manner. “Yes,” Hermione said, whacking him on the head again. “That stupid shield charm you put on me in before we went into battle drained your powers as long as the charm was active.” She raised her eyebrows at Ron as he rubbed the back of his head. “What? You think I wouldn’t notice? That shield charm could’ve cost you your life, Ron!” “I’m going to have a bloody bump at the back of head before this is all over,” Ron grumbled good-naturedly. He turned to Hermione. “Is it wrong to want to protect my girlfriend for as long as I can?” “Of course not,” Hermione replied, giving him a peck on the lips. Harry turned away at this. It’s not that he wasn’t enjoying their banter. It was just he wanted to banter on his own. With Ginny. And with the way things were going, it didn’t look like he was going to have that any time soon. -.-.-.-.-.-
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