Ginny stood there, thunderstruck. “What are you doing here?” she said, barely keeping the anger out of her voice.
Malfoy smirked. “The Ministry of Magic finds Mr. Potter’s absence to be...suspicious. He’s been gone for four days now, with nothing but a few owls. There isn’t even a note from a Healer. We are just coming by to...check up on him. A harmless visit, really.”
Ginny’s face hardened. It wasn’t a harmless visit. Far from it.
“We even sent an owl to your house an hour beforehand. Didn’t you get it?” Malfoy said in what he thought was a concerned voice.
“We didn’t get any letter,” Ginny said, her voice rising.
Zabini looked at Malfoy. “You did send the notice, didn’t you?”
“Of course,” Malfoy said. “I sent it with my own eagle owl.”
Zabini turned to Ginny. “Did an eagle owl come to your home?”
“Well, yes,” Ginny stammered, “b-but there was no note attached to it. Nothing but twine!”
“That explains it. The letter must have gotten lost along the way. Nevertheless,” Zabini continued, “we still need to check Mr. Potter’s condition. Just a precaution, nothing to worry about.”
Ginny wasn’t fooled. She knew Malfoy hadn’t sent that note on purpose. He must have seen more at Diagon Alley than he should have. If they saw Harry, not only would Malfoy have solid proof to send to the Daily Prophet, but Harry could lose his job because he lied about his reason for missing work.
Zabini cleared his throat. “May we come in?”
Ginny stepped out of the doorway, and Malfoy and Zabini walked into the family room.
“Hello, Zabini,” Ron said. He glared at Malfoy. “Malfoy.”
“Weasley,” Malfoy glared back.
“Hello, Mr. Weasley,” Zabini said. “Good to see you. What’s your business here?”
He hesitated only for a moment. “I’m here with my wife. We came to visit Harry. She’s with him now.”
Zabini nodded. He noticed the three kids sitting on the couch. “Have you three come to visit, too?”
“They are staying with Harry and me,” Ginny said, “while their parents are on vacation this week.”
“Why are they staying at your home while their grandfather is ill?” Malfoy asked.
“As long as they aren’t in the same room he is, they can stay here. They don’t cause trouble, and I can still give Harry plenty of attention,” Ginny snapped. Lying under pressure had always been her specialty.
Malfoy raised an eyebrow. “I see. Well, lets go see him, shall we?” He headed toward the hall, followed closely by Mr. Zabini.
“Wait!” Ginny followed them. “You can’t go in there without catching it yourselves.”
“How convenient,” Malfoy muttered. Ginny glared at him.
Hermione walked suddenly out of Harry and Ginny’s bedroom and closed the door, looking surprised to see them. “Mr. Zabini? Mr. Malfoy? Were you two the ones at the door?” She sounded polite, but her eyes were flashing.
Mr. Malfoy glared back at her. “Yes. We wanted to check on Potter. I wonder,” Malfoy said, turning to Ginny, “why Mrs. Weasley can go in, but we can’t?”
Ginny came up with a story quick. “Hermione took a potion to make her immune, but the potion takes an hour to take effect. Surely you don’t want to stay here that long, do you?”
“If necessary,” Malfoy spat.
Zabini gave Malfoy a questioning look. “We don’t need to stay that long. However, I would like to see him, from the safe distance of the hallway, perhaps?”
Ginny opened her mouth to protest, but she saw Hermione wink in the corner of her eye, and closed it. “Of course.”
“Here, I’ll get the door for you,” Hermione offered politely. She opened the door. Without meaning to, Ginny held her breath.
“Whozair?” Harry sat up in his bed, and Ginny just barely stopped herself from gasping in shock. Harry was an older man again, but with an extremely red face, and his lips had an orangish tint to them. He looked like he had a temperature.
“It’s just some people from work, dear,” Ginny answered. “We didn’t wake you up, did we?”
Harry nodded. “It’s fine,” He yawned, and placed a cold cloth on his head. “Is there a problem?”
Malfoy had gone very pale, and was staring at Harry in utter disbelief. “How-how did you-what did you-“ He glared at Harry, who looked back with a confused expression. Malfoy finally managed to speak. “I know what I saw. You were at Diagon Alley! I saw you!”
Harry frowned. “How could you see me? I haven’t left the house all week.”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Zabini interrupted before Malfoy could speak again. “I don’t know on what grounds Malfoy arranged this little get-together, but apparently," Zabini glared at Malfoy, "there wasn’t any.” He turned to Ginny. “Sorry for the trouble. We’ll be going now.”
He walked down the hall and out the door. Malfoy followed behind, glaring at Ginny with utmost loathing. Ginny merely glanced back. When the door closed, the whole house breathed a sigh of relief.
“I thought we would never get away with that,” Ron said, smiling.
“Aunt Hermione and Will did a great job with Harry,” Gina said, slapping Will on the back. “How did you two do it?”
Will gave an embarrassed grin. “Well, once we saw Malfoy, we knew what he wanted, so I grabbed an Aging Potion from the den and gave it to Aunt Hermione.”
“Yeah, Harry took the Aging Potions, then I performed some simple charms to make him look sick from a distance.”
“Hey, doesn’t the Aging Potion solve the problem?” Blake asked.
Hermione shook her head. “The potion has a temporary effect. Within an hour he will be sixteen again.” Blake’s face fell. “Don’t worry. I know just who can fix him up.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That Friday, Blake, Gina, and Will packed their trunks. Their parents were coming to pick them up at 1 o’clock that day. They took all their things to the kitchen by the fire, and sat down to have some breakfast. Ginny was making french toast and eggs, and Ron was sitting at the table.
“Morning, Uncle Ron,” Gina said cheerfully, sitting down next to him.
“Have Aunt Hermione and Harry been gone all night?” Blake asked.
“No, they left about two hours ago,” Ron said, helping himself to some scrambled eggs. “They’re not sure how long its going to take to reverse the spell.”
Blake bit his lip. Will noticed, and smiled reassuringly at him. “Harry will be fine. Aunt Hermione said that she could find someone who could do this. And there must have been spells worse than this that were reversed.”
At that minute, the door in the next room opened. Everybody headed into the family room. There they ran into Hermione, looking pleased, and a sixty-six year old Harry Potter. Gina ran up and hugged him, followed by Blake and Will. Ginny kissed him on the cheek, and Ron slapped him on the back.
“How are you feeling?” Will asked.
“Fine,” Harry said, his voice now back to normal. “I got all of my memories back, and I still get to remember the past week.”
“You three better get some breakfast,” Ginny said. “Your parents are going to be here soon.” Ginny, Blake, Will, and Gina all headed into the kitchen, followed by Ron.
“I’ll be right in,” Harry called. Hermione started walking to the kitchen. “Hold on, Hermione, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Hermione stopped. “Sure.”
“The past week, I’ve been looking at my life from a different perspective, almost from the view of a stranger,” Harry started, “and I didn’t like it that I couldn’t talk about anything from my past fifty years after it happened. And I want to change that.” Harry stopped.
“I think...well...maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if the wizarding world knew what happened.”
Hermione’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Does that mean...”
Harry nodded. “You can publish the story.”
Hermione beamed. “Oh Harry, thank you so much.” She hugged him.
“But we need to edit it first!” Harry said.
“Of course,” Hermione said, as if she hadn’t heard what he said. She walked to the kitchen excitedly, with Harry, grinning, following behind her.
A/N: My first fanfiction is complete! It’s been so much fun writing, and I can promise this won’t be the last time you hear from me. ;) I’d like to thank MuggleGirl13, who inspired (you could almost say pushed) me to finally write a fanfiction, and my other friend Katie, who hasn’t read the Harry Potter books but read my stories anyway. It means a lot. Now its time to enjoy HBP!!!!