A/N: This chapter is only for explaining the confusing parts of the last few chapters. Sorry about that, by the way. Anyways, it was a last minute chapter that I just wrote to explain. It is in Ginny’s pov to help you all understand what all has really happened. It goes back to the beginning of chapter 8, One More Chase. Hope you like it. Tell me what you think in a Review PLEASE!!!
“Ginny, something is still missing,” Harry knelt beside her bed and held her hand. She sat up. It had been two days since they had found Pettigrew and everything had settled down. Harry was officially out of the hospital, but the Healers still wanted Ginny to stay and regain her energy. Harry hadn’t really left her side. But he also hadn’t stopped badgering her about what had happened. And whenever he got to a certain sentence that he seemed to want to ask really badly, he always hesitated and decided to change the subject on himself. Ginny sighed.
“Ginny, I just…how…how long was…” Harry was stuttering again. It was the question he couldn’t seem to ask. Ginny grabbed his hand in both of her own and closed her eyes. She went back to the day the doctor had fixed her. As she did this, she could feel her own personal feelings and thoughts being transferred to Harry.
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(flashback)
“Ginny?” my mother whispered. I smiled.
“I’m fine, mum,” I told her. Her hands flew up to her face.
“GINNY! OH, MERLIN!” she shrieked. She grabbed me into a big hug. I lie in my hospital bed and let her hold me. I was exhausted. Suddenly Ron and Hermione burst through the door. Hermione ran over to my bed and grabbed my hand.
“You…you gave us a scare,” Hermione whispered into my ear.
“I tend to do that a little too often,” I said. Hermione just smiled. Ron came to give me a hug.
“Hermione here saved your little life,” Fred told me as he motioned toward Hermione. Hermione held up her hands.
“Actually, it was Harry who remembered the numbing potion. Don’t give me the credit,” she stammered.
“Speak of the devil, we have figured it out. We know about you and Harry last year. I don’t know how we didn’t see it earlier. Nonetheless, we suppose that the fact that he saved your life again will make up for the ‘breaking your heart’ bit. We’ll let it go -- this time,” George said. I smiled.
“Oh, will you?” I asked rhetorically. They nodded. I looked around the room to find no Harry. Before I could ask anything, though, the Healer was telling us information.
“This little fire-head is a bloody hell of a fighter. Excuse my language. She fought so hard to move or speak while the numbing potion was taking over her; she has weakened her mind and her body. We’ll need to keep her here for another week or two to gain her strength back,” Healer Hanson said.
I wasn’t listening. I was focused on my thoughts. Harry wasn’t inside this room and no one was telling me why. Was he all right? Were they hiding something from me? All I could feel was crying in my head. But I was okay, so why would Harry be crying? I looked up with a worried look etched on my face. Hermione was staring at me and caught my eye as I looked up. I gave her a look of desperation and confusion.
She understood and ran out of the room. I sighed as I realized that she was going to look for him. This had to mean that he was all right and they weren’t hiding anything from me. I started to relax a little. Listening to my Healer and my family was a bit boring but calming, nonetheless. Before I knew it, I was asleep.
I was only asleep for less than half an hour before Ron decided to talk to me. He woke me up and sat down in the chair next to my bed. I looked around to see everyone in separate conversations all around the room. Ron grabbed my hand.
“We did it,” Ron whispered.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Hermione and I finally hooked up. She told me…she said she loved me,”
“Wow, Ron. That’s huge. You did say it back, surely,” I whispered.
“Well…err…it’s just that…I can’t, Gin. I can’t let her have my heart until I know for sure. I know that I love her. I just have to wait a little while before she knows it,” he said. I nodded. Love. Strange word, isn’t it?
“Ronald, most of the time you are such a dimwit; however, every once in a long while, you are the smartest human being I’ve ever spoken with. And if you tell anyone that I just said that, your head will be mine!” I added that last part when I saw that look on his face. He smirked. I started to chuckle a little.
I was interrupted by a small pain in my heart. I grabbed my chest. But the pain grew and suddenly the pain was so excruciating that I felt I was having a heart attack. And there was only one person that could cause that to my heart: Harry.
“Harry,” I gasped. “HARRY! WHERE IS HE! IS HE OKAY? YOU MUST FIND HIM! SOMETHING ISN’T RIGHT!” I was screaming now, but I was so weak that it didn’t sound like it. My entire family was surrounding my bed and my mother was trying to grab hold of me. I kept violently shaking my head. Something was wrong with Harry and I could feel it.
And then my family parted so that I could clearly see a path to the door. I was silent and still except for my rapid heartbeat in my chest, as it rose and fell while I breathed, and for the tears streaming from my eyes.
I was face to face with Harry. And he was moving closer and closer to me, making me calm down. When he reached me, he stood over me and stared.
"Harry...I thought...I thought...my heart hurt...you are," I whispered in shock, knowing that I made no sense. I reached my hands out to Harry's face; I just wanted to know he was real. He grabbed my hands with his own and knelt down beside me. He wiped at my tears softly and kissed my hand, sending shivers up my spine. We sat staring at each other for a few minutes more. Then he laid his head down on my stomach and together we fell asleep.
We must have slept for about an hour. I woke up first to an empty room. I felt the heat of his body and the beating of his heart against my stomach. It felt so right; so good, that I didn’t want to miss it or forget it. He was still holding my hand and I carefully removed it from his. I found the locket Lupin had given me the week before still wrapped around my neck. I took it off and played with it in my hands. I would give it to Harry today. It was the only way. What if I never got the opportunity again? I took a deep breath.
“Harry,” I whispered as I tried to wake him up. “Harry, wake up. Everyone’s gone.” Harry took a deep breath as if to show he was awake and he looked around the room. I pulled open his hand and placed the locket inside. He looked down at his hand and then looked at me with a quizzical look on his face.
“We found it a couple summers ago at Grimmauld Place. Lupin gave it to me a week or so ago. He said he’d found it when they started to re-safe the place. I wanted to give it to you as a late birthday present. But you know how things went this last week,” I explained. Harry smiled.
“I’m sorry,” he said. I nodded.
“Let’s just…let’s just forget about it for now, okay?” I whispered. I knew he would want to talk about everything. I didn’t. I’d heard what he’d said while I was numb. I needed no more explanation.
“But can I just…I just have one question,” Harry told me.
“Okay.”
“Why did you…why did you think I was hurt? Why did you think something was wrong?” Harry asked. I sighed. I knew that I needed to explain at some point
“Because I was hurt. My heart practically stopped beating. My chest hurt and my body became weak. Something in my head was telling me something was wrong. I don’t really know why or how, though,” I explained. Harry nodded.
“I’m going to go get something to eat. I’ll be right back, all right?” Harry asked. I didn’t want him to leave. I knew he was just leaving to think things over, but I didn’t want him to. I knew how it would end: He would think things over and decide that the noble choice was to put us (or the theory of us) in a drawer and lock it, throw away the key, and never go looking for it again. But I nodded, knowing I couldn’t stop him either way. At my signal, he headed toward the door.
“Harry,” I stopped him as he reached the door. He looked over at me.
“Yeah?” he asked. I decided to tell him. Right then, right there: before it was too late. I didn’t know what his response would be, but I was taking the chance.
“I love you,” I told him quietly. He smiled and walked out the door, ripping my heart in the process once more. And no sooner had he left than Umbridge and a very peculiar man arrived next to my bed.
“What-,” I started to say. She silenced me when the spell she cast hit me square in the face. I couldn’t help but flinch and the panic began to spread through my body as I realized that, for the second time that day, I couldn’t speak or yell. I went to reach for my wand, but I couldn’t find it. And the realization that it had probably been taken when I’d gotten here hit me like a bullet.
I watched Umbridge as she spat words toward the man that was with her. A shine caught my eye and I noticed a large, silver hand coming out of the man’s robes. It didn’t take me long to realize that it was his hand.
She yelled at him for a few minutes more and then I watched him drink a potion from a flask that he pulled from his pocket. I felt sweat form in my palms as my shocked eyes observed him turn into an image of myself. Before I could react, Umbridge had me by the arm and was yanking me out of my bed. Before we Apparated, I caught a glimpse of my ‘image’ climbing into my bed. But I was pulled away with that sickening feeling in my head that I knew only came from Apparating.
And then we arrived at a place I’d never seen. Before I knew what was happening, I was hanging upside down in a cage. She pointed her wand at me and I felt the silencing hex lift from me. The moment I could, I screamed for Harry. I screamed and yelled and cried and pleaded for him to find me. There was a man that was pretending to be me and he could hurt my family. I just wanted Harry to figure out what was going on.
“Don’t worry, he’ll find you. And when he does, I’ll be the lucky one. Oh, what the Dark Lord will say when he sees that I’ve gotten rid of you, the love of the Boy Who Lived, and that I’ve captured the Boy himself! Oh, what he’ll say!” Umbridge was mumbling. And then, as if she’d seen me for the first time, an evil grin appeared her wicked, toad-like face. Shivers slid down my spine.
“Oh, how you’ve grown. I should’ve seen it coming: you and Potty. Peter told me that you held Potter’s heart. But soon the Dark Lord will hold it. And I don’t mean hold it with his heart; I mean literally. Oh, and here Potter is coming now, right on time!” And when I looked over to see if she was lying, the cage’s glass disappeared and in walked my hero; my knight in shining armor. And at that moment, I knew that everything would be okay.
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End Flashback
Ginny let go of Harry’s hand softly and looked up at him. He was still trying to cope with being able to feel what Ginny had felt and see what she had seen let alone trying to handle everything those abilities had shown him. But she wasn’t finished with him yet.
“And you know what happened next. But when we got to the hospital and you looked me square in the face and told me you loved me,” Ginny sighed, “now THAT was incredible. But now that you know, now that you understand and have been in my head, it is my turn to ask a question: How did you always know where to find me?” Harry took a few deep breaths. He looked at her and kissed her softly on the lips. Then he whispered his answer.
“You have a way of showing me.”
A/N: Hoped you liked it! I am working on the next chapter! Great thanks to my awesome new beta, Allycen! R&R!!!
Manda*