A/N: I’m still having trouble with those reviews but I want to thank everyone that has taken the time to give me feedback, I really appreciate it.
Professor Dumbledore didn’t hesitate in escorting his injured pupils to the hospital wing; Ellie was extremely concerned about Dean as his breathing was shallow and barely detectable. Madam Pomfrey just about had a whole heard of Abraxan Horses.
“What on earth has been going on? Have you been doing something dangerous again?” she asked Harry with an annoyed little look. She didn’t know why though, everyone knew that he was her favourite patient.
“For once I had practically nothing to do with it!” he protested good-naturedly. The healer ran her wand over the two still students in front of her before she made her decision.
“Ms. Weasley will suffice for now, she’s not in immediate danger but Mr. Thomas is. Get his parents, Albus,” she instructed. Harry smiled; Dumbledore wouldn’t take orders from anyone else.
“As you wish, Poppy,” Dumbledore replied before exiting the ward. Madam Pomfrey pulled a curtain around the bed that Dean was lying on. She attended to him for a long time before she called over the screen. “Elizabeth, could you pop into my office and get me the pyramid vial of sky blue potion?”
Ellie bolted into the nurse’s office and ran past them with the aforementioned vial in her hand. When Madam Pomfrey emerged from behind the screens her lips were pursed and her brow furrowed. “Now lets have a look at you, Ginevra,” she said to Ginny. Harry hadn’t let go of his girlfriend’s hand for so much as a second since they had found her. She had a slight grip on his fingers but it was extremely weak, Ginny’s grasp was normally firm but flexible, now it was feeble and far too accommodating. “I’ll need some space, Mr. Potter, you can come back as soon as I’m finished with her.” Harry was reluctant to let go but he knew that arguing with the matron would serve no purpose.
“Where did Ron and Hermione get to?” he asked Ellie as he approached her. She had conjured herself a chair to stare out of the ward’s tall windows.
“I sent them to write a letter to Molly, I thought it might do them good to spend some time together at a time like this, it might give them a jolt in the right direction.
“I hate this,” he said as he conjured himself a chair that wasn’t half as comfortable looking as Ellie’s.
“It’s not my favourite part either,” she replied.
“I worry about her a lot you know,” he said to the grey sky outside.
“Of course you do, you’re her boyfriend, worrying is part of the job description,” she smiled at him.
“Sometimes, I think that she might be better off without me, well not better off as such, but safer at least.” It was a thought that danced its way across his mind several times each day.
“Oh, right! You think that by pushing her away she’d be safer? You think that without you around she’d be out of harm's way? You really can be so stupid, Harry. The fact that she’s in danger just because she knows you means that you should pull her as close as is possible and hold her tighter than you could ever have imagined you would. Life is so short, don’t wake up one day and wish that you’d done this and done that, take the risk because nine times out of ten it’s worth it.”
“Why are you always right?”
“Because I’ve spent a lot of years practicing it, I’ve got it down to a well honed art,” she smiled at him.
“I don’t know what I’d do without her, it feels like she’s a part of me and when she’s not around I feel all disjointed.” He wasn’t sure that he was explaining himself very well but he knew that Ellie understood; she always did.
“That’s the beauty of love, you can’t live with it and you can’t live without it.” She smiled out the window and Harry wondered if she was thinking about Charlie. “I’ll tell you one thing though, Harry James Potter, if I find out that you’ve broken up with Ginny for such a pathetic reason, I’ll drag you down to that forest and throw you to the Centaurs!” she told him sternly and jabbed a finger to the dark looming mass that was the forbidden forest.
“Mr. Potter, you can come back now,” Poppy Pomfrey’s kind voice filtered through the air.
“Back to the bedside for me!” he muttered jovially.
“Let me make something else clear to you, if you do that to Ginny then the Weasley brothers will be the very least of your worries,” she warned him. She trotted back up to Ginny’s bed with him and looked down at the now sleeping girl.
“What’s the damage, Poppy?” Ellie asked.
“Nothing life threatening, although I am a little more worried about Mr. Thomas’s condition. Ginevra’s injuries are largely superficial cuts and bruises, nothing more. Obviously, she’s very malnourished and she needs rest, but there is no reason that she shouldn’t make a full recovery, she’ll be here a week at most,” she assured them both.
“Right, well I’ll get off and tell Molly before she comes tearing down to the castle. You stay here, Harry, no doubt she’ll want to see you when she wakes up.” Ellie patted him on the shoulder and left him alone with Ginny. On her way out she bumped into Mr. and Mrs. Thomas on their way in with Professor Dumbledore, the poor couple were distraught beyond words.
Professor Dumbledore gave Harry, Ron and Hermione permission to miss lessons the next day and they all waited patiently around Ginny’s bed but she hardly stirred once. At lunchtime Ellie came bouncing in to the ward with a huge smile etched in to her face. “What has made you so happy?” Ron asked her curiously.
“At nine o’clock this morning a team of Aurors marched into the castle and down into the dungeons. They collected Malfoy from his holding cell; they removed him from Hogwarts to a new remand centre at the Ministry. This is pending a hearing in front of the Wizengamot that will be held within the next month, where it’s more than likely that he’ll be sentenced to time in Azkaban!” she said with glee.
“YES!” Ron jumped out of his seat and threw his fist in the air. He grabbed a hold of Ellie and began spinning her round in circles.
“It’s about time,” was Hermione’s muted response.
“Do you have to be so bloody loud?” asked a hoarse Ginny.
“GINNY!” Everyone bellowed at the same time.
“Ah! Would you not do that, it hurts!” she complained.
“We’re just glad to have you back, sis,” Ron said happily and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
“How long have I been away?” She lulled her head to face Harry.
“A fortnight, we owe you an apology, Gin, we didn’t spot the difference soon enough,” he told her sorrowfully.
“You got there in the end though, that’s all that matters.” She gave his hand one of her old familiar squeezes.
“I’ve got to go, I promised Mum that I’d write to her as soon as you woke up. Do you want to come with me, Hermione?” the Head Boy asked his female counter part.
“I could do with stretching my legs,” she nodded.
“I get the feeling that’s not all their stretching, if you catch my drift?” Ellie grinned.
“Oh, yeah?” Harry was excited at the prospect of Ron and Hermione overcoming their differences.
“Yep, when I was on my way to the Owlery last night they were on their way back down and they were holding hands,” she said excitedly.
“Good, it’s about time they sorted themselves out,” Ginny said huskily.
“I’ll leave you two love birds to your own devices, you’ve got a lot of catching up to do,” she smiled and flounced her way out of the ward again.
“So what have I missed in two weeks?” Ginny asked him with a weak smile.
“How long have you got?” he joked.
“It doesn’t look to me like I’m about to got anywhere.”
“That is a good point,” Harry admitted. He then went in to the long tale of the bizarre existence he had led in the last two weeks. He told her all about the strange behaviour that had worried him; she cringed when he relayed the activities that the Pansy had got up to as Ginny.
“That sounds awful, it makes me quite glad that I was stuck in a mouldy, damp room and didn’t have to watch myself do all that. It must have been terrible for you though,” she said sympathetically. She started to stroke the back of his hand gently with her thumb; Harry was amazed by how soothing such a small action was.
“I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. I just couldn’t understand it all, I didn’t know what I’d done wrong, it was awful but it was still better than your fortnight,” he shrugged.
“Only a little bit,” she smiled. It was so wonderful to see her smiling properly again, her face lit up with all the life in it.
“I missed you so much.” He leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips.
“I missed you too.”
“You’ve been all I could think about for a long time now, you know?”
“Good, because if I find you thinking about anybody else, you are in serious trouble,” she grinned.
“You’ll never find me thinking about anyone else, you’re the only girl for me Ginny, the only one.” He looked up in to her deep brown eyes and smiled.
“Same here, I don’t want anyone but you,” she smiled shyly at him.
“I’ve spent all night thinking about us, you and me and what the future holds…” he told her.
“What did you see?”
“A big brood of kids with a red and black striped hair,” he laughed.
“That certainly sounds… interesting…” she giggled.
“It certainly was. Ellie said something to me last night about pulling the people that you love closer and I want to be closer to you than anybody else, I’m tired of pushing people away…” he explained.
“Good, because you need to do that, Harry, you can’t forget to love,” she said as she ran a hand down the side of his face.
“I know and I do love. I love you, Ginny.”
“I love you too, Harry.”
“Good, because I’ve got something to ask you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t answer the way I want you too, I’ll understand if you don’t want to. Ginny…” He began to pull a little suede box from his pocket but was interrupted by a rather regretful sounding cough that originated from the doors of the hospital wing. Professor Dumbledore was standing there supposedly enraptured by a moving painting on the wall, which showed a very short little man with bright green boils being attended to be a beautiful and graceful Mediwitch who appeared to be clucking her tongue at the patient.
“Professor Dumbledore?” Ginny painfully tore her attention away from Harry, she could sense that he had something important to say, and in truth, was a little bit miffed by the interruption.
“How are you feeling, Ms. Weasley?” Dumbledore asked kindly, he was looking at Harry in a very apologetic way.
“I’m much better, thank you, sir,” Ginny answered politely. A part of her really wanted Dumbledore to leave so that Harry could get on with whatever it was he wanted to say.
“I’m sure that your friends have greatly hastened your recovery.” The headmaster gave Harry and the two empty seats to his left a little nod. “I am terribly sorry to have intruded on the discussion that you were having but I have some important news that I believed you would want to know before anyone else.”
“It’s Malfoy isn’t it?” Harry’s voice became tense again.
“Yes it is. When Mr. Malfoy arrived at the Ministry this morning he made several threats that his master was sending a contingent of Death Eaters to free him.” There was a hint of amusement in Dumbledore’s voice that suggested he didn’t believe this story for a second. “And Minister Bones, in her superior wisdom,” he gave a small smile. “Decided that she could not risk a group of Death Eaters attempting to break in to the Ministry and ordered that his trial be brought forward to today. The Wizengamot assembled, the cases were heard and a decision was made within the hour.”
“And?” Ginny was nearly on the edge of her bed and Harry’s extremely tight grip was about to snap her hand in two.
“Mr. Malfoy was convicted of being a Death Eater and of using an Unforgivable Curse. He has been sentenced to life in Azkaban.” Dumbledore finished with satisfaction. Relief flooded through the young pair, Ginny actually began to cry out of thankfulness. Draco had got his just desserts and they were a cold, rotting, disgusting cell in Azkaban. Malfoy was finally gone from their lives, but unfortunately the news of his fate had chased Harry’s primed question from all of their minds.
A/N: Heehee. Am I evil enough for you? The next chapter on the way is…Romantic Interludes. Take care!