| Firecrab
Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: melbourne
Posts: 887
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Chapter Ten
“You have to fight it Harry” she whispered to him, she was sitting in the chair curled up watching him but not touching him. His skin was boiling, she couldn’t hold onto it for more then a few seconds.
Madam Pomfrey was bustling about around preparing drafts, “I’ve never seen anything like it, so fierce, like he’s actually physically fighting the curse” she’d said earlier after pouring something green down his throat. They were all celebrating in the great hall; she could hear the party drifting down the corridors. Hermione and Ron were sitting with her; some order members were in the hallway along with her parents but the rest of the school was partying triumphantly.
“He said goodbye” she muttered, absentmindedly watching him. “He made love to me, he said goodbye”
Ron’s ears went a violent shade of red and his hands were shaking, Hermione blushed but Ron got up and walked out,
“I said that out loud, didn’t I” she sighed, as Hermione nodded, “Oopps” Ginny giggled and it seemed strange to at a time like this but she was remembering it, it was only today that it happened,
“That’s what woke you up isn’t it” Hermione questioned,
“Even though he tried so hard to stay away he came back”
“I’m going to go and talk to him” Hermione sighed getting up.
It went on like this, Ron refusing to come back in the room, Ginny sitting with him, falling asleep as the hours passed. The days passed. He was still holding on, still fighting.
“He should be dead at this temperature” Poppy said shaking her head and taking his pulse again, it was stronger, faster. “There’s a war raging inside of him and he’s taking some pretty heavy hits, he’s done well to get this far but I can’t say whether it’ll kill him or keep him alive, his hearts faster but he’s still unconscious – there might be brain damage, internal damage” she waved her wand over him “Or at least there should have been but there isn’t” she was truly amazed “I don’t know what he’s been doing right but it’s keeping him here”
“How much longer do you think he’ll sleep?”
“Not much” Poppy replied, “Call me if there’s any change”
Ginny sat with him two more day’s, she was getting paler and paler, her mother forcing her to eat and sleep but it was the exhaustion of not knowing whether he was going to make it playing on her mind that was causing this. She started to get angry at him now, for keeping her waiting. He’d been like this now a week, clinging to life, his cheeks were returning to normal and when Poppy took his temperature it had gone down,
“We’ll know any day now, he’s fevers broken”
One more day she gave him, just one. She was there alone that night and then it happened. He gasped, sat up and clutched his chest wheezing.
“Harry!” his eyes darted around saw her face and his breathing became more regular.
He blinked his hand reaching to her face, tracing her cheek and jaw bone “I missed you” I said simply like he’d been away on a trip round the world for a few months not lying in a hospital bed fighting death.
“I thought – you said you were going to die”
“I thought I was – I did for a while - I saw them – then it was just darkness”
“You saw who?”
“My parents, everyone even Cedric Diggory, there was everyone he ever killed”
She didn’t know what to say, so instead it came out as “What was it like?”
“Bright lights, we were on the tube trains going underground in London and every carriage was full of the people, all of them, every face on the newspaper, every loved one that’s gone missing. I spoke to them all, there names Amelia Bones, Henry Yates, Bathilda Bagshot, Kirby Griffin, - there all up here, I can tell the ministry every one that he murdered” he said tapping the side of his head,
She was silent,
“How long have I been out?”
“You’ve been gone a week”
“Is he dead?”
“You killed him – you made him weak enough to be stabbed”
“You?” he asked and she nodded when he smiled “What did they do with the body?”
“Burned it, the flames were black, the ashes are in a jar in a vault in the ministry”
“And they don’t think anyone will try and steal it?”
“He can’t come back”
“We’ve said that before and he’s managed it”
“This is different, the prophesy has been fulfilled, he’s dead your alive”
“We said our goodbyes but you still sat here waiting, I told you not to wait Gin”
“What did you want me to do, give up when there was a chance you were going to come back to me?”
“Exactly- there was only a chance”
“Your lucky I bothered to check your pulse they all thought you were dead” she folded her arms angrily how could he be so ungrateful.
“Thankyou” he replied,
“You don’t sound like you mean it”
“I think I was resigned to the fact I was going to die, so suddenly waking up and being alive is a surprise”
“Doesn’t change the fact you would have rather I abandoned all hope”
“When you say it like that – Gin you knew that if he was going to kill me I would die, I knew it, we both didn’t know that it might actually just kill his soul and not mine as well”
“So if you had died what would you have wanted me to do? Forget you?”
“Yes – move on with your life – your sixteen it can be done”
“You’re only a year older then I am, don’t act like I’m a baby and your forty years old” she said annoyed “And when did you expect me to move on after sleeping with me that morning? Give me a date”
Her mother had the worst timing in the world, walking in, hearing those words and her face became angry.
“It wasn’t like that Gin and you know it” Harry said before he noticed Molly’s presence in the room, at her cough.
Harry rubbed his forehead in pain and put his glasses on as his eyes started to ache, the room becoming so much clearer, and the look of disapproval in Molly’s eyes was so much more effective in guilt tripping him. Yes she was glad he was alive, just not so glad about the sleeping with her daughter before he went to his death bit.
Ginny sat back in the chair, her arms still crossed glaring at him, and her mother spoke up
“Welcome back Harry”
“Thankyou Mrs Weasley”
“I’ll go and get Madam Pomfrey to check you over” she turned to go and Harry tried to talk to Ginny again,
“I’m sorry Ginny”
“You can’t keep saying it and think it gives you a clean slate”
“I think I’ll try and earn your forgiveness instead”
“It will take you a while”
“I’m not going anywhere”
“You say that now”
“I told you Gin, my heart, my soul there yours I’m unexpectedly alive again but there still yours and nothing will change that, so how about I give you a lifetime to try and forgive me?”
She sat quietly looking at the floor,
“How about I give you my whole life, and a ring and a chance to wear a big white dress”
Her head snapped up in realisation,
“Will you marry me Gin, marry me and let me make it up to you?”
She stared at him “What?!”
“I’ve got a second chance at life I’m not going to waste it, I’m going to get what I want, what I’ve always wanted – you”
She leap on him in a hug and he held on just as tightly, they kissed and yet again her mother earned the worst timing award, but he had to ask, “Is that a yes?”
She nodded still sitting on his lap, “Yes Harry” she kissed him again ignoring the coughing from her mother and then sat beside him beaming.
“What’s just happened?”
“I asked your daughter to marry me if that’s ok with you of course Mrs Weasley?”
She stood mouth gapping looking between them,
“But your so young?!”
“I feel about forty” Harry grinned, Ginny hitting his arm at his joke,
“I said yes as you can probably, kind of tell…”
“Well I’m saying no”
Ginny yelled outraged “What?!”
“Not until your older Ginerva”
“Ask dad, I want to know what he thinks”
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RIP JD Salinger |