Ginevra Weasley and The Boy Who Lived
St. Mungo's hospital for the treatment of Magical Maladies and Injuries was a strange place, not least due to the fact it was a wizard's hospital but instead due to the lack of what is generally accepted as being medical equipment or the laxity in terms of hygiene one might relate to a muggle hospital. Ginevra was contemplating this as she sat on one of the chairs strewn about the ward for recuperating hex victims, and she was just beginning to think that she didn't entirely trust the methods used in magical medicine compared to their muggle counterparts when her great-aunts began bawling at each other again from across the ward. Broken from her train of thought Ginevra quickly hid the look of indignation from her face and wondered back to her mother wondering just how they'd managed to screw up a simple bat-bogey hex, she was at least an eighth of her aunts' ages and she could perform them without trouble, as she'd had to do from time to time.
"This is starting to get to me, I'm going for a tea." Ginevra whispered to her mother as the shouting and screeching intensified.
"Okay, but be safe." Was the reply from the chestnut haired woman, before sighing, "Why did you have to inherit that terrible hair colour, you'd have made such a pretty brunette, you know that Ginny?"
"For the last time I'm not eight stop calling me Ginny, and yes I remember the countless times you've told me since I entered school," came the sharp reply.
Ginevra stormed off now not only irritated by her aunts but also beginning to resent her mother's constant comments putting her down. While she was so caught up in her own thoughts detailing what she'd like to do with her various family members she seemed to pass through the corridors of the hospital unknowing where she was. When she had calmed down she realised she was definitely not in the cafeteria but instead outside a whole different ward and section of the hospital. Looking at the nameplate she was unsurprised to read another name she would never recognise, "The Gilderoy Lockhart Ward for the Mentally Incapable," pushing on the doors she felt the slight hum of magic pass over her before the door clicked open.
"Ooh that's rare we normally never get any guests down here. What's the name yer looking for please." said a nurse the size of the three biggest members of Ginevra's family combined
"err, what? Sorry I was just looking for the cafe" Ginevra said obviously confused.
"Ahh, well there's a bit of a problem there, you see that door will only let you out in about an hour, and it shouldn't have let you in if you weren't authorized to see a patient here, but luckily enough the cafe is the next door over when you get out."
"What? An hour? I've got to stay here for a whole hour?" Ginevra said in an exasperated sigh so typical of teens.
"Yeah, how do you think I feel, I'm only an hour into an eight hour shift, oh well, gees yer surname, we'll try to figure out who the door think's yer visitn'"
"Eh, alright I play, I'm Ginevra Weasley"
The nurse had drawn out a set of charts with "Allowed Visitors" written along the top which she began pouring through checking each patient to see who they were allowed after a couple of minutes she looked up and asked;
"Are you sure that's your name? Not registered under any other surnames by any chance?" She said closing the book as a small scrap of paper fell to the floor.
"Hm? Nah don't think so, I've just had my fifth year of Hogwarts not had any time to register under a different name." She said reaching down to the floor and picking up the, what she discovered to be, folded patients record, the name at the top was a bit blurred but the allowed patients were still visible. "Eh, I think this is your boy" she said turning to the nurse and showing the record which allowed patients are Longbottoms, Lovegoods, Potters, Tonks and Weasleys
"Who does this guy think he is, I mean those are some pretty big names, you included"
"Don't remind me, it's bad enough I'm descended from Percival, that great burk, but I'm like the fifth female born into the Weasley's since my namesake and the family has only grown larger and larger.
"Ah sounds tough, well this says he should be down by the window, try and enjoy yourself."
Walking down the ward Ginevra began to feel strangely nervous, as though this was some sort of fated encounter or that she should know who it was lurking at the far end of the ward. Of course the logical part of her tried to quash this reminding her that it was sheer chance that she ended up here, but because as ever logic can never defeat nerves she slowed her pace slightly looking from side to side seeing the increasingly disturbed people who were left to bide their time in the mangy conditions.
Eventually she came to the bed by the window with its divider done to block out the bed next to it. Placing her head round the partition Ginevra found herself staring at the back of what could at best be described of a husk of a human body, it seemed so weak and fragile that it should have given out decades ago if not longer, whether the man had sensed her presence or not she couldn't tell but he seemed to turn ever so minutely and his voice scraped and creaked;
"Lilly?... Is that you Lilly?... Come to harass me some move have you?.. Didn't you just say you weren't coming back? Ehh? What do you want know?" The man's words spoke of great pain and loss but the sounds of a voice box long unused and long past any state of being fit for human use told another worse story of just how old and broken this man was. Ginevra's heart wrenched for the man so before he could go on she interrupted;
"Ehm, sir? My name isn't Lilly, I'm Ginevra, I was allowed in to see you because I'm a Weasley can you tell me who you are sir?"
"Ecch? Ginny? What do you mean you're a Weasley? And What do you mean who am I? Don't you recognise your own husband? We've been together since I defeated Lord Whats-His-Name? You're a Potter."
" Ehm sir, I think you have me confused again, I'm not your wife, and please don't call me Ginny, my name is Ginevra."
Finally turning to look fully at the girl, what little hair remained threatened to dislodge from his scalp at the movement and she caught sight of one of the most prolific symbols in wizarding history.
"Oh my god are you-"
"Are you sure you're not my Ginny? You do look so alike, you know if you hadn't said anything I would have easily been fooled, but then I'm old now, so painfully old."
Unsure of herself now that she knew who she was dealing with Ginevra stood staring in awe of the man many had considered one of the greatest heroes the Wizarding World had ever known. Realising quickly what she was doing she quickly took the seat near the bed and began to ask the one question that came to mind,
"It's been just over a two centuries since you were reported dead. How-"
"Am I alive? That's something I'd like to know as well, I suspect it has something to do with that damn prophecy, or my nature as a living horcrux might have had something to do with it. But really that long since then? I couldn't tell you when I stopped keeping track of time. It might have been when I was admitted here." The frail legend said, each passing word caused his voice to grate and struggle but also seemed to help loosen it up. "I will say this though its probably been just as long since I actually had a visitor, what brought you to my neck of the woods anyway, my fake Ginny?"
Ginevra flared at this before quickly calming herself by reminding herself that he was A) technically family and B) so old that he'd probably be split in two by an Expelliarmus and C) he couldn't know of her long standing hatred of being compared to her namesake "Actually I was looking for the cafeteria whilst peeved at my mother and didn't pay attention so I just sort of ended up here... Sir" she said somewhat abashed at how stupid her actions were. She was even more surprised to hear the soft chuckle that came out from his mouth, although the effects it was having on his unnaturally old body would suggest he was being violently shaken.
"Ahh, still a bad combination for a Weasley I see, Hunger and Anger, Ron's natural state of being, its good to hear the lineage hasn't been lost. You don't seem to me like you're one if his descendants, Hermione should have poked through in you by now and you'd be asking all sorts of ridiculous questions. No you're descended from one of the other brothers. Not George. No, you're not the right build to be his, you've got his spunk though. I didn't really know Bill and Charlie to be honest but I don't think so. Leaving Percy, not the best or the brightest of the Weasleys but he made do with what he had. Don't look at me like that Ginny, there's no shame in family, don't you forget it."
They continued to chat like this for the rest of the hour discussing the modern wizarding world, the decrease in standards set by Hogwarts, the lack of forward momentum in development by the Wizarding World as a whole meant that some portions of it still seemed so archaic as to make the Romans seem hyper-progressive, the spreading of the families over the last century, Harry, or Uncle, as he had near demanded she call him after the fifth sir or Mr. Potter reminding her that they were family, kept comparing her to the Grand Seven as they had come to be known, often saying how she looked so like His Ginny that he doubted either of them could have told themselves apart. Normally Ginevra hated those sorts of comments feeling that they suggested that she was just a replacement, but from him, it was totally different, he felt she was just like the woman he had loved all her life but he wasn't trying to make her fill a void, instead she was building her own home on land that should have had grandchildren and more filling it.
Eventually the nurse from the station came to tell her the hour was almost up and the door would let the girl out. She was deeply surprised to find the girl smiling and the strange old coot that had filled the bed since before she had started working at the hospital filled with more life than at any time during her employment. Ginevra left quickly promising to see the man again but she'd told her mum she was only going to get a tea.
Harry Potter sighed contently at seeing the current generation still so similar to those he'd known. Settling back into his bed he wished for the first time since entering the hospital that he didn't have more forms of entertainment when his head seared in an uncontrollable pain, unlike his old scar's pain this rolled throughout his brain in waves that just seemed to keep on coming.
A memory that he had tried to keep down inside himself since Lily had broken contact with him resurfaced.
He was standing in a graveyard rain pouring down, each drop soaking into him, weighing him down as he looked at the newest dark lord to terrorise the world
"They all deserved what I did! The world deserves my punishment for their crimes.I'm better than any of them and yet they dare to look down on and mock me?! I've showed but a fraction of my power." The figure opposite Harry yelled
"When all this started I had a wife whom I dearly loved, two great wizards for sons and a daughter who could have been the single most gorgeous Witch outside the Veela with a powerful affinity for hexes to back her. Now? Now I don't know what I have. Barely any of that. And you took them from me. For what? Because you were bullied a little? Because life didn't go quite how you planned it? But now its just you and me. We end this here and now, I'm so sorry, I wish I could have prevented this" Harry drawled before finally raising his wand and aimed for the cloaked figure's chest
"Bombarda!"
"Crucio"
Both wizards fired at the same time, the cloaked wizard shook slightly as he realized the majority of his chest had been destroyed with one spell. He looked up to see the great Harry Potter writhing on the ground in extreme pain, his final act before he slumped face first into the mud was to smile.