Con Fuoco
(with fire)
A HP fanfic by: A J
(Standard Disclaimer Applies)
Tom Riddle's shade and the basilisk of Slytherin shuddered in simultaneous death throes. Harry jumped over the great thrashing snake-tail, pulling Ginny safely out of the way as he went. She stirred as Tom's mystic echo faded.
"H-Harry?" she began, eyes huge and unfocused.
"It's all right, Ginny. Tom's …"
"Look out!" she cried, seeing a dark shape loom above them.
Harry tried to roll out of the way, pulling her with him again. Fawkes tried to interpose himself between the last spasm of the basilisk's tail and the two preteens. Ginny tried for her wand, thinking of using 'Wingardium' if nothing else in a last stab at defense. Sadly, none of them were entirely successful.
The tail smashed into the three of them, sending them crashing across the Chamber into the far wall. Bruised, bloody, battered anew, Harry rose slowly to his feet with a groan. His wand was still over where Tom had faded out, he realised, and with another groan, turned to head back that way. The faint clatter of wood on stone next to his feet drew his gaze down to Ginny's wand.
Fresh hope growing in his heart, he scooped up the wand and turned back to his companions. Fawkes seemed the worst off, having taken the brunt of that last tumbling on his hollow birds' bones. Harry knelt by him.
"Sorry, Fawkes, but I don't know any of Madam Pomphrey's pain-relief spells …" he said in advance. "Episkey," he incanted over Fawkes' bent wing, what he considered the worst injury. With an ear-piercing cry from the phoenix, the wing-bone reset, and Fawkes turned a baleful glare at Harry. "Sorry, sorry! It's the only healing spell I remember!" Fawkes warbled an off-key reply, his magical tears flowing over where his blood still dripped from the wing.
"Whahoppennnn?" Ginny moaned next to them. Harry turned to help her, leaving Fawkes to his own powers for the moment. "Har … cough … Harry, you look like crap." She clapped a hand over her mouth with a gasped "Eeeep!" then groaned when the movement pulled at an already-open wound, spilling fresh blood of her own atop Harry and Fawkes' not-inconsequential leakings.
Harry, used to foul-mouthing with life at the Dursleys', not to mention most of this second year at Hogwarts, fought down an inappropriate chuckle at her language. Fawkes gave them both a tolerant chirrup and extended his head, his eyes still weeping, over Ginny's open lacerations.
In his moving, a lone tear fell from his beak over the mingled blood of the three of them. When it struck the crimson puddle, there was a brilliant flash of light, making Ginny and Harry shield their eyes momentarily. When their sight cleared, it was to see Fawkes the phoenix crooning softly to a baby girl with flame red hair.
She opened emerald green eyes just like Harry's and giggled merrily at them, then held up her little arms enticingly. "Da!" she said to Harry, who blushed mightily and looked at Ginny in embarrassment. Ginny looked from the baby to Harry and back, totally confused. Then the little girl turned her way and said "Ma!"
Ginny gave another "Eep!" and turned as red as her hair. Her eyes met Harry's, and she knew they were thinking the same thing:
How were they going to explain this?