CP 6
Now, I can breathe, turn my insides out and smother me. Warm and alive, I'm all over you, would you smother me? Smother me? Smother me?
- Smother Me by The Used
It had been twenty-four hours since Ginny opened her eyes. She was still very groggy and was in a fair amount of pain, but she seemed to be handling it well. And now that she was awake and they could gauge her responsiveness, the Healers had begun a more aggressive form of treatment for her burns.
Harry sat holding Ginny's hand as usual, while she slept fitfully. Mrs. Weasley gazed at him and offered him a small smile. He returned it, and then ran his hand through his unruly hair. Ginny stirred again, this time opening her eyes and looking desperately to her right, finding Harry right where he always was.
"Harry," she said, relaxing a bit. "I had a dream that I was looking everywhere for you, and couldn't find you. I was screaming your name but you didn't hear me."
"I'm right here, I'm always going to be right here, Gin." He held her as gently as he could and kissed the top of her hair.
She tried to sit up a little, and Harry helped her as best as he could. She winced from the pain of her fragile skin. She glanced down at her arms and legs and grimaced again. "How long do the Healers expect my skin to look like this?"
"They're not sure, but they're doing everything they can to make it heal as quickly as possible." Harry's eyes flicked to her face again and looked away. Ginny, seeing this, brought her fingers to her face hesitantly, and touched it gently.
"Why do you keep looking at me like that?" she asked, then she found it. She felt the deep ridge in her skin and she visibly flinched. She swallowed hard, and then said, "Harry, please get me a mirror."
"Ginny," her Mum began, "I don't think that this is the best time for that."
"I need to know, Mum," Ginny said, her eyes never leaving Harry's. "Please, Harry?"
Harry rose slowly from his chair and went into the bathroom, retrieving a hand mirror. He closed his eyes and braced himself against the sink, willing himself to be strong enough for this.
He brought the mirror to Ginny, and handed it to her, returning to his seat. She took it from him and hesitated a moment.
"Is it really bad?" she asked Harry. He shook his head.
"No, not to me. You're alive and that's the important thing."
Ginny brought the mirror to her face and looked at the angry red scar traveling down her face. She had never seen anything so grotesque. She brought her finger up and traced the long scar from her forehead to her jaw. Tears formed in her eyes, and she looked at Harry.
"Now, we both have scars," she said and let out a sad kind of chuckle. The tears spilled over then, and Harry sat on her bed and cradled her gently in his arms. He smoothed her hair and kissed her cheek as she cried.
"Gin, it's going to be okay. You are so beautiful, and you're here with me," Harry said, trying to soothe her but she shook her head. She continued to cry on and off about her scar for the next two days.
XXX
"Mrs. Weasley, would you stay with Ginny for a while? I need to run a few errands," Harry asked as he got up from his chair.
"Of course, Harry, I'm not going anywhere," she replied.
Ginny turned her head towards Harry, reaching out her hand. "Where are you going?" she asked slowly, her lungs still not back to full capacity.
Harry took her hand, leaned over her and kissed Ginny's lips. "It's time for your nap, love, so sleep, and I'll be back before you wake up."
"Don't go," she whispered. She looked into his eyes, pleading.
"I'll be right back, I promise," he replied, extricating his hands from hers. "Less then an hour…"
"Harry…" Ginny began, but he had already gone.
XXX
Harry apparated directly to the boundary of the Burrow, determined to find what everyone else had missed. He walked up the narrow lane and turned the corner, his breath catching when he took in the sight before him. The Burrow lay in ruins.
Harry couldn't believe that anyone had managed to survive this disaster – the house looked like it had imploded upon itself, and was now its floors were stacked one on top of another like pancakes. He could still see and smell glowing embers, and he could barely make out the remnants of the loveseat that once sat on the back porch. It was charred and scorched, and Harry had to stand back a moment to take it all in.
He remembered everything - the countless hours that he had spent in this house, laughing and eating, hanging out with everyone, feeling like he was a part of a real family at last.
And, with a flick of a wand, it had all been taken away.
Harry battled with two emotions - sorrow and anger - and he didn't know which one was winning.
He walked slowly around the rubble, trying to focus on his task at hand – finding any shred of evidence that may give him a clue as to who had done this. He was fairly certain that the perpetrator hadn't entered the house – he was sure that the charms Mr. Weasley had set in place would have alerted the inhabitants to his presence.
That left Harry with the outdoors. He walked slowly, methodically searching for anything that seemed out of place. He circled the once beautiful home time and again, radiating outward with each pass three feet at a time, his eyes sweeping the ground relentlessly. On his sixth trip around the house, while walking through the overgrown grass, he came across a coin.
At first he picked it up and twirled it in his palm, nearly discarding it. But a glint on the coin's side caught his attention and he looked closer – he recognized this coin – he had one himself at 12 Grimmauld.
It was the coin that Hermione had charmed in their fifth year for the members of Dumbledore's Army - the coins that told the members the day and time the next meeting would take place. He put the coin in his pocket, wondering whether it was Ginny or Ron's.
After twelve more passes, now nearly twenty yards from the house, Harry had to admit defeat. He had found nothing. There had been too many people that visited the Burrow since the fire to make Harry's job easy. There were loads of unfamiliar footprints surrounding the house, but Harry was unable to distinguish between the arsonist and the Aurors.
He stood before the house, staring at the burnt remains and he shook his head, unable to believe that someone could turn something that he loved so deeply into something so ugly. He felt violated, vulnerable, and he didn't like the feeling.
He had to find whoever did this to the family that he loved. And he swore to himself he would.
XXX
Harry returned to Ginny in the hospital, and as predicted, she was still asleep. Mrs. Weasley looked up as Harry entered and smiled at him – he looked like he had aged ten years since he had left the room an hour ago.
"Harry, are you alright?" she inquired. He nodded his head and sat down in the empty chair opposite her and took Ginny's hand.
"Any change?" he asked and she shook her head.
"She's been sleeping for about a half hour now," Mrs. Weasley replied. Again, Harry nodded his head and laid it back against the wall, closing his eyes. He needed to come up with a plan.
He thought about nothing else for the next hour, keeping his eyes closed, focusing on what needed to be done. He thought of and discarded ideas systematically, trying to remember what Dumbledore, Lupin and Mad-Eye had taught him. Who? Why? What could they hope to gain by it? Where to start trying to find the culprit?
This situation was so different then any Harry had ever faced. Since he could remember, Harry had always known who his enemy was. Voldemort had been front and center in his life since he was eleven. But, how could Harry fight someone when he didn't even know who it was?
Harry went over everything he had surmised in his head. This wasn't some random attack by an unknown attacker. This had been a deliberate attack on the Weasley's, and what's worse, it had been done by someone that they knew.
He had come to this conclusion on his eighteenth pass around the Burrow, when he came across the property's apparition boundary, the place where Ginny always walked Harry to when he was going home. Harry realized that no one could have entered the property that hadn't been there before. The Burrow was unplottable, and no one would know where to find it, unless they had been told where it was by a Weasley.
One thing was clear, Harry was going to need help.