A/N: Sorry about the wait.
Harry felt like his heart was about to burst. His wife Hermione lay panting and sweating in the hospital bed and a faint crying could be heard a few feet away. Harry gripped Hermione's hand and brushed the hair off her face as she looked up at him grinning.
"We did it." She whispered.
Harry kissed the top of her hair, "You did great love, I can't believe it really happened.
"I know, we're parents now, it's kind of scary." Hermione answered.
Harry chuckled, "Well we've made it through a war, and I think we can survive this."
"I love you Harry."
"I love you too Hermione."
"Mr. and Mrs. Potter," said the nurse walking over, "Would you like to see your baby now?"
Harry looked back at his wife, who silently nodded. The nurse was then handed a blanketed bundle to the nurse who slowly carried it over too the parents. She handed her to Hermione first, who beamed at the sight of their first child.
"It's a girl." The nurse told them.
Hermione gently handed her off to her husband.
"You've got to see her Harry, she's so beautiful."
Harry tried to keep his arms from shaking as he took the baby in his arms. With tears in his eyes, Harry pulled away part of the sheet so he could see his child's face.
And the world fell down.
Harry screamed. Ginny's face laughed at him from inside the blankets. Ginny grinned at him in the bed. Ginny was the face of the doctors and the nurses. Her laugh rang in his ears and he became dizzy.
"I love you Harry darling," they were all now saying; "I will love you forever."
Harry woke then, drenched in sweat with the tears still fresh in his eyes.
'Five Minutes'
The room didn't have a clock, so Harry had begun watching out the window for where the sun was when Ginny came in, and after several days of this was almost always able to correctly guess when she would be coming in. It was now probably around noon, which meant she would be bringing him his lunch soon. Harry was becoming increasingly nervous as the days past; because ever since Ginny planted the fake body, every time she left the room she would smile and say,
"Only five more days Harry." Or "Only three more days Harry."
It was now only two more days; two more days until what? He knew he didn't want to know. It was these times of day when Harry resolve to leave grew even stronger, if it weren't for this damned potion…
He remembered then that it had been a week and his heart sunk, today she would give him one more dose of that Novriltus potion, he had to get out.
When he wasn't worrying about that, he was thinking about the dream he had last night. He was starting to think he was going crazy, he dreamed of Hermione almost all the time, but they had been good dreams. Last night was one of the most horrifying things he had ever seen, and it hadn't real been real. Ginny was everywhere, she was probably watching him now. His eyes darted across the room, she had a gun, who wasn't to say she didn't have video cameras in there and she'd been watching him this whole time?
'Get a hold of yourself Potter,' the little voice in his head yelled, 'you can't move, what would be the point of her watching you?'
'Why not?' he answered, 'she does it every time she brings me food. '
The large amount of thoughts swimming through his head was starting to give Harry a headache, and he would have given anything to be able to rub his temples. He looked out the window and saw, to his surprise that the sun had changed positions. Ginny should have been there by now. As if his headache wasn't bad enough already, even more thoughts started forming in his mind. What if she's left? What if she hurt herself and is unconscious somewhere, what if…?
It was then that Harry realized, if she was late coming in, that meant she was late giving him the potion. Harry's heart soared with hope and his eyes fell on his right arm. Closing his eyes and bracing himself for whatever would come next, his tried to lift his arm, and…it moved. He opened his eyes and looked at his arm. He curled his fingers and then uncurled them, dropped his arm slowly and then raised it again. Trying his other arm, he found that it could also move now, the potion was wearing off!
Unfortunately, his legs were still immobile, but that was okay, they would be soon enough, just as long as she didn't come in any time soon. Harry knew that this was his chance, and he couldn't wait any longer. He lifted himself up and managed to roll over to the side of the bed. Reaching down he leaned on the hard wooden floor and tried to hoist his body off the bed and onto the floor. He moved as slowly as he possibly could, but no matter how slowly he moved, he could not stop his paralyzed legs from falling and land hard on the floor making a loud thud.
"Fuck!" He hissed loudly.
His heart stopped when he realized how much noise he had just made. He sat perfectly still listening for the sounds of footsteps or for a voice, but he heard nothing. After about ten minutes, Harry felt safe enough to try and move, and this time his right leg was mobile again. He shakily got to his feet and hobbled slowly to the door. Grasping the door handle in his sweaty palm, he turned it cautiously and was slightly surprised to find it unlocked. She probably didn't see any need to since he couldn't move before. Not wanting to dwell on that, Harry stepped softly out of the room and for the first time since he first was captured, he got to see the rest of his cage. The wallpaper was pale yellow and was so old that it was peeling off. Other than that the walls were completely barren save for a few photos of him and Ginny. Harry forced himself to ignore their smiling faces and limped down the hall. As he passed the door next to his he casually glanced into the room and stopped dead in his tracks. There, sleeping on a rather large bed was Ginny.
Harry somehow made it to the other side of the door without realizing it, and he peeked in at the young woman. In her sleep, Ginny had this almost innocent quality about her, one that would almost make it hard to believe that she was insane. She snored softly and turned over in her sleep. As he watched her, Harry was struck with a thought, she was completely vulnerable right now, and he may have been weak from the potion, but he could still probably overpower her as long as she wasn't armed. On the nightstand next to her lay the pistol she had shown him several nights ago, how easy it would have been to just walk in there, grab the weapon and…end it, end it all.
But somewhere in his gut, Harry knew that even if he did have that gun, he wouldn't do it, he couldn't. Ginny had been his friend once, his love once, he would never have had it in him to kill her. When this was all over, she'd go to Azkaban, or possibly the mental ward at St. Mungo's. She would stay there forever and hopefully get the help she needed. Harry drew his eyes away from her and crept down the hall searching for a door or a window big enough for him to fit through. Along the way he came to a large space in the wall which led into the living room. This room was also mostly empty, the couch and recliner sat on either side of the wall, and in the middle was a small coffee table. Other than that there was nothing, not a single picture on the wall or anything. When he examined the coffee table, he realized that there was a rather large book on top and his curiosity got the best of him. He walked over as slow as possible and picked it up, it was a scrapbook. Harry sat down in the recliner which made a squeaking noise, Harry stopped moving and waited to hear Ginny waking up, but she never did. Finally, Harry felt safe enough to sit down all the way and open the book.
The first few pages were just newspaper clippings from the days after he first defeated Voldemort as a baby. Turning the pages he found several photos of him at Hogwarts. As he looked, Harry noticed something rather odd. The photos were wizard photos, and yet none of them moved, he then realized that many of them had been torn at and the pieces left were the pictures of Harry, or on rare occasions Harry and Ron, but Hermione's picture was always torn away. He almost felt sick when he got further in and found a picture that wasn't torn and simply had Hermione's face scribbled out with heavy black ink, and in some, Ginny had taped her picture over Hermione's. In one photo like this, Hermione's image kept trying in vain to move back into view, but to no avail.
Harry would have stopped then when he saw on the other side of the page another photo with Hermione's face drawn out, only this one was a newspaper clipping, the one that went out around six months ago announcing Harry and Hermione's engagement.
HARRY POTTER TO WED HERMIONE GRANGER
The article read, and went on to talk a little about how he and Hermione met, became friends, and how he proposed. Harry traced his fingers over where Hermione's face used to be and closed his eyes. In his mind's eye he could see her, wearing all black and crying, standing over a long wooden box. Harry's eyes snapped open and he tried to shake the thought from his mind. Absentmindedly, Harry turned the page and found that it was the last page Ginny had filled. A lone newspaper clipping had been glued in and Harry could feel his heart sink as far as it could go when he read the headline.
SEARCH FOR HARRY POTTER CALLED OFF; BODY FOUND!!
The body of Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived and savoir of the Wizarding World was found last Monday by high-ranking Auror Draco Malfoy and his team. As of yet the cause of death is not known but an Auror spokesman confirmed that there is belief of foul play. Mr. Potter's fiancée Ms. Hermione Granger was unavailable for comment.
Harry put the book down and sat back, trying to imagine what was going on out there. Had they already buried his 'body'? There had to be an autopsy right? Then they would see that it wasn't him; the body couldn't possibly be that real looking could it?
He looked up at the wall and was somewhat surprised to see a clock on the wall, it was now a quarter to one. Harry stood up and walked out of the parlor area. He looked down both ends of the hall and his heart swelled when he saw a door down one end. He headed to the door and didn't take into account that he was moving quickly with large steps until it was too late. He was halfway there and he hadn't noticed the footsteps.
"Harry?"
He whirled around and there she was, Ginny stood rigidly in the hallway wearing a long nightdress and looking a mixture of confusion, fear, and anger. Harry didn't wait for her to say anything else, he turned again and darted to the door, Ginny screaming at him in his wake, but she didn't follow him, Harry didn't have time to wonder why though, he was almost there and soon he would be free. He made a grab for the door knob and his heart almost exploded from the promise of freedom. His hand was almost on it when he felt some sort of barrier over it and was violently thrown back so far he hit the other side of the wall and slumped almost lifelessly to the floor. The last thing he saw before losing consciousness was a head of red hair leaning over him.
When Harry woke again his back hurt, from the force of the wall no doubt. But that didn't concern Harry at the moment; all he cared about was that his escape attempts had failed. He should have known that she'd put wards up. In the last two weeks or so she had more than proved that she was crazy, but not stupid. If she didn't lock his door, surely she would make sure he couldn't out of the actual house. Harry silently cursed his stupidity and didn't even try to move into a more comfortable position (this one was killing his back), he knew that she had given him the potion again while he was out, and he didn't even have to open his eyes to know that Ginny hadn't left. When he finally did, there she was, but she wasn't smiling, in fact her face was completely expressionless.
"Good Morning." She said somewhat stiffly.
"Good Morning," Harry answered softly, and put on a fake smile, "How are you?"
"Not good Harry, not good," she answered, "and don't that cheerful thing on me, you think I don't now why you tried to leave yesterday?"
Harry searched for an answer, his fear of what she would do or had already done growing every second. "I-I was just-"
"You were just trying to leave," Ginny cried, raising her voice to him for the first time since she kidnapped him, "You were trying to leave so you could go back to your precious Hermione."
The way she said Hermione's name was like the way one would say the most dreadful swear word.
"Ginny, I don't want to-"
"You don't want to leave? You like it here? Is that what you're trying to say? Don't give me that. Next you're probably going to say that you were only leaving to go to the stationary store and buy me some chocolates and a nice fucking greeting card is that right?" Ginny ranted, this curse word slipping out of her mouth like it was natural.
"Ginny I-"
"You listen to me Mr. Potter, you will not talk to me like that, like I'm stupid, if you try anything like that ever again then so help me I'll-"
She stopped, her eyes widened slightly and she seemed to come to her senses, or at least to as much sense as she could. She looked at Harry again this time with no anger and much regret.
"Oh Harry I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell at you like that, it's the thought of you leaving again, it made me crazy. I'm so sorry." She said grabbing his hand.
'That made you crazy?' Harry thought to himself in disbelief.
"Listen Harry, I'll make it up to you, I'm gonna go make your dinner and I'm going to make all your favorites okay?" Ginny asked.
She didn't wait for an answer. She turned and ran quickly from the room shutting the door behind her. Harry stared at the door aimlessly for a minute, his brain trying to piece together what has just happened. All that did was bring on yet another headache, so Harry moved his gaze to the ceiling and closed his eyes.
"Crazy bitch."
