Disclaimer: I claim no ownership to the Harry Potter series or it's characters. This is purely for fun, and I am making no money from this story.
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Enjoy!
Chapter Twelve
Potter manor felt too cold, too empty. Ginny walked around as though dazed, numbly preparing for the day that lay ahead.
Out of her wardrobe she took a plain black dress and a pair of high heels; she dressed slowly, trying to postpone having to leave the house, having to accept that this was happening.
But inevitably Ginny could no longer delay herself, and she shakily walked downstairs to where her parents stood waiting for her, having come to escort their daughter to the graveyard where the service was to be held.
Their expressions grim, each greeted her solemnly. Molly embraced Ginny, trying to comfort her, but Ginny felt nothing, only sadness.
"Are you ready, sweetheart?" Arthur Weasley asked softly as the women separated.
"...I'll never be ready," Ginny murmured, tears falling anew.
Arthur placed a comforting hand on Ginny's shoulder, but no words came.
In silence Ginny took her father's hand, and with a loud crack which reverberated through the quiet house, they disapparated.
The cemetery was as cold and gloomy as the house had been. Again joined by both of her parents, Ginny trudged unwilling to where a plot had been prepared alongside the grave of Harry's own parents.
Several neat rows of white folding chairs had been arranged before the freshly dug grave; many people had already arrived, and were sitting quietly.
Arthur led his daughter to a seat in the front row, he spoke to her in that same placating, soft tone, "Ginny, sit down dear."
"Yes, your father's quite right, Ginny. We should sit, the service will be starting any moment," Molly agreed, taking a seat beside her husband.
Ginny stared at the open grave, in barely concealed horror at the knowledge that this would be the final resting place of her husband. The thought was simply too painful to bear.
No sooner than Ginny had taken her seat, soft nondescript music began to play, and the coffin was brought forward by the pallbearers. Neville and Ron came first, standing to either side of the casket, it's heavy load weighing on their shoulders; the faces of those who came after them just seemed blurred to Ginny.
The faint sound of muffled cries echoed throughout the cemetery, the wizarding minister took control of the coffin, using his wand to levitate it into position over the grave, away from the pallbearers.
In a trance, Ginny stood, walking away from her parents to where the coffin now rested.
Then suddenly, it was open, and Ginny was looking down into it...
Ginny awoke in a cold sweat, the last traces of a scream fell on her lips, as though it had been held in through the dream, and only now had been set free.
Looking around, Ginny realised that she was sitting in the corner of Harry's hospital room, Hermione was hovering over her anxiously.
"Ginny, are you okay? Did you have a nightmare?"
Ginny was now sobbing softly, unable to break away from the horrifyingly vivid dream. "...Harry's dead, he's dead! I was at his funeral, and-"
"It's alright, Ginny. Just calm down. It was a close call, but the doctors were able to resuscitate Harry. He's still very ill, but he is alive."
"But I saw... He can't be..." Ginny stuttered, scared and confused. She'd seen it with her own eyes, felt it, they had shared a kiss, and then Harry had died in her arms. She'd been at his funeral...
"It was just a dream, Ginny," Hermione said reassuringly, then she changed tactics, she knew that only one thing would suffice to calm the younger girl. Stepping aside, she let Ginny see Harry lying in his bed, sleeping, but very much alive. It was however very noticeable that a great deal more medical equipment now surrounded Harry's bed. "See, he's okay. He was awake a little while ago... He seems to be okay, good even given everything that happened."
Wordlessly, Ginny stood, making her way shakily to her husband's bedside. Her heart rate was slowly returning to normal, and she was calm enough now to remember the events that had unfolded after Harry had collapsed in her arms.
When it had happened, for a moment the world had seemed to come crashing to a halt, no one had known how to respond to the sudden turn in events.
Then Angelina had called for assistance, before pushing past the gathered family members to get to Harry's side. She had dropped the back of the bed, before leaning over, and starting resuscitation efforts on Harry.
Doctors and nurses had come into the room at a run, bringing with them all sorts of medications and emergency equipment, and immediately aided Angelina in her effort to bring Harry back to life.
Ginny remembered George and their father pulling her away from Harry, whom she'd clung to desperately. She remembered them holding onto her tightly as she screamed in horror, either unwilling or unable to break her gaze as she watched the medical staff work at a fervent pace.
Then that moment came, a kind of calm fell over the room as the staff stepped back slightly, comfortable that the crisis had passed.
Now, Ginny ran a hand over Harry's gaunt face, as though to reassure herself that he really was real, that this wasn't actually the dream. Then, leaning over, she whispered into her sleeping partner's ear, "Never, never scare me like that again, Harry."
"Why? You'll kill me?" Harry it seemed had only been feigning sleep, or had just woken as Ginny had spoken to him.
Ginny laughed humourlessly, "Very funny, Harry."
"Thank you, I thought so," Harry joked, distracting Ginny from the true severity of their situation... They might have been able to save him this time, but he knew all too well that it would most likely happen again, and sooner or later his luck would run out.
Late the following afternoon, Angelina came around to visit Harry. For the better part of an hour, she just sat with him while he slept, allowing Ginny to take a break, and get something to eat in the cafeteria.
But once Harry was awake, Angelina moved her chair closer to Harry's bedside, and they talked.
"I sent letters to some of the guys from the old team last night. If it's alright by you, they want to come visit."
Having his former teammates seeing him in this condition was right up there on a long list of things that Harry had decided didn't want when his condition had started to worsen, but he didn't honestly have the strength to argue it, so he agreed.
Not long after this, Harry awoke to find every member of his original Quidditch team, except Fred and George gathered at his bedside. They all wore the expression of worry and dismay that Harry had grown so used to seeing lately.
Harry tried to sit up, in an effort to seem stronger than he felt, but his action had quite the opposite effect, as he couldn't even lift his head off the pillow. At least someone had left the back of the bed up, so he wasn't lying flat.
Oliver Wood was closest to him, from the looks of him, he'd left a practice to be there, though he was wearing street clothes, not robes, mud flecked his clothes, and he looked rather windswept. He gave Harry that sad, pitying smile that Harry had grown to despise so badly, patting Harry's hand as he greeted him, "Harry. How're you feeling, mate?"
Harry wanted to laugh, 'how was he feeling?', really? He was lying in a hospital bed, too weak to do anything for himself.
"Right, ah sorry," Wood said, it seemed that he too had realised how his words sounded given the situation. "I just meant, um..."
"It's okay. Don't worry about it, Wood," Harry said, though even his voice was now to weak to seem at all reassuring. "How've you been?"
Wood, like his former teammates, was all too happy to shift the focus away from the proverbial elephant in the room. For awhile they sat around discussing Quidditch, then moving onto the subject of what the rest of the team had done since school.
They soon moved onto discussing Alicia's job at the Ministry, when Harry looked to Wood - seemingly oblivious to the current conversation - and told him, "My wife Ginny was playing for the Harpies you know. I'm sorry she isn't here right now, I would've liked to introduce you."
Wood was possibly as confused as Harry at that moment. "...I did meet Ginny, Harry. You introduced us, we talked for at least twenty minutes. You don't remember?" Wood seemed positively alarmed as Harry clearly had no recollection of this, he looked to Angelina, "What's going on? Why doesn't he-"
"He's fading," Angelina said with a heavy heart; Harry had been doing so well up until then, she had hoped to avoid one of these 'moments' during their friends' visit. But it happened so often in the last few days, she hardly should have been surprised.
Harry was annoyed by this comment, things like this seemed to keep happening, and it was highly frustrating for him. "I'm right here."
"I know, Harry. I didn't mean it like that."
Harry didn't see how else the remark could've been meant, but he couldn't find it in himself to get angry.
Angelina could see that Harry was becoming less lucid rather rapidly, and knowing that Harry wouldn't want anyone to see him like this, she turned to the assembled group, "You guys should probably go. Harry needs to rest."
They had now realised that Harry really was nearing the end, and there was no longer any doubt in their minds that this would most likely be the last chance they would have to see and talk to Harry.
"Alright guys, Angelina's right. Let's go," Wood said authoritatively, like he was still their captain. As they filed out of the room, Wood hung back in the doorway, prompting Angelina to go to him.
"I'm sorry you had to see him like that," Angelina said in a hushed tone, glancing back to see that Harry had fallen back to sleep.
"It's... Don't worry about it," Wood replied quickly, matching her tone. They stood in silence for many moments before Wood spoke again, "You'll let us know when, well you know... Won't you?"
"Of course."
"When do you think-"
"Days probably, maybe weeks."
"And there's no chance that he'll-"
"If they don't find a donor in the next day or two, then no. Even if we find someone after that, he'll be too weak to survive the process."
"And the chance of finding a donor is what?"
"Well we've already searched every available registry, and we haven't found anything. Without any close living relatives that's pretty much all we can do."
"...Could anyone get tested?" Wood asked. "Like his friends?"
"We've tested quite a few of his friends, but we haven't been able to find a good match."
"Could I get tested? And the rest of the team if they're willing. It surely couldn't hurt to try."
Angelina hesitated, she wasn't quite sure that Wood understood what he was suggesting any more than the Weasleys' had when they agreed to be tested.
Even if by some kind of miracle one of them was a match, the procedure needed to gather the cells was painful and carried risks. But given the situation...
"We can try."
After catching up to their friends in the lobby, and explaining the idea to them, finding that they also were only too willing not only to help, but also wanted to contact their friends to ask them to do the same, Angelina took them back upstairs to collect a blood sample from each of them.
"When will you know?" Alicia Spinnet asked as she rolled down the sleeve of her jumper.
"The first more basic match will only take a few hours. If there's a possible match there, and remember that that's a very big if, then we'll do a second test to be certain, that one may take up to a couple of days."
"But I thought you said that you only had a couple of days left to search?"
"It'll be close, and if we can get a match it'll still come down to my supervisor approving Harry to go ahead with the transplant."
That night, as more of the Weasley family arrived to visit Harry reflected sadly on just how much had changed since their last gathering at Christmas. Looking at the Weasley family he knew that as they gathered this time, it wasn't truly about him. They knew he was dying, and they wanted to be there to support the youngest member of their family when her husband died.
It seemed as though everyone had already given up.
Knowing all too well the pain that Harry and his family were going through, but not able to do much about it, Dr Alonstone had resigned himself to finishing up some paperwork in his office before leaving for the day. Then the phone rang, startling him, causing him to jump out of his chair slightly.
"Oh good evening, Dr Alonstone. This is Dr Brookes, I have the final test results on the latest group of potential donors for your patient. The registry still has no matches, but we have found a five point match to one of the directed tests that you sent over."
"Excellent, thank you. Can I have the name?"
"Ah yes, the name... Oliver Wood."
To Be Continued...
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