Putting It Back
Chapter 25 – Hospital Wing
When he awoke, he was in the Hogwarts hospital wing. The bed seemed all too familiar. In a panic he looked around. Hermione was startled from the book she had been reading.
"Harry! You're awake."
He started to ask, but from beyond the curtain he heard her call, "I'm alright, Harry. Just a bit sore."
He exhaled in relief. Ginny was alright.
Hermione asked, "How did she know?"
Harry smiled. "We're not sure, but we think it has to do with her bonding her love to me. This also happened when Hagrid carried me out of the forest."
It was then that he noticed that she did not seem right. He then studied his friend for a second, and she was too sad to even notice. "How are your parents?" His heart dropped, as he witnessed her pained expression.
She sniffled. "They're dead. It was about the holidays. The Death Eaters were hoping to capture us."
Harry reached out to take her hand. "I'm so sorry."
They shared a moment of silence. "It is just another similarity we have together," he stoically noted with a hint of sarcasm.
"Well, Ron did threaten to start calling me Harry, when I kept berating myself over my mistake."
He slightly chuckled. He squeezed her hand. "Really, you shouldn't blame yourself. The plan was brilliant. You sent your folks to the other side of the planet with new identities. How did they actually find them?"
"Psychics," she sighed.
Harry's face turned in recognition. "Oh."
Hermione started crying again. "See! It was so obvious." Her sobs were harder, so Harry tried to get up to comfort her. He winced in pain as his body protested.
Noticing his pain, her grief stopped. "Don't move you'll injure yourself more."
Ginny called out, "Harry! Lay back down and rest." He hated this. Any significant amount of pain he allowed himself would be equally inflicted upon his Ginny and her mother..
He leaned back in the bed. "Hermione, it didn't seem remotely possible at all that someone could, or would attempt to track them all the way to Australia. This definitely wasn't your fault. Please stop."
She pulled a large box of tissues out of her purse. Pulling a few out, she wiped her tears and blew her nose.
Harry snickered to himself.
After blowing her nose, she asked, "What?"
"We are becoming more similar over this whole year. I was just imagining you rubbing some of those smarts off on me."
She perked up. "Oh would you like to study with me next year on advanced studies?"
He winced at the thought. "With my extra time, I was thinking about studying."
Giving him a tired look, she asked, "What, Quidditch?"
His eyebrow rose at the thought. "That's not a bad suggestion, but no. This year I was thinking of broom cupboards."
Harry heard Ginny giggle from the other side of the curtained partition.
Hermione rolled her eyes.