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Chapter 37 - Homecoming
"Mrs. Potter, you can't be serious!"
"I have never been more serious in my life, Healer! I will be staying in the room with Harry. Any questions?"
"Yes, where do you want your remaining body parts sent?"
"Very clever, Healer Ozbourne, but none to effective. You see, I am not at all a weak witch. Combine that with the fact that I love that man with all that is in me, the simple truth is, that the only way he will defeat this, is if I am with him. That's the way it will be. If you can't work with that, I know a good number of medi-wizards at St. Mungo's that will be more than happy to aid me. Harry Potter is quite loved."
The healer tried one more time. "Please, Mrs. Potter, reconsider this foolhardy quest."
Ginny looked at the man in front of her. "Mr. Ozbourne, if we go in that room with the slightest aura of disunity, then indeed, all will be lost. If you don't think that you can do that, I will ask to have my husband reassigned to someone else. It is up to you of course, Healer." She looked at him askance.
He sighed. "Very well, Mrs. Potter, very well. I pray that you know what you are doing." He put a hand on the door handle. "Are you ready?"
She nodded and he pushed the door open. "Good morning, Harry. I have a nice surprise for you today. You have a new roommate."
Harry looked at Ginny and sneered then looked at the Healer. "You have got to be kidding me, right?"
"Not at all, Harry. Ginny will be staying here with you, for as long as you are here."
Harry growled at the woman in his room. "Do you have a death wish? Was my first attempt on your life not warning enough for you? Let me make myself perfectly clear, and I will use small words so that you will understand; I don't want you here. You sicken me."
"Are you quite finished, Harry? Because now it is my turn." She walked up to him and slapped his face. "I am your wife. I promised to love you, and honor you through good times and bad times; and these times are about as bad as they get. But I want you to consider something, if these times are as bad as they get, and we are both still alive and kicking, then we know we can defeat anything else that comes down the road.
"I could kill you in your sleep."
"You could, but you won't."
Harry smirked. "And what makes you so sure?"
She poked a finger continuously into his chest. "Because I know you, Harry Potter. And as confused as you are right now, somewhere, deep inside, are all the memories that we have together. One of these days, you will access them and begin to heal. I will be here to make sure that you do."
He furrowed his brow then with a mocking bow, said, "Welcome, wife. Make your self at home."
By two weeks later, Harry had built up a tolerance for Ginny's presence in his room. That is to say, that he completely ignored her. When she spoke, he didn't answer, and when she was near him, he looked through her.
It was trying. She had gone into this with all hopes that the constant stimulation would spark the memories. She had been wrong. He seemed to be retreating back into himself. He was making strides, all of them backwards, but still she kept on, knowing that things always got worse before they got better.
She saw Miki only rarely, because George had taken him home to the Burrow to stay with the family there. She missed him terribly, almost as much as she missed Harry. But she kept up a brave front, for Harry's sake.
When Christmas time came around, Ginny brought decorations to brighten up the room. She was up on a chair hanging garland when the chair began to wobble. The next thing she knew she was falling, and a moment after that, she was in Harry's arms.
She looked into confused emerald eyes and whispered, "Thank you, Harry."
There was a spark of something for a moment. It was gone quickly and replaced by betrayal and hurt, but she knew that she had seen it.
In confusion and anger, Harry pushed her away. "Leave, I don't want you here. Do you hear me? I don't want you here." He yelled and pushed her again.
"I told you before Harry, I'm not leaving." Ginny's voice was quiet as she looked at him.
He put his hands around her throat and began to squeeze. "Fine, then you will die. I will not tolerate you any longer."
She only looked into his eyes without fear. After another moment he pushed her away. Then he did something he had never done before, he sat in the corner on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest and began shaking and rocking.
Ginny called the medi-wizard's desk and asked for the Healer, then sat on the floor in front of Harry, not touching him but trying to be a comforting presence anyway. He stared past everything in the room to a scene in his mind.
Ginny's voice was soft and soothing. "Harry, where are you now?"
"A room, made of rock. So c-cold."
"What do you see, Harry?"
"You, killing me."
"That was a lie, Harry. Do you understand me? It was a lie."
He shook his head and looked at her. "It hurt so bad. You did it." Then he was up and trying to strangle her again. "You promised, and you killed me."
"Ha…Ha…ry!" She tried to loosen his hands but he was stronger. She passed out just as the Healer came in and stunned him.
Ginny woke in her bed at home; Miki was sleeping next to her. She was surprised, it had been a long time since she had been in her own bed and struggled to remember what had happened. Then it came back to her. The fall. Harry catching her. The spark she saw in his eyes. Harry rocking back and forth on the floor and finally Harry trying to strangle her.
Despite that part of it, she was intensely happy. And on top of that, Miki was next to her and she reached out and smoothed his tousled hair lovingly. She stretched and yawned and got out of bed. Yesterday had been a difficult day for both her and Harry, and she had the bruises to prove it.
Then she remembered something else, it was Christmas Day. She went downstairs to find a huge tree, fully decorated with gifts stacked high. She went into the kitchen to find her mother puttering around, making her traditional Christmas Breakfast of sweet rolls and pots of hot coffee.
"Mum?" She ran over and gave her mother a huge hug. "Oh mum, it is so wonderful to see you. And Miki's here too. I've missed him so much."
Your father and brothers are here as well. We just decided that you needed us here today of all days."
"Yes, I love Christmas. Harry had some progress yesterday, mum."
Molly frowned. "So we've heard, baby."
Ginny touched her shoulder. "Mum, it was a good thing."
"No, baby, it wasn't. Harry got so bad after the Healer got you out of there that he had to be sedated. They are going to Obliviate him this morning."
Ginny's eyes narrowed. "Oh, no they won't. Not as long as I am alive to prevent it." She immediately Apparated to the hospital and crept into Harry's room. She was happy to see Professor Dumbledore there, watching over him.
"How is he this morning, Professor?"
"Not very good child. I assume you have been told that he is going to be Obliviated this morning. He just can't handle it all." The professor looked sad.
Ginny's voice was quiet so as not to wake Harry, but it was also full of steal. "No Professor, he won't. I will not allow it."
"I realize, Ginny, that you are distraught, but this is the best thing for him now."
Ginny stood her ground. "I forbid it!"
At that moment the Healers came in to perform the Obliviate spell and Ginny pulled her wand out and threatened them with it. "You will not touch him. Do you understand? I do not consent to this. He is finally making progress and you will not hinder that because you are tired of working with him. Healer Ozbourne, if you lay so much as a finger on him, I will have so many charges brought against you that you will never practice medicine again."
"Mrs. Potter, be reasonable."
"Reasonable? You people want to take away every thing he has fought for; and when he has finally, finally shown the first spark of recovery, you want to take it away from him."
Professor Dumbledore looked at her sympathetically. "Mrs. Potter, Ginny, I understand your reluctance to have this done, I really do, but I feel that it is the best thing for him right now."
She glared at him. "And you are the worst of them. You used him to kill that fool of a Dark Lord, but the first time he needs your help, you turn your back on him and are ready to throw him out with yesterday's garbage. You sicken me! Get out! All of you just get out of here before I hex you all into next week. I am taking him out of this joke house. I am taking him home. He got in this condition because he was fighting for his family. He will continue to fight for his family.
Everyone in the room hurried out, leaving Ginny alone, with Harry. She was panting from her tirade and sat on the floor right where she was and cried.
After a moment she felt a hand on her shoulder and she jerked around to see Harry stooped down behind her. He looked into her eyes for a long moment, confusion clearly visible in those emerald depths. "I don't understand why you just did that."
"I know you don't Harry, but you will understand, I believe that with all my heart."
He stood up and the potions made his head swim so that he had to hold onto the side of the bed.
"Do you feel that you can Apparate?"
He shook his head. "I don't think I can walk right now."
"Port Key, then." She grabbed a water pitcher from the bedside table, dumped it out where it stood and tapped it with her wand and performed the series of movements and spells that would take them home.
After she finished, she wrapped a steadying arm around his waist and they both grabbed the pitcher and were gone.
She brought them directly to their room in the Manor; then turned to him. "Welcome home, Harry." Then caught him as he stumbled. She led him over to the bed and pulled the sheet down. "Harry, you lie down and sleep off those damned potions."
He shook his head. "Why are you doing this? I don't understand."
"Because, I love you." She sat down on the edge of the bed. "Harry, I don't have the ability to take away all of the pain you went through. I can't make it go away; only you can do that. But I am here to help you get through this. I will do everything in my power. I won't let anything happen to you if I can help it." She brushed his hair out of his eyes. "You are safe here. No one here will hurt you. Get some sleep, Harry."
He looked at her with questioning eyes. "When I was with my Master, he told me that I was safe; now, you tell me that I am safe. Both can't be right."
He looked at her with such pain in his eyes, that it was all she could do not to cry. "We'll talk about it when you aren't under the influence of all the sedating potions, Harry. For now, rest." She kissed his forehead and left the room quietly closing the door behind her.
&
Ginny leaned against the bedroom door and sobbed. Her heart was breaking for Harry; but also for herself and Miki. She knew when she married Harry that it was not necessarily an easy life that she had chosen, but nothing had prepared her for this. She had underestimated the venom that some in the wizarding world had toward him. She had thought that with Voldemort dead, that Harry's life would settle down a bit. She did not regret for one minute that she had married him; she just wished that everyone would leave him – leave them alone.
Ron came up the corridor and saw her sitting on the floor outside the bedroom door. He sat down next to her. The concern was heavy in his voice when he spoke. "Gin, I thought you went to be with Harry in the hospital. Didn't you make it in time?"
She grabbed his hand and put her head on his shoulder. "Yes, I made it in time and prevented them from doing that awful thing to him."
"Then, why the long face?"
"I just wish – Ron, have you ever just wanted the whole world to go away?"
Ron chuckled lightly. "Only about once a day or so."
"I brought him home, Ron."
Ron pulled back and looked at her in shock. "I beg your pardon?"
"I brought him home. He's in there sleeping off the potions."
"Harry is here?"
Ginny only nodded her head.
"Merlin, Ginny, what were you thinking? I'm not certain that that was a good decision on your part. He may try to strangle you again."
"I know, Ron. I know all of that. I just couldn't leave him there. To them he was just another wizard; a wizard with a serious problem that they didn't know how to handle. So instead of saying that they didn't know how to help him, they were going to Obliviate him.
"Who knows? Harry might be happier not remembering any of it, but I just didn't think that that was fair to him, to me or to Miki. I sincerely don't think that he would want to be Obliviated." She sighed heavily. "I love him, and I miss him, so much, Ron. I just want my husband back. I just want my Harry back."
On the other side of the door, Harry listened to every word she said. With a sigh he returned back to the bed and lay there wide awake, despite the potions working against him. He was so confused. Who did he believe? His Master? His Master would never lie to him, would he? Or did he believe Ginny; Ginny who fought so valiantly for him in the face of opposition? Ginny fought for him in the face of her own life. He quickly tried to remember how many times he himself had threatened her life, just for being in the room with him.
These thoughts tumbled over and over themselves in his mind before the power of the potions finally took their toll, and he fell asleep. That was when the nightmares started.