Ginny knew she was awake, that reality had finally won and pulled her back, but she didn't want to open her eyes didn't want to acknowledge the pain that had settled in her heart. She could hear her mother pottering around the room, she hadn't said anything to Ginny for a while but she knew the other woman would know she was awake now, but neither of them knew what to do. Soon the room grew quiet again and Molly brushed her hand over Ginny's hair simply letting her know that she was there when she needed.

But Ginny didn't need Molly, she needed Harry, needed him with every fibre of her being. She could feel their connection, but it was faint, dying, and she had no idea what to do about it. Closing her eyes even tighter she sent her awareness down that line reaching with everything she had for Harry, pulling him towards her where she could reach him.

"Please Harry," she whispered into the blackness hoping he could hear her.

Eve stood watching as the medic tended to Harry, she had a report telling her that physically he was healed but for some reason they were having real trouble reaching his mind. Shifters usually healed better around their own kind, and she had made sure to find cats not just shifters to surround Harry with but nothing seemed to be working. She didn't want to admit that they just might need that Ginny girl to pull him out of where ever he had retreated to. She wanted to keep Harry to herself and this was the perfect opportunity to make him disappear. She knew Lily would never give up looking for him, not until she had his dead body in her hands would she believe him gone, but she was just one witch easy enough to deal with.

If it truly took her pulling Ginny in to bring him back from the edge she knew it wouldn't be so easy to handle the girl. Watching as the medic left the room and was replaced by a quiet petite woman with raven black hair, she knew there was other obstacles that would come up. The woman climbed into bed with Harry and pulled him so that his head rested on her bare shoulder, Harry didn't respond to the skin to skin contact as he hadn't before, but she still held hope it would help.

The woman that held him now was a cat loyal to her and no one else, but she didn't entirely trust some of the other shifters. She had heard rumours of what had taken place in her club, what they had said to Lily and she didn't like it. They were supposed to be her people, she was their ruler, had been for over a hundred years and she wasn't going to give up that now.

But looking at Harry, his hair even longer now so that it dusted his shoulders and fell over his closed eyes, she knew she watched the knifes edge with him since he was the only one that could usurp her and keep her gone, but she needed him.

With a sigh she turned on her heal heading out of the secure rooms and heading for her own private quarters her mind spinning with thoughts of the battles to come.

Harry felt the power flowing into his body, knew there was a shifter close by who was sharing their own beast with him, feeding him as only shifters could, but he didn't care. He felt no urge to enter his body again, not until she was there. He knew she had left the dream world she had built, knew she was back in her body again, but she was still too far away from him.

The connection that tied them together was weak, even with her in reality now, but he could feel her pulling trying hard to reach him. He no longer had the strength to reach out to her having used what he had managed to scrounge together to reach her in the first place. Now all he could do was soak up the energy freely being given by his people. It was a strange feeling to be bathed in their power he had only ever been on the periphery of their society.

Lily had kept him safe by keeping him away from anyone or anything that could identify him, and that included from the underground shifter society. But she hadn't been able too much when he was old enough to go off himself and he knew she had realised he needed to connection they gave. He wasn't entirely human after all and shifters needed other things than just food and water to live. They needed contact with their own kind.

Thinking of that brought his mind back to Ginny, the only other thing a shifter truly needed once it was found was their mate. He wouldn't get truly better until he could contact her. He knew the future at his feet wasn't easy that he had many blunders to fix but he knew that he wouldn't even be able to begin without her. How could he even think of a future without the woman he called his.

Pushing his worries aside he moved deeper into his mind searching for the spark that he had felt earlier hoping that it had been fanned to life by the power that was flowing into his body. With delight he discovered that indeed the shifter energy had done the trick and he was no longer wiped out as he had been before. Gathering the power he could feel growing inside of himself, power that hadn't truly left him but had simply been impossible to access because the connection tying him to it had been so shattered, he carefully started puting the pieces back together so that he could feel that well inside of his body begin to fill again.

As he searched on his mind he could feel Ginny searching for him in turn, her touch was like a breeze against his to hot skin and instantly he relaxed. All at once their connection flared like silver sparks in his mind and he gasped as his mind was filled with her.

Harry keepers gasped as they watched his skin glow. The woman holding him instinctively knew to move and she was off the bed just as his back arched and the glow around him turned so bright they could no longer look directly at it. Shielding her eyes his healer watched as he slumped back to the bed and she thought whatever it was that had happened was over, but then the next moment his voice filled the air an almost feral growl that was torn from his chest.

She was just scrambling to her feet to reach him when there was another flash of light this one accompanied by a concussion of air that knocked her flat to the floor and when the sparkles cleared from her eyes she was staring at the ceiling with a face hovering over hers in worry.

She pushed at them trying to sit up but her head spun and she realised she must have cracked it on the floor.

"Harry?" she enquired and the faced paled.

"He's gone."