DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own anything Harry Potter affiliated. If I did, I would be sending this off to a publisher—not posting it online.
A/N: For those wondering why they stopped searching at dark in the last chapter, I forgot to add a detail about the centaurs being upset after the Umbridge incident during the last school year. Think of it as an informal treaty between Dumbledore and the centaurs. I've made the correction in the last chapter. No need to re-read, but wanted to make sure everyone was clear on that fact.
Sorry for the long delay… I got a new job that ate up a lot of my time, bought a house, had a brief run-in with Covid (and then lost my job to the Covid-conomy). But, I'm back and I appreciate all my readers and reviews so much. Special thanks to the guest reviewer that called attention to how long it had been since I posted... Time has felt like a giant blur, but I'm sure many of you can understand that feeling.
I really hope you enjoy!
Chapter Four
The next morning brought new hope for Hermione and the Weasleys. Molly was positively positive that they'd find the missing pair before dinner, and whether it was the light of a new day or the rest they all got the night before (even if it wasn't sound) her attitude was contagious. Others staying in the castle for the holidays who overheard the search plans during breakfast even volunteered to join the search. Hermione was determined to keep Molly's mindset. No stone would be left unturned!
It was a task sadly easier said than done.
They searched the entire day Christmas Eve, but they couldn't find any trace of Ginny, Harry, or anything that could have made the popping noise that Harry drew attention to the day before. Harry and Ginny were simply gone. Hermione kept trying to clear her mind. She felt like there was something she was missing, a detail she was forgetting.
"C'mon Hermione," Ron yelled from behind her. "Time to head back."
Hermione dropped her head from the red sparks in the sky, their signal to return to the castle, and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and hoped that she'd hear something, or that when she opened her eyes she'd see something that wasn't there the last 10 times she looked. Something that would allow them to keep searching the woods.
Why couldn't they find anything? It was almost sheer luck that she was able to convince the adults to let her and Ron join the search parties outside—but before she could even think about sneaking off Charlie volunteered to be their keeper for the day and she knew that there was no way he'd drop his guard for even a second to allow her and Ron to sneak off.
Knowing she was pushing her luck not turning back towards the castle the second the sparks lit the twilight sky, Hermione spun around and sulked back the way they came. "People don't just disappear without a trace!" she huffed in frustration as she reached Ron.
"Uh, yeah," Ron chuckled," they do. It's called disapparating."
Hermione took another deep breath, trying to remain calm. "But you can't disapparate on school grounds."
"Did you read that in History of Hogwarts?" Ron asked.
"Ron, Hermione!" Charlie called, interrupting the pair. "Let's go. Don't make me stun you again!"
"It's called Hogwarts, a History," Hermione retorted as she spun around to poke a finger in his chest, "as you bloody well know! And yes, I did." She retreated at a brisk pace, quickly passing Charlie.
"Seriously little brother," Charlie said, lowering his voice so only Ron could hear, "you catch more flies with honey."
Ron stopped dead in his tracks, looking over at the dragon tamer. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Charlie laughed. "Maybe you're not ready to know yet," he said, chuckling as he ruffled Ron's hair and slung an arm around his shoulders to keep him moving towards the castle.
At dinner that night, Hermione sat separate from the rest of the Weasleys, deep in thought.
"This isn't your fault Hermione," Neville said as he began adding food to his plate. Hermione stiffened in her seat, but he interrupted her before she could respond. "Don't deny it. You're over here on your own, avoiding the Weasleys, because you're blaming yourself for Harry and Ginny's being missing."
"But it is my fault," she sighed. "If I hadn't—"
"What?" he scoffed. "Set them up?"
She nodded.
"Did you force either of them to take off?" he asked, eyeing her carefully as she shook her head in response. "Then this isn't on you. Those two have been spending so much time together to avoid being caught between you and Ron that they were bound to end up together eventually. I just never thought they'd run off together like this!"
Hermione tried not to laugh at the ridiculous notion Neville had just posed, but she couldn't help it. The idea that Harry and Ginny were missing because they snuck off. "What are you implying?" she asked. "That they eloped?"
Neville turned red. "No, I—I didn't mean, I mean I didn't think, I—" he sputtered but she couldn't help but giggle at his fumbling.
She shook her head gently, assuring him that she didn't actually think he meant that the missing pair were off getting hitched in the forest somewhere. The two continued to eat their meals, Neville recounting the thorough search he completed this afternoon with Professor Sprout of all of the greenhouses.
Suddenly, Hermione started laughing, but pulled herself together before she drew unnecessary attention to herself in the Great Hall.
"What?" he asked, mildly confused by her outburst.
She shook her head in response. "I was going to mention how far you've come since I first met you on the train," she said. "But, beyond constantly losing your toad, you've always been this person."
"Clumsy? Forgetful?" Neville teased.
"An honest and loyal friend," she said, smiling. "You're just taller now!"
"And capable of dodging your petrificus totalus," he beamed.
She smiled at the memory. "Wow. That feels like ages ago! I'm just glad—" Hermione heard a pop in the Entrance Hall outside the doors to the Great Hall and froze mid-sentence. No one else seemed to be paying attention but she knew, without even looking. "Harry..." she whispered as she turned towards the door.
Standing just beyond the doorway in the entrance hall, stood Harry catching a collapsing Ginny, and looking startled and confused. Before he could slump under the combined strain of his exhaustion and Ginny's weight, Hermione rushed forward with a quick featherlight while Neville followed behind and propped up Harry until he could get his legs back under himself.
Hermione looked the pair up and down. Something about them seemed off… odd? But, before she could even get out the first question, they were swarmed by a crowd of people—lead by the matriarch of the Weasleys—and silenced by Dumbledore who insisted the pair go straight to the hospital wing.
As they moved towards the hospital ward, Harry refused to release his hold on Ginny, switching to carrying her instead of merely supporting her weight now that she was charmed.
"I'm not sure what to tell you," Harry said quietly to Ron and Hermione, as he looked down at Ginny unconscious in his arms. "I don't remember how we got to the castle. We were fleeing through the woods and then we were in the Great Hall."
Hermione looked at him puzzled, but Ron simply clapped Harry on the back. "It doesn't matter how you got back, the important thing is that you got back."
"Doesn't matter?" Hermione scoffed. "How can it not matter. Something is clearly going on and we don't have all of the information. He was missing for nearly three days—"
"Three days?" Harry interrupted, stopping mid-step outside the infirmary doors to look her dead in the eyes. Hermione nodded slowly, confused by his reaction as Ron opened the doors to the infirmary.
Once they were inside she didn't have a chance to continue her conversation with Harry as she was forced to wait patiently in the hall with the rest of the Weasley family as Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey tended to her friends inside for what seemed like hours.
When McGonagall and Dumbledore finally emerged, only 15 minutes later, Hermione watched them closely as they hurried off. The two were deep in conversation, concern lining their faces. When Mr. Weasley approached, fearful of what might have happened in the last 15 minutes, he was quickly reassured by the two professors as waved the family inside to see Harry and Ginny.
"Hermione!" she heard from the back of the group as she was about to enter the hospital wing. Turning, she remained in the hall as Neville approached her. She had all but forgotten that he had followed along to the infirmary. "Did they say anything? Are they okay?" he asked.
"Professor McGonagall said they were fine, but they seemed in a rush. Aren't you coming in?" she asked.
"No, no," he said. "I wouldn't want to intrude. You go! I'm sure Madam Pomfrey is already twitching from the number of people crowded in there."
"If you're sure," Hermione said, eager to turn back towards the door. "I'll fill you in later then?"
When Hermione entered the infirmary, her eyes immediately searched the crowded room. She assumed that Harry would be behind a curtain being tended to by the school matriarch, but was surprised to see him awake, standing and surrounded by the Weasleys badgering him with questions, looking almost exactly the same as when he first entered. He looked pleading at Hermione, who returned his look with a sympathetic smile.
"Harry," she called, parting the Weasley brothers with little effort to hug her friend. "Where's Ginny?" she asked, looking around to see that Ginny—along with both of her parents and Madam Pomfrey—were missing from the mass of bodies surrounding the boy who lived.
"Still out cold," he replied, jerking his head towards a curtain in the back of the room. "I've been trying to tell them that she's just tired, drained. She'll be fine once she rests."
"Let the professional be the judge of that," Bill said sternly, clearly keeping himself (along with Charlie, she noticed) between the bed at the back of the room and Harry. "Maybe if you filled us all in on where you and Ginny have been for the last three days—"
Hermione watched Harry carefully as he tensed, glancing around and realizing that he was completely surrounded. Reaching out, she placed what was meant to be a comforting hand on his shoulder, but he jerked as if she had burned him. Giving him a serious once over, Hermione took inventory of Harry. Beyond being dirty—she assumed from spending three days in the woods—he seemed thinner? She wasn't sure. There was something different. Was he taller? No, he was just standing up straighter to see around the Weasleys.
Right?
Harry was losing his patience with the Weasleys. Since the professors had left the Hospital Wing, he'd been swarmed by them! First, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley pushed him away from Ginny's bedside. Then her brothers formed a mob around him and started demanding answers to their questions.
He couldn't answer them.
He didn't know where they had been. He didn't know how he had gotten there—or how they had gotten back. What he knew was that he needed Dumbledore to come back with the information that Harry had asked him to retrieve, before Madam Pomfrey got too far into her tests.
"Harry? Harry!" he heard from the back of the room.
Harry used the surprise of Ginny's outburst to dodge past her brothers and sprint towards the back of the room where Ginny came bursting from behind a curtain. Reaching her, he took a moment to drink in her appearance. She was still dressed in the same clothes she had arrived in, but comparing the hand he used to gently caress her cheek, it looked as if someone—probably her mother—had cleaned some the grime from the rest from her face.
Ignoring the disgruntled noises from behind him, Harry continued to look her over, gently stroking her cheek. He finally met her eyes and held her gaze once he was sure that she was okay—well, as okay as she could be considering.
"We made it," she whispered to him, pulling him close. "We actually made it!"
Harry leaned into her and tightened his hold on her before lifting her to swing her around in excitement. "We did," he said, pulling back slightly to look at her again. Without hesitating, he dipped down and caught her lips in a short, sweet kiss.
"Oy!" Ron shouted from behind Ginny as she lifted onto her toes to deepen the kiss.
Harry glanced up to see Ron and several others coming up and reaching for their sister. "I wouldn't—" he cautioned, but before Harry could finish Ron and Bill had reached out and taken Ginny by the shoulder and arm. As soon as they made contact, Ginny stiffened and a wave of magic radiated off of her, pushing everything outside of him and her away from them.
"—touch her," he finished.
"What in the bloody hell was that?" Ron shouted as he picked himself up from the ground where he landed. Looking around Harry took in the state of the room in Ginny's wake. All of her brothers had been pushed back, and the beds and other various furniture were skewed from where they had collided with bodies. He wasn't sure if it was a choice, or an instinct, but none of the women in the room or Mr. Weasley had been pushed away and he realized that Ginny instinctually didn't see them as a threat.
Harry pulled Ginny close, trying to calm the magic he could feel rippling from her body. "Shhh," he soothed. "We made it Gin. No one is going to hurt us here."
"Like hell Harry," Ron said, moving towards the pair again. Ginny spun in Harry's arms, glaring at her brother.
"Don't Ron," Hermione scolded as she reached out to stop him, but before she could Ron reached out and grabbed Ginny's wrist. This time, he was hit with twice the force, shoving him past Hermione towards the door.
As Ron got up and started making his way back over, his brothers reached out to keep him away. Most of her brothers looked a bit terrified, although as Harry moved Ginny behind himself, he noticed that Charlie was eyeing his sister as if she were one of his dragons.
"You're not helping, Ronald!" Hermione yelled at Ron. Harry could feel Ginny trembling against him and he knew she was debating between pushing past Harry to hex her brother and staying molded to his back.
"That's it!" Madam Pomfrey shouted above the ruckus as Harry pulled Ginny closer to shield her from the group. "Everyone out."
"Yes," Mrs. Weasley agreed. "All of you upstairs to bed. You can come back and visit Ginny tomorrow." Moving towards the couple, she added. "You too, Harry—"
Harry didn't move. Looking to Madam Pomfrey, he was relieved to see the obvious annoyance at Mrs. Weasley's attempt to take over her infirmary.
"Actually," Madam Pomfrey said. "The only people staying are Ginny and Harry."
"But—" Molly started.
"No," the mediwitch replied firmly. "Harry and Ginny need to rest. They've been through quite an ordeal and I need to run more tests before I'm prepared to release either of them. You will all leave—including you, Molly—and not return until I have granted you permission. Do I make myself clear?"
Glancing away sheepishly, the Weasley brothers and Hermione began making their way towards the doors to leave.
Mrs. Weasley looked as if she wanted to argue, but Mr. Weasley quickly put his arm around his wife, guiding her towards the others, and replied. "Perfectly. We'll wait for your update at breakfast, hopefully with an idea of when we can come and visit tomorrow?"
"Thank you, Arthur," Madam Pomfrey said, nodding her approval and as she shooed everyone out the door faster.
Before the door could close, Harry caught Hermione's determined look and sighed. He knew that look—it was the same look she got before settling down with a stack of books to research what a Philosopher's Stone was, or figuring out which mythical beast could petrify, or how to breathe underwater. She knew there was knowledge to be gained, but this time he and Ginny were the book waiting to be cracked open. This time she needed answers that only they could give—and while Madam Pomfrey had bought them some time, with a quick trip up to his trunk, Hermione would have the tools needed to sneak in well before the mediwitch was ready to grant her blessing for visitors.
Unable to deny the inevitable, Harry rolled his eyes at his best friend and nodded his approval for her early return before turning his attention to a very exhausted Ginny in his arms. Kissing the top of her head, he led her back towards the bed he had placed her in when they first arrived there nearly an hour ago. Once she was settled, he turned towards Madam Pomfrey with his own determination knowing that they had less time than the older witch thought to do what needed to be done.
"Let's get started."
Madam Pomfrey got to work instantly, summoning a tray of potions and instruments needed to Ginny's bedside. As she got herself organized, Harry scooted up onto the bed close to Ginny, placing his arm behind her shoulders. Ginny snuggled in closer to him relaxing into his calm.
"Ok," Madam Pomfrey said. "If you're ready, let's begin! This will be a long night so I'll have you both take these." Clearly she wasn't unused to students not wanting to take potions, but the look of distrust that Harry and Ginny eyed the vials in her hands seemed to unnerve the woman. "They're just standard pepper-up potions."
"Um…" Ginny said, looking to Harry. "I'm not sure if I should take that before you run your tests, ma'am."
"Ms. Weasley, I assure you—"
"Please Madam Pomfrey," Harry interrupted. "We know this isn't how you'd normally proceed—"
"Mr. Potter," the mediwitch sighed. "Nothing about you in this castle has ever been normal. It was only a matter of time before it affected how I do my job as well."
Harry shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry?"
"No worries Mr. Potter," she replied, gesturing for him to move off the bed to give her space. "Let's start with you Ms. Weasley." Waving her wand at Ginny, Harry watched as a series of numbers and figures appeared over Ginny—a complicated series of runes that he didn't understand hovered. With another flick of her wand, the information moved through the air and settled onto a piece of parchment in her hand. Reading it over, Harry watched as the woman's eyebrows knit together in concern. Harry had to look away after her eyes narrowed, re-read the same section a few times, and then slowly raised to fix on him. She observed the pair closely before casting another spell on Ginny.
A thrumming sound filled the room, steady and strong, and Harry quickly realized it was Ginny's heartbeat. The sound was soothing to Harry, and he had to stop himself from closing his eyes and falling asleep to it's gentle rhythm. Madam Pomfrey, Harry noticed, had closed her eyes, tilting her head as she concentrated. Flicking and twisting her wand, the noise grew louder and louder until it filled the entire room. As the sound grew, Harry began to realize that the gentle thrumming that he found so soothing was underpinned by a fluttering echo that reverberated around and between each of Ginny's heartbeats.
With a sudden realization, Harry sought out Ginny's eyes and found that she was near tears listening to the flutter ringing through the room. Turning back toward the mediwitch, Harry's calm faltered as he took in the shocked look on the woman's face.
"Ms. Weasley," she said sternly.
Even though Harry and Ginny knew what she was about to say, they couldn't help but reach for each other and hold on tightly. "Yes, ma'am?" she replied.
Madam Pomfrey took a deep breath to calm and steeled herself. "You're pregnant."
A/N: please review!