CHAPTER 38
"So? How's Ginny doing?" The healer told us she was awaken." Bill Weasley asked them as soon as Emma, Thomas, Haley and Harry had exited the room. The rest of the Weasleys were there too. Harry felt a little uncomfortable; he hadn't spoken much with them, just a few necessary words. They still hadn't sat and talk in an adequate way about what he had done so many years before.
"In pain, but all in all okay." Harry answered tiredly. Since they had rescued Ginny, he hadn't had a single good night sleep. He had stay on watch at the hospital the whole time, he had spent the last three days sitting in the Waiting Room.
"Does she already… know?" Mr Weasley asked without taking his eyes from his hands on his lap. Harry knew he was asking if she knew about Nott's death.
"Yes. Not in details, but she knows." Arthur nodded his head slowly. Harry felt for him. The Weasley patriarch felt horrible for having killed a man but, it was also a man who was torturing his daughter and had been doing it for years. Harry could totally understand Mr Weasley's motives.
"Harry, son, go have some sleep, you're exhausted. I'll take care of the children." Mrs Weasley offered getting closer to him, patting him on the cheek. She had been the only one that had treated him the same way she used to when he was just a child. Molly was still the same warm and loving mother figure Harry remembered.
Harry glanced at his daughter, who with a single look told him to go away and have some rest. He wasn't so sure of leaving their side, Ginny had told him to take care of them. Though, this was their family, he knew he could trust the Weasleys, besides, they weren't in danger anymore. Emma could tell her father was having some doubts so she hugged him to assure him.
"We'll be fine, Dad. Go have some sleep and also a shower, you stink." She said wrinkling her nose in disgust, making her father laugh for the first time in days.
"Okay. Take care. I'll come back later." Harry gave her and Haley a goodbye kiss and a half hug to Thomas. The Weasley observed them in amazement, it was the first time they saw Harry interact with his daughter and Ginny's children. They were surprise by how natural they were together.
Arriving at his Hogwarts' room, Harry was intercepted by his godson. With everything that had happened in the last days, he hadn't talked a single word with Teddy.
"Harry! How's Ginny? Neville told us everything that happened. Emma, Thomas and Haley were desperate to see her. Were they able to? Is she okay?" Teddy asked worriedly, his hair was red as if he was another Weasley.
"She's better now. Today she woke up, the kids were able to see her. She's still sore and I don't' know how everything will continue. I just came to sleep for a bit and have a shower, I'll be going back later."
"I'll go with you."
"Teddy, the term hasn't ended yet, you have classes and, besides, a hospital is not a great place to be at."
"I don't care. I have already done all my tests. And I want to be there for my friends and for you." He said firmly, bringing out to light his Hufflepuff loyalty. Harry looked at him proudly and nodded his head before entering his room and falling asleep in a second.
They were uncomfortable. The Nott siblings where at the Waiting Room with the family they barely knew. The Weasley were watching them and trying to start a conversation. Emma regretted having told her father that they would be fine, it was an awkward atmosphere.
"So… you're Harry's daughter." George commented breaking the silence. Emma nodded her head not knowing what to say. "How's he as a father? It's so weird."
"George, leave her alone." Angelina chastised her husband.
"What? I'm curious!" he defended himself.
"Hadry is very, very, very nice. The best one. He lets me comb his hair but I can't do it right." Haley answered making the Weasleys smile amused, they were all aware of Harry's messy hair.
"I'm sorry to tell you, little one, but Harry's hair will never be tame. It's been like this since I met him when we were eleven. It's impossible to comb. It's always been messy, just like they day his father's was. It's a Potter trait." Ron told her.
"It is something that Ginny had always loved. It amused her that he was always dishevelled" Hermione added with a nostalgic smile. She remembered many talks the two of them had had about Harry. Ginny was always asking Hermione for more information about him.
"More than ones I tried to comb his hair. It's frustrating." Mrs Weasley said. She had tried many times but it had always been in vain, even when it was important for him to look neat.
"My hair isn't like that." Emma said without thinking.
"That's because it's like Ginny's, an authentic Weasley hair." Bill explained proudly.
"Ooh but from Harry you inherit his eyes as green as fresh pickled toad." George commented making his family laugh, while the children looked at him without understanding what was so funny.
"As fresh pickled toad?" Thomas asked wanting to find out why they were all laughing.
"Ginny, in her first year, sent Harry a Valentine's poem she had written." Hermione told them.
"His eyes are as green as fresh pickled toad…" George started.
"His hair is as dark as a blackboard…" Percy continued, surmising everyone, he was never one to participate in that kind of things.
"I wish he was mine, he's really divine…" Hermione added.
"The hero who conquered the Dark Lord." All the Weasleys ended together, causing a burst of laughter at the Waiting Room.
"She was just a little girl, she had the strongest crush on Harry. Ginny had grown up listening to stories about the boy-who-lived and then, on Ron's first year, we saw him at Kings Cross. At first we didn't know who he was, just a young boy trying to get to Platform 9 ¾. We helped him cross the barrier and Ginny was struck by his eyes, she told me they were the most beautiful ones she had ever seen. It was a love at first sight. And then we found out that he was no other than Harry Potter. Since that day Ginny's heart belonged to Harry." Mrs Weasley told her three grandchildren.
"It wasn't easy but she managed to get him." Charlie said.
"And more than once!" Bill added. He had noted Harry's behaviour these days that Ginny had been in risk.
"She's been in love with him since she was ten years old?!" A surprised Emma asked. She knew her mother's love for Harry was special but she hadn't thought it had been for such a long time, since ever.
"Well, at that age I think it was more of a crush than real love." Arthur commented.
"Maybe since she only saw him that day but, at eleven she was crazy in love with him. It was so obvious that even I realised it." Ron said making everybody laugh at his last comment.
"No wonder, Harry saved her life in her first year at Hogwarts. I'm sure that the beginning of a magical soul bound was spawned. A simple crush doesn't last such a long time. She had been in love with Harry for years before he finally noticed her." Hermione spoke.
"Magical soul bounds are extremely rare. The last record of one is between the alchemist Nicolas Flamel and his wife Perenelle. The bounds always generate when the life of one is saved by the other and, then that magical debt is paid back in the same way. Harry might have saved Ginny but she never saved him, so the bound would be incomplete and it would dissolve by time the possibility of being completed. So it doesn't make sense how caught up on each other they still are." Audrey, Percy's wife, commented trying to find an answer, just like an authentic Ravenclaw.
"Ginny did save him. At Hogwarts Battle, Ginny was the last thing Harry thought about before receiving Voldemort's killing curse. And then, when he was in that limbo kind of place, he chose to come back for Ginny. So that she could have a life free of Voldemort and his Death Eaters." Hermione contributed.
"She saved him long before that, Hermione. Remember how dreadful he was in our sixth year? After Sirius' death at the end of fifth year, the only person who seemed capable of making Harry smile was Ginny. And then, when they became boyfriend and girlfriend, Harry was the happiest I've ever seen him. Ginny gave him a reason to continue fighting, to not give up on life." Ron corrected her.
"Mmm… it might be a bond…" Audrey reflected to herself, with a thoughtful look on her face.
"Then, why did they sepagated?" Fleur, who had been carefully listening the whole story, asked.
"Harry couldn't accept his undeniable feelings for Ginny, nor hers for him, and left. And Ginny, after so many years of loving him and hoping for him to love her, she finally gave up and continue living her life, ignoring her most profound desire. It's a shame, really, they were such a great couple." Hermione ended with a bit of sadness.
"But they are together again now." Emma told them.
"Yes but they lost so much time to be together." Ron commented moving his head from one side to the other, lamenting it.
"Harry was an idiot to leave Ginny." Bill said while trying not to show how angry he really was at the man for having hurt his little sister.
"And Ginny to get together with Nott!" George exclaimed.
"Well, it wasn't all bad with Theodore." Angelina said, sending her husband a warning look.
"What are you saying?!" he asked in disbelief. "He almost killed Ginny!"
"George is right, Nott was the worst thing that ever happened to Ginny." Charlie added in anger.
"I admit that he wasn't that good for her but that doesn't change the fact that…" Angelina was saying but George interrupted her before she could continue.
"Why are you defending him?!" he asked choleric, he couldn't believe his wife was defending the almost killer of his sister.
"I'm not defending him!" Angelina answered pointing with her eyes at Thomas and Haley that were uncomfortably watching the argument. George finally understood his wife's message and tried to fixed the situation.
"The only good thing he ever did was his children."
"That's true, we can recognised that" Bill added with difficulty to admit that Theodore Nott had done something acceptable.
"Pff, you don't have to fake it. We know who our father is… was. I too would have rather my mom had married any other person, even if it meant that I wouldn't be here today." Thomas told them bitterly.
"It's not that, Thomas, we are all happy to have you and Haley here, in our lives, it's just that…" Charlie started saying but couldn't continue due to the anger that was getting to him.
"It's just that we don't like seeing our little sister suffer." Ron ended in his brother place.
"Besides, kids, Ginny wouldn't change anything if she could go back in time. I'm sure she wouldn't like to suffer all what she did again, but she would do it in an instant if it meant having you two." Bill assured them.
"Without a doubt." Arthur said with a calm smile on his lips.