Here's the next instalment. It was an awful one to write and I really would appreciate reviews to let me know whether you think it's worked well or not. Thanks to all of you for your kind comments last time.
You may well need a tissue - I got through quite a few whilst writing! …If JKR ever does anything like this to her characters I will be very upset!
One more chapter and the epilogue to follow as quickly as I can.
***
"April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain."
-T.S. Eliot
A New Dawn
Screams pervaded Harry's every conscious thought as he collapsed onto his knees, his head splitting apart. Hammering blows of the worst pain he had ever felt in his life drilled through his scull, mercilessly, relentlessly. The stabbing agony twisted inside him, ripping each nerve apart, and blistering, scalding through the lightning bolt scar on his forehead. The piercing screams continued, but Harry had no concept of whether it was himself or Ginny crying out.
Slowly the pain dimmed, resorting to a savage throb beating through his head, and he became acutely aware of the voice of Voldemort nearby.
"Remember, you will never win against me, Harry. Feel the pain; what you have just felt, and what you are about to feel when you see. You will beg me to kill you, but I will let you suffer until I am ready for you." Harry was vaguely aware of Voldemort turning, and commanding someone, "Come!" before the robes whisked away and footsteps faded into the distance.
He looked up shakily, his vision still badly blurred from the pain, dreading to think what he might see. Ginny was there, inches from him, hair fanned all around her in waves of flames, as she lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. Icy cold water seemed to flood his veins, chilling him to the very marrow. His heart contracted. Surely not…
He leaned over to touch her, in a nightmarish trance, smoothing her hair gently back from the paleness of her face, and tenderly caressing the gash on her cheek. Her eyes were closed, and skin seemed as if it were made of finest porcelain; so beautiful and yet so fragile, and so easily broken. Numbly he knelt there, and cradled her in his arms, softly rocking her to soothe her from the pain. She lay limply in his embrace, and he buried his head in her hair, breathing in her scent, and never wanting to let go. He had failed. He had lost her.
"Harry," wheezed a voice nearby, and a hand tugged urgently on the sleeve of his robes. Harry didn't even bother looking up. He shook his head, and held Ginny to him even more tightly. He didn't care. They could do anything they wanted to him. Nothing, nothing could be worse than this.
"Harry," the voice repeated, panic beginning to rise. In part of Harry's mind the message registered. It was Wormtail urging him to take Ginny's body and go immediately. The portal had to be destroyed, on Voldemort's orders. A flat dullness weighed heavily upon his heart, as he mechanically got to his feet, lifted Ginny carefully in his arms and somehow found himself in the dungeon once more. He kissed her forehead gently, and whispered,
"It's all right Gin. We're going home."
***
Harry's feet impacted forcibly on the ground, causing his legs to buckle beneath him, and he stumbled, falling to his knees. Instinctively he clasped Ginny to him, to ensure that she was safe. His eyes were tightly closed, his cheek pressed against hers, and as the confusion and cacophony of voices reigned around them, all Harry could think about was Ginny. Nothing else mattered.
He heard his name being called, a hand pressing painfully on his right shoulder, and eventually he looked up, the corridor swaying unnervingly before his eyes. Dumbledore was there, bending over them, looking searchingly at them both with serious blue eyes. Ron's face floated into sight behind him, and Harry's heart almost stopped.
"Minerva, we need to get them both up to the hospital wing immediately." Dumbledore's voice was anxious, and he let Ginny's wrist fall to her side once more. "Harry," he said gently. "You need to let her go." Harry stared into those bright blue eyes, an ache filling his insides entirely. He trusted Dumbledore, but the anguish of releasing Ginny from his arms was too great. He couldn't do it. "Harry, please." Dumbledore's voice was quiet, yet firm. Harry did as he was bid, but felt his heart cracking in two as he saw her limp form being conjured onto a stretcher to be taken from him; saw her hair glittering with such life in the candlelight. The bitter irony of it galled him. The pain tearing into him now was far, far worse than anything the Cruciatus Curse could inflict upon him.
"Come on, Harry," another voice said, sliding an arm gently round him and helping him to stand. It was Hermione. "They're taking her to the hospital wing." He stared at her, wanting to say something, but the agony inside was building up to a crescendo, and struggling to escape. His throat was dry. He couldn't speak.
Somehow Hermione guided him up there, and the door clicked shut behind them. Harry glanced wildly around the room for Ginny, and saw an area of the wing being obscured by the clinically white hospital screens. The reality hit him hard. He sank to the floor, his back against the wall, and buried his head in his arms, trying to blot out everything that had just happened. She'd come bouncing through the door at any second, eyes alight with laughter and hair dancing vivaciously around her face, to tease him and tell him it had all been a joke. The lump constricting his throat was thickening and he could taste the saltiness of the unshed tears.
"Harry, what's happened?" Ron spoke, breaking through Harry's reverie, sounding completely desperate and terrified. Harry forced himself to look up at his best friend, his stomach curdling with what he had to tell him. How could he tell Ron news like this? It was all Harry's fault; he should have been faster, should have been able to stop that curse from hitting her. Somehow.
"It was…" he began unsteadily, then retched. "Let me out of here. I'm going to be sick." He staggered to his feet, and blindly pushed his way into the hospital wing bathroom.
***
Harry plunged his entire head into the stone sink he'd filled with cold water, letting the flow of water from the tap pour over his neck, and stream through his hair. He was shaking uncontrollably, but the iciness surrounding him made him more aware of the reality. It was true and he knew it. He lifted his head from the enormous basin, and shook himself like a dog, droplets of water flying everywhere, hair settling untidily where ever it fell. His reflection gazed back at him from the mirror above the sink; he was almost grey with the horror of what had happened, his green eyes deadened, not wanting to believe. His scar was clearly visible through the strands of his dripping wet hair. It was not as it normally appeared, however, as it stood out, livid against his forehead, and was painful to the touch. But what did it matter? What did anything matter now?
"Are you OK?" Ron's face appeared in the mirror behind him, seeming to be more worried than Harry had ever seen him. Harry shook his head, and held on tightly to the basin for support. Ron was struggling to say something, his face contorted with fear of what the answer might be. "Ginny's not… It's not what we thought, is it? It can't be…"
Harry turned around, and lifted his eyes slowly to Ron's. The expression on his face must have said it all. What little colour remained in Ron's face flooded away. "No!" he gasped, grabbing Harry's arms and shaking him savagely. "No! Tell me she's not! Please, Harry!"
"I can't." Harry heard his own voice, distant and flat.
His eyes fell back to the floor unable to bear looking at Ron any longer. He felt Ron let go of him. He couldn't blame Ron, not wanting to be near him, not after that. To his amazement, Ron grabbed him in a brotherly hug, and each clung on tightly to the other as if for dear life. It was too much to bear. Each face mirrored the other, screwed up fiercely against the pain. Harry felt the choking sensation intensify, his eyes stinging with unfamiliar tears, as a deep shuddering sob erupted from deep within him.
"Harry, Ron, can I have a word, please?" Dumbledore's kindly tones interrupted them a few minutes later. "Harry, it was the Avada Kedavra, wasn't it?" Harry nodded, his heart like lead. "Come through," Dumbledore said gently, gesturing towards the main room once more. "I have something to show you." Harry glanced over at Ron, who was wiping his eyes abruptly, and followed Dumbledore across the room and around the hospital screen. Harry was vaguely aware of Hermione following behind them, and of Madam Pomfrey fussing around the bed and smoothing the coverlets, but his eyes were drawn to Ginny. Her skin was the same hue as the crisp white bed linen, her freckles had almost vanished from view, and her long hair was carelessly strewn across the pillow in ripples containing every conceivable shade of the red spectrum. Harry moved closer, his heart twisting inside his chest. Then he clutched suddenly at Ron's arm.
"She's breathing," he gasped. "How?"
Ron sank down rapidly in a nearby chair, Hermione moved beside him, her eyes anxiously darting between them.
"What happened, Harry?" Dumbledore said gently, fixing Harry with that piercing stare. "I need to know the full story."
Harry told him everything: Ginny's disappearance in the Charms corridor, the plans for his death in the future, the charm bond deflecting the curses and that blast of green light which he'd thought had killed her.
"Why didn't it?" Ron croaked, looking up at Dumbledore.
"I think the reason for that may well lie in Harry and the charm," Dumbledore said thoughtfully, stroking his long white beard. He turned Ginny's left hand over so that they could see the scar on the inside of her wrist. Normally it was a ghostly silvery white, which zigzagged across her skin, but it was currently livid red, just like Harry's.
"What were you thinking about when the curse hit her, Harry?"
"Just about Ginny," Harry said, his breathing very unsteady as he relived the memory. "I was concentrating on getting in between her and the curse."
"You'd have given your life for her?" Dumbledore probed gently. Harry smiled shakily down at Ginny, and nodded. He would give anything for Ginny. "You know this charm is the partner of the one your mother did on you as a child? It works through love; pure and unconditional love. You being prepared to die for her, as your mother did for you, is what has made this charm work the way it did. I believe that what happened, in this particular case, is that the impact of the Avada Kedavara was shared between you, and consequently weakened. That's probably how Ginny has survived at all."
"What's going to happen to her now?" Ron whispered nervously, watching his sister's shallow breathing.
"I wish I knew," Dumbledore said gently. "It may be quite some time before she regains consciousness, if indeed she does at all."
"I've got to get Fred and George," Ron blurted out suddenly. "And Mum and Dad'll need to know."
"Professor McGonagall has gone for your brothers," Dumbledore reassured Ron. "I will be contacting your parents as soon as I leave here. Harry, I want you to stay here for a few days. You will have taken quite a bit of that curse on yourself, and we need to make sure there are no after effects for you." He smiled at Harry. "I dare say you won't complain for once. It means you can stay with Ginny." Harry tried to smile back, but the lump was forming in his throat again, and he couldn't; he nodded instead as Dumbledore swept out of the room, leaving them in stunned silence.
"You're bleeding, Harry," Hermione exclaimed suddenly, her voice quivering. She lifted her arm from around Ron's shoulders, and reached across to Harry. He blinked in surprise; he hadn't even noticed the great gash in his shoulder, which was now sticky with congealed blood around the rip in his robes.
"Must've happened when I hit the wall," he said blankly, picking up Ginny's hand in his own, and holding it tightly, still hardly daring to believe that she might have cheated Voldemort and Death. Her fingers were warm to his touch.
"Let's get it healed up then," Madam Pomfrey said practically, appearing round the screen.
"It's fine," Harry asserted, returning his gaze quickly to Ginny, half terrified that she'd disappear again.
"It most certainly is not fine," Madam Pomfrey snapped, examining the gaping wound.
"Look, I said it's fine!" Harry yelled, in a rare outburst of temper. "Just go away and leave me alone!"
Madam Pomfrey tutted loudly about ungrateful students, and retreated haughtily to her office. Hermione slipped out just behind her, and Harry could hear her explaining that he obviously didn't want to leave Ginny, not just yet. When Hermione returned, with a jar full of steaming purple liquid, it was clear that she had no intention of listening to Harry's outburst. She perched on the arm of his chair and looked seriously at him, and he could see that she was worried.
"Sorry," he muttered. "It's just all getting a bit much."
"It's OK, Harry," she said softly. "Let me heal it up for you though. I can do it here. The last thing you want right now is some sort of infection getting into it. You'll not be any good for Ginny when she wakes up then."
Harry knew this was common sense, and gave in, without even attempting to argue with Hermione. He wriggled his right arm out of his robes, and through the sleeve of his t-shirt beneath, raising it awkwardly around his neck to let her do her magic on his shoulder. He heard her sharp intake of breath, as she lifted his shirt higher.
"What did he do to you?" she whispered, staring in horror at the deep purple bruises and welts covering his back.
"That was to stop me getting to Ginny," Harry explained, wincing as Hermione touched him. Suddenly his whole body, which had been numb with shock, seemed to ache; his head, the scar, every muscle and nerve he possessed throbbed. Ron had seen the damage too, and shook his head. When Hermione was occupied in repairing the wound, he leaned over.
"Thanks Harry," he muttered. "She'd not have made it without you." He looked carefully at Harry, and shook his head. "It must've been awful."
"It was," Harry whispered. "I've never been so scared in all my life." He stared down at Ginny, and added fearfully. "I only hope she's going to be OK now."
***
Time drifted by in a very strange fashion; seeming to stand still for aeons, then hours would pass by in the blink of an eye. People too swam in and out of focus in Harry's mind as they came into the hospital wing. He was aware of Fred and George at one point, pacing restlessly around to room, pausing only to look helplessly at their little sister. Both of them were pent up balls of energy, waiting to explode at any second with frustration and anger. Harry simply curled up in a chair beside Ginny, watching her constantly; hoping, with every ounce of strength that he possessed that she would open her eyes and smile. He had absolutely refused to go to bed, and dozed fitfully in the armchair, right where he could see her.
Nightmares were ever present. Every time he closed his eyes, he could see a slow motion replay, showing the fear in her eyes, the cold merciless laughter and then the blinding flash of green light. He struggled to reach her, as if through ever thickening treacle, limbs dragging heavily like lead, but each time it was too late. His eyes would snap open, heart pounding frantically, body drenched in a cold sweat; then he heard her regular breathing and it calmed him. Once he awoke from the nightmare terrified to see a shadowy figure bending over her, and half-leapt to his feet before he'd realised it was Mrs Weasley.
"Oh, Harry dear!" she whispered, her voice trembling slightly as she spoke. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."
"'S all right," he replied, his heart steadying once more to it's regular rhythmic beat. "Is she OK?"
"Just the same," she said quietly.
"I'm sorry I couldn't… I tried to… I wish…," Harry said brokenly, running his hand through his dishevelled hair.
"I know," Mrs Weasley replied, tears brimming in her eyes. "I know, Harry." She gathered him into her arms, and soothed him as if her were one of her own children. After a while, she wiped her eyes and looked sternly at him. "And what are you doing cat-napping in a chair? You've been through a lot as well, and you need your rest." Harry began to protest, but she ignored him. "Bed! Now! I'll sit with Ginny tonight."
***
Several days later Harry was sitting in the hospital wing working on a Potions essay for Snape. He had acquired a small table, placed it facing Ginny's bed, and was scratching away thoughtfully with his quill, glancing up every now and then to check she was still there. There had been no change in her unconscious state since she had been brought up to the wing, and Harry was starting to worry more and more about her.
With Ron and Hermione's encouragement, he had attempted to go back to lessons the previous day, especially as he seemed to have suffered no physical damage from the curse himself. However, he had got as far as the Charms corridor, when memories rushed back and he began to shake so badly that he couldn't get to Professor Flitwick's classroom and literally fled straight back up to Madam Pomfrey. Dumbledore had given him permission to stay there for the interim, and had asserted that this was only on the condition that Harry kept pace with the work that the rest of the fifth years were covering in their classes. Consequently, Harry was working harder than he had ever done in his life, books permanently strewn all around him.
"Time for a break, Gin," he said, finishing his essay, throwing his quill down and stretching enthusiastically. He stuffed the text book back in his bag, and he caught sight of some books that weren't usually in there. Pulling them out, he recognised them as Ginny's. They were the ones that she'd dropped in the corridor and someone had obviously put them into his bag, which he'd abandoned nearby. His hand rested briefly on the book of Muggle poems, and he smiled to himself at the memory of her totally absorbed in it just an hour before the Christmas Ball. Dumbledore had suggested talking to her, and Harry was doing that, but perhaps reading to her might help. He looked at her; she loved that book. It was worth a try.
"OK," he said sternly to her. "But if you ever tell anyone I've been reading poetry to you, there'll be trouble!"
He opened the volume and flicked through it, wondering where to begin. A bookmark guided his hands to an appropriate page, and he was just about to skim through the poem, when he caught sight of what the bookmark was. It was a photograph; one he hadn't even known had been taken. It portrayed himself and Ginny down by the lake, not long ago judging by the trees breaking out into bud, and leaves beginning to unfurl. Unlike the photograph he had of the two of them, this was a more pensive shot; his arm around her and she leaned in so close that it was impossible to tell where one set of robes began and the other ended. It was a tranquil mood, with relatively little movement for a wizard photograph, and it exuded a feeling of peace, of calm, and Harry remembered the sheer happiness of being content with her like that. He watched his photographed self bend his head to kiss her cheek, and a blissful smile fluttered across her lips. A sudden heaviness filled him, and unable to bear watching any longer, he casually flipped the photograph over, and saw a little fragment of Ginny's neat script on the reverse.
"For Harry - just in case."
Harry stared at the note. Had she known what was coming? It was perfectly possible; she studied Divination too, and was almost certainly a lot more talented in that area than he was. Why hadn't she said anything to him?
He turned his attention back to the poem the photograph had demarcated, and began to read quietly to her, feeling slightly foolish and awkward at first. It was a love poem, written by someone called Robert Herrick, and as Harry read steadily on, it took on a very personal slant; it was almost as if Ginny were talking to him.
"A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
A heart as sound and free
As in the whole world thou canst find,
That heart I'll give to thee."
His eyes flickered up to her face. That was exactly what she'd done, given him her entire heart, and there was nothing he wanted more than to have her love him. In Ginny he had found peace, he had found the home he had been searching for all his life; someone who wanted him just for being him. He felt his throat thickening again, but swallowed quickly and continued reading the fluid flow of the verse to her. His voice trembled as he came across the lines:
"Or bid me die, and I will dare
E'en death to die for thee."
Visions of Voldemort flashed across his mind. Ginny's eyes full of hatred and courage as she had faced him down and refused to buckle to his demands to hurt Harry, because she loved him. Her determination that he should be safe, whatever the cost to herself. She had challenged death for him, and death had almost won. Her very future hung in the balance before him. He breathed deeply to steady himself before beginning the final verse.
"Thou art my life, my love my heart,"
He stopped abruptly, unable to continue for a moment. His own feelings for Ginny had always been incredibly difficult to articulate, yet this line summed them up so simply and so completely. She was part of him, just as his heart was; the part of him that mattered most. He reached over to her, and gently traced the scar from the heel of her hand across the inside of her wrist, reading the final lines to her.
"And hast command of every part
To live and die for thee."
The words shot through his brain like a blinding flash of illumination; thoughts whirling round in his head as he caressed her scar thoughtfully once more. What if he did actually have the power of life and death over her, right there beneath his fingertips? Dumbledore had said at one point that the bond between them could well have been severed by the destructive force of the curse, but there was a chance that it was still working. Ginny had wanted to tell him something important about the charm that night. What if…?
He leapt into action, rifling frantically through her pile of books. His heart skipped a beat; it was there. His fingers closed around the slender ancient volume, which Dumbledore had given to her, and he skipped through the pages with trembling hands until he came to the charm Ginny had done. He settled down to read it carefully.
***
"Hermione!" Harry pounced on her the second she walked through the door into the hospital wing. He'd known she'd come up straight after lessons ended to bring him his work. She jumped visibly in shock.
"Harry!" she gasped, clutching her chest in panic. "Don't do that to me!"
"I need your help! Now!" he said urgently, pulling her towards the bed where Ginny lay. "Please, Hermione."
"What do you want me to do?" she asked in bewilderment, dropping her heavy school bag beside his table.
"This," Harry said firmly, pointing out a passage in a tiny script in Dumbledore's book.
She bent over it, her eyes widening in horror as she saw what the page contained, then looked back up at him.
"No, Harry!" she stammered. "You can't. It could kill you."
"I know," he said softly. "But it might help Ginny. I can't just sit here and do nothing."
"Harry!" she protested, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.
"Hermione, would you think twice about it if it was Ron lying here instead?" he asked her, almost brutally. "Ginny obviously took the brunt of the Avada Kedavara, and all I'm going to try and do is equal things out a bit; use our charm bond to try and shift some more of that curse onto me."
"It's not as easy as that," Hermione said, looking at the spell again. "This is powerful magic, Harry. The odds of getting it wrong are incredible."
"I don't care about the odds," he exclaimed feverishly, running his hand through his hair. "What I need you to do is help me to put the two scars together. Ginny's is a mirror image of mine, so they should match up exactly. I'd have done it myself, but I can't see my own forehead to make sure they're lined up properly."
"It is so dangerous," Hermione moaned fearfully.
"I want to do it," he insisted forcefully. "I love her, Hermione."
Hermione's tears suddenly splashed down her cheeks, and she threw her arms around him and hugged him hard.
"Tell her that if anything happens," he whispered.
"It's not going to go wrong," Hermione said, brushing the tears away. "I'll help."
Harry settled himself down on the edge of Ginny's bed, leaned over and kissed her gently. He lifted her arm, gently clasping her fingers in his hand, and raised it until her wrist was roughly level with his own scar. Hermione guided him, and suddenly Harry felt a shockwave of something like electricity shoot through the lightning bolt on his forehead as the two scars joined together, matching perfectly. The magic was still there. There was a chance.
He breathed deeply. This had to work.
Pointing his wand at the connection between them, he reiterated the charm Ginny had performed in October.
"Coniungo."
He closed his eyes firmly and concentrated everything on her. Ginny, and only Ginny, was all that existed to him. Pain was almost instantly present in his scar, an ache at first, then gradually building up to a large crescendo; pulsating, then beating, then the hammering blows of agony which rained down inside his skull. Harry clung on tightly, determined to take what he could of the curse from her. He could sense the flow of energy between them, and didn't dare open his eyes in case the connection was broken. Her fingers twitched slightly in his hand, but unlike Orpheus he had no intention of losing his Eurydice. He had to keep going. The pain shot violently through him, making him gasp aloud, his head spinning madly.
"Harry! Stop!" Hermione's voice was urgent, her hand gripping his shoulder tightly. "Look! Harry, look at her! I'd better go and get Madam Pomfrey."
He opened his eyes tentatively, and his heart leapt. A pair of deep brown eyes were smiling up at him very sleepily.
"Harry," her voice was a faint whisper of delight to see him, and then a flicker of panic crossed her face.
"It's fine, Ginny," he croaked, stroking her cheek gently. "He's gone now. You're safe, I promise."
"But…?" she looked puzzled.
He wanted to explain, but he could barely breathe with the pressure forming in his chest. Tears flooded painfully to the surface, but he didn't care for once. "I love you, Ginny Weasley, and you've just scared the life out of me," he choked out, half-crying, half-laughing.