Ginny stayed in the hospital wing for several days. Not that her physical condition demanded it, but psychologically she wasn't ready to face the attention she would get from the rest of the students. At least not by herself, so she remained there watching over Hermione as she recovered from her attack.
Hermione had woken up the next morning after the attack, still extremely weak, but conscious and thankful for it. Ginny sat by her side and spoke to her when she wanted, and took charge of dosing out her medicine when it was needed. Unfortunately, Hermione never got a glimpse of her attacker, just a brief memory of green light coming out of the shadows.
Ginny tried to avoid telling Hermione about what happened after she fell, but as she regained her strength, she became aware that something was being kept from her. Ginny could not control her own tears as she comforted Hermione about what had happened to Harry, which she took very hard. So hard in fact, that Ginny became worried that it may seriously delay her recovery.
Ron was eventually released from the hospital after his parents had arrived. He remained so distraught and angry that Professor Flitwick had to administer a mood altering charm to him twice a day to keep him from attacking the whole of Slytherin House, who he believed to be responsible for the attack.
The wand examination had the power of the entire Ministry of Magic behind it as high-ranking officials swept in to oversee the proceedings and search for what clues might be found. In the end, they left knowing no more than what they did when they arrived.
There was another problem the Ministry had to deal with among the wizarding public though. There was nothing that could have stopped the rumor from spreading at Hogwarts that Harry was dead. Dumbledore had moved quickly to dispel the rumor among the students, but not before it had leaked to the outside world. The Daily Prophet had run a story taking up the entire front page with a bold headline that read, 'Harry Potter Dead After Heroic Rescue'. Even the retraction printed the next day did not immediately calm the panic that had insued. People feared that, with Harry gone, there was nothing to stand in the way of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
It was one week to the day that Hermione was finally released from the hospital wing. She was still so stricken with what had happened, she didn't even complain when all of her teachers declared that she was exempt from the work she had missed. Instead she used all of her time, along with Ginny, pestering the healers at St. Mungo's with owls asking for constant updates on Harry's condition. The only reply they ever received though was a statement that they could not release information to them about a patient they were not directly related to.
Finally, more than three weeks after the incident, Professor Dumbledore shared with them a message that he had received stating that short term visitation of family and friends was finally being allowed. It cautioned though that Harry was still unconscious and they were still unsure of his prognosis for recovery.
Later that day, Ginny, Hermione, Ron and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley emerged from the fireplace into the reception area of St. Mungo's. Directly ahead of them they watched as a witch at he information desk, looking terribly frustrated, cast a shrinking charm on an enormous pile of mail and gifts that covered the top of the desk. Then she carefully placed the shrunken mass into a small box, where she had apparently placed several piles previously. They were all amused to see 'Potter, H.' written on the side of the box.
The witch started to mumble a curse on The Daily Prophet for ever revealing that Harry was being treated there when she looked up and noticed the group moving toward her. After composing herself and taking her seat once again, she asked, "Patient or visitor."
"Visitor," Mr. Weasley said, "here to see Harry Potter."
The witch rolled her eyes slightly before saying, "Name."
"Arthur Weasley," he responded.
The witch picked up the list and scanned it quickly before raising an eyebrow and saying, "Well, what do you know, someone who is actually on the list. Mr. Potter is in room 2 ground floor. While you're going, would you mind taking some of these cards and gifts back with you?"
"Certainly," Mr. Weasley answered as he reached for the box she had put the pile into. As he did, the witch turned in her chair and bent over to retrieve seven more boxes of the same size from behind her desk.
Everyone carried at least one box as they proceeded in the direction the witch indicated where they would find room two. They entered a hallway that would take them to Harry's room. Along the way, they passed two different wards where multiple patients were being treated, wondering why Harry was placed in a private room. As they got to the place where the hallway turned right, they got their answer.
Sitting in chairs flanking a door with a 2 on it were Mad-eye Moody and Tonks. The Order wasn't taking any chances it would seem. They had to admit that it would be a perfect time for Voldemort to try and get to Harry.
Tonks and Moody stood up to greet the visitors and Tonks said, "Healer Snagprat is in checking on Harry right now, but I don't think he'll mind if you go on in."
"How is Harry doing?" Molly asked. "Has there been any change?"
"No," Tonks responded. "He's still in a coma and his life signs are just barely holding steady. The healer could tell you more in detail, but right now they seem to be in a wait and see mode."
"He'll pull through though," Moody said. "I don't think he would have fought this long if he ever planned to give up."
"He won't do that," Ginny said. "I won't let him do that."
"No," Moody said with a grin, "I suspect you won't."
"Well, you had better get inside," Tonks said, "before I start getting emotional about it all again. You can set the boxes inside with the others."
Upon entering the room, they could see why the witch at the reception desk had been so frustrated. One entire side of the room was stacked from floor to ceiling with boxes exactly like the ones they were carrying. Harry, unlike what they had imagined was laying on his front with his face pointed through a hole in the bed toward the floor. There was a wide bandage that ran all the way up the center of his back and up his neck.
Healer Snagprat turned and saw them bringing more boxes into the room and said, "We really are going to need another room to keep those in if we get anymore. There won't be any room left for Mr. Potter before long."
"We're hoping Harry won't be here for much longer, Healer," Hermione said.
"Believe me," Snagprat said, "everyone here is praying for that as well. Although there will be plenty of questions to be answered if he does make a full recovery."
"You don't sound very hopeful," Mrs. Weasley said.
"On the contrary," Snagprat said, "we are extremely hopeful, just at a bit of a loss to explain how he is managing to survive. We see broom crashes all the time, but never anything as bad as Mr. Potter's. There have been patients with injuries not nearly as severe as his that didn't make it this long."
"Harry is a Gryffindor though," Ron said.
"I think it has more to do with it than that," Snagprat said with a grin. "Actually it's quite exciting. We only received word back from the Ministry of Magic today about something that had us all stumped. Of course you are all familiar with the appendix that everyone is born with. Well, in Mr. Potter we found that his appendix had recently been transfigured into something else that we could not identify. Now, although we still don't know exactly what the function of it is, it has been identified as an organ found in a phoenix."
"A phoenix?" Hermione asked. "Are you saying that you think Harry had the forethought to transfigure an organ that even the Ministry of Magic doesn't know the function of before he hit the ground?"
"I doubt it," Snagprat answered. "Actually, we question whether Harry had anything to do with it at all."
"Then who?" Ron asked.
"What, actually," Snagprat said getting excited. "I don't want to disturb you all too much with the details of his condition when he arrived, but when he fell his broom shattered beneath him. Several wood splinters had to be removed, but that was not the only wood he had on him. He was also carrying his wand at the time of the accident. We found it broken among his robes when we were treating him. The parts of it that we removed from his robe were put aside on a tray, but the sections did not match up exactly. That told us that part of the wand had either dropped out at Hogwarts, or part of it had become lodged in Mr. Potter. During the hours of operation that followed a small sliver of wood was pulled from his side and identified as the missing piece. When that missing piece was placed on the tray with the other pieces something astounding happened. Well, let me show you."
With that he opened a drawer in the stand next to Harry's bed and removed a wand that looked very much like Harry's. The shocking thing was that it was in one piece.
"This wand contained a phoenix feather if I'm not mistaken," Snagprat said.
"Are you telling me that Harry's wand repaired itself after it was broken?" Ron asked.
"I wouldn't have believed it myself if I hadn't been there to see it firsthand," Snagprat said.
"What I wouldn't have done for a wand like that," Ron said shaking his head.
"So we suspect that the sliver of his wand that we took out of him somehow performed the transfiguration on its own," Snagprat said.
"Amazing," Mr. Weasley said.
"Absolutely unheard of as far as we know," Snagprat beamed. "As we speak everything about this case is being carefully recorded and documented for future publication. This machine you see beside Harry's bed is monitoring almost everything that can be monitored for any change in his condition. The one that really means the most is the green vile of fluid. The better his overall health, the higher the liquid in the vile will rise. The vile next to that one is monitoring for any physical movement, of which as you can see there has been none so far. If there is any it should show in red. The rest are for breathing and circulation which surprisingly, Mr. Potter has been able to do on his own since he arrived here, though at a level just adequate to keep him alive."
Ginny walked over to Harry's bedside and paused before sitting down and asked, "It won't affect the monitors if I sit next to him, will it?"
"Not at all," Snagprat said. "The monitor checks for muscle movement he initiates."
With that, Ginny sat down next to Harry and gently took his hand in hers. Everyone was silent as they watched Ginny fighting to hold back tears. They were stunned into a longer silence when they saw the green fluid move upwards in the vile slightly.
"Oh, please tell me that everyone else just saw that," Hermione said, close to tears herself.
"Harry?" Ginny said softly, her tears coming freely. "I'm here."
They all watched the monitor and nearly yelled with joy as the red vile filled with a few drops of liquid. Looking down they could tell that Harry's hand had closed around Ginny's.
"Young lady," Snagprat began, with excitement building up inside him, "I think we had better make arrangements for you to stay here for a while."