-Disclaimer: Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling.

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-Please see notes at the end of the chapter :)

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Loony for Luna: Forever from the Ashes

Chapter Four

The Right Thing

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George cursed the weather as he walked to Luna's the next morning. A spring thunderstorm had left everything around him soaking and dripping wet and a light mist still hit him in the face as he walked. But as much as he loathed getting soaked, he loathed the thought of facing Luna again more.

His mother was right, he did need to apologize to her. He had been deliberately cruel to her. The memory of her pain filled eyes haunted him. It hadn't been her fault, any of it. He HAD tried to bully her into doing what he wanted, into being a coward, and it didn't matter whether the threat he used was ditching her, moving to Hogsmeade himself or even having her father pull her from school. It had been bullying just the same.

With a deep sigh he reached out to pull the sash for the door bell. It gonged around him and he waited for her to answer. Instead of Luna's face he was greeted by a small voice from the vicinity of his feet.

"Help..."

George looked down to see a the very tips of a pair of bare feet sticking out of the end of the tent. He pushed the flap back and found Luna, covered head to foot in mud, laying on her stomach on the cold, muddy floor.

"What the hell?!"

"George..." Luna's voice was so weak he was nearly paralyzed by fear. "Is that you?"

He crouched down next to her and brushed the mud soaked hair from her face.

"Yeah, its me." he said softly

"Thank heavens you came..." She smiled faintly "I thought I'd be left to lay here forever."

"What happened?" she seemed to be drifting in and out "Luna..."

"My back..." a tear fell from her eyes and cut a clean path through the mud on her face. "I was outside, and when I tried to get up to come in...I couldn't, it hurts too much to try to get up." she took a deep breath then shuddered as the expanding of her lungs increased the pain in her back. "I had to drag myself...but it started raining...and..." her entire body shook with the force of her tears and she whimpered from the pain.

"It hurts so much George." She whispered

"Shhh." His voice was soothing as he put his hand on her cheek, brushing away the mud that he could. "I'm here now...I'll take care of you."

"You don't have to do that...just send for a healer and ..." she tried to force a calm face "Then you can go."

A jolt went through him as he realized that she actually believed he would abandon her...and he knew exactly why she thought it.

"You think I'd leave you like this? Are you mad?"

Luna almost laughed "Well, that has been the general consensus in the past, yes."

George rolled his eyes "I'm not going to leave you. I'll get you to St. Mungos...don't worry."

"You don't have to." She closed her eyes

"Yes I do." George realized his voice had gone extremely gentle, even loving, to Luna it was like hearing a song she had once dearly loved but had not heard in a very long time.

She looked up at him, her eyes scared and confused. Her words came out as a whisper "Why?"

George just looked at her for a minute, then decided to ignore her question.

"Luna...I'm going to have to roll you over and lift you...it's going to hurt some I'm afraid."

She nodded, all too aware that he had ignored her question.

"It's going to hurt you, when I apparate I mean... isn't it?"

"Yes..." She sighed "But there's no other way...you can't exactly walk all the way to St. Mungos."

She smiled a little and George felt a tug in his chest. At that moment he would have gladly walked all the way to St. Mungos rather than allow her to be in pain.

"I don't want to hurt you..." he said gently

"It's okay...just...just do it."

George carefully rolled her over on to her back, the most horrible whimper came from her as she settled onto her back. Carefully he worked his arms under her shoulders and knees, then slowly rose to his feet. Luna bit her lip so hard that a small trickle of blood ran down her chin.

"I'm so sorry" He whispered, feeling like he would start blubbering like a baby the next time she so much as flinched.

She took a deep breath and winced from the pain again. "It's okay...lets just get it over with....and George...?"

"Yes?"

"Be accurate okay? I don't want to end up in the river or something."

George rolled his eyes, unable to believe she would joke at a time like this. Still, he grinned when he answered.

"If I haven't drown you by now, your probably safe."

She took a deep breath "Okay...lets go."

George nodded and gripped his wand then turned on the spot.

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George sat impatiently waiting in the family room of the trauma room of St. Mungos, it felt more like he had been there forever, rather than two hours since he had apparated in perfectly on target.

"See" He'd smiled down at Luna, anxious to reassure her. "Told you I'd get you here."

Luna hadn't been able to speak, the pain had become unbearable due to the nature of apparating and she was crying from the pain. Before George had had a chance to say another word they were converged upon by trauma healers and their assistants. Luna had been immediately taken into an exam room, and George, was left to worry.

"Are you Mr. Weasley?" an extremely young looking healers assistant popped his head through the double doors.

George nodded.

"I'm Eric Nagglewood, I was assisting with Miss Lovegood. You can come back...she wants to see you."

George jumped up from his chair. "Is she okay?"

The assistant smiled "She's okay for now. Healer Kenning was able to stop the pain and she's had a shower. She seemed almost more happy in the shower than she did when the pain went away."

George did a double take. "You watched her shower?"

The assistant laughed "No of course not. I stood outside, in case she needed assistance. She was in there singing away, like a bird."

George grinned "Yeah, that sounds about like her."

"Here we are Mr. Weasley." The assistant stopped by a curtain and pulled it back. Luna lay resting and George couldn't believe how much better she looked...or how beautiful. He stepped forward and gently brushed the backs of his fingers down her cheek.

"Luna..."

Her eyes opened and she smiled up at him.

"My hero."

George grinned and sat in the chair next to the bed. "Hardly."

"Healer Kenning will be in to talk to you in a minute." The assistant smiled and allowed the curtain to fall closed.

Luna nodded and then looked back at George.

"Now what's this hardly business?"

"Forget it." George waved her words away "Tell me about you. What happened?"

"Apparently, I twisted the wrong way and aggravated the injury to my back." She shuddered "It was so horrible George...like someone had taken a sword and put it through my back. I couldn't even get up on my hands and knees and crawl it hurt so bad."

"Where were you? I know you were outside somewhere..."

"I was under the Cyprus tree, going through..." She stopped herself just before she told him exactly what she had been doing just before she'd hurt her back "...through my wardrobe."

"You don't hurt yourself going through a wardrobe Luna." he looked at her skeptically and Luna bit her lip.

How could she tell him that she had hurt her back trying to put out a fire? A fire that she had started in order to burn his letters? How could she tell him that she hadn't been able to burn them...or that the reason she couldn't was because she still loved him!

"I had finished...I was going back to the tent and..." She lied "and I almost tripped and I guess I twisted my back when I was trying to right myself. Next thing I knew I was on the ground."

"It must have been horrible." His light brown eyes were fixed on hers and Luna almost thought she saw a touch of misery sweep through him...misery for her pain. Clearly she was imagining things.

"It was..." She nodded "Then the storm started, and the rain...I just wanted to get into the tent."

An image of Luna, hurt on the ground,pulling herself slowly along through the rain assaulted him and George felt a deep pain burn through his chest.

"I'm sorry." He said softly "I wish I'd come sooner..."

Luna looked at him in surprise, but before she could say anything the curtain swished open again.

"Miss Lovegood." A cheery voice filled the small cubicle "We have your tests back...and..." He looked up at George "You must be Mr. Weasley...our lovely young damsels knight in shining armor."

He smiled and offered George his hand, George accepted it, doing his best not to laugh bitterly. Some knight he was, knights didn't do things to cause the damsel pain.

"I'm Daniel Kenning, I'm an orthohealer. Please sit." George slid back into the chair next to Luna's bed and Healer Kenning walked to a small screen on the wall and tapped it with his wand. Two pictures of Luna's spine appeared on the screen.

"Miss Lovegood, what we have here are the scans of your back taken two weeks ago after your initial injury and the scans we took tonight. If you look here, you'll see that the damage caused a initially was made considerably worse by your tumble last night."

George had no idea what a normal spine was suppose to look like, so he just nodded his head.

"So, I imagine it's just back to the exercises and hot tub routine?" Luna asked softly "I still won't be able to return to school in the fall will I?"

George looked at Luna sharply.

"Well no, I'm afraid not. There is simply too much walking and stair climbing involved for you to return to Hogwarts."

"But...can't she at least try?" George asked

Healer Kenning looked at Luna , apaprently she hadn't told the young man the severity of her injury. As Luna said nothing to stop him, he decided it okay to go on.

"Mr. Weasley, the day to day pain from this injury is already likely at the limit of what she can stand. If you add to it the activity required for her to attend school, it would become unbearable."

George looked at Luna again. So she hadn't been completely honest with him the other day. She had been living in constant pain and she hadn't felt the need to tell him that little detail? But then again...why should she have when he had been so determined to hurt her himself?

George switched his look back to the healer "But there must be something you can do to fix this..."

"It's okay George...the pain isn't that bad usually..."

"Isn't that bad?" He was almost yelling now "You were on the ground all night, trying to drag yourself through the mud. What if I hadn't come when I did? You'd still be laying there!"

"There is a procedure we can do..." Healer Kenning broke in "But it isn't as simple as just working a spell...it is a series of spells and while it wouldn't require more than an overnight hospital stay, the recovery time is considerable."

"How considerable?" George asked

"It doesn't matter George...it's impossible."

George ignored her and looked at the healer "How considerable?"

Healer Kenning looked from George to Luna, feeling as though he were caught in the middle. But the thing was, he had wanted Luna to have the procedure two weeks ago and it was only the fact that she had no one to care for her that had prevented it.

"A month to six weeks." He said at last "Immediately following the procedure she will be totally dependent, she won't be able to walk and will need to remain in bed for the first few days. After that, she will be able to use a wheelchair for the first few weeks, in order to completely rest the muscles and allow them to heal. After I give her the okay she can slowly add things to her routine, she'll need physical therapy and relearning how to walk."

"Relearn to walk?" George's head was spinning

"Yes, The procedure involves removing the damaged nerves, tisue and bone and replacing it with newly conjured nerves, tissue and bone. It takes some time for the replacments to fully fuse with the remaining matter, and even once they have fused, her body will need to train the conjured matter to work with her body as it is meant to."

"Will she be in pain?"

He nodded "Initially there will be some pain, pain is the body;s way of informing one that they are doing something hazardous to oneself. She would use the pain as a guage of what she is able to do and how far she can push herself in therapy. Quite honestly, as long as she doesn't try to do too much too fast, it will be considerably less than she pain she has now."

"When can you do this?"

"George!" Luna protested "You don't understand...I can't do this!"

"Well, I could do it first thing tomorrow morning, we already have all her blood work from today...but she has a point Mr. Weasley. The fact that she lives alone makes it impossible."

"Impossible how?"

"Until she can properly care for herself she will need someone with her around the clock."

George thought for a moment, letting the doctors words sink in. He wanted to see Luna get better, to see her return to finish her last year of school. But could he do this? Be with her around the clock? He wasn't worried about the shop, he knew his family would be more than willing to step in and help, both with Luna and the shop.

But it would mean moving in with her, since she wouldn't be able to manage the stairs at either his flat or the burrow. It would mean being in her presence almost constantly and that was the last thing in the world he wanted. It was hard enough pretending he was over her when they were apart...he didn't know if he could keep up the facade when she was so near.

But yet...he couldn't allow her to suffer day in and day out either. He couldn't stand the idea of her brilliant mind going to waste.

He couldn't stand the idea of failing her again.

"Healer Kenning..." he said softly as he took Luna's hand in his and

gave her a reassuring look.

"Please schedule the procedure for tomorrow."

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Chapter Four Preview

Luna returns

home after the procedure and

George moves in, but cohabitation

isn't all its cracked

up to be.

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A/N to anyone who is coming away from reading this chapter and about to send me a review saying how unrealistic Luna's pain sounds...

I have lived with an inoperable back injury since my early twenties. At times, the pain has been so bad that I was in a wheelchair unable to walk and have, on more than one occasion, had to drag myself along the floor to get to the phone to call an ambulance to take me to the hospital for cortisone treatment.

Unless you've experienced it...you can't imagine how dreadful a back injury can be.

Now, that being said, I am not a doctor, so I didn't want to attempt to go too deeply into what the scans showed. I am kind of thinking along the lines of a series of ruptured disks...if you know what that means exactly, your one up on me. I just know that it can be very debilitating. I also know that back surgery takes a long time to recover from, perhaps not as drastic as Luna's needs are, but...hey, it works for my purposes! LOL

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