Chapter 6: Harry's New Hope

I laid awake that night. My mind reeling from the happenings of the day.

What had happened with Ginny.

What had happened with her Brothers, there was so much to take in. So much I still didn't know. And all I knew for certain was the person I had become now. The things I'd learned. I hated that I left home, left everyone behind, but I couldn't hate the decision entirely. Without it I would not be the man I had become, come to appreciate things that I had never before.

It was the first three weeks I had been gone that it had happened. I'd been walking around the empty streets of Madrid when two men appeared from the shadows to my right and turned to follow me. The hair on the back of my neck had stood up, I could feel the familiar rush of danger and impending action. Like someone accustomed to fighting I felt my knuckles clench and my jaw set as I veered into an alleyway looking for an altogether less public place for the confrontation. I walked all the way to the dead end and waited as the two shadowy figures appeared at the end of the alley and slowly came towards me.

"Come and get me." I shouted at them. One man's face crumpled in concern at my actions. It took a crazy man to call out two surly characters in a dark alleyway with no weapon visible.

And crazy I was.

"I said come and get me. Or is your hearing as lousy as your face." An adolescent insult for the adolescent boy I was.

The one man reached into his pocket and flicked open the reflective steel of a knife. He grinned, toothless and terrifying at me. My fingers moved down slowly, inching my wand from the pocket of my trousers.

"Listen little boy, Who do you think you are?" That hit me. Stuck with me. I released my wand as I tilted my chin up and looked the lowly scum directly in the eyes.

"I'm no one. Absolutely no one."

Then there was pain. Excruciating pain.

Then the white of a hospital ceiling. A muggle hospital. A place that I had been brought too after being stabbed seven times and robbed of everything I had on me. Everything except my wand.

The first moments were blurry, like I was watching pieces of a movie. I knew nothing except for the murmurs of the doctors and nurses.

Then suddenly my eyes opened. A short round woman was there smiling happily at me and she inspected the contents of a clipboard as white as her uniform and the walls around us. The mist cleared away, and I remembered everything. I saw Ginny's face and my heart ached in want.

"Welcome Back. My names Amy." The nurse said setting down her clipboard and removing the shining metal of her stethoscope. She proceeded to checking my vitals, my temperature, my bandages all the while asking me questions.

"Do you know where you are?"

"The hospital." My voice had sounded like I had been spending the last couple weeks chewing on Gravel. "How long have I been here?"

She smiled again as she slowly rotated my legs, they pulled and stretched as if they'd been sitting I'd been here for ages. "About two weeks." Two weeks. Two weeks I had lost. Then she asked the question that changed everything. "Do you know your name son?"

My name? Everyone knew my name. It was on everyone's lips, in every conversation. On the cover of every single magazine and paper, on the hundreds of owls that arrived for me all the time. Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry James Potter.

"My name is Harry Potter."

She gave me a kind smile as she handed me a cup of ice water that felt like heaven against my gravelly throat. "Do you have any family Mr. Potter?"

No. The thought echoed around me, along with the novelty that I was unknown. That I had been in a hospital for weeks without a single person recognizing me. The feeling started slowly in the pit of my stomach and then began to spread inside of me. My fingers tingled as everything consumed to me, I was nobody. I was really nobody.

Ginny flashed through my head once again with the desire to go home but I was on a high, a high that trumped even the woman I loved more than my own life.

I wanted more. I wanted more nothing.

"Well Mr. Potter everything looks fine. I'll send the doctor in but with the right antibiotics I don't see why you wouldn't be able to leave today."

I could go anywhere. Do anything. I was nothing.

There was a mob of people camping outside of my flat. How they even knew where my flat was was beyond me. I had no idea they were there until this morning where I, completely unsuspecting and going to my ten o'clock personal training session at the stadium stepped out my front door and got blinded by the thousands of flashing cameras. The screaming questions of the goddamn press assaulted me as I stood gaping like a grindylow for a solid minute before I started to fight my way through the crowd.

"Ginny, are you and Harry back together?"

"Is it true that you are cheating on Henry Lewis?"

"Does Henry know about your sordid affair with Harry Potter?"

"Miss Weasley, are the allegations that you are taking illegal potions to keep your captaincy position?" This one made me falter a little bit, I almost stopped pushing these vultures out of the way just to slap the one who said it. I do not take potions. It's called natural athletic talent.

My falter had done its damage though. They swarmed around me and the flashing and roar of questions started to close in on me. Panic rose in my throat as I turned to find a way out. They were everywhere. This was worse than trying to escape my brother's 'birthday spankings' growing up.

"I'm here outside the apartment of one Ginny Weasley, allegedly dating two of the most eligible bachelors in the wizarding world. She has yet to address any of the claims that have been attached to her but we know that it is just a matter of time."

This was it. I mindlessly thought as the reporters all took another step forward. I knew somehow that Harry Fucking Potter would be the death of me.

That's when I heard it.

"MOVE!" and with a parting of the sea of people, he appeared. The crowd went silent as he eyed the vultures with evident malevolence.

I didn't know whether to hug him or slap him dead across the face. He walked swiftly towards me and with one hand on the small of my back led me out of the crowd. It took only a minute before the flashes started again and the questions were no longer about me. They were directed at Harry.

"Mr. Potter when did you get back?"

"Are you going to be running against Kingsley for the Minister this November?"

"Where are you staying?"

Righhhhhhttttt…. Like he'd actually tell you that.

His emerald eyes clashed with mine. "Get ready." I nodded mindlessly shaking the haze from my mind from everything that happened.

He nodded at me and we both took off running. Surprise wafted behind us as we zoomed down the pavement. I'm sure a few of them tried to follow us. But I ran for a living, and Harry had always been fast. We kept going passing block after block weaving between the people walking up and down the street. I jumped over a puddle that was dipped into the cement and I laughed as my legs hit the ground, I looked at Harry once again and saw amusement flasing in his eyes. I giggled again as we continued. I couldn't tell how far we had gone but when we turned a corner into an alleyway my breath was coming in heavy gasps mixed with the laughter that was trying to escape me. Harry chuckled lightly and I pressed my back against the cool brick of the building wall. I did more of a workout before my training session then I probably will do when Vitole, my trainer gets his hands on me. Least I won't have to be doing a warm up.

When I finally caught my breath I looked at Harry who was smiling brilliantly at me. His eyes shined like the greenest grass that I had ever seen. My breath almost got lost as I looked his wind tousled locks and how he carelessly shoved his hands into his pockets. He looked so happy. So free.

I envied him and hated him for it. The glee of escape faded away.

"What are you doing here?"

He had the class to at least look sheepish before he answered me. "I heard the broadcast this morning; I thought you could use the help."

I had to admit, he had been helpful.

But he also had just fueled the 'Harry and Ginny are back together' fire.

"Well Thanks." I finally said, taking a look at my watch and realize how almost late I was.

"Anytime." His eyes caught mine and there it was again.

I was breathless.

I got to get out of here.

I cleared my throat loudly. "Well I better get going."

"Yeah." Was all he said.

That was that then.

"I'll see you around Harry."

And without waiting for his response I turned on one foot and disappeared.

I watched her go. The last thing I saw was a flash of red before there was nothing but dismal Alleyway before me.

It might have just been me but the world seemed less bright with her gone.

I had intended to be her Knight in shining armor. The save her from the hordes of paparazzi and press that were only there because of me in the first place. At first I was sure that it had worked, running next to her seeing the girlish smile on her face and knowing that part of me had put it there was like taking Felix Felicis. I couldn't go wrong.

Until we sat in the alleyway and it all had. The smile faded and there was that girl again, the girl with the chip on her shoulder and the burden she bore behind her eyes.

Whatever had happened, I had been there, and I wasn't going away.

I needed something more. Something more solid than just meeting her randomly here or there, I needed to spend time with her, real quality time. And as an idea formulated in my mind I scanned the Alleyway for stowaway persons before spinning and disappearing with a pop. I landed, quite nicely might I add, right on Ron's couch.

Ron, I knew was at work at the Auror office but speaking to Hermione last night she wouldn't be working until later in the day. "Granger!"

I never called her that so I figured I'd freak her out a bit. A few seconds later a confused and wary Hermione shuffled out of her bedroom but upon seeing me rolled her eyes. "Morning to you too Potter."

She shuffled into the kitchen pouring herself a cup of tea and returning to my non moving figure on her couch.

"How are you doing today?" I inwardly chanted to myself. Don't unload all my problems, don't unload all my problems, don't unload all my problems.

"I need your help."

That obviously worked.

Hermione's eyebrows perked up at that. Obviously wondering what in the world I was on about. I couldn't stop the kick I had been on. I thought about Ginny almost every moment of every day. She consumed me and I couldn't get the need to be with her, to hold her and take care of her out of my mind.

"Anything you need?" I hoped that would hold true.

Silence stretched on for a moment as I chose my words.

"I need you to help me spend more time with Ginny." She moved back in the couch, moving from the situation and what I was asking her. I quickly continued with an explanation. "I'm never going to get her to spend time with me and I figured since I'm Best Man and she's Maid of Honor there was an opportunity there that could be used."

"Harry I don't know…" I kept going. Hermione knew me, she had to understand…

"I'm not asking for you to go out of your way, but little things that you don't have time to do and are okay with us taking care of. Cake tastings, fittings, registries and such. It would be helping us both out."

I could see her mind racing. Considering. Analyzing the options.

"I need this Hermione. I need the chance to try and make things right."

I prayed to Merlin that this would work.

"You know I would do anything for you. We've been through more together than most people who've been friends for 80 years. But I would do the same for Ginny." Silence hung between us. "But I understand where you are coming from, you deserve the chance to make things right and she deserves the chance to listen. But you have to promise me that if she tells you no more you will listen to her."

I nodded my head feverishly and she rose to her feet shuffling around the couch back towards her bedroom.

"Is that all." She lifted one angled eyebrow towards me.

"Yeah I suppose it is. Thank you Hermione."

"You owe me Potter." And with that she closed the door leaving me alone with an all new hope.

A/N: First off, let me just say, I am so freaking sorry for the wait on this chapter. One thing led to another and then I stopped writing. I promise to be better from now on!

Anyways. Reviews would be appreciated. Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions on what should happen next.

I take every review into account and use them to learn and grow as a writer.

Thanks!

Nurse Holliday.