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SIYE Time:7:32 on 29th March 2024
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Bonds of Blood and Magic
By Duelist

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Category: Post-HBP
Characters:Harry/Ginny, Severus Snape
Genres: Action/Adventure, Drama, Fluff, Romance
Warnings: Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations, Violence/Physical Abuse
Rating: PG-13
Reviews: 932
Summary: A few days before Bill and Fleur's wedding, Harry vanished. Two weeks later, Ginny disappeared, also alone and without a trace.

Someone has stepped out of the shadows for a moment, moved some pieces on the board, and changed the rules of the game.
Hitcount: Story Total: 406654; Chapter Total: 14386
Awards: View Trophy Room




Author's Notes:
Well, here we are again. There are Death Eaters wandering the countryside, creating untold mayhem, lost Horcruxes to hunt, and blood traitors and muggleborns in hiding. But our heroes are stuck in a dreary old London townhouse, waiting. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

I think it's about time for Harry to wake up, don't you?




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Ginny stirred and awoke quietly. She unconsciously scrubbed at her eyes with one hand while she pulled aside the coverlet with the other. Her face was sticky, her eyes gritty, sure signs she’d cried herself to sleep. Blinking, she continued rubbing at her eyes, trying to clear the grit out of them, she turned in Harry’s loose arms to look at him. He wasn’t doing anything. He wasn’t waking up again. But she was so sure … in her dream, she was so sure that she’d felt something, or heard Harry’s voice. It seemed so real. She sat up and felt Harry’s arms contract a bit as she slipped out of his embrace. He’d been holding her in her sleep.

“Oh,” she said in a soft voice as she grasped his hands and lifted them to her lips, kissing each palm as she studied his face and saw a slight smile appear. He looked so peaceful.

Harry was pale, but he looked comfortable lying on his back. There was no sign of Madam Pomfrey’s runes. His messy hair stuck up as it always did. Ginny pulled down the covers. Harry was wearing a t-shirt and boxers. It looked like he was just sleeping. The tubes were gone. There were no bandages. But it had been five … she looked at the dark window trying to gauge the time, no six days …

She looked closer. There was something. She was tempted to light her wand, but remembered how Harry reacted to light and just squinted her eyes in the dim room as she pulled his left arm close to her face. There were small runes on his wrist and index finger. Eagerly she took his right arm and found another rune on his forearm near his elbow. Knowing what to look for, she pulled up his shirt to examine his body. There were two runes on his chest and three on his abdomen, one of which was glowing. Looking farther she found five more on his legs and learned she was wrong about the tubes. The one in the inside of his right thigh was still present, just hidden by his boxers.

Harry was clearly still a patient. The fact that her exam had evoked neither movement nor sound from him was telling. Ginny pulled the covers back over Harry and herself and curled into his body trying not to think about it. She smiled as she felt his arms wrap around her. She kissed his jaw and whispered into his ear, “That’s right Harry, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

A few minutes later Madam Pomfrey entered the room and lit the wall torch. Harry groaned and closed his eyes tightly against the light. Ginny reached up a hand to cover his eyes.

“Sorry if I disturbed you, Mrs. Potter, but it’s time for Mr. Potter’s potions.” She waved her wand in a pattern Ginny recognized.

“Was that the bladder empting spell?” Ginny asked as she pulled down Harry’s boxers a bit to expose the glowing rune she’d noticed earlier. The glow was quickly fading.

“Yes.” Pomfrey replied as she moved to the table next to the bed. “Would you like to help me?”

“Yes, what should I do?” Ginny asked as she moved to get off the bed, uncovering Harry’s eyes. As Harry grimaced, she returned her hand to his face. “I don’t suppose you could put out the torch?” she asked.

Pomfrey harrumphed, “Not if he’s to get proper treatment.” She conjured a black piece of cloth and tied it around Harry’s eyes. “Does that help?” she asked Ginny.

Ginny didn’t feel anything negative from Harry through their bond, so she peered at Harry’s expression. He seemed more relaxed. She smiled at Madam Pomfrey, “I think it does, thanks.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to examine his eyes like this,” Pomfrey murmured to herself. “We’ll start with nutrient and hydration potions,” she said to Ginny as she handed her a vial. “Just lift his head a bit and pour it slowly onto the front of his tongue.”

Ginny followed her instructions then reached for the next vial. “Why a hydration potion? Doesn’t he get enough fluids from his other potions?”

“No, not nearly enough. He’s not consuming anything but potions, and with this purifying potion,” Pomfrey answered taking the now empty vial and replacing it with another full of a potion Ginny didn’t recognize, “he needs as much fluid as we can push through him.”

“What is the purifying potion for?” Ginny asked as she finished giving Harry the strange potion and was handed another dose of hydrating potion.

“We’re trying to remove all the residual effects of the Basilisk venom from his body,” Pomfrey replied.

“What did it do?” Ginny asked lowering the vial she’d been handed. “What residual effects?”

Pomfrey steadied Ginny’s hand and guided it back to Harry’s mouth. When the vial was empty, she took it and set it on the table. Pulling a chair close, she sat down to talk to Ginny who was sitting on edge of the bed.

“Basilisk venom is a neurotoxin. It acts against the nervous system,” Pomfrey answered. “In this case, it didn’t actually damage it, but it did block the signals from his brain. It stopped his heart.” She paused observing Ginny’s response. The girl was taking it quite well, though she supposed Snape had mentioned his heart the night before. “Many snakes have venom with this effect,” she continued. “Venom is primarily used to immobilize prey, so that the snake can feed without risk of injury from a struggling animal. With their victim paralyzed, the snake can feed at its leisure.”

“Paralyzed?” Ginny asked, almost in a whisper.

“Yes, Mrs. Potter.”

“Harry is…” she trailed off, blanching.

“Yes, but only partially,” replied Pomfrey, “due to the Phoenix tears healing the bulk of the damaging effects of the venom. Those effects are waning. Watch.” She stimulated Harry’s right forearm with her wand. His hand twitched off the covers in reaction. “On his upper limbs, his face, his eyes, his reflexes are greatly improved.” She smiled, pleased that she could show Ginny his progress.

Her smile vanished suddenly “Oh, my, did that hurt him?” she asked, belatedly recalling the redhead’s demand that she wait until Harry was awake to test him.

Ginny shook her head numbly. “No. No, he … no, it didn’t hurt. He holds me now,” Ginny said. “He’s not strong, but he moves and he knows me.”

“He’ll get stronger with time,” Pomfrey assured Ginny with a smile as she poked and prodded at Harry’s unresponsive legs. “Professor Snape is worried about his legs,” she confided. “He really shouldn’t be, and neither should you. They’ll improve, just as the rest of him has. The neurotoxin doesn’t have a permanent effect, unless it kills you of course. Since he’s survived and is improving, he will get better with time and proper care.

“Shall we give him the rest of his potions now?” she asked.

“More?” Ginny asked, somewhat dismayed, as she accepted a new vial from the Healer.

“Yes, strengthening potion,” Pomfrey explained as she nodded to the vial in Ginny’s hand, “an anti-inflammatory to reduce the swelling in his brain, a pain relieving draught for his excessive sensitivity to light, a restorative, oxygenating potion, and another hydrating potion to wash it all down.”

Ginny gulped and got to work pouring the potions down Harry’s throat. “Professor Snape said his brain was damaged. What did he mean?” she asked as Pomfrey ran her wand around Harry’s head.

“When the Horcrux was destroyed, there was a magical backlash within Mr. Potter’s brain causing an undetermined amount of damage. The energy residue is still interfering with my scans but the negative magical signature is dissipating and what I do detect is good. I suspect that the Phoenix tears were able to heal most if not all the damage. I was able to see new tissue along with severe swelling in Mr. Potter’s optic nerves during my earlier exams of his eyes. The swelling was decreasing daily. I wasn’t able to check yesterday, of course.”

Pomfrey looked at Ginny and saw a blush form, then continued, “I’m sorry I can’t give you solid answers right now, there’s too much I don’t know, but his rather dramatic reactions to light are encouraging. The swelling must have decreased even farther. He’s not blind. I know the right side was damaged more than the left and that his vision is likely to have changed drastically. He will have to get new glasses once his eyes have settled. His color vision and fields of vision may also have been affected and I suppose his short term memory and speech may have been impacted by the damage to that section of his brain. We won’t know until he is awake long enough to communicate with, and to do some tests.”

Pomfrey frowned as she moved her scan to Harry’s chest. She had no idea how long Harry would need her care and she needed to be at the school full time by the end of the week. Snape was also hinting that they should move Harry and Ginny to another location.

“Is his heart okay?” Ginny asked, concerned by Pomfrey’s frown.

Pomfrey looked at Ginny sharply then schooled her features. “Yes … the Basilisk venom did not damage it, just stopped it. The life support spells kept it beating until the Horcrux was destroyed. I’m afraid the trauma put him into severe shock and his heart stopped again. He was on life support spells for four days. When his magic started to fight those spells, I removed them and he’s doing well without them for the most part. His blood levels of oxygen tend to drop from time to time so we’re supplementing with a potion. He’ll need to stay quiet and calm for awhile and I’m not yet ready to remove the monitoring charms, but he’s young, his heart will be fine.”

“His magic fought …” Ginny began.

“Most severely ill magical patients have low magical reserves thus are unable to interfere with their treatment magically. Your bond with Mr. Potter gives him an additional source of magic to draw upon, which aids in his healing in most ways, but also gives him the strength to resist some of the normal techniques, since his unconscious use of magic doesn’t recognize those techniques as being something to help him.” Snape explained, surprising Ginny who had been unaware he was in the room.

“Good morning, Headmaster,” Pomfrey said with a nod as she applied a warming charm to Harry’s legs then covered him.

“Morning, Professor,” Ginny said through a yawn. “What time is it?”

“Three a.m.”

“I think I’ll try to sleep a bit longer.”

“Do,” Snape replied. “You’ll want to be well rested for our lesson. I should like to start at eight o’clock.”

“Yes, Professor,” Ginny said as she walked towards the bathroom hoping her guests would be gone when she returned.

***

“Mrs. Potter, this is how you apparate from one point to another that you can actually see,” said Snape, as he concentrated, and then apparated from one side of the room to the other. He returned to her side just as quickly.

“As the text says, it takes concentration, imagination, and belief to achieve this skill.”

Ginny’s brow furrowed. “Professor, the text says, ‘Deliberation, Destination, and Determination.’ Where does it say concentration, imagination, and belief?”

Snape rolled his eyes. “The Ministry is full of idiots, Mrs. Potter. You must come to understand this, in spite of whatever loyalty to your father and his employ that you feel. The Ministry idiots, in their wisdom, like trite phrases and simple mnemonics, like ‘the three D’s’, instead of teaching skills in the simplest terms that actually mean what they intend.

“You must concentrate on the steps and effort you must use to accomplish the apparition. That is what they mean when they say Deliberation. You must be able to imagine yourself in the place that you wish to go. That is Destination. You must believe that you can send yourself there. That is Determination.

“So, as you can see, if you spend your time thinking ‘the three D’s’ over and over, instead of about what you actually must do in order to accomplish your task, you will be confused, and likely fail to accomplish it.”

“I see. Well, what shall I do first?”

“You want to be on the other side of the room, facing the direction you choose at your destination. Usually, people apparate to a known location, and arrive facing whatever it was that they concentrated upon for their fixed point. It is not necessary to face it, and as you advance in the skill, you should be able to face in whatever direction you wish at your destination.”

“So if my destination was in front of the couch, I could arrive facing it, because that’s what I see in my imagination, or I could imagine myself facing away from it, or even sitting on it?”

Snape’s face blanched. “Yes, but … Please, Mrs. Potter, until you have a great deal of experience apparating, please do not attempt to land on anything. Pinpoint apparition in relation to other physical objects is very dangerous, especially for beginners.

“Splinching is not the worst thing that could happen to you.”

Ginny’s face blanched as well as she thought about arriving partway on, and partway in, the sofa.

“Right. No landing on anything.”

“Right. Now, then, picture yourself standing in front of the couch. Focus on it. You may close your eyes if it helps.”

Ginny did not close her eyes. Instead, she focused intently on the couch, imagining herself standing in front of it, facing the room.

“Focus on your exact position, your features, clothing, hair, everything.”

Ginny followed his instructions, getting a clearer focus on her imagined self by the couch. She focused on how she imagined the sunlight through the window would feel on the back of her neck. She was so focused, she didn’t realize that her power center was responding, focusing, pulling in reaction to her mental focus, reading her imagined destination as intent.

Suddenly, she felt a disorienting jerk and nearly fell to her knees. She was standing ten feet from Snape, facing him, and felt the couch at the back of her legs. She sat on it swiftly, and put her hands to either side of her face.

“Did I just …”

“Yes, Mrs. Potter, you did,” Snape said quietly, impressed. “If you continue at this pace, it will only be a few days before you are competent to apparate without supervision. However, I think that it would be best if we took a break for now. Most people need a few moments, or even several hours, to fully comprehend the feelings of their first solo apparition, so that they may replicate it on their next attempt.”

“But I wasn’t trying to, I was just imagining myself there. Here. Standing up, I mean. I didn’t push myself like the book describes, I didn’t …”

“Please, don’t be distressed. What you have just done is quite impressive, Mrs. Potter. Your first attempt was successful, simply because you believed that it could be done, and had no reason to think that you, yourself, could not do it. That was a step that you will not have to really struggle with, I think. You know that it can be done, there is no doubt in your mind. Many of the Muggle-born have trouble with this skill because they did not grow up knowing it to be possible. For you, it is an everyday occurrence, a skill which you expected to learn as you came to your adulthood.”

Ginny nodded. Taking a deep breath she stood. “I don’t need a break, Professor. I’m ready.”

He looked at her for a moment, judging what he saw, then nodded. “Very well. Spend the next hour walking about the house, imagining yourself, picturing yourself in your mind, in exact positions in relation to different objects in the various rooms. Do not focus quite as much as you were just now, so that you do not project yourself. Just go about looking at the different locations, as if you were creating a mental catalogue of apparition destinations.

“In fact, that is what you will be doing. There is an added benefit to this. You will, in preparation for apparating to various locations, practice a very high level of focus on your surroundings. This will be useful to you, in keeping your awareness of what is around you in the forefront of your mind, because you will be more likely to notice dangers before they approach you. It will help to keep you safe both when you avoid danger that you otherwise wouldn’t have noticed, and when you are able to flee it swiftly.”

Ginny was impressed. In all her time at Hogwarts, she’d never even suspected that Snape could explain teaching points so clearly and effectively. At the school, he was considered among the worst ever to attempt to teach. If he consistently taught in the manner he just had explained apparition to her instead, he would, without doubt, be considered universally to be among the best.

“Professor, why …” she began, but then paused.

“Yes?”

“Why don’t you teach potions or defense like this at school? Most of us hated you because you didn’t actually teach, and then got angry at us for not understanding, instead of teaching us and then helping us to understand your explanations.”

He smirked. “There are many methods to teaching. What I have done at the school is less effective, yes, but it forces those with desire to teach themselves. Some believe this is more effective, because only those with the desire and passion to learn actually master a task.

“I disagree, but I still use that method at the school simply because it is effective for me in my role as Voldemort’s spy. Everyone hates me, and none trust me outside of Slytherin House, precisely because I don’t really teach them anything.

“I don’t avoid teaching because I can’t do it, but because it is effective way to hide myself in plain sight. No one would expect a Slytherin who acts with such distaste and hatred towards others to actually be secretly working for everyones’ benefit.”

“I see. And what about what it does to the students? They can’t really be learning this way. It’s like you’re sacrificing them.”

“Those in my Potions classes who actually had the innate ability to learn Potions, or who had the desire to put forth the effort, followed this teaching form’s pattern, and did research and learned for themselves. Those for whom Potions would be painful, no matter the teaching method, removed themselves from the classes as quickly as possible, saving them and myself untold amounts of painful effort.”

“But we could have learned, and felt accomplished when we did well.”

“You, Mrs. Potter? You were certainly not the best, but you did learn. It is unfortunate that those for whom Potions was a more challenging chore did not have the opportunity of learning from a better teacher, one who did not act as though he hated his profession at the very least, but, as Albus always said, some sacrifices must be made for the greater good. In this case, keeping my position as Albus’ spy was the more important task.”

“I think that I can understand why you feel it is necessary to keep your true self hidden, but I think it … it is really wrong of you to do it at the expense of your students, Professor. I think this was a time you probably should have listened to the Headmaster a bit less.

“How many students have left Hogwarts, limited in their career choices — crippled even — because of you? How can you live with yourself, having made that choice? You have neglected your students … betrayed your community … so that you could be a better spy? So you could silently fight Voldemort?

“How many more Aurors and Healers would there be if you’d actually taught Potions, Professor? How would this war be different if there were more qualified people to actually fight, and more people to help those who are injured?

“Your justifications … are weak, sir. I think that you could have done better without exposing yourself, and I think that you should have.”

Ginny shook herself. What was she thinking, talking to the Professor that way? If she’d been back at Hogwarts and spoken to him that way, she’d have expected Detention for weeks. She turned and walked away then paused at the door. “Thank you for the lesson, Professor. I’ll take that walk now. I have to give Harry his potions soon.”

Snape leaned thoughtfully against a chair as Ginny left the room. Would it have been better if … but, how many more would be dead if he wasn’t a spy? How much darker would Hogwarts be this year with another Death Eater as headmaster? The questions were meaningless. He’d never know. He could never go back, just forward to face the consequences of his choices.

***

Ginny leaned against the wall in the hallway on the second floor, only a dozen feet from the door to the room Snape still occupied. She couldn’t believe what she’d just said to the Professor. After all the help he’d given them, the chance at a life he’d given Harry, their marriage, everything …

She shook her head. She wouldn’t blame him if he decided to stop helping them.

But at the same time, how could he do that to all of the Hogwarts students? She hated Potions, Harry hated Potions, she didn’t really know anybody who even liked the subject in the slightest whether they were good at it or not, and forget about Defense under the man! It was ridiculous for him to try justify using lazy, poor, ineffective and abusive teaching methods when his abilities were so much greater.

She was furious at her discovery, and disappointed in him. She’d begun to have some respect for Snape, and had placed a great deal of her trust in him, but didn’t know what to think now.

She started shaking.

***

Harry was confused. He was floating in a cloud of comfortable grey again, but then it started to turn red around the edges, and he started to get angry, but he felt betrayed, and he couldn’t think straight enough to figure out why. Something was happening, and he didn’t really understand it, and that compounded his confusion.

***

Ginny slumped to the floor in the hallway. It was all too much. Harry … her Harry was possibly blinded, paralyzed, living only through the good graces of their shared magic and a gifted Healer with her bag full of potions, and was, somehow, still the only person who could kill Voldemort.

They said he’d be fine, and he’s not fine, not even close. Why do they keep saying that? Do they even know?

Snape … the person they relied on to help them, to hide them, to protect them, was playing games as convoluted and confusing as anything she’d heard that the Headmaster did. She was sad, and angry, and confused, and she started to cry. Smoke started to rise from the floor and wall near her.

***

Harry felt something familiar in his hidden cloud, and pursued it, his fury growing. He sensed Ginny, somewhere ahead of him, but … she was hurt, she was upset, and he was going to protect her.

His eyes flew open, unseeing, but glinting with an inner fire. He flung himself from the bed … and landed face-first on the wood floor, clipping his chin on the bedside table on the way down. He lay on the floor, moaning softly. He tasted metal and smoke in his mouth, and knew that he’d bitten something he shouldn’t have.

***

Ginny felt a sudden wave of intense fury, and the wisps of smoke around her thickened. Then, there was an intense flow of pain, pure pain, that nearly knocked her unconscious.

She leapt to her feet in spite of the pain and screamed “Harry!” as she disapparated.

***

Snape heard Ginny scream, followed by a loud crack, and raced up the stairs to the Master suite. He stopped in the doorway, shocked.

Ginny huddled over Harry’s form. His upper body was face down on the floor. One leg hung up in the blankets on the bed, and the other was awkwardly suspended in the tangle partway to the floor. Snape heard her murmuring, “I’m here, luv, I’m here,” as she stood up and levitated her husband back to the bed.

His face was covered in blood, and a tooth jutted through his bottom lip at an unnatural angle.

His eyes, however, were opened. At last. Something inside Snape’s chest that had constricted to a painful level the day of the procedure loosened slightly when he saw Harry’s eyelids flickering. He was alive.

Harry looked around frantically from the bed. Where was Ginny? He heard her voice, but couldn’t see her. She touched his face and arm gently, and he heard her soothing words telling him to calm down.

Ginny leaned over Harry and wiped at the blood with the hem of her tshirt. She carefully pulled the broken tooth free of his lip. More blood instantly started oozing from his mouth. Snape quietly conjured towels and ice and then handed her one of the towels as he healed Harry’s poor lip with his wand.

She thanked him and wiped more of the blood away from his face. Harry lay quietly, only wincing slightly when her ministrations pulled at his bruised and torn flesh.

“Where is his tooth, Ginny?” asked Snape.

She handed it to him as she worked on Harry’s nose, which was still bleeding freely. She pinched it closed while Snape cleaned the tooth.

“Open your mouth, Harry, so I can put your tooth back in. It’s more likely to heal cleanly, the more quickly I can get it re-attached.”

Harry moaned a bit, but did open his mouth. Snape positioned the tooth back on its broken base, and with a quick flick of his wand, seated it in place. He pulled Ginny’s hand away from Harry’s nose, and healed that as well.

Ginny wrapped some ice in a towel, and placed it over Harry’s lip. She shook her head. ‘Is he ever going to stop doing this?’ she wondered to herself. He reached out and groped for her hand, pulling it away from his mouth.

“Are you … okay?” he mumbled.

She laughed, a choked sound that almost came out as a sob.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just fine,” she managed to get out.

He pulled on her arm. It wasn’t strong, and she could have easily pulled free, but of course, she followed his tug forward until her face was over his.

“There you are. Couldn’t see … over there.” His voice was slurred and soft, his eyes intense but slightly unfocused. “You hurt,” he said.

“No, I was upset. You’re hurt.”

“Guess so. Why you upset?”

She glanced at Snape, but said, “It’s nothing. I’m fine, and you’re talking to me.” Her voice almost smiled as she said the last bit.

“Course. Love you.”

“Good.” They stopped talking, and locked gazes. Ginny lowered her face slightly, and rubbed the side of her nose against his in an intimate caress. Harry raised his left hand to her cheek, and she pressed her hand against his, holding it in place.

Pomfrey rushed through the door then, and gaped at the puddle of blood on the floor.

“What is going on?” she demanded as she lit the newly repaired sconce by the door with a wave of her wand on her way to the bed, where she brushed Snape aside.

Harry cringed at the light, but Ginny turned her head and gave it a hard look for a moment. It guttered and went out. She turned her face back to Harry’s, and they locked gazes again.

Pomfrey glared at the three of them in exasperation. When the alarms on her monitoring chart went off, she’d rushed to the house from the Hospital wing expecting the worst, and now, no one was saying a word.

Snape stifled a laugh at how Ginny dealt with the light as he straightened and stepped to the foot of the bed. “Evidently, Mr. Potter woke up and decided to go for a walk. He didn’t get very far.”

“Mr. Potter, can you hear me?” Pomfrey asked, turning back to the bed.

“Mhmm,” he mumbled, not moving.

“What possessed you to try to walk?” she said, exasperated. “You’ve been unconscious for days! I’m not even sure you can feel your feet!”

“He thought I was in trouble. That’s what woke him up, so he was trying to find me,” said Ginny. “He hit his face on the table, and then the floor when he fell.”

“Mrs. Potter, please let me see his face,” Pomfrey asked.

“Professor Snape fixed his tooth, and his nose, and his lip,” said Ginny as she reluctantly pulled back from Harry’s gaze. She turned his hand over and clung to it.

Pomfrey flicked her wand over Harry’s face, frowned, and then pointed her wand at his nose again. “Missed a break here, Severus, but you did get everything else sorted out.” She cast a short spell at his nose, and suddenly Harry found that he could breathe more easily.

“I’ll want to do a complete check on him, Mrs. Potter, now that he is awake and can somewhat respond to questions. Will that be alright?”

“Please, do,” said Ginny, still massaging Harry’s hand between both of her own.

“Poppy, if you are going to be here for a while, I have some errands I need to take care of.”

“Go ahead, Severus. I won’t be going back to the school today.”

“Very well,” said Severus as he left the room.

***

Harry fell asleep partway through Pomfrey’s examination, but she was smiling as she left the room. His eyes were doing better than she had feared. His field of vision was limited to the sides, but he could see, with both his eyes, and could even focus several feet away with his left eye. His right was currently more limited, but she was much encouraged.

Ginny, full of pent-up energy, cleaned the floor beside the bed of the blood and then straightened the room while Pomfrey examined Harry, but when he fell asleep, Ginny joined him in the bed. Pomfrey started to object, but saw the look on Ginny’s face and held her peace. By the time Pomfrey left, both teens were fast asleep.

Ginny woke up hungry a few hours later. She wandered into the kitchen and fixed a large sandwich with some juice. She looked at the juice bottle for a moment, and conjured a tray to carry it, along with another glass and her sandwich, back upstairs. Pomfrey had said Harry wasn’t getting enough fluids, after all, and he should be waking up again, so she would make sure that he had something besides potions to drink when he did.

She sat in the too-familiar chair at the vanity by their bed, and watched Harry while she ate. He seemed restless, so she finished as quickly as she could and crawled back into bed with him.

As soon as she cuddled up next to him, he turned his body slightly and wrapped his arms around her. She kissed his cheek softly, and he turned his face towards her. Eagerly, she kissed his lips with more intensity. He responded for a moment, but then seemed to drift off again. She smiled wistfully, and laid her head on his chest.

Later in the afternoon, Harry stirred beneath her head. She raised up on her elbow to look at his face, and saw his eyes gazing back at her.

Her eyes lit up, and she squealed, “You’re awake!” as she pounced on him and kissed his lips again. Just as quickly, she pulled back.

“Oh, I’m sorry! How’s your mouth?”

His brow furrowed. “My mouth? I … fine, I guess. What happened?”

“You fell out of the bed and smashed your face this morning. Don’t you remember?”

He shook his head slightly. She sighed.

“Are you thirsty? I have pumkin juice, or I can just get you some water.”

“Water, then maybe juice.”

Ginny propped Harry up a bit on some more pillows so that he would have an easier time drinking. She pointed her wand at the clean glass on the tray by the bed and filled it with water. A straw on the tray made drinking easier for him, but after a few sips, he leaned back into the pillows again.

“Feel weird. What happened?”

“Don’t you remember the Horcrux?”

“Yeah. Weren’t we going to … did we?” he asked.

She nodded. Why couldn’t he remember?

“Did it work?”

“Yeah, it worked.”

“So, why …” he trailed off and gestured at the bed.

“It didn’t work quite the way we expected it to.”

“Oh.”

He leaned forward for more water, so she held the straw to his lips and let him drink as much as he wanted.

“Need to get up. Need … loo,” he muttered as he struggled, and failed, to sit up.

Ginny just pointed her wand at his abdomen and swirled the tip slightly, grinning at him.

He made a face. “Hey! What was that for?”

“Oh, you felt that, did you?” she asked with a bit of a smirk.

“Yes,” he said, making two syllables out of the word.

“Good.”

“I haven’t forgotten how to use the loo, you know,” he said, just a bit crossly.

“Yes, but you’ve evidently forgotten how to walk, and I don’t fancy patching up your face again today.”

“Again? What happened?”

Ginny looked at him strangely. “Um, you fell out of the bed and smashed your face this morning,” she said slowly.

“I did? Is that why I’m in bed?”

“No,” she said, still looking at him, trying to stifle some panic.

“Did Madam Pomfrey put that spell on my leg again?”

“What spell?”

“Can’t lift it. Broken one.”

“No, she fixed that, Harry.”

“Really? Good. Help me get up. Madam Pomfrey said I need to walk. Where’s my cane?”

“No, you have to stay in bed for now.”

“Why?”

“You can’t walk. Listen, I’m going to go get Madam Pomfrey, I think she wants to talk to you, but you … oh, Merlin. You can’t try to get out of bed, Harry. Just, trust me, you have to stay there.”

“Alright.”

She looked at him, chewing on her lip, and jumped up and ran to the door. She turned around to look at Harry from the doorway, and then opened it.

“Madam Pomfrey!” she shouted from the doorway. “Madam Pomfrey!”

She heard running feet on the steps, and, satisfied, turned back to the bed only to gasp in horror as she saw Harry trying to lift one of his legs over the side of the bed with his arms from his position leaning against the pillows. He sat up slightly to get better leverage. She ran back to the bed and shoved him, quite easily, back onto the pillows.

“Hey! What was that for?”

Blinking back tears, she said, “Harry, you promised! You-Can’t-Walk! You have to stay on the bed.”

“But you were too far,” he said petulantly.

Taking a deep breath, she said, “Fine. If I get back into bed with you, will you stay there?”

“Yeah.”

Madam Pomfrey found them there a moment later, arms around each other, and panic on Ginny’s face.

“Madam Pomfrey, he’s awake, but he can’t remember!”

“Calm down, Mrs. Potter. What doesn’t he remember?”

“The procedure, or anything that I tell him. It’s like, it runs in one ear and out the other, and then I have to tell him again just a minute or two later.”

Pomfrey looked at Harry speculatively for a moment. “Give me a moment, Mrs. Potter. I need to check a few things, but I think that …” she trailed off as she began casting various spells over Harry’s face and head with her wand.

After several minutes, with Pomfrey making a number of surprised sounds, and one long ‘Ahh,’ she finally spoke.

“Mr. Potter, Mrs. Potter, this is nothing to worry about really. Mr. Potter is experiencing some short-term memory loss. This is typical in head injuries. I should have been more surprised if he had no memory loss symptoms.

“Mr. Potter, what is the last thing that you clearly remember?”

Harry blushed. Ginny and Pomfrey looked at him curiously.

Harry looked away from Pomfrey, and met Ginny’s gaze. “Proving it,” he whispered.

Ginny turned crimson.

“What is he talking about?” asked Pomfrey, looking back and forth between the blushing pair.

“Erm … he remembers the night before the procedure, Madam Pomfrey.”

Pomfrey raised her eyebrow for a moment. Then it was her turn to color a bit. “Ah, yes. I see,” she said, remembering how much time alone the Potters spent before the procedure.

“Well, Mr. Potter, let’s check a few things. Who is sitting beside you?”

He looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, and said, “Ginny.”

“And who is Ginny?”

“My wife,” he said definitively.

“Very good. And who am I?”

“Madam Pomfrey, my personal medwitch.”

“It certainly seems that way of late, doesn’t it, Mr. Potter. Can you tell me where we are?”

“Sirius’ family’s place, my house in London.”

Pomfrey’s eyes widened a bit. She hadn’t known what city they were in, as she hadn’t actually ever been outside the house.

“Do you know why you are in bed?”

“No. Did you put the restraint spells on me again? My legs are stuck.”

She laughed shortly. “No, Mr. Potter.

“Alright, Mrs. Potter. This is going to take some time. He will likely have holes in his short-term memory for some time to come. You may have to repeatedly tell him the same information over and over again, until his brain has built up a new store of short-term memories. He is a bit … unsettled at the moment, but as his brain completes its return to normal function, his short-term memory should start working more reliably as well. However, he will likely never remember the past week, and may only remember bits and pieces of the coming one.

“So, don’t be alarmed or discouraged by his behavior. It is part of the recovery process.

“The thing to remember is this: Until he is more … functional, and his legs are working again, it shall not be safe to leave him unsupervised. He cannot be alone. At all.”

Ginny nodded. “What can he do?”

Pomfrey’s brow furrowed a bit. “He’s stuck in bed, Mrs. Potter. He shouldn’t do much … Oh.” Her face cleared, but her blush also returned slightly as she remembered some of the details Snape told her about the Potters’ marriage.. “Anything that does not require him to attempt walking or cause him pain should be fine. And you will inform me of any problems you may encounter. Is that clear?”

She finished quite sternly, and Ginny could only nod as her blush returned as well. “Yes, Madam Pomfrey.”
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