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SIYE Time:5:16 on 29th March 2024
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Natural
By Celtics534

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Category: Alternate Universe, Post-Hogwarts
Characters:Harry/Ginny
Genres: Fluff, Humor, Romance
Warnings: Extreme Language, Intimate Sexual Situations, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Situations
Story is Complete
Rating: R
Reviews: 61
Summary: Most things didn’t come naturally to Harry -- like brewing a Pepperup Potion or making a halfway decent treacle tart. In fact, the only thing that had come naturally was Quidditch… until he met Ginny Weasley.
Hitcount: Story Total: 55814; Chapter Total: 3505
Awards: View Trophy Room




Author's Notes:
TheDistantDusk, Arnel, and gryffindormischief were amazingly diligent in editing this chapter for me, so I thank them! Also I just want to say, the support on this story has been incredible! Thank you guys so much! I figure we have maybe another 3 chapters left, so get ready for a finale!




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“Come on, Ginny!” Vance Froye chanted, his hands resting on Ginny’s forearms. “Just a little longer.” Ginny held the quaffle sized ball between her wrists, her left side shaking violently.

Harry watched from one of the corners of the room, his hands locked together over his mouth as if praying. Hell, maybe he was praying. After three months, Ginny’s body had healed all visible wounds of her accident, but the hidden scars still plagued her.

She had become mobile quickly enough, her leg and arm mended in a jiffy. It was her hand that seemed unable to heal. The entirety of it had been broken. Her thumb and wrist, in particular, had been smashed into bone fragments. Now, after many months of grueling physical therapy, Ginny had recovered most of her functions.

However, it wasn’t only her motor abilities that had been affected. Ginny’s memory had taken a hit. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, Rhodes had reminded Harry over and over again. This was true; she still knew all the important people in her life...but she struggled to remember select events.

Ah!” Ginny screamed, enraged, as the ball fell to the floor for the fifth time that session.

“That was good, Ginny!” Froye encouraged, releasing her arms. “You held it for a minute longer this time!”

Ginny closed her eyes, her chest rising and falling slowly. Harry knew this was a technique she used to calm herself. He had seen it a lot in the last few months.

“Why don’t you go get us some water, Vance?” Harry pushed himself off the wall as he made his way over to the still-silent Ginny.

Vance gave Harry a grateful look. He had been the victim of more than one of Ginny’s curses over the past two months.

Harry stopped right in front of Ginny, giving her a moment to register his presence. She had two moods when she struggled with something: Murder any human near her, or accept a little (very little) comfort from him. The tell-tale sign of the former was if her eyes remained closed. Ginny had some of the most intense looks, and after spending so much time observing her, Harry had become an expert on reading her emotions through a simple glance. When her eyes stayed shut, there was no way to understand her thoughts.

This time, however, she opened her eyes and Harry could read the devastation plain as day. It had been a hard few months. Between being unable to remember things she knew she should and her left hand being uncooperative, Ginny was in a state of permanent disarray.

Harry moved in close, his hand cupping the back of her neck as he pressed their foreheads together. “It’s just you and me, love.”

Instantly, Ginny’s body started to shake with sobs. She wrapped her arms around his body, her hands coming up to his shoulders, as her head moved to press into the cotton of his shirt. Harry could feel the wetness from her tears.

“I just… Why?” Ginny’s voice cracked.

There were many ways to take that question. Why had this happened to her? Why was she still struggling to recover? Why wasn’t magic helping her to heal? Harry didn't have the answer to any of them. Instead of trying to come up with any sort of pitiful rationale, he held her closer to his chest, praying it would be enough for now.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

“Have you thought about the wedding, dear?” Ginny’s mother asked casually as she took a sip from her drink.

Ginny wanted to sigh. Here she goes again. It had been three and a half months since her… accident...and her mother had been asking about her future nuptials for the past two and a half. “Mum, I’ve told you. I want to wait until I have full use of my hand again.”

“But why? Your hand isn’t really required to get married.”

“Uh… I’m literally giving my hand to Harry. That’s what a wedding is about.”

Molly huffed out an annoyed breath. “You know what I meant, Ginny. Why are you waiting?” Her stare became intense. “Do you not want to marry Harry anymore?”

“What?!” Ginny was honestly shocked her mother had even jumped to that conclusion. “Of course I want to marry him.”

“Then why do you keep postponing it?”

“I… I just.” She didn’t know how to explain it to her mother. Really, it was hard to explain to herself. “I want to be me when I walk down the aisle.”

“Who else would you be?” Molly was confused, just like Ginny knew she would be.

“With my… injury.” Ginny looked down at her left hand that was currently in a black brace. “I just don’t feel like me.”

Molly was silent for a moment, an eternity to Ginny, before she spoke again. “Ginny, what are you afraid of?”

It was a question her mother had asked her numerous times as a child. At first, the answer had been about the dark. Back then, Molly had soothed her daughter's worries by shining her lit wand into every corner of her bedroom, saying she scared the monsters away. Next, Ginny had been frightened of her brothers leaving for Hogwarts and forgetting who their sister was. Fortunately, the very next night, Ginny had received letters from Bill, Charlie, and Percy; each detailing how much they missed their “favorite sister” and how they couldn’t wait to take her swimming in the pond during the summer holidays.

It had been a long time since Molly had asked her that question, but even after all this time, the mere thought still made Ginny want to seek comfort by crawling into her mother’s arms.

“What if I never recover?” Her voice was a whisper. Ginny hadn’t said it out loud before that moment, no matter how many times it popped into her head. No, it was too much to think about, let alone say.

Molly placed her drink on the stand beside her large armchair and moved to sit next to Ginny on the sofa. Her arms wrapped around Ginny’s shoulders, and just like that Ginny was engulfed in a tight embrace. It was just like all those times as a child, when the world had become too much. Molly’s arms became a form of safety, one of a kind.

“You will, my love.” Molly rubbed her back in slow even circles. “You will, and I know because I know you.” She hesitated before asking, ”Have you talked to Harry about this?”

Ginny shook her head, unwanted tears springing in her eyes.

“And why not?” Molly’s tone wasn’t accusing. It was a simple question that allowed Ginny to answer without fear of prosecution.

“He would feel guilty.”

“Why do you think that?”

Ginny took a painful breath. “He seems guilty about everything lately. He feels guilty every time he has to go to practice. I can see it in his eyes. He looks so…” She didn’t quite know the correct word, if she was being honest with herself.

Remembering the way Harry had looked at her that morning before he went off for weight training fuelled her frustration, changing her tone. “And he’s been tip-toeing around anything that has to do with Quidditch! He’ll come home with a bruise on his shoulder and when I ask about it and he’ll just say it happened at practice. That’s not how that works! He's supposed to go into detail about the wanker who hit him!”

Molly had leaned back halfway through Ginny’s rant to better to see the annoyance in her daughter’s expression. She waited until Ginny finished, the latter’s breath coming in sharp intakes.

“It sounds to me like Harry doesn’t want to make you sad about not being able to play yourself.”

Logically, in the back of Ginny’s mind, she knew that. She knew Harry was just trying to be considerate. But for fuck's sake! She was mad! If she wanted to complain about Harry, then she fucking would!

Ginny pushed to her feet and started pacing on the worn rug. “I don’t need him to dodge talking about things! We’ve never been cautious about what we’ve said to one another, so why does he think now should be any different? Full disclosure and all that!”

“Aren’t you holding back from him?”

That stopped Ginny midstep. She turned to look at her mother. Molly was watching at her with a too innocent look.

“What?”

Molly tilted her head slightly to the left. “Well, you did say you haven't told Harry about your fear of being unable to fully recover, right?”

“No one likes a know-it-all, Mum,” Ginny growled, but it did have the intended effect. Her boiling rage lessened to a simmer. Her mother remained silent but that small, smug smile stayed settled on her lips as Ginny came back to rest on the sofa.

“Now, what are you going to do?” Molly asked, her hand coming to rub Ginny’s knee.

“I should go talk to Harry,” Ginny begrudgingly admitted.

“You should.” Her mother nodded. “You two have a great relationship and I would hate for it to falter because you don't share how you feel.”

“You’re right.”

“I know I am, and I’m also right about setting a date for the wedding.”

Ginny rolled her eyes but smiled.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX


Harry rested his head on the kitchen table, hoping his pounding headache would just go away. Practice had been one of the least successful he’d ever had. He’d struggled to keep up with drills Devlin called. It wasn’t because he was unfit to perform the task, no he was just too tired.

Over the past three months, Harry’s sleep schedule had taken a dramatic hit. It didn’t make logical sense, but every night since Ginny had come home from hospital Harry would lay awake just to hear her breathe.

He hadn’t admitted it to anyone, but Ginny getting hurt had scared him more than anything else. It had been like his heart had been ripped from his chest and thrown far away. The said organ had returned (once Ginny was out of the woods), but it had been bruised and beaten.

Because of that, he had become cautious with Ginny. He wasn’t exactly dodging her, but he had a ridiculous urge to keep her wrapped in Muggle bubble wrap. He knew that wasn’t practical, for multiple reasons, but his logical side raged war with his heart.

Harry lifted his head at the sound of the Floo igniting. Ginny smoothly exited the grate, brushing soot off her shoulders. As if they were polar sides of a magnet, their eyes locked.

“Hey.” Harry sounded no better than a frog. He cleared his throat. “How was your day?”

“We need to talk.” Ginny’s focus stayed on him as she positioned herself in the chair across him.

Cold dread washed over him. That was not a sentence Harry wanted to hear come from Ginny’s mouth. If the words ‘it’s not you, it’s me,’ mixed into this talk, he would actually scream.

He kept his voice calm. “Okay. What about?”

Ginny’s hand came across the table to take his. “Everything.” She moved his palm to her lips. “Harry, we’re walking on eggshells.”

As much as he hated it admit it, she was right. They had both been cautious. On more than one occasion, Harry had to stop himself from hovering over her (something he knew she despised). Not to mention how little he talked about practice. He just didn’t want her to think about how much she missed the Harpies and then, in turn, push herself too hard to get back. And Ginny, well...she’d cut herself off mid-sentence numerous times, leading him to believe that she had been dodging certain topics too.

Harry lowered his eyes, his chin dropping to his chest. “I know.”

Ginny used their joined hands to tilt his chin back up so their eyes met. “So, let's fix it. You tell me what's been bothering you, and I’ll tell you what's been perturbing me.”

“So the emotional version of ‘I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours’?”

That did it. That broke the through the thickness between them. Ginny laughed, a real laugh, which Harry hadn’t heard in far too long.

“I love you.” He took his turn to kiss her hand.

Ginny smiled at him. “Don’t get sappy yet, Potter. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XX

“So, how have you two been?” Lily asked, her green eyes flickering between Harry and Ginny.

Ginny glanced at her future mother-in-law before turning back to Harry. His eyes were waiting for hers, and the glint behind his glasses made her stomach flutter. “We’re good.”

Lily’s body sagged in relief. “Oh, I’m glad. And what about your hand, Ginny?”

Again, Ginny looked at the subject of Lily’s question before answering. “I’m able to hold small items for extended periods of time.”

James nodded. “That’s great! When I was injured it took me almost a year to get full function back.”

Ginny felt her brow furrow. “You were hurt?” She looked at Harry, who seemed just as confused as she felt.

“Yeah, back in my first year with the Finches. They were worried I’d never get back on a broom, but I showed them.” James’ smile was soft, but his eyes shone with pride. “Just like you will.”

No words came to Ginny’s mind. She could never express how much these two people had come to mean to her; Lily and James had really become a second pair of parents for her.

Harry’s arm came to rest over the back of her chair. His thumb rubbing slow comforting circles on her shoulder. Ginny swallowed the lump in her throat. “Thank you, James.”

He waved off her thanks. “I only speak the truth, but I am curious.” He leaned slightly forward. “Have you gained those last few memories?”

Ginny sighed. As far as she could tell, she had gained ninety-nine percent of her memory back, along with her motor skills, but she constantly felt like she was missing something. Ever since the accident, she and numerous people had discussed important moments between them. With a little prompting, memories would come flooding back… but no matter how many times she and Harry discussed it, Ginny couldn’t remember their first kiss.

It really shouldn’t be such a big deal. Ginny still knew who Harry was and the millions of reasons why she loved him. And yet… their first kiss was something she wanted to remember.

No, fucking damn it! She would not let any of those dark thoughts ruin her current good mood.

“No, I’m still struggling,” Ginny admitted. Harry’s body shifted closer, allowing her to take comfort in his warmth if she needed it.

James nodded, and the look of understanding on his face slowly morphed sly smirk. “Well, I’m sure Harry here will be more than happy to refresh your memory of some of your more-- intimate -- moments.”

There was stunned silence. Lily shook her head. Harry turned beet red while Ginny felt her face heat up as well, except that she was holding in her laughter. It took ten seconds for Ginny to break, her chuckles joined by James. And eventually by Harry.

Lily rolled her eyes, but her smile said everything. “Who wants some cake?”

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX X

Ginny rested her back against the headboard, her hand moving slowly through Harry’s hair as he lay across her legs. His eyes were closed, making her uncertain if he was sleeping or not. They had spent the day in bed, which after so long of feeling disconnected seemed heavenly to Ginny. They hadn’t done anything. Well, not nothing, but they’d been rather content just being with one another.

She flexed her left hand that held her book loosely to the side. Her ability to hold onto items had recovered to ninety-nine percent range, according to her physical therapist. And really, after four months of hard work and emotional tribulation, Ginny was more than happy at ninety-nine percent. Especially because she was returning for a real practice for the first time since her accident on Monday. She had to assume that this contributed to her tranquil mindset.
“Ginny?” Harry’s voice was quiet, yet strong. As if he had been on the brink of sleep.

“Hmm?” She kept lightly brushing his hair, loving the way it felt between her fingers.

“Marry me?”

That was not what she had been expecting. Her left hand dropped the book while her right hand stilled in the center of his head. “I already planned on doing that. Remember, the proposal on the beach, going back to the hotel room?” She moved her left hand in his face and wriggled her fingers showing off her ring. “And I thought I was the one that had the memory issues.”

Harry sat up, pulling her fingers from his hair, and twisted to look at her. “I mean today, like right now.”

If this were one of the cartoons Harry had shown her, Ginny’s jaw would have been on the floor. “Wh- right now?”

He nodded. “Right now.”

“Harry, what’s gotten into you?” The way he was looking at her…

How could he make her feel like the rest of the world didn’t exist with just one look?

“Nothing. I’ve been thinking about this all day.”

“All day?” Ginny quirked a brow. “I didn’t take your mind off this notion even for a second?”

Harry’s smile became dirty. “Oh, I did get distracted, but it always came back to the main point.” He kissed her. “I want to be your husband, and I don’t want to wait any longer.”

It wasn’t often Harry took charge in this capacity. He never really demanded anything of anyone. No, he was the kind of man to apologize when you walked into him. But Ginny’d be damned if she didn’t admit in charge Harry was fucking sexy.

Their eyes stayed locked in a silent battle. Ginny knew her mother would murder her if they got married without the family there. Hell, Lily would help dispose of the bodies. And yet…

“Yes.”
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