The Long Wait

Chapter 4

The next day Ginny explained to Harry that her back was getting worse and that she wouldn't be able to take Al to school since she'd have to walk him all the way. Harry, naturally, agreed to do it and offered to take the day off to take care of her. Ginny declined, saying it was better that he didn't see her in pain.

It's not as if I'm lying to him, Ginny reasoned when Harry left the bedroom. My back really is hurting, but he'll understand why I had to lie - if I tell him.

Hearing the door snap shut behind Harry, Ginny grabbed a backpack from their closet. It was a small bag; one Ginny had had since she had started Hogwarts. It was blue and a Golden Snitch flew continuously about its surface.

After enlarging the inside of the bag and turning it a plain black, she started filling it with bottles of water and bags of crisps. Ginny changed into a t-shirt and jeans and after ensuring all the doors and windows were locked, she left a note for Harry and Al and Apparated to just outside the Quibbler head offices in Liverpool. It was a worker from the Quibbler that had spotted Malfoy, after all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Ginny, we're home!" Harry called out when he and Al walked in the house at three. "Ginny?" He hadn't exactly expected her to come running down the stairs, but a simple 'hello' would've done.

"Dad, I don't think she's here," Al called from the living room.

"Of course she is. She's probably just sleeping," Harry said. Then Al came running to Harry, holding the note:

Dear Harry and Alroy,

I'm sorry if I scared you by not being there, but I couldn't wait any longer.

There's something I have to do; it shouldn't take more than a week. Please don't

worry or come looking for me, I'll be back soon. I love you both.

All my love,

Ginny

The following morning, Harry told Kingsley not to expect Ginny in for a while and (since he wouldn't believe it was a vacation) went on to explain the note she'd left. Kingsley, upon learning what had happened, decided it would be best to tell Harry about the tip. At least then he'd know what Ginny was doing. Harry immediately took a leave of absence and decided to go look for Ginny himself.

"What do you mean she's missing?!" asked Ron when Harry dropped Al off at his and Hermione's house.

"I didn't say she was missing, Ron. I just said that she's going to be gone for a little while. Now can you two take care of Al until I get back or not?"

"Harry, you shouldn't go. Tonks and the others can handle looking for her and Malfoy, you know," Hermione said.

But Harry didn't care; he had to look for her. He couldn't lose her again. But a week went by, and although four well-trained Aurors were out looking for Ginny and Draco, they couldn't find either one.

But Ginny had expected to be tracked. She hid in all the alleyways and old, rundown wizarding hangouts, everywhere she knew they would never suspect her to be and everywhere she thought she would run into Draco.

Finally, as Ginny was walking down a sparsely crowded street with the hood up on a cloak she'd transfigured a leaf into, she saw it. She may not have remembered much about the night Draco took her, even now, but as she looked at the old warehouse she wondered how she could have forgotten it.

She looked around her; everything seemed familiar now. Ginny hurried across the street and to the doors of the warehouse, shedding the cloak and backpack as she did. She dropped them at the door, grabbed her wand, opened the door and entered quickly.

At a time like this, when Ginny felt as though she were being possessed by her obsession, it wasn't hard to understand why Ginny didn't see the four Aurors looking at her from across the street.

"Why is she going in there?" asked Blaine, a new Auror.

"That's where the Muggles found her last time," said Harry, who had met up with the others the day before. "She told me she didn't remember where it was, though."

As they started to approach the warehouse they could hear noises coming from inside. Tonks opened the doors quickly and ran in after the others. There they found both Ginny and Draco.

"Expelliarmus!" Draco shouted. Ginny dove to her left to avoid being hit, but her wand was tossed across the room as the spell slammed into her ankle.

"You shouldn't have come," she whispered to Harry when he caught her.

"Well, well, well. I take it you came for revenge too, Potter?" sneered Draco. Harry looked down at Ginny; her teeth were clenched and she was holding her ankle while trying to stand up.

"Watch her," he said to Tonks before running forward to duel with Draco. Blaine and the Auror that Harry didn't know followed suit.

"Three against one? And here I thought you were a Gryffindor, Potter." Draco smirked.

"Back off," Harry told the others.

"But, Mr. Potter--" objected Blaine.

"I said back off!" They stumbled back to where Tonks was holding a struggling Ginny down.

"Any last requests, Potter?" Harry thought for a moment, his eyes never leaving Draco's face and wand.

"Just one question. Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Take Ginny. You could've gotten a reduced sentence in Azkaban. Not that you really deserved a reduced one, but you never did anything wrong until you took her."

"I did it for the same reason she tracked me down - revenge."

Harry was puzzled momentarily. "Revenge for what? Killing Voldemort?" he guessed. Draco rolled his eyes.

"No, you idiot! You're the reason my father was put in Azkaban; you're the reason my mother died alone. I thought you should know how it felt. I did intend to kill her - and your little brat as well, but unfortunately those bloody Muggles were unlocking the doors and I had to leave."

"Well, it's too late to do it now. Even if you kill me, you'll still have to get through three Aurors to get to Ginny."

"I don't think so," Draco said. He then snapped his fingers and three men came out of the shadows. Harry recognized them as Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle and Blaise Zabini. He hadn't seen them since the end of his seventh year at Hogwarts, but Harry had heard rumors of the shady things they'd been doing.

"I thought it would be useful to get some recruits," Draco said.

His three henchmen went to work quickly. The Aurors left Ginny lying helplessly on the floor, wandless, with a broken ankle thanks to Draco's spell.

Now's my chance, Ginny thought, and she started to crawl across the room to her wand.

The unknown Auror was the first to be knocked out by Goyle and Tonks made sure to make a quick motion with her wand at the criminal while ducking from a hex Zabini had thrown at her.

Three versus three, Ginny counted silently as she kept crawling; her ankle was paining her more and more as she got closer to the wall against which her wand lay.

Harry and Draco were still going strong, neither showing any sign of weakness. Blaine finally took out Crabbe with a leg paralyzing charm, and Zabini knocked Blaine out with an Incarcerous charm while Tonk dodged another hex. Tonks took advantage of the opening to do the same to Zabini

Two against one, Ginny thought.

But as Tonks made her way to help Harry, she collapsed from exhaustion.

"Now," Draco said, "it's just you and me."

"I don't think so, Malfoy," Ginny said. She was leaning against the wall, wand in hand. Draco was frozen from shock and couldn't react.

"Expelliarmus!" shouted Harry and Ginny in unison. Draco was thrown against a wall, disarmed.

"Accio wand!" said Ginny, and Draco's wand flew into her hand.

Harry had been planning what he'd do if he saw Draco again, and in a second Levicorpus popped into his mind. Draco dangled ten feet in the air, yelling at Harry and Ginny as they laughed. Suddenly twenty Aurors, including Kingsley, Apparated into the warehouse.

"Let him go, Harry," said Kingsley. Harry sighed and thought Liberacorpus. Draco fell to the concrete floor.

~The next day~

Ginny was lying in the hospital bed of her old room in St. Mungo's for minor spell damage while reading a book when Harry walked in with a bouquet of white roses. He sat down beside her.

"Is he in Azkaban?" she asked, putting the book on her nightstand.

"Not yet. he's being looked at for mental injury from the fall. If he wasn't affected then he'll be going into a high security cell in Azkaban. By the way, Al and your whole family are waiting outside to see you. I'll just let them in," Harry said, rising from his chair.

"No, Harry. I have to talk to you," Ginny said, looking urgent.

"Ginny, its fine. I understand why you went after Malfoy; I would've done the same thing. And I'm sorry I was over-protective. I just hope, now that he's gone, you don't feel like you're missing anything."

"Actually, Harry, that's the first thing I wanted to tell you . . . I still feel that way."

"Oh, the first?"

"Yes, the second is that I . . . er . . . I'm pregnant!"

"What?! That's wonderful! But you're going to have to go back to work when you're feeling better; we're going to need that bigger house now." They both laughed and waited a bit longer before opening the door to the crowd of Weasleys, Lupins and Longbottoms (plus one little Potter) and telling them all the good news.

~Eight months and one week later~

Ginny sat rocking her baby daughter in the moon-lit nursery of their new, larger house. She listened contentedly to the snoring coming from her husband and son in the rooms across the hall and looked down at the sleeping child.

"Rachel Lily Potter," she whispered to her, "I hope you like Quidditch."

She then glanced at the other side of the room, which held drawers full of tiny jerseys, the stuffed Snitches, Bludgers and Quaffles that were bigger than the baby, and walls covered in posters and pennants. And then she felt it.

This is what I've been missing.