Title: Loved Out of Sight
Author:
chokolattejediRecipient:
Stephaniejo84Pairing(s): Ginny/Luna
Word Count: 1,516
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Injuries, angst, secret relationship
Summary: Ginny and the others are brought to the hospital wing after the Department of Mysteries battle.
Author's Notes: I hope you enjoy it!
As soon as they put her down onto a bed, Ginny looked around the hospital ward. The sharp pain in her ankle had dulled into a low throbbing, and she was quite certain that she was in shock, but even that realization was dull in her mind.
Ron was on the bed next to her, and Hermione in the next one over from that. They were the only two still conscious. Someone had probably thought they were doing Ginny a favor, putting her next to her brother. Luna and Neville were both across the aisle, and while she was anxious to know that the spell and brain hadn't done lasting damage to Ron, Ginny really just wanted to curl up with Luna and make sure that her girlfriend was okay.
Some of their rescuers were laying on beds a little further down the ward, and their presence made one absence more glaring. Glancing back at Neville - the only other student awake - Ginny caught his eye. He had apparently just noticed the same thing, and he shook his head in worry. Neither of them knew where Harry was.
Madam Pomfrey rushed around the ward, practicing what Ginny guessed was triage medicine. She had never been in the hospital wing with more than a couple of other people before; Quidditch accidents and potions explosions tended to have relatively few casualties. As Ginny was conscious and relatively unscathed, she could wait. From the loud noises coming from the adult section of the ward, someone over there probably couldn't.
Ginny stopped looking around the ward and refocused on Luna, who Madam Pomfrey hadn't gotten to yet. Ginny hadn't heard what spell they hit the blonde with, but had seen her go flying into the desks so painfully. Ginny had been knocked out soon after, so she wasn't sure if anything else had happened to her girlfriend. Certainly Neville looked much, much worse than her last sight of him.
Ginny hated that she couldn't do anything for Luna. She couldn't even ask that they be placed together, because they had to keep their relationship a secret! Good Prewett girls (there hadn't been enough Weasley girls in generations to generalize) married nice Gryffindor boys and had lots of babies. They didn't move in with strange Ravenclaw girls who believed in imaginary animals. Her mother had always been very clear - if not so specific - on that topic, and it was that attitude that had made Ginny keep their relationship private for the last two years. Luna never complained, and Ginny had always been firm on the subject of secrecy, but tonight she just didn't care.
When Ginny started playing Quidditch she had made it quite clear that Luna wasn't to come into the hospital wing if she was ever injured, unless she had a very good cover story. And though Ginny had wanted to tear into the other Ravenclaw girls over and over for their treatment of Luna, she stayed quiet, supporting her girlfriend privately instead, rather than risk someone reading too much into their relationship.
But now, the aisles of the hospital ward had never seemed so wide as Ginny stared across them at Luna's still form. Ginny was fairly certain that she could hop that far, and no one but Neville ever need know that she had been placed on the other side to start with. Madam Pomfrey was still checking out the Aurors who had come to save them, and no one else was looking at the five students.
Ginny propped herself up on her elbows, seriously considering the action. While she couldn't cuddle up to Luna as she'd desperately like to, they could at least be closer. Maybe close enough to hold hands discretely. Luna always loved secretly holding hands in public.
Ginny sat up. She just had to crawl across her bed, then hop a few feet across the aisle to the next one. Simple. She'd done far worse to this ankle in the last few hours. Neville was looking at her strangely and Ginny almost lost her nerve, but she chose to ignore him. She scooted down to the end of her bed, ready to make a break for it.
"Ah, Miss Weasley, I'm glad you're awake!" Madam Pomfrey came bustling down from the other end of the ward, followed by a floating cart full of potions. "I'll have you students fixed up in a trice, I'm sure. Now it was your ankle, yes?"
Ginny nodded mutely. Her chance was past.
The mediwitch waved her wand over Ginny a few times and Ginny felt a sharp pop in her ankle that made her vision go grey for a second. "All done! Well you just sit tight while I look at the others. And drink this, dear." A flick of her wrist brought a potion from the cart over to Ginny's bed.
Snatching it dully, Ginny scooted back up her bed and slumped against the headboard. She had missed her chance to go to Luna, and now she was stuck here on the other side of a gulf of white tile.
Madam Pomfrey turned to Luna's bed and waved her wand over the other girl. Tutting under her breath, she waved it in more complicated patterns. Ginny tried to hide her increasing fear behind the vial of painkilling potion, but soon there was nothing left to drink and she had to put it down. Maybe her staring could be written off as blind shock. Maybe it actually was.
One flick of the mediwitch's wand sent three potions floating towards her and she paused her casting to tilt back Luna's head and pour them down her throat. Ginny's hands tightened into fists, clenching the blanket beneath her like an anchor. As soon as the potions were down, Madam Pomfrey went back to her rapid casting. Ginny wasn't sure how much time had passed before she finally stopped, but after a short pause and a complicated wrist flick, Luna was instantly changed into hospital issue pyjamas and tucked beneath her blankets. Ginny desperately hoped that was a good sign.
Madam Pomfrey looked up and smiled warmly at Ginny and Neville, who had also been watching with interest. A hint of worry was hidden in her eyes, and Ginny hoped it was simply because her students had been hurt, and not because any of them had been hurt beyond the point of repair. They had gone up against Death Eaters, after all, rather than fellow untrained students. "Luna will be just fine," the mediwitch said with another muted smile. "Just a little internal trouble from the tumble she took, but it's all fixed now."
Ginny let out a large sigh as Madam Pomfrey came back across the aisle to Ron. Ginny realized that she should be watching his progress as well, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from Luna's pale face just yet. The clinking of bottles finally caught her attention, and she looked over in time to see a dozen vials go down his throat. The mediwitch was done with him much faster than she had been with Luna, and that thought gave Ginny some pause. "Well, that took care of the spell damage," the matron said calmly, flicking her wrist in the same transformation to put him in pyjamas and tuck him in. "We'll work on the rest soon." 'The rest' meaning what the brains actually did. Ginny shuddered at the thought.
As Madam Pomfrey moved back over to Neville, Ginny's eyes followed her path, resting again on Luna. It might have been her imagination, but Ginny thought her girlfriend looked less pale. Neville was also fixed quickly - was it only Ginny's concern that made it seem like Luna's healing had taken the longest of anyone's?
Ginny was so fixated on the other girl that she didn't notice Madam Pomfrey's attention until her blankets suddenly slipped from beneath her to wrap over her legs. "You need to keep warm, dear!" she called. Ginny tore her gaze away from Luna and saw that Neville was similarly bundled up, and his face was red but no longer swollen. The dark circles around his eyes seemed to have faded somewhat as well. The mediwitch bustled over to Hermione's bed, and Ginny let herself sink down into the pillows. Her eyes traveled back over to Luna, and she definitely looked less pale. Ginny was slightly cheered at the thought. One of her hands squeezed impotently with the hidden desire to still hold Luna's hand. If only she'd snuck across the aisle when she still had the chance!
Soon the warmth, the fuzziness of the painkilling potion, and her own exhaustion began to combine, and Ginny felt the lure of sleep becoming more insistent. She wanted to wait until Luna woke up, to see for herself that the other girl was really going to be fine, but her eyes kept closing on their own. Despite her struggles, Ginny finally fell asleep, her troubled dreams only fading when a cold, pale hand snuck into hers in the middle of the night.