Harry had always known fear. He had faced monsters, war, and death itself, but none of it compared to the cold, gut-twisting terror of watching Ginny pale before his eyes.
It had started with exhaustion—more than what seemed normal for an early pregnancy. Then the nausea had taken hold, violent and unrelenting, turning her meals to ash in her mouth. When she collapsed in their kitchen one morning, Harry caught her just before her head hit the stone floor. His heart nearly stopped.
“Gin?” His voice was tight with panic as he cradled her. Her skin was burning, her breath shallow.
She blinked at him sluggishly. “I—I’m fine,” she whispered, but then her body convulsed with a dry heave.
He didn’t hesitate. Within seconds, he had thrown Floo Powder into the fireplace and shouted, “St. Mungo’s!”
-----
The Healers were grim-faced when they examined her. Preeclampsia, severe hyperemesis gravidarum—words Harry barely understood, but the look in their eyes told him everything. This wasn’t a normal pregnancy. This was dangerous.
“She needs to stay here,” Healer Aldwyn explained, glancing between Harry and Arthur Weasley, who had arrived minutes after the news broke. “Her body is struggling to sustain the pregnancy. We’ll do everything we can to stabilize her, but the risks… they’re considerable.”
Harry gripped Ginny’s hand, his fingers shaking. “And the baby?” he asked, voice nearly cracking.
“We’ll monitor both of them closely.”
-----
The days blurred into a haze of potions, IV drips, and sleepless nights by Ginny’s bedside. The nausea never stopped. If she wasn’t vomiting, she was dry heaving until tears ran down her face. Her body ached, her weight dropped alarmingly, and there were moments when she was too weak to speak above a whisper.
Harry refused to leave her side. Ron and Hermione took turns forcing him to eat, though every bite felt like sand in his mouth. Mrs. Weasley sat with Ginny for hours, running cool cloths over her daughter’s forehead, murmuring lullabies that Harry had never heard before.
“Harry.” Hermione’s voice was gentle but firm one evening when she found him sitting by Ginny’s bedside, his hands clutching his unruly hair. “You have to rest.”
He shook his head. “What if she wakes up and needs me?”
Hermione knelt beside him, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “She needs you to be strong.”
-----
Ginny had always been fire and fight, but this illness had stripped her raw. Some nights, she clung to him, trembling. “I’m scared,” she confessed once in the dark, her breath warm against his collarbone. “I want to be happy. I want to love this baby. But I feel so… so sick all the time, Harry. And what if I—”
“Don’t,” he pleaded, tightening his grip on her fragile body. “You’re not going anywhere. I won’t let you.”
-----
The worst came at twelve weeks. A fever raged through her body, and the Healers whispered about the possibility of ending the pregnancy to save her. Harry refused to hear it. So did Ginny.
“I won’t—” she rasped, her grip iron on his wrist. “We fight.”
And so they did.
-----
The turning point came in small victories. A sip of broth that stayed down. A night without vomiting. The color returning to her cheeks. Ron brought his chessboard to the hospital, setting it up on her bedside table and letting her win, though she saw through his act immediately. Hermione spent hours reading to her—Quidditch books, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, even passages from Hogwarts: A History just to make her roll her eyes.
And Harry… Harry was there for every moment. Holding her hand, pressing kisses to her knuckles, whispering love into her skin.
----
By twenty weeks, Ginny was able to go home. The sickness still lingered, the weakness still took its toll, but she was stronger. And at their next appointment, as the Healer guided the wand over her stomach, they heard it—the rhythmic, undeniable sound of their baby’s heartbeat.
Harry buried his face in Ginny’s hair, his shoulders shaking as relief flooded him.
“We made it,” Ginny murmured, her hand resting over his. “We made it this far.”
And for the first time in months, Harry allowed himself to believe they would make it all the way.