Waking up, again 🧿
Zinnia stayed unconscious as George carried her down a flight and put her on her father’s old bed.
“Ginny, you said this would work. Call Hermione. Please. If not, I am taking her to St. Mungo’s now.”
“George, give it a minute. Just let her rest. It’s been a long couple of days. Get Pavarti to check on her to make sure her vitals are clear.” Ginny said to Harry and he left to get their friend who was in school to become a healer.
“Zinnia, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have meddled. You are perfect, you are happy, you are healthy. I just missed you. I missed you. Please don’t leave me again.” George was near weeping on his knees next to the bed Zinnia was lying on.
“George, I need you to pull it together now. She is going to be fine.” Ginny demanded.
“Ginny, she was in a coma for four months and she was all alone. She lost everything she lost us.”
“She was not alone and you know that. You think the nurses were shaving her legs and keeping up with her skincare routine?”
“What are you saying?” George asked his sister.
“Hugo wrote, when she had her accident. It was so soon after Fred died. Right after everything. I didn’t know how you would cope with it. I made the decision to not tell you. Hermione and Lyla and I took turns every week to check in on her. The physical upkeep was Lyla’s idea of course.” She scoffed and brushed Zinnia’s hair off of her forehead. “She’s family. I took care of her. I was trying to take care of you and mum and Harry. Telling you she was in critical condition could have broken you. I needed you to cope with one thing at a time.”
“Hugo didn’t tell me?” George asked, putting the timeline together in his head.
“He wrote to you. I took all your letters for you, remember? You were sick of the condolence cards.”
“Oh.”
Parvati and Lee joined them with Harry. “I am sorry I am pretty drunk but I can do a diagnostic spell, confirm her vitals are ok and decide if she should go to St. Mungos.” Parvati told them and waved her wand to show the diagnostics.
“You can understand all that?” George asked her, looking at the illuminated charts and symbols above his girlfriend.
“Not really, yet. But I can see that she’s ok. She isn’t bleeding internally, her brain isn’t swelling like the accident before. That injury looks healed by her magic. A muggle with that type of brain damage would likely still be in a coma. Hermione and I studied her scans from after the accident and now it looks like her magic has healed more injuries. See here?” Pavarti pointed to an enlarged part of her brain. “This is where memories are typically stored in the brain. She was using her occlumency to block out almost all of her past memories. The head injury caused her magic to rebuild the damages and it nearly sealed off her occluded memories permanently.
“Now, of course we have learned that self occluded memories can’t be permanently removed, they will always linger somewhere.” She looked at the faces in the room, drunk and trying to follow her explanation. “Well let’s just say Hermione and I have done weeks of research at this point. With the spell the ladies performed earlier in combination with the potion ingested, we should be able to extract her memories slowly. It will take time. And she will need rest. But she does not need to go to the hospital. She will be in and out but she will be able to wake for food and water and to use the restroom. I don’t think it will take longer than a day or two. It honestly could be faster if we continue to remind her of past times. She was responding to triggers the last few days right George?”
“Um, yeah. Yeah I didn’t even realize they were triggers. Once she was in the old flat, she started to see visions.”
“The magic in Diagon Alley is eminent and heavy in the air. Much more than her flat in New York. And she renovated that didn’t she? Likely removing most if not all of the magical properties from her mother’s presence. As long as she stays in magical locations, she will remember faster. Just being in the old Black house now, she is probably remembering at least half of the occluded memories.”
“I don’t get it her magic was blocking it out to heal her brain? Was this ritual a bad idea? Are we trying to move this too fast?”
“George, it’s fine. She is strong and she is going to be ok. She is not going anywhere we got her.” Ginny rubbed her brother’s back. “Thank you Pavarti, for everything. The research, the diagnosis, thank you.” Ginny hugged her friend and Lee. She left George to watch over Zinnia and help Harry clean up from the party.
“Hey, all good? I just texted Hermione but she and Draco probably won’t check their phones for a while.” Harry told Ginny.
Ginny joined Harry on the couch, watching the fire in the hearth. “All good. I think this worked. I think she is coming back to us, to him. To herself really. She’s much too nice now, too pleasant. It's off putting.”
Harry scoffed and put his arm around Ginny. “You really miss the old Zinnia? The one who threw out all your clothes and replaced them with designer brands, the one who told you Quidditch was meant for boys and you were too fragile to play?”
“She only did that because she thought it was best, plus she was the loudest cheerleader for me in the stands at school. She took on the role of an older sister, yes she was brass and would tell me I needed to stand up straight or whatever but she only did it because she cared.”
“Awww, Ginny you do miss her.”
“She gave me a compliment on my outfit today and I could see straight through her lie. Old Zinnia would have dragged me upstairs and changed my lipstick or something.”
“Well, for what it’s worth I love your lipstick.” Harry pulled her in for a kiss and they spent the rest of their New Years passed out on the couch.