Chapter Two: Waiting and Worrying
Ron and Hermione waited until Harry was an hour overdue the next day before growing nervous. At first Hermione was annoyed that Harry would be having a lie in and ruining the day’s schedule that she had carefully prepared. When he still didn’t show up, she and Ron decided that they would go and get him, both assuming that he was probably having some difficulty with the Muggles.
They arrived and knocked, and were treated to Mrs. Dursley’s most contemptuous glare.
“What do you want now?” she hissed.
“We just came to see if Harry was ready yet,” Hermione responded meekly, intimidated by such blatant rudeness.
“He left with you yesterday, and I don’t expect he shall return, as I had hoped you would not,” Mrs. Dursley responded angrily.
“He came back here for one last night,” snapped Ron, who tired quickly of anyone speaking to Hermione that way. “Didn’t you see him?”
“I assure you he never came back here last night, so if you have lost him you’ll have to find him elsewhere. Good day.” She slammed the door after she said this, and neither Ron nor Hermione was foolish enough to believe her last words were heartfelt.
They were left at the front door, the first real fear starting to show on their faces.
“What do we do?” Ron asked, desperately hoping Hermione would have the answers like she always seemed to.
“We need to find him, quickly, and we’re going to need help,” Hermione answered. She grabbed Ron’s hand and Apparated to the Burrow.
***
Ginny was in the kitchen helping her mother cook, thinking about Harry. She was doing that more and more lately, and was getting tired of it but didn’t know how to stop. She was furious with him for trying to make decisions for her without asking how she felt about it, and the more she thought about it the angrier she got.
What right does he have to decide what I do for my protection, she thought bitterly. Well, the next time she saw him, he was going to get a piece of her mind. She imagined hexing him in several different ways and savagely pounded the dough she was kneading. She knew she didn’t really want to hex him, and yelling at him was only a precursor to what she really wanted, which was to be with him again. She sighed as her anger partially deflated. It didn’t help that Ron and Hermione got to be with him for the summer and she didn’t, she thought glumly. She would give almost anything to be with them, and decided she would find out if she could floo over to Mrs. Figg’s to see them all for a day or two, if they were still there. She hoped they would come to the Burrow before leaving on whatever silly secret trip they were going on.
Suddenly she looked outside and saw two people running up the driveway, and recognized Ron and Hermione. She looked expectantly for Harry, but could see him nowhere, and began to be worried. The worry intensified when she could make out the looks on their faces.
As they skidded to a halt in the kitchen, she confronted them.
“What’s happened, where is Harry?”
“Harry is missing, we need helpm,” Hermione responded succinctly.
Ginny paled, but her expression was determined. “I’m going with you.”
Neither of them dared argue with her.
***
Once Molly Weasley knew that Harry was missing she was able to round up a good sized search party of Weasleys in no time flat. Arthur came from the ministry, and Fred and George were quick to arrive from their shop, while Bill and Fleur were already there and willing to take part in the search as well. They all traveled by Floo Powder to Mrs. Figg’s home and began searching the neighborhood between her house and the Dursleys, while Mrs. Weasley went to go talk to Mrs. Dursley again to see if she could get any more information out of her. The police line in front of one of the houses was discovered quickly, and Arthur Weasley inquired what had happened. When he was informed that it was a robbery/homicide with three people shot, he demanded to know who the victims were, but they were all residents of the house, which led him to almost collapse with relief. The relief didn’t last, because not long after, Ginny discovered Harry’s wand a few feet away from the property line of that house. Ginny had tears running down her face, and Arthur took her into her arms, also knowing that Harry, the biggest target of Lord Voldemort, was somewhere alone with no means to defend himself. He didn’t know what he would do if the boy that had saved the lives of so many of his family was dead, but he knew that Ginny would be completely devastated.
“We need to get the Order involved,” he whispered, and he could feel Ginny nodding in agreement against his shoulder.
*********
A week had passed since Harry had gone missing, and Ginny felt like she was starting to lose touch with reality. She kept Harry’s wand with her at all times, hoping for the chance to give it back to him, and listening for any news from anyone in the house. Mad-Eye Moody had begun to search through Muggle police records while others were discretely searching everywhere they thought Harry might have turned up. Ron and Hermione had informed them that Harry could Apparate in an emergency, so they had to assume that he was either in a place where that wasn’t possible or that he wasn’t physically able to do so. The only good news was that they had discovered that Voldemort was furiously searching for Harry himself, and that was only good insofar as the fact that he hadn’t already managed to capture him. After the fourth day without any further information on Harry, Moody had tried to tell them that the chances for finding Harry alive were no longer good. Molly Weasley had burst into tears, and a disbelieving Arthur had tried to comfort her, while sending furtive glances in Ginny’s direction. She knew they were concerned about her, but she had remained calm.
“Harry is alive, and we have to find him,” she told them simply.
Ron and Hermione, seeing the frustration of the searchers, had called Moody, Professor McGonagall, Remus Lupin, and Ginny into a private meeting in the kitchen at Grimmauld Place.
Hermione looked at them all nervously before beginning. “We can’t give up the search for Harry, because if he is gone, the whole war is lost.”
Ron nodded emphatically while Hermione related to all of them the prophecy that made Harry the hope of the wizarding world.
All of them had been shocked, but Ginny was the first to recover enough to respond.
“Everything they’re saying about him being the Chosen One is true…” she began tearfully, “Why didn’t he tell me… us?”
Ron put an arm around her and said, “Dumbledore didn’t want too many people to know about the prophecy, and Harry wanted to protect you.”
It was the wrong thing to say.
“WELL HE CAN FORGET ABOUT PROTECTING ME AND START WORRYING ABOUT HIMSELF,” she raged. “THE NEXT TIME I SEE HIM HE’S GOING TO NEED A LOT OF PROTECTING!”
She was set to continue, but McGonagall interrupted her.
“This does change everything. We need to get back out searching immediately. I hope you know we would never have given up on Harry regardless, but this makes everything more urgent,” she said, before taking her leave.
“We’ll find him,” Moody stated gruffly, as he made his own way out.
Ginny had taken to wandering around the house, hoping to catch any news from anyone since then. Hermione had given up being very useful in the search for Harry early on, and had insisted that she could do Harry more good doing research of some kind instead. McGonagall had been a little miffed when she would not say what about, but had provided Hermione with a Portkey that would allow her to travel between Gimmauld place and Hogwarts, so she could use both libraries. Ron had stayed as involved with the search as possible, but there was so little that he could do that he began spending more time with Hermione on her strange project. This left Ginny almost completely alone, as they were certainly not involving her, and there was little or nothing she could contribute to the search, especially considering she couldn’t legally use magic outside of school.
This all contributed to her continuously deteriorating mood, and anyone coming back knew not to say anything at all to her unless they had news, because she was liable to bite their heads off. Of one thing she was certain; Harry was going to take her back no matter what he thought of the matter.
Suddenly she heard a loud commotion in the kitchen, and rushed towards the noise. Moody was back and shouting for Arthur, Lupin, and Tonks to come right away.
Ginny arrived slightly before the others, and had to wait for them to catch up.
“We’ve found him and he’s alive!” Moody said, as he prepared a portkey. “He’s in a Muggle hospital in London, but we need to hurry because they released his description on the news, and Voldemort could have heard it as easily as we did.”
This set in motion a flurry of activity, as those who were going prepared themselves.
“What’s wrong with him, how bad is he hurt?” Ginny demanded, dreading the answer.
Moody hesitated visibly, but answered, “We don’t know how badly he’s hurt, but they say he has amnesia; he doesn’t know who he is. We only know it’s him by his description, but the scar makes everything pretty certain.”