Hiding in Plain Sight (A Hinny Fanfiction)

Muggle Potions

A/N: Many thanks to my new beta Encycoopedia for taking part of his Saturday to make this chapter much better (and turning it around faster than my wife, even though he's across an ocean). He has a Time-Turner, apparently.

When Ginny's eyes fluttered open they were out of focus, as if looking through water in a glass. She was laying down, looking up at the roof of a metal box with electric lights. The box rattled from side to side and, occasionally, up and down. The sound of metal-on-metal was only out-shined by a high-pitched wailing coming from the outside. Ginny watched everyone but her sway forwards and backwards. They were urgently talking to each other - or, at least, it sounded urgent. Italian always sounds urgent. Only one person wasn't participating.

There was a dark head leaning down across her arm, holding her hand as if it was the only thing keeping him from falling off a cliff. She couldn't be sure, but her arm was wet where his eyes were.

"H... Harry."

The dark shock of hair flew up.

"She's awake! That means she's going to be fine, right?" he asked the other person in the room as he grabbed the man's sleeve. He turned around and greeted Ginny with a studious look. He shined a light in her eyes. Both of them noticed that the man made no commitment about Harry's question.

"Harry, what happened?"

He looked at her and sniffed, trying to wrench on the same strong look that she had given him so many times.

"There was an accident, Gin. You're hurt pretty bad. We're taking you to the hospital. You're going to be fine," he ended with a waxy smile.

Her head felt as though someone was walking along a wall and hitting switches as he went. Some things turned back on. Others shut off. One of the switches controlled the shearing pain in her right leg, which suddenly decided to come on. She groaned and Harry somehow took an even-tighter grasp of her hand.

"Don't look down," he warned. Which, of course, meant she did.

Were legs supposed to bend like that?

The best option right now seemed to be to just go away. Come back later and try again. So that's what she did, with Harry's calling to her a switch that slowly turned off.

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Now she found herself in the same bed but in a much larger room. The sounds of pain and despair surrounded her. The lights seemed to have clouds moving in front of them. How could it be overcast inside? Someone wearing a billowy green outfit padded over to her side with an outstretched needle. She tapped Ginny's elbow a few times and then punctured her arm.

"Owww! What the hell was that?"

"Oh, hello. Something for pain," the green woman responded in broken English. There was no one else in the room.

"Where's Harry?"

The woman just raised an eyebrow.

"My boyfriend. The one who was here with me."

"No one else, signora. Rest. Doctor here soon. Needs to set bone."

It could've been five minutes or five hours, but a man dressed in white pulled back the curtain guarding Ginny from the other sufferers, flanked by three other green people.

"Buonosera," he said simply before ordering around the green people in Italian. He put his hand in front of Ginny's face and moved his finger side to side, up and down. All she could feel was swaying. He nodded at the others and took her knee gently. One quick pull down and over produced pain she had never felt before, as if lightning had struck just her leg. No, that would be different. It would burn the nerves. If this pain was ever going to happen again, just chopping off the leg sounded like a better option to her. She was just about to tell the Muggle healer that when she fell back asleep. It was sleep, wasn't it?