Ginny, Warrior Princess

Also Known As: The Truth In the Potions

"What did you do this time, Harry James Potter?" Her piercing voice rang through the halls silencing the normally bustling and boisterous hallways of Saint Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

Whenever she whirled into the hospital, which was all too often, with our two young boys in toe, she looked and sounded like a Howler personified. It isn't that I don't love the woman, it's just whenever I end up here, I feel like it's her mother coming at me like she did Bellatrix Lestrange during the Battle of Hogwarts. Every cylinder is firing at full blast, or full-throttle as the Muggles would say; it's dangerous yet enthralling. Passion in high heels, and it is all directed at me, again.

Her long red hair may be tied back, our youngest seems to grab at it all too often for her liking, but as she flies into the hospital, it looks more like flames shooting out from her head. Her brown eyes, usually that remind me of soft leather or a warm bourbon, now look hard as stones as they pierce me like the Gryffindor sword that I know she would gladly run through me.

If I am honest with myself, I think this time she would, if she were given the option and had the sword in hand.

It wasn't my fault, at least I will claim it isn't my fault if only to save my life. It sounds all too Slytherin when I think of it like that, but the look on her face tells me I had better have a very viable excuse as to why I am lying in this hospital bed, highly dosed on pain potions and multiple healing draughts. I can't even justify this with work. Nope, it was simple ego gone awry, and I pray to Merlin that no one tells my wife.

I won't blame it on the firewhiskey either. I have no one to blame but myself, but please don't tell the red hurricane standing in front of me with her arms crossed over her heavily heaving chest. It really just was the inter-departmental Quidditch match, the match just happened to come after a long, hard work week at the Ministry; add a bunch of male egos inflamed by alcohol and hey-presto chango, here I lay faster than you can catch the Quaffle.

That is the truth, but the story that I will spin will be something else altogether. Especially considering the witch that is glaring at me as I lay here was a professional Quidditch player in her own right. How am I going to tell this woman that I was doing something obviously unwarranted, unnecessary, and completely dangerous - well, at least in hindsight?

She deserves some special award. As much as she loves our boys, they are holy terrors that would make Merlin himself question the stability of magic. Their tempers rival my cousin on his worst day, but then their magic will flare in response, and Rowena only knows how our house remains standing. I have no idea how this wonderfully strong woman allowed me to convince her to have another child after we had James. She is a Weasley by birth and a Potter by marriage, and I know that takes a certain level of intestinal fortitude. When that got all mixed in to create James Sirius Potter, you got a cocktail of trouble on two legs. Even as an infant he was a terror. I think at least one of her brothers swore off baby duties after watching Ginny try to coax him to sleep.

She was made to grow up at an early age, in the shadow of war like the rest of us, yet she is younger than most of us. She really is an amazing woman, strong, resilient, fierce and I couldn't have done it without her. That may be the pain potions talking though.

Whenever I'm given any of the slightly stronger pain potions, I get somewhat philosophical and misty-eyed according to Ginny. After today's accident, I think they gave me the strongest the hospital had to offer.

"Mrs Potter." My Healer rushed up alongside my bed before she could berate me anymore in my condition. "Your husband had a very bad fall from his broom. From the description that we were given; 'he bounced around in a tree like a . . . '" He looked down on his clipboard before nodding and continuing slowly, "'. . . Rubber ball'."