Harry Potter and No Trace Of You

Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

The woman moved aside to give the healer more room, but not before he distinctly heard her mumble something under her breath about their best being bloody insufficient. He couldn't help but agree.

He found himself swarmed by mediwitches and healers, all of them taking scans. He didn't let them take his wand, watching them closely. He honestly didn't feel all that threatened at the moment, but his body still buzzed with adrenaline.

The two gingers stood to one side of the room, the bloke seeming to try to comfort the woman. She just hissed back at him in words he couldn't make out, dragging a hand over her face.

"Ouch," he said, jumping at a pinch in his arm.

"Just a small blood sample, Mr. Potter. Nothing to worry about."

Harry rubbed at the spot with a scowl. "Are you finished?"

"Yes, quite," the healer said, nodding for the mediwizards and witches to leave.

"Now what?" the woman demanded, back at his bedside.

"We'll get these scans and samples analyzed and let you know what we come up with." The healer gave them what was probably supposed to be a comforting, confident smile, but just came off as annoyingly artificial.

The witch retook the seat by his bed, while Ron continued to pace back and forth.

He watched Ginny out of the corner of his eye. She was probably more than aware of it, but was allowing it. Her fingers were gripped together in her lap as they waited, and with a jolt he realized she was twisting a set of rings on her finger back and forth.

Mr. Potter. Wasn't that what they called him?

He let his thumb cautiously slide up across his own palm, bumping up against a ring on his finger.

Shit.

"Yeah," she said, still looking straight ahead, like he couldn't do anything without her seeing it.

It answered the question though. She was his wife. Supposedly. Shouldn't he remember his bloody wife? He looked at her again, taking in the details—her rich copper hair, the pale smattering of freckles across her thin nose—but none of them meant anything to him. She was a complete stranger. He vacillated between assuming this was some sort of trick, some angle they were playing, and panicking that he couldn't remember. Was something seriously wrong with him?

"It'll be okay," she said, giving him a fierce look that somehow made him almost believe her. "No matter what this is."

He nodded, leaning back in the bed and closing his eyes just to escape the confusion of looking at her. He didn't sleep, just sat and listened very closely, the pain in his head still pounding away as he ran through plans and tried to make bloody sense of it all. Tried to remember anything at all. It only ended up making his head hurt worse.

They didn't have long to wait. The sheepish looking healer reappeared, a long parchment clutched in his hands.

"It's a neurotoxin," he announced. "It didn't show up in the initial scans."

"And why didn't it?" Ginny said, arms crossed over her chest.

"Mrs. Potter," the man practically whined, brushing at a bead of sweat on his forehead. "There really is no need to take such a tone with me."

"I think you should be more concerned with your bloody job than my tone."

"What toxin is it?" Ron asked, clearly trying to intervene.