Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as Ginny hurried into the waiting room with George and Angelina at her sides, all three of them moving too fast for a place built on quiet. Their footsteps sounded harsh against the hush of low voices and the faint, soothing shimmer of healing magic.

Heads turned. Of course they did.
A witch near the wall nudged the man beside her and murmured something Ginny didn’t catch—only that he looked up sharply, eyes widening. Another person leaned forward, craning for a better view. A teenage boy’s gaze darted from Ginny’s face to the splint and back again, recognition dawning with uncomfortable excitement. Someone whispered her name—Ginny Potter—as if saying it quietly made it polite.

Ginny felt the attention stick to her skin.
She didn’t care.
All she could see was James.

He was perched in a stiff hospital wheelchair beside Charlie, small and folded in on himself like he’d decided taking up space was dangerous. One leg was stretched out on a cushion, wrapped in a temporary splint that looked absurdly huge on a eight-year-old. His shoulders were drawn tight, his hands clenched in his lap.
From the front he looked pale—wrongly pale. One side of his face was already beginning to darken along the cheekbone, a bruise blooming under skin gone grey with shock. There was dried blood stiff in the curls above his ear.

Ginny crossed the room in seconds.
“James,” she breathed.

His head snapped up. His eyes—huge, glazed with tears—locked on her.
“M–Mum…?”
His voice cracked.
Then it shattered.
“MUMMY!”

She was already in front of him when he moved. He pushed himself up out of the wheelchair in one wild, desperate surge and threw himself at her. The distance was barely a step, but his splinted leg jolted as he shifted weight.

The pain hit like a curse.
James screamed.

Ginny caught him before he could fall, arms wrapping around him hard and sure.

“Hey—hey—Jamie, I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” she said quickly, catching him before he could hit the ground.

He crashed into her chest, sobbing so violently his whole body shook. His hands twisted into her jumper, face buried in her neck like he was trying to crawl inside.

She lowered them both into the nearest chair, pulling him onto her lap and keeping his injured leg straight as she shifted it forward. Even that small movement made him cry out again.

“I know, I know,” Ginny whispered quickly, kissing the side of his head. “I’m sorry, love. I’m sorry. We won’t move it again. It’s still now. I’ve got you.”

“It h-hurts— Mum— it— it really—” he gasped, the words breaking apart. “We were— we were climbing and F-Fred said— and I went up and I didn’t— I didn’t mean to go f-fast—”

“—and then my f-foot slipped and I tried— I tried to grab it but I c-couldn’t—” He hiccupped hard, choking on the breath. “There was blood— it was— it was on my head—”

“It’s okay,” she murmured, one hand firm between his shoulder blades, the other cradling the back of his head. “You’re safe now. I’m here. Just breathe.”

“I th-thought— I thought I broke it and I didn’t mean— I wasn’t trying to—”

“I know you weren’t,” she said softly but firmly. “It’s okay. Accidents happen. You’re safe.”

He was still crying, words tumbling over sobs.

“I d-didn’t mean to go that high— I just— I just—”

“I know,” she murmured, pressing her cheek to his hair. “You’re safe, sweetheart. Mum’s got you. Can you take one big breath for me?”

He tried. It came out as more sobs, shallow and broken.

She’d never seen him like this.
James cried loudly, theatrically, when a prank backfired or a broom privilege was revoked. But this wasn’t that. This was raw, animal fear layered over white-hot pain. Panicked breaths. Clutching so hard her collarbones hurt.

“It h-hurts,” he whispered again.

“I know it does,” she murmured, peppering quick kisses through his curls, one after another, until he finally stopped trying to talk. “It’s going to hurt for a minute. But you’re safe. I’m not going anywhere.”

He buried his face deeper into her neck. His crying softened slightly into deep, uneven sobs, though he didn’t loosen his grip.

Behind them, Angelina stepped closer to Charlie.

“What happened?” she asked, controlled.

Charlie dragged a hand down his face.

“I looked away one second,” he said, too quickly. “One. They were right there on the slides—all three of them. I swear.”

Ginny didn’t look at him. She kept her gaze on James’s damp, crumpled face, hand moving in slow circles on his back. But the words threaded under her skin anyway.

One second.

Across the park, in his mind, the scene rewound on a loop.

He’d been on one of the benches near the slides. The kids had been racing up the little tower, shrieking as they shot down—manageable chaos. The kind you could supervise with half an eye and a running commentary. Off to one side, the enchanted climbing wall rose in tiers of weathered-looking stone, handholds shifting lazily across its surface like pieces sliding around a chessboard. The lower section glowed with soft blue guide-runes meant for younger children. Higher up, the colours changed—gold, then red—where the wall got steeper and the holds reconfigured faster. The upper section required a harness and an attendant. Everybody in the park knew that.

Then she’d sat down at the other end of the bench.

Not a mum—he’d recognised that straight away. Babysitter. Watching two primary-school-aged kids who were arguing over whose turn it was on the climbing net. She had that alert-but-detached look of someone responsible, but not permanently so.

She’d caught him watching the chaos of James and Fred and laughed.

“Yours?” she’d asked.

“Unfortunately,” he’d grinned.

And that was all it took.

Charlie Weasley had always been like that. Big grin. Easy shoulders. Stories that made dragon burns sound heroic instead of foolish. Women leaned in; he leaned back just enough to make it feel like a choice.

He was the brother who never stayed long enough for things to settle. Romania most of the year. Christmas appearances. Casual dinners that never quite turned into Sunday lunches. Phone numbers scribbled on receipts. A pattern of almosts.

Commitment had always felt like something happening to other people.

She’d been funny. He’d told a story. She’d rolled her eyes in a way that meant she was entertained. He’d leaned closer.

Because leaning closer was easy.
Because flirting was muscle memory.
Because he was very good at being the charming one.

She’d scribbled her number on the back of a folded shopping receipt and passed it to him with a quick, conspiratorial smile.

He’d slipped it into his pocket without thinking.

It was still there.

He hadn’t told anyone that part. Wouldn’t.

So he clung to the line he could say.

“I looked away one second,” he repeated, sharper now. “Then I looked up and—Roxy was standing there alone. Just her. The boys were gone. I didn’t see them leave. I didn’t see them go behind the big wall. I swear I didn’t.”

He dragged a shaking hand down his face.

“I went round the back and he was already halfway up the upper section of the enchanted wall,” he said, words tumbling faster. “No harness. No attendant. Way too high. I shouted. I yelled his name. He looked over his shoulder and—”

His voice caught.

“—and he slipped.”

“It’s a magical park,” Charlie added quickly. “The wall reconfigures. The holds move. There are cushioning charms on the drop zones. They’re meant to slow the fall.”

“But he was above the safety markers,” George said quietly.

Charlie nodded once.

“Yeah. He was high.”

“He hit the side of the wall on the way down,” Charlie went on. “That’s how he cut his scalp and bruised his face before the cushioning charms slowed the fall.”

“It bled a lot at the park,” Charlie said fast. “They cleaned it already. They said it looks worse than it is. Head cuts always do.”

Ginny’s hand went into James’s hair instinctively.
It came away sticky.

She froze.
Carefully, she tilted his head.

The back of his curls were thick with dried blood from a cut hidden under the hairline, the kind that bled far more than it looked like it should.

“Merlin...” she breathed, her stomach dropping.

“I called emergency response straight away,” he said, too fast, too defensive. “They got there in minutes. We all went in the ambulance—me, the three kids. He was screaming, Ginny. He threw up—twice—on the way. They put a brace on his leg, put a collar on him, said head-injury protocol. I called Audrey—she met us downstairs. They took him straight through. X-rays, CT.

“They said there’s probably a fracture. We’re waiting for the final read on the scans.”

Probably.

The word sat heavy.

He said it like a checklist. As if medical bullet points could undo the fact that he’d been laughing on a bench with a pretty woman while James and Fred dared each other.

Ginny pulled back slightly, brushing curls from James’s forehead.

“They put a collar on him, braced his leg and took him straight through when we got here. Head injury protocol.”

Her hand tightened around James.

“Does your head hurt?” she asked quietly.

James shook his head.

“No.”

“Feel sick?”

Another small shake.

“Just dizzy.”

The word landed badly.

Charlie rubbed both hands over his face.

“They did scans. X-rays. CT.”

Charlie stood nearby, frozen.
He couldn’t move.
Couldn’t think.
Couldn’t make himself useful.

James sobbing in Ginny’s arms because of him.

His palms were slick with sweat. His heart pounded so hard it made him dizzy. He took one step forward—then stopped, useless.

The waiting room wasn’t pretending not to watch anymore. Curiosity sat openly on people’s faces, sharpened by recognition and the simple fact that pain drew attention like light.

A few feet away, Fred and Roxanne stood shoulder to shoulder.

Neither had moved far from where Charlie had left them.

Fred's eyes were too bright. His breathing was shallow. His hands kept opening and closing at his sides.

Roxanne had attached herself to George's sleeve and hadn't let go.

Angelina stepped in behind her daughter and rested a hand across her shoulders.

George crouched immediately.

“Alright,” he said. “Both of you. Look at me.”

Fred obeyed instantly.

Roxanne took a second longer.

“He's awake,” George said firmly. “He's talking. He's with his mum.”

For a moment neither child spoke.

Then Fred crossed the distance in two quick steps and crashed into George.

George caught him automatically.

Beside him, Roxanne pressed herself against Angelina's side and grabbed a fistful of her coat.

Angelina wrapped an arm around her without hesitation.

“That's it,” George said quietly, rubbing a hand up Fred's back. “I've got you.”

Fred nodded against his shoulder.

Then his head jerked up.

“Auntie Ginny—”

The words burst out of him.

“It was a dare.”

Ginny looked over.

Fred's face crumpled.

“We weren't meant to go that high. We were racing and I said he couldn't do it and he said he could and I told him to prove it and then—”

His words tangled together.

“And Uncle Charlie told him to come down and he turned and—”

He ran out of breath.

James shifted against Ginny.

At the word dare, his face screwed up all over again.

Ginny tightened her arms around him.

“Fred.”

Fred stopped immediately.

“Sweetheart,” she said gently, “it was an accident.”

“But I dared him.”

His voice cracked.

“If I hadn't—”

George's hand settled firmly on the back of his neck.

“Fred.”

The panic faltered.

“Look at me.”

Fred did.

“Breathe.”

Fred sucked in air.

Too quickly.

George waited.

“A proper one.”

Fred tried again.

Better.

“Good.”

Only then did George continue.

“You didn't push him.”

“But—”

“You didn't push him.”

The words were calm.

Absolute.

“You didn't shove him. You didn't make his foot slip.”

Fred swallowed hard.

“And James,” George said, glancing briefly toward his nephew, “has never needed much encouragement to do something reckless.”

A tiny, watery huff escaped Fred.

“That's true,” Angelina said dryly.

Even Ginny couldn't quite argue.

“He would've climbed it anyway,” George said. “You know he would.”

Fred looked unconvinced.

But he listened.

And for now, that was enough.

James lifted his head slightly.

“I didn't mean to fall,” he mumbled. “I was just going fast.”

“I know, sweetheart.” Ginny brushed his curls back from his forehead. “You were playing.”

Then she looked back at Fred.

“No one is in trouble.”

Fred stared at her.

“Not James. Not you.”

His shoulders sagged slightly.

George gave the back of his neck a brief squeeze.

“You're here,” he said. “He's here. That's what matters.”

Fred nodded.

He still looked frightened.

But he wasn't spiralling anymore.

Ginny gathered James a little closer and felt him tremble against her.

“Mum...” he whispered.

She lowered her head to him. “I’m here, Jamie.”

“Don’t be mad at me,” he choked.

The words shouldn’t have hit as hard as they did. But this was James.

Teddy was fifteen now—teenager trouble, not child trouble. The kind that came with slammed doors and stubborn silences and that constant, prickling push for independence, as if being told no was an insult. He was old enough to want privacy and old enough to resent that their family didn’t really get to have it.

And then there was Albus—five. Quieter than the others, watchful in a way that sometimes made adults forget how young he still was. He liked patterns and questions and things that made sense. While James climbed everything in sight, Albus preferred to sit cross-legged with a toy in his lap, turning it over and over, trying to work out how it fit together and why it behaved the way it did. He could spend half an hour explaining some small mechanical detail with complete seriousness, as if everyone else was being unreasonable for not seeing what was obvious.

He had been born at twenty-six weeks, impossibly small—nine hundred and sixty grams, barely heavier than one of Harry’s Auror field manuals. Four months in the neonatal ward before they were finally allowed to bring him home. Four months of monitors and alarms and the strange suspended world of the hospital, where day blurred into night and normal life carried on somewhere far outside the windows. It had been the hardest time of their lives—not just as parents, but as a couple. Exhaustion, terror, hope so fierce it hurt. Albus had fought through it with the same stubborn determination he showed now. And something about those long nights—Ginny beside the incubator, Harry counting breaths under dim lights—had built a bond between mother and son that never quite loosened.

Lily was different again.

Two years old and already unmistakably Ginny’s daughter—the same copper hair, the same sharp eyes, the same stubborn chin that refused to yield once she’d decided something mattered. Small but fierce, loud when she wanted attention and completely unimpressed by anyone who told her no. Molly liked to say she was Ginny all over again, only shorter and angrier.

He climbed what he shouldn’t. Touched what no one asked him to touch. Appeared in doorways wearing someone else’s shoes and someone else’s expression, trying to charm his way out of trouble before the trouble had even fully happened. A born show-off with a smile adults found suspicious precisely because it worked.

And he was charming.

Merlin, he was charming.

The same crooked grin. The same mischief sparkling in his eyes. The same ability to make trouble sound perfectly reasonable five minutes after it happened.

Sometimes Ginny looked at him and caught flashes of the stories she'd grown up hearing about another James Potter—the original one. Brilliant. Reckless. Infuriating. Somehow impossible to stay angry with for long.

Unfortunately, James had inherited Harry's talent for finding danger as well.

The combination was exhausting.

Lately it had been getting harder.

Not worse. Just bigger.

Eight-year-old consequences were no longer confined to naughty steps and early bedtimes. There were privileges to lose now. Broom restrictions. Screen restrictions. Weekends spent earning things back.

And James seemed determined to discover every possible boundary before adulthood arrived.

The world didn't make it easier.

They were rich. Famous. Watched.

Harry Potter's son couldn't throw a tantrum in public without someone having an opinion about it. Ginny Potter's children couldn't make mistakes without somebody deciding it reflected on their parenting.

So they worked harder than most parents did.

Chores.

Rules.

Thank-yous.

Consequences.

Not because they wanted strict children, but because they wanted kind ones. Children who understood that having money didn't make them better than anyone else. Children who knew that fame wasn't an achievement and entitlement wasn't a personality.

Some days it felt like parenting under a microscope.

And James, more than any of the others, pushed against it.

Not maliciously.

Just constantly.

Because he was eight.

Because he was curious.

Because he was James.

So now, terrified and hurting and curled against her shoulder, of course his first instinct was to assume she'd be angry.

“Don't be mad at me,” he choked.

Ginny's heart cracked cleanly in two.

Ginny's chest tightened.

“Jamie.”

She cupped his face and gently turned it towards her.

“Look at me.”

There was enough quiet certainty in her voice that he did

“I’m not mad,” she repeated, steady and certain. “This was an accident.”

His mouth trembled.

“’Cause I went too fast,” he hiccupped. “An’ we weren’t s’posed t’be on the big wall and Uncle Charlie said get down and I didn’t right away and I knew it and then I fell and my leg’s broken and you hate when I do stupid stuff and—”

His breath hitched.

“—and you’re gonna say it’s consequences. I know you are.”

“James.”

The use of his full name cut through the panic enough that he looked at her.

“Listen to me.”

He swallowed.

“You made a bad decision.”

His face crumpled immediately.

“But that is not the same thing as being in trouble.”

He blinked.

“Eight-year-olds make bad decisions every day. Merlin knows you make more than your fair share.” The corner of her mouth twitched briefly. “That doesn't mean I stop loving you every time you do something foolish.”

His grip tightened on her jumper.

“Getting hurt isn't a punishment,” she said firmly. “And right now I don't care about the climbing wall. I care about you.”

His breathing slowed a little.

“I didn't mean to scare you.”

“I know.”

She brushed his hair back from his forehead.

“You didn't scare me on purpose. You scared me because you got hurt. That's very different.”

His eyes searched hers one last time.

“So you’re not cross?”

Ginny brushed a curl off his forehead.

“Not right now,” she said softly. “Right now I’m just glad you’re here.”

He nodded weakly and tucked himself back into her neck, still shaking, but no longer bracing.

Around them, the waiting room hummed with low whispers.

They’d been watched their whole lives, she and Harry. The war. Her Quidditch career. Their marriage. The pregnancies. Every match she’d played, every time he appeared at a trial or an Auror press conference. People had always been interested.But when Ginny’s career had taken off—captaincy, World Cups, record-breaking contracts—that interest had turned into something else. Paparazzi camped outside their home. Long-lens photographs of school drop-off. Speculation about their marriage every time Harry was seen without his ring because he’d left it on the soap dish after a shower.

There had been a time when she thought it might calm down eventually.

After the war, maybe.
After the first few years of Quidditch.
After the first baby.

Instead it had only grown.

Winning the World Cup with England hadn’t helped. Becoming captain of the Harpies hadn’t helped. The headlines had multiplied instead of fading.

The wizarding world loved a story.

And the Potters had become one.

Harry—the boy who lived, now the Head Auror.
Ginny—the golden girl of British Quidditch.
The children—tiny red-haired and black-haired snapshots splashed across magazines that pretended not to be tabloids.

Sometimes it felt absurd.

Other times it felt like living in a shop window.

They had learned tricks over the years. Quiet Apparition points. Wards around the house strong enough to bounce back unwanted lenses. Friends who warned them when the Prophet planned something intrusive.

But moments like this—hospitals, accidents, anything involving the children—those were the stories reporters loved most.

Ginny could already imagine the headline.

Potter Son Injured in Playground Fall.

As if James were a headline before he was a boy.

Her arms tightened instinctively around him.

Not if she could help it.

They’d learned to live with it. Learned which alleys to Apparate into, which wards to strengthen, which stories to ignore and which had to be knocked down before they grew teeth.
But their kids had never had a choice. They’d grown up inside that glare.

Famous couple’s child injured at wizarding playground practically wrote itself. There would be commentary. Opinions. People who’d never even met James saying what they’d have done differently.

Ginny angled herself, shielding him as best she could from the room.

She would have to call Marcus Fleet as soon as she had a free hand. He’d start making calls of his own—editors, photographers, gossip-column vultures. He couldn’t erase everything, but he could blunt the edges, push it off the front page, keep James from being reduced to a headline and a grainy picture of his splint.

Her phone buzzed faintly in her pocket.

Ginny shifted James carefully and pulled it out.

Neville’s name flashed on the screen.

She opened it.

Neville: Hey.
Neville: Can you call me when you get a second?
Neville: It’s about Teddy.

Her stomach dipped.

Angelina caught the look on her face immediately. “What?”

“Neville,” Ginny said quietly. “About Teddy.”

Angelina didn’t even blink.

“Alive?” she asked calmly.

Ginny shot her a look. “Yes.”

James stirred. “Teddy?”

“He’s fine,” Ginny said quickly, already typing.

Ginny: Is he safe?

The reply came almost at once.

Neville: He’s fine. Just teenager stuff. Call when you can.

Ginny exhaled slowly.

Angelina gave a soft, knowing hum.

“Ah,” she said. “So either alcohol, a broom, or a girl.”

George huffed under his breath.

Ginny closed her eyes briefly. Another fire to put out. Another boy she loved who was already tap-dancing on her last nerve.

Not now, she thought, sliding the phone away. She kissed the top of James’s head and slid the phone back into her pocket.

Barely an hour ago they’d been at the Burrow, sunlight slanting through the kitchen windows, the table too crowded as always. Plates and chatter and laughter. The kids bouncing in their seats, begging for the park like it was the only thing that mattered in the world.

Charlie—home for Christmas, had offered to take them. He lived away. Romania, of all places, where dragons weren’t a bedtime story but his actual job. The kids didn’t see him the way they saw George, the way they saw the Burrow, the way family was supposed to be constant. When he was around, James and Fred and Roxanne clung to him like he was a visiting hero—Uncle Charlie, tell us about the dragons, Uncle Charlie, show us scars, Uncle Charlie, can you lift me—as if proximity alone made him larger than life.

She had watched them that afternoon—bright-eyed, thrilled—because Uncle Charlie was here, and that made everything feel like an adventure.

Ginny, though, had stayed behind.

Because Albus had a cold.

Not a dramatic one, not really—just a feverish, snotty, slightly miserable little-boy cold that had left him pink-cheeked and glassy-eyed and clingier than usual. Under normal circumstances she probably would have sent him to the park anyway.

But Albus had a way of drawing her in when he wasn’t feeling well. He was quieter than James had ever been, more likely to burrow under a blanket on the sofa and talk in complete seriousness about something that had nothing to do with being ill. That afternoon he’d been wrapped up on the Burrow’s sagging old couch, hair damp with sweat, nose pink, three toy cars lined up in a neat row across his lap while he explained to Arthur—with the solemn authority of someone twice his age—why some cars were made for speed and others were made for endurance, and why people always underestimated smaller engines.

Sometimes, without warning, Ginny’s mind still flicked back to the neonatal ward. Twenty-six weeks. Nine hundred and sixty grams. Four months before they brought him home. Not because there was anything wrong with him now, but because those months had rewired something in her. A fever still made her watch a little more closely than she meant to. A cough still had the power to pull her backwards for half a second before reason caught up.

So she had stayed behind with him at the Burrow, tucked under blankets, slightly feverish and entirely absorbed in his cars, while Lily stomped around Molly’s kitchen in furious little circles because everyone else had gone somewhere she hadn’t.

Ginny had told herself she was being careful.

Responsible.

Now guilt crawled up her throat.

If I’d gone… would I have seen it? Would I have stopped it? Would he be sitting here bleeding if I’d just—

The waiting-room doors burst open.

The sound cracked through Ginny’s thoughts like a spell gone wrong.

Heads turned in unison.

Harry stepped in still in full Auror uniform—scarlet robes sharp and official, Ministry insignia gleaming at his collar, wand holster strapped at his hip. His tie was loosened but still knotted. His cloak hung crooked over one shoulder, like he’d dragged it back on without looking.

He looked like a man who had not expected to leave work.

Because he hadn’t.

He had been in the middle of a full-team debrief, every Auror assigned to the case crammed into the room, along with half a dozen people who had suddenly decided they were indispensable because Benedict Ashdown—a Wizengamot member with too many alliances and not enough friends—had been found dead in his own home. Weeks on, the case was still unsolved. Which meant it had turned political. Which meant the pressure had curdled into something constant and sour.

Harry had been standing at the head of the table because he was Head Auror. His deputy was at his right, walking them through leads, timelines, witness inconsistencies. Kingsley had been there too, silent and watchful in the way that somehow made everyone straighter-backed and more tired.

The room had been airless with it. Too many bodies. Too many opinions. Not enough answers.

Then his secretary had appeared in the doorway, pale.

“Sir. It’s your wife. It’s about James.”

He hadn’t waited for details.

He knew they were meant to be having lunch at the Burrow.

He did not know about the park.

He did not know about blood.

One second he had been standing in front of the murder board with Ashdown’s name circled in red behind him. The next he was already halfway out of the room, cloak in one hand, ignoring Kingsley calling after him.

He had heard only one thing.

It’s about James.

Aurors were trained not to panic. They were trained to slow down, gather facts, think before acting.

Harry had done none of those things.

He had apparated straight to St. Mungo’s without changing, without briefing anyone, without even remembering the street outside after he landed.

Now the adrenaline that had carried him there was draining away in uneven waves, leaving something colder behind.

Fear.

The kind that lodged under the ribs and refused to shift.

He had faced curses, dragons, dark wizards, and entire battles without ever feeling quite like this.

Because none of those things had ever involved his child.

His chest was still rising too fast, as though he had run the last stretch. His eyes swept the room on instinct—doors, bodies, unfamiliar faces, raised voices—Auror training firing before the father had fully caught up.

Then he saw them.

Ginny, white-faced and rigid in the plastic chair, with James gathered against her, one leg splinted and stretched awkwardly out, dried blood dark in his hair.

Everything else dropped.

He crossed the room in long, unsteady strides and dropped into a crouch in front of them.

“What happened?” he demanded, already looking for the worst.

Ginny didn’t waste time.

“They went to the park after lunch,” she said, clipped and precise. “The enchanted climbing wall. Upper section needs a harness. Charlie told him to get down. He turned, slipped, hit the side on the way down. That’s the head wound. He vomited twice in the ambulance, so they did a head CT. They’ve done X-rays on the leg. They think it’s fractured. We’re waiting on the scans.”

Harry absorbed it in fragments.

Park.
Wall.
CT.
Fracture.

He leaned in and kissed Ginny—hard and brief, more grounding than affectionate—then crouched lower and lifted a careful hand to James’s cheek, thumb brushing just beneath the bruise as if he had to check for himself that James was really there.

“Jamie,” he said, voice tight but soft. “Hey. Dad’s here.”

James turned toward him, eyes swollen and wet.

“Dad,” he whispered. “It hurts.”

“I know,” Harry said quietly. “I know, Buster.”

The name came out roughened by panic, but the tone was gentle. He kept his hand on James’s face, steady and warm, even as his eyes moved over the splint, the trembling in his body, the blood matted in his curls.

Ginny shifted James a little closer against her.

“Hey,” she murmured. “Nothing bad is happening right now. You’re not climbing. You’re not falling. You’re with Mum and Dad.”

James hiccupped.

“The healers are going to fix your leg,” she said softly. “Then we’re going home. You’re going to lie on the sofa and make us bring you everything.”

James blinked at her. “Home?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “Home.”

For a beat Harry stayed there, crouched in front of them, his hand still cupping James’s cheek.

Then he stood.

Slowly.

“The park,” he said.

Ginny looked up at him. Already she could feel the change beginning.

“Yes.”

“With who?”

There was a pause no longer than a breath.

“Charlie.”

Harry turned.

The shift was immediate.

The softness that had been in his voice a second ago vanished so completely it felt almost brutal. Not gone, exactly—buried. Locked down. What replaced it was colder, sharper, every edge of him snapping back into place.

A couple of people in the waiting room visibly straightened. Someone whispered his name.

“You.”

Charlie straightened automatically. “Harry, I was watching—”

“I only looked away for a second,” he rushed on. “Just one—”

Harry cut clean across him.

“Stop saying that.”

He didn’t raise his voice. That somehow made it worse.

Ginny’s hand tightened around James.

“Harry,” she said quietly.

He didn’t look at her.

Charlie blinked. “What?”

“That.” Harry took a step forward. “I looked away for a second. Stop saying it like it explains anything.”

George shifted in his chair, attention snapping instinctively toward the children. Angelina’s hand tightened on Roxanne’s shoulder.

Charlie’s face flushed. “I’m telling you what happened.”

“No,” Harry said. “You’re reducing what happened.”

The words landed flat and hard.

“He didn’t Apparate to the top of that wall,” Harry continued. “He climbed it. From the ground. That took time. Which means there was time to notice. Time to stop it. Time before my son ended up in an ambulance.”

Charlie’s jaw tightened. “The second I realised—”

“You’re still doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“Trying to make the gap sound smaller than it was.”

Charlie stood too fast, temper flaring to meet the accusation. “I’m not trying to do anything. I turned my head, Roxy was there, the boys weren’t, and I went after them.”

He did not mention the witch by the railings.

Did not mention the bright laugh, the easy smile, the few stupid seconds spent half-turned toward her while she asked if he was really that Charlie Weasley. Did not mention the folded scrap of parchment still in his pocket with her number on it.

He gave the clean version because the truth was dirtier.

Harry stepped closer.

There was something unmistakably official in the set of him now—something from the office brought straight into Paediatrics without either permission or mercy. The clipped stillness. The dangerous calm. The way fear got forced into order because that was the only way Harry knew to keep from breaking under it.

“Walk me through it,” he said.

Charlie stared at him. “What?”

“From the moment you left the table at the Burrow.” Harry’s voice was clipped, procedural. “Where were they. What did you see. When did you lose line of sight. How long before you moved. Start there.”

Ginny looked up sharply.

“Harry,” she said again, lower this time. A warning.

Charlie gave a short, incredulous laugh. “This is a waiting room.”

“Yes,” Harry said. “And James is sitting right there with a fractured leg and a head injury, so forgive me if I’m not especially interested in the setting.”

James flinched against her.

Ginny’s hand came up to smooth his hair.

“Don’t,” she said under her breath.

Harry either didn’t hear or chose not to.

Charlie’s nostrils flared. “I had all three of them with me. They were fine. Roxy wanted to look at something, I looked at her for half a second—”

“And the boys?”

“I thought they were behind me.”

“You thought.”

Charlie’s expression hardened. “Yes.”

Harry gave one short nod, like he was confirming a detail in a statement. “So you did not know where they were.”

“I knew they couldn’t have gone far.”

“That is not the same thing.”

Charlie’s hands curled at his sides. One thumb brushed, involuntarily, against the inside of his pocket before he caught himself and dropped it again.

“I realised and I moved.”

“How long?”

Charlie stared. “What?”

“How long between seeing Roxanne alone and going after them?”

“I don’t know.”

“Estimate.”

George let out a quiet breath through his nose. Angelina didn’t move, but her hand stayed firm on Roxanne’s shoulder.

Charlie looked like he wanted to refuse on principle. “A few seconds.”

Harry’s face didn’t change. “And when you got behind the wall?”

Charlie swallowed. “James was already climbing.”

“How high?”

“Halfway. Maybe more.”

“No harness.”

Charlie said nothing.

Harry’s voice sharpened. “No harness.”

“No,” Charlie said.

“No attendant.”

“No.”

“No hand on him. No one close enough to stop him.”

Charlie’s face burned. “No.”

The room had gone utterly still.

Harry stood there for one terrible beat, and Ginny could see exactly what was holding him upright: not calm, not reason, only sheer control stretched so tight it was beginning to fray. He had walked into St. Mungo’s already carrying too much—the Ashdown case, the debrief, the pressure of a roomful of people waiting for answers—and then found his son bloodied and shaking in a hospital waiting room.

Now all of it had found somewhere to go.

“You let him get that far,” Harry said.

Charlie flinched. “I did not let him—”

“Then what do you call it?”

“I shouted at him,” Charlie shot back, voice cracking now. “I yelled his name. I told him to get down. He turned because he heard me, and that’s when he slipped. That’s not—” He swallowed hard. “That’s not me not caring.”

Harry’s expression shifted then—not softer, but darker. More dangerous because it stayed so controlled.

“You want to know what caring looks like?” he said. “Caring looks like not needing to realise two children are missing.”

Charlie flinched like he’d been hit.

“Harry.” Ginny’s voice was firmer now.

He didn’t stop.

“You weren’t there,” Charlie snapped back, stepping forward too now, refusing to fold even as his voice shook. “You don’t get to act like I did this on purpose.”

“No,” Harry said, and for the first time his voice fractured on the edge of control. “I wasn’t.”

He took another step.

“Because I trusted you.”

The room felt like it stopped breathing.

Charlie’s anger faltered for half a beat, but he forced it back into place—stubborn, humiliated, holding himself upright on pride and defiance alone.

“I made a mistake,” he said roughly. “You think I don’t know that? You think I haven’t replayed it every second since?”

“Good,” Harry snapped. “Keep replaying it. Maybe next time it’ll stop you before my son ends up in an ambulance.”

Charlie went rigid.

George moved before either of them could do more than breathe wrong, one hand half-lifted from his chair.

“Alright,” he said, aiming for lightness and not quite making it. “Let’s not start a Weasley civil war in Paediatrics, yeah? They’ll charge us extra.”

Harry didn’t even look at him.

“This is not funny, George,” he snapped, and now the crack in his voice was obvious. “My son has a broken leg. He has a head injury. He could have—”

The words caught in his throat.

He couldn’t finish them.

And right there, in Ginny’s arms, James went rigid.

That was the point she stopped warning and started cutting.

“Harry.” Her voice sliced clean through the room. “Stop.”

He swung toward her, eyes blazing—and underneath it, something starting to come apart.

“Our son has a broken leg, Gin!” he burst out. “A broken leg and a head injury. He could’ve hit wrong—it could’ve been his neck, his spine, he could have—”

“I know,” she snapped, and there was no softness in it at all. “I’m holding him. I’m the one feeling him shake.”

James whimpered and buried his face deeper into her shoulder.

Ginny didn’t look away.

“And you’re scaring him,” she said, low and fierce. “Right now. In public. In front of strangers. Congratulations.”

Harry flinched.

“Do not do this here,” she continued, each word clipped. “Not in Paediatrics. Not in front of Fred and Roxanne. Not while James is listening to you list the ways he could have died.”

Harry’s hands opened and closed at his sides, useless.

George, quieter now, said, “Mate.”

Not joking this time. Just steady.

“You want to fall apart?” Ginny said. “Fine. Later. Somewhere private. After he’s been seen. After he’s not terrified.”

Then she pointed to the chair beside her.

“Sit down. Now.”

For one long second Harry held her gaze, breathing hard.

Then the fight seemed to leave him all at once in a jagged exhale.

He sat.

James was still trembling.

Ginny pressed her lips into his curls.

“It’s alright, bug,” she whispered, softer now. “Mum’s got you. Nothing else is happening.”

The room stayed quiet after Harry sat, tension lingering like smoke after a fire. James’s hiccups softened by degrees, the shaking easing a little now that the shouting had stopped.

Across from them, Charlie stood motionless, one hand hanging stiff at his side, the other shoved deep into his pocket around the folded scrap of parchment he had neither the courage to throw away nor the nerve to pull out.

For a few seconds no one spoke.

Then the treatment-room door opened with a soft creak, and a healer in pale green stepped out, scanning the waiting room.

“James Potter?” she called, voice clear but kind.

Dozens of heads turned.

Ginny’s arms tightened automatically.

“That’s us,” she said, pushing herself up carefully with James still clinging to her. He made a small sound as his leg shifted, and she adjusted her hold—one arm under his back, the other supporting his splint.

The healer stepped closer, smile gentle. “We’ve got your scans ready, and a room for you. Mum, Dad—you can come through.”

Charlie’s throat worked. “Maybe I should just—”

“You’re coming,” Ginny said, no room for argument. “You were there. You’re coming.”

Charlie nodded, mute.

Harry stood up quickly, hovering close, hand outstretched like he wanted to touch James but didn’t know where it was safe.

George stepped toward Fred and Roxanne, placing a hand on each of their shoulders.

“We’ll wait right here,” he said softly. “Yeah? You stay with me and Mum. They’ll bring James back out as soon as they’re done.”

Fred sniffed hard and nodded. Roxanne clung to Angelina’s waist.

Ginny caught George’s eye for a heartbeat. Gratitude flickered between them—sharp, wordless.

Then she turned and followed the healer through the door, James in her arms, Harry at her side, Charlie pale and silent behind them.

The door swung shut.

The waiting room exhaled into a rustle of whispers.

George looked down at the two nine-year-olds pressed close to him and exhaled.

“Well,” he said after a moment, nudging Fred lightly with his elbow, “since we’re all sitting here anyway, this feels like the perfect time to tell you about the time your Uncle Fred broke his arm in three places falling off a broom.”

Fred blinked. “Uncle Fred did that?”

“Oh yes,” George said gravely. “Spectacularly. Absolute masterpiece of poor decision-making.”

Roxanne sniffed. “Was he okay?”

“Eventually,” George said. “After a lot of shouting, two healers, and a lecture from your grandmother that could probably be heard in Scotland.”

Fred’s mouth twitched slightly.

George leaned back in the chair beside them.

“He still insisted on finishing the match,” he added. “Broken arm and all. Said it was ‘character building.’”

Angelina gave him a look.

George shrugged innocently.

“Point is,” he went on, squeezing Fred’s shoulder lightly, “dramatic injuries are practically a Weasley family tradition.”

Fred huffed a small laugh despite himself.

“Your cousin’s tough,” George said quietly. “He’ll be alright.”

And for a moment, in the low hum of the waiting room, that was enough.