That is all.

"Oh damn!" Ginny fought to keep her broom under control, but it spiralled crazilly and she knew it was a lost cause. She was headed straight for the a nearby willow tree. She let out a loud scream of curses and tried one last time to pull out of the horrible mess she'd gotten herself into.

As she was flung into the unforgiving branches of the willow tree, she swore under her breath about stupid effing birds that made her swirve.

Her eyes fluttered. She was on the ground. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and tried to stand - but fell back with a flop, wincing.

Her leg was twisted in a most uncomfortable way. It had to be broken.

Ginny swore. "I'm going to be effing late for effing practice because of that effing bird that made me effing swirve and lose con-effing-trol!" She patted the ground around her for her wand. "Just heal this stupid effing leg... get there on time..."

She tried once more to sit up and moaned in pain. "Gods damnit!" She shouted. Then, suddenly, a thought occured to her.

Where was her broom?

If her leg was broken, that did not bode well for her broom!

She sat up quickly - howled in pain and then bit her lip - and looked around, before offering a sob.

Her poor, poor Cleansweep was torn to pieces, lying down by her feet. She gave an anguished yowl at the sight of it, and desperately looked around for her wand. After all - now that she was up, she might as well take advantage before she passed out.

There it was...just beyond her reach.

She shut her eyes and pretended that she was Dumbledore. "Accio wand," she muttered, wanting the want to fly into her hands.

Needless to say, it didn't.

She groaned. "Well, this is lovely."

And then, true to her word, she passed out.

She was jerked back into conciousness by a loud, frightened shriek. She sat up, moaned in pain, flopped down again, and then squinted in the darkness. She wondered vaguely how long she'd been outside.

Her brothers would never let her near a broom ever again once they heard of this. They couldn't find out. Ever.

She rolled over and shoved her fist into her mouth to keep from shouting out. She did it again and stretched as far as she could until she finally grasped her wand.

She breathed a sigh of relief. She'd just go to sleep and fix it all when she woke up...

Her eyes snapped open as pain coursed through her body.

Where was she...?

Oh, right.

Bird. Swirve. Tree. Leg. Broom.

She moaned.

Oh her poor, poor broom...

She shook her head to clear it and forced herself to roll over. She tapped her wand against her chin thoughtfully for a healing spell. She needed... what had Lockheart said to Harry in his second year? Ah, yes - but it had made his bones dissapear...

She shrugged. Anything was better than not being able to fly again.

"Braccium Ammendo," she muttered, pointing her wand at her leg. She yelped in pain as she felt the bones dissolve, but then it went away. She poked expirimentally at the skin and grinned as she fingered the playdough-y substance. She got to her - er - foot.

"Right," she said cheerfully, now that the pain was gone. "I'll just hop - or crawl, if needs be - back to the castle. Then I'll tell the brothers that I got lost outside and had a little accident with my wand. No big."

She began to hop towards school when she heard a startled, "Ginny!" She looked up, surprised, and waved cheerily.

"Oh, hullo Harry!" She greeted, grabbing on to a tree as she stabled herself. "What are doing out here all by your lonesome?"

He frowned. "Looking for you, of course. Gin, you've been missing for three days. Your parents are in hysterics, going on about how you can't ever ride a broom again - "

Ginny whimpered and her eyes widened. Harry looked at her, surprised, as her chocolate orbs filled with tears. "No!" She wailed. "Harry - I crashed - broke my leg - " she waved him off as he looked down in alarm. "Fine now - Madam Pomphry will fix it right up. But Harry! My broom! It's gone into little smitherines! Don't let them keep me from flying, Harry, please!"

He barely heard that bit. "Ginny...you have no bones."

She sniffed and looked down at her right leg. "Well - no. I don't. I wanted to get back to the castle before anyone noticed I was missing and I couldn't be bothered with stupid things like broken limbs, so I just pulled a Lockhart - Pomphry will mix it for me, I'm sure."

He nodded dumbly. "But will you listen to me, Harry? They can't keep me from flying, they can't! You won't let them, will you?"

She caught his gaze and he frowned. "I - well - yes, all right," he finally muttered, seeing her eyes well up with tears again.

She beamed brilliantly. "Fantastic! Can you give me a ride back? Damned hard to walk."

"Ginny!"

Ginny's Mum threw her arms around her tightly. "Oh my little baby girl, I was so afraid, I'd thought You-Know-Who had gotten you, I thought you were a gonner - oh, Ginny! I love you so much don't you ever frighten me like that again! What were you thinking? What were you doing? If you ever do anything like that again, you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Oops'!"

Ginny winced. "One 'o' or two?" She muttered before carefully returning her mother's hug. "I'm sorry, I just had an accident with my wand..." she motioned to her leg.

"GINEVRA WEASLEY - WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN UP TO?"

Ginny sighed. "Now, Mum, please don't get mad or do anything rash, because it was an accident."

Her mother eyed her suspiciously. "See, I was flying, and I swirved to avoid a bird, lost control and crashed. I passed out, woke up and realized my leg was broken, panicked, and passed out again. Wope up for the second time, found my wand and crawled over to it, and made my leg lose its bones so I could come back here."

She whimpered. Molly's face softened. "Shh...is your leg all right? Besides not having any bones, that is."

Ginny nodded. "My leg? Oh - whatever - it's fine - it's my broom, Mum! It's ruined! splintered all the way down the middle, broken up in bits - my poor, poor broom!"

And then, Ginevra Weasley burst into tears and let out a stream of curses that would have done Sirius proud.

She woke up three hours later, swearing as she made her way back into the land of the living. "Passing out four bloody times in three days, what an effing pansy I am - stupid enough to kill my broom..."

A low chuckle came from her side. "You know, with the expansive vocabulary you showed yesterday, you never once said 'bloody' or 'effing'. I applaud you for not repeating yourself once in the rant."

She turned to glare at the bright, laughing green eyes. "My leg hurts," she said, pointedly ignoring the comment about her vocabulary. "I made it not hurt and now it hurts again. Why is that?"

"Skelegrow."

"Ah. And which language did I swear in yesterday?"

"Several. Seventeen, at least. Never repeated yourself once - impressive."

"Oh, no - not English?"

"English."

"Mum's going to kill me."

"You're dead."

Inspite of herself, and the pain, and the fear of her mother's wrath, Ginny chuckled. Harry grinned in return. "So do you think I might wheedle my way out of it if I plead excruciating pain?"

Harry arched an eyebrow. "One can never know with you," he commented, shaking his head with a wry laugh. "I can, however, assure you that right now Fred, George, Ron, Bill, and Charlie are forming what they are calling the Ginny Is The Wickedly Awesomest Mouthoff-er Of All - or the GITWAMOA, as Ron says - Club, and they promise to stand between you and your Mum, purely out of respect for your expansive vocabulary."

Ginny laughed. "Shut up, you. Mum would bowl them over with her pinkie."

Harry chuckled. "You know what you are, Ginny Weasley?"

"Brilliant? Wild? Beautiful? Perfect? Intense? Hilarious? Quirky? Lovable? Adorable? Seductive? Tempting? Intelligent? Help me out here, Harry, I'm running out of adjectives."

He rolled he eyes. "Well, I was going to say amazing, but those work, too."

She blinked at him. "I'm sorry - what?"

"Er, I said, 'those work, too'?"

"No, before that."

"Uhm. 'I was going to say amazing'?"

She fought a smirk and her mind transported back to when she was eleven. She pictured herself sitting in a Hospital Wing bed and Harry Potter telling her she was amazing. She chewed her lip, trying to keep from laughing.

On the bright side, she supposed, Harry was still intensely cute. (Ginny didn't think he'd ever get passed 'cute', but he was so unbelievably cute that it just made you want to hug him and pinch his cheek and then snog him out of his mind.) She smiled at him. "I guess that about sums it up, yeah," she replied, winking at him.

Harry shook his head wryly. "The funniest thing about the whole situation was that you got rid of the bones in your leg, no problem, but started crying over your broom."

Ginny was scandalized. "Harry! You know how important brooms are! And besides, there's no way I can afford a new one. I was going to ask for an update for my birthday, but Mum will go spare if I ask for one now." She sighed, and her lips trembled.

Panicked, Harry grabbed her hand. "Hey - hey! Don't cry!" She sniffed, unable to help it.

Her poor, poor broom...

"Oh, Harry!" She wailed, and flung herself into his chest. He awkwardly loosed his hand from hers and wrapped his arms around her, making soft 'shhhh' sounds. She sniffled into his chest and felt it vibrate. Once, twice... "Harry, are you laughing?"

He pulled away, trying and failing to stop. "Ginny, it's just - Cho would go spare all the time over the simplest little things, and you know Hermione gets over emotional, too, and - well. You know how it is. It's just, I've never seen you cry before, except in the Chamber and - well, that was to be expected. And now you're sobbing your heart out over your broom."

He grinned widely. "It's just so . . . you."

She blushed, and then hated herself for it. "Uhm. Thanks?" He chuckled and shrugged. "Harry, you're confusing me. I'm not sure if that was a compliment or not. Besides, why are you here?"

She wanted to smack herself afterwards, of course, but at the time it seemed like a perfectly reasonable question.

"What do you mean, 'Why am I here'? Friends generally join friends when one is indisposed."

She winced. "I just didn't think that...I mean, you re-grew your bones when you were only twelve, and no one stayed by your bedside."

His face cleared and he laughed. "Exactly."

Which made no sense at all to Ginny, but she was a patient girl. She leaned back into the pillows. "All right, it's time for us to have a nice, long chat, Harry," she said solemnly. "So. I'm going to ask you something and you have to answer me. And promise not to laugh."

He quirked an eyebrow. She took a deep breath. This is it... "Harry, will you be my brother's friend's friend's uncle's cousin's sister's daughter's neice's nephew?"

She grinned as he blinked. "Erm. Yes?"

With a somber nod, and took his hand eagerly. "You promise? Because I really want this, Harry. Really badly. I want you to be my brother's friend's friend's uncle's cousin's sister's daughter's neice's nephew."

"Ginny, I am so confused right now. So confused."

She smirked. "Good. Now, your turn."

Harry stared at her for a moment, befuddled, and then shook his head. "Uhm . . . will you be my . . . erm . . . girl . . .?"

Ginny's jaw dropped. "What?"

The corners of his mouth twitched. "I said, 'Will you be my girl...'"

"You're girl? You want me to be your girl?"

And then he lost it. Ginny was surprised he could still talk for laughing. "Well, if you'd let me finish, I would tell you that I meant, 'Will you be my girl-advisor'."

It was funny, Ginny thought. He could make her heart do the strangest things. And suddenly she found herself fighting a blush and she felt eleven and it annoyed her beyond belief.

So she did the only thing she could have done, really, at a time like that.

"Of course I will be," she said smoothly. "But I need you to be my boy-advisor."

He grinned his agreement. "So, Miss Advisor, Ma'am," he began solemnly, "there's this girl, right? And she's really, really attractive. I mean, it's hard to think straight around her. But the thing is, I think she's done with me."

Damn Cho. Damn Cho. Damn Cho. "Oh?"

"Yep. And she's really clever, too. She's brilliant, wild, beautiful, perfect, intense, hilarious, quirky, lovable, adorable, seductive, tempting, intelligent... help me out here, Ginny, I'm running out of adjectives."

Damn Cho. Damn Cho. Damn Cho. She forced herself to grit out, "You've got me beat, Harry."

His lips were twitching. "And it's really sad, because she's been crying so much lately..."

Damn Cho. Damn Cho. Damn Cho. "It's always the perfect ones, isn't it?"

"Yes - yes, it rather is. But anyway. I figured out a way to get her to stop crying, and I think it will make her happy, but I don't want her to think I'm buying her out or anything, you know?"

Damn Cho. Damn Cho. Damn Cho. "Sure I do. 'Course I do."

"Right. So. I really don't know what to do about this. I mean, it's serious indecision. And I'm thinking - do I proclaim my undying love first - " Damn Cho. Damn Cho. Damn Cho - "Or do I give her the broom first?"

Broom? BROOM? Damn Cho! Damn Cho! DAMN CHO! "Broom," she said weakly. "Definitely the broom. Just to make her happy before you start, you know?"

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "All right. If you say so."

They sat in silence, and Ginny prayed that he would go away so she could begin swearing and cursing Cho sodding Chang to the deepest depths of hell. And then she felt Harry press something into her hands.

She looked down in surprise.

Her fingers were curled around . . .

Around . . .

A broomstick. A new, state-of-the-art, beautiful broomstick.

A Firebolt.

Her jaw dropped.

Her eyes watered.

Her heart felt like it was hammering out of her chest.

Her hair fell over her eyes. "H-Harry . . ." she began shakily, "I don't - "

But it's hard to speak when someone else's lips are covering your own. So she settled for kissing him back until he pulled away, his eyes twinkling. "I'm rubbish at expressing my feelings - so I hope that was clear?"

"Crystal," she gasped out weakly.

He grinned. "Good." Then, suddenly, everything he had just done seemed to catch up with him because he flopped back into his chair, flushed red, and mumbled, "Even if you don't - erm - return that sort of - feeling - you can still keep the broom."

She laughed. "Jolly good of you, Harry, but it won't be a problem."

He beamed at her, and bent down again. And, as Ginny slowly slid off into oblivion, her last thought was -

Thank Merlin for broom accidents, but poor Cho. Poor Cho. Poor, poor Cho.