Hello everybody! This is my first attempt to translate one of my own stories into english. No, english is not my native language, so I don´t have anybody reading beta for me, please forgive me my mistakes.
The Last Christmas
By Auriane Aldarieen
Severus Snape did not even flinch when the door to the lab was torn open and two men, wearing the same lab coat as he was wearing, stormed into the room.
With relaxed routine, he put the tissue sample in the prepared Petri dish. Well sealed and labeled, marked as belonging together, he stacked them with the others and put them in the warming cabinet.
A brief temperature check, then he turned his attention to the arrivals, who were now sitting around a new medical record and had a lively discussion.
Their behavior seemed to be about an interesting case.
On the other hand ...
If he thought it over, much more likely it was a boring case.
Mayby one from the (even more interesting!) new Lady doctor who worked only for a few weeks in the hospital.
So, only interesting for the two lab rats at the front of the table. For him, this topic had died years ago. Literally...
He had left everything behind ... A new name, new country, new life ...
"Hey! Simon, come here, we will not be able to work out that alone! "
Simon Snape.
That's what they called him here. He had kept the surname because he was inconspicuous enough for a British in the States. However, he had left the Severus behind. On the one hand, because this name, even among American Muggles, was much too obvious and on the other hand, he had somehow symbolically wanted to conclude with his old life.
The risk of actually being recognized by the name was low, but not impossible.
So he had played safe.
He became a Simon, having kept his old initials. He had always secretly liked having the same initials as the founder of the Slytherin house. This, actually frightening sentimentality towards another life, he skilfully ignored. He was good at that.
He was British after all...
With the firm conviction that something incredibly "exciting" awaited him, such as a long list with names for paternity tests, he approached his colleagues only slowly.
Richard and Bob were leafing through the file busily.
"What is it?" He asked softly in the tone that used to crawl under the skin of his students.
Bob just looked at him casually and Richard did not even look up from his hand. The two of them now knew him too long, yet too little of him to be intimidated.
His reputation among the students, the suspicion that he was a Death Eater, and the fact that he was a damn fine, even dangerous wizard, had been quite enough for the little naggers, along with a thriving imagination, to adequately intimidate them.
The two lab technicians knew him only as the boring Englishman, who seemed to have little privacy, only had his job in mind and would prefer to administer coffee intravenously.
Bob read the ambulance report.
"Patient female, between 60 and 70 years old, unconscious. Identity unclear. Fainted at a bus stop. A passer-by called the rescue service. "
Snape did not move. Circulatory problems were the simplest explanation and not uncommon in view of age.
But Bob was not done yet.
"Her blood pressure and blood sugar were normal and otherwise the old lady actually seems to be in amazing shape. The paramedics even said that this was the most obvious and they wished to be even more fit at that age ...
Apart from the fact that she has lost consciousness for unexplained reasons and is now in a hospital bed, "he continued.
Richard tugged at his well-groomed dark beard. A clear sign that he was seriously interested in the patient's problem.
"Even when you're over 70, you do not get knocked out in the middle of the road without reason," he murmured softly.
Snape glanced over Bob's shoulder at the file, but there was not more than the meager data of the paramedics.
"Anything else? It´s not that much ... "
This time, the red-haired Bob responded, with a strand of his half-length mane falling down his forehead.
Robert Simmons sometimes reminded Severus of the Weasley gang. Occasionally, even so much, that he wondered if the pure-blooded Weasleys did not have a Muggle branch in the family.
"When Cameron handed me the file, the old lady just regained consciousness, but mumbled quite a lot of nonsense. Since the situation seems to be not life threatening, they let her sleep first. If we get to grips with it, we will be able to finish the tests early.
"Mumbled nonsense ... Alzheimer's? If it is dementing you should also allergies and poisoning test."
Richard and Bob nodded.
"Yes, House also ordered. Cardiac syncope was, by the examination of the paramedics and Dr. Foreman already almost excluded. Cameron is supposed to make a decent medical history as soon as possible and Dr. Chase has an order to check whether somewhere a sprightly, but senile old lady has gone lost ... "at the last words, the two laboratory technicians grinned amused.
Just as Snape was about to look at the list of required blood tests, the door opened again and Dr. Cameron came in with a slightly embarrassed expression.
All eyes were on her expectantly, but she just shrugged.
"She actually seems pretty confused. I had to give her some reassurance because she wanted to get up and leave the hospital. Scolded like a scapegoat about something that sounded like muggles and desperately wanted to know where her belongings are ... "
That Cameron, due to the accent, concluded the patient probably came from Scotland, Severus heard just so, while he already by the word "Muggles" had literally jumped up and left without further comment or explanation the room.
For less than six years he was considered dead in the magical society of the United Kingdoms.
Four years ago, it had taken him to the States. Into Muggle America. He had no contact with Wizarding Society here, because of his Abstinence from magic, but he knew for sure that non-magicians were called Muggles only in Europe.
A seemingly sprightly 70-year-old Scottish-accented woman, scolding over Muggle, here at the Princeton Plainboro Teaching Hospital?
Minerva.
Of course, this was certainly not the case.
What reason would Prof. Minerva McGonagall, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Magic and Witchcraft, have to wait for a bus, during the school year, mid-week, just before Christmas, in America, just here in Princeton?
Christmas shopping ?! Pretty unlikely ...
In the first shock he had stormed out of the lab, but now in the elevator, on the way to the hospital rooms, the shock lessen now and he began to think rational again.
The likelihood that Minerva McGonagall had been brought in here seemed to him to be less and less, as he considered it more closely. Actually, the idea was even laughable!
Though...
An uneasy feeling had settled in his stomach and did not want to go away anymore.
The elevator door opened and he entered the floor with the sickrooms. Since she is a patient of Dr. House, she would be in one of the two rooms available to the diagnostician.
He looked around quickly. He rarely came to this part of the hospital. His workplace was the lab, and since he did not really have any social contacts, he was also a rather rare guest in the break and social rooms.
Slowly he walked down the hall. Past the office of House, to the first of the two sickrooms. Even from a distance it was obvious that this room was not occupied.
He stopped for a moment, wondering if the vague suspicion was not just a figment of the imagination.
Already he wanted to turn away and let the matter be good, but the uneasy feeling does not let go.
So he continued on his way.
However, he did not have to go far. Already at the next room he found what he was looking for.
The sight that presented himself, was not what he´d expected.
Through the fissures of the slat curtain, the patient was quite recognizable, but he still almost did not recognize her.
Not that she looked particularly ill. No, with a relatively healthy complexion on her face and deep, regular breaths, she slept, exhausted from ranting, but chiefly because of the tranquilizer that her dr. Cameron had missed.
He stood motionless in front of the glass and stared at the picture that showed itself to him.
She looked small, dainty, almost fragile. The hair, spread out openly on the pillow, was still quite dark, but slowly the gray seemed to gain the upper hand.
The relaxed facial features were permeated with deep wrinkles.
In a heated debate he'd once compared her to a shriveled apple ... At the memory, the corner of his mouth twitched with amusement and wistfulness.
She was just a shadow of the woman she had once been.
Lost and helpless, she looked. Not like the staunch witch that had sovereignty over hordes of teenagers and more than once verbally defied him.
Deep in thought he leaned against the frame of the window. How long, he could not say afterwards. But at some point, he had not noticed that she had woken up, he felt her calm eyes on himself.
She looked directly at him.
No emotion in her face told, if she had recognized him or not.
He wrestled with deciding whether he should turn away, but the decision was taken from him when he realized after a few moments that her eyes were stinging and relentless. It was clear to him now that she knew exactly who was standing in front of her room. However, she did not seem to be too surprised to see him here, or that he was alive at all.
With a short but clear head movement she finally asked him to come in.
Slowly and hesitantly he pushed away from the wall and quietly entered the room.
Carefully, he closed the door behind him. Incidentally, he drew slat curtains, so that you couldn´t see anything from the hospital corridor.
He did not really know what to expect. Neither of them did not say a word of greeting to each other, but they did not take their eyes off each other. After he had pulled a chair by her bed and sat down, he still started to speak first.
"What, in Merlin's name, takes you to an American Muggle hospital?"
At first, she just kept quiet. When she finally started to speak, he found that her voice had changed the least.
A little hoarse though, the tone was pretty much the way he remembered it.
"That's what you're asking me, is not it?" She finally snorted, trying to straighten herself up in bed, which she did not immediately succeed.
She did not seem to expect any help from him and he would not have offered it. No matter how tired and exhausted Minerva McGonagall was, her pride and Scottish stubbornness alone would help her get up.
However, it took unexpected and frighteningly long.
When she was finally satisfied with her position, her piercing gaze fell on him again.
"Now? Perhaps you have something to tell me, Severus Snape? "
Although he had asked his question first, he realized that in the circumstances, it was probably his turn to answer first.
But that did not mean that he liked it. So, the words came a little harsh and quite defensive, which irritated him a bit.
"What do you expect me now that I say? Yes, I survived surprisingly the whole drama. The how, is a long story that you do not really want to hear, believe me. All I'm saying is that Dumbledore and I, did not have much in common except that we were both loved to be prepared for all eventualities..."
"Looks like ..." she replied dryly, then fell silent again.
Surprisingly, she did not seem to want to pursue the topic any further.
"Why are you lying in this hospital room, Minerva? Why are you in America? "
The questions hung expectantly in the air.
Her sight had frightened him more than he wanted to admit. She had aged much more than the 6 years that had actually passed.
The relationship they had with each other had never been easy to define. At least not from the time he started teaching at Hogwarts.
They had not been friends or enemies to each other. Due to the house rivalries, there were of course friction and one or the other dispute. However, this had never gone to the personal level. By working in the Order, they knew the abilities of the other pretty well and also respected it appropriately.
They were most likely something like a reliable constant to each other. You knew what you had and what was to expected.
Not more, not less.
At least he had always thought so.
But now that he had her back after a rather long time, he had to admit, at least to himself, that he had missed her very much.