A Visit to St. Mungo's
"A sallow-skinned, mournful-looking wizard lay in the bed opposite, staring at the ceiling; he was mumbling to himself and seemed quite unaware of anything around him..."(Order of the Phoenix, pg 511)
The year is 2002:
I did not want to go. I did not need to go - he probably wouldn't see me, notice me, comprehend my existance. But I took the day off; I bought the card; and made my way to downtown London.
I don't know why I kept the appointment --once in Christmas and once in July. He had never done anything for me, except teach me for seven years. I straightened my skirt - a long, sleek green which almost went down to the floor.
I looked to the left and right before I leaned up to the window of the deserted building. I always felt a bit stupid, whispering my name and purpose to a window--what if a Muggle saw me and questioned my sanity? My fears are displaced though when I lean into the enchanted glass and arrive at the hospital.
The entry hall never changes -- it is full of wizards trying and suffering from all sorts of maladies. As I get in a line out of tradition, I wonder how the project at work is progression. I wonder too, what I should have for dinner -- maybe spagetti; I'll have to buy sauce -
-The line moves up -
Or chicken - I might have some chicken left, but I don't each chicken without mashed potatoes -
-The line moves again -
Or a salad - I haven't had a nice salad in a while-
"Next!"
I move up and it is the same witch who has been here for the past three years. She had become as familiar a person as my barber, or my apocothery supplyist. Such people don't form an important part of one's life, but instead brings a little bit of familiarity to the prcess of living.
She looked up at me, and her harsh face softened to one of pity - understanding.
"Today is..."
"Yes," I said, finishing the unspoken thought.
She merely turned her head to the clipboard. "He's in the same place," she said, and I could tell that she was treating the subject delicately, as she always did.
"Thank you," I muttered, as I walked past her to an elevator.
It was indeed a sensitive subject, the reasons for my visits. I was the only visitor he ever had -- I didn't know whether his mind would note my visits; whether within his mind he registered my visits as dedication, or pity.
I only wait the specific amount of time -- I no longer needed to hear the announcement for the floor -- I ignored the people who came in and got off -- I tried to rid my mind of all emotion -- and stepped off when the elevator reached the fourth floor:
(Unfixable jinxes, hexes, hexes, and incorrectly applied charms, ect.)
Compared to other floors, this one is very quiet except for the tap tap of a Healer's walk.
It is like walking into the house of Death, I recall, and I make the same gesture of pulling a shawl or a cloak around me. Death in body might chill the body to the touch, but death in mind chills the soul.
Every time I walk down a hall, then take a right, following the well-known route. Every time I traverse these halls I recall something I learned in my 7th year -- the power of the Dementor's Kiss.
The Kiss- the horrible parody of love - it sucks out the soul and leaves the body as a cold shell. Even then, at the age of eighteen, it scared me; now, a few years later, it still sends chills down my spine as I walk closer and closer to the Closed Ward.
He wasn't Kissed, of course- though that was my first thought when I heard the news. Instead, the Healer in charge told me outside the ward, after I had first glimpsed his state.
"Well, we don't know much," she had said in a whisper, though no one was around. "From what we gather from Harry Potter, he was fighting You-Know-Who, and somehow he was hit with 2 Legilmens at once. He was the most talented Occlumens in a long time, but the force of all of those spells was too much and he - broke."
Broke. His mind literally snapped in two. Or shattered into little tiny pieces. That was five years ago- Voldemort had been dead and destroyed for that long. And he has layed in the same room for five years....
I notice now I have left the wards of those who might have a chance, and now enter the halls of those who are worse than dead - they have fractured souls, fractured minds. I grasped the card tighter in my hand and I faced the final doors.
Someone screams - from real pain or phantasms of the imagination, I don't know. I see a few Healers stream toward the sound. I never get used to it.
I approached the double doors and out comes the Healer in charge of the ward. She comes toward me, another familiar face, this one though not welcomed.
"Oh, hello. Nice to see you again."
She shakes my hand.
"How is he doing?"
"He's still here, " she says, looking wistfully into the windows of the ward. "He has been showing more energy these past few days - getting up, walking around, even trying to mix a potion in his chamber pot."
I sighed deeply. "Can I see him?"
"Sure, sure..." She went to the doors and opened them, and I followed.
It is always worse beyond my wildest dreams here - because though many of them slept in apparent slumber, or worked on something, they lived in their own reality - pecieved their own rules...or either didn't live at all.
I walked down the rows and cannot help but feel pity - they have disconnected with reality- they had "lost their minds..."
"Oh, don't call them that!" she had said, and I am embarassed. "They still have their minds, they just need....recalibration." She looked at the figure, who mutters to himself. "And we have to hope that one day they will regain their sense of reality..."
She looked sadly at the man, then we both walked away.
I am surprised as I smile at each of the patients
(inmates)
and one of them looked at me with recongnition.
He lifted his head form his pillow, and I saw that his eyes got bigger and his mouth had opened in surprise. He extends a long arm, weakened by bed rest, but nonetheless the arm of what was once a pampered man-and smiled.
"Hey! I know you! I know you!"
The Healer turned toward him; the patient now wearing a look of bliss - as if he had just discovered the location of heaven.
"You remember Miss McGovern, do you, Gilderoy?"
"Yes -yes! You -you visited here last Christmas!"
I had to blush in astonishment. "Why, yes I did."
"And you took one of my autographs! You did - you did - I remember!"
"I did, Gilderoy."
The Healer went to Gilderoy, who was smiling contently.
"This is wonderful, Gilderoy!" - then to me, in a hurried whisper -
"He hasn't remembered anything for a long time now - you must have made an impact on him."
"I guess so." I smiled at Gilderoy - a smile that meant nothing, and he sat in complete bliss, humming.
Suddenly he turned very serious-
"You still have it - right? My picture?"
"Of course, Gilderoy." I wasn't going to lie to him.
"She kept it!" Now he was jumping up and down on the bed, clapping his hands.
"She kept it, she kept it, she kept it, she kept it..."
I was almost amused by this grown man's antics.
"Now, Gilderoy, drink this- Miss McGovern had another patient to visit-"
"But she'll come back and visit me, right?"
I turned to him.
"Of course I will," I said. He merely giggled like a schoolgirl, took a swallow of the draught, and was asleep.
When the Healer had gently set down the bottle, and covered Gilderoy, she came back to me.
"Really, I'm glad for his improvement - but he'll have to sleep a bit. You worked him up so much, and he's probably so eager to get visitors. He doesn't get many, you know."
She started walking to the purpose I was here. I took one last look at the slumbering Gilderoy: so peaceful curled in his sheets, thumb in his mouth.
He's a baby, I think. They're all babies...
We walk down the row - back to the very back of the wing. Back where --- he is.
"Oh, he's done it again," the Healer says, in an almost tired voice, and hurries to the person I'm visiting. He is dressed in the same gown the others wear - and each time I see it I am taken aback, because its not his usual black...
Today he is lying on his back, arms out at right angles to his body. His forearms hang limp over the side of the bed, slightly blue, but still the same pale yellow I'd always known them to be. He is staring at the ceiling, dark pupils unfocused, staring at nothing, staring at the images playing before his eyes.
I sigh, give one look to the Healer, and she starts walking toward the door -- she knows what I will say and do -- it is the same speech from time to time.
"Professor," I say quietly.
No response. It's scary how dead he looks, eyes devoid of all their previous intelligence.
"Professor?" I asked, a little louder. He does not move, however, and I wonder if he's finally done his body a favor and gone to the other side.
"Professor - I brought you a card." I wave the card in front of his eyes, still frozen it seems, down to the feet, which longed to be exposed in their own beautiful way, breathing under madness when reason would surely had hidden them.
I place my card on the table beside the bed, and I see that the others have not been touched. Many of them still reside where I originally put them -- the dust simply falling around these shapes, leaving a mere 'V' formed by the falling dust of time.
I wonder why I come anymore.
I stood there a moment, looking at the pitiful excuse of a man, remembering what a strong disiplinarian he was in the the classroom.
Having fufilled my duty, I mutter, "I'll see you again, Professor," and start heading for the door. It isn't until my back is turned and I am on my way out when I hear the noise.
"Wait."
I stopped and turned toward the Professor. He has turned his head in my direction. His voice is soft, broken, it is the voice of an old man, or one hardly used.
He looked at me with such pleading eyes that I could not resist.
"Yes, sir?"
He muttered something that I could not hear. I came over and bent down onto my knees. In those eyes, in that face, once carved by sterness and duty, dedication and sacrifice, now had the vunerablility of a newborn child.
"Professor? What do you need?"
I looked into those eyes, not fearing their power to percieve, to burn to the core of the soul, as they'd done so many years ago, but to search for a spark of the intelligence that I once admired and feared.
But there was none. Instead I see eyes gazing upon some inner world - his mouth too, completed the illusion, opened slightly as if it couldn't close. I merely kneeled there, waiting for some sign of life - some saying - anything - from the man I emulated.
"Professor, is there anything you want to say?"
I brushed a vagrent lock of hair away from his face - expecting a reprimand, wanting a reprimand. Instead he layed there, still looking at me, merely existing....
I knew this was futile - I had been coming here for 5 years - he never spoke to me - but...
I grabbed the cold dead hand hanging from the bedside. I felt a little qualm - knowing that when he was
(alive)
(sane)
he would never had allowed anyone, much less his students, to hold his hand in the almost affectionate way I held his then. It was like holding the hand of a corpse.
He muttered something, barely moving his mouth.
I got strangely...excited.
"I still can't hear you sir." I said. For some reason I started to vigerously rub his fingers, feeling the joints of the individual fingers one by one.
He brought his lips together with effort, and I could see the amount of concentration it was taking for him to merely do that. When he spoke, it was with an effort, a hearty effort just to be understood---
"I..................saved................Pot-ter."
I felt both extremely excited and sad beyond belief. If he knew what he had become...
I felt a tear start to form as I grabbed his hand with both of my hands.
"Harry Potter, sir?"
He took a deep breath, and I could see his weak chest rise before speaking again.
"Yessssss........." He let out the 's' in a long hissing sound, and I could not but help notice how horribly fitting that was. I felt something- then I realized he was trying to squeeze my hand. I quickly blinked away another tear as I squeezed back, and smiled. For a second I thought I saw him smile- but it could have been a twitch of the mouth.
Wanting to continue the conversation, I asked him eagerly-
"From...him?"
"Him......" he muttered, and suddenly those eyes were full of some unknown terror that existed only for him. I let go of his hand as I saw his back arch in some hidden pain, eyes sealed shut, face contorted in horror...
I jumped to my feet to tell the Healer, but she was already scuttling to my spot, a potion in hand.
To our relief though, he lowered himself, eased the pain and reverted back to the vegatative state he was before - looking directly at the ceiling.
"He said something." I whisper, as if he was merely sleeping peacefully.
"Really?"
"Yes... he said that he saved Potter."
"He did?" We looked toward him.
"He's never admitted he had something to do with...that."
We looked at the figure, laying as though he was merely a statue, never alive, never thinking, merely carved from stone.
I bent over to his ear, and whispered:
"Goodbye, Professor Snape."
I stood up, turned my back, and left the ward.
He was gone again, for how long I don't know. But for a split second I saw the intelligence he once was - juxtaposed horribly to the figure he had become.
When I got out of St. Mungo's, I went home and cried. I could no longer empty my mind of emotion -- and being alone in my house, I had no reason to.
Email me at mssnape_34@yahoo.com with comments and critiques. What part made you shudder? What part (if any) made you laugh because it was so inconcievable? Any feedback is appreciated.
BTW: The way Snape lies in bed is taken from Les Miserables- specifically when Jean Valjean is torn between turning himself in to save Flaucherbert (due to a mistaken identity), or his new-found freedom of another identity. I don't know why I made the connection of Jean Valjean to Snape...but the image of Valjean laying in bed, almost like a crucified Christ was shocking...and for some reason I find it works perfectly here.
The stone reference is an allusion to A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I don't know why, but it had to be done.