Warning - this chapter contains detailed descriptions of illness and medical treatments. Reader discretion is advised.

Before beginning the procedure, Draconius gave her husband a pain relieving potion that was the wizarding world equivalent of a local anesthetic.

"This will help dull the pain and numb the back of your throat. You need to gargle with that before I can begin. And believe me, Scabior, you're going to want to use that. Because this procedure can be rather painful."

"Couldn't be any worse than 'ow I already feel," Scabior muttered, accepting the bottle of pale lavender colored potion that she handed him.

"Use it anyway," she told him. "I will not begin treatment until you've taken something to numb your throat."

Scabior hesitated, looking at the bottle of lavender liquid in his hand. "You couldn't just give me this an something for the infection, could you?" he asked, straining his voice to speak.

His efforts to speak caused a searing pain to burn through the back of his throat. A few seconds later he was thrown into a sudden coughing fit, with pain knifing through his insides like jagged shards of broken glass.

"Scabior." Draconius folded her arms across her chest. Her patience with him was wearing thin. "Would you rather I knock you out with a sleeping potion, then remove your tonsils so you won't have to deal with this again?"

For a second Scabior's heart seemed to still in his chest. His eyes, which were now watering from the amount of pain he was in, grew as wide as dinner plates. He knew when she took that tone with him that she wasn't playing around.

"No," he rasped, barely able to speak. He held his burning throat and shook his head. "No, tha's fine. I'll use this."

His wife sighed and rolled her eyes. If he wasn't a sight, trying to talk his way out of having an operation when he could barely talk at all.

He uncorked the potion bottle, raising it to his lips and taking a sip. It tasted foul, like bubblegum and rotted fruit. Scabior put a hand over his mouth, fighting the urge to spit out the foul tasting concoction.

"You need more than that, Scabior," said Draconius. "And you need to rinse your throat with that potion a couple times before I can begin. Just using it once won't be enough to anesthetize the area."

It was at this point that he realized that none of this was going to be easy. The potion tasted terrible. And what followed certainly wasn't going to be a pleasant experience.

He reluctantly took a bigger sip of the potion and gargled with it, spitting the mixture out into a bucket his wife had placed beside the bed.

While he was preoccupied with this task, Draconius laid a towel across his pillow. And once he was finished gargling with the potion, his wife told him to lie down on his right side with his head resting on the towel.

Scabior lay down on his side, mentally preparing himself for what would happen next. His throat and jaw still hurt when he opened his mouth, though not quite as much since using the potion. It had been just enough to take the edge off some of his discomfort.

"Hold still, Scabior," said Draconius as she knelt down in front of him. "This will all be over in a few minutes."

Draconius relit the tip of her wand, letting the bright beam of light shine directly onto Scabior's throat. She took a moment to inspect the swollen mass beside his right tonsil. She then used a cutting hex to carefully make an incision in the abscess.

A thick, muffled cry of pain escaped Scabior's lips. The next thing he knew Scabior felt a warm gush of thick fluid oozing from the incision in his throat. The taste was so unimaginably putrid that he gagged, retching as pus and blood spilled out onto the towel beneath him.

Rolling over onto his belly and raising himself up several inches off the mattress, Scabior felt his stomach heave as he coughed and spit out a mouthful of the purulent matter that was still draining from the abscess. His throat felt like it was on fire with pain. And as the contractions in his stomach intensified, he vomited greenish watery bile onto the towel beneath him.

His wife tried her best to comfort him, rubbing his back and speaking softly as he continued to retch and vomit. She hated seeing him like this and wished she could do more to help ease his suffering. But aside from talking him through this, there was little she could do.

"You're alright, Scabior," she said, speaking gently as she tried to ease him through his pain. "That's it. Spit everything out. You're doing fine, honey."

With sweat dripping from his fevered brow and bloody pus dripping from his lips, Scabior collapsed onto his side, his entire body shaking with feverish chills as the last ounces of pus drained out onto the thick towel. Moments later he felt a damp washcloth brush against his cheek. He looked up at his wife, a low moan escaping his lips as she dabbed at a streak of blood on the side of his face.

"Shh, don't talk, sweetie," Draconius said. "You're alright. I just need to clean you up a bit."

"It 'urts..." Scabior whimpered. His eyes were bright with unshed tears, and there was blood running from the corner of his mouth as he spoke. "You said...you said the potion would numb my throat..."

"I said it would help dull the pain. I didn't say you wouldn't feel anything. The potion numbs the area enough that I can work on you without causing too much pain. But some pain is still felt during and after the procedure."

Draconius could have sworn she heard a faint sob, just moments before Scabior coughed and vomited a mixture of blood and watery bile onto the towel that was draped across his pillow.

Never in his life had he felt so low, so utterly wretched and miserable. He felt horrible beyond belief. And as illness and exhaustion finally began to overtake his tired body, Scabior's eyes closed as he began to drift off to sleep.

Draconius let her husband rest for a few minutes before making sure he hadn't fallen asleep on her. She knew he'd been through a lot, and wanted to give him a minute to recover before moving on to the next step in his treatment.

"Scabior," he heard his wife say as she gently nudged his shoulder. "Don't fall asleep just yet, sweetie. I know this must be an awful experience for you. But there's still more we have to do before you can rest."

Scabior moaned softly, his lashes lifting to reveal tired grey-blue eyes. He was completely spent. What else could there be left to do?

His wife slid the soiled towel out from under him, and promptly cast a cleansing charm on it to remove the foul substances that covered its surface. She then gently coaxed him into opening his mouth again, telling him that she needed to check the bleeding in his throat.

When his wife had finished her brief examination, she went to the medicine chest where she kept her potions. Scabior meanwhile had leaned over the side of the bed, and was trying to reach the box of tissues on the nightstand.

He groped around for a few seconds until he was able to reach the tissue box on the bottom shelf of the nightstand. The bleeding in his throat had slowed considerably, but was still trickling out along with the last of the purulent matter from the abscess.

Draconius removed three potion bottles from one of the compartments in the medicine chest. She brought them over to the bed, where Scabior was spitting blood out into a handful of tissues.

"How are you feeling?" Draconius asked.

"Tired," Scabior whispered hoarsely.

"Can you breathe better now?"

Scabior nodded.

"Good. I was concerned about the inflammation blocking your airway."

She set a bottle of amber colored potion on the nightstand. "In order for you to get better, you're going to have to rinse your throat with this potion. This should be done four times a day for the next three to four to days. You should do this now since the abscess has been opened to clean out the incision."

Scabior watched as she sat two more bottles on the nightstand. Apparently he was going to need a lot of potions in order to recover from this horrid illness.

Drawing on the last ounces of his inner reserves of strength, Scabior managed to slowly ease himself into a sitting position in bed, leaning heavily against the pillows and the headboard. He rinsed his throat with the potion, wincing at the painful sting of the liquid against the open incision in his throat.

"You also need to drink this," said Draconius, handing him a bottle containing a light green potion. This potion was the wizarding world equivalent of an antibiotic to combat Scabior's throat infection. "This will help clear up the infection. It might not be easy to swallow anything right now, but you'll need to take this potion twice a day for the next seven to ten days."

Scabior looked doubtfully at the bottle of pale green potion. His throat didn't hurt as much since the abscess had been drained. But he was still in a lot of pain, and he wasn't sure if he would be able to swallow anything just yet.

"Come on, sweetie," Draconius said, trying to encourage her husband to take the potion. "You can do this. Just take a few small sips."

Raising the bottle to his lips, Scabior took a small sip of the potion and managed, after two or three tries, to swallow the soothing green liquid. The potion coated the inflamed areas of his throat and felt good against the sore, sensitive tissues. He took a few more sips of the potion until his wife was satisfied that he had drank enough of it.

The last potion, which was a deep sapphire blue color, was a fever reducing potion to help lower Scabior's temperature. This too he managed to drink in small sips until he had consumed a full dose of the potion.

Lying back in bed with a tired sigh, Scabior could finally relax and get some rest now that the worst was behind him. His wife covered him with a blanket and placed a cool washcloth on his forehead.

"Rest, Scabior," she said. "Your throat is going to be very sore for the next few days. But given enough time and proper care you'll start to feel better soon. For now you should get some sleep."

As tired as he was it would not take long for Scabior to fall asleep. He closed his eyes, and within a few minutes he was sound asleep.