Administering potions intravenously in the wizarding world wasn't like in the muggle world where needles, tubes and plastic bags filled with fluids were used. None of those things existed in the wizarding world. So healers had to invent a different way of administering potions intravenously to their patients.
Draconius began by carefully measuring two different types of anti-infection potions, making sure the dosage amounts were correct before combining them in a large jar on the nightstand.
Scabior was lying in bed, propped up on a mound of pillows, watching as his wife took a bottle containing a thin, clear fluid and poured some of it onto a cottonball. She instructed him to position his left arm so that his palm was facing up. He complied with her request, and Draconius began dabbing the moist cottonball on his wrist.
"I'm surprised you can do this, Scabior," she said, rubbing the clear fluid into his skin. "There are a lot of people who can't stomach this kind of treatment. I've had more patients refuse this than I've had patients who are afraid of leeches."
"Thanks, I needed tha," Scabior replied, his tone laced with sarcasm.
Draconius held Scabior's forearm, her wand positioned a few inches above his wrist. "Hold still, Scabior. This is going to hurt, but you'll only feel it for a minute. And whatever you do, don't move."
A sharp hiss of pain escaped his lips as his wife used a cutting hex to make an incision in his wrist. She then cast a charm to send the potion from the jar directly into a vein in his wrist.
A thin trickle of the turquoise potion rose from the jar on the nightstand, snaking its way through the air and entering the incision. There was a mild burning sensation as the potion entered his vein through the incision, and Scabior winced and drew back as his wife cleaned the blood off his wrist with a wad of cotton.
"Alright. That's it, Scabior," said Draconius. "Now all we have to do is wait, and hope this is enough to clear up the infection."
She came around to her side of the bed and sat down beside him. "You should get some rest, sweetie. I'll be right here if anything goes wrong."
Scabior said nothing, one hand across his aching belly as he looked at her with eyes full of pain. He didn't know how much more of this he could take.
"You're going to be alright," said Draconius. "I know how strong you are. You can get through this. I know you can."
Scabior sighed wearily. He let his gaze drift towards the ceiling. He'd been through so much tonight. How much longer would this go on? How much longer until he was dead? This illness was surely killing him. Everything about what he felt told him he was dying.
He would have a long fight ahead of him, one that would push him to the limits of his endurance. And before the night was through, Scabior would have to fight for his life as pain and illness threatened to consume him.
This illness would take everything from him, including his pride, dignity and strength. But he'd be damned if he let it take his life.
Scabior closed his eyes. He couldn't stay awake any longer, nor could he fall asleep. Not like this, not with the amount of pain he was in. But he'd try to rest, and hope that it wouldn't be long until he began to feel relief from the stabbing pain in his side.
.oOo.
One long minute passed after the next. One more second, one more drop of anti-infection potion flowing into his veins. Drop by drop, second by second, the night slowly passed.
Scabior slipped into a semiconscious, dreamlike state where everything was dark, and all he was aware of was the pain he was in. Every now and then he would feel his wife's touch, as she wiped the sweat off his face with a damp washcloth, as she checked his pulse and made sure he was still breathing. But her touch felt far away, like something disconnected from his body in another place and time.
His temperature began to rise, and he slipped farther down into a world of pain and darkness, into his own private Hell. His wife didn't like what she was seeing. If she let him slip too far, she might not be able to call him back.
She pointed her wand at his chest, and in a sudden flash it all came rushing back to him, every pain, every sensation, every sense of reality that told him his very existence had been reduced to a burning, agonizing nightmare.
There was a brief pause, just long enough for Scabior to draw breath, before a scream tore from his lungs, and a blinding pain threatened to plunge him back into darkness once more.
"It's alright, Scabior. It's alright... Oh Merlin, look at you."
He clung to his wife, barely hearing her words, unaware of the hot tears that streamed down his cheeks, gasping, struggling to breathe as she placed the palm of her hand against his forehead.
"You can't go on like this, Scabior. Your fever is spiking, and your temperature is way too high. I'm worried that your appendix might burst, so I'm going to have to remove it before things get any worse."
"No," Scabior breathed. "No, please..." He tightened his hold on her, his fingernails digging into her arm.
"It'll be alright, Scabior. It's not what you think. I can operate without opening you up the way muggles do."
He was coming apart in her arms, consumed by fever and fear. He protested her actions, whimpering and moaning as she gently laid him down on his back.
"Scabior, please, listen to me. You said your love for me is greater than your fear, and that you didn't want your fear to keep us apart. If you don't have this operation, you will die. And I don't want your fear to keep us apart either."
Somehow her words managed to penetrate the haze of fever and fear that was clouding his mind. Scabior heard her, and he knew she was right. He couldn't let this take her away from him. He had to keep living, for her, for his daughter. He had too much to live for, and he had to keep fighting for them.
"Will you let me do this?" Draconius asked.
Scabior swallowed hard and nodded. He was ready.
Draconius went over to her medicine chest, and removed a bottle of sleeping draught from one if its compartments. She poured the thick, black liquid into a spoon, and he opened his mouth, allowing her to feed him the potion.
"I think you were right," said Scabior, his voice low and drowsy, his words slurred from the effects of the potion. "You said I'd be the first to know if my appendix ruptured. If tha's wha this is...if this is wha it feels like...then I'm surprised I'm not already dead."
Draconius held his hand in both of hers, feeling him tremble beneath her touch. "You aren't going to die, Scabior. I won't let you. I love you too much to let you go."
Those were the last words he heard before he passed into unconsciousness.
Draconius was silent, gazing down at her husband's still form. He was scarcely breathing, and his skin had turned a sickly shade of pale ashen grey. She blinked her eyes, and tears spilled down her cheeks.
"Scabior..." she whispered.
Perhaps he was closer to death than she realized.
She had to act fast. With tears in her eyes, she pulled the covers back on the bed, folding them over so that only Scabior's legs were covered by the blankets.
"I won't lose you," she said, though he had passed beyond the point where he could still hear her. "I can't. You're not going to leave me."
She eased his pajama bottoms down below his stomach, then pointed her wand at his abdomen. "Ostendo viscus," she said, moving her wand over his abdomen in a straight line from top to bottom.
The skin covering his abdominal organs became transparent, allowing her to see inside his body and view his internal organs.
It didn't take long for her to locate the source of his discomfort. Scabior's appendix was badly inflamed, making it easy for her to find the infected organ that lay nestled between rows of tightly coiled intestines.
She inhaled a deep, calming breath, steadying her hand as she positioned her wand over the lower right side of his abdomen. She had to remain calm and focus on the task at hand.
"Diffindo appendicula," she murmured, swiping her wand through the air over his belly.
The severing charm sliced clean through his appendix, cutting it off at its base without even making an incision in his abdomen.
"Evanesco appedicula."
A second wave of her wand, and the offending organ had vanished, leaving behind a bleeding hole where the organ was once attached to Scabior's intestinal tract.
Draconius moved her wand in a slow, circular motion over the lower right side of his abdomen. "Percuratus," she softly murmured, and within seconds the open wound that marked the place where his appendix had been was magically healed. She then waved her wand one last time, removing the spell that made the skin over his abdomen transparent.
She slumped against the headboard, her body weary from stress and exhaustion, the reality of what she'd done slowly sinking into her mind. Her wand slipped from her fingers, rolling onto the mattress as she turned and looked at her sleeping husband.
It was over. It was finally over, and Scabior was going to be alright. But the reality of it all was almost too much to comprehend. For this wasn't just any patient she had operated on, this was Scabior. This was her husband, the father of her child.
She sat in silence, watching his chest rise and fall with slow, shallow breathing. She may have saved his life, but the infection had taken its toll in him, and he would need time to recover.
Draconius slid his pajama bottoms up over his stomach, then covered him with the blanket, leaving his left arm exposed because he was still receiving intravenous antibiotics. She rechecked his vital signs, noting that his temperature still hovered around 103°. She would have to give him something for his fever once he woke up.
.oOo.
Scabior was asleep for a full twenty minutes before he began to come to. He awoke slowly, blinking and gazing around the room in a groggy haze, not fully aware of himself or his surroundings.
It took him a couple minutes to realize where he was, and that his wife was beside him. He tried to speak, but his speech was garbled due to the effects of the sleeping draught, and most of what he said was muttered nonsense as his eyes closed and he drifted back to sleep.
Scabior dozed off twice before the sleeping draught wore off enough that he could remain awake and alert for more than a few minutes at a time. Once he was awake, his wife gave him a brief checkup, evaluating his overall health and giving him a potion to help lower his fever.
"All things considered, I'd say you're doing well, Scabior," said Draconius. "Now, if I can just get your fever under control everything will be fine."
She dipped a washcloth into a bowl of water and dabbed at his forehead and cheeks, trying to cool him off while she waited for the potion to start working.
Scabior sighed and closed his eyes, the cool water helping to soothe the heat in his feverishly hot skin. He was quiet for several minutes, and for a while Draconius thought he'd fallen asleep again.
"Pet," he murmured, his eyes stil closed as he spoke. "I've been thinking, an I've come to the conclusion tha I shouldn't 'ide from you when I'm ill. From now on I will tell you when I don't feel well, an I will let you care for me when I'm sick."
His wife looked at him in astonishment. Was he being serious? Or was that the fever talking?
"Honey," she said at length, wiping the sweat from his face with the damp washcloth. "Are you aware of what you're saying to me?"
"Yes." He opened his eyes and looked up at her. "I've learned from this experience. I learned tha keeping secrets from you could kill me. An when I said I didn't want my fear to keep us apart, I meant it."
His hand trembled slightly as he reached to touch her face, cupping her cheek as he gazed into her olive green eyes. "I love you, pet," he said. "If letting you care for me is wha it takes, if it keeps me alive, if it keeps me 'ere with you, then so be it."
Draconius smiled, and placed her hand over his own. "So you finally learned your lesson, Scabior."
"I may be stubborn, but I'm not stupid," he told her. "I can tell when something is killing me an I need to stop. Besides," he added, letting his hand sink back down onto the bed, "if you think I'm going to die an give up on my family, then you are sorely mistaken. I'm not going anywhere, pet. I'm staying 'ere with you."
