Author's Note: Hey guys
Author's Note: Hey guys! Thank you so much for all of your marvelous reviews! I hope you like this chapter. It will be much longer than the last one, I promise.
La Vie Comme Un Infirme-Chapter Eleven: The Awakening, The Planning, and The Shame
It had been a week and Harry was still unresponsive. Despite all the potions and ointments, livid bruises were still present on his arms and neck where he had fallen, and his face was a pale as a ghost's. His hair was greasy from lack of bathing, and it was as unkempt as Sirius had ever seen it. Never in his life had Sirius seen Harry look so miserable. But, Sirius couldn't help thinking how much more miserable he would be once he awoke….
How would he react to being both blind and paralyzed? Those who were born blind and crippled were able to adapt easy to their conditions, but not those who became that way. They were used to seeing and walking, and as such, it was hard for them to get used to their circumstances. But, Harry would have to, Sirius knew. He would have to get used to life as an invalid, no matter what the cost, and Sirius would be with him all the way.
The Healers had moved Harry out of Intensive Care and into a private room three days prior, after all of his bones had been healed properly. He was still being given an IV in his arm for nutritional purposes since he could not eat on his own, and according to what Andromeda had told Sirius, he probably wouldn't be able to eat certain foods for awhile (solid foods were definitely off limits for at least the first week) after he woke up, because his body would need some time to adjust to eating normally again.
As to how long Harry would remain in his coma, Andromeda could not make an estimate. She had seen a wide range of comas, some lasting mere days, others, months. Sirius had not been able to stay at the hospital the entire week on account of work. (Minister Fudge would not give him permission to be absent from the Auror field for any reason or would otherwise fire him, which was something that Sirius could not afford to happen, especially not now. Besides, Dora needed to train. She couldn't just stop this early.) But he would stop by every night to see Harry. He had even slept in the hospital a few times.
He was currently sitting in a chair next to Harry's bed, the light from the crescent moon outside trying desperately to shine through the window, but not succeeding due to the amount of light that was present in the hospital room.
Dora was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, her hair now long and black and streaked neon blue. She was busy showing off her creativity skills by making flowers for Harry out of papier-mâché, using a touch of magic to make the flowers sing. Sirius did not particularly like what Dora was doing. Not because Harry wouldn't be able to see the flowers. On the contrary, he thought it was lovely that Dora was devoting her time to making Harry a get well present. He just didn't like the fact that she was making flowers. How many boys liked flowers?
Sirius snapped his head towards the door as he heard the knob turn. He had been so deep in thought that the abrupt opening of the door startled him, but he smiled slightly when he noticed Andromeda, in her lime green Healer robes, walk into the room.
"Has he made any progress yet?" She asked quietly, walking over to Harry's bed. "Any signs of movement?"
"No," Sirius replied sadly, staring down at his godson's still form.
"Well, don't be discouraged, Sirius." His favorite cousin patted him on the shoulder. "He'll wake up. It might just take him a while. After all, it was a very nasty fall."
Dora hopped out of her place in the corner and came over to stand next to her mother.
"And his brain'll be normal, right, Mum?" the teenager asked. "He won't have amnesia or anything, right?"
"It should be." But, Andromeda's voice was uncertain. "We won't know for sure until he wakes, but there's nothing that we could find that showed signs of brain damage."
Now that haunted Sirius more than anything else. He didn't want to think about it, but he couldn't avoid it. What if Harry did have amnesia or some other brain damage, like mental retardation? The thought made him want to scream. He could feel the tears forming behind his eyes….
But, suddenly, hope flooded into his body, and his heart began to race. Harry's fingers had just begun to move!
&
His head was aching violently, spinning around like one of those Muggle merry-go-rounds that Jesse had always made him go on when they were in primary school. Distantly, he could hear someone call his name. Then, someone else. Then, another. But, he couldn't make out who they were. Their voices were so distant and his head was aching so much that he could barely make sense of anything.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he recognized the voice of his godfather. He felt his eyelids open, but all he saw was black. He couldn't be awake.
"Harry…." He heard Sirius's voice again, this time sounding much more relaxed and relieved.
Then, Harry remembered! Malfoy had pushed him down the stairs. But, where was he now? Was he still at Hogwarts? Or at the hospital? He was so confused…he still couldn't see…and had just noticed that he could not move his legs. He couldn't even feel them. It was like the lower half of his body was missing, and that only happened in dreams. There was a sharp pain in his right arm. He knew it was a needle. He must have been in the hospital.
"Harry…." Sirius's low, calm voice sounded again. Harry felt a hand brush across his forehead. He felt himself blink, could feel his eyeballs moving, searching for the source of the voice, but he still saw nothing.
Only blackness.
"Harry? Can you understand us?" It was one of the other two voices he had heard earlier. A woman's voice. It was familiar, but he couldn't think of who the voice belonged to.
"Say something, honey." The same woman's voice.
Someone's hand reached out and took his own. It was larger than his, but warm and smooth. It was Sirius'. The pain in his arm seemed to be melting away now.
"Come on, Harry. Say something." His godfather's tone was worried now.
It was frustrating. He couldn't see any of these people, but he knew they were there. What was going on?
"W-where am I? What's going on?" He finally spoke, but it felt like he was speaking to air. It was as if the people he were speaking to weren't there.
"You're in St. Mungo's, Harry." The woman's voice again. "You came here after you fell…you've been in a coma for a week."
Now, he recognized her! It was Andromeda, Dora's mother.
"I can't see." Harry said. He heard someone squeal as he spoke the last word. Now, that was Dora, Harry knew. No one else squealed like that, except maybe Neville Longbottom. "And I can't get up…my legs won't move."
"We know, Harry." Andromeda's voice was sad and suddenly far away again.
&
The Gryffindor first years had spent every waking hour after school that week discussing ways in which they could help Harry. Hermione, Parvati, and Lavender had spent countless hours in the library looking up cures for Harry's condition. Surprisingly, Madame Pince had a great deal of medical journals stored away in her library. Unfortunately, none of them offered a cure for nerve damage of any sort. Besides, chances were that if the Healers at St. Mungo's didn't have a cure, then there really wasn't one out there.
So, the children tried to think of other ways to help their poor friend.
"I think we should throw Harry a party or something," Lavender suggested that night as the seven first years sat in the cozy comfort of their common room. It was rather late and everyone else had gone to their dormitories, so they had the whole place to themselves. "I mean, he's really hurt, and he probably won't ever be the same Harry again. We need to show him that we really care about him."
"But how could we throw him a party?" asked Dean. "We've talked about helping him and all, but how can we do it if he's not coming back to school?"
"Simple." Hermione spoke up in her usual know-it-all voice. "We can go see him on weekends. We can ask Professor McGonagall, or how about Lupin? He'd sure let us go."
"But, where would we get presents for him?" asked Neville, his face glowing from the light of the fireplace. "We definitely have to get him presents, he's been through so much."
Everyone nodded in agreement. Harry deserved to receive something after all the trouble that he had been through. Even if he couldn't see the presents, they knew that he would appreciate his friends' giving them to him. There was no way any of his friends would leave Harry empty-handed. But, actually getting presents would be hard to do. They could always make their gifts, but none of them, apart from Parvati and Dean, were all that creative. But, there was no real place for them to buy presents.
"What about Hogsmeade?" Ron asked curiously from his position on the velvety red sofa. "I'm sure it would have cool stuff for Harry."
"Yeah, Ron." Hermione said. "But, you're forgetting that we're first years. We can't go to Hogsmeade unless we're in third year."
"But this is an emergency." Seamus spoke up from over beside Neville on the floor. "The teachers'll understand why we need to go, especially Lupin. I wouldn't be surprised if he's getting Harry a present, too."
"Yeah," said Parvati, perched on the sofa next to Lavender. "The teachers have to be understanding about this. They know how much we love Harry. Well, most of them do. Snape sure doesn't."
"When do we want to do all of this?" asked Neville. "It's hard to plan ahead since we don't know about the teachers' schedules."
That was true. The teachers had a bad habit of sneaking lots of weekend work on the students. They rarely had time for anything else, and parties were a huge deal. They would need a completely free weekend to have one, several completely free weekends, in fact, if one were to count the amount of time they would need to get all the presents.
"Well, first, before we do anything else, we have to see when Harry gets out of the hospital," said Lavender. "He hasn't even woken up yet; and we have to ask his godfather. We can't just go barging in his house whenever we want. We don't even know where he lives."
"We can ask the teachers ahead of time what we're going to be doing in class so that we can get our work done faster," said Hermione. "I do that anyway, just to be prepared."
She saw the sarcastic looks on all of their faces and remarked, "but look how much it's paid off! I get all my work done before any of you. And now we're going to need to do it if we want to do this for Harry."
She had a point there. But, the truth was that Hermione Granger always had a point. She was always right no matter what, and it drove the rest of them bonkers.
"Fine," said Ron annoyed. "We'll do all our work early." Then, he changed the subject back to the actual party, something that he was much more keen on talking about. "What else are we going to do? Do we just want to bring him presents?"
"Well, I was thinking about making him steamers," commented Parvati. She had dozens of different patterns of cloth from India in her trunk that would make beautiful party decorations. "But, since Harry won't be able to, you know, see them…." She looked as though she were about to cry.
"Go ahead and make him some streamers," said Neville, reaching up and patting her ankle. "He'll like them, just because they came from you."
"So it's settled." Hermione was always the one to lay out the blueprints of a situation. "We can ask the teachers if we can send an owl to Harry's godfather, asking if we can have a party. Then, we get all of our homework done on time so that we can have a few free weekends. Finally, we'll go to Hogsmeade and buy Harry presents. It seems like it could work."
"We'll make it the best party Harry's ever had," said Ron, smiling.
&
Draco couldn't believe he was doing this! It was servant's work! Cleaning bathrooms, washing dirty dishes! It was a nightmare. His clothes smelled horrible and the suds from the soapy cleaner he was using had splashed all in his eyes. It was the worst experience ever. He knew he couldn't complain, however. Not after what happened last week. No, way. Draco promised himself that he would drink basilisk venom before complaining to his father about anything. But, still. It was humiliating! Atrocious! A person of his stature was not supposed to have to suffer through this.
But was it really his stature anymore? His father certainly wasn't acting as if that were so. As soon as Draco had arrived home from school, Lucius divided all the chores in the house between his son and the Malfoy family House-Elf, Dobby. Before, Dobby had done all the chores: the cooking, the cleaning, the laundry, everything. But, now, Draco had to do take care of all the messy chores, like those that he was currently doing, or sweeping the floor or cleaning the attic, the messiest place in the house. More than once, a spider had fallen on his head and gnats had crawled up his arms and legs, giving him the worst itching rash he had ever experienced; and all the while, Lucius did nothing to ease his misery. In fact, he just made it worse with that one dreadful sentence that he kept repeating.
"This is what happens to children who chose to ruin their lives, Draco."
Children who chose to ruin their lives. It brought Draco so much shame and guilt. He truly was unworthy. No, the Malfoy stature was not his anymore. He was an outcast, a disgrace. Even his mother, who had always been there to comfort him in the past, had no sympathy for him. She would hardly even look at him.
He started to think of Dobby and how horrible the Malfoy family had always been to him, pushing him around, treating him as if he had no place, nowhere to go in life. He himself had always thought of Dobby as being just a worthless creature, but now, his opinion was changing. He understood Dobby's position and how awful he must have felt after every day, working so hard, only to have noses be turned up at him. It was the saddest feeling in the world….
But, he couldn't think about that right now. He had to make the bathroom sparkly clean before his father came in to check on him again. Last time Lucius had walked in, the bathroom was not even a quarter of the way clean, and Draco had been chided rather badly. His arms had the angry bruises to prove it. He got down on his hands and knees and scrubbed the outsides of the commode with his sponge. It was disgusting. Before, he never really given any thought to how dirty bathrooms really were, but now he felt like reprimanding himself for how ignorant he used to be.
He heard the doorknob turn behind him. He held his breath, not wanting to look whoever it was walking in the bathroom in the eye. His stomach felt as if a snake were slithering around inside of it.
"Dobby has brought Master Draco some water."
Draco sighed in relief. It was only Dobby. The boy turned around and saw the pillowcase-clad Elf carrying a little glass filled almost to the brim with water.
"Thank you, Dobby." Draco's words surprised himself. He had never shown manners to Dobby in his life. Perhaps it was his understanding and sympathy for the Elf that made him act polite at that moment. But, in all seriousness, he liked it. And apparently, so did Dobby.
The Elf smiled as he handed Draco the glass. The refreshing feeling of cool water flowing down his throat gave him a boost of energy.
"Thanks again, Dobby." Draco repeated after he had handed his now empty glass back to the Elf. Then, he added suddenly, "Dobby, I'm sorry that I'm always mistreating you. I promise I won't ever do it again."
"Dobby is not angry with Master Draco. He knows how sad Master Draco is. But, Dobby knows Master Draco's sadness will turn into happiness one day."
End Note: I really hope you guys liked that chapter. I liked it pretty well for the most part. Was it long enough for all of you? I'll try to make the rest of the chapters at least this long. Stay tuned for Chapter Twelve, where Harry goes home, Oliver Wood gets in a fist fight with Marcus Flint (Don't worry. Nobody gets expelled this time.), and some other cool stuff! It's coming soon!
Bonne Journée,
Amélie
