Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the other wonderful creations from J.K.R.'s brilliant mind.
A/N: This story is rated M due to non-con, language, torture scenes, and slash
Snape's thoughts will be shown in italics
Chap. 20 . Keeping Vigil
Snape sat by Harry's bed all of that first night, not daring to close his eyes to sleep for fear of missing some small movement on Harry's part that might signal his awakening from the coma. The potions master was currently sitting in a softly padded chair that he had pulled up to the side of Harry's bed, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands in an attempt to drive his tiredness away. The steady, quiet beeping of the monitors in the room seemed to working against him, and his eyelids continued to fall over and over again, forcing him to jerk himself awake.
It was early morning, before visiting hours even, but he had gotten special permission from the ward's head nurse to stay the night. Rising out of the chair to stretch his legs, Snape gave a loud yawn that would surely have surprised any of his students if they had heard its deep rumble from the typically well-reserved man. He paced over to the window and looked out, enjoying the view of the early sunrise as it colored the sky in hues of soft pink over the city's skyline. It was defiantly better than the view of Harry's room with its bland, white walls and floor. Even the sheets and curtains were white, and it all seemed to draw one's eye to the center of the room where the bed sat.
Snape looked over his shoulder to gaze at the boy he had grown to love. Harry seemed even smaller than normal as he lay in the large, metal bed. Covered up all the way to his chest, the boy's shock of black hair stood out vastly amongst all of the white of the room and even of his own pale face. Snape looked back out of the window and spent the following hour watching the sun come up as he waited for something,…anything, to happen.
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Around lunchtime that afternoon, Dumbledore came to visit and he brought a guest with him. Hearing the soft knocking, Snape went and opened the door. He was not surprised to see the old headmaster come in, for he knew the man was very attached to Harry, as much as he was himself, and would visit as often as he could. It was when Draco came in that Snape felt taken aback. The boy entered the room looking a mess; not at all the typical style of a young gentleman of his upbringing.
He stepped into the room looking unwashed and disheveled, obviously still wearing yesterday's wrinkled clothes. His usual highly styled hair was ruffled and hung limply from his scalp, strands of it hanging down in his face as if he were attempting to hide his eyes. And at that thought, the potions master looked more closely and it was clear that the boy had been crying, recently too, if his swollen, red-rimmed eyes were any clue. The two visitors stepped into the room and Dumbledore gently shut the door.
The headmaster motioned for Snape to join him in the corner to talk, and the he made his way over, leaving Draco alone where he stood by the head of Harry's bed. The two conversed quietly for several minutes about some issues that had to do with the start of term, which was set to begin the following day. As the two talked, Snape kept a watchful gaze on Draco from across the room. The boy was merely staring at Harry's motionless form; he was making not a sound, nor moving a muscle as he watched the other boy's chest rise and fall with the aid of the ventilator.
After a few minutes passed in that manner, Snape's attention was drawn the younger Slytherin once again when he noticed some movement. As he watched, Draco silently bent over Harry's still body and, pushing the raven-haired boy's bangs away from his forehead, he softly kissed him. It was not a quick peck of affection; no, this was something deeper, and Snape had every intention of finding out exactly what it all implied.
When Dumbledore noticed by Snape's averted eyes that he was no longer paying attention, he turned just in time to see what had captured the man's interest. When he saw the kiss as well, he gave a slight cough from the back of his throat to remind the lad that he was not alone in the room.
The noise made Draco give an almost unnoticeable jump as he suddenly remembered that others could see this indiscretion. He snapped his head up and excused himself from the room, telling the adults as he left, that he would wait out in the hall. As he shut the door behind himself, Dumbledore turned back to Snape.
"I think they may be closer than either of us previously thought."
"I believe you're right," Snape replied. "I'll have to keep my eye on the two of them when we return to Hogwarts."
"Speaking of which, Severus, I've arranged for Remus to take over your classes for a few days. Hopefully, Harry can be transferred over to Hogwarts hospital wing by then. Have you any plan on what to do about Draco's housing situation? He still stands a good chance of coming to harm by some of his housemates, especially now that many of their parents are in Azkaban; they'll be looking for vengeance."
"Actually, I have thought a great deal on the matter. I was going to suggest a room be added onto my quarters, but seeing how close the pair have gotten, I'm starting to think it might not be such a good idea. Perhaps I'll just have to have a talk with Draco about it. If he stays in my quarters, he'll have to understand that I can't allow anything untoward to happen between the two of them, at least until Harry reaches a level of maturity more closely resembling others' his age."
Dumbledore nodded in understanding and stated, "I'm going to need your decision on the matter by tonight, so I'll be coming back to check on the both of you later this evening." He paced over to where Harry lay and ran his weathered, old hand through the boy's unruly hair. With an odd half-smile on his face, he addressed the child, "I need to be going now, Harry. I hope you get well soon; we'll all be thinking about you and wishing you the best." He then turned and gave a small wink to Snape as he made his way out the door.
As the door shut behind his old friend, Snape returned to his seat by Harry's side to keep up the constant vigil that he had been holding since the boy arrived at the hospital the day before.
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Almost a week went slowly by, and Harry remained in his comatose state. The medicines he had been getting through the I.V. had made the swelling go down, and the seizures had disappeared completely. Dr. Stiner had come by to check on them several times and was currently sitting in a chair across from Snape's as the men discussed Harry's condition.
"You've got to give it time; He'll come out of it soon, you'll see."
"It shouldn't be taking this long," Snape complained. "I thought once the swelling went down, he would wake."
"Have patience. This sort of thing takes time to recover from."
In response, Snape mumbled under his breath in irritation and Dr. Stiner continued to talk in an attempt to bring the mumbling to a halt before it turned into an all-out rant.
"Well, look on the bright side; at least he's off the ventilator now. In fact, he seems to be healing quite quickly."
At this, the potions master mumbled a little louder.
"I'm sorry, but what was that?" Dr. Stiner turned an amused face to the other man and Snape cleared his throat a bit and said in a low voice, "I've been slipping him doses of healing potions."
The corner of the old doctor's mouth turned up in a smile and he asked in a tone of mock defense, "Oh, I see! Don't trust us muggles to do the job on our own, huh?"
Snape huffed in such a way as to insinuate the obviousness of the statement, but instead of getting a reply from the well-humored doctor, he noticed that the man's attention was being drawn to the bed. Quickly turning 'round to face the bed again, Snape was surprised when he saw the slightest twitch of motion from Harry's left foot.
Both men locked their eyes on the child in the bed, afraid that if they dared to even blink, that they might miss another movement. Only a few minutes went by in tense silence until they were finally rewarded. The boy's eyelids fluttered part way open before squeezing shut again in an attempt to block out the bright overhead lights. Seeing this, Dr. Stiner jumped up from his near-by chair and flipped the light switch, plunging the entire room into dimness; the last rays of light from the setting sun providing the only light in the room.
Moments later, the eyes fluttered open once more and Snape reached forward to place a pair of glasses onto the boy's face. The two men held their tongues, waiting to see if the boy would start talking, but instead of any words, he opened his mouth widely and yawned; stretching out his legs and causing his blanket to fall slightly to the side. Snape reached for it before it could fall to the floor and tucked it back around the boy's body. As he sat back down, he was delighted to hear a small, quiet, "thank you" from a voice that was raspy from being so long unused.
He put a small cup of water against the boy's lips and, as Harry sipped it, Snape lifted his hand to card his fingers through the unruly black hair as he spoke to the child, "It's good to see you awake…You've had us all quite worried you know."
Harry looked into the man's eyes in a confused sort of way and replied, "Oh. Was I asleep for very long?"
Instead of answering the question, Snape asked one of his own. "Harry, what is the last thing you remember?"
"Uh…," his brow crinkled in confusion as he struggled to come up with an answer. "We were…on our way to Hogwarts? Did I fall asleep on the way?"
Snape turned and looked at Dr. Stiner with a questioning look and the doctor answered the other man's unspoken question in a low voice. "It's not unusual for patients suffering from his type of injuries to have no memory of the traumatizing event taking place."
Snape turned back to face Harry again and decided to answer as truthfully as he could without raising too many questions. "No, you didn't fall asleep on the way. You fell onto the train tracks and bumped your head. You hit your head so hard it made you fall into a coma and we had to take you to the hospital."
Harry looked about the room, taking in for the first time the unfamiliar surroundings. When he finally turned his attention back to Snape, he had yet another question to ask.
"What's a coma?"
This time it was Dr. Stiner who answered. "A coma is like a very deep sleep. That is why we had to take you to the hospital. The people here have been helping take care of you now for an entire week."
"A week?!" Harry could not believe he had 'slept' for a whole week. It certainly didn't feel like a week to him. But then he decided to sit up a little and the pain in his joints that the action caused reinforced the statement that, yes, it had been a whole week. His joints have never been that stiff before. As he tried to pull the blanket a little tighter around himself, he noticed how heavy his left arm seemed and he pulled it out from under the blanket to inspect the limb.
When he saw the cast, he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. He felt the rough, hard exterior of it with his good hand and then sat the injured wrist gently down on top of the blanket. Seeing the teen toying with the cast, Snape decided to explain the odd, muggle thing to him. "It's a cast. Your wrist was broken and that," Snape pointed to the cast, "holds the wrist straight so the bones can mend." Then he glanced towards the door to be sure none of the nurses could hear him and said in a low voice, "I'll have Poppy repair the broken bones and remove the casts when we return to Hogwarts."
"When will we return to Hogwarts?"
"We might go back tomorrow…maybe even as early as tonight if I can convince Dumbledore to allow us to do so this soon."
Harry smiled at that. The sooner he got back, the sooner he could see Draco and his friends. "When do I get to see Draco? Can he come visit me here?"
"You can see him as soon as we get back to Hogwarts. Dumbledore added a new room for him in our quarters. His room is now next to yours. And as far as visits go, Draco has come to see you every day since you arrived here; you've just not been awake to see him. In fact, he came by earlier this evening and left this here for you."
Snape pulled out a box of assorted wizarding candy that he had been hiding from the nursing staff. Handing it to Harry, he couldn't help but to smile when he saw the boy's eyes get big. He always did like sweets a little too much, in his opinion.
"You can look through it for now, but I don't want you eating any until Dr. Stiner says it's alright."
Dr. Stiner quickly joined the conversation when he saw Harry's disappointed face, "As soon as I see that you can hold down a regular meal without a problem, then you can eat some of it. You've got to remember, Harry, you've not had any real food in your stomach for a week now and if you fill it up with candy, you could make yourself very sick."
Harry let a devious little grin slide across his face and replied, "Yeah, but if I get sick, I'm already at the hospital, so can't I eat a little anyways?"
Dr. Stiner couldn't help but to chuckle at Harry's comment as he told Snape, "You'd better keep a close eye on that boy. He's a sly one, isn't he?"
With a soft chuckle of his own, Snape answered, "You have no idea."
Harry let his features fall into a small pout and he crossed his arms across his chest as best he could with the awkward cast on his wrist. Plopping himself back onto his pillow, he found himself wishing he was at Hogwarts with Draco already.
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A/N: Hi, everyone! I hope you're enjoying the story thus far. Please post a review and let me know your thoughts on it. I'm going to try to post again in about three days, so until then, Goodbye!!
I want to post the responce to a review I recieved from Yashida in the hopes that it will address some issues that were brought up:
Thank you for your review. I'm glad you found Vickie totally uncouth...that's what I was going for. Actually, that's probably the main reason Snape can't stand her. But hey, she's from a very small town, where everyone knows everyone else, and she is of the very forward personality that sees it their life's goal to be buddy-buddy with everyone, especially when she attempts to flirt with them in her own deluded way. Ha, Ha!
And as far as the hospital is concerned: The paperwork was not for anything in regards to payment for services rendered. Every hospital that I've ever been in, and it's been many due to my many chronic health problems, have required paperwork to be filled out to inform the doctors of things they need to know about their patient's care. Things like, medicines they are on, known medical problems, prior surgeries, known allergies, current treating doctor, and on and on.
Most hospitals also require a waver before any surgery is preformed, regardless of whether it is an emergency or not. That is what saves the doctor's butt if someone tries to sue them for malpractice. I have been in a hospital's emergency room many times and they have always requested the above information before doing any treatment beyond what is needed to to stabilize my condition. I was always treated without delay, as was Harry, but no doctor would be willing to do any surgery without first having some kind of signed consent from the patient, or the patient's representative, before hand authorizing that type of medical treatment, nor would they be willing to do a surgery without knowing all the facts in regards to allergies and etc.
Thank you for being willing to point out those things to me. I hope I've put your mind to ease regarding those issues. I guess I should have been more clear on what type of paperwork they were actually filling out. If you notice other problems with the story, please let me know and I'll do what I can to fix the problem or to explain myself better, whatever the case may be. Thank you for reading and sending reviews, I appreciate all feedback that I receive. Thanks again!
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