Chapter 2: Waking up
"I just don't understand…."
"We all knew that he has been under great stress lately…."
"And that uncle of his! How could he have…."
Harry woke up to the sounds of two voices talking. He kept his eyes closed and just listened. He vaguely remembered doing something before he went to sleep, but didn't understand why those voices were there. They were so familiar, but he couldn't recognize them. Slowly, he opened his eyes to look around. It registered in his mind that he was in a hospital, though Harry couldn't remember why he was there at first. Then he remembered what he had done. Harry sighed, getting the attention of the other two people in the room.
"Hello Harry. I see that you decided to wake up finally," Professor Dumbledore said, coming over to the bed.
"Sir?" Harry said quietly. He didn't understand how he got to the hospital or why Dumbledore was there.
"I am sure that you have many questions, Harry, as we have some for you as well. But you need to rest, so we shall talk later." Dumbledore said.
Harry looked up at his Headmaster, all ready to ask more questions, but his eyes kept closing. Finally, he went back to sleep.
*****
It seemed like only minutes later when Harry woke again, though it was actually the next day.. Sitting up, he glanced around the empty hospital room he was in.
Harry had a private hospital room. There wasn't much furniture in it, it was actually quite plain, with just his bed, a couple of chairs on either side of the bed, a bedside table that held an alarm clock and a muggle phone. There was even a television bolted to one of the ceiling corners. A window faced a small park across the street from the hospital.
Harry took all this in as he looked at his wrapped wrists for the first time. He could remember clearly what happened that night, about writing that note and slitting his wrists. He was actually surprised that they didn't hurt anymore. They did itch, but they no longer hurt. Harry was about to try to take off the bandages so that he could scratch the itch when someone came in through the door.
"Hello Harry. I see that you're finally awake." Minerva McGonagall said as she and Albus Dumbledore came in.
"Hello Professor." Harry said, eyeing them wearily.
McGonagall smiled slightly. She noticed that Harry was rubbing his wrists and asked if they hurt. When Harry said that they itched, she muttered a spell to stop the itch.
"Thank you." Harry said quietly. "But professor, where am I? How did I get here? And why are you here?"
"I believe I can answer that," Dumbledore said, sitting down in one of the chairs by the bed. "You are at St. Mary's Hospital in London. St. Mary's is a mixed hospital, so I thought that you would be more comfortable here than a purely magical hospital, such as St. Mungo's.
"You are here because your Aunt Petunia found you before you had lost too much blood. She called for an ambulance that took you to the nearest muggle hospital. She found your letter, Harry. She was very upset when I talked to her."
"But how did you find out…."
"Your neighbor, Arabella Figg, is a witch. When she had seen you being put into the ambulance, she owled me. I came as soon as I could. Petunia showed me the letter, Harry. I had not realized before then the affects this past year has had on you. Perhaps I was wrong to have sent you back to your relatives. At the time, I felt that it was for the best. You were safest there."
Harry took a moment to soak in everything Dumbledore had said. He had known that he was protected on Privite Drive, Dumbledore had said so at the end of the last school year. He remembered having heard of an Arabella Figg from somewhere, though he wasn't sure where or how old Mrs. Figg was connected to all of this. But two things still bothered him. "But that doesn't explain why I'm here instead of the local muggle hospital. And why did Aunt Petunia call the hospital in the first place? She doesn't care if I live or die, none of them do."
"Petunia, while afraid of our kind and resentful of the opportunity that Lily had, still loves you. You are the only relative that she has left from the Evens family. It is true, Harry, that your aunt and uncle don't like our kind. But if you believe anything I have told you, I want you to believe this. Your aunt and uncle love you. They care for you, in their own way. That is why they got you to the hospital instead of leaving you to die."