The Janus Thickey Ward in St. Mungo's hospital was quiet as always, with the patients all sleeping slightly-peacefully.

One bed in particular was occupied by a patient who has been in the same position for a long time, looking like she is peacefully sleeping, when in fact she has been in a coma for many years.

All of a sudden, a sharp gasp was heard in the room, and a body suddenly jolted awake.


Victoria Dorea Potter awoke with a jolt and a sharp intake of breath, finding herself in an unfamiliar room. Covered in darkness, which meant it must have been night time, she tried to look for her wand but couldn't find it. She felt a jolt of fear go through her, but determinedly stayed calm. With a whispered 'Lumos', a ball of light formed above her hand to illuminate the room, finding it to be a hospital room, with four other beds. Upon further inspection of the occupants of the beds, she could immediately recognize two of them, even though they were asleep and some of their features had changed, she would recognize her best friend and his wife anywhere.

"Ally? Frankie?" She whispered in shock at what they looked like, white haired, blank faces, and gaunt in appearance, weak, definitely not how her friends were supposed to look.

She didn't know what had happened to them, but she remembered what had happened to her, in great detail.

She had been hiding behind a bush as backup, in a fight between corrupted death eaters and some of the order members, when she saw a wand being pointed at her younger brother, James Potter, and in a split-second decision, she jumped in front of the spell, protecting her brother out of pure instinct, then everything had gone black.

She realized that she must have been moved to the hospital to heal whatever side-effects she had had from the curse, but wondered what had happened in the battle after she had fallen.

She still felt a little tired, so she decided to fall asleep and deal with everything in the morning. She slowly lay down on the unfamiliar bed, and slowly drifted off to sleep.


She awoke with a start as she felt the shining sun on her face, war honed instincts not letting her fall deeply asleep and having her cautious at hearing the humming of someone in the room.

As she sat up quickly, she came face to face with the shocked, gaping face of the nurse that had come in, or what looked like a nurse.

"Who are you?" Victoria asked, staring suspiciously at the woman, who seemed to have snapped out of her shock at the question, and pressed a button near her before levelling Vic with a smile.

"Hello, I'm Nurse Williams. Do you know what your name is?" The nurse, Williams, said, with a smile like she was talking to a concussed child.

Victoria raised an eyebrow in slight exasperation and stayed quiet for a few seconds, just to see the woman start to get nervous, before she replied "My name is Lady Victoria Dorea Potter-Prewett."

At that moment a healer came in, stared at her for a few moments, before his composure returned and he smiled at Victoria.

"Hello Lady Potter-Prewett, my name is Healer Albert Goldstein, I'm the head of the Janus Thickey ward. If you don't mind, there a few questions I'd like to ask you." At her nod, he continued. "First of all, what is the last thing you remember?"

"I remember getting hit by a curse I took for my brother, which a death eater had aimed at him." Victoria said slowly, confused by the question but willing to go along with the healer if it meant getting out of the hospital room.

"That is good." The healer mumbled, nodding to himself and writing something down. "That is exactly what happened. Now I need to ask you some questions, randomly, just to make sure you don't have any gaps in your memory, as the curse you took was quite nasty and left you in a coma."

"A coma?! For how long?" She asked, noticing the healer hadn't said anything about the duration.

"Umm, well, to be blunt, about four years." The healer said, not wanting to beat around the bush.

"Four…" She sat on the bed, staring at the ground in shock. She had lost four years of her life to a stupid curse.

"I'm sorry Lady Prewett, but I'm afraid so." The healer said sadly, staying quiet for a moment to allow the woman time to calm down.

A few minutes later, after she'd gotten over that bit of information. She looked up at the healer, who was waiting for her. "What happened during those four years? Is the war over? Is my family okay?"

"Yes, the war is over, but at a high cost. And a lot happened during this time. But before I tell you exactly what happened, I need to know if you remember everything or not."

"You said you'd ask me a few questions?"

"Yes." Healer Goldstein nodded, before looking at her information and forming questions.

"Can you please list your family members' names?"

"My mother's name was Dorea Black-Potter, my father's name was Charlus Potter, my brother's name is James Potter, his son is Henry Potter, he's more commonly known as Harry. Then there is, was, my husband Fabian Prewett, and our twin sons Fred and George."

"Seems you remember every birth before your coma." The healer said, before continuing to ask her a few questions about certain events, just to make sure her memories were completely intact, before sitting down beside her and taking a deep breath and then saying "Would you like me to tell you what happened, or would you like to wait for Molly and Arthur Weasley to come and tell you themselves? As your closest living relatives, they are your emergency contacts and will be informed of you waking up, as soon as we're done here."

"Wouldn't my brother be my emergency contact?" She was confused, and scared of the answer to her question, subconsciously knowing what was coming.

"That's part of the story." He said sadly, and apparently, he had underestimated his patient's intelligence, as that was all it took for her to put the words together and start crying in anguish.

It took a few minutes for Victoria to calm down, but after her cries quietened down, even though she was still grieving, she looked to the healer to tell her exactly what had happened during the time she hadn't been awake.

And so, Healer Goldstein started telling her the publicized story of how the war ended, and what had happened afterwards. He told her how it was said that you-know-who attacked her brother's family, how he and his wife died, weirdly enough the healer thought it was Lily Evans, and how when the dark lord tried to kill her nephew, the spell reflected onto him instead. It was all a very weird story and not very believable but she let the healer continue, how Sirius Black was the one who had betrayed her brother, and didn't that make her laugh, and was sent to prison for being a follower of Voldemort and killing 13 muggles and Peter Pettigrew of all people.

The more the healer told her, the more stupid she thought Wizarding Britain was, who would be dumb enough to believe the farce of a story she has just been told.

"And who exactly told this story to the Wizarding World?" She asked, wanting to know who she needed to sue for spreading rumours about her family.

"From what I know, it was Albus Dumbledore." That made her roll her eyes and silently fume, of course it was.

Why did that old man always have to put his nose in things that have nothing to do with him, she was going to sue that man, and find out exactly what had happened to her family.

"Could you call Arthur and Molly now, please? I'd like to speak to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law."

"Of course, Lady Prewett. I'll let you absorb everything while I go floo call them." Healer Goldstein said, as he stood up and gestured to his nurse to exit the ward, who Victoria hadn't even noticed was there the whole time.

Victoria thanked him quietly and let him leave. She then turned to her closest friend, and looked at him for a moment before she stood up and walked towards him. She put her hands on his shoulders and turned him so that he was completely facing her.

She looked him in the eyes. "Let's see what happened to you Frankie." She mumbled, before she dived into his mind.

It was a little-known fact, but she was a natural legilimens. She knew it was an invasion of privacy, but she had to help her friend in any way she could.

As soon as she was in, she noticed a deep darkness that she had never seen before in any mind, but had read about before.

It was a very dark curse, used to make a person mentally unstable, by clouding their mind from everything around them, so that the person didn't even realize what was happening around them, stuck in their own minds until they die, or someone helps them get out.

She started walking until she felt the curse, she then put both of her hands on the virtual wall of darkness, and started chanting the counter-curse.

"Frangere tenebris maledictum, quod confunds mens" (break the dark curse that confounds the mind).

The dark wall broke like a glass wall being hit, allowing Victoria to move past and walk inside Frank's mind.

"Frankie, where are you?" She called out, continuing on until she heard a reply from a very familiar voice.

"Vickie?!" Frank said, surprised to see his childhood best friend walking towards him with a relieved smile on her face.

"Where are we? And how long have you been awake?" He asked, confused by his surroundings. The last thing he remembers was talking to Dumbledore about Sirius, he turned his back on the man for a second to get a glass of water, before everything went black.

"We are in your mind." Victoria said, coming to hug her friend tightly.

"Missed you, Vickie." He whispered, hugging the woman that was like a sister to him tightly.

"What happened to you Fran?" Victoria asked quietly, as they started walking towards the curse to get out of his mind.

"I was talking to…" he trailed off, eyes widening as he realized who had done this to him.

"It was Dumbledore! What exactly did he do?"

Vic gasped in horror at what he had just told her, before she explained the spell he was under.

"How long has it been affecting me? And what happened to Alice? And Neville?!"

"How long have I been in a coma?" She asked back, wanting to know what he last remembered.

"About a month?" he said, his words sounding more like a question at the look on Victoria's face.

"No Franky, it's been four years." She said quietly, feeling tears well up in her eyes at the look of devastation on his face.

"It's been…my son is five now." He said, his voice cracking at the end of his sentence at that revelation. He stopped walking, and his tears started falling silently at that. "I missed so much."

"We both did. Freddie and Georgie are seven now, and Hen is five."

They both cried silently at the lost years with their children, before they straightened in determination.

"We'll make up for them." Frank said with his head held high.

"Yeah, we will!" They both laughed at their words before they moved forward with more confidence in their steps.

"What about Ally?" Frank asked, dreading the answer but knowing he needed the information.

"She was hit with the same spell, I think."

"We've got to get her back Vic."

"We will." Victoria said in comfort.

They continued walking until they came to the broken wall, Frank looked at it in both awe and horror, before they moved past and opened their eyes to find themselves in the Janus Thickey ward.

Victoria then did the same thing with Alice, which took a lot less time from how much she was in a hurry to see her husband and son.

As soon as she was back to being herself, the three sat on a bed together and started talking quietly to each other.


As Victoria was helping her friends get back to the land of the living, Arthur and Molly Weasley were accepting a floo call from St. Mungo's Hospital, they were worried, as there was only one person who was in the Hospital that they would get a call for.

"Mr and Mrs Weasley, my name is Healer Albert Goldstein, I'm the head mind healer of the Janus Thickey Ward, I'm calling about Lady Victoria Potter-Prewett." The healer said as they accepted the call and his face appeared in their fireplace.

"Hello Healer Goldstein. Is Victoria okay?" Arthur asked the healer, as his wife looked worried beside him, if something had happened to their sister-in-law, they didn't know what they'd say to the twins.

"Yes, she's actually more than fine." The healer said, smiling at the worried couple, who had stood up as soon as they heard that, and began to smile as well.

"She's awake?" Molly asked quietly, to not alert the twins. They knew they needed to see her for themselves before they told the twins, so that they didn't get their hopes up just to crash them down.

"Yes, and as her emergency contacts, you were the first to be informed. I've also told her about her brother." He said sadly, as the Weasley couple looked crestfallen. "She wouldn't wait for you to tell her, she didn't take it very well, as to be expected, but I believe she'll get through this, especially with you two and her sons by her side. I also thought I'd get you in to see her, so you can talk a little. It might take a while for her to get out of the hospital and get back to society, especially with the gap that's there between her accident and her awakening, but I believe she'll get through this fully."

"Thank you, healer Goldstein. We'll just tell the kids we're going out and come to the hospital as soon as possible."

They exchanged formal goodbyes before they ended the call and headed to the kitchen, where they knew their brood was having breakfast, as it was summer that included Bill and Charlie, and Arthur cleared his throat to get their attention.

"Alright boys, Gin, we have a meeting with a friend that we agreed to last minute, so we need to head out now. Bill, you're in charge. If you guys need anything, you have the mirror, and we have the other one so, call either me or Molly and we'll come right away if you need us, okay?"

"Okay, Dad." Their four sons, and daughter said in unison, while their nephews said "Okay uncle Arthur" at the same time.

They went to the floo, but didn't notice Bill following after them until he asked "What is this about, you two never go out at the last minute?"

Arthur bent down to whisper in his son's ear "Don't tell anyone, especially the twins, but Victoria is awake, so we're going to see her."

That had Bill's eyes widening before he nodded at his parents and left to go back to the kitchen, he had missed his aunt a lot, but he knew his parents would take him to see her as soon as possible, so he wasn't impatient.

Arthur and Molly nodded at each other before they stepped into the floo one at a time, saying 'St. Mungo's Hospital' quietly so that no one hears them.


As soon as they made their way inside the Janus Thickey Ward with Healer Goldstein, they saw a sight that they thought they'd never get to see again.

Victoria Potter-Prewett, Frank Longbottom, and Alice Bones-Longbottom were sat together, heads together and talking quietly among themselves, not even noticing the new occupants of the ward.

"Vickie?" Molly whispered in shock, tears gathering in her eyes at the sight of her sister-in-law, awake and smiling at her friends.

"Mols?" Victoria asked in reply, before she stood up and gathered her husband's only sister in her arms.

While the two women hugged with silent tears rolled down their faces, the healer had gone over to the Longbottoms to check on them and ask how their sanity had returned.

After the reunion, they all sat down. The healer had checked his three patients before leaving them to talk.

"How…How are they?" Victoria asked her sister-in-law hesitantly, knowing that she'd understand who she was asking about.

"They're okay. They come to visit you once a week. They don't know that we're here, or else they would have been here as well, but we didn't want to get their hopes up just for you to not be…okay." Molly said, smiling sadly at Victoria.

As Victoria was holding back her tears, Frank took this time to ask the thing he had wanted to know since they had returned their sanity.

"What exactly happened? And start from when Vic was in a coma so that we can bridge all the information together." While the healer had told her the story, she still wanted it confirmed from the people she trusted.

So, Arthur and Molly took turns telling the trio exactly what happened, from the end of the war to their current time. They told them what was publicized about Voldemort's death, to what happened to the country in the efforts to fix the mess after the war, they even confirmed that to their knowledge the one who had been secret keeper…

"SIRIUS?! Really?! That is not what I remember! What are people thinking, if they actually believed that Siri would ever…" Victoria was seething, to think the British Wizarding World, once heralded as the producer of some of the most powerful magic users in the world, the country of that Magic and Merlin originated from, had been reduced to a bunch of scared sheep. While the healer had told her, it hadn't sunk in until now how her brother's best friend, who was like a brother to her, had been blamed for James's death and was rotting in Azkaban for a crime she was sure he didn't commit.

"We didn't believe he did it, and were going to push for a trial when we were attacked." Alice said, looking straight ahead in anger as well, there had to be something they could do.

"What about Harry? If Sirius is in that hell whole, and Alice and I are here, then who did he end up with?" Victoria asked, fear coursing through her veins at the thought of her nephew having no one to go to, since from what was implied by the healer before, people didn't know her brother had married Aurelia.

"He went to Lily's muggle sister, or at least that's what Dumbledore told us when we asked." Molly replied, surprised by the anger on Vic's face at her answer.

"I see." She said calmly, internally seething at the old man's manipulations. If Evans was as insufferable as she remembered, then she couldn't imagine what her muggle sister would be like, but it all meant one thing, the wizarding world had it all wrong, Dumbledore had played with everyone's minds again and her family was paying the price.

"When can I get out?" She asked, a plan already forming in her mind.

"We, you mean. We're with you, whatever you're planning, we'll help." Frank said, knowing the look on her face meant one thing, Victoria Potter had a plan, and the wizarding world wasn't ready for it.

"We'll go ask the healer, as soon as you have the approval, we'll take you to the twins." Molly said, smiling at her sister, she had a plan and Molly was looking forward to what she was going to do.

"He should have also called my mother, she is our emergency contact, and should have custody of Neville." Frank said, rising with Arthur to go see the healer, leaving the three ladies to talk quietly.


A few minutes later, Arthur and Frank had returned with the healer, and while they were discussing the procedures they will need to take to be able to leave, Madame Augusta Longbottom in all her glory entered the ward, she stopped at the entrance and looked around until she came face to face with a sight that she'd missed for the past four years, her son and daughter-in-law standing in the ward next to the Weasley couple and her god-daughter, Victoria Potter-Prewett, talking with healer Goldstein about leaving the ward.

"Oh Mum, you're just in time." Her son, who just two days ago hadn't been able to get up from his bed and hadn't recognized her or his son, said, smiling at her in relief and love, love for the woman who had brought him into the world and loved him unconditionally his whole life. His wife also turned at his words and smiled at her mother-in-law, happiness in her eyes and on her face at seeing her healthy and well.

Augusta didn't know what to say, she covered her mouth with her hand and held back tears at the sight of two of the most important people in her life looking like their old selves again, even the white hair they had had for four years had turned into its natural colour, with only a few streaks of white to point to their time of instability.

During the time she was thinking these thoughts, Frank had come to stand in front of her, so she just extended her arms and pulled him into the hug she had been missing for the past four years.

As she pulled away, she turned to her God-daughter and daughter-in-law, who had also come to greet her, and pulled them into her arms as well.

As soon as the emotional reunion was over, Augusta pulled herself together and looked at the gathered crowd with a hard look that they were all familiar with, even the healer who had seen Madame Longbottom looking as hard as stone one too many times. "What do you need from me?" she asked simply, knowing they had a plan, especially Victoria, who always had a plan.

And so, they all gathered to see how the three would be able to leave the ward and announce it to the wizarding world in the best way possible.