A/N: I'm so sorry this took soooooo incredibly long! I just did not know how to continue and I was erm... kind of playing the Sims a lot, too... sorry... and it was my birthday on the 22nd of April, so I was kind of busy dreading that, but I really hope you guys like it and that none of you are too mad at me...
Chapter 47: Slight Recovery
Harry lay in his bed just staring at the ceiling above him for hours. It must be late in the night, for he couldn't hear any other sounds apart from his own breathing, which seemed rather loud, but that might have been because he had spent the last few... because he had spent a long time in complete isolation with nothing to keep him company except the white dot of light and Ron's voice... Ron. Only now did Harry remember his friends, which was very selfish, and he wondered what had happened to them after Voldemort had exploded. He knew Ron was all right, as well as Nora and Draco. From what Ron had told him while he was in a coma the two were more than all right. But Harry had heard nothing about Hermione. He could not care less that Parvati had dumped him, he didn't even know why; all he wanted was to know that Hermione was completely fine as well. If she had died Voldemort's defeat would mean nothing to him.
"H-H-Hermione," Harry whispered, but his voice was so hoarse that only half of her name was said. He lay staring at his ceiling for a few more minutes before taking a deep breath and trying again. "Hermione." It was fully pronounced now, but still to quiet, for there was no sign that told him someone had heard. But what if Hermione wasn't even in his room? What if they were all in a different ward? "Hermione." Harry tried one last time, but there was still no reaction. Giving up, he went back to staring at the beautiful white ceiling again. He did not want to go back to sleep again... to be honest, he was scared to. What if he landed back in the area of darkness? So Harry stayed awake through the whole night, hearing more and more noise around him as it gradually grew lighter.
Rays of sunlight were scattered all over the room when Harry heard movement in his room. His eyes were still opened wide as he stared at the ceiling and he only blinked when he heard a loud yell and then questions of: "What?" "Ron, what happened?" and "Why are you lying on the floor?" Ron seemed to have gotten up, because next thing Harry saw, besides plain white ceiling above him, was Ron's face with a look of disbelief on it and bulging eyes. Draco's head came into view next, but Nora's and Hermione's never came.
"How long have you been awake?" asked Ron, not daring to believe it. Only now did Harry look him in the eyes. He tilted his head a little. It felt so good to see his friends again, he could hardly believe it himself. After having been stuck in eternal darkness he could finally see his friends again.
"I don't know," he replied, his voice still a bit hoarse. It felt like his eyes were welling up and he tried hard not to blink.
"Oh. Did you have to wait long?" asked Ron, a bit unsurely. Harry hesitated for a moment.
"I don't know," he then said. It was difficult to tell time after having spent so long without it.
"Oh." Awkward silence followed before Harry spoke up again.
"Hermione?" he asked, still not knowing if she was dead or alive.
"Yes?" came Hermione's voice from the other side of the room. Harry smiled. They were all still alive. All of them.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi." Another awkward silence passed, which was interrupted when a Healer came into their room to bring them their food and medicine. He cast a quick glance around the room, from Hermione smiling, something she rarely did lately, to Ron and Draco who were both by Harry's bed, and he knew something was different. He hurried over to Harry's bed and gasped, before shunting Ron and Draco to the side and hurrying Harry in his bed out of the room. Harry had no idea where they were going or why they left the room. He watched portraits whisper to each other as he and the Healer passed and whenever they passed someone in the hall, the patient would look at him with tear-filled eyes it seemed. When they finally stopped, it was in an empty and completely white room. The Healer stationed Harry's bed in the middle and when he waved his wand, 20 different potions immediately appeared on a round white table.
"When did you awake?" asked the Healer, before handing one of the potions, a vile yellow one which had steam coming from it, to Harry, who looked at it with misgiving.
"I don't know," he replied, holding the potion at a distance. "Somewhere in the night."
"I see," the Healer said. "Go on, drink it," he told Harry after a while. "It'll clear your mind a little." Harry did as he was told and drank the potion in one gulp, making a face when he tasted the foul flavor it had. "How did you feel when you awoke?" the Healer then asked, grabbing another potion, red this time.
"Tired," replied Harry simply, before taking the red potion and knocking it back. He eyed the 18 potions still standing on the table with mistrust,
"And how do you feel now?"
"Tired."
"Ah." Harry was handed more potions to drink, about five maybe, he wasn't in the mood to count, and he noticed that they all had the strangest flavor and that none of them seemed to make him feel any different. All the while the Healer observed him intently, as if Harry were surely to show signs of abnormality any second now. After those potions there was a small silence, during which the Healer set apart three more mixtures and Harry wondered if he had to drink those three, or the remaining nine.
"Do you feel any different?" asked the Healer. Harry shook his head. "All right, then. Here." Harry drunk that clear concoction as well, and it seemed to have no taste at all before it burned his mouth and throat with a zest so awful it was like nothing he had ever tasted.
"Try to keep it inside," said the Healer calmly, when Harry had begun to gag. "Good." Harry leaned back against his bed again, panting, and felt a slight burning that moved downwards inside his body. "That potion kills any 'evil' bacteria in your body, because we have no idea what happened while you were in that coma. For all we know it was one last evil scheme to kill you," the Healer, who seemed somewhere in his 20's, told him.
"Oh," was all Harry could say.
"Is the burning sensation gone?" Harry nodded. "Ok, then drink this." Harry took the second clear potion and hesitated a little before tossing that one down too. Fortunately, it had a slight sweet taste and this time a cool, fresh sensation spread through his body. "That mixture rids you of all the bacteria killed by the first potion. Here, this is the last one you have to drink," the Healer said and he handed a light blue one to Harry, who drank it and instantly felt himself freshen up. With another wave of his wand, the Healer made the rest of the potions and the table they had stood upon disappear and he got up and walked towards the door. Harry, looking after him, wondered if he was going to be left here alone. But the Healer opened the door and instead of walking out of the room, spoke to someone Harry could not see. A few moments later, though, Harry did not have to crane his neck to see who the other person was, for the Healer walked back into the room, Dumbledore right behind him.
"The test results should be in soon, Albus," the Healer said as they both walked back over to Harry, "you can interrogate Mr. Potter until they do, but I have to stay to keep an eye on him and wait for the results."
"It really would be better if you could leave, Theodore. I can watch Harry by myself and I'm sure I'm capable of receiving the test results," argued Dumbledore, but the Healer shook his head.
"Nice try, Albus, but it's a St. Mungo's policy, and if you can't talk with him while I'm here, you'll just have to wait until the test results tell us he's completely fine and I can leave him with an old man like yourself." Dumbledore rolled his eyes, something Harry had never seen him do, and the old man conjured up two chintz armchairs that looked a lot more comfortable than Harry's hospital bed felt. The two men sat down in them and Dumbledore put the tips of his fingers together and rested his chin upon them, watching Harry intently, who did not know how to look back.
"You know you've been in a coma?" Harry nodded. "You have been told?" Harry nodded again. "Did you know while you were in it?" Harry hesitated a little and then nodded again. Dumbledore's eyebrows seemed to shoot up like a rocket, and Healer Theodore's head slipped off the hand it was leaning on. "You did, now, did you?" said Dumbledore interestedly, yet there was a look of slight concern in his eyes.
"Yes."
"How?" Harry hesitated.
"Ron told me."
"He what?" asked the Healer, completely dazed.
"Well, Ron talked to me while I was in a coma, he told me things and one time he said that he wondered what goes on when a person is in one. That's how I knew." A second later a white file on top of a small table appeared in the room and the Healer immediately opened it the scroll of parchment and scanned what had to be Harry's test results from drinking all of those potions.
"Completely normal," stated Theodore after a while. "Except... well, there is an unusual long time of him getting used to light... it seems as if he's spent all that time in a completely dark room of some sort."
"That is peculiar," said Dumbledore, frowning as he looked over Harry's file himself.
"I guess it's safe for me to leave you two alone now," the Healer said and he shook hands with Dumbledore. "I'll go inform the relatives and friends." Then he was out of the room and Harry surveyed his headmaster, who was still reading the report.
"Well, Harry, do you care to tell me what happened while you were out cold? Because I dare say it wasn't just an ordinary coma you were in," said Dumbledore, looking up at Harry so suddenly that Harry was a bit shocked to find himself looking in those bright blue eyes.
"Erm... well..." After such a shock Harry found it hard to start up his story, but after his heart had calmed down, it was much easier and he told Dumbledore everything he remembered about the 'evil place of darkness' as he childishly called it. All the while Dumbledore listened intently and when Harry finished he remained silent for a minute or two, processing it all.
"I'm sure that you know just as well as I do, Harry," began the old man, not really looking straight at Harry but more at the bed he was in. "That this was no ordinary coma." Harry nodded he understood. "Judging on how you described what you have gone through, I could take a 'wild guess' and say that this was Voldemort's last revenge... and if Ron had not talked to you, you would almost certainly have spent the rest of your life in utter isolation."
"Oh," was pretty much all Harry could say. Dumbledore seemed to be lost in thought before he suddenly spoke up again.
"What I find noticeable, though, is that you did not hear any other outside noises. Was it really only Ron's voice? Or did you also hear your two female friends shout whenever they tried to move." Harry shook his head.
"Only Ron's voice," he answered. Dumbledore smiled.
"Which only gives to show how powerful the Five really are."
"But I couldn't hear Nora and Hermione shout," said Harry, confused.
"No, but it was not meant for you to be able to hear Ron, either. Apparently only those of the Five with information to help you could penetrate through the powerful magic shield that had been set up around you... and that shield was doubtlessly also why none of the Healers, or myself, could revive you.
"Oh." It seemed Harry was not able to say anything else than a few simple facts and "oh", but his mind was completely buzzing from everything that had happened all of a sudden, especially after so long in isolation, and all he wanted to do was sleep for a few weeks and then when he woke up, all of this would be blown over and everything would be back to normal... or at least he hoped.
"I assume no one has informed you of how you landed in your coma and what happened to your friends?" said Dumbledore. Harry blinked and only then realized he couldn't have just slumped to the ground and blacked out. He shook his head.
"No."
"Well, then, you shall be very interested in my story, and perhaps amazed you didn't die directly," Dumbledore told him and it scared Harry that his Headmaster was not smiling, and otherwise hiding it very well. He listened, almost with aw, to the old man, who still remained very serious, though pride could be seen in his always twinkling eyes. There was a large silence after Dumbledore had told his story, and Harry was completely speechless, he could not believe how much he had missed from the time he went into a coma to the second he awoke from it.
"What about the ministry?" he asked after a while. "Did they capture all of the Death Eaters?" Dumbledore nodded.
"Well, the ones that didn't manage to escape."
"Did they... did they get Bellatrix?"
"I'm afraid they did not," replied Dumbledore, shaking his head. "She was unconscious at some point, praise to Ms. Vance, but a Death Eater revived her near the end and she escaped."
"Oh."
"Well," said Dumbledore, getting up with slight difficulty. Harry watched him from his bed, head slightly tilted, and only now did it strike him that the old man didn't just seem aged in difficult times, but that he really was old. He was busy guessing his Headmasters age, which was what, 200? when Dumbledore spoke again. "Well, I really must be going now, lots of people I have to meet, and I'm sure you want to get back to your friends, right, Harry?" Harry nodded as Dumbledore eyed his bed and then continued, "and I can assume you will be able to walk the way back?" Harry nodded again and jumped out of his bed, only now seeing the horrible baby blue hospital pajama's he was wearing.
"Where are my own clothes?" he asked desperately.
"They are being held on to by the Healers until you are released. Before then this is what you'll wear," replied Dumbledore smiling. Harry thought that made his Headmaster look a whole lot younger and was now confused by the man's age. Dumbledore led them both out of the white room, through the Hospital towards the fifth floor and into the room Harry had awoken in. Unsurprisingly his friends were anxiously waiting for him and Ron was the first one to jump up and run over to his best friend, grinning broadly, as soon as Harry stepped into the room. Draco soon followed but Hermione and Nora smiled at him, sitting in their beds, being unable to move.
"So, how are you?" demanded Ron a bit too excitedly.
"I'm fine, I guess," replied Harry after a moment of thought. He wasn't exactly sure how he was; everything that occurred now was a bit overwhelming, making it hard for him to focus on one thing.
"Well, that's great!" exclaimed Ron happily, but seeing Harry's look his face fell. "Isn't it?" he asked the others unsurely. They all shrugged, wondering what was wrong with Harry, but Dumbledore beamed at them as he steered Harry towards his new bed, which had been placed there after the Healer had rushed Harry out of the room in the other one.
"Of course it is," he said as Harry got under the sheets. "But he'll need a good rest to feel even better, so please save your questions for later." Dumbledore was already walking towards the door, and his hand was already on the doorknob, before he turned around again. He chuckled upon seeing the other four peering cautiously at Harry. Dumbledore cleared his throat and their heads snapped back to him. "Before I forget: this Saturday there will be a little 'Victory Feast' held for you, as I had promised some time ago. It will not be a small gathering as the last feast, so I do hope you will dress your best."
"Well, what day is it now?" asked Ron.
"Monday. I hope that is enough time to have someone buy you girls a dress?" Dumbledore asked Hermione and Nora. The nodded a bit gravely, realizing someone was going to have to buy them something to wear and what if they didn't like it!? "Good," Dumbledore said and he closed the door quietly behind him. There was a slight silence before Ron broke it.
"Are you going to sleep now?" he asked Harry, who had pulled the sheets up to his chin and was looking rather fearfully around the room, almost like a little child who was afraid of the dark. The four watched him for a reply and after a while Harry shook his head.
"Why not?" demanded Hermione. "Harry, you heard Dumbledore, you have to get a good rest to feel better, and frankly, I think you should go to sleep too. It's for your own health." Harry watched her fold her arms but he remained silent. "Well?" she demanded. Harry shook his head again. "Why not?" she asked. Harry said nothing.
"Hermione, calm down," said Ron quietly. Hermione looked at him in utter disbelief, eyebrows raised. Nora and Draco remained silent, watching the others bicker. "I bet there's a reasonable explanation why he won't speak," Ron continued, but slightly weaker under Hermione's glare.
"Which would be?" she asked.
"I don't know. Let's ask him, shall we?" replied Ron stupidly. "Harry?" Harry's eyes slid from Hermione to Ron. "What's wrong mate? Why don't you want to sleep?" Harry said nothing, and Ron took a step backwards, beginning to feel slightly creeped out by his best friend.
"Look, Harry," said Draco firmly. Harry's eyes slid from Ron to Draco, and he too, took a step back, before taking more forward and walking up to Harry. "If you don't tell us what's wrong, we won't be able to help you." Harry looked owlishly at him before opening his mouth. The four watched him expectantly.
"I'm afraid to fall asleep." There was a silence, during which Draco, Ron, Hermione and Nora tried hard to conceal their disbelief as they stared at him. Ron was the first to recover and he walked over to Harry.
"Why?" he asked seriously. Harry frowned, thinking, and wondering if he wasn't acting too childish. Nora seemed to have read his mind, because she said:
"Don't think we'll find it too childish. I'm sure you've got a good reason to be afraid to sleep. You can trust us, Harry."
"I know I can."
"Then tell us," said Ron.
"It's just... well, I'm afraid I'll go back to that place of eternal darkness and that I won't be able to get out." There was another silence before Ron broke it.
"But why don't you just do whatever it was that got you out of the last one?"
"Incidentally, how did you manage to wake up?" asked Hermione expectantly. Harry hesitated, very aware of 4 pairs of eyes boring into him with interest.
"Well, every now and then I would hear someone speak to me and..."
"Yes?"
"And the first few times this little spot of light shone from a distance whenever I thought that it sounded familiar... and sometimes, when I knew for certain that I'd once known what I was being told, the little light shone brighter and larger..."
"Wait, so you knew nothing?" interrupted Nora. Harry nodded.
"Not even us?" asked Ron, pouting slightly. Harry shook his head.
"Your own name?" said Hermione cautiously. Harry shook his head.
"So I guessed that the light and the information I received from... the voice were linked together," he went on. "And so the next times he spoke to me I would process everything he had said and I could see the light getting larger and larger, but still not close enough. And then the final conversation came where he told me about Voldemort and everything seemed to fall into place and before I'd realized it the white light was speeding towards me before sucking me into it and then I opened my eyes and I found myself staring at the ceiling in the dark." More silence.
"So do you have any idea as to who the voice was?" asked Draco. Harry's eyes gave Ron a quick glance before snapping back to Draco, but he remained silent.
"It was me," said Ron. "And Harry knows it." Harry smiled at his best friend, while the others frowned at him.
"Wait... you talked to Harry?" Ron nodded.
"When?"
"Usually at night, or when I thought you guys were busy enough to not notice."
"We thought you were just watching him, or otherwise saying a prayer of some sort," said Hermione thoughtfully.
"But how were you able to penetrate the shield thingy Voldemort had set up? None of the Healers could," said Nora. Ron shrugged but Harry spoke for him.
"Dumbledore said it had something to with the Five and the bond we have," he said. "He told me that only those who have useful information for me to get out of my coma could break through it and be heard by me."
"How on earth can Dumbledore know so much," muttered Ron, ruffling his hair in slight frustration. Nora sniggered but Hermione rolled her eyes.
"If you're afraid to sleep, you could ask the Healers for a dreamless sleep potion," she suggested. Harry shrugged.
"But I don't want to sleep," he told her.
"But you're tired," she argued, folding her arms crossly.
"Am not," he muttered childishly.
"Are too."
"Am not."
"Are too."
"Am NOT."
"Are TOO."
"Am not."
"Are too! Harry, stop acting like Ron-" There was an indignant cry of "Hey!" but she went on, undisturbed, "and take a dreamless sleep potion. It's obvious you need the rest. Everyone who has seen you would agree with me." Harry looked at his friends for backup, as did Hermione, but they did not look him straight in the eye and instead shook their heads in agreement with Hermione while peering at the peeling paint on the walls.
"Fine. But you have to get it," he muttered. Hermione looked fiercely at Harry before saying:
"I would, if I was able to move," she snapped. Harry gaped at her for a second, before realizing she had gotten injured during the Second War.
"That's not... I meant, that I wasn't going to get it. Someone would have to for me," he muttered.
"Touchy subject," Ron whispered to him and Harry nodded, having found out the hard way.
"I can get," said Nora cheerfully, and she was already making to pull the covers off her when both Ron and Draco rushed over to her, pinning her down.
"Oh no you don't," said Draco and Ron nodded his head in agreement. Nora folded her arms.
"Why not?" she exclaimed. "I can walk, I promise! I was just having an off day, last time. Please just let me try?" she begged, trying to make the sweetest face possible.
"Why, what happened last time?" asked Harry, feeling a bit annoyed that he had missed everything after the Second War.
"Well, she got a bit too excited, lost her balance and fell right on top of Ron," explained Draco.
"I'm fine, though," said Ron, grinning.
"But Nora wasn't, so the Healer on duty confined her to the bed," said Draco. Harry saw Nora sulking and couldn't help smiling; she had always been incredibly stubborn... and sometimes a bit clumsy.
"Yeah, well, you guys all overreacted. I was fine!" she argued. Draco looked at her in disbelief and Ron shook his head.
"It hurt so much, she cried," he told Harry, who rolled his eyes.
"I'll be more careful now. Please, let me try and walk! I really, really, really want to," she begged.
"No way," said Draco and he and Ron left her in her bed and got the Healing Potion themselves.
"At least you were awake," said Harry consolingly. Nora shrugged, annoyed that they were treating her like a fragile baby. Ron and Draco returned soon enough with a steaming goblet of dreamless sleep potion and within five minutes Harry was in a deep slumber, snoring gently.
It was snowing fiercely and Harry stood in the middle of the whiteness with the wind swirling snowflakes around him. He wondered what this was before it dawned on him that it was snowing in June. He looked around but the falling snow was blocking the majority of his view and whatever it was he would be able to see was covered in a thick layer of the white powder. He was beginning to feel scared again, as if someone had put him in that 'dark space' once more, but he could hear this time. The wind was howling, his footsteps made crunching noises in the still untouched snow and then a third sound added to it. A noise that sent chills down his spine. It was something he had heard many times before; a laugh, no, more of a cackle... a high-pitched one that Voldemort used to make... but Voldemort was gone now, dead, Harry knew that, but he still wasn't assured. The cackle died down and Harry remained standing completely still in the falling snow for a few more seconds before he slowly woke up. He made to tell Ron and the others immediately, but when he opened his eyes Mrs. Weasley rushed over to him and enveloped him in a big hug and every thought of his dream/nightmare was driven out of his mind, though he should not have had a dream/nightmare at all.
Harry was dreading when he'd have to tell Mrs. Weasley and the other parents about his coma, but fortunately Dumbledore had already done it for him and all he had to do was answer questions like, "Weren't you scared, dear?" "Did he hurt you?" and "Does anybody here have a comb?" For once Harry wasn't annoyed by everyone fussing over him and he let them get on with it as they pleased while he tried to imprint their faces in his memory forever, especially that of Mrs. Weasley, since she cared for him like a mother would for her son.
During the week Parvati and Lavender had come to bring Nora and Hermione the dresses, which they had bought them on the boys' orders, for the 'Victory Feast'. The two girls were happy with their dress, though they had preferred to buy it themselves, having not been among people for such a long time. After have chatted a little Parvati had had a small conversation with Harry and even though there was a lack of yelling she left with tear- filled eyes and Harry was frowning out the window, his arms tightly folded.
Dumbledore had visited as often as he could, but he hardly had anything interesting to share, except that he had printed the events of the Second War in the Daily Prophet and given each a copy to read. They found it pretty good and wondered what everyone's reaction would be, but that soon wore off and they were left with nothing to do or talk about, since they had pretty much discussed everything, having been stuck together for so long. Needless to say, the days leading up to the Feast had been quiet boring and they couldn't wait until the day came that both Harry and Hermione were allowed to leave the hospital.
A/N: Yes, I know, the last part is pretty fast forward, but otherwise it'd take too long and I've already cut this chapter in half because I just couldn't make you guys wait any longer. I hope you liked it. And the next chapter is probably going take a long to write as well, because my last end- of-term exams are coming up and I really can't afford to slack off.
Athenakitty – Yes, Harry does wake up, I didn't really want to kill him off, cuz that'd be mean. I actually don't know myself when Voldie's power will actually be destroyed, we'll just have to wait and see. Thanks for reading and reviewing.
Dumbeldave – You'll be surprised to know that 'astoundingly' is a word, haha. =D Thanks for reading and reviewing.
(ES) – Yeah, I know, sorry, but I'm just not good at writing battle scenes. I'm glad to hear you liked the rest, though. Thanks for reading and reviewing.
Misdimeanor – Wish I could be Nora too, sigh. If you've read up to here, you'll know Harry is awake and completely healthy. I didn't want to kill him, cuz that'd have been mean. Besides, too many people have died in my story already. =D Thanks for reading and reviewing.
Liberate – I know there are many things in my story that don't make sense at all, but keep in mind that I'm nothing like J.K. Rowling and just writing this story for fun and to keep myself away from the TV. I'll try to change the completely wrong things when I go over this story when it's finished. Thanks for reading and reviewing.