Last Time
Harry was getting better, more comfortable with them, but they needed to get him healthy too. John scrubbed at his face again and decided that tomorrow he would drag Harry to the hospital. He'd do it early before Dean or Sam got up, so they couldn't interfere or try to stop him. His mind was made up. Harry was seeing a damn doctor and he'd already put it off for too long.
He just hoped that all three of his boys would forgive him for this move when all was said and done.
Chapter Eight – Old Enemies
Harry was confused for a moment as he was shaken awake by rough hands. He blinked open gluey eyes to see someone stood over him. He curled up slightly to protect himself from an attack that never came. Harry peered up and he relaxed a little when he saw it was only John.
"What is it?" He asked sleepily. "What's happening?"
"I've gotta go out for a bit, wanna come with me?"
Harry frowned at the odd behaviour, but he sat up more fully. He considered if he wanted to go or stay, but he didn't want to be left behind, so he nodded and got up, starting to get dressed quickly. He wondered if it was another hunt.
"Are Dean and Sam coming?"
"Nah, this is just going to be me and you."
Harry nodded, accepting that easily. He didn't notice, or pick up on how shifty John was being, or see the flash of guilt in his eyes. He didn't know him well enough yet to pick up on those subtle cues.
Instead he quickly used the bathroom, and slipped his feet into his battered trainers, before following John out of the room, down the stairs, and then straight out the front door to the truck.
"Where are we going?" He asked curiously, as he settled in the passenger seat and clipped in his seatbelt.
"Not too far." John assured him.
Harry yawned behind his hand and figured that the one time he was getting some good sleep, without a nightmare, and he got woken up before dawn. He looked to the clock on the truck dashboard and saw it wasn't even five in the morning.
"Did we have to come so early?" He asked, more comfortable now to push his luck a little bit. He needed to know the limits of his new family, and this was how he had decided to do it, push a little, then a little more, until he found the limit and could then toe the line afterwards.
John gave him a smile. "Sure, it's a magical time this early in the morning, I thought you liked listening to the dawn chorus?"
"I do." Harry said, but he frowned too. Had John found out about magic? A slight thrill of fear tripped down his spine at the odd wording the man had used. Was it intentional, or just a coincidence? Was John taking him away to kill him for being different?
"Don't make that face, you're not on trial here, Harry."
That made Harry feel worse, as that was exactly what he felt like now.
"Are you sure Dean and Sam couldn't come?"
"They'll be coming later no doubt."
There was something to John's tone when he said that that Harry didn't like, and he slouched in his seat, curling up a little to try and protect himself, but what he could do, he didn't know. His new family were hunters, going after anything and everything supernatural. He knew that much from what little they'd told him. It was why he hadn't told them about magic yet, because he didn't want to be labelled as a hunt for them. His heart wouldn't be able to take it if they all turned on him.
"Everything is going to be fine, Harry. I promise. I'm here."
That was what worried him the most. He'd been getting on better with Dean, and Sam in particular, but John was…not quite distant, not quite aloof, but gruffer, less likely to comfort him or talk to him. There was very little visible affection to him, John was all action, and no words. He looked after him in a way that Harry hadn't been expecting, like forcing him to show his wounds and then stitching him up, and forcing him to take his pain pills.
John was no nonsense, and…maybe not exactly kind in the strict definition of the term, but he cared, or so Harry had thought.
He was even more confused when John pulled into the parking lot of a hospital and then led him inside with a hand on his elbow. Harry didn't click that it was for him until John checked him in on the paediatrics ward.
"No!" Harry cried. "Why am I here? I don't need a hospital!" He said, trying to pull away from John's grip on his arm.
"It's a precaution, Harry. I swear." John told him.
To Harry it would have been better if John had taken him out to the woods and killed him.
"They'll find me!" Harry cried, trying to get that grip off of him even more desperately.
"No one is getting you away from me." John swore, as they entered a private room, or rather John entered it while pulling Harry behind him, and Harry panicked when he saw the little bed and the hospital outfit laid out for him.
"No, please! You don't understand."
"Harry, I know you're scared, but you need to be looked at. I won't let you suffer." John told him sternly. "Now, I'm gonna tell you what's going to happen, you're going to get changed into those clothes, and a doctor is gonna come and take a look at you. You're going to be good and do everything he tells you to, am I clear?"
Harry nodded, recognising that he'd been given an order and there would be a punishment if he didn't comply, but two tears cut down his cheeks as well and John had never felt like such a bastard before in his life. Harry didn't stop crying, even as he started undressing revealing the too thin body that was worrying them all so much, and one of the main reasons that John had forced Harry through this.
"I know this is hard for you, Harry. But I need you to be healthy, and you're not."
Harry said nothing, he just got into the hospital issue pyjamas, still crying. John sighed and scrubbed a hand through his hair.
Harry remained standing, and he looked so much younger, and more vulnerable, as he stood there in the too big pyjamas, hunched over and crying. He laid a hand on Harry's shoulder, not surprised that his son flinched and recoiled away from him.
He took a breath and steeled himself. He'd known Harry wouldn't like it and might turn away from him. It was why he hadn't told the boys, nor wanted them to come. If Harry turned from him, at least Harry would still have Dean and Sam, even if the thought of his youngest son hating him hurt him. He refused to allow Harry to wriggle out of this situation, though. He meant it when he'd said he would force Harry through this for his health. The boys would tear him a new one for it, he knew, but he was willing to take those consequences for Harry.
The door knocked and a doctor came in, smiling, before it fell to a frown when he saw Harry stood there crying.
"Is everything alright?"
"He doesn't want to be here." John explained. "He's scared."
"There's nothing to be afraid of here, Harry." The doctor said, smiling gently and laying a hand on Harry's back, only for his frown to come back when Harry flinched violently. "Mister Kort, can I ask you to wait outside?"
"I'm not leaving him." John said angrily.
"Only a moment." The doctor said insistently.
John heaved a breath and blew it out. "I'll be just outside, Harry."
"Please don't go." Harry begged.
"Only a moment, Harry." The doctor said. "Your father can come back in after."
Harry huffed out a sob, and it broke John's heart to shut the door on them. He went to find a coffee machine, and he checked his cell as he did. He knew as soon as those boys were awake, they'd want to know where he and Harry were. There was nothing yet, and he was glad of that. If he could get Harry's assessment done before they descended on the hospital, and him, that would likely be for the best. It was why he'd decided to come so damn early in the first place. Sam and Dean would usually be awake between seven and eight in the morning, which gave the doctors two to three hours before those boys came charging in here. John was not looking forward to it.
Harry huddled into his shoulders as the doctor sat in the chair, probably to look more non-threatening, but Harry didn't trust it. The doctor had wanted John out of the room for a reason, and Harry didn't like it.
"Harry, the records your father have given us state that you recently turned fifteen, is that correct?"
Harry nodded mutely.
"You don't look like you're fifteen, Harry. You look a lot younger, do you know why that is?"
"I know what you're thinking." Harry said, cottoning on to the doctor's train of thought.
"Could you elaborate, Harry?"
"You think he's hitting me." Harry said.
"Is he?" The doctor asked calmly.
"No!" Harry said angrily.
"You flinched when I touched you, Harry. It was a very visible, and violent flinch too."
Harry mouthed a little, then fell silent, ducking his head. He'd have to tell the doctor about the Dursleys. He couldn't have him thinking that John was doing this. He didn't want to be taken away from his family.
"I don't know what he told you about…about the situation."
"Your notes are very sparse. Much sparser than they should be for a boy your age."
Harry swallowed.
"Please don't be nervous, Harry. Just sit down and tell me what's on your mind."
Harry perched himself on the end of the bed nervously. "I…I was…am, a surrogate baby." He admitted. "John is my biological father, but my birth parents…I…I technically had four parents, if that makes sense."
"It does." The doctor nodded. "John said that you'd only recently come to him, I had assumed you were living with your mother before then."
Harry shook his head. "My biological mother died before I knew her. But my birth parents died too, when I was a baby. I was living with my birth mother's family, and they…they…"
"They abused you."
Harry flinched, but nodded after a moment of hesitation. "So…so I…I found out about John, and about being a surrogate, so I got in contact and came to find him. I've been with him for a bit over a month now."
The doctor nodded. "I am at least relieved to hear that you're out of that situation now."
Harry nodded, then smiled a little. "I'm much happier now."
The doctor smiled, and then stood. "You're here for a reason, Harry. I need to conduct my assessment now. I know you're scared, but I need to do this."
Harry trembled, but he steeled himself and he nodded. The doctor wasn't going to let him go, and neither was John. He wished that Dean and Sam was here with him. He wanted his brothers.
Dean was worried the next morning when he realised his dad's truck was gone.
"He better not have gone on a hunt!" Dean said to Bobby.
"You know your daddy better than anyone, course he's on a damn hunt."
Dean sighed and paced from one end of the kitchen to another.
"This better not set Harry off again, or I swear I will kill him. If he blames himself for dad leaving and stops eating again, I'll kill him!"
"Kill who?" Sam asked, slouching in and rubbing his eyes.
"Dad."
"Why?"
"He's gone again."
"Gone?!" Sam demanded angrily. "Gone where?"
"Where do you think, Sam?" Dean demanded, starting his pacing again.
"Where's Harry?" Sam asked then. "He back outside?"
"No, he's still in bed." Dean waved off.
Sam's face fell. "No, he's not, Dean. I looked in and his room's empty."
"What do you mean he's not in his room?!" Dean exploded.
"Exactly that, Dean, he's not up there, and you're sure he's not outside?"
"No!"
"He must be with dad."
"If dad has taken him on a fucking hunt he's dead when I get hold of him." Dean swore, even as he grabbed his cell and dialled John's number.
'Hey, Dean.' John actually answered the phone, and wasn't that enough of a surprise?
"Where are you and is Harry with you?"
'Yeah, Harry's with me.' John said softly.
"Thank god." Dean sighed, sending a look to Sam and Bobby. "Where are you, you better not have taken him on a hunt, Dad."
'No, I'm not on a hunt, Dean. We're at the hospital.'
"The hospital? What happened? Are you okay?"
"They're at the hospital?" Sam demanded. "Is it Harry?"
Dean waved at him to shut up.
'It's Harry. I needed to make sure he was healthy.'
"So you dragged him to the freaking hospital a month after he's met us?"
'You boys need to get here. Harry needs you both.'
"Ya think?!" Dean demanded. "What hospital are you at, we'll come now."
Dean got which hospital they were at, and the name they had checked in under, and then snatched his keys.
"Did he say why he took Harry to the hospital?" Sam asked.
"He was worried about his health." Dean sighed and threw a hand through his hair. "Said he couldn't wait for him to get worse, so he just dragged him to the freaking hospital before we were awake to stop him. He said Harry needs us, so I doubt he's taking it well."
"He hasn't known us long enough for dad to do things like this to him." Sam fretted. "This is gonna push Harry back in terms of how comfortable he is with us, and how trusting."
"Great. Fucking perfect." Dean snapped. "Get in the car, Sam."
Dean was in a foul mood as he started the car, and drove to the hospital his dad had mentioned. He couldn't imagine how Harry was feeling, how scared he was.
"He's under Harry Kort." Dean told Sam as they reached the hospital, going inside to find the paediatrics ward. They found a reception and hurried to it to ask where Harry was.
"Can I help?" A pretty receptionist asked, sending hopeful looks Dean's way after clocking he wasn't wearing a ring. It was a testament to how worried and agitated Dean was that he neither noticed, nor cared.
"We're looking for our little brother, he came in a few hours ago."
"Name?"
"Harry Kort, K-O-R-T, he came in with our father."
"Ah, he's on paediatrics, it's up the stairs and you'll take a left turn, and then the second right." She said after checking on the computer system.
Dean didn't wait, he was gone, heading straight for the stairs, leaving Sam to mumble a quick thanks and bye to the disappointed receptionist.
John was pacing outside of a room, clearly waiting for them, and it took everything within him not to clock him in the face right then and there.
"Where is he? Is he okay?" Dean demanded.
"He's inside, and no, he's not okay." John sighed, looking older, and more worn than even they were used to.
"What did they find?" Sam asked, looking worried.
"Something called hypocalcaemia. It's a severe, life-threatening deficiency in calcium."
"Is…would it have been fatal?" Dean asked, his anger seeping away to be replaced by worry.
"It would have killed him before he was twenty if it had been left untreated."
"Before he was twenty?" Sam asked, feeling rather hollow with shock.
"It's the most severe case they've ever heard of, and they think it started from his formative years, right back when he was just a baby. They think it would have killed him at eighteen, maybe nineteen."
"That's…that's only three freaking years!"
John nodded.
"You're telling me that those monsters abused him so badly, that he would have died in three years?" Dean demanded.
John nodded again. "Yeah. He's also deficient in several other key vitamins and nutrients. Vitamin C and D among them, nearly all of the Bs, and iron. He has anaemia as well because of that."
"But…but they can fix this, right?" Dean asked, sounding lost.
"Yeah, they can fix it. They've already started. He's had a dozen vitamin shots already, just to kick start things off. They're worried about his weight though, but we knew that was an issue. He needs to put on a good thirty pounds, and they think he might grow a little taller if he gets the right nutrition. He'll never be as tall as he could have been though."
The two boys looked at one another, then steeled themselves.
"Why didn't you tell us you were bringing him?"
"Sammy, I know you boys, and how protective you are of Harry. You'd have never just let me drag him here, not if you'd seen how he reacted when we first arrived. He tried to run off and kept crying and begging. If I hadn't done this though we would have lost him. He would have died. It never sat right with me, what those people had done, the state of him. He was too short, too thin. I didn't know it was this bad, but I knew it was bad enough."
"Is he awake?"
John shook his head. "They took a lot of blood for testing, they've really put him through the hoops. He had to have a dozen shots as well, after I'd woken him up early too. He fell asleep about half an hour ago."
"Is there anything he needs? Anything we can do?"
"They're keeping him in for a few days. They want to make sure he's out of the danger zones. He's going to have a daily diet plan, so he gets all the vitamins and stuff he needs to get healthy. He needs supplements and nutrient shakes as well."
"God, to think that they did so much damage to him." Sam said in disgust.
"And you still don't wanna go and gank them!" Dean said angrily.
"They're still humans, Dean."
"They almost killed our baby brother!" Dean shouted.
"Dean?" Came the soft call from behind the door.
"Good going, jerk." Sam snapped, heading for the door.
"Bitch." Dean automatically replied, following.
Harry looked like a freaking little kid all tucked up in the hospital white sheets, his thin arms hooked up to monitors and a drip feed.
He looked tired, and drained, and oh so small and pale.
"How you holding up, Harry?" Dean asked, sitting in the chair and reaching out to hold the tiny, bony hand, making sure not to knock the needle.
Harry awkwardly shrugged a narrow shoulder. "Not sure." He admitted.
"You're gonna be fine." John said firmly. "I'll make sure of it."
"I'm sorry I made such a scene when we arrived." He said, looking away, a faint blush on his cheeks.
"You were scared. I knew you would be." John said gruffly, but his hand was gentle when it landed on Harry's head. Harry didn't flinch this time. "You've gone through it now, and you didn't so much as complain as they took so much blood and gave you all those shots."
"I'm fine with pain." Harry said. "I don't really like it here, and being around strangers makes me nervous as I don't know what to do, or how they'll react, but the nurses have been really nice to me."
"Course they have, they take one look at your cute little face and your massive eyes and melt." Dean teased.
Harry scowled. "I'm not cute and I do not have massive eyes!"
Dean chuckled. "Sure you do, bush baby."
"Gargoyle." Harry countered, and Sam laughed.
"I'm the best looking of all three of us!" Dean insisted. "You're a bush baby and Sammy's a Sasquatch."
"You look like an abandoned gas station bathroom." Harry said seriously.
Sam laughed harder, and Dean tried to keep the stern frown, but it flickered into a smile.
"That was a good comeback, you think of that yourself?"
"Yeah, I'm learning." Harry said proudly.
"You fit right in." Dean assured him, ruffling his black hair.
Harry was visibly exhausted, and he couldn't stay awake much longer, and very soon after they arrived his eyes slipped closed almost without his consent and he went back to sleep.
"This calceamia thing, whatever it is, how long before he's better?" Dean asked John the moment he was sure Harry was sleeping again.
"He's taking calcium gluconate." John said, nodding to the IV. "But it'll take several months, maybe as long as a year to fully fix. He was severely sick."
"Does he need anything? Clothes, books?" Sam asked.
"He'll likely appreciate having some books to read. Hopefully he'll be back with us in a few days. The doctor was hopeful, and the nurses don't seem too concerned other than the fact it's the worst case of malnutrition and abuse they've come across."
"Do you want us to go grab him some things?"
"No." John said, then sighed. "I'll go and grab his stuff, you two stay and watch over him."
"Bring a coffee back, would ya?" Dean asked, settling further into the chair to be more comfortable while Harry slept.
John needed a break from the hospital, and he left quickly, and he sat in his truck for a while, just thinking. He could have lost Harry without knowing about it, just from what those people had done to him, how they had treated him. He would have to make some time to go and pay them a visit. Maybe take Dean with him and leave Sammy and Harry with Bobby.
John eventually pulled himself together, and started the truck, driving to Bobby's for a drink and a rant at his old friend, despite that they butted heads almost as often as he and Sammy did, he would always consider Bobby a friend. Harry was going to get better. They'd gotten him the best help, and it didn't matter how long it took, he would be healed.
Harry woke up alone, and it was dark in his room, with just a bit of light helping him to see.
No one was in the room with him, and he tried not to panic. It was clearly night. He had obviously slept for longer than he'd expected.
He pushed himself up, and saw a stack of books on his bedside table. He grinned as he recognised them as his birthday presents. He carefully grabbed the one he had been reading and settled himself in. He was hungry, and thirsty, but he didn't want to bother anyone.
He had been awake for maybe an hour when a nurse carefully popped her head in on him.
"Oh, Harry, what are you doing awake?" She asked him, coming in, all smiles and hands on hips.
"I slept all day." He said.
She hummed and gave him a stern look. "Alright then, are you hungry, thirsty?"
"A little." He lied. He was very hungry and very thirsty now.
"Let me grab you an orange juice and some fruit."
Harry put his book aside and sat up a little more. He wasn't in pain, and he felt fine. Maybe a little tired still, but otherwise he seemed to be doing okay.
The nurse came back with two bottles of orange juice, an apple, a banana, and a muffin.
"Here you go, sweetie. I brought you a bottle of water as well." She said, taking it from her pocket and placing it on his bedside table.
"Thank you." He said shyly.
"You are too cute." She told him. "I'm Claire, and I'm on duty tonight, I'll be just up the hall at the nurse's desk, if you need anything, just press this button." She told him, showing him where it was.
Harry nodded and opened his first bottle of juice, drinking as she left him, closing the door behind her.
He relaxed and ate what she'd given him, starting with the muffin. It was blueberry.
Harry had barely been awake for two hours, he had eaten, drank his juice and a bit of water, and suddenly he was tired again. It wasn't fair. He'd been asleep all day and he was still so very tired.
He settled himself down, looking for his phone. He had a few messages from his brothers, mostly explaining that they had been kicked out until morning, and they'd be back to see him soon. He got a warning to be good from John, encouragement to flirt with the nurses from Dean, and a reminder that his books were on his bedside table from Sam, and a message underneath that to rest assured that Hedwig would be looked after, and the bird feeders filled without him.
He replied to them all, thankful that he had family now, before he got himself comfortable and tried to sleep some more.
It was a scratching noise that first caught his attention as he came around slowly, blinking the sleep from his eyes. Then the screech of the window unlocking.
Harry frowned and rolled over, looking at it. He could just about make it out, and it seemed normal enough…until a shadow moved beyond it and he watched the window slowly open without anything touching it.
His heart shot into his throat and he grappled for the call button, but it seemed like it had been disabled. He went for his phone next, to call his brothers, to call his father, but it was emitting a strange, high-pitched whiny noise and it didn't work when he tried to push buttons.
A dark shadow, vaguely human shaped, stepped into the room and came towards him. It looked like a Dementor, and Harry was frozen in place. Hands with a grip of iron clamped onto his upper arms, and a mouth was lowered to his. It wasn't a Dementor, but it was so close Harry had a panic attack, even as he felt himself getting woozy and sleepy.
"Expecto…expecto…" He tried to cast, feeling his mind slipping.
He tried to wriggle free, but he couldn't, even as he tried to kick out from under the blankets to kick this thing away from him. It had to be a Shtriga. One of those things he'd read about in his books that reminded him of Dementors and liked feeding on children.
The thing was not stopping. Its open, glowing mouth was just above his own, and Harry knew it would likely feed until he was dead. He had to do something.
He thought of John, of Dean and Sam, and Bobby too, and he brought up all of their faces.
"Expecto Patronum!" He yelled out, and the brilliantly white stag burst forth, and with an ear-piercing screech, the thing backed off and fled to the window.
Harry had flailed more in the bed than he'd expected, and the sheet was twisted. He was sweating and panicking, and he felt a few seconds from passing out.
He grabbed his phone and hoped it was working, as the monitors on him started going berserk. Dean was first alphabetically, and Harry tried to type Shtriga into a text message and send it, but his vision went spotty, and then black, and as a crash team came bursting into his room he lost consciousness.
John was woken from sleep by his cell blaring, and he grunted, rolling over to check it. It was an unknown number, it was barely four in the morning, and he frowned.
He answered it tiredly.
"Hello?"
'Mister Kort? Mister Kort we need you back at the hospital immediately.'
John was awake and sat bolt upright a moment later.
"What happened?"
'It's Harry, Mister Kort, he just started seizing.'
"What have you done to my son?!" He demanded angrily.
'We don't know what happened. He was fine an hour before. He was awake and speaking, he just started seizing, we need you to come in, immediately.'
John shut the phone and dressed himself in the clothes he'd thrown off a few hours before. His heart was racing, wondering if it was demons, or something else, as he barged into the boys' room. Dean bolted up, knife in hand and Sam startled awake and was reaching for a gun.
"Get up." He ordered.
"What is it? What happened?" Dean grumbled.
"It's Harry." He told them shortly. "He's had a seizure."
"A seizure? A fucking seizure?" Dean demanded, already up and yanking on yesterday's jeans.
"How has he had a seizure?" Sam asked. "I googled hypocalcaemia when we got home…"
"Of course you did." Dean grumbled.
"There's nothing in that condition that would cause him to have a seizure, not unless someone messed with his medication!"
"Is that what's happened?" Dean asked.
"We won't know until we get there, but they said they had no idea what had caused it."
John climbed into the front of the Impala, leaving Sammy to take the back seat, and Dean floored it, missing stop signs and taking corners on two wheels.
They made good time as the roars were near empty, and John was frantic as he tore through the hospital to the paediatrics ward.
"Mister Kort!"
John turned and confronted the doctor, who swallowed nervously and had a pile of sheets in hand.
"What happened to my son?" He demanded in a low growl.
"We can't be sure. He was awake and talking an hour before this…this event happened. The night nurse gave him two bottles of orange juice, a bottle of water, some fruit and a muffin. He ate it all, and went back to sleep, and then a few hours later his monitors started going off. We found him having a seizure."
"How is he now, Doctor?" Sam asked.
"He…he's fallen into a coma."
"This isn't good enough!" John shouted. "I brought him here to be made better, not for him to end up in a coma!"
"We are doing everything we can, Mister Kort, in the meantime we need you to sign these forms so that we can do more tests."
John growled and snatched the forms, and went to sign them on the nurse's desk, giving a look to his two sons, who went straight to Harry's room to sweep it for anything supernatural.
Dean looked at Harry, now lying so still on his back and several more wires and tubes hooked up to him, and looking so bruised and gaunt. He looked a million times worse than he had when they'd last seen him just a few hours before.
"He looks like he's terminally ill." Sam said sadly, finding it hard to look at Harry in the bed.
"Anything?" Dean asked shortly.
"Nothing." Sam said, shaking his head.
Sam looked at Harry in the bed, but turned away from the painful sight, something caught his eye and he zeroed in on it, and he frowned.
"Hold on, Dee."
"What is it?!" Dean asked impatiently as Sam got on his knees and stuck his arm under the bed.
"Huh."
"What?" Dean demanded.
"It's Harry's cell."
"Did he take a photo?" Dean asked.
Sam unlocked Harry's phone, and his face fell.
"He tried to send a text to you." Sam said.
"What did it say?!" Dean demanded, his overprotective, big brother streak driving him mad at hearing that Harry had tried to message him for help.
Sam turned the phone and showed him.
"A fucking Shtriga?" Dean whispered, horrified. "No. No, he has to be wrong, Sam."
"One way to find out."
Sam went to the window, and Dean hurried after him. The rotted, elongated handprint they found on the sill was the confirmation they didn't want.
"Boys, did you find anything?" John asked.
"Yeah, Harry had an unsent text message to Dean." Sam said, handing over the phone.
"Please no." John said, lowering his head and looking over to Harry.
"The handprint is on the windowsill." Dean said. "So we need to hunt this thing, and quick. It's already taken Harry. There's no other sick kids here, not like…like that. Harry must be the first. We need to find the pattern and then kill it. I'm not losing another brother to one of those things."
"You didn't lose me." Sam reminded gently.
"It was a close call, both fucking times!" Dean said angrily.
"That thing was a doctor. Parading as a paediatrician." Sam said. "Do you think maybe the one who got Harry is also a doctor?"
"We'll fucking find it, and we kill it." Dean said seriously, his green eyes stone cold.
"One of us stays here, at all times. I don't care what those doctors say, we're not leaving him alone again." John said.
"I'll take the first watch. What tests are they going to do on him?" Sam asked.
"More blood tests. One of those is going to come back to show his white blood cell count has dropped dangerously low and his immune system is practically non-existent." John said, looking at the pale greyish boy in the bed, his eyes bruised black.
Something caught his attention and he strode over to Harry and gently pulled up the sleeve of the white tee he was wearing. There were black and purple bruises ringed around his upper arm. The other side was a perfect match.
"That thing held him down while it fed." Dean growled, his anger getting out of control.
"Right, Dean, we're hitting the library records, see if anything like this has ever happened here before." John barked. "Sammy, you watch him."
Sam nodded and settled in the chair.
"We need to find consecrated wrought iron rounds." Dean said.
"I'll call Bobby and get him on it." John answered and then they were gone, leaving Sam to sit beside Harry, and watch over him.
He made room for the doctors to do their tests, he allowed the nurses to do their checks, but he refused to leave the room. He refused to leave Harry until Dean came a few hours later to tag out. He and dad hadn't found anything, so it was Sam's turn to work his magic over the case. He would find the thing that had fed on his baby brother. They'd only just gotten him in their lives, a fucking Shtriga wasn't taking him out. Not on their watch.
Harry squirmed awake and then panicked when his memories caught up to his sleepy, groggy mind.
"Hey. Hey, Harry, are you awake?"
Harry looked up at Dean, who was leaning over him, and he forced his arms to work, as he threw them around Dean's neck and clutched at him tightly.
"Hey, you're alright. You're okay." Dean assured him. "I'm here for you."
"It was…was one of those awful things. It came through the window!" Harry rasped, his voice hoarse and harsh.
"A Shtriga."
Harry nodded, trembling. "I…I disturbed it, hit it with my phone, and then the monitors on me started going off. I think it knew that it meant the doctors would come, and it fled out of the window. It's going to come back. You said it'll feed through families, but it started to feed on me and got stopped. It's coming back for me, Dean and I don't want to go through that again."
"It's not going to go anywhere near you." Dean promised savagely.
"It will! It will, Dean!"
"I need you to calm down, Harry. I'm here, nothing is going to hurt you on my watch."
Harry was trembling, but Dean was just so relieved that he had woken up. It was odd, as usually the Shtriga left its victim in a coma until they died, but Harry had woken up. Hopefully that thing hadn't taken too much of Harry's life force.
He took out his cell, even as he hovered near the bedside table, his knees protesting the half crouched hunch as Harry refused to let him go. He dialled Sam's number immediately, knowing that he and dad were together, but Sammy was more likely to answer his phone when it rang.
'Dean, is he okay?' Sam's worried voice answered.
"Yeah, he's just woken up. The feeding was disturbed and he's awake."
'He's woken up? How is he?'
"Terrified, as expected." Dean said seriously, running a hand through Harry's hair as his baby brother tried to meld them into one person.
'Harry's awake?' Dean heard their dad ask, a little further away than Sammy, but Dean still heard him.
"Yeah, the feeding was disturbed, Dad. It didn't take whatever it needed from Harry. Which means it'll probably come back for him tonight."
Harry whimpered and Dean closed his eyes at the pitiful sound, clutching the small body tighter to his chest.
"It won't get you, Harry." He promised.
'Is he there with you?' John asked.
"I ain't leaving him." Dean said seriously. "Over my dead body is that thing getting him again. What have you found?"
'A whole lot of nothing.' Sam sighed.
"I don't want it to come back." Harry said.
"It's not coming back, Harry. I won't let it."
'We're coming to you, Dean. Make sure the doctors know he's awake so they can run tests. Did his white blood cell count come back?'
"Yeah, just as expected, it took a very sharp nosedive after that thing attacked him, but it wasn't depleted to nothing."
'Right, take care of Harry. Get the doctors to see him, we'll be with you in half an hour.'
Dean closed his cell and he gave Harry a tight hug, ignoring that it was sort of a chick-flick moment. Harry needed it, he looked shaken and frightened and Dean wanted to wipe it all away.
"I'm just going to the door to call the doctor, Harry. I'm not leaving the room, but I need you to let me go. Dad and Sam will be here soon too."
Harry trembled slightly, but he nodded and eased his grip slowly, until he pulled back and rested back in the bed looking exhausted and half a second away from going back to sleep.
"If you need to sleep, bud, go ahead." Dean told him. "I'm not leaving the room. Not for anything. I won't let anything happen to you."
Harry nodded his understanding, but he forced himself to stay awake, even as Dean stood on the door, waiting for someone to come past. He meant it when he'd said he wasn't leaving the room. Not with a Shtriga loose and feeding on kids in the hospital. He'd done that once and it had almost cost them Sammy. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice, and lose Harry.
Dean called over a passing nurse, and she seemed so surprised to see Harry awake. Then Dean had been surprised when Harry had started moving and moaning in the bed and he'd had to ask Harry if he was awake before he believed it.
"I'll just run and get Doctor Caxton." She said, still looking as if Harry had performed a miracle.
Dean went back to the chair and sat next to Harry. He was struggling, forcing himself to stay awake.
"I promise I won't let anything happen to you."
Harry nodded, but he still didn't make any move to go to sleep. Dean didn't really blame him after what he'd gone through.
The doctor came in, all smiles and brightness. Really these paediatricians were all weird. How they could keep up that happy look around sick kids all day was anyone's guess.
"Harry, it's so good to see you awake. You gave us a fright last night." He said, speaking as if Harry was his best friend.
"Sorry." Harry said softly, quietly.
"That's okay, but let's see how you're doing, shall we? Big brother, do you perhaps want a coffee?" The doctor asked him.
"No, I'm good, thanks." Dean replied shortly, his gaze hard, daring the doctor to try and kick him out, especially after Harry gave him a sweet smile.
"Right, big brother is staying. Is that okay with you, Harry?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah. I want him to stay."
Doctor Caxton nodded, and then started taking rudimentary tests, pulse, heartbeat, breathing, and Dean watched his every move.
"Right, I'm going to send in some nurses to take some blood, okay, Harry?"
Harry nodded. "Okay."
"You're so good with the needles, the nurses all love you, you know." Doctor Caxton said, even as he marked off something on Harry's chart.
"How's he doing?" Dean asked.
"Remarkably well considering what happened last night, but we need to do more tests first, just to be sure."
The nurses that came in were young, bright, and perpetually happy. Dean was beginning to think they all took something so they could deal with sick kids and be this freaking happy. They were making Harry smile though, even as Harry watched them find a vein and tap it for blood. The needles didn't bother Harry at all, he could even sit and watch them do it.
They praised him, called him a sweetie and a cutie, and that made Harry blush. He didn't like compliments.
The nurses left and Dean relaxed a little. Harry was tired now, and Dean tried to get him to relax enough to sleep by talking about stupid stories he remembered from when he and Sammy were little. He had almost managed it when the door opened and a nurse came in with a tray, and all at once Harry was alert again, and Dean sighed.
"Here you go, Harry, sweetie." The new nurse said, giving his brother a soft smile and laying the tray on the table over Harry's lap.
"Thank you." Harry said quietly, but his voice was tense, hard.
Dean stood and moved to stand beside him immediately. That wasn't normal behaviour for Harry, so something was wrong.
"Thank you, Nicole." Dean said, reading her name off the tag around her neck. "I'll help him from here."
Her smile widened. "It's so nice to see brothers helping one another. It seems like you've done it before, do you have other little brothers?"
"One, he's in between the two of us." Dean said. "He'll be here soon with our dad."
Harry touched his hand and Dean tensed further. Something definitely wasn't right but he didn't know what.
"Well you rest up, Harry, eat and regain your strength." Nicole told him, before leaving the room with a smile and a wave. Dean turned to Harry the moment the door was closed, seeing that Harry had pretty much stopped breathing, his eyes too wide in panic.
"Her!" Harry choked out. "It was her! She was that thing. Dean, she was the one who attacked me!"
"Are you sure?" Dean asked him, feeling unduly angry that that thing was here, taunting Harry still.
Harry nodded frantically. "She felt the same as that thing last night. I…when she bent over to put the tray down, she came too close and I…I don't know, it was like I recognised her."
"She wasn't the nurse from last night?"
Harry shook his head. "No, that was Claire. I liked Claire. I haven't had any nurse called Nicole. I haven't seen her before, Dean, but she felt the same!"
Harry was almost hyperventilating by now, and Dean put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.
"She won't hurt you while I'm here. We'll get her, Harry. She won't bother you again."
Harry nodded, but turned to stare at the food.
"I don't think she would have done anything to the food."
"She's trying to feed me up so she can drain my life force." Harry whispered.
"She won't get the chance, never again." Dean swore. "You're eating to get better so that you can come home with us."
Harry nodded and he picked at the food a little, eating less, and Dean sighed, wondering where Sam and their dad were. He needed them to hurry the hell up.
Harry looked up in fear as the door opened, but he relaxed again as Sam's grinning face came into view. His brother came straight to him and gave him a tight hug that made Harry feel so comforted and safe.
"It's good to see you awake." Sam told him.
Harry nodded.
"You haven't eaten much." John observed, looking at the barely touched plate.
"I…I know who the Shtriga is impersonating. The nurse who brought the food. I…I haven't seen her before, but when she came close, I recognised her. She felt familiar to me."
"You're sure?" John asked seriously.
Harry nodded, his face crumpled in upset and stress.
"We gotta kill it. Today." Dean hissed out, grabbing a bottle of apple juice and twisting off the top, handing it to Harry automatically. Harry took a few sips.
"It can't be killed unless it's feeding." John murmured.
"It wants to feed on Harry!" Dean burst out.
"It's the only way to kill it."
"No. No way!" Sam snapped angrily. "You cannot be thinking about using Harry as bait!"
"What?!" Harry burst out shrilly. "No! No, I don't want to!"
Harry thought about all the times before he had been used as bait, how he had been manipulated throughout his life, hurt and then abandoned, and he couldn't deal with it. He wanted his new family to be different to everyone else in his life. He didn't want to be bait.
"Harry, the Shtriga wants you. It will feed on you tonight regardless of if you play bait or not." John told him.
"Don't tell him that!" Sam burst out angrily.
"Sam." John said sternly. "He needs to know."
"No he doesn't!" Sam insisted, getting heated. "He's fifteen, Dad. He doesn't need to know anything, you didn't even let Dean hunt properly until he was sixteen and you'd trained us our whole lives!"
Their argument was cut short by the warning beeps on Harry's heart monitor, which had spiked out of control as Harry was clearly caught in a panic attack.
"Harry, just calm down and breathe." Dean instructed gently, rubbing his back.
Harry couldn't, he felt like he was spacing out. They wanted to throw him to that thing, that Shtriga. The thing that had fed off of him and had almost killed him last night.
He had left Britain, and the wizarding world, to get away from the growing war, the constant stress and fear of being set upon by everyone, by everything, always wondering when the next attack would come, whether it was the Dursleys, or Voldemort, or even his own professors. He'd been forced through the Tri-wizard tournament. He'd watched Cedric's murder, Voldemort's rebirth, and had then been attacked by the fake Moody. That had only been a few months ago, and now he was supposed to be sacrificed yet again, by his new family. The family he'd thought would be a second chance for him. Why him? Why was it always him? Why did he have to be the one to always sacrifice himself? He didn't want to keep doing it. He was tired. So tired.
The alarms went off, and a crash team came running, including Doctor Caxton.
"I need you all out." He instructed sternly, his soft smile nowhere in sight.
"I'm not leaving him." Dean said stubbornly.
"I need you out, now." The doctor said with a finality. "This poor boy has crashed, and we need space and calm to work on him. We can't do that if you're distracting us and getting in the way."
"Doctor, his vitals have dropped." A nurse said anxiously.
"You need to let me do my job. Do not make me call hospital security."
"Dean, come on." Sam said, grabbing his arm and tugging.
"I swore I wouldn't leave him." Dean said.
"The best thing you can do for Harry now is wait outside, and let me do my job."
"Doctor Caxton!" A nurse said, her voice panicked and fretful.
Dean relented and left the room, thankful at least that none of the nurses were the Shtriga, otherwise the hospital security would have had to drag him out kicking and screaming.
"We are not using him as bait." Dean hissed at John as he paced past him.
"Dean, you know that thing is coming for him as well as I do!" John growled. "It doesn't matter if we use him as bait or not, it's coming for him!"
"Did you not just see him have a panic attack and pass out?" Sam demanded. "We are not using him as bait, Dad."
"It's the only way." John sighed.
"You took me away when I was targeted before." Sam pointed out.
"That was different!" John insisted.
"How? How was it different?"
"Because I drove you three hours away! Bobby's place is within walking distance, Sam." John snapped. "If we take Harry back to Bobby's, the Shtriga will just feed on him there!"
"So we go further away." Sam said simply.
"And rip apart Harry's only place of safety?" John demanded. "He's happy at Bobby's. No, this ends here, now."
"You think he'll forgive us for using him as bait?" Dean asked, looking haunted. "You saw his reaction in there, he won't."
"I don't care as long as he's safe." John said firmly. "We're hunting this thing, tonight."
"How are we supposed to gank it in a freaking hospital, Dad?" Dean demanded. "Have you thought of that?"
"We pretend to leave, but hide down the corridor. I'm gonna put up surveillance cameras on Harry."
"You want us to leave him too?!" Dean demanded, his voice rising in anger and agitation.
"Do you want him to be safe?!" John demanded right back.
"Of course I do!"
"This is the only way."
Dean and Sam settled a little, neither of them able to see another way to kill the Shtriga and keep Harry safe. It wasn't ideal, and it was frustrating, but they needed to keep Harry safe.
So while the doctors were with Harry, Sam stayed outside the door while Dean and John went to collect what they needed, including miniature spying equipment to put in Harry's room so they'd know when the Shtriga came for him.
They were all waiting when Doctor Caxton exited the room to speak to them.
"How is he?" John asked gruffly.
"He's doing better. As far as we can tell, Harry had a panic attack and passed out due to lack of oxygen thanks in part to him hyperventilating. Given what happened last night, with his seizure and coma, and his initial fear of coming here, this isn't unexpected. We're going to need to keep him calm and comforted as we move on with his treatment, ready for when he goes home. The fewer panic attacks he has, the better."
"Why, are they dangerous?" Sam asked.
"They could potentially trigger another seizure." Doctor Caxton told them. "We don't know what triggered the first one, so we don't know what might trigger a second. He's never had seizures before?"
"Not that we know of, but we've only known him just over a month. He hasn't mentioned having seizures before this." Dean said.
"We're going to keep a good eye on him for a few days. He's responding well to the medication and the supplements, so I don't foresee any other complications, as long as he doesn't have another seizure."
Both boys looked at John and he sighed. They knew that Harry's seizure was triggered by the Shtriga feeding on him, and that he might have a second seizure if it fed on him again. The urge to pack Harry up and drive as far away as he could grew stronger, but just like that thing that had targeted him just a few weeks ago, Harry wouldn't rest if the Shtriga was still alive, and targeting him.
"Do we carry on?" Dean asked.
"We can't." Sam pointed out. "Another seizure could kill Harry."
"We have to kill it, Sam. Harry won't rest if that thing is still alive and targeting him." John said firmly.
"You heard the doctor. He could die!" Sam burst out.
"We won't let him. The moment that thing starts feeding, we kill it. It had longer before, we didn't know it was here, and Harry only had the seizure after it had fed for a while."
Dean and Sam shared a look, and both steeled themselves to do this. Neither of them liked it, but John had made up his mind. They just hoped that it didn't backfire in their faces.
Harry was woken by the same scratching at the window, and he bolted upright in the hospital bed and turned to the window. He heard the latch click, and turned to look for his phone.
He could feel that thing, nurse Nicole, enter the room and a tear slipped down his cheek. No one was in the room with him. Dean had promised that he wouldn't be left alone. He'd lied and broken his promise.
He turned around as he felt a shiver down his back to see the Shtriga standing over him, and it once again clamped onto his upper arms with supernatural strength to keep him still as it lowered its mouth to him.
"Expecto…" Harry's memory flickered. He'd thought of his family the last time, his one last hope at a happy memory, but it was no longer strong enough. They had used him as bait, they'd broken their promises. He could no longer protect himself.
Why did he even want to really? Everyone always used him, hurt him, what was so terrible about him that he couldn't find anyone who actually wanted to care for him? Sirius and Remus had lied to him about him being a surrogate, even as they regaled him with stories of his babyhood, and his birth parents. He didn't know if they would have ever told him if he hadn't confronted them first. He'd been granted two families, by way of his surrogacy, and his birth parents had been killed, Petunia and Vernon had abused him all his life, Dudley had bullied and abused him too, and now his surrogate family had just dangled him in front of this monster after he'd told them he didn't want to be bait, that he didn't want to go near it ever again, just so that they could hunt it.
Why was he even fighting? He had nothing to live for anyway.
He felt his head getting heavy, his energy sapped, draining away as this thing fed on him, and then there was a sudden, extremely loud, gunshot right above his head, and the monster was flung halfway across the room. Sam was there a moment later, holding him tight.
A tear squeezed out and fell down Harry's cheek as it sunk in that they had used him as bait. They had let that thing purposefully come near him, had let it feed on him, just so that they could hunt it.
"Harry, say something?" Dean encouraged, cupping his cold cheek.
Harry chose not to say anything. He didn't think he could as his heart tore itself in two. Maybe he should go back to England. Go back to Hogwarts and the Dursleys. He would be thrown to Voldemort again, but truly was it any different than what his surrogate family were doing to him? At least back in Britain he had his friends. All of a sudden he just really missed Ron and Hermione, and he wanted to see them again.
"Just what is going on in here?" A nurse demanded. "What was that noise?"
"It came from down the hall." John lied, the gun he'd used to kill the Shtriga nowhere in sight. "We were all dozing, and it woke us up."
"You really shouldn't be here. It's after hours."
"We know, but after what happened last night, we couldn't just leave him." Sam said, giving the nurse a pleading look with big, doleful eyes.
The nurse sighed. "Don't disturb his sleep too much. He needs to rest."
"That noise disturbed him more than we did."
The nurse nodded, and remembering that she was investigating the noise, she took one last look at them, and headed off, further down the hall to check for anything that might have fallen over, or otherwise made such a loud noise.
The Winchesters turned back to Harry, who was staring vacantly at the still open window. Dean went and shut it, locking it back up.
"It's gone now, Harry. It can't hurt you anymore."
Harry said nothing, and he remained still. He was exhausted, and distressed, and he felt betrayed. Why was it always him?
"How is he?" Bobby asked John and Dean quietly as Sam settled Harry on the settee carefully, layering a blanket over his lap.
"He hasn't said a word since the Shtriga. Not to us, at least." Dean said, very anxious.
"The nurses said he spoke to them. He'll talk to them, but not to us." John sighed, feeling the weight of his bad decision weighing heavily on him. Harry had flinched away from him every time he tried to touch his son. He'd even flinched from Dean, Harry had only let Sam touch him.
"Well, what the hell happened?"
"The Shtriga came back for him, as we knew it would. It started to feed off of him again, and we managed to kill it."
"Survivor's trauma then?" Bobby sighed. "On top of the trauma he was already suffering. That poor boy should be a whimpering mess."
"He's stronger than we think." John said.
Bobby shook his head. "No, he ain't, Winchester. That boy is traumatised! It ain't about being strong, or seeing how much pressure he can take before he breaks. Goddamn, you're supposed to be protecting him and stopping these things from happening."
"I'm trying." John insisted.
"Try harder." Bobby snapped.
The two men glared at one another, until Sam wandered over to join them, leaving Harry sat on the sofa, staring ahead vacantly.
"Does Harry need anything?" Sam asked.
"He's due some of those supplements." John grunted, taking the paper bag the hospital had given to him, and taking out the instruction sheet the doctor had included. He found the right bottle of pills and tipped one out.
He took that and a bottle of water over to Harry, who ignored him.
"Take the pill, Harry." He said shortly, his tone making it clear he wasn't going to accept anything less than full compliance.
Harry's left eye twitched at the order, John saw him setting his jaw, and his anger and frustration mounted.
"I won't ask again." He said warningly.
Harry started trembling, but he didn't move, and didn't even look at him to acknowledge he was there.
"Damnit, Winchester. Go and cool off before you make everything worse." Bobby declared.
"You are taking your medication, Harry." John told the boy. "You'll never get better if you don't."
"Why do you even care?!" Harry exploded, leaping to his feet and squaring up to him. It was Sammy's teenaged years all over again. Why did Harry have to be Sam's double instead of Dean's?
"Of course I care, you're my son!" John said, his voice rising. Harry's body flinched involuntarily at the increase in volume, but Harry stood his ground.
"You used me as bait!" Harry shouted.
"Wait, what?!" Bobby asked.
"I told you I didn't want to be bait and you used me to lure that thing anyway!"
"You used your own son as bait for a Shtriga?!" Bobby demanded, looking furious. "Get out."
"I'm not leaving." John said stubbornly.
"I wasn't asking." Bobby said angrily. "Don't make me get my shotgun."
"It was the only way to kill it."
"Bullshit!" Bobby snapped. "Harry, go up to your room for a bit."
Harry looked between them, but he actually listened to Bobby and left the room. They listened to him on the stairs, and then faintly a door closing.
"Do you two want to weigh in here?" Bobby asked Sam and Dean. "Or did you all just decide to use that poor boy as bait."
"It had already targeted him, Bobby. It was always gonna come back for him."
"Then you get him the hell out of dodge." Bobby said angrily. "You don't offer him up on a damn plate!"
"It was too close, no matter if we had brought him back here, it would have come for him."
"You should have gotten him out of town! Hell, the next state over if need be. There have been no Shtriga attacks here, ever! This one was new, and Harry was the first victim. You could have moved him to safety and then came back to blow it away! Instead you used him as fucking bait! A fifteen year old boy you knew was traumatised and abused."
"I panicked." John admitted with a sigh. "I kept thinking back to Fort Douglas, back to when I almost lost Sam, and I…I wasn't going to risk losing Harry."
"So you put him at risk? Put him right in the middle of the danger, and offer him up to be fed upon again?!"
"We were right there, Bobby. Just down the hall. The minute that thing started feeding on Harry, we were there. No one else got hurt, and that thing is dead, it can't target anyone else ever again."
"No one else got hurt?" Bobby echoed. "What the hell do you think Harry is? Cos from where I'm standing, he got hurt again from this. You made the choice to use him as bait, and now you've shattered his trust and sent him straight back to the start of his recovery. You need to get out."
"He's my son, Bobby." John said angrily.
"Yeah, and right now he doesn't want to see or speak to you. You're gonna do even more damage to him if you force this. Just go on a few hunts, leave him with me, and give him some time to cool off and come to terms with what a terrible parent you are."
If looks could kill John could have offed him with one look, but Bobby stuck to his guns and John stormed off to cool down himself.
"You two as well." He said to Dean and Sam.
"What? No!" Sam cried out. "Bobby, he needs us."
"Right now he needs you as much as a hole in the head, and that's what you'll be getting if you don't leave. You used him as bait, Sam, after he'd said he didn't want to be bait."
"It was the only way." Dean tried.
"Bullshit." Bobby snapped back immediately. "There were other options, a hundred of 'em would have been better than what you did to him. It wasn't even the easiest way to kill it, it was the quickest. Quick and dirty and you've ruined that boy and whatever baby steps he'd taken towards trusting people again."
They lapsed into silence, Bobby staring them down.
"Go on a few hunts, and I'll call you." He said. "But until I know Harry's settled and back in a normal mind set, you're not staying here."
They weren't happy, but as soon as the door shut behind them Bobby locked it, before going straight to his whiskey cabinet and pouring himself a double measure. He threw a hand through the scruff on his chin and cursed those damn Winchesters and their jump-the-gun attitudes.
He didn't know what the hell to do with a traumatised teenager any more than those boys did, but damn even he would never have used him as fucking bait.
He removed his ball cap and rubbed his head before replacing it. He'd need to consult those therapy websites that Sam had been looking at. But first, he needed to get Harry to eat and take his medication. Given what had happened the last time Harry had blamed himself for John leaving, Bobby was gearing up for a fight now all three of them were gone.
He cursed their stupidity again. Why the hell had they even thought to use Harry as bait for a Shtriga? He wished he'd given each of them a smack upside the head now as it sunk in that he now had to care for a traumatised boy. Damn, he really wasn't cut out for it. He'd never been the sharing and caring type of guy.
At least he was willing to actually try, though. For Harry he'd give it his best shot, which is why he was furious with those boys for using him as bait. He didn't understand what they had even been thinking, why they had thought that Harry could cope when they knew he was already abused and dealing with too much as it was.
He poured himself another measure of whiskey and knocked it back in one. He went to the kitchen and started something for lunch. He needed to get Harry to eat and he was overdue for a supplement already and he hadn't been out of the hospital for two whole hours.
If he could keep himself busy he wouldn't dwell on his anger at those damn Winchesters, and that would create a better atmosphere for Harry too. He just really wished that the three of them used their damn heads a little more, or at the very least that they told him such stupid decisions before they acted on them so he could tell them how fucking stupid it was.
It was too late now and Harry had been hurt, physically and emotionally, hell, probably mentally too given how scared he must have been and he'd have to clean up the pieces. God, he wasn't nearly qualified for this. He'd have to get onto those websites, pronto, but for now he'd be happy if Harry just took his pills and ate something for lunch.
A/N: Ah John, you dumb twat. The fall out of this incident lasts a while, lovelies, but don't worry, all is not lost, Harry is much too forgiving, as per his cinnamon bun nature. His relationship with the Winchesters has certainly been damaged though, but his desire for a family outweighs everything else.
FiberBard: Oh, I'm not sure Harry is ever going to tell them about what he went through, or that he's a wizard, but honestly the Winchesters aren't exactly making it easy for him. He hasn't been with them long enough yet, but the longer he leaves it, the worse it is, but considering they're hunters, and Harry's only muggle interaction is the Dursleys, yeah, he's afraid, so there's not going to be any massive confession on Harry's part, but I have a plan to reveal it to the Winchesters without Harry saying a word. Poor cinnamon bun can't catch a break.
StarLight Massacre. X