A/N: So here is the second chapter... Hope you like it!
Disclaimer: I do not own Grey's Anatomy or Harry Potter, both are owned by strong women (Rhimes and Rowling) and well, richer women...
AND THANK YOU CHALLENGE KING FOR BETA-ING THIS STORY!
"So let me get this straight," Harry spoke slowly as he looked from the chief to Bailey, Hahn (the vascular surgeon) and Grey. "You just had a ten-year old terminally ill patient flown in. she has a tumor that is so intrinsically woven through and around her veins that the Minotaur would think his maze was easy. And you decided that we can operate on her?"
The chief nodded, a stern expression on his face. Harry looked back silently. Meredith and Bailey were watching the two men stare at each other as if they were in the middle of a tennis match. Hahn looked triumphantly, as if Harry had just proven a point of her.
Harry looked at Meredith and saw a very disturbing Barbie doll. "Grey, not that I am to judge childhood toys, but why on earth do you have a Barbie with the option to gut her alive?"
Bailey looked at the new attending. "That's Anatomy Jane. Don't say you never heard of Anatomy Jane!"
Harry looked at the woman. "I'm sorry, dr. Bailey. Do I look like the type of man who makes it his life mission to go out and by dolls? And I am British, we did not have Anatomy Jane, as far as I'm concerned."
Harry sighed. "Do you have any scans to look at?" He knew he would let himself be dragged into this surgery. That he would stand side by side with Bailey and Webber and will cut this poor girl's abdomen to shreds.
Not long after he was staring at the scans with Bailey on his right and Webber on his left side.
"Well, what are her labs?" As Bailey updated him on the girl's status, Harry let his practiced eye sweep over the scans.
"What has Hahn to say about her arteries. In what condition does she expect them to be?" He did not miss the look Webber and Bailey shared conspicuously behind his back.
"She… has some concern about them," Webber spoke diplomatically.
"Chief, do not try that on me. I have lived most of my teenage years around the British aristocracy. I mastered the game of half-truths and understatement." Harry reprimanded his boss. Impossible projects that he was forced to take on, sure. But he would not allow himself to be dragged in it without all the facts out in the open.
"I want to talk to the girl." Harry spoke. Bailey looked at him in surprise. Harry saw the demand to elaborate why.
"In all my time in the field, and before that, I have experienced that the mindset of a patient is a very important thing. The only way I can see it, and what I can guess an idea that Grey the creepy doll keeper was playing with, is to remove her organs out of her body. Completely. That would be the only way we can even attempt to remove the tumor. But I will not do it if the girl is at peace with her fate."
This made the chief turn around to face his new employee fully.
"Chief, there is nothing crueler than to prolong a child's suffering. If the girl is ready to go, with this amount of damage in her body, who are we to decide that we can keep her here? Children's death are always harder upon all, even us doctors. But if she is at peace, so be it."
With those words he strode out of the viewing room. At the nurse's station, he asked for her chart. When he looked at the room she was in, he saw an impressive gathering around her bed. He smiled, he was always filled with a melancholic feeling when he saw that aunts, uncles, cousins and every other family friend were just as worried about a patient's fate as the direct family.
"Page Dr. Grey here, please. Just do a 911, she needs to learn that if she has only one patient, she needs to be here if not with her attendings." He spoke to one of the nurses with a cheeky smile.
"Yes, Dr. Potter."
"And could you please ask her to bring that creepy ass doll with her? Even though it is disturbing, it might come in handy." The nurse looked at him weirdly, not that he cared one single bit about that.
He walked in to the room, smiling as everyone looked up to him.
"Well hello there, all of you!" he smiled.
"All of you are Beglers?" He asked the girl with a smile. He listened with half an ear as grandparents, uncles and everyone really started to explain the – no doubt – very complicated family relations. He sat at the feet end of the bed.
"And you, pretty lady, you must be Tori," Harry spoke once the cacophony had quieted down around them. The girl nodded shyly. He could see she was tired, and really at the end of her ropes.
"And a little birdy told me more. You want to know what all I heard here around the hallways?" Harry kept on speaking with the girl. He saw her lying a bit more straight, keeping her head a bit higher as she nodded and gave him her full attention. Her father let her out of his embrace a bit.
"The birdy told me you came in a helicopter," Harry spoke. The girl now nodded a bit more eager.
"I've been on helicopters as well. They make a lot of noise, don't they? Although, I did feel a bit like James Bond." He said the name with as posh an accent as possible, adding a bit of Scottish brogue, stolen from his memories of Minerva McGonagall.
"You are British?" Tori whispered. Harry forced himself to keep smiling, although he wanted to wince hearing how weak she sounded.
"Sure am. Born and raised I'm afraid." Harry nodded. "And I have a really British name; Harry Potter." Once again bringing in as hard an accent as possible.
Tori giggled softly.
"Why do you work here?" the mother asked.
"Well, a few years ago, I met this other doctor. And he decided to go back to the city he used to live in. He moved back here, to Seattle. And I would miss him too much, so I decided to follow him." Harry explained to her mother, although he kept his eyes on Tori.
He leaned forward and stage-whispered to Tori. "I haven't had a normal cup of tea since I came here. The tea here?" Harry shuddered dramatically, causing Tori to smile.
Meredith looked from the nurses station with Bailey as Harry kept on talking with the patient. They saw the smiled on the girl's face.
"He is really good with children," Meredith noted, still slightly out of breath.
"Do you know why I was paged with a 911?" she asked Bailey.
"I don't know," Bailey answered in her usual dismissive voice. She caught the smirk of the nurse behind the desk.
"But she might," she added, pointing her pen at the nurse. Meredith turned around, clutching Anatomy Jane in her hand.
"Well?" Meredith asked.
The nurse looked at her. "Quote: she needs to learn if she only has one patient she needs to be here if not with her attendings, unquote." The nurse took some charts and walked away.
Bailey snorted next to her.
"The man has a point, you know." She commented. Meredith turned to her and glared at her resident for her betrayal. Bailey saw the look.
"Look, you may not like it, but there is no procedure meeting at the moment! Someone of her doctors' team needs to be on this floor. It's not going to be me, certainly not the chief, and do you really want to dump baby-sitting a patient on a newly appointed senior attending?"
Meredith didn't answer her.
"I didn't think so. Let's go." With that, both the women walked into the room as well.
Harry hear their approach and turned around. He stood up from the bed, but kept his hand on Tori's leg for reassurance.
"Tori, you've already seen Dr. Bailey. She was the one who told me about the helicopter. And next to her is dr. Grey." Harry introduced them.
"Now, first Dr. Bailey and me are going to talk with your parents for a bit. In the meantime, dr. Grey is going to take some tests with you, okay?" Tori nodded and smiled.
"And you, little princess, hold tight and we'll see you again in a bit."
"Bye," Tori said. Harry gave a quick wave and wink to the girl, as he followed her parents and dr. Bailey out.
To say they were shocked about the procedure they proposed, was to understate things severely.
"And this, this is the only thing for Tori?" The mother asked. Bailey could feel the tension coming from her, reminding her starkly that she was a mother as well. She didn't know what to say. Harry stepped in smoothly.
"Mrs. Begler, I have watched the scans and the lab results. If I didn't believe that Tori still believed that she could survive and win over this thing, I would not operate on her." Harry told her, his face solemn.
Mrs. Begler looked at him, eyes watering.
"The tumor is large, and has grown into several artery walls. This is the only way we can give her a fighting chance." Harry smiled sympathetically. "But she is strong, and can still feel joy of life. If she can pull through this operation, I sincerely believe she has the hart to conquer this."
She smiled watery, and nodded to herself. "If anyone can, it's our Tori." She spoke. Her husband looked at her. A silent conversation went on between them.
Mr. Begler turned to the two surgeons. "Do it."
He brought his wife in his arms.
"We'll start making the preparations." Harry spoke. "Dr. Bailey will lead Tori with Dr. Grey through a last battery of pre-operative tests. I will consult with the other general surgeon and our head of vascular surgery for the final details. I must express, though, that no matter how many tests we do we cannot know for sure how it'll look until we operate."
The parents looked frightened but nodded their understanding.
"I'll step in and explain to Tori what's going on and what's going to happen," Harry nodded to them and walked back to Tori's room. Meredith Grey just stepped out of it, writing something in the chart and giving it back to the nurse.
"Grey!" Harry called. He saw her turn around to him. "You brought the creepy doll?"
"Yes," Meredith didn't know what was going on.
"Good. Bring it with you. You and me are going to explain to Tori what's going to happen. The parents have given their consent." Meredith looked at the man. He really was an enigma. He was so kind and patient with Tori, but to her he was brusque and harsh. Really, what kind of an attending made the nurses page with a 911 if there was no emergency.
Harry and Meredith stepped back into the room. Meredith watched in chagrin as the entire family cane down on the two of them. To her immense surprise, Dr. Potter did nothing but let them all shout out and yell.
"Why are you not saying anything!" One of the uncles yelled at him, pointing an accusing finger at the dark-haired man.
"If you would give me a chance, I'd like to." Meredith did a double-check at that.
"I understand you are all very involved with Tori's health and well-being. But I beg you, allow us to do our job. I understand that you want to make sure we didn't miss anything and that you all have an opinion that you're allowed to voice. But Tori needs a bit of quiet at the moment. And if anyone in this room is supposed to have dibs on an explanation it's her."
The words were a very clear reprimand, but were delivered in such a sincere and gentle way that there was no doubt that dr. Potter truly did understand what they were going through.
"Sorry," Tori whispered, as he sat down. The family blushed in shame. Harry grinned at her.
"Don't be. They're just looking out for you as they should. Imagine if all of them were doctors." Harry blanched visibly at the thought.
"Then you would have family on your hands that actually claimed to know better than your doctor, instead of just obvious concern." Tori chuckled at that.
"Really?" She asked. Harry nodded.
"We have a saying were I come from; doctors make the worst patients possible, but they are a catastrophe as a patient's family." Tori laughed outright at that.
"Now, we have talked with your parents a bit. And you've already met Dr. Grey, she took some blood from you. We are here to explain what will happen to you. And Dr. Grey has a very scary doll that makes that a bit easier." A pointed look at Meredith made clear that she should play along.
"Honestly," Meredith said, sitting down at Dr. Potter's vacated spot. "Men are all the same, dolls aren't scary at all, are they?" Tori shook her head decisively.
Harry looked on as Meredith explained to Tori what they would do in the operating room. The family looked on with interest, looks of understanding coming over their faces. Fifteen minutes later, they stepped back out of the room, leaving Tori with their family.
Harry quickly talked to Meredith which extra tests he would like, just to be sure. As he made to walk away, Meredith spoke.
"Where did you learn that?" Harry turned around, raising his eyebrow.
"You talked to Tori in a joking way, calming her down. You delivered the news of her operation with small jokes in between, lightening the mood." Meredith explained, Harry's faced eased a bit.
"Kids understand more than you realize," He spoke, almost wistfully. "She knows exactly what her odds are, it's in her eyes. She just wants to sooth her family. So we did that, having a bit of private fun in the meantime."
Harry left Meredith speechless, hunting for a lunch.
He was stabbing in his salad, mentally preparing himself for the very long surgery he had ahead. A blond streak made way to his table.
"Dr. Hunt is the most psychopathic, commanding, sadistic doctor to ever walk the halls of this hospital," She seethed. Ah, this was Izzie Stevens if he remembered correctly.
"Is this about the pigs?" He asked, interested in the volatile reactions the blonde had on them.
"Yes, this is about the pigs. How could he do this? Those animals have intelligence, they have feelings! There are perfectly adequate alternatives to life tissue practice!" She ranted. Harry sighed, what the hell was he supposed to do.
"What are you trying to accomplish with informing me about this, Dr. Stevens?"
Izzie blushed, only now realizing to who she was ranting and venting. The new attending didn't seem angry though, amusement was written all over his face.
"I'm sorry, dr. Potter. I didn't think-" She fell silent, not knowing what she was trying to say.
"No that's fine. Did you operate on the pigs?" He asked.
"NO!" Izzie cried out scandalized.
"Did you try to adhere others from operating on said piggies?" He asked again.
"Well, I yelled at Dr. Hunt." She blushed again.
"Dr. Stevens, it is admirable that you hold on to your principles. You must try, however, not to press your morale and ideas on others. Some people, like Dr. Hunt, look at both the advantages and disadvantages of such situations and make their decisions based on that." Harry paused and looked at her penetratingly.
"I can assure you that those pigs do not feel pain, nor will they be suffering. These pigs were to be slaughtered, and I can tell you dr. Stevens, that would be a worse fate that they would've suffered." With those words, Harry returned his attention to his lunch.
Izzie stood at his table for half a minute more, but when it became clear that was all the Brit was going to say on the topic, she left again.
Only a few bites further, Harry's pager went off.
The pit.
Giving up his lunch as a lost cause, he made his way down.
Coming down he saw the organized chaos there. Looking at the residents he made his way to Owen.
"Hunt, what have you got?" He spoke loudly over all the stats cried out in the middle of the trauma. "I have two hours free for spatter and gore."
"What?" He heard behind him. Turning around he saw Sloan and Shepherd.
"Ah, gentlemen. Excuse me." He caught the chart that was thrown to him by Owen.
"He's in Trauma five." Hunt spoke to him, before walking to another resident. "O'Malley what have you got."
Ignoring the two pretty boys, Harry walked off quickly to his assigned patient. Walking in the trauma he saw the angry resident with three interns scattering about. What was his name, oh yes Karev!
"Karev, talk to me." He demanded. Karev looked up and started to explain what he thought the problem was. Before he could finish, the guys vitals went down dramatically. Harry decided to do Iraq techniques.
"You, intern, move," he cried out. Letting his hands go over the abdomen he put pressure just below the position of the spleen.
"Someone get me an echo in here!" He yelled out, he could feel a pocket of what he thought was blood under the skin. He swore mentally, if the spleen was ruptured it needed to be removed, this amount of blood meant it probably couldn't be saved.
Letting a bit of magic release from his fingertips, he could feel that the spleen was indeed ruptured. At that moment, one of the interns was coming to his side with the machine, looking quite hopeful.
Crap, right, teaching hospital. Harry snorted disgusted to himself, he practiced on cadavers and even pigs and cows before he was released as an intern. Right, teaching time.
"Ever done an echo looking for a bleeder?" He asked shortly. The intern shook his head.
"Right put the gel on it, not the abdomen. This is because we may have to explore the entire abdomen to look for the blood sack. And when we need to open him up, we don't want to have the entire skin covered in gel." Harry carefully instructed the intern. He explained that with an accident like this, and the status of his vitals, a rupture of one of his organs was likely. Based on the beginning of the bruising his kidneys or spleen was the most viable option.
The intern looked in seventh heaven, and Harry had located his rupture.
"Dammit! This one need to OR, and fast!" He yelled out. The nurse made the call up immediately.
"They have OR 3 ready for you. The chief said that you had to let someone take over for Begler if you weren't ready by then."
Harry nodded. "Thank you, miss. Karev, interns let's go." Karev looked happy he could scrub in. What were the attendings teaching nowadays? He could see the nurse just as astonished that she had been thanked, what the hell!
They once again found their way blocked by Sloan and Shepherd.
"He was in a car accident, are you sure he doesn't need a neuro consult." Harry was started to get pissed off. The guy was trying to impress someone. But if he was trying to impress Harry, it wasn't working.
"This man has a ruptured spleen that at the moment is bleeding in to his abdomen at the speed we can get the bags in. If you want to be responsible for the man's death then by all means, do a neuro! If not, I would kindly request you step aside!" He snarled.
Raising his hands in the air in a surrendering gesture, Shepherd stepped aside.
"Karev, look at the tissue around the rupture. What do you see?" Harry asked the resident.
"It's ragged, no clean lines. There is no chance you can salvage it. And if we look at the splenic artery, you can see it's about to tear." Karev summarized.
"So what would your course of action be?" Harry taught, already clamping the splenic artery.
"You'd have to remove the spleen in its entirety, right?" Harry looked up from his work to see Karev looking at him.
"That's right," Harry said. "Now, you… What the hell are the names of you two? I can hardly call you one and two!"
Karev chuckled.
"That's actually what Christina does." He explained. Harry thought for a moment.
"Yang?" He asked. Karev nodded.
"Uch, well I won't. Names now!" He snapped. They quickly mumbled out their names.
"Seriously? Karev, what have you guys been doing to these interns? Have you gone all mighty yeti on them or something? They can't even pronounce their names in an understandable fashion."
Harry shook his head.
"I don't have time for this bloody crap. You, leftie are one. You, righty are two. One go stand next to Karev, hold the clamps on the underside of the spleen. Two, go stand at my side hold suction as I cut the artery."
The interns scrambled around, almost knocking over a table of instruments. Harry looked up, praying the gods in the heavens above for some guidance and most of all patience. Karev looked on. He knew the surgery that was happening shortly was massive. And he knew Potter was to be in it.
To be stuck on a spleen, with hopeless interns, he could understand the guy praying for absolution.
Harry quickly guided his team through the surgery. As they stepped outside, Harry turned to Karev.
"Do the post-op routine. Take One and Two with you and teach them the procedure. No degrading names, no speed talking. Teach them, so that next trauma case I don't have to explain to a second year surgical intern how to work an echo!" With those words, Harry stepped out.
"I need coffee." He groaned as he saw Webber coming to him.
"Are you ready, Dr. Potter?" He asked enthusiastically. "We're about to do surgery of a number one status."
"Bloody fucking hell," Harry mumbled, before pulling himself together.
"Let's save a ten-year olds life, shall we?" With a grand gesture he stepped aside to let the chief through. Bailey came after, giving him an eye-roll. He laughed, now Bailey was a doctor after his heart. She did it for the medicine to save lives, not the bullshit. Now he hoped that attitude was just hiding in some of the surgeons walking around this hospital.