AN: I am very happy with this chapter. Please review and let me know what you think!!
Chapter 2
I was sure I was dead and the thought terrified me. Death was supposed to be comfortable and I was in agony. I was laying on something hard and itchy with more stiff itchy stuff wrapped around me, and there were voices everywhere. I couldn't quite hear what they were saying, it was like I had cotton in my ears but I thought I heard my name mentioned once or twice. I idly wondered if the dead could brush their teeth as my mouth tasted absolutely revolting, and my nose was burning as well, some sickly sweet scent seemed to be close by and I was beginning to think that I must be allergic. But the worst thing had to be the poking. Something was methodically poking me at random places on my body. Stomach, wrist, forehead, chest… I refused to accept this place as the afterlife. Minus the suicide I had been a good person and therefore my death should have led me somewhere peaceful, zen like… this was just annoying!
Trying not to think about the disappointment and agitation I was feeling I started to focus more on the disembodied voices hovering around me. I was almost positive that if I opened my eyes I could see exactly where the voices were coming from but I was afraid that if I looked around me then my purgatory would be even more disappointing than it already was. My vision was the only of my 5 senses left undisturbed. But that wasn't entirely true, my eyelids were glowing a bright red and that had to mean that there was a very bright light somewhere near my head. For a moment I felt hope, maybe I really did need to walk toward the light like in the movies.
Trying to move my feet proved impossible, the stiff itchy whatever it was kept them firmly against the hard itchy thing I was on. I hadn't felt like throwing a fit since I was 5, but at that moment I wanted to have a fit that would make a 2 year old proud. On the ground, feet kicking, fists flying, screaming my head off, the whole works. I tried to calm down, deciding that a temper tantrum was not the way to reach the Nirvana that I so desperately craved. I figured that my first course of action would be to survey my surroundings so I took a deep breath, counted to 10, and opened my eyes.
In one instant several things happened, not the least of which was that the light I had been focused on temporarily blinded me. The voice closest to me let out a surprised sound that hurt my ears. One of the voices near my feet disappeared only to return with another voice. A calm voice from my right side asked how I was feeling. And then a shrill voice on my left crashed into me causing pain to consume my left arm, and then that same shrill voice had the nerve to start scolding me.
"Theodore Remus Lupin what were you thinking? How could you do this to me? That was the single most idiotic thing you have ever done young man and you are in big trouble!! Don't think that just because you're laid up you will get off scot-free! Once you're all healed up I'm putting you on lock down! They can't send you back to school of course, so now you have to repeat a year! Honestly, what were you thinking?"
I could barely keep up with the frantic yelling and was still absorbing the end of what the voice had said when the calm voice spoke up again.
"This is not the time to be yelling at him. And threats of punishment are hardly the way to help him heal."
I felt insanely grateful to this voice for standing up for me. The shrill voice had been very unsympathetic and was making me both depressed and angry, not a good combination. But then some of the things they had said started to register and my mind began swarming with questions. For instance, why would anyone in the afterlife be upset about me being held back at school? And was it really possible to be grounded after you died? Were they going to lock me in a storm cloud? Is that a fitting punishment for whatever I had done to the shrill voice? How do you keep a disembodied soul on lockdown anyway? But that wasn't right, I wasn't disembodied, the constant itching and the memory of the poking were proof of that, not to mention the throbbing pain that still resonated in my arm. No I most certainly had a body.
This revelation started a swell of panic that I couldn't control. My mind worked in hyper drive to put all the pieces of this puzzle together. If I had a body and if the shrill voice was truly upset about me being held back, and if I was able to be grounded… I desperately wanted to stop this train of thought, but it was the only logical explanation, especially when my vision began to return. My Grandmother, Andromeda Tonks, and my Godfather, Harry Potter, were standing over me having a whispered argument over the correct way to raise me and who had primary custody. At my side a medi-witch was using her wand to check my vitals. That explained the annoying poking, my own personal demon with a stick. I began to hyperventilate wishing desperately for oblivion. I got my wish, and as I passed out my last thought prevented any hope at rest in my now unconscious state… 'I'm alive.'
By the time I regained consciousness the bright light had been turned off. I was alone in the hospital room and for that I was thankful. Now that I could think more coherently I began identifying all the things that were causing me discomfort. The itching was easy to solve as I was still tucked in tightly by the standard issue sickbed sheets that had prevented my feet from moving earlier, and the smell seemed to be coming from the bubbling potion on my bedside table. The taste I assumed was from lack of proper dental care during the as of yet unknown amount of time that I had been here. The poking problem had been solved earlier and had obviously stopped since the nurse was gone. It was a good thing to; if she had still been here I may have been tempted to bite her.
As I was remembering the day's events I began to cry quietly. How had I messed up? I was so sure I had found the vein. My Grandmother was obviously more angry than concerned, that hurt quite a bit. But that was the way it had always been. If I got hurt she was always more upset that I had been careless. I had heard many lectures from her over the years about being more responsible, usually given while she fixed up what ever injury I was currently nursing. She had never been a very sympathetic woman and as I have always been a very sensitive boy we tended to argue… a lot. And when I was distraught over my Grandmothers lack of concern or after we had finished another argument I went to my Godfather. He was the one to always talk me down from the ledge, so to speak. Several times in my life I had shown up at his door, duffle bag in hand, tears in my eyes, swearing that I would never speak to 'that woman' again and could I please have a place to stay. The longest I had ever stayed during one of these disagreements had been 3 weeks over the summer holidays when I was 13; she had made an unkind remark about my father, an offense I had yet to completely forgive her for.
As I let my thoughts wander I was startled by the door opening. Instantly I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep. I half expected the poking to start again and prepared to bite should that be the case. After a few minutes of nothing I reopened my eyes thinking that I was alone, but my Godfather sat in the chair at my side with an amused yet concerned look on his face.
"I figured you were faking."
"I thought you were that nurse come back to poke me some more. It's a good thing you didn't touch me, I might have bitten you on accident."
He laughed quietly at that and I felt the beginnings of a small smile on my face, despite the alarm I felt at how quiet my voice had been. I must have been out for quite awhile if my voice was that weak. I noticed a pitcher of water on my bedside table and poured a glass as I rasped out my first question.
"How long have I been here?"
"Almost two weeks. You lost too much blood and fell into a coma."
"What happened?"
"I was hoping you would tell me that…"
"No, I know how I lost the blood. I meant, why didn't I die?"
A pained look crossed his face when I asked that and I regretted my words instantly.
"You almost did Teddy. It was very touch and go that first day. If that Prefect hadn't found you when he did… I don't even want to think about it."
"I'm sorry…"
I said the words without ever giving a conscious thought to them, but they were true none the less. I was sorry. I had never meant to hurt him, but I had. And yet a part of me wasn't sorry at all. A very large part of me was still focused on the emotional pain that had lead up to my desperate suicide attempt and that part felt sorrier for me than for any pain I might have caused someone else.
It was silent for several minutes before he asked his next question. It was a question I wasn't ready for, one that I didn't want to answer. But I knew it had to be asked sometime, I was just glad that no one else was there.
"Why? What could have happened to make you do this?"
I was silent for a few moments and he began to look slightly resigned to the fact that I wouldn't answer. And I almost didn't, but I had never kept a secret from him before this and when I finally started talking I couldn't stop. I needed someone to know and Harry was the only one I trusted enough to tell. He wouldn't judge me for this; I had always been able to tell him everything. I started from the beginning, from the first day that I met Andrew. I told him about the abuse, both physical and mental, how it had started small and then escalated at an alarming rate. I held nothing back, I told him of how rough Andrew had been in bed, and then moved on to what had been the breaking point. I explained about the bathroom scene and what had led up to it, and then I told him my reasoning for trying to kill myself.
He listened quietly throughout my story but his emotions ran wild across his face. Concern was constantly present and I also saw pain, sympathy, anxiety and shock, but underneath it all the main emotion was fury, a deep black emotion that I knew wasn't for me, but for Andrew. After I had finished, my words hung heavily in the air between us. I felt him move to sit on the bed beside me and leaned into his side when his arm wrapped around my shoulders. Neither of us said anything and as I replayed everything I had just said over and over in my head I came to a startling conclusion about my own state of mind. I had unwittingly but very obediently defended Andrew. All throughout my story I kept backtracking and coming up with excuses for him, things that I had done to deserve what ever he had done to me. I felt the tears begin to fall as I realized how broken I really was. How unstable had he actually made me? More importantly, what if I couldn't be fixed?
AN: Sorry it took me so long to update but reality keeps ruining my life. I know this was very Teddy-centric but I love writing from his POV. I had intended to write something from Jacobs POV about readjusting to life at home but I can never get him right. I will hopefully have something from Jake next chapter but no promises. Please review and let me know what you think!! -PersephoneHale