Chapter 150 The hospital wing?
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Harry shot up and looked around the room he was in. He recognized it pretty quickly, having spent more than one night in it before. The hospital wing? How? Why?
"Oh, good! You’re awake." came the voice of Susan beside him, her red hair seemingly glowing in the glow of the afternoon sun behind her. "Scared us a bit there, you’ve been out all of last night and today."
"What happened? Last thing I knew we were surrounded by the Dementors." Harry asked, sifting through his scattered thoughts to see if he could piece it together. He’d summoned his Patronus hadn’t he? That Sphinx... it was still clear in his mind. Gleaming silver, powerful and regal.
"Unsurprising that you don’t remember much from after that Mr. Potter, you likely completely drained yourself of magic a few minutes after that." Madame Pomfrey said, moving over to him and waving her wand about his person. "Congratulations on your successful casting of the Patronus charm, even more so for successfully conjuring more than one at a time."
"Huh?" Harry asked, confused.
"I can only relay what Hermione and Luna told me, but apparently when those dementors came, you summoned a Sphinx that fought them off. It couldn’t be everywhere at once though, so you summoned a second one. The pair of them fought off the Dementors, driving them away, before they tackled Professor Lupin and held him down while the others put him in a body bind." Susan said. "After that, Professor Flitwick found you all and Hermione and Luna told him everything. They took Mr. Black and that Pettigrew man to Dumbledore. Auntie is supposedly looking into his case now, so if what he said about not getting a trial is true, he’ll probably get one."
"That’s good. Are Hermione, Luna, and Neville okay?" Harry asked.
"They’re fine Mr. Potter. A few scrapes, but nothing major. You were our worry, like usual. Completely drained of magic you were." Madame Pomfrey said, continuing her examination on Harry.
"That’s good." Harry said, relaxing into the bed. He’d done it. They were safe. That was enough.
"You really need to stop making us worry like this though Harry, one of these days you’re going to fight something that’s too much for you." Susan said, as she held his hand. "You mean too much to us for you to keep doing that."
"I’ll admit, even I’m getting tired of waking up in the hospital wing here. No offense Madam Pomfrey." Harry said, as the medi-witch chuckled.
"While I do enjoy seeing you Mr. Potter, my ideal Hospital wing only has people come in for routine check-ups, no injuries or illnesses." Madame Pomfrey said. "You seem to be in good health now, a significant improvement from the last time you needed to be in here. I’d tell you to make sure that you don’t come back next year, but I feel that such a fate may be unavoidable for you. Instead I’ll say: make sure you survive enough that I am capable of fixing you."
"I’ll do my best Madame Pomfrey." Harry said, as he moved to stand up from his bed. His balance was slightly unsteady, but otherwise he was fine. Susan handed him a fresh set of clothes.
"Head in the back room and change, your clothes are still filthy." Susan said, pointing him off. "I’ll wait for you and we’ll head to the Sphinx Club room together. You’ll need to get packing tonight though, we leave in the morning for home."
Harry nodded and left to change, entering the back room he stripped down and took a quick moment to cast a few cleaning charms on himself. Not a substitute for a proper shower, but enough to get him through the day at the very least. Coming back into the room Susan took his hand, before leading him out of the Hospital wing.
"So I was out all day?" Harry asked, looking to his red haired girlfriend. She seemed like she hadn’t slept well.
"You were half awake for a few minutes once, managed to get you to drink some water, but you weren’t really there. Beyond that, you were out cold. I’ve been with you most of that time, while Padma has been with the others trying to work out what can be done about the whole Sirius Black thing. Hermione, Luna, and Neville explained what they could to us, so the Buckbeak team launched right back into legal research." Susan said. "I had a floo call with Auntie about the whole thing. She’s upset at you, but not really. More frustrated that you’ve gotten yourself in a mess again."
Harry sheepishly chuckled at that. He really was getting into it a lot these days. "Sorry about that. I didn’t realize how frustrating it must be for you all to deal with my lack of planning and forethought for these kinds of things. Honestly, when Sirius talked about capturing Pettigrew and then didn’t think past what to do when he was captured, I realized that must be what you all see every time I’m involved in something like this."
"Maybe, but we know that you’re doing your best. We were pretty upset with you about the whole Basilisk situation last year, but if you hadn’t been doing that... I might not be here. Your concern is one of the things I love about you Harry. It saved me, even if maybe you didn’t have much of a plan to fight the Basilisk, you still pulled it off. I can’t thank you enough for that." Susan said, squeezing his hand tighter. "You don’t ask for this, it just kind of falls in your lap. Maybe it’s destiny, maybe it’s bad luck, but it always seems to happen to you. That’s scary sometimes, but it’s also exciting. If putting up with all of that is what it takes to have you in my life though, it’s a trade-off I’m happy to make. I love you, Harry, so much."