A Hospitalic Romance

Harry waited impatiently for Gabrielle to get in. He was eager to be up and about; he hated not being able to move. And he knew that Gabrielle was determined that he not move from bed without her help. She was also determined that she would not help until she knew what his condition was, and that he wasn't going to relapse.

Harry let her know in no uncertain terms that the only reason for him to have a relapse would be sheer boredom. Unfortunately, she didn't believe him, and insisted on doing test, after test after test after test after TEST, until he thought he would go crazy.

First the visual test-okay, that wasn't so bad, and he only had to keep his glasses now to correct the cross-eyed tendency he'd developed over the years. Unfortunately, nothing could really fix that.

Then the mental dexterity tests. Plural; there was a series of about fifteen, conducted over three days. These weren't so bad, either... they made his head hurt, though; Gabrielle was very concerned when he told her that, and then he had to describe the state of his head after classes in great detail. Honestly, he didn't remember that much-how was he supposed to describe it?

Then there was the aural testing. That was kind of fun, and afterwards, she let him have a radio in the room, although she tended to keep it on musical stations. Harry wasn't really a musical sort of person, and he found he needed to know what was going on in the world.

That was a problem for him. He quickly learned how long he had been out. He was asked questions about how much he had heard when people came to visit him (nothing-when Harry was unconscious, he really was unconscious.) When it came out that he knew absolutely nothing of what had happened in those ten and a half years, people became very edgy, and refused to let him know.

"We don't want to send you into shock," said Gabrielle's superior, a man named Boyd. "We don't know what kind of thing will do that, so we aren't letting you have any info." Harry particularly remembered Gabrielle's reaction to this little speech. She apologized, saying that he was a big-headed git who wouldn't know proper procedure if it bit him where it hurt the most, but he was her boss and she couldn't quietly over rule him, because he was being very attentive and if she did, she'd loose her job.

Harry found himself rather warmed by that.

After the aural testing came the physical testing. Those hurt. In small ways, but still, they hurt. At least, they did until Gabrielle finally stopped testing his pain reflexes and started testing pleasure reflexes. (She apologized then, too, for the necessary testing. He found himself thinking she was probably the nicest person in the hospital, when she wasn't putting him through awful painful procedures like pulling his eyebrows out.)

The physio-neural tests were next. Those didn't have the results people expected-in fact, they didn't have any results at all.

Physio-neural tests were designed to inflict a feeling, usually slight pain, magically; because magical pain wasn't real, it didn't damage the subject. Physio-neural tests were designed simply to know if a persons brain were connecting to his nerves the right way. A normal person would hear the spell, see/hear/feel the impact upon him and the onrush of magic, and feel pain of the designated sort in the designated area.

Harry didn't.

*******

With any other person, Gabrielle wouldn't have been diagnosing mental paralysis, and regretfully informing friends and family that there was nothing they could do. And there was nothing to do-off all the advances that magical medicine had made, no one had been able to break this.

Try as they might, nothing got through to him. At all. Cast spell, correctly-Gabrielle called in experts when she thought she might be messing it up; she knew the spells were being cast correctly!-wait for reaction, get nothing. Harry literally did not feel the pain.

Dark magic no longer worked on him.

The medical community, everyone who knew about it anyway, was stunned. Gabrielle was the first to get over it. She quickly moved to being delighted.

The shock tests. The stability tests. The peripheral tests. The magical awareness tests. All of them, passed with flying colors. Harry insisted upon receiving a Visio-spectrograph, just for the fun of it. Passed. Harry was possibly the healthiest human being to ever have emerged from a ten-year coma. Gabrielle was overjoyed.

And then it all came crashing in.

It started as an innocent enough conversation. Just chatting about the case with her boss. "He really is in amazingly good health. I'm stunned that he's so healthy, quite frankly; I expected something else wrong with him, after all that time."

"Yes, well, I guess he just wasn't ready to wake up. You always have had a way with the men, haven't you?"

"I suppose so," Gabrielle smiled indulgently. No need to pick a fight with the sexist bastard right now, after all.

"I suppose it's time to start moving him soon."

Crash. Steel tipped drum sticks hammered in the background of her head as she politely asked, "What did you say?"

"Well, he's spent the last few years in bed, after all, but he's fine now. He really should be getting over into Physical Therapy, get him back on his feet."

Gabrielle felt like she was in shock.

"Are you sure there's no reason to keep him here? Nothing else that needs to be done?"

Her boss had raised his eyebrows. "I'm certain, Dr. Delacour. Now if you will excuse me, I will go explain to the press that Mr. Potter is fine, and will be moved into physical therapy immediately. Oh, and Doctor..." She looked up at him, still stunned. "I will be commending you as the one who found the cure, and brought him out of it. When will you be available for a press conference?"

Gabrielle was still for a moment, and then did the only thing she possibly could under the circumstances: she pulled out her planner and read him her times.

It was really a two-part blow. The first part was that her patient-and she undeniably felt that Harry was hers-was being taken away. She felt the urge to hiss at the PT nurses and tell them this. It wasn't a good feeling.

The second part was what her career was going to be doing. She was about to become world famous-she had no doubt about that. She was going to be praised for her abilities as a doctor, her insight, her intelligence... and then, for her beauty. She had seen this road traveled too many time, and was very, very frightened of the result. She didn't want to be a-a-a stereotype of the successful woman. And she certainly didn't want to be famous.

On the other hand, it looked like she would have no choice.

Now, how to tell Harry? She knew that he was aching to be up and about, he commented on it nearly every day. However, she also knew that he enjoyed her company-he commented on that, too. She might simply be flattering herself to think he would be disappointed, but she really didn't think so. And she didn't want that. Maybe we could keep in touch, afterwards, she thought. That would be nice-he's a very nice boy, rather humble, really. She was amused to find she was thinking of him as a "younger man," when he was the one who had rescued little ten-year-old Gabrielle Delacour from the lake. On the other hand, she thought, he was missing ten years of his life, so she could be considered about six years older than he was. She smiled. It was a good thought.

*******

Harry heard the news excitedly. He was out! Finally! "Great!" he said. "Am I staying here until I'm back in shape, or do I get kicked out immediately?"

"Oh, you can go as zoon az you want to, but I would not advize leaving ze 'ospital in a wheel-chair-it getz razzer difficul' to avoid ze press in une chaise." She was speaking with little expression in her voice, and it took him a while to notice the disappointed-and frankly hurt-look on Gabrielle's face.

He looked at her, trying to figure out what was wrong with her. Eventually he gave up, and said, "Well, I can't exactly leave until I know what's been happening lately. And the wheel-chair would be inconvenient... Could I take a room in here, or will it cost too much?"

Gabrielle smiled. "It will cost you nuzzing. Ze people have paid for your entire recovery."

Harry looked at her, and tried to figure out what she was saying. "Do you mean," he asked, "do you mean to tell me that people have been spending money to make sure I make a complete recovery?" He found this rather difficult to believe.

"It is true," she affirmed. Then she added, "Should I arrange a room for you to stay in? And for your friends from 'Ogwarts, Ron and 'Ermione, to come visit you?"

"Erm, yes, that would be wonderful, thank you. I know I probably don't say it enough, but you really have been wonderful. I don't know that I could have made this without you. Are you willing to keep in touch with me when I'm out of here?"

It was amazing. Her entire face lit up, really. She almost glowed, and he felt a sudden wild hatred of his inability to leap up and ravish her. A moment later it had gone, but the memory was there, hovering. And that was when he knew that he really, really wanted to stay in touch after he got out.