False Hope
The man in the bed lays utterly still – the only signs of his continued survival are the slow rise and fall of his chest and the occasionnal blink. He’s on his back, his legs tucked under a blanket as if to pretend he’s just sleeping, with his hands on his stomach and a thin pillow under his head.
His hazel eyes stare at the ceiling with a vacant gaze, his mouth slack and his skin a washed out colour, or maybe that’s just because of the contrast with the deep black of his thick unkept beard and wild curls.
They have the same hair, Annie thinks numbly, chaotic black vines that get stuck in everything. The shape of their noses is the same, too, and Annie’s ears have a slightly sharper edge that ends in something like a point, just like his, though his earlobes are attached and hers aren’t. His fingers are long, and Annie feels her fists tigten at her side, feeling the urge to hide her own unnatural hands before Aunt Petunia can smack them, even though her aunt isn’t here and would probably rather die than come anywhere near a magical hospital.
“He prefered to stay clean-shaven,” Professor McGonagall says, before lifting one hand and flicking her wand at the man in the bed – at Annie’s father. The nurse – no, Healer twitches, but doesn’t stop McGonagall from doing her magic, and the beard disappears.
She can see his face now. Annie is having trouble breathing evenly.
“Our apologies,” the Healer murmurs, sounding contrite in that way people are when they feel criticized but disagree about the critic. “Our staff is overworked, as you know. We must attend to all of our patient’s basic needs before we direct our attention toward aesthetics.”
There’s a long period of silence, Annie feeling the tension as both women – both witches – stare at each others above her head, but unable to pay them any more attention.
His chest rises slowly, with only the slightest rasp perceptible under the quiet buzz of conversation coming from the other visitors. Most patients in the room are bed-bound and more-or-less unconscious, with quietly resigned visitor talking over them like they’re part of the décor.
A part of Annie burns at the thought that these people have been treating her father – her father, she has a father – like a piece of furniture for almost a decade. That they ignored him, overlooked him like he wasn’t important enough for them to notice— like he’s not the most wonderful and most terrible gift the world has ever given Annie.
A father. A father who loved her, McGonagall said. A father who watched his wife, Annie’s mother, be killed, and then got tortured until his mind snapped because he refused to tell his attackers where baby Annie had been hidden. Why they wanted to find Annie, McGonagall didn’t tell her, just giving her empty excuses about how some people didn’t need a reason to be horrible.
Annie’s Mum died trying to protect her and Annie’s Dad lost his mind to keep her safe. After years of believing that they were worthless drunks who died in a car crash, she finally knows the truth. Her parents loved her. Her father is still alive.
Everything has changed, and yet life is still the same.
McGonagall and the Healer are talking over her head, but she ignores them, taking the last few steps separating her and the bed. Annie watches as her own too-long hand reaches out and curls around her father’s too-long fingers. The contrast between her dark skin and her father’s pallid sickliness is stricking, but even more so is how similar the tones are, a warm gold that always made her an outsider in milk-pale Privet Drive.
Aunt Petunia always complains about how dark she is, how the least a freak like her can do is to at least look normal – even though she’s the one to send Annie out to tend to the garden from the moment the weather was warm enough to plant flowers, knowing a simple worn hat and holey gloves wouldn’t keep Annie from turning brown at the slightest hint of sun.
She has her father’s skin.
She has her father’s skin and nose and ears and hands and hair and—
His hand is warm against hers. She feels the beat of his pulse through his skin, and it’s like her own heart is synchronising with his, beating faster and harder until it’s all she can hear. She’s staring at their hands, because she’s touching her father because she has a father, he’s just… not awake.
Hasn’t been awake in years.
She doesn’t know how much time passes before the loud clatter of a footstep startles her. She rips her hand away, spinning on her heel to look at whoever approached, her hands innocently clasped behind her back and her heart in her throat.
Professor McGonagall gives her a long, indecipherable look, before she purses her lips unhappily.
“I’m afraid the visiting hours are over,” she says, eyes softening at whatever expression Annie couldn’t keep off her face. “You may come back to visit him another day, Miss Potter. James is…” her breath hitches, and then she lets out a long, controlled sigh. “James will not be going anywhere.”
Annie looks back at her father, her father, who is still laying in his bed, breathing slowly and blinking every once in a while. Not moving.
She’s right. Her father wouldn’t be going anywhere.
“When may I come back?” she asks, barely even hearing herself talk. Her throat feels tight. She wants to cry, but she can’t cry. She’s in public. Crying makes her unsightly, with puffy eyes and swollen lips and a runny nose. She can’t cry, not now, not ever, no matter how she’s hurt or sad or anything.
“Visiting hours are from nine in the morning to six in the afternoon,” McGonagall states clearly. “Janus Ward locks up after that. Some of the other patients wander and there isn’t enough staff to make sure they don’t hurt themselves or others.”
“Oh.” That wasn’t a lot of time. It doesn’t feel enough, even though it’s still more than she ever expected to have. When she didn’t know she could have any time with her father when she woke up this morning.
McGonagall eyes her warily, before lifting a hand toward the door, her request – order – clear.
Annie goes to obey, but her feet don’t move.
She turns back toward her father, still and pale and alive for all that it means, and feels her throat constrict even more.
“I’ll visit again,” she whispers, swears, pledges. Her feet are still heavy, but she drags them across the floor, through the halls and then down countless stairs, McGonagall a silent escort at her side.
Once they are back on the ground floor, Annie follows McGonagall into the reception room from before, only they don’t walk toward the Floo. They came to the hospital through the Leaky Cauldron after they were done shopping, so Annie thought they would go back the same way, but McGonagall instead walks toward large archway that stands out of the way.
Stepping through the archway almost gives Annie whiplash. One moment she’s in a hospital, the next she’s in a busy street, walking out of the window of a condemned shop. McGonagall, who seems to have expected Annie’s confusion, simply waits until she snaps out of it.
“Ready to return home, Miss Potter?” McGonagall asks with a raised eyebrow.
She wouldn’t call the Dursleys’ house a home, but Annie doesn’t mention it. It wouldn’t change anything – Annie asked if she could stay at school all year round, but McGonagall had gotten a pinched look on her face and then given a long explanation that could be summed down to a no. Of course, that was before Annie learnt that her father was still alive.
Alive, but not awake. Not able to take her away from the Dursleys.
“Is he ever going to get better?” blurts out of her mouth before she can stop it. Without her father in front of her, his stillness a constant reminder of his fate, she wants, and maybe, just maybe, one day, he’ll get better, and she wouldn’t be alone—
“Specialists from all over the world have come to study his case,” McGonagall says, the corners of her mouth twitching down. “But none of them have been able to heal him. It is, unfortunately, not likely for him to ever recover.”
“But you have magic!” she exclaims, her voice getting un-ladylike and loud, and she gasps, trying to breathe. She wants to scream, feels like she’s about to vibrate out of her skin or throw up right on the Professor’s shoes. “You have… you can do anything… so why…”
McGonagall looks at her, and Annie’s words disappear. It’s not a mean look, not one of Aunt Petunia’s warning glares to behave or else, not Dudley’s unspoken threats to shut up or he’ll beat her up worse, not—
It’s just a look. A sad look.
And it makes Annie want to curl up in her cupboard, with only the darkness and the spiders for company, away from sad looks that make her feel naked and sick.
“There are limits to what magic can do,” McGonagall murmurs, sounding faintly bitter. “You will learn in class, but… there are two types of magic. You have spells of effect, most of which are temporary and will, under normal circomstences, revert to its initial state once the magic, intent or some other condition wears off. Basic Transfiguration is such a type of magic. And then you have… core-affecting spells. Permanent sorts of magic like enchantments, transformations or, in your father’s case, powerful Dark Magic, cannot be undone. Dark Magic, especially, leaves terrible scars to those who survive them. They fade with time and effort, sometimes, but never disappear fully, which is why they are highly restricted, if not outright illegal. Of course, as you have seen with some of the resident patients, the results of magic gone wrong can also be permanent. Which is why it is important for you to apply yourself to your studies and take your classes seriously.”
McGonagall looks at her expectantly and Annie nods. She doesn’t want to end up like Miss Agnes, covered in fur and unable to talk. She’d be unable to go out in public, locked up in a hospital until someone figures out how to heal her, or the magic fades.
…or the magic fades.
“But he could?” Annie insists. “The magic that hurts him… it could fade?”
“It’s unlikely,” McGonagall says, merciless. Annie’s heart sinks, but McGonagall gives her another sad look and adds, “It would take nothing short of a miracle, Miss Potter. While magic might occasionnally be capable of incredible feats, they are just as incredibly rare. It’s best not to… not to carry false hopes, and be disappointed when nothing happens. And when a miracle does happen… it may not come from an angle we expected, while also having consequences and effects we could not have predicted.”
Annie knows what Professor McGonagall is telling her. She hears her clearly, hears the warning and the advice to not expect her father to wake up.
But, as Annie sits on the bare mattress that is now hers, in a room that used to be Dudley’s and is still full of his broken junk, with no other company than the spiders that hid in the pockets of her clothes when she moved them out of her cupboard – she thinks back on her day, of a bright and magical world that narrowed down to a too-still body in a too-white bed, with Annie’s too-long hands and her too-messy hair.
If no one else would believe, then she will. She’s going to learn magic, and she’ll be able to do anything. She’ll get her dad back, and he’ll take her away from the Dursleys.
And even if it’s false hope…
What else does she have?