Aunt Rose

57.

Waking up from being unconscious was always something Rose despised. The last few times it happened to her, something terrible transpired that led to her waking. Lily and James' death, Marlene's death. Remus as a werewolf without Wolfsbane let loose on the grounds of Hogwarts and attempting to eat her nephew after finding out Peter Pettigrew was alive and killed her wife. Yeah, that was one of them.

Her senses came slow. Hearing, creaky bed frames and heels tapping against the floor. Feeling, scratchy linens and a dull ache, an arm bent and in a sling. Sight was last but the most essential. It allowed Rose to open her eyes and navigate her way out of the head fog that consumed her mind after being unconscious for so long. She was in the hospital wing, Rose would know that ceiling anywhere.

Her full mind came back to her when she noticed her arm bent in a sling and further noticed Remus a few beds down. Sleeping, treated, and not dead after his transformation. She remembered most of what happened. Being hurt. And Harry.

Harry. It all came back to him; he was the only thing keeping Rose alive. The only purpose she had in her miserable, lonely life. Her little nephew was forced to save her life again. But where was he? That got her moving. Despite the pulling, sharp pain in her back and the dull pain in her ribs, Rose sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She would search every corner of the earth for that boy.

She didn't get past her bed before Poppy came bristling out of her office to forcefully lead Rose back to the bed she had come from.

"Poppy, I'm fine. I need to find Harry—"

"Ah, ah, ah!" Poppy tutted, shaking her head. "I will hear none of these lies. Your back was cut completely open. You need rest for your wounds to heal properly and you of all people know that. Back in bed." Despite Rose being an adult and not a student, she could never find it in herself to argue much with Poppy's prognosis, especially when her course of treatment is exactly what Rose would prescribe for any patient of hers.

It didn't mean she wasn't dramatic about it. Rose huffed, loudly, and threw in a childish roll of her eyes before she conceded and sat herself back in the bed. "Just tell me that Harry's alright. I don't remember anything that happened afterward."

Poppy forced the blankets back over Rose's body and a potion into her hand before she answered. "Harry is completely fine, dear. He's resting in his dorm after the... eventful night. Everybody is safe, everybody is alive, and everything has been sorted. You just need rest."

Sorted. Everything was sorted.

"Sirius? What about Sirius, Poppy?" Rose was relieved nothing detrimental happened to Harry. But even she knew that Peter was long gone. As a rat and with the distraction of the werewolf, he was long gone. And without him, Sirius's case was almost unwinnable without reliable testimony. Remus and Rose had been in no condition to provide that testimony.

"Gone. Somehow, he escaped the dungeons and took the hippogriff set for execution with him. It was a mystery." Poppy should've looked deflated or even a little alarmed that a 'mass murderer' was on the loose. But if the aloof smile and nonchalant shrug of her shoulders told Rose anything, she was glad another one of her former students wasn't dead. Especially one she'd seen in the infirmary so often. "Now drink. I'll send for Harry. You aren't the only one who's been worried sick."

When Poppy was gone, after making sure Rose did indeed down her potion, the younger healer finally took a breath and relaxed against the headboard of the hospital bed. She glanced at Remus again and found that he seemed to still be sleeping, features lax despite the scars she could spot from across the room. Rose's eyes then turned to her bedside table which seemed to be holding a handful of get-well-soon gifts. Flowers, a gift basket with sweets, and...