"Where then?"
"Not on this Earth."
Hattie Black is the daughter of Sirius Black. Growing up she never had a set home, her parents weren't together and that meant she had to change between houses all of the time. Even during school holidays when she...
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Hattie laid still, she watched her surroundings but didn't take any of it in. The healer lifted her arms bandaging them up and then clipping nails so her fingers looked like mere stubs. As much as she didn't want to move, she didn't think she could if she wanted to.
Sirius sat at her side. His eyes were glossed over with tears as he witnessed her laying there letting the healers do as they wished. She didn't protest, she didn't talk; she barely blinked.
No one had contacted Charlie. He would not be able to get there because of work and would beat himself up about it.
Remus hadn't left her side either. He stood behind Sirius with his hands on his on Sirius' shoulders not letting him go. He needed someone to hold onto and it seemed that Sirius did too. He watched how Hattie observed everything that was going on, how she didn't react.
The healers kept coming and going, they would check on her and then leave again. The room remained silent.
Lily had nipped home and collected a bag of belongings for Hattie and a bag for Sirius because he for sure was holding his ground and not leaving until his daughter was leaving.
She had returned and handed the girl the bag. Hattie aimlessly rifled through it, not giving too much care for any of it. Until her eyes landed on her book. The famous Charlie and Hattie book. The book that's pages that, since being brought, had been turned so many times that they were becoming worn.
"You want to read that?" Asked Peter quietly as he noticed her hand stop on it. "I can read it for you, I like to think I'm good at doing voices."
Hattie shrugged. Peter slipped the bag under the bed after taking out the book and leaned back in his chair. "I'll go from where your book mark is," said Peter who lifted open the pages. He went to pluck out the mark only to find that it was not a conventional book mark. Instead, it was the very dragon scale that she had plucked from Jojeen.
He shrugged his shoulders and placed it onto his knee, before scanning the page to get a feel for whereabouts in the story she was at. Once he was ready, Peter cleared his throat and began his reading.
"Build a house?" exclaimed John.
"For the Wendy," said Curly.
"For Wendy?" John said, aghast. "Why, she is only a girl!"
"That," explained Curly, "is why we are her servants."...
Peter voices every character different, he pulled facial expressions and at times, despite it potentially seeming inappropriate in the circumstances, he leapt up and galavanted around the room doing all different actions and including Hattie in the story by tapping her nose, kissing her cheek and other such actions.
Now normally, the girl would react. She would giggle and shout back the next line to be read as she knew the book by heart. Except, this time her eyes fluttered to a close and for the first time that day, Hattie looked at peace, the last words to be heard being the name "Neverland."
Peter stopped reading once her breathing grew deeper. He slipped the scale in the pages to mark her place, setting the book on the table that covered the foot of the bed. Gently, he laid down Hattie so that she was more comfortable and turned to Sirius who stared at her not uttering a word.
"Padfoot?" Asked Peter softly, his eyes fixated on the bags beneath his best friend's eyes.
"Yes, Wormy?" responded Sirius, emotion seeming unfound in his voice. His hands had not stopped trembling since they had brought her to St Mungo's hospital, Hattie straight away being sectioned.
Peter bit his lip, "are you alright?"
"Yes because everyone's daughter attempts to kill herself and then pretends to get better only for them to find her relapsing. Of course, I'm not."
Peter nodded his head, "right, um, I shouldn't have asked."
"No, you shouldn't have," snapped Sirius.
James shook his head, "none of this is Wormtail's fault-"
"And whose fault is it? Oh yeah, it's mine! Because I'm such a shit father to not even know anything about my own daughter! That I caused this! I'm the mirror of my own wretched mother..."
"This is not about you." Stated Remus moving away from the man. "Yes, you had an influence of it all but you are not the young girl who is laying in this hospital bed! You are not the one going through this day in, day out. No. It's not you. It's Hattie. So stop making it about yourself and worry about your daughter!"
Sirius stood up. His nostrils flared and his teeth gritted. "You think you know everything! I'm not the one making it about myself. You are! You think that by doing this it'll make yourself feel better! What are you trying to do? Turn my daughter against me so that she'll choose you?!"
"Choose me?" Scoffed Remus. "Hattie is not some prize! I'm not doing this for myself, I'm doing all that I can to make sure that she gets better. I love her like my own, of course I do, it's Hattie! I would never try to undermine you but right now Sirius Orion Black, you are being absolutely ridiculous!"
Sirius swung for Remus. His fist collided with his jaw and everyone stared at the best friends in shock. James looked down at Hattie who was still sound asleep. How? He didn't know, but he was glad that she was.
Remus rubbed his jaw before turning back to Sirius. "I'm not fighting you." Remus told him, the ache in his jaw making his words quieter. Instead, he took his friends arms and dragged him out of the hospital room.
"Punching me whilst your sick daughter is asleep in hospital, is really not going to help. Until you can act like an adult whose daughter is in hospital, you are on time out! Don't come back in until you have thought everything through." He shut the door in Sirius' face and turned back to James, Peter and Lily.
"Um...Moony..."
"Don't mess with a werewolf whose niece is in hospital."
