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UnBroken	By : OddDoll Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 6172 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
Unbroken
Chapter 12
By Odd Doll
"This is insane," Phoebe said. What had been perfectly clear in Flourish & Bott's was now particle physics, advanced mathematics, and existential philosophy all rolled into one.
Severus lay on the bed in the same place he had rested earlier in the morning, struggling to breath in raspy sighs. When she had gently squeezed his hand to reassure him, it had been icy.
Phoebe sat cross-legged on the bed at Severus' side, the big medical book open on her knees. She had already given him some of the potions -- the magical equivalents of antibiotics and fever reducers. Now she turned her attention to his injuries.
"Do you need some help?" Sylvester asked from where he lay on the next bed.
"Not at the moment, thank you. Try to get some sleep."
If the site of the injury is unknown... She skipped ahead. The following diagnostic spells are most useful for seeing and identifying internal injuries. She peeled the blood-soaked bandage away from Severus' incision. A soft groan escaped his lips, and he rocked his body ever so slightly.
"Sorry," she whispered. Lightly tap the wand against the skin over the injured area while saying the spell. Above his torso a display in shimmering shades of blue and green, intersected by a flat plane in glowing red, appeared on his skin. Throughout the section there were pockets of white, pink, yellow, and gray. Blue and green indicate normal, healthy tissue. White indicates infection... The book went on to list a wide array of injuries and their corresponding colors. She founding unhealed tears, bruising, tissue damage, internal bleeding, and infection in the picture of Severus's wounds.
"Well, I knew all that," she said with disgust. After fifteen minutes of looking up colors and reading the corresponding text, she had a clearer picture of why Severus was so sick.
"Sylvester, are you awake?" she whispered.
"Yes," he said in a clear voice.
"Could you come look at this?" He rose and came around to the space between the beds to peer at the image of Severus' injuries. After squinting at it for a few seconds, he fumbled in his shirt pocket for a pair of reading glasses.
"What am I looking at?"
She pointed to a jagged purple line. Her finger dipped into the picture, glowing with purple and blue. "Do you see this purple section? That's where he had some broken ribs."
"All right. I see."
"Directly below it is this ragged red section. That, I think, is where the rib tore the abdominal wall. That S.O.B. must have really hit him hard." She frowned and looked at Severus's face. His eyes were open, looking at the image with a semi-focused gaze.
"Now, look at this." She pointed to a section of red that made a straight, clean line. "That's the incision. Do you see how it extends to here, beyond the original injury?"
"Yes, but what does it mean?"
"What I think it means is that arrogant quack didn't sew it up properly."
"Bloody hell." Sylvester flushed. "Sorry."
"My sentiments exactly." She looked down at her book. "Now, for treatment."
She flipped the pages to the section referenced under 'Treatment' and read: Internal wounds that are both bleeding and infected must be incised to drain excess fluids, packed with antiseptic powders, and sealed with magical suture. The procedure is as follows...
"Oh, bloody hell. I can't do that," Phoebe said in horror. "Sorry, Sylvester."
"What's wrong?"
"He needs to be opened up again."
"Maybe we should find a hospital."
"No," Severus said.
"Well, I am not going to perform surgery on you," she said in a tone of finality. "It's unnecessary for me to do it, for one. If you reached the point where it was operate or die, I'd take you to a Muggle hospital. And your biggest problem right now is the system-wide infection, which the potions are dealing with."
"No, Phoebe. You must do this. Now." His voice was only a whisper. It alarmed her how much he had deteriorated in the last few hours, but she had no intention of treating his wound. Phoebe glanced at his face and her heart lurched at the desperation she saw there. She wondered what kept this man afloat and had the worrisome thought that she might be the life preserver.
"Severus, being sick like this makes you confused. Trust me, this can wait until we find you a real healer."
"How long is that flight?" Sylvester asked.
She looked up at him to see his face was drawn with fatigue and worry. "It's about ten hours in the air, but there'll be a stop in Ontario for fuel and another in either Salt Lake or San Francisco for customs. Then a short flight to Monterey." She pursed her lips. "And then the drive to my home. Or I guess we could Apparate directly from the airport."
"Why not de-plane in San Francisco?"
"Because I'll never be able to get him past customs there. The airport in Monterey is much smaller. And my car is in Monterey, too."
Sylvester's eyes lit up. "Couldn't you..um..Apparate? From here?"
Phoebe shook her head. "Too far. But I could from the airport in San Francisco. That would save a few hours. I don't think I could make it from Salt Lake. That's awful far, specially with a second person."
Sylvester sank down on the bed behind him. "You weren't planning to leave for another few hours, so he might not get to a doctor until some time tomorrow. Is that right?"
"Right."
"Does he have that long?"
"I just don't know." Her voice rose in frustration.
"Phoebe, listen to me." Severus's voice was so low that she leaned forward to hear him. "You must stop the source of the infection. The wound is open and not healing and never will until you clean it out and seal it." He closed his eyes and gasped for breath, drained from the effort to speak. A clean washcloth lay at her side, and she used it to wipe sweat from his face.
"Then you're going to a hospital." But she wondered if she could do that to him.
"Phoebe, please... The Muggles are looking for me." His focus shifted from her face to roam around the ceiling above him. When he spoke again his whisper was so soft she almost imagined she heard him say, "I don't want to be locked up."
Something hard and painful turned over in her chest. "We'll go to Paris or Dublin," she said more gently. "There are wizard hospitals there, and they won't recognize you."
"Phoebe, don't complicate things by changing plans in the middle. We need to keep things simple."
"This is simple?!" When she realized that she had raised her voice, she flushed and turned away from both of them. "Excuse me." She rose up from the bed to go into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.
Phoebe sat on the countertop with her knees raised to her chest and indulged in a healthy dose of self-pity. In just forty-eight hours her life had gone to hell. And she had offered to work as a...a spy! For the love of God, I've lost my mind. As bad as she felt for Severus Snape, she wished with all her heart that she had never met him.
I should be able to handle this! She pressed the heels of her palms over her eyes, trying to rub away the hot sting that had erupted there. What would Dad think of me? Locking myself in the bathroom while an injured man lies there waiting for me to decide if I want to save his life. Or risk his life in an attempt to save it.
A memory leaped into her mind. The Tyrolean Traverse. Strapped into a harness, ready to cross a gorge on a single length of rope, two more ropes above her head to hold on to. Daddy at her side. "You can do this Phoebe. You're strong and healthy. All it takes is courage, and you have plenty." A warm hand on her shoulder. "Mind over matter, Pheebs."
The problem was that, just as it had back then, the mind had turned to sludge and the matter shook so hard she thought she would fly apart.
Another memory. A secret tryst behind one of AMA's waterfalls. Soft roar of water shielding them, masking the sound of Phoebe's sniffles -- the Defense Against the Dark Arts exam had been disastrous. Phil's arm around her. The clean scent of his clothes as she buried her face against his shoulder. "It's okay, Phoebe," he'd said. He had his hand tucked into her sleeve, stroking her arm gently. Phil knew how to be so gentle, so coaxing. "It's okay," he'd said again. "You're not much of a witch, it's true. But I'll always be there for you. I'll always take care of you, babe."
"Shit!" Nothing like Phil to spur her in to action. She had made the Tyrolean Traverse. Surgery wasn't the same, but she would do that, too.
She had tossed the medical book on the other side of the counter when she entered the bathroom, and she took it up now. Desperate to find a better solution, she skimmed through page after page of text. The book was written for laymen and spelled out the dangers in terms she could understand. If the infection were not curbed, he would eventually suffer heart failure.
After twenty minutes, she stepped out of bathroom, her chin up, wearing the same confident face she wore when she strode into her Monday morning staff meetings. Sylvester gaped for a second and rolled his eyes nervously toward Severus.
"Sylvester, would you stand by and let me know if I'm about to do something stupid, like cut off his balls?"
He gave her an anxious little half-smile in response, and Severus sighed. Phoebe moved the wooden chair from the desk and set it between the beds. On the nightstand that stood between the beds, she laid out the book, antiseptic powder, gauze, and bandages. Almost everything would be done with spells, which made the procedure less complicated but much easier for her to screw up. In the little notebook from her purse she had listed all the steps and written the spells for each one.
"Once I get started, I will need to work fairly quickly," she said briskly. All business. "One of the first spells stops all blood flow to the area, and we don't want to leave it that way for long. Sylvester, when I tell you, would you check off the items on the list and read me the next one? That way I won't mix up and skip one." She picked up the list. "Just leave it there on the bed. We'll both need to refer to it. I don't have time to memorize all this."
Sylvester sat down on the bed near Severus's feet and readied himself. "Whenever you're ready."
Phoebe prepared everything she could think of, including swabbing the skin with alcohol, and saying a sterilizing spell over her wand. There was nothing else to do except start, but she hesitated. The wand wavered over the incision, and she closed her eyes until she felt an icy hand clamp onto her wrist. She looked into Severus's eyes and saw trust and confidence there.
"You are the willow wand, Phoebe," he whispered.
"Huh?"
"A willow wand can do anything you ask of it."
"Right. You know, I just realized that once again I'm letting a man too sick to think clearly make the decisions for us." She relaxed and smiled "I'll take good care of you. Don't worry."
She turned her attention back to the wound. "First I will numb the area. Let me know if it is uncomfortable. Viscus Torpeo." She drew a large rectangle around the site of the incision. Severus sighed and she gave him a sharp glance, but his face showed nothing but relief.
"You like that, huh?" He nodded. "Good, that means you are numb all the way through to the inside. Okay, cross off number one, please."
She took a deep breath and went on. "Confuto minuo." Once again she drew a large rectangle around the incision. "I've just stopped the blood flow. I hope," she added in an undertone. "Check off number two, please."
The next one was trickier. The doctor had used staples to close the outer portion of the incision, and she needed to remove them one by one. Phoebe would handle it in the same way one would remove debris from a dirty wound. She looked at her notes again, even though she did not need to, and then, careful not to touch her wand to the skin, she lowered the tip until it hovered a millimeter above a staple. "Extractum Staple." The staple slid upward, the edges of the skin pulling upward slightly with it, until it broke free and settled on its side on his abdomen.
"Wingardium Leviosa." With little jerky movements she levitated the staple away and let it drop into the trashcan.
"One down, four to go." Phoebe sighed. Despite the need for speed, she worked at a deliberate, steady pace. She had no intention of causing even more tissue damage than he already had.
She held her wand over the second staple. "Extractum Staple." The staple rose up, taking the skin with it, but the bond with the skin was stronger than the extraction spell. "Extractum Staple." she said firmly. The staple popped out of the skin like water from a chute and landed on the bed. Phoebe levitated it away. It took all her concentration to bring her wand close to the staples but not touch them; she did not want to further contaminate the wound or her wand.
The edges of the incision peeled away from each other and the wound opened up, letting out an unwelcome stench of decay.
"Damn." She took a shallow breath. "The book didn't say anything about the smell." Sylvester coughed and cleared his throat. A glance at Severus showed him to be bearing it all with a stoic expression. Phoebe patted his shoulder. "Well, it looks like the bleeding spell worked," she told him with false cheer. "Now, there are some sutures in here, and that's where it gets tricky, because there is nothing in the book about removing sutures. There's a couple of ways I can do this, but the simplest would be a little charm I use to remove stitches when I'm sewing. Consutum Laxo. Does that sound safe enough to you, Severus?"
"I don't think it could cause any harm."
"Oh, goodie. Not only am I performing surgery, I get to perform experimental surgery. Consutum Laxo." The sutures unlaced themselves and settled into a neat coil at the bottom of the incision. She levitated the bloody threads into the trashcan. "What's next, Sylvester?"
"Spread the wound with the spell, 'Dilato,'" he read from the notes.
"Right. Dilato." The tissues spread wide, as if unseen clamps pulled the edges apart from each other. The stench boiled up from the wound, and Phoebe found herself gagging as she stared into a gaping hole filled with blood and pus. She closed her eyes and turned her head away. With all her fears about accidentally killing Severus, she never gave a thought to the sight-of-blood issue.
Severus caught her eye. "Squeamish?" He actually gave her a weak smile.
Sylvester snorted. She shot him a glare and turned back to Severus. "Humor? It's a fine time to be cheerful in the face of adversity. I could have used that this morning when you called me...what was it, a heartless bitch?" She turned back to the task at hand and told herself that at least it was not her own blood.
"Swab away excess fluids with sterile gauze. Right?"
"Right," Sylvester said.
Phoebe managed this without difficulty, levitating the gauze from the package to the wound and then into the trashcan.
"Number six, is it?"
"Seven. Using Magical Suture, seal cut. The spell is Viscus Occludo." He mangled the Latin.
Phoebe looked at Severus's insides and discovered the difference between a healer and a desperate woman with a medical book. Red and pink tissue everywhere, but nothing resembling what she had seen with the scans. She knew where it should be, she thought, but the spot was a small, closed slit. Stumped, Phoebe stared at the opening, trying to decide what to do. Her eyes slid toward Severus; he watched her, expressionless. With great care she lowered the tip of her wand until it almost touched the spot.
"Is there something wrong?" Sylvester started to say just as she muttered, "Dilato." The opening gaped wider, and the small slit opened up, revealing another slit below it and very different tissue. She let out her breath with a small sigh.
"Viscus Occludo," she said as she ran the tip of her wand down the length of the cut. The tissues sealed below the wand. Phoebe sat up straighter, rolled the tightness out of her shoulders and turned to the nightstand. After setting her wand down with the tip hanging over the edge, she took up a vial of antiseptic powder. It had been tremendously expensive. Thinking she would use it externally, she had almost purchased just one vial. Two, it appeared, would be just enough to coat every surface inside the wound.
"Antiseptic powder now?" she asked Sylvester, just to confirm.
"Yes, ma'am."
When both vials were emptied, she took up her wand. Phoebe decided to sterilize it again, just in case she slipped and touched the tissues.
"Sealing now?" she asked.
"Yes."
Working a little at a time, she sealed the opening. Inch by inch, the tissues drew together, until all that remained was an ugly red line just below Severus' lowest rib. Phoebe sat back in the chair, her body going limp. She stared at the red line in stunned, exhausted silence. Now that it was over, she realized how tense she had been.
"You're not done," Sylvester said.
"Oh, right." Phoebe sat up straighter and reversed the bleeding spell before covering the wound with a piece of gauze. "I'll leave the numbing spell on. The book said it lasts about four hours and wears off gradually, so it's better to leave it on than to have you get the pain back all at once. How do you feel?"
"Improved."
"Can you sit up for a few minutes, do you think? I want to wrap a bandage around you to protect the seal and stabilize both the incision and your broken ribs. We really should have done that this morning."
With Sylvester's help, he sat up while she wrapped an ace bandage around his ribs. "Is this too tight? I checked in the book and it said they should be really snug."
"It's fine."
"You'll need to be very careful. The book says that the sealing spell slowly dissipates as your tissues knit together naturally. While you're healing there's danger of tearing, so no quidditch. Okay?
"How long?"
"I'm not sure. A few weeks. When we get to San Francisco, they can tell you more." She shoved the thermometer in his mouth. "How's the pain in your head?"
"Much better."
She glanced over at Sylvester, who was sitting on the edge of the other bed, his hands hanging between his knees.
"We need to leave for Plymouth in about three hours. Why don't we all get some sleep?"
"That was really amazing, what you just did," Sylvester said.
She blushed. "Yeah, well, it would be a good idea if you forgot about it. You've just seen way too much magic."
"Don't worry. I won't tattle." He lay down on the bed and closed his eyes.
"Remind me to empty this trashcan. I wouldn't want to be the maid that found it."
After cleaning up and phoning the office for a wakeup call, Phoebe gave Severus a little bit of a painkilling potion. She would have given it to him earlier, but wanted him awake while she worked on him. Then she covered Severus with a blanket and lay down beside him on top of the bedspread.
"That fever potion worked wonders. Your fever is down to one hundred and one point two. Not great, but much better." He nodded, and she could see he was already drifting off. "Are you warm enough?" she asked. He nodded again. She watched him for a while and could not help feeling a bit of satisfaction with her handiwork before she drifted off to sleep.
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UnBroken