Chapter 7 A New Lease on Life
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Title: A New Lease on Life
Rating: T
Pairing: Frank/Alice
Summary: On Neville Longbottom's eighteenth birthday he gets a birthday surprise that he never expected that he would receive. Though he does find out that having his greatest wish granted would be harder than what he expected and isn't instant.
The surgeon looked at Augusta and Neville who looked worried that something had gone wrong and they had to explain to Frank that his wife had died.
“Alice is out of surgery now and she is in the recovery room but she has pulled through the surgery nicely. You can visit her now before she gets moved back into the ward.” Dr. Tonks had told the two of them.
Both Neville and Augusta looked relieved and in their concern about Alice had forgotten that the Lovegoods were there with them.
“I'm sure that you must be relieved that your mother lived through such a procedure.”Luna told her friend.
Xeno was thinking of the story that he would write about this experience when he let Augusta and Neville visit Alice first by themselves since they would probably want to be alone with her when she had woken up. Luna was glad for her friend that his mum had made it through her procedure fine though she also recognized the need for the family to go into to see Neville's mum before any friends visited her.
When Neville and Augusta had entered into the recovery room they were surprised to see how small Alice looked and her head bandaged up. She was still asleep when they entered into the room but they went straight to her bed when they arrived, waiting for her to wake up. An orderly had wheeled Frank into the room from his physical therapy session so that he could see that his wife was fine and not panic when he had seen that her bed was empty. When Alice did finally open her eyes which seemed like a long time to both Neville and Augusta she was still sleepy from the after effects of the medication. When she had returned to her regular room Augusta tried to feed her some broth that was brought in by one of the hospital workers before letting Alice go back to sleep. She didn't see any changes in her daughter in law but at least she was still alive and she was told that her recovery time from such a procedure could take a while. When Frank had returned to the ward, he immediately went to sleep for his nap before dinnertime. With the two of them asleep both Neville and Augusta went home assured that both Frank and Alice would be fine for the rest of the evening they went home. Neville first went by the Leaky Cauldron to pick up the few items that he had brought with him when he had spent the night there. When the two of them arrived home they both went into their separate rooms not wanting to discuss what had happened that day. Even though the operation went well so far Augusta didn't want to make a judgment about the outcome until Alice could carry a conversation with her and Neville.
As soon as Alice had woken up she looked around her strange setting and wondered where she was though when she saw Frank and Augusta she knew that she must be in hospital even though she was unable to speak to them at this time. She wondered if Augusta would bring her babies to visit her while in hospital even though they technically weren't allowed. There was a strange young man with them though he did look familiar but she couldn't place him right now, besides she wanted to go back to sleep. Too bad mom wanted to keep on feeding her not letting her go back to sleep right away. The young man that was with her seemed familiar somehow to her but she didn't recognize him, though he did remind her of her babies. Maybe he was some cousin who was helping to take care of Augusta and her babies while both her and Frank were in hospital. She thought that she had met all of Frank's relatives when they had gotten married but maybe there was one that she hadn't met. She was relieved when she was allowed to go back to sleep and she didn't have to try and figure out who everyone was. She would either figure it out later or Augusta would fill her in on who was who when she had woken up. She went back to sleep letting the medication take over where she didn't have to try to figure out who was who and if she would be moved back to the wizarding hospital later on. She had slept until early the next morning when she had discovered that she was still in the muggle hospital though Augusta would probably have her moved today. In fact she would probably wake up at St. Mungo's with Frank closeby to her since she could see that he was hurt as well.
When Augusta and Neville had returned home they were surprised to see that both Xeno and Luna had prepared dinner for them since she hadn't seen Xeno cook since he had moved into their home though Luna probably put him up to it since she was a nice girl who would look out for her friends. She was uneasy though about having both Neville and Luna under the same roof since she wasn't interested in becoming a great grandmother anytime soon. She knew that she could trust Neville to treat Luna with respect and besides he is now more interested in helping his parents to become better than any romantic interests. Of course they would be leaving shortly anyhow for the Swiss Alps and she would let both Xeno and his daughter stay in the house until their home can be rebuilt for them. Her brother was also at her house waiting on word about Alice's condition since he had heard about her surgery. Algie didn't feel too comfortable spending all day in the muggle hospital so he stayed home, though he will want to go visit with both Alice and Frank now since she survived that muggle doctor cutting her up but it would be worth it if she could come back home again to live with her family. She was too proud to let Neville know that he might have been right to try this muggle treatment on Alice. Frank would be glad if he could live with Alice again and not having to visit her in hospital. She wondered how long it would be before they would be able to return as Aurors since she was sure that they would be allowed to return once they had gotten back to full health. For now, she had to wait until they were ready to leave the muggle hospital to go to a wizarding convalescence center. She couldn't wait to return to the hospital to see how Alice was recovering, since it seemed that her son's recovery was going slowly, though she had waited seventeen years for their recovery she didn't care how long it took. She knew that Alice would probably sleep until the next day, she was concerned if she would even remember the past seventeen years or if she would need to be caught up with everything that went on during that time. She wondered when she will tell her about Francis's death and that Neville is now eighteen years old plus their old mentor Alastor Moody had died about the eccentricities of his that had occurred after the killing of his family and finding Francis dead after Neville had turned up at their safe house severely injured. She had decided to wait to tell her when she was better unless she asked for her babies in hospital when she had gotten better and could express her wishes, which is something that Augusta had thought that she would never see. She had always thought that Frank and Alice would die in St. Mungo's having giving up all hope that they would even get better years ago though she felt that she did a good job of hiding it from Neville and the rest of the staff at St. Mungo's. She knew that Neville had already accepted the fact that his parents wouldn't get better but he was willing to explore other treatments and now his willingness was going to be rewarded though it would be a long time before her son would get back to normal. She thinks that Alice would get back to normal quicker even though magical means weren't used in order for her to get better. She was ashamed to admit to Neville that this muggle doctor had given her hope in her about her both Frank's and Alice's recovery while the wizarding Healers had written them off years ago,though there was one who did try to help them but he was reassigned in the summer after Neville's fourth year to another ward. One thing that she could say about the muggle Healers is that they were able to give her hope after so long ago giving up on a miracle. She had already made plans to go with Neville to the muggle hospital in the morning and stay until their visiting hours were over unless Alice had to go to muggle physical and occupational therapy too though from her understanding that she was going to be allowed to rest for a few days in order to regain her strength and to determine how much of her mind was recovered during the operation. She was reassured that Alice would look better with time other than the pale look that she had when she had left the muggle surgery. The downside of the entire thing is that now the fact that the Longbottoms had to resort to muggle treatment would probably be splashed across the Daily Prophet tomorrow instead of letting their private business remain private. Most of her friends would sympathize with her since they had children of their own and would do the same thing if it was their own child. She was going to do whatever it took her to do in order to keep the press away from Alice except for Xeno since his Luna was friends with her Neville. He did go through the same worry and concern that she did seventeen years ago when they were going home from school for Christmas break this year when she was kidnapped. She empathized with him and she had to remind Neville that she knew that the waiting was the hardest part in hearing about a missing loved one. She saw the relief in his face after Luna had returned and she didn't appear to be damaged in any way though there are some scars that can't be seen but can linger on. She wondered if Alice and Frank would be able to remember any of their ordeal and how they would deal with it. Though the Swiss clinic that they were going to would also sponsor mind healing sessions with them in order to fully integrate them back into wizarding society.