A Second Chance at Love a Harry Potter Fan Fic
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Title: A Second Chance at Love
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After suffering at Death Eater's hands after Neville Longbottom defeat of Voldemort, Lily becomes responsible for James's care. In the aftermath, Severus Snape comes in as a good friend to help her in this trying time and that friendship grows. AU story.
Pairings: Lily/James; Lily/Snape
As soon as Lily arrived at St. Mungo’s, she was shown to the ward where James had been brought in earlier in the day. She started telling James all about her and Harry’s lives in America while pleading with him to wake up. Over the next few days, Sirius and Remus abided by their promise and brought Harry with them to visit his parents and to bring his mum dinner, since the day shift Healers were kind enough to give her breakfast and lunch every day when they came in to check on James. One day, Remus took Lily aside to talk about the possibilities.
“Lils, I know that you want to be there for James, but you have Harry to look after, not to mention yourself in your condition. I know that I’ve already accepted the possibility that James may not ever wake up, and even though Sirius is in denial about it, he is still out there living his own life. All that you’ve been doing for the past few days is sitting here at the hospital with James and only paying attention to Harry when we’ve brought him here to see you. I mean, even the Healers have told you that there isn’t much hope for James’s recovery. I don’t even know how much sleep you’ve been getting, but it hasn’t been much, which can’t be good for the baby. I mean, you do want the baby don’t you? Plus, I’ve been talking to Sirius, and we agreed that if you don’t come home soon then we won’t bring Harry here to visit,” Remus told her, trying to sound gentle, though he had to convey a hard truth to her.
“Of course I want the baby; how dare you think of something like that. How could you deny me my time with Harry when James needs me here?” Lily replied, sounding offended and angry that her husband’s two best friends would even try to keep her child from her.
“It’s not that James needs you, but Harry is here, and you could miss him growing up with you sitting vigil at James’s bed every day and night. Harry needs you too, plus you can’t sit here forever. You need to live your life, and you can’t do that here,” Remus told her.
“Fine, if he’s not awake by tomorrow when you come by, then I’ll come with you, since I’ll probably need to check on Muggle doctors to see what they can do to help him,” Lily answered Remus sounding hopeful that the muggle doctors could help him.
“Then I’ll give you until tomorrow, and if you need to look at other means of treatment, then do it,” Remus answered her, relieved that he was able to finally convince Lily to come home with them. Though he didn’t think that a Muggle doctor could help James, but if that’s what it took in order to get her to come home, then he and Sirius could go along with it.
A few minutes later, Sirius came out of James’s hospital room with Harry in his arms. Lily reached out to grab her son and to spend time with him, while Sirius went over to Remus to find out how his talk with Lily had gone.
“When is Lily coming home?” Sirius asked, sounding concerned for their friend. “Tomorrow evening after our daily visit, and of course, St. Mungo’s will contact her if there are any changes in James’s condition,” Remus answered. “Good, Harry’s been missing his mum. She needs to spend more time with him, and not just James,” Sirius answered him.
“There’s one thing, though; if he doesn’t get any better, she wants to have him checked out by a Muggle doctor,” Remus told his friend, fearing his reaction about it. “What do you mean? What do they know about James condition, since he was hit with a very painful curse? They don’t understand how these curses from our world work. They’d kill him, or worse even open up his head,” Sirius answered him.
“Well, if it makes Lily feel hopeful about James and gets her to come home, I’m for it. Who knows, maybe one of those doctors could help him get better, even if they have to open up his head for it,” Remus answered him trying to sound as gentle as possible to diffuse Sirius’s temper.
Just then, Harry toddled over to them with Lily behind him, which caused the two friends to stop their conversation.
“I suppose that Remus has already told you that I’m coming home tomorrow, and that I’m looking for a second opinion on James’s condition,” Lily told Sirius, sounding a little bit defeated though she still had a little bit of hope for James’s recovery.
“Did you hear that, little one? Mummy is going home tomorrow, but you’ll still have to visit daddy here for now, but he’ll soon get to come home with us,” Lily told her son as Sirius and Remus were getting ready to leave. She hoped that would be true and that James would be able to come home with them again. She knew that Sirius and Remus would help her raise Harry and the new baby if anything should happen to James, she didn’t want to lose James and never have him come home again. She didn't want to never have him tell her that he loved her again, and she didn’t want to sleep alone without him next to her. After Sirius and Remus left, Lily decided to tell James about the new baby, hoping that would help him to wake up before she left to go home the next day. Before she went to bed, she even put James’s hand on her stomach, so that he could feel the baby moving.
The next morning when she woke up, there was no change in James’s condition, but when Sirius and Remus came by with Harry, James finally opened up his eyes after being in a coma for a week. Lily ran out into the hall to flag down a Healer when she saw James opening his eyes. When the Healer came into the room, he requested that Lily leave the room so that he could examine James. After the examination, the Healer came to get Lily and took her to his office, where he updated Lily on James’s condition. Michael, the Healer who had just examined James, looked at Lily and felt sorry for her, and for what she was going to have to go through until James’s death.
“Well, now that he’s awake, he’ll get better soon and come home with us where he belongs?” Lily asked, sounding hopeful about her husband’s condition.
“Unfortunately, he isn’t responding to stimuli like we would like to see in someone who’s just woken up from a coma. From the result of the prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus Curse, the chances of him ever making a complete recovery are very slim,” Michael told her.
“But he’ll be able to go home eventually, won't he?” Lily asked sounding hopeful.
“I’m afraid that he’ll need a lot of care, more than what you can provide for him at home. We do have a ward for patients who require long term care like your husband. Do you want him to stay here, or do you wish to make other arrangements for him?” Michael asked her.
“Will I be able to have a Muggle doctor examine him here, or do I need to move him to a Muggle hospital?” Lily asked, sounding hopeful that the Muggle ways were better in dealing with cases like James.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have the ability for a Muggle doctor to examine James here, even if he was a Squib and could see the hospital. You’ll need to move him to a Muggle hospital to have him examined, since they have the equipment there that they would need to examine him. I hope that they can give you better answers than we can here, but you will always have the option to return here if you don’t find the answers that you’re looking for,” Michael answered her.
“Fine, then when I go home today I’ll find one of the best Muggle doctors to examine James to see if there’s anything that can be done for him,” Lily replied, sounding defiant. At Lily’s response, Michael told her the St. Mungo’s procedure to transfer a patient to another hospital, though James didn’t need to have his memory modified. Lily would need to tell them that he had gotten his injury in a Muggle way, like a car crash. Lily left the Healer’s office, determined to make James better, no matter what it took. She didn’t even care if it was by either Muggle or magical means; she just wanted her husband back.
“Well then, I want to sign those papers right now, if you don’t mind,” Lily told Michael.
“Fine, I have them right here. How soon do you want him transferred?” Michael asked her while she was signing the transfer papers.
“Tonight, after Harry comes to visit his dad. Plus, James’s friends have a right to know what I plan on doing with him,” Lily answered, sounding determined.
“That’s fine. That will give us time to make the transfer arrangements with St. Mark’s,” Michael answered her.
“Great, then when our friends and Harry get here, I’ll let him know about it,” Lily told him as she walked out of his office. She was feeling hopeful that James would eventually get to come home and not live out the rest of the days in that hospital, as had been predicted earlier by the Healers.
Later that day when Remus, Sirius and Harry came by to visit James, Lily met them and let them know that James had woken up, but that his prognosis doesn’t look good. She let them know that she was transferring him to a Muggle hospital for tests.
“Why would you do something like that?” Sirius asked Lily after he heard the news. “With him waking up, it means that he’s getting better doesn’t it? I was fine with it while he was still in a coma to get him to wake up, but why now?”
“Just because he’s woken up doesn’t automatically mean that he’ll get better and come home,” Lily told him, sounding annoyed at his question.
“What do you mean? Isn’t that what you want? For him to wake up? Of course it’s going to take some time for him to recover, but he’ll come home eventually; you don’t need to take him to a Muggle doctor who’ll probably cut him up,” Sirius reassured her.
“You don’t know anything, Sirius. Do you know what that Healer told me in there?” Lily screamed at Sirius.
Sirius looked around as if someone could tell him the answer.
“They told me that he would stay like that for the rest of his life; even if he does get better he’ll still require long term care. I want to give him the chance to know his own son and unborn child, and if he stays here he won’t. Besides, they’ve already moved him upstairs, and I don’t know if you’ve even noticed the other patients there are not aware of their surroundings, and some of them even have to have nappies changed, just like a baby. There are quite a few of them who’ve been injured like James and they don’t even know their own families. I want to at least look our children in the face and honestly tell them that I’ve done everything in my power to make their daddy better,” Lily told him tiredly. She left with Harry to visit with James, leaving both Sirius and Remus out in the hallway.
When Sirius looked at Remus to agree with him that Lily’s idea was ridiculous, Remus told him, “I agree with her, that for Harry and his baby brother or sister, we need to do everything that we need to do to make James better, and if it means looking to other means of treatment, then fine.”
Then he lowered his voice and added, “Sometimes I wish there were alternatives for me to be cured of my little problem. Besides, it’s Lily’s decision, not ours.”
“Fine,” Sirius replied while going to James’s room, following Lily and Harry.
When he got there, he was shocked to see his best friend staring into space and not even acknowledging his presence.
“James, don’t you recognize me? It’s me, your best friend Sirius; can’t you at least make some sort of sign that you recognize me?” Sirius pleaded with his friend, while James just continued to stare straight at both him and Remus, who entered the room behind Sirius with no sign of recognition.
“It won’t do any good to plead with him; one of the Healers told me that he’s been like that ever since he woke up,” Remus told Sirius while trying to hide his disappointment from James.
“At least Lily is willing to do everything in her power to make you better and for you to go home with her and Harry soon. I guess that Lily told you about her pregnancy and how she’s looking forward to you coming home,” Sirius told his friend while trying not to appear upset in front of his friends about James’s condition.
When Sirius and Remus left St. Mungo’s with Lily and Harry, it was the first time in a week that Lily spent the night at home and not in the hospital. It was the first time that she was able to tell Remus her plans of having James examined by a Muggle doctor.
“That’s a good idea to get a second opinion on his condition; at least we’ll be able to tell Harry and his sibling that we tried everything to make their dad better,” Remus told his friend.
[5] “Fine, but what are we going to do if the Muggles can’t heal him?” Sirius asked, looking worried.
“We’ll come to that later, but wouldn’t you rather have everything that could be possibly be done for James be done, and it could reassure us that everything was done for him,” Remus answered his friend, trying to reason with him.
“Fine, but I really hope that the Muggles can make him better so that he can come home rather than live at the hospital for the rest of his days,” Sirius answered him. Just then, Harry finally got away from his mum looking for his two uncles. Finding them, he asked, “doggy,” requesting that Sirius turn into a dog for him, which he did.
Then Remus went over to see how Lily was doing. “How are you holding up, being away from him for the first time since you’ve come back from the States?” Remus asked her.
“Pretty well, considering,” Lily replied, looking like she could fall asleep at any minute.
“That’s good; do you think that you could handle it if James was going to be like that for the rest of his life?” Remus asked her, trying to get her to consider the possibility.
“I could, especially knowing that I’ve done everything for him,” Lily replied.
“That’s good, because I would worry if the Muggle doctors can’t get him back to normal. I understand what you’re going through, because I would do almost anything to be able to live a normal life, without the prejudices and the transformations that I experience,” Remus told her.
“I know all of that, but I want to know if there’s something more that could be done for James. I mean I would feel horrible if there was something else that we could do for him and we didn’t do it, because of it being a muggle method. I wonder how Sirius is doing with Harry,” Lily told him while she went into the living room to see how her son and friend were doing.
“Mama doggie,” Harry told her, pointing to Sirius, who was still in dog form and entertaining Harry with his antics.
“Yes, I see the doggie, darling,” Lily replied to her son, giving Sirius a look that meant that she wanted him to transform back.
When Sirius transformed back, Harry was disappointed. Lily immediately got him to play with his blocks in order to keep his attention away from Sirius.
“So I see that you transform at the whims of a one year old,” Lily teased Sirius, which he took in good nature since it was the first time that he’d even seen her joke around since she found out about James’s attack.
1. “Well, since you’ve been gone this past week, it keeps him from missing his mummy, though you didn’t have to spend all of your time with James this week; you also have Harry to think about as well. Besides, even if James does get better, from what I saw it could be a very long time before he could go back to work. Have you even decided about going back to St. Mungo’s as a Healer like you did before?” Sirius asked Lily out of concern for his best friend’s wife.
“Well there was one time while James was being examined that I did inquire about going back, and they’re ready to take me back as soon as I’m ready. Since I’ve been gone for less than a year, I don’t need to take any refresher courses, though I’ll need to follow a more senior Healer around for a few months,” Lily replied to Sirius’s question, hoping that she sounded more confident than she felt.
“Well, when do you go back to work, and what do you plan to do with Harry once you’re there? How will you handle your maternity leave?” Sirius asked sounding concerned with Lily’s and Harry’s wellbeing.
“I won’t go back until after James has seen the Muggle doctor for a second opinion, but I’ve got a couple of leads on people who would be willing to watch him for me while I’m at work. One of them is Molly Weasley, who has a son around Harry’s age. They’ll handle my maternity leave very well, plus I’ll go back to work as soon as I can. They’re being very understanding of my situation with James,” Lily answered him, right before she gave Harry a kiss goodnight and went up to bed for the evening.
After she left, both Sirius and Remus hoped that she knew what she was doing and that she wouldn’t be too disappointed with the results.
A few days later, Lily had her worst fears confirmed by the Muggle doctors, that there was nothing that could cure James; the only thing that they could promise her was that they could refer him to a couple of Muggle long term care facilities where he would receive different Muggle therapies, but he would probably live there for the rest of his life. That’s why Lily was in Diagon Alley at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor, drowning her sorrows in a very large hot fudge sundae when an old friend of hers found her there.
“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you either at home with Harry or at the hospital with Potter?” he asked her, sounding concerned.
“I just came from the Muggle hospital where I had James examined by them and they told me that there is a very slim chance that James will ever be able to lead a normal life. The only thing that they can do for him would be to provide him with therapy to at least help him do basic tasks; well, he can do that at St. Mungo’s. He’s returning there later on today, and it’s more than likely he’ll die in there. I don’t know how to tell Sirius, Remus and even Harry that James won’t ever be coming home again, so I’m here delaying the inevitable and feeling sorry for myself, Severus,
” Lily confided to Severus Snape.
“Come on, I’ll escort you home to make sure that you get there and to help you face Black, Lupin and even Harry,” Snape offered to Lily as he took her arm and he escorted her to the Leaky Cauldron so that they could floo to Lily’s house, where he would help her tell James’s friends about his hopeless prognosis.
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