“Shut up, Laura,” One of the young women laughed, gulping some of her Diet Coke and setting it back on the table. Six nurses sat in scattered places around the faculty lounge, resting on chairs and couches while they laughed and gossiped. A couple of surgeons sat at the corner table, keeping to themselves. Anyone who thought cliques died in high school had never worked in McCarthy General Hospital.

“You’re just jealous, Jessie. Jealous because you are can’t get a date to save your life!” Laura retorted playfully. Several of the women drew in sharp breaths, giving her reprimanding looks, but all of them knew it was just the usual playful banter.

“Don’t talk about the single women, Laurs. We are the truly cool ladies,” One of the nurses answered peaceably. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a half ponytail with a jaw-clip, and her sleeves were rolled up to reveal tanned arms. She looked like a surfer girl, despite her pants with hearts on them and her white nurse’s blouse.

“Caelia Landers, you are full of crap,” Laura answered. She looked at her watch, and rose to her feet. “And though I would love to stay and talk about it; I’m off of lunch break.”

A murmuring of consensus filled the air as the other nurses rose to their feet. Caelia frowned. She still had a few minutes before she was back on duty. She was working the ER shift today, her least favorite job. She liked the quiet days of watching over assigned patients and caring for their every whim, unlike the other nurses. In order not to be left alone with the doctors and their serious, often condescending demeanors, she slipped her feet back into her white shoes, those ultra comfy nurses’ shoes.

Chatting with Jessie as they walked up the hall, she stopped at the closed door to Room 217. “I’m going to go on in there,” she tilted her head towards the door and wrapped her fingers around the knob.

“You’re crazy, girl. That boy never changes. He looks exactly the same every time you check on him,” Jessie replied.

“I know. But there’s something intriguing about a mystery patient, you know that,” Caelia grinned and opened the door. “Catch you later,”

“Whatever, Cae,” Jessie waved and continued down the hall. Caelia walked into the room and clicked the door shut behind her. Walking softly, as if she would disturb the patient, she moved towards the bed. The walls were the typical stark white. For some people, hospitals felt cold and too sterile, but she enjoyed the cleanliness. It made everything feel orderly in a chaotic world. That was good for the sick, injured, and recovering.

Lying on the bed was a man, of about twenty-three years, with tubes sticking into his arms and his vitals being measured by the whirring machine at the bedside. She moved towards him, immediately taking his wrist and checking his pulse. It was steady, like always. Looking at him fondly, she grabbed the chair in the corner and pulled it towards her, sitting down.

“Nothing ever changes. Jessie’s right. And I know the doctors say this is a normal state of unconsciousness, but something about it feels wrong. Like you’re here but I just can’t reach you,” she informed the quiet form. He really was quite handsome, in an unusual way.

Stocky and solid, he had a long quality to him, despite his lack of true height. His shoulders were middling, strong but not burly. It was his face that was most intriguing, though. In the peaceful state of unawakened sleep, his eyelids were closed over deep set eyes that faded down towards a pronounced nose and full mouth. It was the sort of mouth that hinted at a smile, even without any motion to suggest it. His red hair was shaggy, bordering on unkempt, and fell in a frame around his pale face.

“You’ve been here nearly two weeks, and you haven’t done anything besides cry out in your dreams sometimes,” she mused, perplexed. He had appeared on the hospital stoop, right on the edge of consciousness, and collapsed. His name, his age, all of it was unknown. There had been no identification on him. The only reason the hospital had kept him was because of the policy that ‘No person in need of care shall be turned out from hospital without reasonable cause, such as endangerment to staff or other patients.’

The doctors were sure that he was going to come out of the coma-like state soon; they seemed mostly unfazed by his condition, but Caelia worried over it. Something about it did not feel right. Her watch chimed softly, a quiet sound that reminded her of her ER duty. She adjusted the pillow under his head gently, checked the tube in his right arm since it looked crooked, and patted his IV-injected hand. “We’re ready for you to wake up, buddy,” she said soothingly.

Out in the hall, she saw Dr. Harton strolling towards the Emergency Quadrant. She grinned. “Hey Parker, what are you doing? Marrow has ER today,” she called out, referring to main doctor of McCarthy by his nickname. Dr. Roger Morrow, M.D. was lovingly called Marrow by the lower staff. Parker Harton, the lanky doctor, only a few years older than Caelia, grinned, turning around when he heard her voice.

“I’m taking his shift, Nurse Landers. Is that a problem?” Parker teased.

“No, sir. It’s not a problem for me. I’m just a humble nurse,” she answered, shrugging her narrow shoulders. “My job is to give little kids their shots without scaring them and to fluff pillows for the old patients who cannot reach them,”

“Don’t make it sound so exciting,” his tone flickered to serious as something passed through his eyes. “I’ve had ER for several hours already. Have you seen Kathy today?”

“No, not once, which is weird. I usually see her at lunch,” she shook her head, sending locks of blonde hair loose from their clip and tumbling around her face.

“She lost a patient this morning,” he said quietly, in the gentle whisper. Doctors had that way about them, if they were good. They knew how to lower their voice just so to break bad news gently, but not nervously.

“Oh god, the poor dear. Which one?” Caelia clucked sadly. There was no more awful feeling than the passing of a patient. Even if you knew it wasn’t your fault, the guilt still gnawed at your stomach and ached in your heart.

“Old Ms. Patty. I know she’s been failing for some time now, but Kathy is not doing so well. Ms. Patty’s been her patient, at least off and on, for five years,”

“Jeez,” Caelia sighed as they pushed through the double doors in the Emergency Room’s waiting lobby. There was blood, plenty of it as always, but Caelia was able to deal with it because she knew the statistics. Only a few out of all the wounds in the room were actually serious, usually only around 15 total in ERs. That meant only three people were in any real danger. She made the rounds, eyes scanning each person. When she had been a new nurse, she had tried to comfort each person waiting, but now she knew she could help them more efficiently if she just made a quick judgment, asked a simple question, and figured out how to help them.

“Toni,” Caelia greeted as she approached the secretary’s desk. The woman was Italian, with dark hair, mocha-and-cream skin, and a beautiful voice. No one was better suited for her job; she could comfort people, dole out tough love, and gauge a real emergency all without batting an eye. A one-woman powerhouse, Toni also kept records in order for everyone. “I want the little girl with the eye, the man with the fever, and the broken arm in ASAP, in that order. Then everyone else can be paraded through in basic order of bleeding; they’re all going to be okay,”

“Gotcha, Cae. By the way, how’s your patient?” Toni replied brusquely, scribbling down what Caelia had said.

“He’s better. Vitals are stronger than ever today. Can’t wait for him to wake up. It sucks to see a patient go comatose,” Caelia grabbed the clipboard for Patient #122, ‘the little girl with the eye’, and moved towards the ER’s back room. The common misconception was that the Emergency Room was one-room and that was why you always had to wait. An ER was a whole sector of the hospital, usually with its own unique staff. The wait was long because everything had to be an emergency with some people.

“What are we bringing in?” Parker asked. Caelia entered, still reading the names Toni had jotted on the clipboard.

“Little girl, age four, name is Christi Lifford. Just giving her an once-over, I think she got stung or bitten by some sort of insect right on the outer eye tissue. The tissues were inflamed, the eyeball bloodshot…it looked rather bad, so I’m having her in first. Shouldn’t take long to diagnose,” Fun-loving Caelia had lost the slow, languid flow of her speech, trading it in for the clipped, informative style favored by most medical personnel.

“Alright,” Parker’s voice had changed, too. Business-like and brisk, but when the little girl was ushered in by her mother and Jessie, who smiled at Caelia. Caelia smiled back. When Jessie walked out, they all set to work. She watched the way Parker talked to the little girl, Christi, and her mother. He switched from reassuring and serious to gentle and soothing instantaneously and his hands, though big and strong, were feather-light with Christi.

“It’s a hornet’s sting. She’s going to be just fine. The area will remain irritated for up to four days, but she’s not allergic, so Benadryl nightly is all that is required once I give her this,” he was already reaching into a drawer and getting a syringe ready. Christi’s eyes welled up with tears when she saw the needle. Caelia smiled at her reassuringly, taking the syringe from Parker.

“Alright, Christi, I’m Caelia,” she introduced, swabbing the girl’s upper arm with alcohol.

“That’s a weird name,” Christi wrinkled her nose.

“I know. My momma named me after a hill in Rome, the Caelian Hill. She says that is her favorite place in the whole world,” Caelia answered in the same friendly voice as before. She smiled gently. “Now, I’m going to give you this shot. Then you can choose a Band-Aid. We have Barbie, ballerinas, and balloons to choose from today,”

Christi opened her mouth to protest the shot but Caelia gently took the limb and eased the needle in. The procedure was so routine and instantaneous that Christi hardly seemed to realize the dreaded shot was over.

“So what are we having?” Caelia asked, fanning out the Band-Aid choices for the girl to see. With a ballerina Band-Aid stuck over her ‘boo-boo’, Christi Lifford left the room in her mother’s arms.

“Easy enough. I hope it is that clean-cut all day,” Parker said, swapping out the paper on the table for obvious health reasons. “By the way, you really named after some hill in Rome?” He had his head in a cabinet at this point, rooting around for something.

“Yeah, actually, it’s not just a story I make up for little kids. The Caelian Hill is one of the hills in Rome that its supposed founders, Romulus and Remus, traveled over before choosing the Palatine Hill as the center of their city. They passed the Caelian Hill by because of its beauty…they thought the gods didn’t want them to disturb its pristine meadows,” she answered. The story had passed through her lips so many times that she didn’t have to think to tell it; it just came out.

“Cool. My name’s Parker just because it’s a family name. I’m a boring fellow,” he observed, grinning. She grinned back.

The next six hours were blood, fractures, and sprains. Though these wounds often looked bad, it had been an easy day for them. No car accidents, no heart attacks…it had been a rare occurrence, almost like a seventy degree day in January. The evening shift doctors and nurses were rolling into the ER, ready for a long night. Caelia hugged Parker goodbye. He was a good friend and a great doctor.

“You’re off duty, right?” He asked as they walked towards the door.

“Yeah, I am, but I want to go check on my patient,” she answered, shrugging. A lot of people thought it was silly, but she felt like a little extra TLC would help that guy pull through.

“I like how you refer to him as if he’s the only patient,”

“Well…” She blushed. Could she help it if a mysterious man collapsing at the hospital entrance, with no identification anywhere on his body, intrigued her?

“I’m just giving you a hard time, Caelia. You know that. See you tomorrow,” he slipped out the doors, blowing a playful kiss at her. She stuck her tongue out childishly at his retreating back.

She moved back up the halls, through the double doors into the main hospital corridors. Room 217 was sitting quietly as always when she entered. The man lay there, silent as the grave, but from the glow of the machines and their steady beat, he was very much alive.

“Hey you,” she greeted softly, reaching the bedside. She checked his pulse carefully. It was good, just like the monitors had informed her. “I guess you’re doing okay. Everything looks normal. I just need you to wake up,” her voice was quiet and gentle. Somehow it felt like talking to him helped. She sat down in the chair, still left beside the bed.

She folded one of her hands, all of her long, lithe fingers, around his, squeezing gently. His hand was limp in her grip. A tingle like a single spark of electricity raced up her arm, leaving all the little blonde hairs standing straight up. She jerked away, startled.

“What the…” she murmured. Curiously, she caught hold of his hand again. The same thing happened; it was not painful, but the sensation was so unusual, unlike anything she had ever felt before. Holding his hand, the spark seemed to spread over her whole body, lighting the nerves and leaving every hair on her body on edge.

Suddenly, his hand tightened around hers, like a vice. Two bright brown eyes shot open.

“He’s coming. He’s coming for Harry,” His voice burst from his throat, deep and hoarse from nonuse.

“What?” Caelia had leapt backwards, chair tumbling to the floor behind her. His hand was still clamped around hers. Her voice was strained, breathing heavy. Never had anything like this happened before; a strange spark, a flow of electricity through her body, and then a patient waking up from a comatose state, seemingly lucid? What was happening?

“The Dark Lord. He’s going to kill them…Harry, Ron, George, Hermione…they’re going into a trap!” He did not look at her. Though he had answered the question, he seemed almost unaware of her presence, caught in the fear and desperation reflected in his eyes.

“What are you talking about?” She cried out fearfully. His voice was terrifyingly clear, and he was still clenching her hand in his.

Suddenly he turned to look at her, as if seeing her for the first time, and realized she was there.

“Who are you? Where am I?” He asked, eyes widening as they looked into hers. She shook her head, voice trapped inside of her, terror still constricting her lungs. Sheer panic was freely reigning in his voice. “What is going on?”

Caelia stared at him, a deer in headlights. What was going on?

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Isn’t that a shocker?

Author’s Note: I actually think that this idea is fairly original. At least, I have never read one like it. Maybe there are a million out there, but I hope not. Oh, and trust me, this is a Harry Potter ‘fic. This first chapter may not have really seemed like it, but it is. Because, as you can obviously tell, our “mysterious patient” is not such a mystery to us!

Author’s Note II: If you do not know who he is by some chance, trust me. You will know first thing next chapter! PLEASE REVIEW! I cannot stress that enough. Reviews improve my writing and give me the inspiration to go on. If you read it, review it. It's simple. Please and thank you!