Harry Potter: 19 Years Later

Chapter 20: The Choice To Live

Rose could hear voices talking around her, but for some curious reason she couldn't open her eyes. She knew she'd been asleep for a while, only she didn't know exactly how long. Why couldn't she open her eyes, or move her body? Giving up on trying to move, Rose decided to listen to the voices talking to each other. She estimated there were about four people in the room.

"Doctor, it's been over a year," Rose heard her mother say. What was she talking about? What's been over a year? Was Rose in the hospital?

"We know this, Mrs. Weasley. We're doing everything we can," an unfamiliar, male accented voice replied, who Rose assumed was the doctor. She strained her ears to listen to the intense conversation.

Suddenly, Rose's mother burst into tears and began sobbing. Rose was beginning to get really frightened. Whatever was going on wasn't good.

"Will my sister ever wake up?" a small, depressed voice asked. Rose realized it was Hugo. She barely recognized his voice, which was slightly deeper and had a sad tone to it.

That would explain why Rose couldn't open her eyes or move. She'd been asleep for Merlin knows how long. Why hasn't she woken up yet? Was something wrong with her? Rose could feel her heart pounding with fear, causing the heart monitor to beep faster for a second or two. No one else noticed it.

She heard the doctor sigh. It was one of those, 'I've got bad news,' sighs. "It's hard to say. We expected her to be awake and about months ago. Comas affect everyone differently, especially magically-caused comas."

Rose's heart nearly stopped. She was in a coma. And apparently it's lasted for months. Rose tried to remember what happened to her, but the details were fuzzy. All she remembered was a flash of green light.

Green light. Like from a spell. That explained the part of the doctor's last sentence, especially magically-caused comas. If only Rose could remember what happened to her!

Her mother was still sobbing. Then Rose heard her father say, "What should we do now, Doctor?"

There was a long pause. The wait for the doctor's reply was terrifying. It was like he didn't know what exactly to tell Rose's parents. When even the doctor doesn't know, Rose knew that was bad.

"Well," the doctor finally said. "I can only think of two options. You could either leave her here at St. Mungos in our care and let her decide when to wake up, which would be harder for you financially since you already spent thousands of galleons to keep your daughter in this room for a year and four weeks. Or you can take her home with you," The doctor paused again.

"There's also a third option, but you have to think about this. Being in a coma has damaging effects on the body. As you see for Rose, she's lost over 15 pounds and she hasn't moved once in over a year. If she ever decides to wake up, she won't be able to move for a while due to immobilization for so long. She might not be able to talk or do things on her own. Comas can cause serious after-effects that are hard for patients to recover from. It might even be worse since her coma was caused by the killing curse. I'll give her one more week, but if she doesn't wake up then, we might need to consider letting her go."

A year and four weeks in a coma. Hard for her parents financially. A thousand galleons. Home. Damaging effects on the body. After-effects. One more week, or they're letting her go.

These thoughts swirled around Rose's mind, and it was so overwhelming that it was hard for her to breath. The heart monitor beside her was going crazy, making everyone in the room panic. Rose needed to wake up, but what if she couldn't? If she stayed in her coma, her parents could go bankrupt from keeping her here in St. Mungos. She had two options. And letting go seemed to be the easiest one.