St. Mungo's

by Feanoldo

Summary:

Harry Potter meets St. Elsewhere. Alternative Universe in which Harry is a patient at St. Mungo's Long Term Care Ward, ever since he and his parents were in a car accident when he was 15 months old. Ginny, a former nurse that use to work at St. Mungo's, comes to visit him with her three children and her girlfriend Luna.

The receptionist at St. Mungo’s Long Term Care Ward looked up from her normally quiet morning to the sound of rambunctious children. Normally disruptive, she smiled when she recognized the mother, holding a beautiful young girl with red hair that matched her mothers.
“Ginny!” she said “I have missed you! How long has it been?”
“Two years, Marge, since this one came along,” the red headed mother said, bobbing her daughter slightly up and down. Accompany her were two young boys, if Marge remembered correctly, would be around five and six. Behind them was Ginny’s ‘friend’, a pale blonde woman Ginny’s age, with strange light colored eyes.
“Come to see Harry?” Though nurses were not supposed to have favorite patients, they often did. Harry was an exceptionally sad case in a ward full of sad cases. Injured in a car accident with his parents when he was only fifteen months old, only he survived, and the orphan had spent the rest of his life within these walls, hardly muttering any words. Only for Ginny did he respond to anyone in this world, and since she had to leave for maternity purposes, Harry had acted almost catatonically.
“Yes. How is he doing?”
“Physically fine, but he has slipped mentally since you left.” Sensing Ginny’s disappointment, Marge added “I am sure he would love to see you, dear. He is still in his old room”
Ginny brightened at that, and took the hand of one of the boys while the blonde took the other boy’s hand. “Let’s go see Mum’s special friend Harry.”
“Harry!” said the older boy.
“’arry!” echoed the younger, a bit too loud.
“Albus, there are sick people here and we can’t be too loud.” Ginny gently admonished her son.
“Yes Mum,” he replied.
“Thank you, Marge. It was good seeing you again.”
“Same to you, dearie,” replied the receptionist as they headed down the corridor and disappeared from the atrium.

“Why do we have to see your old friend mum?” he oldest, James, asked.
“Grandmum Potter wanted us to see him,” replied his mother.
“Is he family?”
Ginny smiled. “Yes dear, he is family. Ah, room 137. Here we are!”
They entered and found a thin, emancipated man wearing a red and gold jersey from some sports team Ginny had never heard of, and grey workout pants, staring at the desk next to the bed he was laying in.
“Harry?” Ginny said gently as she put her hand on his hand. He jerked, as she knew he might. Harry did not take kindly to anyone touching him, except for her. His eyes went from the large snow globe he was staring at towards the intruders that dared touch him.
However, when his green eyes saw his visitors, they lit up, and he said one word repeatedly. “Inny!”
“Yes, Harry, it is Ginny.” She pulled up a chair, while she still held her daughter Lily on her hip, and then sat down, then held his hand again, this time she was on his level. “This is my daughter Lily Luna. Lily? Can you say hi to Harry?” Her daughter buried her face into her mother’s shoulder as she became shy around the stranger, hiding her green eyes. “And these two rascals are James and Albus.”
“Good morning, sir.” James politely said.
However, Albus had found the singularly most interesting object in the room and was climbing on a chair next to the desk, his hands reaching for the snow globe. His little fingers were just staining as they began to touch its glass surface when his mother stood up and caught him around the waist and pulled him away from the globe. Despite not having been touched, the snow began blowing around the rugged castle like a blizzard.
“That is not for you, little man,” she gently remanded her second son. Sensing the restlessness of her brood, Ginny turned to Luna and said “Why don’t you take them to see the fish? It should take me fifteen minutes.”
“Who wants to see the fish?” the blonde woman asked as she took Lily, then held Sirius’ hand, while they walked out the door.
Once they left, Ginny turned back to Harry stroking his hand. “Have you missed me as much as I’ve missed you?” she asked. The red head smiled as Harry struggled for words. Combing an errant strand of her red hair behind her ear, she leaned forward and kissed Harry on the forehead.

Ginny found Luna and the kids watching the fish in one of the aquariums that could be found lining the wall in each of the hallways.
“You took longer than fifteen minutes,” Luna commented as she held Lily close to the glass where the two year old had a staring contest with an angelfish.
“Harry . . . missed me,”
“Are you sure you didn’t miss him?” Luna said, teasing her partner. Ginny’s red hair didn’t lie, and her face started to redden. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist!” she said, teasingly, knowing how to defuse her temper.
“Who says I’m wearing any?”
After a few moments, Luna asked “What now?”
“Lunch at that nice Italian place near the corner. Lady Potter graciously gave me two hundred fifty quid to shag her grandson. Then over to the chemist for a pregnancy kit.”
“We had better get going. The boys are getting restless, and Miss Lily here hasn’t blinked in the last ten minutes.”
“Come here, Lily,” her mother said as she gathered her daughter in her arms. “Let’s go eat.”
“Yaa!” said both the boys as they turned and headed out with the two women.
“Did Lady Potter agree to raise your monthly allowance if you are knocked up?”
“Only if they have green eyes. Though she was quite insistent that James go to some boarding school in Scotland if he has the aptitude.” As they left, Ginny waved goodbye to Marge.
“Are you OK?” Luna asked. “You seem quiet.”
Ginny pursed her lips, as if thinking. “It’s Harry. I talk to him. I don't even know if he can hear me, because he sits there, all day long, in his own world, staring at that toy. What's he thinking about?

Back in room 137, Harry stared at the snow globe next to him, the snow swirling around an old castle, some of the snow drifting around the sign that read ‘Hogwarts’.

Notes:

St Elsewhere spoiler: This is based off of the final episode of the TV series, where the entire show had been all the imagination of a young boy with autism staring at a snow globe of St. Elsewhere (or whatever the hospital's true name is). The final lines of the story are almost the same as the last lines used in the TV show.