Dr. Willie was relieved to find out that the boy was still alive the next day. He didn’t show any signs of waking, but the machine that monitored his brain activity showed that he was aware of his surroundings some of the times. It would be best for the boy to stay unconscious for a while anyway, or else he would be in too much pain.

So today he was going to check up on his wounds and decide what other surgery he was going to give the boy, and when.

Today nurse John was there. In the IC-unit patients were given two nurses, so that they would have someone familiar around. It was important for those patients. So this boy now had nurse John and nurse Kindle, or Becky as she preferred to be called, as his own. John gave him an update on the boy, saying that he sometimes fluttered his eyelid (the damaged eye was covered up with gauze and bandages) and sometimes would make small sounds, but nothing more, nothing that could tell them anything about who he was, or if he was waking up.

Since they didn’t know who he was, the boy had no-one that visited him. Since it was the IC-unit people were not bound to visiting hours, since most patients were in a too critical condition, not to allow there family and friends time with them. If you can die at any time, you tend to want to have someone familiar around.

But the boy was a mystery and the police still hadn’t a clue on who the others were. They didn’t look very much alike, so maybe he wasn’t even family of the deceased ones. And they weren’t from around, so perhaps they had been on a holiday. All in all, this didn’t make it easier for the police to find out anything about the surviving boy.

They did make a report to be printed in the newspapers, but in the entire week that went by, nobody called the information number and nobody reported a missing boy. The other people that had been in the car were buried in the graveyard. If one day they would find out who they were, they could always get a proper burial.

Dr. Willie, Becky and John, had decided to stop calling the boy ‘Boy’ and called him Peter, after the hospital he was in. When he woke up he could probably tell them his name. Although, because of the crack in his skull, Dr. Willie hoped he didn’t have any brain damage. That would not be good. But Peter did react to external stimuli and this indicated that parts of his brain still functioned. He wasn’t paralyzed which was lucky as well. He would need to learn how to use his legs and arms again, because they had been broken badly, but that was a barrier they could overcome. The only thing they had to wait for now, was for Peter to wake up. Important surgeries were done, and only when he would wake up, could they decide what else needed to be done. Unfortunately, waking up could take a while longer.

Peter’s POV.

Still so much pain. Why am I in so much pain? Sometimes I try to move, but it doesn’t work. I think I tried to open my eyes once, but I couldn’t, they were so heavy and it was painful.

Then I would sink back into nothing, probably sleep, or perhaps I had been unconscious.

Sometimes I could catch parts of conversations. So there were people around me! It took me a while, but after some time I could identify three voices. One was probably female, she always sounded cheerful. She sounded nice.

Another voice was probably from a male. I wouldn’t hear this voice very often, and his words were difficult to understand. I think it was a very smart man, to use difficult words. He always asked the other voices how I was doing. Sometimes I could feel someone touching me, but since it hurt so much, I would usually sink back into nothing. At least, I wouldn’t feel anything.

There was a third voice I recognized. This was also from a male. He had a deep voice, and he always sounded polite and serious. I rather liked those voices.

I would like to see those people, but I couldn’t move to much. One day I made another discovery. I could hear enough to recognize the woman’s voice, and she was talking to me! She said: “Well, boy (somehow I didn’t like being called boy), we’ve decided to give you a name, till you wake up. We’ve decided to name you Peter.”

I don’t know if she said more to me after that, because I had been so happy to find a name, that I tried to move and wake up, but this caused me so much pain, that I went unconscious.

At least now I had a name. Now, I was something more than just a boy. I wondered if Peter was my real name. I tried to think about my real name, but couldn’t come up with it. I couldn’t come up with anything at all actually.

After a while (I don’t know how long) I woke up again. This time I heard the male’s voice. The one who uses the difficult words. He said something about me having to wake up. I wanted to, I really did, so I kept trying. I think they gave me something for the pain, ‘cause I couldn’t feel much at all.

Finally I think I made some progress. I tried to open my eye, the other didn’t want to, no matter what I tried. Maybe something was wrong with it, I don’t know. Anyway, I was trying to open my eye, when suddenly: it worked!

I wanted to shut my eye immediately again, because it hurt. Not only the light, although it was pretty dark, but because it actually hurt to move my eyelids. I heard the two male voices talking happily. “Finally, he managed to open his eye. Come on Peter, you can do it again. Please look at us again.” They said.

So I tried again. This time it didn’t hurt so much. I couldn’t see very clearly though. There were two males besides my bed. They looked like doctors. I tried to talk, but found that tube thing in my mouth.

“Shh, don’t try to talk, you can’t breath on your own, so the tube has to stay in your mouth for a while.”

This was said by the man on my left. He looked rather nice, wore glasses, and had a friendly face. He began checking something that I couldn’t see. Then he started to ask me questions. He said that I should blink once for yes, and twice for no. He then asked if I understood him.

I blinked once. He seemed more happy.

He asked me all sorts of things like:

“Do you know what happened?” I blinked twice.

“Do you know where you are?” I blinked twice.

“Are you in pain?” I blinked once, everything started to hurt once again.

He then gave me something that would help against the pain.

Then he asked me the question which made him look sad.

“Do you know who you are?” I blinked twice, and tiredly closed my eye.

The man on the right stroked my hair after that. It was a comforting gesture, and it made me relax. After all, not knowing who you are, where you are and how you ended up there, was quite stressful.

I went to sleep not long after that.

Dr. Willie’s POV

It was nearly two weeks since Peter came to the hospital. He should be able to wake up soon, but I was afraid he might have ended up in a coma to never come out of it. When I was discussing this with John we saw his eye open up. He did close it straight away again, but still. He was awake!

So John and I went to his bedside and I asked him if he could open his eye again. He did.

At least he could hear me. His eye was of a very nice green color. I remembered he probably wore glasses, since he squinted a bit to see us. He tried to talk, but couldn’t because of the breathing tube. So I explained it to him. He seemed to understand.

I now had to ask him some questions. He blinked to show he understood. Good, that meant he still had the capability to understand other people.

The answers to my questions, were not pleasing. He didn’t know where he was, how he ended up in our hospital and he couldn’t remember who he was. When he admitted to feel pain, I injected some painkillers in his IV.

Then John stroked his hair fondly. Peter seemed to like this, and not long after, we noticed he was asleep. At least we knew he would wake again.

His lack of memory was a set back, but still one we could overcome. I would ask the newspapers to print his description once again. Maybe now someone would miss him.

In London

The owl was still restless, screeching and trying to escape her cage. The people that looked after her tried to calm her down. Her owner had asked if they could take care of her for three weeks, since he would be going on a holiday with his family. Owls were not allowed to come along. But after two days the owl had started to panic. Nobody knew what to do. She was like this for two weeks already!

“Shh, it’s ok Hedwig. Next week you can go and see Harry again.” Said a girl with bushy brown hair, also known as Hermione. She tried to stroke Hedwig, to calm the owl down, but Hedwig only tried to nip her fingers, and not in a friendly way.

“Maybe something is wrong with Harry.” A boy with red hair, also known as Ron, said.

“Hedwig is really smart and she always seems to sense when Harry is in danger.” He said.

Hermione nodded, but said: “what could be wrong then? He’s only gone on a holiday, and he’s with his family, so the protection against You-Know-Who still stands.”

Ron couldn’t think of an answer to that, so they just continued to try and calm Hedwig down.