Electric Avenue by DesertPlanet

“Severus? Are you sure about this?” Tonks asked as she trotted alongside her former professor. “This is madness!”

Severus looked her direction briefly and sneered. “I am not about to sit idly by and watch as my son dies because I put all of my faith in one person’s judgement of a situation.”

“But…” Tonks gasped as she continued trying to keep up. “They’re muggles!”

Severus quickly turned the corner and ushered the group into the corner of the nearby alley which was designated for apparations. He didn’t have time to explain to the aurors following him what he planned to do, the thought process behind it, or the research which had led to the only theory they had to operate on which had even the slightest potential to save Elias’s life. Right now, they were rapidly running out of time. Without the influence of the spells which had been somewhat stabilising his vital signs, Elias’s magic was once again burning through every ounce of strength he had in him. They had half an hour at best before his magic had completely consumed itself, killing him in the process.

Half an hour and they needed to be on the other side of London.

“Lupin?” Severus said, ignoring Tonks in favour of looking at the werewolf who had taken it upon himself to carry the boy the entire way, his wolfish strength spurred into action from the potential loss of a pack-mate.

“I’m ready,” Remus said, adjusting his hold on Elias’s lithe frame and wincing as he noticed the boy’s body temperature. “He’s starting to cool off.”

“Dammit!” Severus swore, quickly pulling a scrap of parchment out of his breast-pocket and conjuring a small map of the area of London they were going to and showing it to the entire entourage. Their time was running out faster than he had expected. “Apparate into the street behind the hospital. It puts us relatively close to the A&E entrance, but out of sight.”

Remus nodded before readjusting his hold on Elias and pulling his wand from his pocket.

“Wait a minute…” Tonks said just as the two men disappeared. “Drat!”

“What?” Kingsley asked as he pulled his wand and prepared to apparate himself.

Tonks turned to her partner with a deep frown on her face. “Kingsley, how did Severus know that this hospital is unwarded?”

Kingsley frowned as well as several of the implications of Severus’s actions crossed his mind briefly. How did Severus, the spy for the Order, know of the location of an unwarded muggle children’s hospital in London? Had the Death Eaters been planning something for this hospital and he hadn’t gotten the chance to tell Dumbledore? Or, with the current suspicions that Dumbledore was covering up something in regards to the Potter case, was this the hospital which was chosen to house the boy as he recovered from injuries caused by his relatives. Away from the prying eyes of the ministry but close enough at hand to still be easy to control.

And now they had an in to actually enter the hospital without using magic to confundus those who stood in their way.

“Do you think Potter is there?” Kingsley asked, his shoulders falling slightly as the realisation set in that this was a possibility.

Tonks shrugged but nodded. “I’m fairly certain this is the same hospital I had followed the leads to initially. In fact, I’m almost positive this is the same one.”

“We really have no reason to go with Severus.”

“What’s wrong with aurors escorting an obviously distressed man to the hospital with his ill son?” Tonks said, smiling grimly.

Kingsley nodded once before disapparating with a crack. As bad as he felt for using Severus’s distress as a lead in an active, albeit secretive, investigation, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of satisfaction in knowing there was a possibility of wrapping up the Potter disappearance once and for all.

Twin cracks echoed down the street as two figures appeared, the smaller of the two carrying what appeared to be a small adult in his arms though he seemed utterly unphased by the weight of the person he was carrying. Though they paused momentarily to get their bearings, both men strode down the alleyway they had appeared in so quickly one would have thought they had simply been walking fast. Both of the men’s faces were grim as they walked, the smaller one occasionally looking at the face of the person he held while the taller of the two frequently checked a wrist watch he was wearing before swearing repeatedly and urging his compatriot on.

“Severus, how much further?” Remus said as he chased Severus down the street, cursing his comparatively short stature yet thanking his lupine strength and endurance for likely the first time in his entire life.

“One more street and we’re there,” Severus said, lengthening his stride once more as the watch on his wrist pulsated once more as it warned him once again of his son’s failing vital signs.

MC: 48%
HR: 23
BP:52/35
RR: 2
O2: 53%
T: 35

“Severus,” Remus whimpered as he ran to keep up with the man as they barrelled around the final corner and ran alongside a high fence which surrounded a carpark. “Severus, he isn’t breathing.”

“We’re almost there,” Severus said, looking frantically through the fence at the sign pointing to the entrance to A&E. “It’s right there.”

Remus nodded in understanding before stopping and taking a deep breath as he backed up a few steps and tightened his grip around the oddly still boy. The shortest path between two points was a straight line after all, and a several meter high fence was nothing for a wolf to jump. He’d be sore tomorrow, but that wasn’t unusual for him.

Sprinting at the fence, Remus had a sudden flash of what he must look like to the muggles. A middle aged man, holding a teen in his arms, wearing a black travelling cloak which was slightly too long for him, preparing to launch himself over a tall metal fence. If everything ended well, he would have to ask Severus for his memory of the jump.

Launching himself and Elias over the fence, Remus winced as he landed, feeling his knees and ankles crack on impact. He would have to ask for a pain reliever later, but now, he had made it. Jumping over the hood of a compact car, he sprinted up to the glass doors, starting slightly as they slid open and a rush of cool air poured out.

Pausing momentarily as the sounds of crying children and the scent of antiseptic filled his nostrils, Remus quickly looked around the busy waiting room before rushing over to the woman sitting behind the desk and frantically calling to her.

“Please help me! He’s not breathing!”

“Over here!” Madeline heard the receptionist say a moment before a shrill alarm began sounding, a blue light lit in front of the curtained off bay closest to the entrance of the A&E.

“What the hell?!” one of the nurses yelled from the back as she ran towards the light, quickly pulling the plug of the red code cart out of the wall and pushing it towards the room with an air of confidence. While not an everyday occurrence, events such as this were not uncommon in A&E, particularly with children. They could go and go for what seemed like eons before their little bodies would just… give up. “When’d this one come in?!”

“Just now!” the receptionist said, stepping out of the way as several other nurses and aids ran into the room and began assessing the boy before swearing and beginning compressions.

“Why didn’t we get a call?!” the nurse said, ripping off the expiration tag and lock and opening the medication drawer.

“‘E didn’t come by ambulance,” the receptionist said, pointing out Remus who stood pale-faced in the corner. “‘E brought ‘im in.”

The nurse paused momentarily, staring rather bewildered at Remus before she quickly went back to work on trying to save the life of the boy on the gurney. The entire situation was uncommon, but what really made it weird in her mind's eye was the outfits the man and the boy were wearing. The brown robes the man was wearing were tattered yet clean, as though he wore them most every day in spite of the odd appearance of them, and the thick black cloak he wore over it clearly was not made for him, but for someone several inches taller. The boy, on the other hand, was wearing what she could only describe as burned old-fashioned pinstriped pyjamas.

Both the man and the boy looked as though they had been plucked out of some 19th century drama and set in her emergency room.

“Lizzy,” the nurse said as another nurse entered the bay, pulling gloves on as quickly as she could. “You record.”

Lizzy nodded, looking at the boy on the gurney bewilderedly as she grabbed the clipboard off the cart and quickly began scribbling down the names of all in attendance. Something about the boy felt familiar, as though she had seen him or cared for him before. It was a strange sensation as she had cared for many patients over the years she had been working in the hospital, but something about him stood out, though she couldn’t quite place what it was.

The sound of the sticky defibrillation pads being opened shook her from her reverie as she watched her coworkers quickly snipped through the front of the boy’s outfit and ripped it open, revealing his pale chest, and applying said pads to the front and side of his chest.

“Adam, respiratory,” a voice said in Lizzy’s ear as another person joined the fray, quickly running over to the oxygen and taking over the job of providing breaths for the boy when compressions stopped. “Where’s the doc?”

“Here!” A rather chipper looking young man said as he ran into the room. “Dr. Sam Jacobs, what do we have?”

“Patient brought in by …uh… he was carried in by the man over there. Don’t have a history on him yet as he was pulseless on arrival,” the first nurse responded breathlessly as she switched positions with Madeline for compressions.

“2 minutes! Pulse check!” Lizzy called loudly over the din of people maneuvering around each other.

“Lizzy, there’s another man here claiming to be the boy’s father,” the receptionist said, skittering to a stop outside of the bay.

“Ok,” Lizzy said, only half paying attention, scribbling down the time. “What rhythm do we have?”

“Asystole! 1mg Epi!”

“Take both of them and put them in chairs over there,” Lizzy said to the receptionist, pointing to a spot outside of the chaos in the bay but where they could both view what was going on.

“Did no one check his airway?” Adam suddenly called over the sounds of his coworkers. “He’s got a bloody stone in his mouth!”

“Leave that in there!” both of the men in the hallway yelled.

“It’s absorbing the poison he took!” the new, dark-haired man said as his eyes jumped from person to person in the bay though he didn’t make any moves to enter.

“Poison?” Dr. Sam said, half stepping out of the curtained bay and looking at Severus with narrowed eyes. “Do you know what he took?”

Severus and Remus both looked at each other frantically. How could they possibly explain this situation to the muggles without breaking every clause within the Statute of Secrecy? Fulgur was not only a poison, but a highly controlled substance within the magical community. Though it was being used for medicinal purposes in this case, any explanation on what it was, its ingredients, or its method of action would inevitably veer into the realm of magic. A realm which wizards and witches had sought to keep secret for generations.

“It’s a potion called Fulgur,” Severus said frantically looking over the doctor’s head as the medical staff switched positions, compressing his son’s chest hard he could have sworn he heard a rib snap. “It’s used to control the symptoms of a condition he has which affects his nerves. He … he overdosed… and now it is destroying his magical core.”

Dr. Sam’s face was a mask of indifference as he looked between the two men for a long moment in disbelief before whirling back around and re-entering the bay. “Get that bloody stone out of his mouth.”

“Already did,” Adam said over the din of the beeping machines and conversations of his coworkers as he clicked a tongue blade into place on the laryngoscope and slide the device into the boy’s mouth, lifting up slightly before sliding and endotracheal tube down the boy’s throat and in between his vocal cords. Quickly inflating a small balloon on the end of the tube, he grabbed the ambu-bag and connected it to the end of the tube. “Dani? Ears!”

Another respiratory therapist who had entered the room quickly ran over, sliding his stethoscope into his ears and listening to the teen’s chest. “Bilateral lung sounds, you’re good.”

“Lizzy, ET tube is in. 7.0, 23 at the teeth,” Adam yelled out, quickly taping the tube to the teen’s cheek.

“Get an OG in him,” Dr. Sam ordered, sending one of the nurses on the sidelines running to the supply room. “He apparently ingested some sort of poison.”

“Lab!” a young girl said from the curtained entrance to the bay, looking over her shoulder at the two men who were staring into the room, looks of frantic desperation on both their faces. “What do you need?”

“Grab a rainbow. And take that rock too,” Dr. Sam said quickly before turning back to the team. “When is our next pulse check?”

“30 seconds!” Lizzy said, checking her watch. “Marsha, do you have a blood pressure on him yet?”

“60/32,” a short nurse with frizzy black hair called from near one of the machines as another physician joined the fray.

“Bolus a litre and start some vaso!”

Severus frantically looked at Remus, who was equally as ashen faced as he was. There didn’t seem to be any progress being made, the bezoar had been removed from his mouth, and no electrical current had been provided to his body. This was already seeming like a fruitless endeavour. Elias would not survive.

This was a fact they would both have to come to terms with.

Sniffing hard, Severus couldn’t prevent the tears from falling from his eyes and running down his cheeks as yet another pulse check was announced with no results. He hadn’t cried in years, his focus on his occlumency shields preventing him from expressing many emotions. The last time he cried was when Lily died, but that was years ago. Since then, he had sworn to himself to never get so attached to another person or being so as to experience that.

But this was an exception.

“How’s it going?” a soft voice said from his side, a hand offering a handkerchief to him.

“Not well, Tonks,” Remus answered for him, his voice quivering as he looked into the bay, seeing no improvement in his appearance. “I don’t know if he will make it. I just don’t.”

“Pulse check!” Lizzy’s voice rang out over the rapid conversations the doctors were having and the general chaos of the room. “Do we need to switch compressors?”

“On it!”

“We’ve got v. fib!” Marsha, the curly haired nurse called from the monitor as the nurse who had run to the supply room returned, package in hand. “Everyone clear!”

“Clear!” rang out from within the bay as everyone working on Elias backed away from the bed, making sure nothing on them was making contact with the bed or the child on it.

Remus’s eyes went wide as the nurse watching the monitor reached for a button on the machine that, to him, was only showing a squiggly line and a few flashing numbers. An orange light was lit on its front with a lightning bolt on top of it, a symbol Remus recognized as the symbol for electricity.

Stepping back quickly, Remus pulled Tonks and Severus away from the bay and threw up a shield, unsure of what to expect.

The nurse pressed the button delivering 120 joules of electricity through his chest.

Elias’s body jolted dramatically, not unlike when he would spasm though the movement did not repeat. A faint blue glow could be seen momentarily from the burn marks which covered his body from the Fulgur. His eyes snapped open for a moment before rolling backwards, closing once again. Then he lay limp, as still an unmoving as before.

Remus breathed a small sigh of relief, lowering the shield as Severus shook out his wrist and those in the curtained off bay resumed their ministrations. The watch had flashed ominously during the effort, leaving him feeling as though his wrist had been burned or shocked itself.

“What was that?” Kingsley asked, his eyes widening as the faint blue light dissipated.

“Electricity,” Remus said softly, almost reverently. “Muggle magic. An artificial core. Elias was studying its properties. It’s incredible, honestly it is.”

“What will it do to him?” Tonks asked, her mouth hanging open as her eyes widened.

“I don’t know,” Remus admitted, taking her hand and squeezing it. “Hopefully save his life.”

The nurse who had brought the tube from the supply room quickly opened the package containing the tube and measured it out against Elias’s body, weaving around the nurse who was quickly compressing the boy’s chest, the lab tech who was threading a tiny needle into the vein in his elbow, the wires to the EKG monitor, and the multiple IV tubes which were now running, delivering fluids and medications to increase the boy’s blood pressure. She had trained for this, but that didn’t make it any less stressful or terrifying when it happened. Code Blues on children of any age were stressful. At least his… family?... friends?... were staying outside of the room and, despite being clearly distressed at the situation, were not causing a scene.

Quickly applying some lubricant to the long tube in her hand, she quickly slid it into the boy’s mouth, down his throat, and into what she presumed was his stomach. It was always difficult to tell where the tube actually was when first inserting it, but it was much easier to do when intubation had been completed. That at least blocked one possible route for the tube to go.

Attaching an irrigation syringe to the end of the tube, she quickly slid her stethoscope into her ears and injected air into the tube, listening for the tell-tale gurgle of correct placement before drawing a small sample of fluid from the tube and testing it with a pH strip.

“Dr. Sam, look at this!” the nurse said, holding the large syringe up for the physician to see.

“Is that tube in the right spot?!” Dr. Sam replied, his eyes widening at the colour of the contents and holding out his hand.

“Sounds good and pH is about 3.4,” the nurse said, passing the syringe to the doctor who had now moved from the end of the bed to where she was.

The stomach contents contained within the syringe were nothing like Dr. Sam had seen in his entire career as a paediatric A&E physician and he had seen some strange things. He had pulled a whole variety of objects from every orifice imaginable, he had dealt with ingestions of nearly every chemical imaginable, and he had dealt with many strange burns before, but this case was turning out to be one of the strangest thus far. From the myriad of seemingly fresh, grid like scars on the teen and the obviously fresh electrical burns to the extraordinarily smooth stone found in the boy’s mouth which the child’s family insisted was helping to remove the poison from his system, this case was already one which he knew he would not soon forget. But this fluid was something unlike anything he had ever seen.

It was silver in appearance, swirling and mixing ominously with the normal yellow green bile found in the stomach. It wasn’t particularly thick, but it was already beginning to settle at the bottom of the syringe, swirling with silver specks and a slight tinge of blue which he could not rule out as light reflected from the fluorescent overhead lights. It was beyond strange.

It needed to come out of the boy, that was an absolute certainty.

“Hook him up to suction, now!” Dr. Sam said, his eyes not leaving the small sample in the syringe, transfixed by its ethereal beauty before shaking himself and handing the sample to the lab tech who had finished drawing the required blood. “Take this too, I want to know what this is. Full tox panel and heavy metals panel.”

“On it!” the lab tech said, taking the sample back to her cart and quickly transferring it to another specimen cup before sliding emergency labels onto each of her vials and running with them to the lab.

“Pulse check!” Lizzy’s voice rang out once more.

“Still fib!” Marsha yelled out as compressions stopped once more, the sound of suction ringing out above everything as the tube leading to Elias’s stomach was now attached to suction.

“What the …” Adam said, watching the silver fluid be sucked out of the child’s stomach as he stepped back away from the bed as Marsha increased the joules on the defibrillator to 150.

“Everyone clear!” Marsha called out, checking briefly that no one was touching the bed.

“Clear!” the chorus rang out seconds before the shock was delivered, the nurses switching out compressors as a pharmacist joined the room, taking over the position of medication delivery and allowing one of the nurses to back out of the room.

“Have we given lidocaine or amiodarone?” the pharmacist asked, turning to Lizzy who shook her head before grabbing the medication in question and quickly setting up the IV for administration. “Lidocaine drip starting. Bolus of … 65mg now.”

“Jason,” Dr. Sam said, turning to the older man and pointing at the suction canister on the wall which was beginning to fill up with the silver fluid. “What do you make of that?”

The pharmacist shook his head and shrugged. “I dunno. Not a bloomin’ clue. You got a tox screen yet?”

“Just sent. Family says some sort of poison but they also called it a potion.”

“Jason, time for epi!” Lizzy called out, checking her timer and pulling their concentration back to the patient at hand.

“Epi 1mg in,” Jason said before turning to look back out through the curtain at the group standing there, emotions ranging from panic to hope clearly present on their face, the tall man in black staring frantically at the wristwatch he wore. “Oh bloody hell, what sort of Renaissance shit is this?”

Severus shot him a glare before turning back to watching the numbers flick through his watch. It was terrifying watching the nurses pouncing on his son’s chest. He had faith they knew what they were doing, but… it was brutal in a way he could not describe. Everything in magic was extremely hands off, wands used to channel and transfer magic from object to object or person to person. Even the Dark Lord when torturing someone never touched that person. Severus was fairly certain by some of the small sounds he heard with each compression that the staff had, during their ministrations, broken several of Elias’s ribs and could likely feel the bones rubbing against one another as they worked.

And yet, they kept going.

There wasn’t much improvement that he could see, but then again he assumed it was a process. Elias’s vital signs were all over the place according to what the monitoring spells could track, but he could not rule out the possibility that much of that was interference from the electricity surrounding them. He could only hope they had made the correct decision.

At least the muggles had the wherewithal to begin removing the Fulgur from his body with another means rather than simply relying on simply placing a bezoar in his mouth. Severus was rather impressed with the speed to which the device they had placed in his son’s stomach was removing the toxic material and placing it in the other container, however it was sobering seeing how much he had actually ingested. The vial may have only been partially filled, but clearly it was a vial designed to last a long time; potentially years even.

Another shock was delivered, causing his wrist to once again flare in pain as the reading for Elias’s magical core suddenly spiked well beyond 100% before suddenly falling. But that was promising in his mind’s eye. At least Elias was seemingly able to withstand these spikes, though every time a spike occurred, the blue glow emanating from within his scars grew a little brighter.

“Anything yet?” Kingsley asked, leaning over to look at the watch.

Severus shook his head and watched as the percentage for Elias’s magical core once again fell below what was considered a normal threshold before it suddenly stopped.

MC: 67%
HR: 0

Severus sucked in a breath, his eyes looking at his son in hope. This was the highest reading his magical core had had since they had gotten there. If his core strength was improving, there was a chance. There was hope.

MC: 68%
HR: 0

Severus closed his eyes and swallowed harshly. He didn’t want to get his hopes up too high. It was only a 1% gain. Not enough to make a difference. Not enough to save his son’s life.

MC: 74%
HR: 212

“Pulse check!”

“We got v-tach! Rate 210!”

“No pulse!”

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

MC: 250%
HR: 200

HR: 150

HR: 135

“Uh, Dr. Sam. His forehead just started bleeding. Like it just split open.”

Chapter End Notes:

Longwinded explanation of terms incoming. I will say , I am an American nurse and have never worked in the UK. Also, I'm using the 2022 ACLS guidelines for the resuscitation algorithm rather than the 1996 because I want you all to have accurate, up to date information, when it comes to life saving medical stuff.

So, in a nutshell:

Vital Signs (normals):

HR (heart rate): 60-100 beats per minute

BP (blood pressure): 100-125 / 60-85 (but with lots of leeway here)

RR (respiratory rate): 12-16 breaths per minute

O2 (oxygen in blood):>90%

MC (magical core): literally made this one up

Code Blue/Jobs:

Code Blue: there is no pulse, they are blue.

Code cart: contains all the necessities for lifesaving measures.

Recorder: writes down everything going on during the code and runs the timer. Super intimidating job cuz you need to know what is going on and what is next in the algorithm and all the ins and outs (I'm typically a recorder irl and I hate it).

Respiratory: lung specialists (in america typically have an associates or bachelors degree like a nurse but focus only on lungs)

Compressions: the act of pressing on someone’s chest to pump their blood. If done to the proper depth, the ribs are likely to break. CPR dummies actually click when you reach the right depth to simulate this.

Pulse check: everyone stops compressions and feels for a pulse. The heart rhythm (electrical activity) is checked on the monitor and the next algorithm path is chosen based on this.

Machines and tubes:

Defibrillation: shocking the heart into the right rhythm. Can only shock an electrical rhythm.

Defibrillation pads: sticky pads that are stuck to the patient's chest and attached to the defibrillation machine and will shock the crap outta you.

Laryngoscope/tongueblade: a medieval torture looking device that is used to manually open the airway to intubate a patient. Your mouth is forced open and the back of your throat is lifted (you’re laying on your back) so we can see your vocal cords. This is part of the reason your throat hurts so much after surgery.

Intubation: placing a breathing tube into someone’s throat for the purpose of inflating their lungs. ET= endotracheal tube. The numbers are measurements of the tube itself and where it’s located

OG: orogastric tube: goes from the mouth to the stomach. Used to pump someone’s stomach. It’s important this goes into the stomach and not the lungs so we check for placement either listening to the stomach or checking for stomach acid with a pH strip. Can be attached to suction to pump someone’s stomach.

CLEAR: this is my number one pet peeve of TV shows. “Clear” means get off of the bed so we can shock them, not “we’re shocking them now.” I actually had a coworker years ago get blasted across the room because her metal stethoscope was still in contact with the bed when the patient got shocked. The shock does not stop at the patient, it stops at the rubber wheels of the bed. Clear= get off of the bed or you’re getting a shock you’ll never forget.

Heart Rhythms

Asystole: no electrical activity. You see this a lot in TV shows as a flat line that goes across the screen. You can’t shock this (no matter what TV says).

V-tach: the ventricles (bottom chambers of the heart) are beating super super fast. So fast the heart can’t actually fill with blood so it can’t pump blood properly if at all. Yes shock.

V.Fib: the two bottom chambers of the heart are quivering. There’s electrical activity, but they aren’t pumping at all. Yes shock.

Medications/Labs:

Epi (aka epinephrine): 1st line medication. Speeds up the heart rate and gets the vessels to contract and improve blood pressure.

Bolus: the act of giving a lot of fluid over a short period of time.

Vaso (vasopressin): a medication used to raise blood pressure.

Lidocaine: yes, the stuff you get numbed with. This can be given in IV form too and can be used to calm a quivering heart. It’s kinda old fashioned to use (we have other options now), but it is an option and doesn’t lead to quite as much stomach upset.

”Rainbow”: shorthand for “draw enough blood to run everything.” Every lab tube is a different color, thus the name.

Tox screen: lab looking for any toxic materials such as drugs or poisons.