This series as a whole is dedicated to Azzie (Inkfire), because she gave me the virus that made me work on it. We discussed the possibility of the Black Family having a hereditary disease affecting some of its members and Bella in particular. The series show her life, mainly as a child, and how it affected her and her family from various POV's.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, just the OC here, and I'm not a doctor or med student. I wrote with what I know from my experience and what we've read in the books.
For the sick kids.
"Ouch," muttered Clara, as the sister punctured her arm yet again to get more blood. "How many more tests?"
"I'm sorry, dear," the sister said compassionately, "there're more tests than you think. But don't you worry, we'll know what's wrong with you in a jiffy!" The woman patted her cheek motherly and smiled.
"I have to go give this to the Head Healer for tests, you just try and relax. Isn't your mother here?"
"My mum's still at work. They've called her," said Clara, trying to hide away her sadness. No luck, though.
"Now, now, don't you worry. You're feeling better now, aren't you? Stay here and talk to the other kids, and your mum will come real soon." With a last warm smile, the sister left the hospital room.
Clara sighed heavily. She considered herself brave and fond of new things, she was a Gryffindor after all, but she had to admit, these last few hours had left her a bit drained. In her short life of 12 years, many odd things had happened. Her mum, who was single-handedly raising her, had many bizarre and eye-watering stories to tell anyone who would listen, but neither of them could have expected that all these were not just simple mischief, but signs of something else, more beautiful and fairy-tale-like than the best novel.
The day professor McGonagall had helped herself in their tiny apartment had changed their lives: real magic and wizards and owls and a school. Clara thought she would go mad from this whole new world than unraveled itself in front of her eyes in a matter of days. The trip to Diagon Alley had been truly, well, magical and she didn't even care that most of her new "magical" stuff had to be purchased second-hand. The wonders of the wizarding world became more apparent when she started school last year and found out that paintings talked and ghosts were real and she herself could turn a matchstick into a needle, if she just said the magic words! Even though everything had been new and challenging, she had enjoyed every minute of her incredible gift of being a part of this world. Up until that morning anyway.
Just three days before her second year at Hogwarts started, she had woken up feeling drowsy and tired. Her mum hadn't been very worried, a stomach bug had been running free the last week in the packed building they lived in, so she had left her with some painkillers and a tip to let the elderly widow next door, Mrs. Thomson, know, if she felt worse. And worse she had felt. Shortness of breath was followed by extensive bruising of her feet and arms, and she had to call the neighbor as she felt too weak to walk. The fancy ride by ambulance to the local ER had lasted less than expected when it had taken her to a nearby empty shop where the driver had shoved her in the mirror and from there to... a crowded waiting room of a magical hospital.
An army of nurses in pink robes -sisters they were called- and doctors in blue -healers?- had taken their turn in examining her body with various nasty-looking instruments and in asking her loads of questions. After the preliminary exam, she had been escorted to a room full of other sick children two floors up where large silver letters formed the title: HEMATOLOGY DEPARTMENT.
Clara tried to remind herself that in this wondrous world brooms were not just for sweaping the floor and that a witch could turn a table into an exotic parrot with a simple twirl of her wand, as she gazed at the other inhabitants of the semi-private rooms of the ward she had been assigned to. Most of the children were in worse state than her. She had suffered many needle pricks and a ghastly tasting potion to seal the lung that had collapsed, but some of the other kids were obviously sick: thin bodies hooked up on pumps that flushed potions and fluids in and out of them, blistered fingers grabbing stuffed unicorns as the healer muttered complex spells over them, pointing at their veins and other body parts, and sad, tired eyes that had little of the carefree happiness she and her friends had when exploring the school.
Clara looked at the children of various ages in search of a familiar face, hoping, selfishly perhaps, that someone she knew could help her feel a bit better, reassure her that she was there by mistake. Because the magical world she had discovered was nothing like that. Only no one looked remotely like any of her classmates, no one except...
Clara's stare focused on the bed closest to her. A girl of around ten was sitting there, her fragile body bent double as she coughed up blood in a bucket that seemed full of the same sticky red substance. She lifted her head up, blood dripping down her chin, and the extreme paleness of her face with that ebony hair lit up a spark in Clara's memory. She was sure she had seen that face again, it was hard to miss in a crowd, even without the bloody effect. But the pretty girl noticed Clara too and, between coughs, she raised a thin eyebrow.
"What are you looking at?" she whispered hoarsely.
Clara blushed instantly.
"Sorry," she muttered, "I just think I've seen you before and-"
"I surely have never seen you before," the girl retorted, a thin bloody finger pointing at Clara's clothes. She was still wearing her t-shirt, shorts and flip flops with Cinderella on them, screaming "Muggleborn" out loud. The other, though, was clad in a dress Clara would have placed in a Hollywood Medieval-themed film... That reminded her of something.
"You're Bellatrix Black, aren't you? I've seen you in the paper with your sisters. You were at that gala in June!" she said, as she remembered the huge photo of three girls and a petite woman, all dressed in luxurious silk gowns, offering a generous donation to Hogwarts' fund in the Prophet's charity column.
Bellatrix nodded "yes" as she started coughing up more blood into the bucket and Clara took a closer look at the reason she was able to attend Magical Hogwarts. When she had seen Bellatrix in the photo, she was a healthy nine-year-old girl, maybe a tad bit too skinny, with shimmering hair and a delicate golden chain resting on her thin chest. Now Bellatrix was obviously underweight, her hair was sticking on her sweaty forehead, her heavy lids had a magenta shade and a tube covered in blood was protruding from her chest.
"What a couple of months can do to us, huh?" Bellatrix said in a wet whisper, as if she had read her mind.
Clara, afraid of agreeing as it would be rude, asked:
"What's that thing coming out of your chest?"
"This?" Bellatrix asked absent-mindedly, "that's my port, it gives direct access to my blood stream. Everyone who needs long term care gets one. Potions go in, blood goes out. It's actually really cool, saves you a lot of trouble, when the sisters have damaged every good vein you have."
Another coughing fit caught her and, for a while, Clara just looked horrified as Bellatrix added more sticky blood mixed with something yellow and icky in the bucket.
"Shouldn't you do something about that?" she said weakly.
"There's nothing anyone can do right now, blood and mucus have filled my lungs, better out that in," Bellatrix said in a casual voice and, when she realised Clara was looking at her confused, she added:
"I have a hematologic condition due to which blood does not flow properly throughout my body. That causes blood and mucus to fill my organs and my blood products to be unbalanced. This time it's my lungs, as it usually is. There is no cure, but I'll receive a bone marrow transplant soon. Hopefully this, along with several medications I take, will keep me well enough to be able to attend school in two years."
Clara swallowed carefully, as the information sank in.
"How can there be no cure?"
Bellatrix looked at her as if she couldn't understand what she was saying. Clara hurried on: "I mean, it's the wizarding world, you can do everything, right?" Her eyes had opened in shock.
Bellatrix, for the first time since she had noticed Clara, seemed to take some interest in her. A smirk appeared on her face, so that, along with the blood covering her, it composed a rather creepy scene. Clara swallowed again, more urgently this time.
"What idiot told you that?" she laughed. "I don't know where you come from, but here's a tip. Magic works perfectly against Muggle things, but that doesn't mean some types of magic can't beat other types of magic. In my case, hemolytic magic trashes the brilliant healers." She continued laughing so hard, that an even more severe cough caused her to struggle to breathe. Every time she inhaled, a funny wheezing sound followed.
"Relax," Bellatrix continued like nothing more dramatic than dropping a file had happened. "I'm in serious trouble only if my oxygen drops below 90. Anyway, what's your excuse for being here? It's obviously your first visit."
Clara shook her head, as she remembered that there was a conversation going on, not a freaky monologue. She wasn't sure she wanted to ignore what she had just heard about magical theory, but Bellatrix didn't strike her as a person who did what others wanted her to. So she went with the flow.
"I had some trouble breathing this morning and my legs got bruised. I've also have been feeling tired a lot lately. My neighbor called the Muggle ambulance and they brought me here. I'm Clara, by the way, Clara Burrows."
"I don't shake," Bellatrix said haughtily, and then added with the same shark-smile as before, "because my hands are messy."
Clara smiled awkwardly, because, even though Bellatrix' hands were indeed covered with icky stuff, she oddly felt that she was being somewhat... sarcastic. She had to rethink her previous estimation: not everything she saw this evening was in contrast to the glamorous aristocrat she had seen in the picture. She was proud and dominating just as much as she had found her there. And something else too, only she couldn't put her finger on it quite yet.
"So, you either didn't eat your breakfast and are extremely clumsy, or you're really sick," Bellatrix deadpanned. "Did you eat your breakfast, Clara Burrows?"
"No, I mean- I don't remember- wait, how sick? Am I going to die?"
"Sure thing. Everybody dies."
Clara's eyes had taken the size of a Galleon.
"Yeah," continued Bellatrix unfazed, "and Santa Claus isn't real either, your mother puts the presents under the tree for you."
Clara still didn't move.
"Oh, come on, don't act like you just found out," Bellatrix said angrily, splattering blood on the bed. She coughed again and Clara herself started feeling the same heavy weight on her chest as before.
"Nurse! Nurse!" she screamed, as the walls closed in.
"She means, sister, could you help, please," Bellatrix said in her usual wet whisper to the two sisters that rushed to help Clara. Bellatrix watched impassively the medical personnel shove potions down Clara's throat and mutter spells frantically trying to stabilize her breathing. When they achieved their aim, one of the sisters gave her an oxygen mask and then turned to Bellatrix herself.
"What did you tell her?"
"The truth," she answered simply. "Is Healer Sanguis coming soon? Because I have been waiting for some time and things are getting rather sticky," she showed the woman her blood-covered palms.
"He's on his way, he wants you to drink all of this." The nurse handed Bellatrix a blood-red potion, smiled encouragingly at Clara and left saying: "Call me if you need me, dear."
Clara remained curled up on the daybed, clutching the oxygen mask to her face and with silent tears running down her cheeks.
"What's wrong with me?" she whispered and looked deeply into the impassive, cold blue eyes of Bellatrix. A sob escaped her lips and she bit them to cover it.
"You probably have some type of cancer of the blood," Bellatrix informed her. "But you shouldn't take my word for it, I'm no healer."
"Cancer?" Clara's heart missed a beat. "B-but that's a Muggle illness, you said that Muggle stuff-"
"Seriously?" Bellatrix asked with mild interest, "Muggles get cancer too? Well, it'd be different surely. What do you think all these kids are here for?" She shook her head to the direction of the other ill patients. Their families were all pale and sick with worry.
"My mum won't be able to take care of me," Clara said miserably, "she's a Muggle, she's got trouble following my school letters, how will she ever be able to know how to look after me? I was the one looking after her now, that's how it's supposed to be, not the other way round! And how are we going to pay for all that? I can't really be sick, I can't!"
The more desperate Clara became, the wider Bellatrix' eyes grew. By the time the sisters were back to look after the second year, Bellatrix' pale cheeks had a crimson colour and she was breathing heavily, letting out a 'wheeez' every time and her eyes were staring greedily at the wailing girl. Her reaction was so extreme, the good nurses were worried for her too and hurried to take her vitals and give her her own oxygen mask.
"Gwendolyn, go get Healer Sanguis right away, please, he is needed asap" the Head Sister told a golden haired sister who left quickly in search of more advanced help, pink robes flying around her.
Clara calmed down after two sedatives and muttered softly to no one in particular: "we're not going to make it, are we...?"
"Now, now, dear, these are not nice things to say. Wait and see first, maybe it's just nothing and, even if it isn't, we're all here to help. You couldn't be in better hands."
Clara nodded like in a stupor, looking straight ahead and didn't react to the sister who was smiling at her. The Head Sister sighed quietly. There was nothing else she could for her now, so she focused her attention on Bellatrix. She had known the young aristocrat since she had been a baby and had also tended to other members of her family, and she had to say, this was the weirdest of them all. Bellatrix was still looking at the older girl as if she were a fascinating show and her chest was raising and falling heavily. She tried to distract her; perhaps that would make Clara feel better.
"Miss Black," and, when Bellatrix' ignored her, she repeated, "miss Black, there's a man here to see you." The Head Sister showed with her head the glass part of the door, where the figure of a tall thin man was evident.
At the word 'man', Bellatrix turned her neck so fast, it made a sickening crack. In an unrecognizable, polite voice, she asked: "Can he come in, sister?"
"I suppose..."
The door opened and the man entered the room. Dressed totally in black, with white skin stretched on the highest cheekbones and fiery eyes, his presence was enough to attract everyone's attention. Even Clara noticed the newcomer and an expression of awe illuminated her face. He looked so... different than anyone she had ever seen, more powerful, more domineering without even trying to. She breathed with difficulty as he walked past her elegantly for someone his height, and sat next to Bellatrix.
Clara tried to hear their conversation over the various noises of the hospital room and something peculiar and hairy stirred in her chest, as the man smiled at Bellatrix, asked her how she was feeling and removed softly a wet strand of hair from her forehead. The creature poked her with its ugly face to make a move and get her noticed as well; Bellatrix didn't deserve his undivided attention, she hadn't even cared when she almost suffocated to death. Now, Bellatrix was smiling her bloody smile broadly and shiny, and reassured the man casually that she was "just fine, nothing worse than usual!" with bright eyes.
Clara was focusing so hard on the man, that she didn't realise at first that the Head Sister was talking to her.
"Dear? Dear, your mother just arrived, she's being taken to Healer Sanguis' office. Come, sit on the chair, we'll roll you there," she said encouragingly.
Clara sat on the armchair with the wheels and let another sister push her through the room. As she passed Bellatrix' bed, the man's eyes fell on her and, for a second, they locked gazes. The explosions in his eyes set fire to the walnut of hers, and it was like he could see her fears, her loves, her ambitions, her very soul.
In less than a second later, he refocused on his little friend, leaving Clara electrocuted and unwilling to go upstairs to her mother and her possible cure.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think.