There it was again. That lurching pit in my stomach every time I gazed at her greying skin, bluing lips, and slightly jaundiced eyes ringed with dark circles. It was like death was already clawing at her. No child should ever experience this. We've come so far. We fought, we won. We are fighting all over again. My heart ached for a time where she was teetering on the lawn, trying to con me into pulling her around in her crimson wagon. To call her cough anything other than a death rattle would be a sentimental lie. Her voice was hoarse, each cough spaced with gasps for air.
The nurse brought her a plastic cup full of a sour smelling liquid that was supposed to help her fight off the virus she'd somehow acquired. She pulled the cup to her lips, grimacing before it ever touched. She knocked it back quickly, twisting her face into an equally sour expression from the revolting taste. She sputtered for a moment, then shook with disgust. I almost laughed.
"Lala, will you read me the story about the brothers?" Even just the action of smiling up at me with her toothy grin seemed to exhaust her.
"You mean The Tale of the Three Brothers?" I asked, knowing full and well that was the one she wanted. I'd been reading it on repeat for the past months. Her mother read it to her before me.
She scrunched her nose like a rabbit, signifying that was indeed the one she wanted. My heart ached again, recalling the day she decided to make up sign language for just the two of us. All of the tubes in her throat had made it too hard for her to talk much.
"There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight" I began, smiling warmly at her nose twitching in excitement. My little bunny rabbit. It wasn't long before she had dozed off, allowing me to gently close the worn spine. Dr. Cardillo, a gentle, older man with soft demeanor and stray eyebrows, tapped lightly on the door. I tucked the book carefully under my arm.
"How's she feeling?" he asked when I softly closed the door behind me.
"She's in a lot of pain, but she's a fighter." I grimaced, rubbing the aching base of my spine.
"And how are you feeling?" he asked, noticing my grimace.
"I'm fine. The medicine has been hard on my joints, but it's worth it." I forced a smile. Anything would be worth it to see her up and playing again.
"Good. Well, I've got the lab results back and it's not the best of news." he flipped her chart open.
"No." I said quietly. I couldn't hear bad news right now. I just couldn't.
"I'm not sure if she will last long enough for the procedure. We're doing our best to maintain function until she can fight off the infection, but there's a very real possibility that the infection will be too much for her."
"Well let's just do it now!" I couldn't choke back the tears, already knowing all the reasons we couldn't. He shot me that sympathetic look that he always had brimming in his pale grey eyes. It's easy to forget that doctors are used to dying children. It's easy to forget that there are other kids besides Mia. It's easy to forget there's anything at all besides Mia.
"Her immune system is suppressed already, increasing the likelihood of-well-let's just hope time is on our side." he finished. For a doctor, he failed at being cold and clinical. Then again, it's impossible for anyone to be too clinical about the death of a child. How the bloody hell can she defeat the scariest of all maladies only to be defeated by the goddamn flu! I won't stand for it!
Staring at his lips moving, not hearing the words spewing out, I was pulled back to the day we finally saw an oncologist. "As for as cancers go, this one is not typically a death sentence. The odds of remission are very, very good. There's reason to be optimistic." I pondered whether or not doctors could even say such a thing. He made it seem like it was as minor as a sore throat or inflamed appendix.
I couldn't bare his sympathetic eyes or reassuring smile a moment longer. Tears streaming down my face, nose bubbling mucus, I sprinted to the nearest bathroom. I immediately doubled over, stomach twisting and knotting. I hadn't eaten enough today, causing bile to burn on its way out. If her mother had been here, she would know what to do.
She could have waved her wand and fixed the whole thing. I tried to take her to the special hospital that the magical people had, but neither of us were magical enough to be worth their time. A "muggle" and "squib" the archaic woman with purple hair had called us. "Nothing we can do for you here." I'd tried to go back to the magical hospital again, banging on the windows screaming that she wasn't a squib. She did bursts of magic all the time! Lighting paper towels on fire when she knocked over her juice, levitating the cat when she had a tantrum, making the ice cream float out of the freezer when she had to eat her peas! She was just too young to control it! This time I couldn't get through. I tried to explain my sister was one of them. Had been one of them, but no one cared. My sister was gone and I just wasn't enough.
I thought back to the day they told me that the cancer was in remission. We'd won! She hugged me so tightly that I could barely breathe! I promised her we'd play in the park every single day, we'd watch all the best films the theater could produce, we'd travel to every country she wanted to visit. We'd never take life for granted again. Never.
I splashed my face with the coldest water the rusty tap would produce. I needed to wash the stench of death and bile off. I needed to go back to the books again. I let the charge nurse know that I was leaving and went home to my sister's small cottage. There was nothing more haunting than being somewhere you don't belong. She had newspapers stacked on her desk, piles of books on magical medicine that I'd dragged out, weird contraptions that made no sense to me. It was almost as if she was still alive. Forty-seven pages into a bizarre textbook about the magical uses of some plant called gillyweed, I had to take a break. My eyes were so dry that blinking only made them sting worse. Three days after we buried my sister, we got the diagnosis. Part of me was glad that my sister didn't make it long enough to see her baby like this. If my heart was shattered, I can't begin to imagine what would have happened to hers. Prior to my sister's accident, she'd been some sort of magical historian. Collector and purveyor of rare, historic objects for magical museums. She was always hunting for the next lead. Her amber eyes would light up as she told me all about some ancient African mask or Incan cursed knife. I leaned back in my sister's old, worn leather chair, instinctively reaching for Mia's battered copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard. My sister used to read it to her every night before the accident and it seemed to be the only thing to calm her enough to sleep through the pain. It seemed to calm me down too.
I flicked through the worn pages, admiring the handwritten notes that my sister scribbled throughout it. Her handwriting, looping and easily flowing, reflected so much about her personality. A pang of grief washed over me thinking of the loss of her. None of this was fair. Death was playing some cruel trick, not unlike the one he played on the three brothers. Mia had survived a horrific car accident, then the devil in her bloodstream. She'd beaten it. The cells weren't growing out of control anymore. But her kidneys and liver didn't do well with the medicine. Next to the paragraph on death's cloak of invisibility, my sister scribbled a line of words and arrows. I traced the words with my eyes, imagining my sister's hand smearing the ink in the margin.
Ignotus Peverell→ Ignotus' son (?) → Iolanthe Peverell & husband Hardwin Potter → Ralston Potter (?) → Henry Potter → Fleamont Potter → James Potter → Harry Potter (confirmed) → James Potter II (likely).
My sister always did like to scribble out facts and details about books, but I hadn't seen these names mentioned anywhere in the books at all. The names of people born to the magical world always seemed to be bizarre. Iolanthe? Ralston? Fleamont? What the hell was wrong with these people?
I sighed, needing caffeine to course through my veins to zap my brain into action. If only her notes would direct me to that magical cloak. No, I decided, slamming the book shut entirely and abruptly standing up for a spot of tea. I was searching for some magical myth to save my baby niece. Desperation plays tricks on the mind. I almost fell for a scheme in Central America touting unspecified 'holistic' treatment with a '90% success rate'. I was one of the lucky ones, learning the lesson from a mother with a child in worse condition than Mia. She chose the treatments in Central America with better odds, only to find the pair of them in a run down shack with a glorified butcher who had absolutely no medical experience. It drained her bank account and her spirit. I rubbed my eyes forcefully, causing black spots to blur my vision. The sharp, piercing whistle of the kettle brought me out of my reverie. I carelessly sat my tea cup down on the stack of papers, causing the dark liquid to slosh out of the cup.
"Dammit!" I cried, hurriedly moving the teacup and blotting at the splash with my blouse. I couldn't change this place. I couldn't ruin it. The swirling pictures of disorganized words of the yellowing newspaper seemed to scold me for making a mess. I froze from my frantic blotting upon reading the headline. Harry Potter Restored Family Home in West Country. Harry Potter? I frantically flipped through the pages of Mia's book to find my sister's messy flowchart. There was the name! Harry Potter was on the flowchart! I flipped to page four of the newspaper, where more details would be listed on Harry Potter's new home. It was in a village called Godric's Hollow. There was even a picture of the house! Was my sister saying these people actually had the cloak? Or maybe all three of the hallows? Were they even real? Was death an actual entity? Without thinking, I grabbed my jacket and car keys and dashed out the door, hope bubbling in my chest for the first time in weeks.
A/N: This story is a three part attempt at angst (I'm definitely a fluff person). I don't have a medical background and I certainly don't have the sick child background so some of the facts of this story may not line up perfectly with reality. I tried to keep it as true to medicine as possible. All three chapters are written, they just need to be edited. Please review and let me know what you think! Also "There were once three brothers who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight" is a quote from...you guessed it The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JKR.