So why not do it little bit by little bit," Draco asked, "rather than all at once? That should protect them both, yes?"
"Not really," Mina addressed her friend. "His plan is to take the curse from each and every blood cell and out of my bone marrow. Since the bone marrow is constantly producing blood and the curse is in essence feeding off my blood, every time there's more blood, there's more curse."
Robert put his thoughts into words with a sigh, "This sounds like Leukemia or HIV."
"It's very similar to both of those in how it affects my blood. To remove the curse I would need all the blood in my body drained out all at once and all the bone marrow replaced with uncursed marrow so it could produce uncursed blood."
There was dead silence for a couple of moments before Narcissa spoke, "We think that neutralizing the curse is a better option. From what we have learned, Miss Granger has had this curse in her for two years without issue. It was only when that word was spoken by myself and then Draco that it became a problem."
"So the curse would still be there, but what would happen if someone else of the Black family spoke that word?" Robert wanted to know.
"Once the curse is neutralized, we won't know if saying that word would have any effect at all. There is only Draco and me left, Mr. Granger, and now that we know," she locked gazes with her son, "I can promise you neither of us will ever use that word in her presence again."
"A promise isn't very reassuring," Robert explained his reservations.
"I have no problem taking an oath on my magic not to ever say that word again," Draco enforced his commitment.
Narcissa agreed, "the oath that he is referring to would cause our own death or loss of our magic if we broke it. We will take this oath if it will reassure you."
"Thank you Narcissa," Michelle said. "I know it's not necessary but it would make us feel more secure about our daughter. But I thought you had two sisters?"
Narcissa nodded her head in acknowledgment before speaking, "My eldest sister was cast out of the family when she married a muggle-born man rather than the pureblood man our parents arranged for her."
"That seems a bit harsh," Michelle commented.
"It is the pureblood way," Narcissa replied. There was dead silence in the room for only a few moments before her shoulders dropped infinitesimal. Only Draco, who had known her for years, would detect the movement. "It is, however, no longer my way. I believe, Miss Granger, that you are acquainted with Andromeda Tonks, correct?"
"Yes. Mrs. Tonks is Teddy Lupin's Grandmother and Harry is Teddy's Godfather. Mrs. Tonks is a friend of mine as well." Mina answered. "Mum I'm sure Mrs. Tonks will take an oath not to say that word around me ever," Mina reassured her mum. Michelle nodded her head in understanding.
"Ok, back to figuring out how to cure or rather nullify this curse," Robert stated. "Since this is not my bailiwick, talk me through what has to be done."
"That's just it, Robert, we don't know what has to be done," Peter told him. "We can't remove it without killing her. In that respect, it's very much like the Dark Mark. It can't be removed without killing the person attached to it. The difference is that the Dark Mark is like a...growth that can't be removed. This curse, Bella's Curse, is killing Mina as long as it's active inside her." He let his words sink in for a moment then continued, "even so we need to back up a moment. There is something you all should know...the curse hasn't affected her entire blood supply. Not yet anyway. Mina's Magic and her immune system seem to be fighting the curse, not making any improvement but not losing ground either."
"Healer Arbuckle your equations indicated that this curse was through her entire body. Are you now telling us that is incorrect?" Narcissa enquired in a cold tone with steel in her eyes.
Peter Arbuckle, having been a healer for many years and having had to deal with unhappy families, leveled an even stare back at her, "Lady Malfoy, I expected that to be the case. For all intents and purposes, it should be, but the latest scans from Clearwater indicate that the curse has been stymied ..for now."
"If that's the case, then all our Arithmancy is incorrect as well." Mina moaned. "Back to the drawing board."
Michelle decided to bring the silver lining into the conversation, "What this means, Hermione Jean, is that you don't have to be exsanguinated and the healer doesn't have to die in an attempt to save you." Even though the tone was cheery Mina as well as everyone else at the table heard the unspoken admonishment about negativity not being helpful.
Clearing his throat, "So do we go with our original idea about removing the curse or with the second idea about nullifying it?" Bill wanted to know.
"I have a third option," Robert said. "You said her immune system and magic are already fighting this curse, correct?" Peter nodded in the affirmative. Robert threw his idea out, "can't you just bolster her magic to make it more powerful than this damn thing? Is that possible?"
There was silence for a moment as everyone considered what Robert was suggesting. "It's never been done," Peter said almost excited at the idea. "I don't think anyone has ever even thought to do something like that." Peter couldn't sit still any longer and got up to pace the room as he spoke out loud trying to work it out, "of course, no one ever thought to attach a curse to someone's blood either, so who knows…but if...if...if it could be done then the medical implications. Merlin, the social implications..." He broke off as he tried to wrap his mind around what Robert suggested. He turned back to face the assembled group, "I'm honestly...I think my brain is stuck," he laughed.
People chuckled with him but Michelle had a question, "would it need to be a permanent increase? Or just increased enough to beat this curse into submission; like an antibiotic?"
"Antibiotic?" Clearwater asked.
"We use drugs to fight diseases and infections. If the immune system isn't strong enough to fight off an infection on its own, the patient gets antibiotics," Michelle explained.
"So we need a spell that would boost my magic just long enough to fight this curse until it is all gone," Mina said. "As this has never been tried, I think research is in order. If Ron and Harry were here, we'd have a research roundtable. I would pull the books that I thought would be useful and then we'd all dig in to see if any of the books...You know what? Nevermind, just...we'd research and Ron's first question is always 'what are we looking for?' and that is my question as well. What would we even look for and in what types of books would we look?"
Bill, being fairly pragmatic, "So now we have three options. How do we decide which one is the best option? We don't want to split our attention to much. We need to focus on the best one."
"Honey, can you use that math stuff to figure out which has the best possibility for success?" Michelle asked.
Mina and Narcissa had an entire conversation in one shared look. "Too many variables to calculate those odds. It would be like trying to calculate the odds of...," Mina had to think of an analogy that her parents would understand, "which plant seeds will grow over all the others in the world."
"Alright then. Shall we split up the options and get to work?" Robert asked.
With three options and no idea which was the best option or how to do any of the options, the research began. It was eye-opening for most of them for different reasons. Narcissa realized that no matter where a parent comes from, their determination to save their child is just as fierce as her's was to save Draco.
Robert and Michelle got a first-class education in the magical world's inner workings of potion making as it was the closest to muggle science.
Draco learned, from watching Robert and Michelle where Mina learned her research and study habits. He also realized how far she was willing to push herself to find an answer unless stopped.
During the first week of research, the entire group watched Mina as she started to lose her battle to the curse. It was obvious the first day that she was still extremely weak. The next day she spent almost as much time sleeping as doing research. That day Clearwater's mid-day scan showed a side-effect of her research. It appeared that the more tired she became, the quicker the curse was taking over. This new information required them to limit her research hours. She strongly objected but by the end of the week, she wasn't strong enough to eat, let alone help with research in any way. As the group watched her succumb to the curse, they were devastated but every day their determination to find a cure was renewed.