Chapter Ten; A Chance to Heal
It was clear at a glance that Andromeda's mood had not improved in the slightest by the following morning. Breakfast was silent, no one wanting to speak first; no one having any idea what to say.
Shortly after their bowls were empty, Andromeda led them into the laboratory, shutting down the protective fortifications as she went, stomping down the stone staircase and into the large open chamber below, lit by flaming torches.
Along one side was the main worktop, strewn with huge piles of notes, calculations and drafted formulas. A crate of unused glass vials lay open in front of it. A pile of dirty cauldrons lay against the wall beside the alcove where their trunks were locked.
Andromeda twirled her wand, conjuring two buckets of soapy water, a mop, a broom, a dustpan and brush, some dust cloths and scrubbing brushes.
'You can both make a start on those cauldrons,' she said coldly, without looking at either of them. 'I want to be able to see my face in them when you're finished.'
And she sat down at her desk, picked up a stack of parchment, put on her glasses and started reading, her back to her sullen children as they silently set to work.
The only sound for a long time was the harsh scrubbing of the bottom of the cauldrons and the scratching of a quill. It seemed to take forever to remove all the stains and crusty residues from the cauldrons. By the time Sirius had dried off his fourth one, his arm muscles were aching. Ursa was glumly scrubbing her third, casting anxious glances across the room. Sirius, not daring to turn around, watched the reflection in the clean cauldrons.
Andromeda had risen from the workbench at last and was conjuring a crackling fire beneath the huge cauldron in the centre of the lab. It filled with a murky sort of liquid while Andromeda rifled through the shelves lining the walls, pulling down a multitude of jars, tins, packets and bottles. A sheet of parchment hovered in the air beside her, a crimson quill ticking off the components on it as she found them.
Returning to the cauldron, she began to meticulously measure out each ingredient, slowly adding them to the cauldron, muttering non-stop under her breath as the quill skated over a fresh roll of parchment.
Two hours later, Sirius and Ursa had finished the remaining cauldrons and were now cleaning out the store cupboards while Andromeda tended to a spicy-scented, ginger potion, stirring delicately.
Leaning right inside the cupboard, sweeping out the cobwebs, Sirius banged his head as a violent hissing rang out through the lab. His mother swore loudly. Sirius backed out of the cupboard to see her throw up her hands in exasperation and disappointment. She slumped into her chair, elbows on her knees, her face buried in her hands. Shaking slightly, she gave a dry sob.
Ursa and Sirius exchanged a look.
'Mum?' Sirius hesitantly went over to her, hoping she wasn't about to snap at him again.
'Stupid – ' Andromeda muttered angrily. She snatched the floating parchment out of the air, screwed it up and threw it hard. It fell short of its target, landing on the sticky floor, two feet to the left of the empty bin.
Groaning, Andromeda slumped in her chair, staring darkly at the hissing potion, now a sickly yellow with a shine of green on the surface.
Taking a deep breath, Sirius quietly asked, 'Can I help?'
Looking sharply round at him, she continued to scowl. Sirius backed off. He was just about to go to back to the cupboard when she sighed and said listlessly, 'You can get rid of that stuff,' she nodded at the cauldron, 'and fetch me another cauldron.'
Nodding, Sirius tilted the cauldron over, pouring the foul smelling potion through the grate in the floor. The potion drained away, gurgling as it ran away down the pipes. Removing the bulky cauldron from its stand, Sirius dragged it into a corner, grabbed one of the freshly cleaned ones and brought it back over. He set it up on the stand, watching his mother scribbling out a new list of ingredients, brow furrowed. She looked very tried and stressed, like she hadn't had much sleep.
It always amazed Sirius that she kept going even when met by repeated failure. Certainly the disappointment must get to her, yet she refused to admit defeat. A few years ago, she had practically lived in the lab for over a fortnight, working tirelessly on a potion. When she'd finally emerged she'd been so happy, so proud of herself for finally succeeding. Sirius hadn't needed to understand medical jargon to be proud of her.
Then it struck Sirius that he'd never known what the potion had been; what it did. Had he ever asked? He couldn't remember. She worked so hard but he never knew what she was working on; not really.
While Andromeda returned to the shelves, searching for more ingredients, Sirius went over to her desk and looked down at the notes. As expected, there were a great many long words and strange terms that Sirius could only guess the meanings of, but as he read the short passages that he could make sense of, an incredible suspicion dawned on him.
Andromeda turned back to the cauldron, stopping dead as she saw Sirius reading her notes.
'Sirius, put that down, please,' she said shortly, setting several jars down on the desk.
Sirius looked up, slowly moving to return the parchment, but he hesitated.
'Mum, what exactly are you working on?'
Andromeda gave him an exasperated look.
'Sirius, I've been working on this formula for almost a year and you've never once asked about it. Why the sudden interest? I thought you didn't like potions.'
'It's not that … it's just …' he gestured to the notes, 'I didn't know you were discovering a cure for something.'
'Trying to discover a cure,' she corrected him. 'Finding the correct formula is very difficult … and frustrating.' She picked up her parchment and scribbled something else on it. 'Potion brewing requires a lot of patience, so I guess it shouldn't be a surprise to me that you've never been interested, being as impatient as you are.'
Slightly hurt, Sirius was nevertheless determined.
'Can I help?' he asked, indicating the potion ingredients.
Andromeda stared at him for a moment.
'You may help if you wish,' she said, finally. 'I need some essence of starfish and some powdered unicorn horn.'
Smiling for the first time all day, Sirius did as she asked.
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Potion brewing was a lot harder than it appeared to be. If one ingredient was added at the wrong time, if there was too much or not enough, the end result would be useless. A moment's carelessness could ruin hours of careful and meticulous brewing, leaving no option but to start over.
Slowly, the collaboration of weird and wonderful components progressed to a shimmering, royal blue potion that smelled strongly of oceans and seaweed after Andromeda added a cup full of grated starfish.
Sirius stirred it steadily. Ursa sat perched on a stool, neatly writing out labels for the glass vials standing in neat rows on the desk.
'Starfish have very strong natural regenerative powers,' explained Andromeda, adding another cupful, 'so they form a vital part of our research.'
'What does regenerative mean?' asked Ursa, pronouncing the word slowly.
'It means to be able to re-grow,' said Sirius promptly. 'If a starfish loses a limb it can grow another.'
'That's clever,' said Ursa.
'It is, and since it occurs so naturally it is a reasonably safe component to work with. Plus it's a great deal easier than creating something from scratch to do the same thing,' said Andromeda, now measuring how much silvery unicorn horn powder was required.
'So what exactly are you trying to find a cure for?' said Sirius, glancing at the mountain of notes and files littering the desk and shelves.
Andromeda smiled.
'Ah, now that is a very good question. Come here and I'll show you.'
Intrigued, Sirius and Ursa followed her to the back of the lab to another, smaller worktop. She drew her wand.
'I need a few drops of blood. Sirius?'
Sirius held out his hand. Andromeda touched the tip of his finger with her wand. He felt a slight pinch, then she removed her wand and placed the tip into a shallow dish, leaving a line of several drops of blood.
'What I'm going to do is contaminate each of these with a different virus, disease or infection.'
Taking several test tubes from a cupboard over their heads, each of them containing a tiny amount of liquid, Andromeda added a single droplet from each into the dish, overlapping the blood.
A large bubble materialised over the dish, magnifying the contents so that they could see what was happening.
Each drop of blood was reacting to the foreign substance as it was attacked. The white blood cells put up a fight but were quickly overpowered. The diseases had taken hold.
Andromeda now reached into her work robes, taking out a vial of silvery white potion.
'This is one of the few potions that the team and I have managed to procure. It's a potent restorative elixir, although the long term effects are dubious at best.'
As she spoke, she filled a dropper with the mixture and squeezed a tiny droplet into the dish onto the first blood drop. Watching the magnifying bubble, they saw the restorative mix with the infection. For a few seconds nothing happened. Then –
A faint light began to emanate from the blood. White blood cells were visibly multiplying at an accelerated rate.
'White blood cells form a very important part of the immune system; they are what fight off the nasty infections the body catches. If we didn't have enough or none at all, a very mild cold would have a devastating affect on the body, even kill it if left untreated.'
'So you're trying to make more of these cells?' asked Sirius, watching the newly grown cells gathering at the edge of the infected blood cells.
'Well, that was the original idea. But then we realised that it would be easier to treat the diseased cells if they were in the early stages of contamination, before the disease can get a good hold.'
'Meaning?'
'We're trying to figure out a way to reverse the growth of the diseased cells, returning them to their earliest and treated stages. It's best to start treatment as early as possible because you'll have a much better chance of recovery.'
'So, you're creating a potion that could be used to cure … anything?' Sirius stared at his mother in astonishment.
'In theory it works; in practise the exact formula is proving to be extremely elusive. A year down the line and this is as far as we've got.'
Andromeda put a drop of yet another potion, the same as the ginger spicy-smelling potion she'd created earlier, onto the rest of the blood samples.
The reaction was instantaneous.
The dark, diseased blood cells were changing, becoming lighter in colour, clearly healthy. The disease was being rendered useless, harmless.
The blood appeared to have returned to its original state when the potion abruptly dissolved and disappeared. As a result, the diseased cells, what few that remained, started to multiply once more.
'It works perfectly for a very short period of time, but then it just peters out before it can eradicate all the diseased cells to a harmless stage, then it returns as strong as ever.'
Andromeda looked very disappointed but quickly forced a smile.
'Still, it's progress. We'll get there. It's a matter of stabilising the cellular structure and stimulating the re-growth of healthy cells within the body; so if the body is given an extra boost of immunity, if you will, then the potion has a better chance of ridding it of the disease.
Awed by the possibilities of a successful formula, Sirius eagerly turned back to the shimmering cauldron.
'Maybe you'll get it this time. We'll help.'
'Oh, no, you don't. I've trusted you this far because I've done this part hundreds of times before. I'll not have anyone near this potion.'
'But Mum, I know what's next,' said Sirius, confidently reaching for a tiny crystal bottle. He paused for a second, looking at it curiously. 'What is this stuff anyway?'
'Something you never mess around with,' said Andromeda, snatching it out of his hand. 'Phoenix tears – one of the most powerful of healing substances that exist.' She returned it to the topmost shelf.
Ursa frowned in confusion.
'Mum? If phoenix tears are really powerful, why don't we use them to heal everything?'
Andromeda sighed and sat down to explain.
'Well, the thing is, only freshly shed tears can be used and a phoenix will only cry for those it feels needs a particularly strong form of healing. It won't cry for a broken bone, for example, simply because that can heal by itself, eventually. The body can fight off infections by itself for most of the time; Muggles and wizards use medicines to speed up the process. Now, a fatal wound is more the sort of injury that we'd use phoenix tears on. Unfortunately, the biggest problem we have is that a phoenix rarely cries. Can you image trying to stimulate a phoenix into shedding enough to be harvested for everyday use?' Andromeda shook her head. 'It's not possible. Anyway, it's really much too powerful. That sample I've been allocated for my research is particularly concentrated. Even a single drop more than necessary could cause such a powerful reaction that the effects would go too far. I've used it only once and the result was a formula that worked too well. All the living cells, healthy or not, started to disappear.'
That caused a few raised eyebrows.
'Why did they disappear?' asked Ursa, puzzled.
'By reversing the age of the cells so much, they ceased to exist. Just vanished.'
Andromeda stood up and went back to the bubbling potion.
'If we can find a middle ground, a result halfway between the ones we've had so far, then we could very well produce a cure for just about anything and everything.' She smiled serenely, picking up a long spoon and stirring the shimmering potion. 'That would be worth a million failed formulas.'
Sirius and Ursa set about reorganising the store of ingredients while their mother got back to work. By the time they'd cleaned the entire laboratory, top to bottom, Sirius had reached a conclusion. His mother worked so hard to achieve something that could bring happiness to so many people; did she not deserve some in return? Okay, Richard was hardly the best man for her in Sirius' opinion, but right now she was happy with him. If the relationship were to fail, then it would do so on their terms, not because of Sirius' foolishness. No wonder she'd been so mad. He'd nearly ruined what little private happiness she'd had since the divorce.
And yet, what if Richard started treating her the way he'd treated Sirius?
He couldn't let that happen, but he couldn't deliberately try to destroy their relationship. It was very selfish and his mother would never forgive him for it.
When Sirius went to bed that night he still had no idea what to do, if anything. It was too complicated.
Cosmic came up to sleep beside him, perhaps sensing his confusion. But the cat was of little comfort this time, and it was a very long time before Sirius finally drifted off to sleep, plagued with nightmares of a shadowy apparition, condemning every move he made.
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To Be Continued.
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Please review. All comments and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated.
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Author's Notes.
NightSpear – Hee hee, glad you enjoyed it! Quite fun to write, oddly enough. It's not a pleasant subject, writing about a cruel tyrannical person who makes other people's lives hell, so I'm not sure why I enjoyed writing this so much! Maybe I'm just weird. ^_^ That explains just about most things about me.
Orion-San - *rolls eyes* Men! Oh, well, if you like fight scenes, stick around; there'll be more where that came from a little later.
WallyTheWhale – I try not to curse too often either. If you're in a lot of pain, or just had a fright, been shocked, that kind of thing, then by all means let slip a word or two, it would be understandable. What I don't like is hearing curses used in every other sentence in an almost causal manner; there's no need for it! I've known people who couldn't speak more than two short sentences without swearing. Don't they know any other words??? *shakes head in disbelief*
I get along fairly well with my siblings, so I thought; why shouldn't Sirius? They do feel a need to stick together, but, just as in real life, there's no guarantee that they'll get along all the time.
I don't often read my Tarot cards out where people can see them, and my parents gave me my first deck as a birthday gift a few years back so no problems there. To be honest I don't know if I'd be able to keep a straight face if someone accused me of devil worship; I'm sure I'd laugh. It just strikes me as ridiculous.
Andromeda, not being too understanding from her kids point of view, but seeing Richard's bad reaction to magic pretty much slammed the door on the possibility of her telling him about being a witch so she's less than pleased with them. Parents can be frustrating even when you can see it from their view point. It doesn't help that (in my experience anyway) they tend to side with other adults rather then their children.
Cosmic's a very clever cat. He's a bit like Crookshanks in a way. Notice how he got Sirius and Ursa talking? It helps to talk about problems; okay maybe two in the morning is a terrible time to pick for a chat, but there was less chance of Richard or Andromeda overhearing. And before you ask, their room is on the other side of the house, so they couldn't hear Cosmic's screeching and didn't wake up.
Hhhm, okay, yes you do see Sirius try a few moves out in a later chapter, but I'm not saying any more than that.
Nnooooo! The Confusion spreads! *looks around eagerly* Now, who can I infect? *rubs hands gleefully* Oh, Lily, where are you? *skips off in search of her Beta*
Christy – Richard's being an inconsiderate prat, but yes, I'm glad you've read the danger signs. He is a dangerous character, as you will see over the next two chapters. Things are going to hit a new low, but on the bright side, the Marauders return in the next chapter!
Squintz1 – Makes you wonder if Andromeda is ever going to tell him now, doesn't it? I did think that maybe I'd over done her reaction a bit, but if you can understand her reason then I guess it wasn't too bad. In this chapter, Sirius tries to understand it from his mother's point of view but it doesn't make it any easier for him to deal with.