"Please, have a seat, Mr. Granger, Mrs. Granger," Dr. Bones replied. "And you too, Hermione, you should sit too."
They both nodded and sat on the armchairs and awaited the news. Madam Pomfrey stood in the corner stiffly, feeling as if she wanted to be anywhere but here.
Dr. Bones sat in behind the desk and rubbed at his forehead wearily. "There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it."
Hermione sucked in her breath. The bad news.
He had turned to her and started to explain. "You see, Hermione, there's a certain order your white and red blood cells are supposed to take. Very few times, the white blood cells are increasingly higher than the red blood cells. And that's your case. Something's not right with your blood cells. But, I promise, we're going to take care of you."
"Do you mean… that… I have cancer," Hermione let out in a surprised breath.
He nodded gravely and Hermione heard a muffled sobbing from her mother and her father whispering soothing words to her mother. She did not look at them, only at the doctor's face. Staring, waiting for him to tell her it was just a joke, only a joke. It did not come.
"The good news is," he smiled thinly, "Six chances in ten, it won't come back again with the therapy we're going to try. It's just been approved, it's the strongest there is, and I think we caught it in time."
"Chemotherapy, then?" she whispered in a strangled voice that didn't sound like hers.
"Yes, but look at the odds," he smiled.
"And still, people die from cancer all the time," Hermione replied back in that strange voice.
"Leukemia is common, but still, hundreds of people live," he insisted.
Hermione nodded and got up from her chair. Her parents reached to her to comfort her but she shied away from their touch. She pushed the door open and ran to the Gryffindor common room.
"Hermione, what's wrong?" voices asked all around her but she hadn't actually heard them all clearly, it was all a blur.
The tears in her eyes made everything unfocused but she still ran through the groups of people and up the stairs into her shared dorm room. Only then, did she let the tears fall.