Stage III
Blood. There was blood.
Ella stared, her eyes drawn to the dark red drops staining the fabric as if they were a magnet pulling her in. Her heart seemed to inadvertently speed up, pounding through her with echoing tremors that swept out into her hands. Still she stared, frozen, her mind folding beneath a windstorm of thoughts that tumbled over one another in their haste to scramble to the forefront.
A period? No, Hannah had said it was too early. Not until her numbers were in the lower hundreds at least. Residual bleeding, perhaps? The Muggle doctors had told her to expect it, before Harry had Obliviated them and wiped her records from the hospital's database. "Intermittent bleeding for up to several weeks." But yet, Hannah had removed all trace remains during her first appointment. There had been no bleeding since. Maybe it was brought on by last night's exploits. Hannah had cleared her for such activities, but still…
She was shaking now, taking deep steadying breaths as she grabbed onto the cool glass of the sink for support. It was nothing. She was sure it was nothing. It had been nearly a week since she had truly allowed herself to be afraid, and fear had come stealing back now, seeping through the cracks of her armour. What did she expect, after all? She had broken down and then put herself back together so many times in the last two weeks that the shield she carried now was nothing but a patchwork quilt, fraying at the seams and edges.
She stood still, breathing in and out slowly until the fear lessened; until she could push it away into the shadows. She was glad she was seeing Hannah today, if only so she could have the strength to keep it at bay for another week. And then another, and another. It was impossible to say how much longer this would go on, but she could break it down by weeks, couldn't she? She could live in the moment. She could simply never have sex again — or at least not until it was all over. Harry would understand. He wouldn't push. He would still love her… wouldn't he?
She let out a shaky breath, steadying her hand with force of will as she Vanished the blood with a wave of her wand. She would not fall apart. She would see Hannah. Teach her class. She wasn't a weakling; she would be brave. Or at the very least, she would act like it. She wasn't yet so far removed from Muggle London that she had forgotten how to play a role.
When she arrived at Hannah's office for her weekly dose of reassurance, she was all but holding her breath. Still, she forced her shaking hands to lay still in her lap, clasped together painfully beneath the appearance of detached calm.
"Ella," Hannah said, stepping through the door to the inner office, and Ella stumbled to her feet and hurried past her with a muffled hello, the waiting room full of pregnant witches finally behind her. A relief. She held out her arm, the sting of the needle barely noticeable now. Routine.
"How was your week?" Hannah asked, withdrawing the wand and depositing the sample into the waiting beaker.
"Good," she mumbled. "Fine." And then because she felt like a crushing monster was sitting on her chest, she blurted out, "Harry and I had sex last night."
"Oh!" Hannah said, smiling. "That's great."
"And," Ella said, pushing ahead before she lost her nerve, "now I'm bleeding again. Do you think it's"— she glanced up at Hannah nervously —"normal?"
Hannah's face was unreadable. "It's not out of the realm of possibility," she said, glancing at the beaker, which was a colorful swirl. Ella followed her gaze, her eyes tracking the disparate colors as they danced around each other, the green brightening slowly to yellow. Her entire future contained within one beaker, written within one drop of blood. Her hands were shaking again.
The potion shifted, with agonizing slowness, to yellow. Almost mechanically, Hannah reached forward and touched her wand to the beaker as golden sparks rose, breaking through the surface of the potion to hover above it. Her expression did not betray her. No, it was her voice that broke Ella, the tone shattering her before she even registered the words.
"It's gone up."
She felt her world break, the pieces slipping away as she tried to grab on to them.
"Up?" she managed. A simple word, up. Two letters. One syllable. Had it always sounded so odd? Like a strangled sound one made as they searched for oxygen. Like it wasn't a word at all.
Hannah was looking at her now, her face as hard as a mask. It scared Ella, froze her breath in her chest.
"It's up to 45,000." Hannah's voice was an ocean. A wave. A force of gravity.
"45,000?" Ella whispered, capable of little more than echoing Hannah's statements as she struggled to break down the words so she could glean from them a whisper of meaning. But she was lost, tumbling around in a sea of: 'Now what?'
It was only as her world fell apart that she realized she had once again allowed herself the luxury of hope.
She barely registered Hannah clasping her hand or leading her back to the examination table, her kind words falling on deaf ears. She was floating, the room swathed in fog. The cool touch of Hannah's wand against her skin was hardly noticeable. She had long considered herself hard. She had been through trying things; had flirted with death and heartbreak and walked away unscathed. Had thought these things were enough to pad out her armour. What was worse than the Battle, than losing Harry, than losing the child that had already lived in her heart? But none of these things were enough to stop the tears from trailing down her cheeks, their sting so much more painful than either wand or needle.
Nothing was enough to stop asking why. Why?
It was another word that weighed more than the sum of its parts.
"Do you want to call Harry?" Hannah's hand was squeezing hers, pressing a napkin into her hands. Ella stared at the whiteness of it; so bright it was blinding.
"You shouldn't be alone for this," Hannah pressed.
And Ella nodded. She couldn't bear this alone after all, whatever came next. If there was ever a time to be thankful for someone to walk beside in this life, surely it had to be when you were standing at the foot of the veil, so close you could feel the wind upon your face as it fluttered.
She clenched her wand with freezing fingers, managing to produce little more than wisps of smoke until Hannah lightly grasped her hand, the warmth of her touch sweeping through Ella like a ballast. She held on to that warmth, whispering the words once more as she thought of Harry — of his warmth, his strength — and the dolphin finally burst into being before her, a little dimmer than usual, perhaps, but solidly there all the same. And then it was off, streaking away through the walls, and halls, and streets between them. And he would come, she knew, in a heartbeat.
And so he did.
The rest was a blur.
"You're still very much low risk," Hannah had said to start; a sentence she likely meant to be reassuring, though it served only to fill Ella with additional dread. "But there is a small new growth in your uterus… and several nodules in your lungs."
She felt it again — the breaking of the world.
There were pictures, pulled from Hannah's wand diagnostic and projected into the air before them. Meaningless black smoke and dust to her eyes.
"What does that mean?" Harry said, when Ella remained silent. "Can you get rid of it?"
"That is the plan," Hannah said gently. "Getting rid of it is exactly what we want to do."
"So you can vanish it now?" Harry asked. His hand was squeezing Ella's tightly, and she focused on the warm grip of his fingers while the words bounced around her in painful spirals. "Now that there's more… tissue… you can bind the cells that've spread and get it all? Like you wanted?"
"I could attempt to Vanish it," Hannah said, "but I don't believe that would be the best course of action. We're dealing with a stage III persistent mole now — Gestational Trophoblastic Disease. It's in the bloodstream. A more invasive treatment plan would be more effective."
"Like what?" Harry said. "What treatment?"
She paused. "It would be… a sort of potion."
"So Ella has to drink a potion and that will sort it out?"
"Not quite," Hannah said. "It wouldn't be drunk."
"So then what…" Harry trailed off, glancing at Ella, confusion playing across his brilliant green eyes, which seemed duller somehow. Or maybe it was simply because she was seeing them through a layer of tears. Because she was quite sure she understood, without Hannah having to say it.
"It's chemo, isn't it?" Ella said quietly, her voice shaking. "The potion."
"Yes," Hannah said, holding Ella's gaze steadily with her own. "Methotrexate. That would be the most effective treatment course, Ella. The best way to attack all the cells at once."
Ella looked away, glancing down at the perfect tiles that made up the floor. Perfect lines and perfect squares. How simple it would be to stare at it all day long and not think about what had become her life. What kind of cruel world would take her baby and give her cancer in its place? She couldn't wrap her mind around it. Couldn't even define the shape of her grief.
"So much for magic," she whispered, her voice stumbling over a painful smile that had found purchase on her face. "It really doesn't fix anything at all, does it?"
"It fixes a lot," Hannah said gently. "But even with magic, oftentimes there is work to be done. You know it's not a fix-all solution. And here, we just have a little more work to do. But we'lll do it, Ella. Together."
It didn't take long to sort out the details of her foreseeable future. Hannah vanished for a time, finally returning from the potion dispensary with the methotrexate — a plastic hazard bag, filled with just a sliver of sickeningly yellow liquid. It turned Ella's stomach.
It was all she could do not to stare as Hannah walked them through it, explaining the different treatment options. "I'd like to start you on the eight day protocol," Hannah said, sitting across from them, the hazard bag temporarily put aside. Ella's eyes still darted to it though, its presence looming in the room. "Your numbers are on the higher side, and this is the most aggressive and tolerable option. You will get one injection every other day over the course of eight days, and take a rescue tablet on the days following. After the fourth injection, there will be a resting period of six days, which constitutes the end of the round. Then the next round will begin. I will be checking your numbers weekly to make sure they're responding."
"For how long?" Ella said, her voice flat. Resigned.
"There isn't a set timeline for this," Hannah said. "And I would prefer not to guess. The treatments will continue until you hit negative. That is, until your levels fall into the acceptable range. Between zero and five. And then for three additional precautionary rounds after."
"How… are the side effects?" Harry asked, his fingers squeezing tightly around Ella's. "Uncle Vernon's cousin had treatment, for breast cancer, and it was very…" He trailed off, seemingly unable to quite voice the extent of how very what it was. "Will Ella be… well, out of it?"
"No," Hannah said, "not at all." She smiled at them both reassuringly. "They are very minimal, actually. MTX is a very light form of chemo. It can cause some tiredness, stomach issues, mouth sores… I'll give you some information you can read and reference later. But overall you should be able to continue your daily routine as usual."
"So it won't… my hair?" Ella mumbled, feeling both stupid and vain, and yet simultaneously terrified of the answer.
"No," Hannah said with a small smile, "it shouldn't be affected."
She found solace in that small bit of relief; let herself bask in it while Hannah handed her a full packet of information on the drug, explained that she would be able to administer the treatment here, that she had been able to obtain it through the potion dispensary, by way of St. Mungo's sister Muggle hospital.
"Your case is unique," she told Ella gently. "I was hoping your numbers would fall on their own, but I've been looking into alternative treatments if they did not. You may well be the only witch on record to have a molar pregnancy that progressed to GTD, and I know that's terrifying. And we may not have a magical solution for it yet, but I promise, I'm trying. I'm working directly with the potioneers at the dispensary on this, but in the meantime the Muggle treatment is available, and I don't want you to wait and set your hopes on a magical solution that may not come while this spreads."
And it was true, she knew. It was true. She couldn't sit and wait. She had to do something, anything, to regain a semblance of control.
"But if the… MTX… doesn't work?" Ella said, her voice catching. "What then?"
"It's the first-line treatment," Hannah said. "It is very effective. But if you become resistant or it doesn't agree with you, there are other options. Other treatments that are… stronger."
Stronger. Ella didn't like to think what that could mean. She only hoped she wouldn't have to find out.
And then Hannah lifted the hazard bag with a finality that crashed over Ella and stole the air right out of her lungs. She had had no time to adjust, to settle into this new reality, and yet it was here all the same. Everything standing between her and this moment had slipped away before she'd even realized, and she was perched on the edge of a cliff without even a moment to draw breath.
"We'll start today," Hannah said, reaching inside the bag and withdrawing the vial of bright yellow liquid. Ella watched in silence as Hannah tapped it with her wand, her eyes tracking the yellow as it sloshed back and forth within its container while one end stretched to form a long, thin needle — the method of delivery for this medicine; which was poison; which would help her. She felt sick. Damaged. Broken.
And then it was time. And she was leaning over, her hands braced painfully against the arms of a chair as Hannah stepped behind her and the long needle broke the soft barrier of her skin. One sharp sting, and just the barest whisper of the caustic liquid claiming territory within her. It took but several seconds, and yet it felt like a lifetime. And then, just when she thought it was over, the painful stinging raked through her, burning from the point of contact. She let out a gasp, and Harry was there, holding her in his arms; his strength enough to hold up both of them.
"It will only sting for a moment," Hannah said softly.
And so it did.
Hannah kept them for a further fifteen minutes, monitoring Ella for any adverse reactions, and then before Ella knew it, before she was quite prepared to face the world once more, she was standing in its midst. Everything looked the same, and yet startlingly different. She felt isolated, as if there was a transparent film between her and everyone else, distorting her perception of reality. She was trapped within a bubble that had room only for one.
They walked to the Floo, Harry's hand firmly around hers, and one sickening swirl of green dust later they were home. And she was falling apart; breaking to pieces in the safe confines of their small flat, wondering when she would stop.
When it would all stop.
.
The rest of the day melted away, time flying by without notice. She marveled at its passage, realizing it was evening only when an owl tapped gently against the window, its dark shape barely distinguishable from the night. She reached for it mechanically, lifting the glass to allow the small bird entry. It hopped inside, blinking at her with large amber eyes before shaking its head and covering her hands in a fine spray of rainwater. Perhaps the skies had opened up to cry alongside her.
The writing across the parchment was familiar, burned into her memory from so many homework assignments: Professor, I'm so sorry you're not feeling well. We missed you in class today, it was no good without you. Get well soon. Siggy.
She smiled, the words somehow touching her heart, and passed the damp note to Harry, who had wandered into the room and sat beside her.
"You owled the Institute? The class…. I forgot."
He nodded. "I know."
It was a relief; discovering a problem that already had a solution.
"Will you keep teaching?" Harry asked softly.
"I dunno." She weighed the words, their implications. "I'd like to. I can't just sit locked in this flat all day. And I feel… all right."
Which was perfectly true. She might feel differently tomorrow, or next week, but the chains that held her down today weighed heavier on her heart than anything else.
Harry nodded and wrapped his arms around her. She let herself forget the world for a moment, hide in his embrace. But it was no good. She couldn't keep pretending everything was fine, even if nothing that happened felt real. She wondered when it would, when the chemo would become more real than the pregnancy.
"We'll have to tell them," she said. "I don't want to hide this. It's bigger than me."
He looked relieved. "That's good. I think you need them."
"Why don't you invite them over?"
"What," Harry said, surprised, "now?"
She nodded. "I just want to get it over with."
Pieces of her personal nightmare had already been scattered to the winds, she knew, touching some more than others. Daniyel, Robert, Hermione, Ron… she had to set the record straight, tell them the whole sad story. They were as close as anything. And she couldn't ask Harry to hide this from Sirius any longer, not when her life was on the line. And her parents… Eliza. Her breath caught in her throat. Just last weekend, she had told them she was fine. On the mend. It would break them. But she had to be strong — strong enough to carry both her grief and their love at once.
So she sat back and let Harry call forth his stag messenger and send it out into the night. And they came, to listen, to embrace her. Their loud presence shattered the silence of the dark. She felt it in the love that seeped out from every hug. In the reassuring grip of Sirius's hand on her shoulder. In Robert's gentle eyes, awash in understanding. She would get through this. Somehow. Whatever it took; however it ended. They would walk this road alongside her.
She wasn't alone.