minnow // sirius black

two

2: woof

The first time I got to see Remus, Lily and Sirius was on the train to school. Even though they had promised to visit, none of them were able to. Sirius admitted that he bugged his parents about it daily, but due to the fact that my parent's did not care about blood status, they wouldn't allow him to come see me, regardless of what my own beliefs were. They only concerned themselves with Mum and Dad's neutral position, saying that it was 'more disrespectful than being a blood-traitor'.

Lily simply lived too far away, and Remus' parents couldn't afford the trip.

I didn't hang out on the platform for too long, simply bidding Mum and Dad goodbye, promising to go easy on myself. James then helped me onto the train.

While overall, I was stronger than I had been the previous year, I was a little weak due to the last transfusion at St. Mungo's that morning. I had to get up long before dawn to trek the long trip to St. Mungo's, as I wasn't allowed to do side-apparition, and my body was not only tired from a lack of sleep, but the transfusion didn't go as well as we'd hoped.

This was around the time that we truly realized that my immune system just refused to work with type A blood, despite that being scientifically implausible. Up until that morning, the Healers believed that my immune system just didn't like the face that it was so close to my own blood cells; but we now realized that my immune system didn't discern a difference between my unhealthy white blood cells, and the healthy donated ones. Especially when they came from my brother.

That morning was rough, because it was so early and at the beginning of the month, the Healers has to directly take blood from James. The way that most of my BTs worked was this; I'd go in and sit in an uncomfortable chair that was leaned at a strange angle, they'd use magic to map the best veins to use, stick a needle in, and then hang a bag of blood. They'd transfuse two bags of blood, while drawing blood at the same time.

We had tried dialysis early that summer, hoping to cut out the extra hour it took to do - but my blood wasn't unclean. My immune system was defective. My immune system caused my white blood cells to see themselves as intruders, and attack one another. A dialysis machine did not fix this problem - only blood that was not specifically my own.

The Healer who did the transfusion saw the immediate changes, I went from simply yawning between sentences, to completely unable to form a sentence. Within five minutes of beginning the transfusion, I was complaining about how bright the lights were, which were actually surprisingly dim, and I was shaky.

The Healer marked on the lists that from then on, they needed to do whatever they could to avoid giving me A blood, specifically from my own family. It was just too similar to my own blood - causing my immune system to think that there was no difference between my blood, and the transfused blood, therefore attacking it.

Now, I had a pounding headache; my entire body felt as though I'd been run over by a train. My muscles were tense and sore and my joints felt as though someone was taking a jackhammer to them.

My entire body felt bruised - each and every touch was slightly painful, but I had learned how to deal with that. When you live with blood cells being attacked and rupturing, bruises are a thing of consistency.

So while James was helping me onto the train, an arm wrapped around my back, his hand firmly on my ribs, I clenched my teeth against the pain. My brother felt bad enough already. He did not need to know that the firm grip that was keeping me on my feet, was also almost unbearable painful.

He gently helped me lay across the seats in an empty compartment towards the middle of the train. Even though we were some of the very first students on board, we were still picky on compartments.