My Final Message

Hello friends and dearest readers,

I know this isn't the message you were hoping for. It certainly wasn't the one I wanted to post, ever. I started It Only Takes when I was sixteen – half my lifetime ago now – in a really rough time in my life. It was the first time I began to experience the symptoms of depression, when my mom started warning me about my family history of cancer and my likelihood of becoming fatally ill at a young age, and when I started to realize that I was queer. It was my first long-form fanfic and it got me through a lot of struggles that I had yet to fully comprehend or deal with.

Re-reading early chapters, I am reminded of the trauma I processed at the time, the feelings I first began to put into words. It was the first big project I rewrote, the first one where I saw my progress and growth as a writer... in a way, It Only Takes was like my first child, one that I desperately wanted to finish if only to say I got there.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to be a reality. I have changed so much since I started this fic. I have gotten help for my mental illness and learned how to process my emotions in a healthier way. I came out to my friends and family. I found out that I don't have genetic predisposition to cancer. I saw several loved ones die of cancer and have lost people that are important to me because of it. I have met survivors and heard their stories. I'm a different person now and I don't need It Only Takes as my crutch anymore. I don't need it to process those wounds because they have healed over.

For the last two to three years, I have been trying to add more pages to this fic, but my document remains blank. As you will see in the outline below, the fic was intended to get darker and reach further into feelings of depression. It echoes a lot of the suicidal ideation I struggled with through a very dark period of my life. Understand that I'm not finishing this fic because I am lazy or because I don't care about it or any of you anymore. I'm just not in that dark place anymore. Not to say I don't struggle with those feelings from time to time, but this fic came out of such confusion over why I felt those things. Now that I know what they are and have the support to process those feelings, they don't feel so raw. I don't feel so helpless or alone. I have the skills and the people in my life that help me cope instead of a fanfic.

I'm sorry to leave you all hanging. It was not my intention to say goodbye to this fic and I think I held on for this long because I didn't want to admit its time was over. I am going to miss this story for what it was and what I wanted it to be.

As I promised some of you, when you reviewed or DM'ed asking about the fic's status, I am posting a quick summary of where It Only Takes was headed. Understand that this outline was made many years ago and may not align with where characters ended up or where the story was going.

I do want you to know that in the last five to seven years or so, as I started getting better, the ending began to change in my head. Though the summary below preserves the plan I had when I started the rewrite of this fic, know that I had been thinking of an alternate path in recent years. In that version, Harry doesn't fall out of remission. Instead, he enters full remission while Voldemort dies from undiagnosed cancer and we have a happy ending where Harry reveals all to his friends and Sirius. So if you are inclined to a happy ending, feel free to stop reading now.

Before I sign off and drop the summary below, I want to thank each and every one of you who reviewed, fav-ed, followed and supported me through this journey. Your words inspired and humbled me. Your voices were the first ones to tell me that I could write well and that others wanted to hear the stories I had to tell. Thanks to you (and a lot of hard work), I've become a professional writer and storyteller. I've fulfilled my childhood dreams. So thank you for everything.

Signing off from It Only Takes a Drop of Blood for the last time,

Lady Gallatea Ravenclaw


Summary:

After Mrs. Weasley is revealed to Hogwarts as the new Defense professor, we would start with the usual shock and horror from the Weasley kids and Malfoy. Ron, Ginny, Fred and George would protest (not wanting their mother at the school), but Hermione reminds them all she's better than Umbridge. Molly is a surprisingly good teacher – she's fair and patient, stern when she needs to be. She puts Malfoy in his place and tells Ron off for sniggering at Malfoy, soothing tempers in the class. Harry quite likes having her as a teacher, even if it's a bit odd and only for the rest of the year.

Harry, of course, is still dealing with his cancer relapse and fear of dying. He starts researching bone marrow transplants in wizards and learns that magic complicates the process – he won't just need a match for the usual markers, he'll also need a magical match. This is nearly impossible to find outside of wizarding blood relatives.

Molly begins to notice that Harry looks peaky and gets concerned about his health. The twice weekly chemo appointments drag Harry away from school during the week and it becomes increasingly difficult to hide both them and the side effects. He begins to feel Voldemort, the connection between them growing stronger as they both grow weaker.

Ron and Hermione follow Harry as he sneaks out to Hogsmeade, but lose him when he takes the Portkey. They are suspicious, with Ron's theory developing more credence, and decide to stage an intervention during Christmas.

Dr. Taylor insists Harry get a chest port to relieve the bruising on his arm. Harry has the surgery and realizes that he needs to tell Sirius – he can't handle it all on his own anymore. He tells Sirius to finish reading the diaries as soon as possible, that he needs to talk to him over the holidays. Harry creates (I forget if I showed this yet or not) two-way direct portkeys to the hospital, making it easier for him to travel back and forth, when he starts getting fatigued from the journey to and from the castle.

With Umbridge out of the picture, they all go to Burrow for Christmas instead. Arthur Weasley is not attacked because Voldemort doesn't have the strength to possess Nagini. Instead, Harry falls ill from a low white blood cell count. Magical potions cure him, but Harry is forced to reveal the truth to everyone – the Weasleys, Hermione, Sirius and Remus.

Naturally, there are a few chapters dealing with the fallout. Harry struggles to deal with everyone else's feelings. The adults trade-off falling apart and staying strong for the kids. Sirius is more stable than canon-Sirius, but still flies off the handle when he's alone with Remus, particularly when he finds out that Lily died so young and James had to go through that alone.

Dumbledore is informed and the Order finds out that Voldemort is weak, dying, and now they know why. Dumbledore realizes that even if Voldemort's body dies, his soul could survive. He must destroy the remaining Horcruxes before that happens. With Harry unable to help, Dumbledore recruits Remus and other Order free-agents to help him track down and destroy the Horcruxes. Bill gets the cup, Remus destroys the ring, Sirius finds the locket at Grimmauld Place, etc.

Molly and Sirius go with Harry to his next hospital appointment and they find out his white blood cell count is too low for school. With Mrs. Weasley teaching at Hogwarts, she can't stay with him. She volunteers to quit – his health is more important – but Harry tells her that she needs to stay for the others. They can't let another Umbridge come back.

Instead, Sirius and Harry stay at Remus's newly sterilized flat in London. For the first time in his life, Harry has a parent taking care of him and Sirius finally gets to raise Harry. They also push into full throttle to find a bone marrow donor for Harry – Sirius searches through James' family tree to find someone who can donate. He gets tested, as do the Weasleys, Hermione, etc.

Voldemort dies quietly and with little fanfare in May 1995. In the last weeks of his life, he is abandoned by his followers (who see the writing on the wall) and without his Horcruxes or his loyal servant Pettigrew to keep him alive, he fades away. Harry feels it when Voldemort's body dies, the last piece of him living in Harry's head. Unfortunately, Harry isn't doing well either. His hope for a bone marrow donor dwindles as each wizard comes up as a negative match. His cancer grows worse and his only hope for survival is a transplant.

Ultimately, Harry goes into cardiac arrest in a Muggle hospital and dies. His death releases Voldemort's last soul fragment, finally killing the Dark Lord forever. The wizards mourn... but Harry's in a Muggle hospital, isn't he? The nurses call a code and after five minutes, they are able to shock him back to life, much to the purebloods' horror.

Harry's still dying of cancer, of course, but then Dudley shows up to save the day. Ron and Hermione, not willing to watch their friend die (again), went to Privet Drive to beg Petunia or Dudley to help. Petunia and Vernon were willing to let Harry die, but Dudley wasn't.

Dudley is a genetic match for Harry and willingly donates his marrow for his cousin. Harry gets the transplant and it is successful, but replacing his bone marrow with that of a Muggle turns him into a Squib. Harry becomes a cancer survivor. After he's discharged, he returns home with Sirius and Remus to heal and figure out what he's going to do next. He decides to leave Hogwarts and study magical and Muggle medicine – to find a cure for the disease that almost killed him and saved the Wizarding World.

The last moment of the fic, that I had imagined, would be Harry putting his holly wand in a case, deciding to stop waving it in hopes that his magic will come back. While he is grieving losing his abilities, something that had always been a part of him, he is also grateful to it for bringing his friends and family into his life. He may have lost magic, but he hasn't lost them. As he sets the wand down on the velvet and walks away, shutting the door, a couple of golden sparks fly from it.

The end.