"Liability?" Sirius asks, frowning as he follows Newt a few more steps through a maze of very large, rather intimidating machines. "Do you mean because of his condition? How is that a liability? It's not as though what he has is contagious, is it? I mean, if it were, I'd be a goner by now, surely."

But maybe there's more to Kieren's blood than all that. He's never thought about it much, though that seems foolish in retrospect. It's just that, well. Kieren doesn't really have blood, that's half the trouble. The dark black gunk that oozes from his nose is hardly like any blood Sirius has ever seen before, though he knows it must be. Knows it can't easily be anything else.

He watches Newt more carefully now, growing both more curious and more worried by the moment. "Is there something awful about his?" he asks. "I'd assume it isn't normal, both from what I've seen and... given what he is. But is there anything at all you can do with it?"