A Few Observations - malfoy & buckbeak

[heidi.h.tandy.c92 at alumni.upenn.edu]

No: HPFGUIDX 10797

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., donna.rae at v... wrote:
> Malfoy and Buckbeak - This episode really started to annoy me the 
> third time through the books.  Madam Pomfrey has, in the past, 
> completely healed many different wounds instantly.  These include 
> Harry's bonelessness, Ron's broken leg, all the Triwizard champions 
> after the dragon task.  Why couldn't she heal Malfoy when Buckbeak 
> wounded him?  He spent weeks in bandages holding his arm in 
supposed 
> pain.  He was incapacitated enough to have Snape insist that Ron 
help 
> him in the potions class.  Plus, if Buckbeak deserved to be killed 
> for wounding Malfoy, certainly the dragons did as much damage to 
the 
> kids and nothing was said.  We all know that Malfoy was pretending, 
> but why couldn't the teachers see that?  Whenever anyone else is 
> wounded, they are expected to just get over it.  Of course, 
> Buckbeak's predicament *was* a major plot line <g>.

One thing we've seen elsewhere in the books is that an injury 
directly caused by a magical creature is different than a broken bone 
or a dragon burn (Cedric was the only one burned severely in GoF - I 
just checked - and he certainly wasn't instantly healed - he spent 
time with that paste on his face).
For example, in PS/SS, when Ron gets the dragon bite, he spends the 
night in the infirmary getting healed, after it gets infected. Along 
those lines, it's possible that being cut open by a hippogriff (and 
draco was bleeding a *lot*) is similar to being bitten by a dragon - 
it takes some time to heal, even with magic - of course, that would 
likely only explain maybe 4-5 days of Draco being injured, and we 
know he stretched the wearing the sling for a few months, so there 
was clearly some lying/exagerating going on there, but given the fact 
that it was a magical creature injury, it's understandable that it 
took longer to heal than a simple broken bone.

And as a PS - I covered a little of this issue in my fanfic, A 
Surfeit of Curses, in chapter 4 & the forthcoming Chapter 5 (which 
will again include Simon Branford - an actual on-screen appearance 
this time!)