Draco faking his arm injury - canon support

[Diana <dianasdolls@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 51901

 
I now respond:
> 
> << Draco faked that his arm injury lasted for THREE months! Madame 
> Pomfrey heeled his cut and it was painfree the same day it 
occured.>>

Catlady asked:
> Please, what is the canon for the arm being painfree the same day 
it occurred? I believe that Draco was faking being still injured 
when he used it as an excuse to postpone the Slytherin-Gryffindor 
Quidditch match so that the Gryffs played Hufflepuff instead, but 
that was two months later - the injury was on the first day of 
classes and the match was after Halloween and the attack on the Fat 
Lady.

My reply:

Their first Care of Magical Creatures (COMC) class was on the first 
day of classes at Hogwarts.  
"When Harry, Ron and Hermione entered the Great Hall for breakfast 
the next day..." [this is the morning after the Welcoming Feast].  
They go to their first Divination lesson then Transfiguration, then 
COMC
"Harry was pleased to get out of the castle after lunch.  
Yesterday's rain had cleared; the sky was a clear, pale gray, and 
the grass was springy and damp underfoot as they set off for their 
first ever Care of Magical Creatures class."

PoA Pg. 120 Hardback American Edition:
"Madam Pomfrey fixed him as best she could," said Hagrid dully, "but 
he's *saying* [emphasis mine] he's still in agony...covered in 
bandages...moanin'..."
"He's faking it," said Harry at once. "Madame Pomfrey can mend 
anything.  She regrew half my bones last year.  Trust Malfoy to milk 
it for all it's worth."

Pg. 123 etc.
[A day or two later at most] "How is it, Draco?" simpered Pansy 
Parkinson.  "Does it hurt much?"
"Yeah," said Malfoy, putting on a brave sort of grimace.  But Harry 
saw him wink at Crabbe and Goyle when Pansy had looked away.

Pg. 124
"There's nothing wrong with your arm, [Harry] hissed at Malfoy.
Malfoy smirked across the table.

Pg. 125
"-he's complained to the school governors. *And* to the Ministry of 
Magic.  Father's got a lot of influence, you know.  And a lasting 
injury like this" -he gave a huge, fake sigh - "who knows if my 
arm'll ever be the same?"
"So that's why you're putting it on," said Harry, accidentally 
beheading a dead caterpillar because his hand was shaking in 
anger.  "To try to get Hagrid fired."
"Well," said Malfoy, lowering his voice to a whisper, "*partly*, 
Potter.  But there are other benefits, too.  Weasley slice my 
caterpillars for me."

Pg. 168
[A short while after Halloween going by "The weather worsened 
steadily as the first Quidditch match drew nearer."]  "There's 
*nothing wrong* with Malfoy's arm!" said Harry furiously.  "He's 
faking it!"
"I know that, but we can't prove it." said Wood bitterly. 

[Sometime after the passage above, early November, and before the 
end of November, when Hufflepuff was "flattened" by Ravenclaw.]
"Malfoy was beside himself with glee at Gryffindor's defeat.  He had 
finally taken off his bandages, and celebrated having the full use 
of both arms again by doing spirited imitations of Harry falling off 
his broom."

So, by my calculations, Draco was injured on the first day of 
classes, September 2nd.  Classes always start the day after the 
students arrive by the Hogwarts Express on September 1st.  He 
stopped faking his injury sometime around the middle to the end of 
November.  That amounts to a minimum of two months up to nearly 
three months of pretending on Draco's part, thus my comment that he 
pretended for three months.  I was a little off, as I now believe 
that it was probably closer to two and a half months.

I believe Draco's arm was healed the same day and was pain free by 
Harry's comments, but even more by and Draco's actions and 
comments.  Let me put it this way, Madame Pomfrey has regrown all 
the bones in Harry's arm overnight, cured Neville's broken wrist in 
an hour at most [Neville didn't return to the common room earlier 
after his wrist was healed in PS/SS because he had forgotten the 
password/gotten lost and then fell asleep in the hall.], cured a 
disatrous Polyjuice potion involving a cat, begun healing burns from 
a dragon [canon does not mention how long the orange paste took to 
restore Cedric to health], cured a poisonous, festering bite from a 
Dragon, reattached an accidentally cursed-off nose, removed magical 
beards from GoF hopefuls, and many other things, so therefore I 
would be stunned, if Madam Pomfrey couldn't have healed a cut in 
only a few minutes.  The cut Harry received from the dragon in GoF 
she healed closed [as in disappeared] in only a minute with her 
wand; Draco's wound couldn't have been much worse.    

Diana
dianasdolls