[HPforGrownups] Re: Disabilities in HP?

[Sushi]

No: HPFGUIDX 60224


>The Sergeant Majorette says:
>
>This might be an interesting area for an author to get into. Flying
>wheelchairs, bewitched canes? How about a character whose wizard
>gifts get noticed when medical tests reveal that the kid has been
>blind or deaf since birth, and has been unwittingly compensating so
>well magically that nobody noticed?

         Sushi's two cents:

         This is actually something I've done some thinking about.  A 
fanfic series of mine includes a character (albeit a dead one - somebody's 
grandmother) who is confined to a wheelchair/hoverchair.  (Looks like a 
regular chair, but it hovers an inch or so over any surface.  Fun on rough 
terrain.)  She was cursed at a fairly young age, and the effects were 
irreversible and eventually fatal.  It was the natural outcome (for me) 
of... well, pretty much this train.

         The conclusions on disability I came to, based on what we've seen 
in canon, are:

         Magically-induced injuries, such as unbreakable curses and curse 
scars, are more likely to have permanent effects.  Harry has a physical 
scar from a magical encounter; Moody is one big ball of curse scars, and 
presumably lost his leg and his eye to magical means.  Thus, where physical 
injuries - ie, Harry's broken arm - can be treated swiftly and painlessly, 
magical injuries - ie, having all the bones removed - are more difficult to 
treat, and sometimes even impossible.

         Soft tissue is more difficult to repair than hard.  A dose of 
Skele-Gro (tm)(yech) is all that's needed to regrow bones, and Madam 
Pomfrey said she can fix a broken one in seconds.  However, Professor Snape 
wasn't able to brew a potion to heal a dog bite.  You'd think someone who 
can make Wolfsbane Potion would be capable of putting together something to 
heal soft tissue instantly.  Either it requires wand-type magic he's not 
qualified to perform, or - more likely - it's a tricky situation given the 
malleability of the tissue.  (This isn't to say it wasn't treated at 
all.  He might have simply required a few days or hours for it to heal 
fully, or the nerve regeneration process might have been painful enough in 
itself to cause a limp.)

         Birth defects are either rare among wizards, or treatable.  If you 
can re-grow a bone that was lost or damaged beyond repair ('cause, let's 
face it, there are situations where removing all traces of a bone would 
come in handy - splintered compound fracture, anyone?), why not re-grow a 
section of spinal tissue?  Or a liver?  Or why wouldn't there be a potion 
to do the process gradually?  It could simply be a case where most or all 
problems like spina bifida are sufficiently treated by the time a child 
reaches Hogwarts that they are no longer a serious issue.  Or, another 
option: they're treated in the womb.  Surely it's possible for detect the 
problems with the right spells.

         Natural aging is going to happen.  Dumbledore wears glasses 
because he's old.  Trelawney wears glasses because... er, well, she's 
Trelawney.  Perkins in Arthur's office has developed lumbago.  Even wizard 
bodies break down over time, and it's either an untreatable condition or 
it's more trouble to treat than it's worth.  This might also apply to 
chronic conditions in the young.  (On the other hand, with the amount of 
sugar given freely to students at Hogwarts and the lack of sugar-free 
alternatives, I suspect their diabetes treatments are sufficient to let a 
diabetic students chow down on sweets with the rest of them.  This also 
says something about their metabolisms and dental skills.)

         Wizards are not immune to physical attack.  Harry's arm was broken 
by a good Bludger, another Bludger left Viktor Krum a broody mess, two 
Wronski Feints left the Irish Seeker (Conolly?) a grinning, concussed loon 
for a while, and Cedric was burned by a dragon.  They can be smacked 
around, beaten to a bloody pulp, burnt to a crisp, eaten by manticores, and 
suffer if not the entire range of Muggle disasters then at least a large 
number of them.  These injuries can, presumably, bring on the entire range 
of traumas: from stress-induced cardiac arrest, to shock, to death by 
exsanguination, to post-traumatic stress disorder (an exceedingly severe 
form of which the Longbottoms may suffer from).  While the treatments may 
be more varied - up to and including unicorn blood, about which I've got my 
own theories - they are not guaranteed to work.  Just as in all medicine, 
there is such thing as luck of the draw.  (I see no reason why CPR wouldn't 
be as useful a skill in the wizarding world as the Muggle world.  It'd be 
useful to keep a heart attack victim alive until a mediwizard arrived on 
the scene.)

         Hmm.  This got long.  Sorry about that, guys.  Sliding back into 
my hole now!

Sushi, lurking in the darkness... my precioussssss...


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