Death is but the Next Great Adventure

Educational Decrees & Tea Leaves

In the last chapter: Harry gathered the prefects and organized a study-system for the other students. He also warned the prefects about Umbridge and what she was doing. Harry told Tom about what had happened in a letter and that night Tom popped in for a secret late-night visit to make sure Harry was okay. The next morning, Harry went to see Madam Pomphrey about what Umbridge was doing and while they were talking, four students who had been messing around with the Whomping Willow were brought in and Harry stepped in to help. Pomphrey offered him a place in her infirmary when he wasn't busy.

AN//: Translation into Vietnamese by @YueMingWuChen can be found here: https://www.wattpad.com/584381869

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The days turned into leaves, plucked away by the autumn breeze. Harry traded in his quidditch gear for early mornings and afternoons spent with his hands full of gauze, potions, or rowdy patients. He had never been more aware of just how often a school of magic would produce horrific—and often times, bloody—accidents.

Of course, Harry wasn't really allowed to treat a patient on his own unless it was an absolute emergency. Mostly, he assisted Pomphrey while she did her job, grabbing whatever she needed or helping to calm the distressed student down while she cast diagnostic and healing spells. Harry didn't mind though, he knew he would have to go through a whole lot more training and examination before he could treat someone on his own. Healing—as he had come to discover with a little research—is an incredibly complex and intensive field of study that took almost as much time and attention as becoming a licensed doctor in the muggle world.

Unlike one would assume upon first entering the wizarding world, not everything was fixed with the flick of a wand. Most healing spells worked as a rudimentary form of time-magic—vaguely similar to the magic Harry had used to heal that boy's ribs—healing a wound by turning back the clock on a select part of a person's body. But when it came to anything more than superficial abrasions, bruises, and broken bones, one was entering the field of cellular and molecular manipulation.

Mending spells work wonders on bumps and scrapes, but what about an illness? Viruses? Infections? Disorders? Mutations? Disabilities? Cancer? There was no quick cure for such things. Sure, with the possibilities of magic, one might be able to find a cure for such ailments, but nothing is discovered or gained without experimentation and whether it is in the muggle world or the magical, there is always a limit to the lengths a society will go to for medical advancement.

Without a straightforward cure, there are only treatments and surgeries and potions in hopes of either slowly healing and curing the body, or at least alleviating the symptoms of said ailment. The more Harry thought about it after his meeting with Pomphrey, the more he realized that his abilities put him in a unique position. Not only did Harry have access and mastery of a whole forgotten branch of magic to explore and experiment with, but he also had the ability to go the lengths that other healers couldn't. To heal what can't be mended, to bring back what is thought to be lost, and to find a new way around an insurmountable problem.

Harry wasn't going to be bringing back the dead—everyone went eventually and he would not reverse the inevitable for a few more sickles—but he would likely have a better hope of keeping someone alive than other traditional healers. And he would have the opportunity to test and experiment with healing in ways others wouldn't dare. Since Harry could test things on himself or reanimated cadavers. Though, the research Harry would do in the field was a topic for much later. . .