This past term's Quidditch was all about Mediwizardry! There were three rounds, and plenty of options to choose from!
Rotation One - Triage
I made bandages, along with my new-to-Hufflepuff bestie, April/CookinKat. We collaborated and turned in complementing stories!
CookinKat's:
As the dust settled from the final round of the previous quidditch match, a bewildered-looking first year student in fresh new Hufflepuff robes ran from the front doors of the castle. Her eyes grew round as she took in the sight of the tall, forbidding maze, but she raised her wand defiantly.
CookinKat had not been at Hogwarts long (barely long enough to find the Den!), but she knew that her best friend VelvetKey was in the maze and had been wandering about Merlin-knew-where! She feared the worst had happened, after seeing first one, then two, then upwards of over twenty students limping, staggering, or otherwise leaving the prickly hedges and heading for the medical tent.
“Velvet!” she cried, dashing forward and peering into the hedgerows. “Have you seen VelvetKey?” she asked a passing Ravenclaw, who only shook her head.
CookinKat crept deeper into the maze, first little by little, and then farther and farther. And then suddenly, around a corner she spotted a familiar Hufflepuff hat. “Velvet! You’re okay!” Kat threw her arms around her best friend and Velvet laughed in exhausted relief. The third-year witch was sporting a black eye with a cut, as well as many scratches and gashes on her hands.
“Oooh, let me help you,” Kat insisted, magicking two blue bandages in place with a flick of her wand.
“Thanks,” Velvet replied, hugging her best friend. “What a way to introduce you to Hogwarts, amiright?” The two of them started back out of the maze, talking animatedly about the new term at the school. So intent was Kat that she didn’t see the gaping hole left no doubt by the explosion of a blast-ended skrewt or other such creature.
To be continued…
VelvetKey's:
CookinKat squealed in pain as she landed at the bottom of the hole; her right arm was trapped beneath her, and if it wasn’t broken then it was very obviously sprained. She tried to stand and get out again, but her robes had snagged on a sharp root, and there was a lengthy cut on her left calf. She gulped and stood up on her tiptoes, trying to see out of the hole while balancing on her good leg. “Help!” she cried to anyone that could possibly hear her. “Velvet?!”
“Wingardium Leviosa!” The spell caught CookinKat right in the chest, and in less than a minute, she found herself out of the hole and sitting near the hedges, with VelvetKey clicking her tongue in sympathy.
“What am I going to do with you?” Velvet asked with an exaggerated sigh that ended in a giggle. She went through her voluminous pockets (Kat was going to have to get Velvet to show her that spell) and pulled out two cowls.
“Here, let’s put your arm in a makeshift sling,” her friend said, shaking out the orange cowl. “Just until we make it back to the tent. “And this yellow one will get that bleeding stopped.” Velvet expertly bound CookinKat’s leg. “Come on, we’ll make a merry troupe getting out of here.”
Just as the two of them rounded the last corner and could see the tippy-top of the white medical tent, Kat thought to ask, “Where did you learn to bandage wounds so well?”
“Oh…well, there was a class that taught us the incendio spell two terms ago,” VelvetKey said, blushing in embarrassment. “Everybody picked that skill up pretty quickly. Madam Pomfrey gave us bonus points if we could avoid sending each other to the hospital wing.”
By that time, the two witches had reached the tent, where they were ushered over to a bench after a quick examination by Tinymightymom, which earned them little colored tags on their robes.
“Well, we sure know how to start the year out with a bang,” Velvet joked to CookinKat, who couldn’t help but laugh.
“Any excuse to eat chocolate, right? Chocolate is the best medicine?” Kat asked.
“That and laughter!” Velvet agreed with a cheeky grin.
The best part? We were nominated for a trophy!
(We didn't win, but not bad for CookinKat's first Quidditch!)
Rotation Two - First Specialization
Given the choice, I decided to study magical plants and their effects, which entailed crafting something with cables. There's a story as to why I went completely crochet crazy, and it can be found
here, but a free login is required.
My submission:
Coaches, there are many great benefits of magical medicine. Sometimes, though, I wish we could extend our magic to the suffering Muggles that we know outside of Hogwarts. That brings me to my submission today, and the story of Brian, Matthew, Cheryl, and Nancy.
Brian is a Muggle who experienced sudden liver failure last year; the Muggle doctors could find no cause. In November, he was approved for a liver transplant. Cheryl (his wife) began keeping an online journal which I have been tracking while at school. Brian and Cheryl are close friends of Nancy and Matthew (and their combined three daughters get along very well).
Matthew went in for testing to see if he would be a match for a liver transplant. In December, he was approved and a little over three weeks ago the Muggle surgeons went to work. While Cheryl and Nancy waited in the hospital, they crocheted their husbands matching ‘liver buddies’ hats, and that inspired me.
I decided to make ‘prayer sister’ wraps to show them my support (spiritual, magical, and otherwise) and hope that the Muggle doctors will have no explanation for the miraculous progress of Brian and Matthew as they continue to heal.
Matthew is home now, and while he tires easily and continues to try and push himself too hard, he is off of heavy pain medication. Brian has been moved out of the transplant unit, but had to return to ICU when he had a sudden bleed. We hope that he will continue to gain strength and that more of the machinery regulating his health can be removed as he recovers.
In relation to the prompt, one of the side effects I studied of the Muggle medicine was unpleasant effects of pill medications. Some of these are derived from plant material, and some Muggles can have very adverse reactions to them, as if poisoned. In the case of Brian and Matthew, this “poisoning” took the form of some kind of uncoated pain reliever. I included a study of their chemical compound in my projects, pictured as honeycomb cables in the main body of the work.
These puppies were 1,275 yards each!
Rotation Three - Second Specialization
This time, I studied magical bugs, with the requirement that the two items I made had to have been copied from another student's work (Diseases Spread Within a Confined Environment). That was fairly easy, once I narrowed down my choices!
Oh, dear, coaches! I seem to have picked up some sort of…bug? No, that can’t be right, bugs don’t have tentacles, do they? A magic bug maybe? I think I caught it from nanettew9 over in Gryffindor Tower; she had a collection of adorable magical sea creatures and I just couldn’t help myself!
This little fellow has duplicated and now I don’t know what to do!
In an effort to feel better, I may have gone up to the Three Broomsticks for a pick-me-up, where I ran into an SoS student, mermaid potato. She had crafted the most adorable amethyst dragon…which I fear was also contagious.
Now I have two extra little magical plushie creations hanging about, and I’m afraid that more will forthcoming! I hope the urge to make adorable stuffies won’t infect anyone else at the school!
All told, my Quidditch efforts earned Hufflepuff 134 points! Woohoo!
Next time, I'll wrap up the end of term for realsies, and we'll take a look at how my attempt to Do All The Things panned out!
Craft on!
