Yeah [Zita]

[cordelia regan smith]

@zita

Cordelia had discovered something rather grotesque over the last summer break, and up until this point, had been trying to avoid it at all costs. Now she was invested though, and the only way to test her healing spell skills was either on live subjects, which wasn’t really encouraged, or through this method. She had been watching muggle television, as she was often found doing during the summer, and came across an old science show that talked about how pigs had the same consistency as humans did. In other words, causing lacerations and then fixing them on a dead pig was the almost the same as practicing on a person. The Hufflepuff had pushed it off as long as possible, but she was intent on learning now, and couldn’t wait until the summer to ask her mum how to better learn the spells on her own. And she certainly wasn’t going to go around asking people to hurt themselves for her. That would be absurd. The scary part about it? She knew of a few that would probably let her do it too.

The idea eventually defeated her though, and now she was in the kitchens. A few weeks prior she had talked to the house elves to get their take on it, and while they were apprehensive to let her slash open a nice ham steak and then heal it again, she explained that it wouldn’t harm the food at all and it could still be served. Whether that was true or not was beyond her expertise, though upon demonstrating the process in front of them, they were convinced that she was being careful with the food. The whole thing was strange, and she knew that, but there wasn’t really a better way to learn right now. Overseeing the nurses would definitely help, but any confidentiality between them and the students they were taking care of couldn’t be given to her. The most they would let her do would be to fix a broken nose or a split lip.

Tonight was the first night that the house elves were fine with her testing out the process, and they had prepared a couple different pork dishes, as well as a whole pig roast. It was really creepy to be staring at a dead animal with the intent to cut it open and then heal it again. The first ten or so minutes were spent with her pacing back and forth in front of it, wondering how to go about the whole thing. On top of that, how would she answer if someone asked her why she was cutting open and healing a pig over and over again? The last thing she wanted was to be brought to a professor for trying to further her learning.

[We'll ignore the fact that the other person in the gif is Roxy's face]

[Deleted]

Zita had literally nothing going on. As soon as classes had let out, she made her way back down to her dormitory to get some sleep, just because she had the freedom to do so. She hadn't expected to sleep nearly as long as she did, a short hour nap quickly turned into a three hour ordeal and she ended up sleeping through dinner. She hadn't found missing dinner to be a big deal because she was starting do it often enough that she was pretty sure the elves in the kitchen were starting to make a dinner with her name on it just in case she had missed a meal again and had plans on coming by to get food.She wasn't going to go at first; she wasn't hungry when she first awakened and she thought it would be a good time to get some studying and homework done while she could. It hadn't even been twenty minutes of her settling into that task when her stomach growled loud enough that a few of her housemates had heard it and laughed. She'd laughed too, only a little embarrassed, but going to the kitchens to grab something now seemed like a more important task. One thing she did love about her common room being in the dungeons was that the Kitchens weren't that far off from where they were situated so she had easy access to food. She made her way over to the Kitchens. Lucky her, even though it was after dinner, they had not enacted curfew just yet so she had enough time to easily make it there and back with something.She approached the kitchen's portrait and tickled the pear before the door appeared. When she entered she walked in on the strangest scene she had ever encountered. There were house elves milling about and cleaning, as per usual, but in the middle of the kitchen there were plates and plates of meat sitting about. In the middle of all of the plates was a big dish that held an entire pig carcass, laid out. And just to the side of the entire scene stood a very familar body. "Uh... Cordie?" Cordelia Smith was staring down at the meats. What had she walked in on?

Tag; cordelia regan smith

SOTD; HERE

[cordelia regan smith]

@zita

Wand out, Cordelia was finally ready to test the healing spells on the full pig. It had taken quite a few minutes of thinking it over again and again, with much pacing involved, before one of the house elves piped up and told her to just do it. Apparently sitting around and not doing anything would never help her achieve her dreams, and pushing it off further would only make it harder for her to come around to it. That statement was oddly inspirational. The house elves at Hogwarts were the only ones she had ever encountered, aside from the occasional one following around their master in Diagon Alley that is. They were friendly to everyone, and acknowledging her new, weird habit of cutting different kinds of meats and fixing them up was reassuring. The same probably couldn’t be said about a human. Unless they were also weird. That was a conversation she was hoping to avoid though.

Except the door to the kitchen opening instantly spelled doom for the Hufflepuff. Because she was situated at the main table that the house elves used, she was in view of the entrance. That thought had never really crossed her mind before. Now it was a little too late. Her head practically snapped over to the door as it creaked all the way open. How would she explain this? She had never thought that far ahead. It would be one thing if only the ham steak was out and she had a knife in her hand instead of her wand, but there was also the pig sitting in front of her, and a ton of other plates filled with meat. It was weird!

Surprisingly, there was a good part to all of this. After the first wave of panic rolled over her, she realized that the person standing in the door was Zita. Cordelia noticed then that she had been holding her breath in as she stared at her roommate intensely. First step was re-learning how to breathe. The second was figuring out to explain all of this. That was easy. She just had to detail her thought process behind it. Zita would understand. Hopefully. “H-Hello…uhh…a-are y-you uh, a-are y-you hu-hungry?” That could have been better.

[Deleted]

Zita was frozen in place, looking back and forth between the copious amounts of meat laid out and her roommate and friend. The girl had her wand out and the look of shock on her face only made Zita more hesitant to ask what was going on. Seriously, what in the world had she walked into? All she'd wanted was a bite to eat. Zita took another look around the room and there were a few house elves who were standing around and watching her. Whatever Cordie was doing couldn't be too bad if the house elves weren't freaked out about it right? Zita then remembered that house elves had to put up with a lot anyway. Nobody was quite speaking up yet and Zita then wondered suddenly if Cordie had asked them to be quiet. She couldn't actually see her friend doing something like that and she could imagine that if the house elves had ever been rude to them they would have kicked her out by now. And seeing as there was a bunch of plates of viable food laying out, she guessed that the house elves had assisted her. Cordie decided to speak then and she only left Zita more confused. "Uh. Yeah but raw meat wasn't quite what I had in mind." She did move just yet just eyed her roommate curiously and kept looking between her and the meats. "Not to intrude, or whatever but what are you doing?" Did she really want the answer to this? Was it really even her business? Maybe she should just grab some food and go.

Tag; cordelia regan smith

SOTD; HERE

[cordelia regan smith]

@zita

The way Zita was looking around the room meant that what Cordelia was doing wasn’t obvious to her roommate. The other Hufflepuff was clearly looking for answers on what all the plats and the pig carcass meant. How to answer that…whatever her decision was going to be, it would be tough. Now that she was caught, even though it was just Zita, her brain didn’t want to listen to reason. It had already decided that what she was doing was wrong and messed up, and that no amount of explaining would clear her name. That was how her last question ended up coming out of her mouth. Could anyone possibly be hungry after seeing this much meat sitting around? She didn’t think so. Zita said as much, though pointed out that raw meant wasn’t what she would eat anyways. That made sense. No one would eat raw meat. And here she was, standing in the kitchens with plates of it in front of her, asking her roommate if she wanted any. This was ridiculous.

Cordelia looked off into the corner of the kitchen at some of the house elves, desperately hoping that one of them would speak for her, but they all seemed too busy with their jobs to help her out. That meant answering Zita’s follow-up question was all her. It was the big one too. What was she doing? That was a very, very valid question right now. “I-I-I ummm…” Cordelia started, before stopping herself almost immediately. Her brain and mouth wanted to do opposite things. She needed to think it over before putting it all into words. It was easy. All she had to do was explain exactly what her plans were. “P-Pigs h-h-have the s-same consis-consistency as h-humans,” she explained, before realizing what that made her sound like. “S-S-So I’m uhh…use-using them to t-test healing s-spells…” Would that be enough? That was what she was doing after all. Though saying so and convincing someone of it were two completely different things.

[Deleted]

The way that Cordelia looked around at the house elves was rather curious to Zita and made her brow furrow in confusion. Zita wanted to believe that there was a completely valid explanation for what was going on; Cordie had never come off as murderous or strange before. At least not before now anyway. Zita's eyes kept traveling around the room when Cordelia finally spoke up. Her words came very slowly, and Zita didn't think it had anything to do with her stuttering but more so with trying to find a way to explain what she was doing. That didn't seem suspicious and worrying. The first full sentence out of her roommates mouth was... downright horrifying actually. Though shock pinged in her brain, Zita's eyes widened and her mouth formed a small 'o', her head nodding a bit slowly. Same... consistency... as humans? Just before any more horrible thoughts could form in Zita's mind about the girl, she gave the rest of her explanation. It took a minute for her words to process and when they did, Zita still couldn't seem to wipe the look of horrified acceptance from her face. "Oh. Yeah, that's... totally reasonable." It fully clicked in her mind then. Cordelia was trying to practice healing spells. "Wait. How long have you been doing this? Does anyone else know? Why not go to Madame Blacksmith for help?" Just like that Zita was over her previous thoughts of what she'd suspected and now she was just curious. A little grossed out, but curious.

Tag; cordelia regan smith

SOTD; HERE

[cordelia regan smith]

@zita

This was going horridly. Cordelia realized how terrible her explanation had been, and that starting off with explaining that pigs and humans had similar flesh consistency was easily the creepiest thing she had ever had come out of her mouth. There was nothing normal about any of this. She was the quiet one that was afraid of being called on in class. If word about this got out, everyone would think she had been secretly planning to do harm against anyone that had ever said anything bad about her. She didn’t think Zita would run out of the kitchens screaming to everyone about it, but what else could happen after seeing this? Her roommate wasn’t going to casually nod her head and understand it immediately. No one could do that. Not any sane, rational thinking person at least.

The physical reaction on Zita’s face was easily the worst part about it. There was no way that any of that made sense to her. Feeling defeated, Cordelia sat down on the stool that was next to her table and placed her wand down. There were too many thoughts of what was going to happen after this interaction for her to notice Zita figuring it all out. The Hufflepuff was sure that she was either going to get expelled or daily detention for the rest of her time at Hogwarts. Constant supervision would be needed around her if they deemed that she was a disturbed individual. While she knew the house elves would vouch for her, there was no telling what would actually happen. When it came down to it, she was standing here practicing spells on meat talking about how it was similar to humans. She would be lucky to just be expelled after that. Crazy talk like that usually got wands snapped or people locked up. She didn’t want to be locked up.

Zita was talking again, but Cordelia assumed that it had something to do with the fact that she was going to get a professor. Except that her roommate said that it was reasonable, and then started asking questions about how long she had been doing it. Did that mean she was off the hook? “C-Couple of w-weeks. B-But the p-pig is n-n-new to-today.” she finally answered, after deciding that it wouldn’t hurt her to respond. Cordelia shook her head to the question about anyone else knowing. Just the two of them and the house elves now. As for the third question, “C-Casting on r-real p-people scares m-m-me. F-Figured it was eas-easier on m-meat…”

[Deleted]

It took a minute before Zita got answers to any of the questions she'd pelted Cordie with because the blonde had sat down on a stool and had seemingly zoned out. Which was odd but the entire situation was a little bit odd. She'd said that she'd been practicing the spells for a couple of weeks now but it had only occurred to her to use the pig today. It was true that pig's skin was similar enough to human skin that she would be able to use it in place of healing an actual human being. It was actually a good idea for someone who was a beginner to not test on actual humans; the human body, while resilient, was equally fragile and one mistake could take someone's life. Zita herself had been practicing healing spells since fourth year. She'd gone to the nurse for some help then and after a while she'd been able to practice on a few people. She'd been lucky enough that a few of her quidditch teammates had let her heal minor cuts and scraps that they'd attained during practice so that she could practice her technique and efficiency. She wanted to be a mediwitch after she graduated so she needed to be quick with her healing as first response. "Fair enough. Though I think it'd be better to get your fear of working on people out of the way sooner so you won't be as worried about messing up when you do get to someone that's alive," Zita commented with a shrug at Cordie's admission. She'd been worried her first time too but the nurse had talked her out of it quickly. She'd forced herself to jump into, which hadn't been the best idea but she'd had someone around to help her. Maybe Zita could help Cordie? Zita jumped up and sat on one of the table near where the meat was on full display. Weird sight. "Well. Show me what you've got so far."

Tag; cordelia regan smith

SOTD; HERE

[cordelia regan smith]

@zita

Even though Cordelia understood that she was pretty much in the clear now with her antics, shaking the awful feeling she had in the pit of her stomach was hard to do. There were clear lines here that she had crossed, and she knew that. While Zita was apparently coming to terms with all of this, Cordelia was starting to think that it was because of her, not because of the explanation that she had given her roommate. Obviously being concerned about practicing healing spells on human subjects was normal; and accidents could happen if things didn’t work out correctly. But she was at the point where maybe using a pig was a little overkill, no pun intended. Her only other choice would have been to talk to the nurse about helping out or at least watching, and while that had its own drawbacks, there would be more understanding in the end. This though…this was a completely different kind of beast. All of it was so overwhelming and the Hufflepuff was having a hard time coming to terms that her friend wasn’t about to throw her under the bus for doing something strange.

“I-I kn-know that…” Cordelia responded after another span of silence. It wasn’t exactly that she would eventually have to get over it; she had to get over it if she wanted to be a healer or work in that business. That and learn how to better communicate. Stutter aside, not being afraid to approach people and understanding what she could do for them ended up being more important at the end of the day. So far all she could do was successfully heal a lacerated ham steak and a broken wrist. The more serious injuries required fortitude. She knew she didn’t have that yet. Zita moved across the room and sat down near her, asking her to show the plan. Cordelia looked up at the other girl, finally. “Are-Are y-you s-sure?” she asked. Before Zita could answer though, Cordelia picked up her wand once again and hopped down from her stool. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it correctly.

The first round was going to be on the plates of ham. Concentrating and making sure not to shatter the plates with the laceration spell, a few smaller cuts were made, and then one deep stab-like wound. That was the easy part. Next came the healing. “The sp-spells d-don’t work as w-well on these be-because they’re c-cooked,” she briefly mentioned before casting the spell. The small cuts healed like they were supposed to, but the deeper one left visible markings from where it had been. Almost like scar tissue. “Soooo yeah…” Cordelia ended as she pushed the plate towards Zita.

[Deleted]

Zita gave a quick nod in confirmation as Cordelia hesitantly asked her if she was sure about watching her heal the meats. She'd honestly rather watch her heal live humans, the loads of meat sitting on the table made the atmosphere and, in turn, the thought of her healing it much more awkward. With her wand in hand, the blonde made her way over to one of the plates and with quick and efficient swipes, she made multiple cuts into the ham. Zita made a face as she did so; she was rather glad she hadn't walked in on this part because just watching her now she really would have been worried about Cordie's intentions. The thought made her snicker though before she focused back on her just as Cordie created a gash into the ham. She barely registered Cordie's comment, focusing instead as she waved her wand and watched the cuts she'd created disappear. The deepest cut still showed signs of visibility but if it had been gushing blood before it would have been at least enough to stanch the bleeding in an actual patient. "Not bad. Not bad at all actually. You're right about it not working as well because the ham is cooked. You're pretty much working on top of a burn if you think about it logically," Zita offered as an explanation as she reached out and touched the areas around where the deep gash had been. "Now try that on the pig and see if the results are any better." Her voice was steady when she said that out loud but she took one look at the pig and frowned a bit. Those were definitely not words she ever expected to say in her lifetime. She definitely hadn't expected to be watching her roommate perform healing spells over meat either so she just accepted it.

Tag; cordelia regan smith

SOTD; HERE

[cordelia regan smith]

@zita

At least Zita looked like she understood the whole process now that it had been completed in front of her. That eased Cordelia’s mind slightly. There was still the initial shock lingering around, afraid that even providing an example wouldn’t be good enough for her roommate. Even though she knew she was in the clear, the worry was still there. If there was ever an off switch for those thoughts, now would be the time that she would want to use it the most. Cordelia hadn’t noticed that Zita was watching as intently as she was until she saw the face made when the spell initially cut into the meat. The Hufflepuff was pretty sure that she had made the exact same facial reaction the first time she had down that as well. There was something extremely graphic about the whole process. But it worked. After finishing the healing spell, Cordelia waited to hear from Zita. She nodded her head as her roommate agreed with her on the cooked meat part not working as well, and then added that it was like working on a burn. That made a lot of sense. She had yet to put that all together. Having a second pair of eyes and a brain that wasn’t worried to death about being expelled was extremely helpful.

Zita continued, and said that she should try on the pig now. Cordelia glanced over at the thing, knowing full well that this would be the true test. That was why she had asked the house elves for it in the first place, despite being apprehensive about the whole thing. Readying her wand once again, Cordelia stared at the pig. If this worked out, then she could amplify the damage the next time around. Just thinking of that caused her to frown slightly in disgust. There really was something wrong with her head after all. Even though this was all for a good cause, it was still deranged. “O-Okay. I-I think I-I’m r-ready,” she confirmed, looking at Zita one last time and nodding her head, before turning her attention back to the pig. Repeating the same process as she had with the cooked ham, Cordelia watched the slashes form and then heal completely. Exactly how the spell was supposed to work. All that practice on the cooked meat had paid off apparently.

[Deleted]

Zita watched as Cordelia looked over at the pig once she'd suggested that she try her healing spell on it. She remembered when she'd felt like that, around the time she'd first decided she'd wanted to go into healing. She'd been a bit nervous, though the emotion hadn't been nearly as outward because she liked jumping into things and getting the feeling out of the way. The thought had occurred that it would be an actual person she would be working on, someone who could feel pain and pass out or bleed to death if she made one wrong move with her wand. It took her a little while before her fingers wouldn't shake anymore before she flicked her wand in the correct spell motions. It took even longer for her to stop needing to swallow any nerves she had. So she felt the hesitance, not really knowing if it was actually present in her roommate or not, before Cordelia walked up to the pig to begin.

"Just like the meat," she encouraged when Cordelia looked at her. And then she began the process of creating the wounds. Watching the fellow Hufflepuff mutilate the pig was... rather uncomfortable actually. Much worse than watching her cut up the meat, but she got over it after around the fourth slash she'd created in the flesh of the animal. Then with a flick of her wand, cuts disappeared in a pinch. Zita released a breath and grinned at Cordelia. "See? You did it with no problem then," Zita hopped off the table and walked up to the pig. She reached a hand out and prodded the area where the slashes had previous been. Not even a drop of blood appeared on the surface of the pig's skin, meaning the cuts had healed completely. "Yup, the tissue is completely sealed. Very nice work, Cordie. You'll be healing people in no time." she congratulated her easily with a short applause. "Is that the only spell you've tested? What did you want to learn next? Maybe I can help" Zita was really getting into the idea of it too. Even though she was a bit more advanced, she didn't know everything just yet so they could probably learn something together and help each other practice.

Tag; cordelia regan smith

SOTD; HERE

[cordelia regan smith]

@zita

Just like the meat. That was right. The pig was the same thing, only uncooked. Luckily those words of encouragement from Zita came right at the most important part of the whole process. The healing bit required the most concentration of the whole thing; the cutting? Not so much. Hacking and slashing, as messed up as that was, was way too easy. There was no give from the meat at all. A human would have been in pain from those kinds of wounds. A struggling object would probably be harder to heal than an unmoving, dead pig. The fact that she was even thinking of these kinds of things was odd. But the spell worked, and the carcass was healed up back to its original state. She couldn’t have asked for anything better than that. Good results meant a boost in confidence, and a boost in confidence would eventually lead to success after success. At least that was the hope. Keeping positive on her own, as well as Zita’s encouragement, did way more than she had anticipated. Being able to fully heal wounds as ghastly as the ones she had just created was an accomplishment. Similar to fixing Professor Zhu’s broken wrist back in December.

Stepping back from the pig, Cordelia allowed Zita to inspect it. The poking and prodding confirmed what she already knew; the flesh was healed all the way through. The Hufflepuff nodded her head as her roommate said it was a good job and that she would be healing people in no time. “H-Hopefully n-not t-too s-soon…” she responded, staring at the pig once again. Destroying and healing that thing over and over again would be much more entertaining for the time being. As for continuing to practice spells…“I-I kn-know how to f-fix b-broken bones. We-We c-could t-try that?” The Hufflepuff offered. Again, that was one of those things where it would be hard to judge pain levels without a living subject. Spells and elixirs that aided in pain relief were for another day. Right now,nailing down the basics was key.

[Deleted]

Zita pressed on the pig once more, listening as Cordie stated that she hoped it wasn't too soon that she was working on human patient. Zita frowned just a little bit before stepping back from the pig once again. She knew and understood Cordie's hesitance well, and maybe it was just the fact that she would rather jump into something to remove her fear of the thing she was worried about, but she couldn't hold herself back from speaking on it. "True, and I know there is totally no rush for you to move up to human patients. But I promise that it would be so much better for you to try out a human patient. It so much better and while it might seem like a lot now, once you've done it you worry less about the fact that it's a human patient," her voice started off calm and confident before transitioning into a more thoughtful tone. "It's easier to concentrate after the first few times so I think it makes it better." she nodded firmly.

Cordie then answered her about what else she could do. It was then that Zita realized that if she'd thought it'd been gory before, it was going to be much worse now. Just imagining watching Cordie mutilate the pig before had been creepy. Now she would have to watch her break its limbs. Zita took a deep calming breath. For some reason, the thought of it happening to the pig was sad and made it worse. Of course, if it had been a human she was doing this too, it would be much worse. And illegal of course. "Yeah, let's try that out. How'd you practice that one before?" Zita finally let herself say and ask. She had an idea how they could practice it now, and it would probably be even more gruesome than she'd practiced before. Because they were practicing on a dead pig, they wouldn't be able to tell pain levels. Without being able to assess pain levels, they would actually have to see the bones to know if they were mended properly. Definitely going to get so much worse.

Tag; cordelia regan smith

SOTD; HERE

[cordelia regan smith]

@zita

Was not wanting to work on humans yet a bad thing? Cordelia wasn’t sure if she was reading into Zita’s reactions too much or not. Unfortunately, jumping to conclusions like that happened all too often, and her roommate soon clarified what was obvious on her face. That kind of explanation definitely helped. Having the reassurance of practicing on humans meant that she would be more confident the next time around. It was similar to practicing counter-curses and anti-jinx spells; she had done those plenty of times without people knowing or asking for help. She found it easier to clear things up before they became a hindrance for her as well. Some of her classmates that she had seen put in the same position usually looked for some kind of gratitude. That wasn’t why she wanted to help people, and at the same time why she was terrified of working on a human. Having that face to face interaction meant receiving thanks, and all she wanted to do was help without having to talk. Clearly there had to be changes made to her personality before becoming a healer, if that kind of thing was even possible for her in the first place. Being talented was one half of it. Knowing how to handle a patient was the second. So far, that latter bit was giving her issues. “Th-That m-makes sense,” she nodded her head a few times to show that she understood what Zita was getting at with the practicing bit. Eventually it would have to happen, even she knew that.

So broken bones it was. Easy enough. She wasn’t sure if this was going to be gorier than the prior test or not. Broken bones on humans tended to stay where they were. This thing was dead though, and she was about to blast it with a rather strong spell just to make sure she actually snapped the bones. The thought alone made her stomach feel like it was going to lurch. Zita agreed that it would be a good idea to do that next, and then followed that up with a question about where she had practiced the spell before. That was simple. “On P-P-Professor Zh-Zhu,” Cordelia smiled, rather proud of herself for having fixed the professor’s broken wrist in one go back in December. That had certainly been a momentous occasion for her, and marked a record in healing a living being successfully.