Take The Liver Of A Toad Healers' Internship

𝓖etting beaten up all the time wasn't very hard to encounter for someone like Ruthless Fairchild. Vice versa, beating someone up occurred at least once a week. That is, back in Bath. Now at Hogwarts, the beloved school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, she was safe from violence (unless you counted the minorities such as the plants in the Greenhouse, the uncommon squabble with Sol, and maybe the wandering entities in the castle). This, however, did not include the reassurance of sustaining no further injuries and bruises that Ruth had to frequently worry about in the times of her childhood.

And while Potions had proved useful in teaching the young girl the many ways to treat herself with balms and paste, applying to become a Healer Intern proved to be no extra harm. She wanted to care for her body and respect its fragility, something Ruth had come to be aware of during the past few months due to...unfortunate events. Stepping through the double doors of the now familiar library, Ruth continued to shudder at the thought of her prior experience to fatal injury. Flashes of catatonic students and ugly, black goo. The world was spinning on an axis before the grass attempted to cushion her fall off her broom. Stars she saw in her eyes at a punch that had veered in the wrong direction. Funny how she could never entirely escape from wounding herself.

She smiled at a nearby House elf, bending down slightly to whisper into its ear of a book she wished to uncover, to which its vigorous nodding almost caused a giggle to bubble out of her, a sound that might have disturbed nearby students. Ruth watched it scatter away for a moment before darting back to her side swiftly, its hands clutching tightly onto a textbook with the words Spattergroit emblazoned on it. It had, to her dismay, a rather thin spine, a sight Ruth wouldn't consider herself to be familiar with. After all, the Badger's average page consumption per book was questionable. The sight of its compact composition was a disappointing sight that Ruth shoved down her throat as she bid the House elf a thanks and farewell.

Ruth glanced down at the book. Unlike the several other books Ruth had grazed her fingers across in that very library, this one looked like it had been touched recently, or at least, partially cleaned. She would suspect it to be another Healer Intern. After all, there was a limited number of topics to choose from, and as much as Ruth found the illness 'Umbridge-itis' to be amusing, it was unfortunately not a real ailment.

And so she brought herself to the corner where Aurelia and her would often sit at to work on their homework, sitting down before the empty seat across her before thumbing through the contents.

Spattergroit as a name had given the girl various assumptions of what it could be, considering its supposed etymology, including 'spatter' and 'groit', whatever groit meant. Spatter, however, means to cover with drops or spots of something, so-- "Perhaps it's similar to chicken pox?" Ruth murmured to herself as she leafed through the next several pages, coming across a graphic of what looked to be a figure covered in bulbous pustules, their mouth wide open in horror. She grimaced at the sight and proceeded to read through the content, the act of banishing the imagery from her head hopeless and futile.

Ruth learnt about its symptoms and causes, the most prominent being the unusually purple zits that grow on the victim's face. These were blisters that would leave scars on one's face after healing, and what was worse was the doomed inability to speak. She couldn't imagine being able to live with a disease like that, but maybe it would have been for the best. Often, her smart tongue got her more into trouble than out of it.

Turning over the next page, she found it increasingly hard to restrain her frown, one that was deepening by the moment. If Spattergroit was bad, Cerebrumous Spattergroit was worse. The symptoms described were severe confusion and memory loss, leading Ruth to wonder what it must feel like to be the victim. How delusional would she be? What would losing memories be like? There was a saying Ruth had heard her teacher say once-- "How you see things is how you perceive the world around you." If memories were to make up one's individuality, would losing memories cause the person to lose their sense of personal agency?

A description of a Cerebrumous Spattergroit outbreak vaguely reminded her of 1984, a book Ruth had taken the delight of reading through during the Christmas Holidays. How funny, for an entire population of wizards to forget that the Quidditch World Cup was taking place in 1877!

She stretched her back, hand rubbing her neck. It had been some time since she truly sat down and got some proper, independent reading done. The last time must have been four months ago. Attempting to push her chair back without so much as making the scraping, annoying noise, it was there did Ruth decided to come to the library more often.
End.