Diseases

[thegirllikeme]

For my story, I have a character that I need to - how do I put this delicately? - kill off. It's a good character and I don't want to involve murder - so I decided that a deadly disease would be the best. I want to give this char cancer, only I don't know if that's possible. I know that wizards live longer than Muggles - but does it say in canon that they are more immune to sicknesses. I'm not sure. So do you think it's possible for a wizard/witch to get and die from cancer? If not, any suggestions for other sicknesses, or other ways to see this character to their untimely death?

Also, if I do decide on cancer, how do you think wizards would treat it? Not the Muggle way, obviously, but how about potions that though it can not cure cancer, it can prolong death and insure as much comfort as possible?

One last question, would this person be allowed to go to Hogwarts, because they want to live life as normal as possible? I inclined to think that Dumbledore would allow it, since Severus and Pompfrey might be able to provide treatment.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[PadfootnPeeves]

Well, they can get dragonpox, as Slughorn was talking about in HBP. Other ideas would be:
-dragon bites
-snake bites
-scrofungulus (contagius)
-vansihing sickness (contagius)
-werewolf bite
-spattergroit

There's other quirky things that your character could get, so you can look in OOTP or go to http://www.hp-lexicon.org/magic/medical.html which is where I got the ideas.

(Oh, and you said you need to kill off a character. It's not someone from the Shiloh story, is it? I hope it's nobody good! I wouldn't mind Annadel getting killed off :p )

Hope I helped, dear!

[xpadfootsangelx]

Dragon Pox would be a pretty easy way to go, I would think. Spattergroit would be good, but they would have some major...beauty problems. It would take a lot for one of these diseases to kill someone unless it was really strong. What if they got a rare food poisoning or an accidental poisoning? That could be a good idea, too.

[untitlednine]

If they were given cancer, you could try vanishing the cancer, and have it end up multiplying.

I reckon vanishing sickness would rock.

But does dragon pox actually kill you? Didn't Doge or whatever his name was have it when he met Dumbledore?

What about having them make an antidote, and it becoming an anti-don't. That poster totally rocks:D

[LucillaJoanna]

There seem to be precious little that Wizarding medicine cannot aid. Only Dark curses and poisons are deadly and irreversible.

Also, I imagine that wizarding blood, even diluted by Muggle blood, is somehow fortified against cancers and other degenerative diseases. Dragonpox seems to be a wizarding bug only deadly in old wizards.

If spattergroit is correctly 'acted out' by Ron in DH, then it is quite too horrible for the patient to still be able, and even want to, go to school.

What is your timeline? If this is during the era when Death Eaters have a rallying hero in Voldy, you can always use the good ol' AK from any one of them, the character can be caught in a crossfire, etc. And then of course, you can invent a Dark object with a Dark curse which your character accidentally touches and slowly, and even unknowingly, succumbs to.

[SiriuslyMental]

I believe that JKR said Dragon Pox could be deadly. I swore she killed someone off vaguely with it.

[xpadfootsangelx]

Yeah, I agree. I'm sure she killed someone off with it. I think it can be really exteme or mild. Also, I think it gets worse as you get older.

Like the flu or a fever-they can be mild and you can have it for a day, but zillions have died.

[thegirllikeme]

Thanks for the info, but I can't use dragonpox for two reasons. #1: It's contagious. #2: There's no possible way this person could hide it from their friends.

I suppose accidental death might work, though I really wanted this person to sort of know they're was dying, just to add a bit to their character. It's almost important that this person know, but if worst came to worst, I might be able to work in an accidental death. Only, there's no way to do that. I don't want this person to be poisoned, because of something else that happens later in this story. The story is set during CoS, so there's not Death Eater attacks or anything. Besides, it has to be a small death, not something that would be whispered around the school. I just don't want a lot of people to know about it, so no, the basilisk is not going to kill this person.

So...I have no idea for that.

I still happen to think the best thing would be cancer, but the last thing I want is for it to seem cliche and out of canon. I know it would be extraordinary rare for a wizard to contract something like this - but impossible? I'm not so sure. I also believe it might affect a wizard different. Take longer to kill them, or whatever. But is is impossible? That's what I'm not sure of and I don't know whether, based in what we see an canon whether is impossible or at least remotely logical if I took a different approach to it.

So anymore opinions?

[cmwinters]

Abraxas Malfoy (Draco's paternal grandfather) died of Dragonpox. I believe Slughorn's exact words were "Dragonpox at his age . . ." and was shaking his head sadly.

Quite frankly, to me it sounded like a magically enhanced form of Chickenpox. Which is known to be deadly in Muggle adults, but relatively mild for Muggle children.

I wouldn't go with cancer, personally. You might be able to use a deadly allergic reaction to something. I don't know what the character's background is: if they're Muggleborn it could be a magical creature they're allergic to or even an ingredient in a potion. If they're pureblood (or even just brought solely up in the Wizarding World, the way Hermione's children would likely be), they could have an allergic reaction to something a Muggleborn or half-blood brings in from the Muggle world (you know, like a perfume or something). Especially if the allergy manifests itself in a way that whoever is treating it thinks they have something else, and gives them something that exacerbates the allergy. (You know, they start with a runny nose and someone gives them Pepper-Up thinking it's a cold, but the Pepper-Up actually causes the allergen to speed through their bloodstream or something, and then they get really sick and Madam Pomfrey or Professor Snape are called in but they can't stop the progression?)

Can they, perhaps, choke on their food? That they weren't supposed to be eating, in the middle of the night or something?

[harry_victoria]

Chante', m'dear, you're in the same sticky situation that I'm in. My story also involves one of the characters getting cancer.

If the person that you're giving the disease to is muggleborn or has any Muggle heritage in their family tree, it would be possible. I'm not too sure that a pureblood (ie. any of the Malfoy family or the Weasleys') would be immune to this disease. Hermione, out of all of the characters, seems to be the person that people write about. I've never really seen one about anyone else.

I'd like to reccomend some stories for you to read to help you out a bit with this:

- The Unexplained Files by Ron x Hermione
- After the Rainfall (or any of those by her) by MJ_Padfoot

Good luck to both of us!

-victoria

[MarauderMaiden]

Cancer in wizards is something I think that would exist, because wizards and Muggles have the same basic makeup- they're all humans, after all. However, I think that they would call it by another name (probably because when it first showed up in wizards, the Pureblood maniacs wanted to sever all ties with Muggles). Or maybe they aren't sure what causes the death when the wizard in question has cancer, so they make something up, like "So-and-so probably died from Mad Hippogriff Disease," etc. I'm not sure how well they can autopsy those who've died, so maybe that wouldn't even be a possibility, but I think that it's surely possible that cancer is not a well -known disease in the wizarding world.


I can't really think of anything else that would have the character waste away without her friends knowing, so you're right, cancer is probably your best bet. Maybe she is Muggleborn or Half-blood, so she knows what she is dying from, but her friends wouldn't really notice unless they really read into it.


Hope that this helped a little! Good luck with your fic, I hope everything works out! :D

[PadfootnPeeves]

For cancer, you can, like someone else said, just make up a new name for it. You could translate it into another language, or write it backwarsd so it looks different. Most people won't recognize it- it took me years to figure out that the Mirror of Erised's script was backwards :)

If the cancer thing doesn't work out, you could have the character be poisoned. If they had one of those longer poisons that kill more slowly, then they would (obviously) know they were dying. And they could keep it a secret if they wanted; they could just say they had a fever or whatnot.

[thegirllikeme]

Cancer in wizards is something I think that would exist, because wizards and Muggles have the same basic makeup- they're all humans, after all. However, I think that they would call it by another name (probably because when it first showed up in wizards, the Pureblood maniacs wanted to sever all ties with Muggles). Or maybe they aren't sure what causes the death when the wizard in question has cancer, so they make something up, like "So-and-so probably died from Mad Hippogriff Disease," etc. I'm not sure how well they can autopsy those who've died, so maybe that wouldn't even be a possibility, but I think that it's surely possible that cancer is not a well -known disease in the wizarding world.

That was actually my idea, that it would be what the Muggles called cancer, but the wizards would call it by a different name and it would be so rare that no one had really studied it enough to find a cure for it. I figured that at the beginning of wizards, this disease probably wasn't around, but as they started marrying Muggles it would have started. This person, though, is mainly pureblood (both their parents are wizards, but it wouldn't be too much trouble to work Muggle blood into their genes. Everyone, except perhaps the Slytherins, had Muggle blood in them somewhere). Of course, the disease would be rare, and probably would effect wizards differently - so basically I would make it into a slightly new disease, based on cancer. I just don't know if I should or not. It's really not canon either way.

However, I will probably either do this alteration of cancer or do a completely new disease to fit into canon, something that only wizard's can contract, that isn't contagious, etc. etc. I just don't know which one would be best.

More opinions are welcome.

[SiriuslyMental]

EVERYONE has Muggle in them. Even the Malfoys. Even Voldemort.

I like the idea of renaming cancer.

[vampitude]

If you do end up renaming cancer, be sure to make several obvious ties to it so all your readers get it.

You don't always have to use a real disease. What if she didn't even know what the disease was? That way it would be impossible to treat anyways.


Rose