Emmeleia smiled again. "I wouldn't expect you to be versed in magical theory. To briefly explain, all cast magic involves a transfer of energy between the caster and the target. Well, true healing magic involves the displacement of negative energy from the sick or injured, but the nature of basic light magic will not allow the caster to be harmed by his own spell, so the negativity must be balanced within the magical core of the patient."
"Which is why potions are more commonly used in magical medicine than charms or spells," Hermione gushed. She went on to babble something about the dangers of weakening a patient being less with the relatively external magic of potions which have ingredients to act as catalysts instead of magical cores. Harry just wondered whether it was obvious to everyone else in the room that the majority of the conversation had sailed right over his head. Of course, he wasn't as lost as Rhiannon--she looked positively baffled, by then--but that was hardly to his credit.
Oh, well.
"True, true," Emmeleia agreed. "It all boils down to this: if the patient lacks a viable magical core, healing charms cannot access it to power the magic. Hence, they fail. However, the fascinating part in all this is that the effects seem to be immensely variable from person to person. The theory seems to be that every person, whether magical, magically-impaired, or non-magical, does have some degree of magical core within them--it's a matter of degrees of magic as opposed to all or none."
Harry had heard this theory before--of course it was considered very liberal and controversial, and the pureblood students at school had openly sneered at it, Draco included. Curious what his brother might think of it now, Harry glanced over and saw him giving Rhiannon a look of intense contemplation.
At that, Harry had to suppress a groan. He really, really hoped Draco wasn't going to go back into the mindset of Rhiannon being some kind of witch, after all!
"Öand so some of our students here are responsive to some magical charms and others only to potions and others to a combination of non-magical and magical methods and a few to nothing but non-magical medicine. I, myself, fall a bit in the middle. My sterilization surgery was completely non-magical, but I take potions to maintain my hormonal and emotional health."
Hermione let out a strangled gasp, just then. When Harry turned her way, she looked more than a little ill.
Noticing the attention, she stiffened and stammered, "I'm very sorry. I don't mean to be rude . . . I'm just surprised that a woman so clearly non-prejudiced as yourself would choose to have that sort of surgery. Unless, if was for a medical reason, of course."
Emmeleia smiled sadly and moved to stand with her hands clasped behind her back. Her voice was husky when she spoke. "I was sterilized solely so that I could never give birth to a magically-impaired child. I had the surgery willingly at the time, but I was only thirteen years old and was pressured into it by my family and their social circles. I was completely convinced that what I was doing was the responsible and moral choice for wizarding society.
"Obviously, I do not feel the same way now that I'm an adult. I would never, ever coerce any person to deny themselves the right to have children no matter what levels of magical ability might be involved." She shook her head sadly. "At the same time, I can't condemn those of us who don't want to take the chance of cursing their children with a more challenging, painful life."
To Harry, the mood in the room couldn't have been darker if Dementors where tapping at the windows. He was starting to get a headache from it all and he noticed that Hermione was actually sniffling a bit. Draco and Rhiannon also looked more than a little sombre.
Pasting a bright smile on her face, the tan-skinned squib brushed off her white skirt and stood. "Well, I managed to turn the conversation deadly, didn't I?"
"Pardon?" Draco asked.
"Hmmm, oh sorry, Canadian thing, means I got a bit carried away with the serious stuff. Let's all go to my office for a bit, shall we? I've got some biscuits there and sodas in the mini-fridge."
As they trooped off behind her, Harry couldn't help but mull over the previous conversation. He'd never really thought much about squibs and magical genetics; it had always seemed to him that worrying about such things at all was a very Slytherin, prejudiced way to think.
Predictably, Draco had scoffed and called his attitude typical Gryffindor idiocy. "Don't you realize, Potter?" he had asked, months earlier. "It's not snobbery at all. It's concern about the well-being of our children. You rant and rant about how unimportant blood is, but you didn't like it much when you didn't have magic, did you? Well, how would you feel if you knew you'd done that to your own child?"
Harry was a little ashamed now to realise that he'd never bothered to consider how difficult life would be for a wizarding child born without magic--having all that wonder surrounding them but being cut off from it. He found his arms itching just a bit, but managed to resist scratching them in front of the others. Maybe if he could nip off to the loo for a bit, though . . . No, no. Harry shook his head, trying to clear all those thoughts away.
Useless, the lot of them. He couldn't let himself get drawn into doing that again, no matter how tempting it might seem, at times. He just couldn't. His father would be so disappointed in him. Though of course, he knew what Marsha would say to that. He knew what she had said, the few times Harry had voiced a similar thought. You must do things for your own sake, not for the sake of others, Harry, she would gently advise, her hands clasped together as she leaned forward in her chair. You won't truly stop self-injury entirely, not until you're doing it for yourself.
And yeah, Harry could see that she had a point. Well, sort of. He also thought she didn't really understand how much he loved Snape. He didn't go on about it, after all, though he had talked a lot about how tough it had been growing up without a father, and how Uncle Vernon really, really hadn't counted.
Shaking his head again, Harry realised he'd been wool-gathering for several minutes, by then. He'd barely even noticed when they'd reached Emmeleia's office, and he definitely didn't remember sitting down. Bit scary, really, that he'd lost track like that. Harry made an effort to focus again, grateful to hear that Emmeleia had finally got off the topic of magical bloodlines.
" . . . Yes, Millwood School," she was saying. "In the province of Quebec. My great-grandmother insisted on sending me there and it was absolutely brilliant. Canada and the States have a much better educational system for magical/non-magical integration. I've emulated Millwood here, as much as I can considering this facility is administered through an adjunct office of the Ministry."
Harry had heard all about Millwood School the first time they'd visited. He had to admit one thing: a Muggle boarding school that secretly catered to squibs sounded like a good idea to him. Well, in some ways.
"So then . . ." Emmeleia swivelled her chair to face the wall behind her, and began to rummage in the small-sized refrigerator she had mentioned. "Orange? Strawberry? Grape? I'm afraid I don't have anything except fruit-flavoured sodas just now."
"Anything in the diet range?" asked Hermione, a little bit primly.
"Don't tell me you actually like Diet Coke," said Draco, giving her a look of mock-horror at the mere idea.
Hermione made a face. "No, but you should hear my parents talk about sugary sodas and tooth decay."
"I think I'll skip that, thanks."
Draco was grinning as he said it, though, like all he'd meant was that he got enough lectures at home--though granted, not usually about his teeth. But anyway, he hadn't been making a slur about her parents being Muggles, and Harry could tell that Hermione got that. She grinned right back.