The grass was cool under Blossom's feet and his ruined footwear dangled over his shoulder by the laces.  He was frequently barefoot at home so walking from the school to the hospital hut wasn't any kind of a hardship.  The pain of the blisters wasn't what he would call unbearable.  Stepping on a piece of broken glass while helping the Gryffindor find his wand hadn't helped anything, however.  He was leaving a very small blood trail on his way to the healer's hut.

To call the place a hut was to do the building a disservice.  It was enormous, far more like a chalet or larger cottage than a hut.  Blossom knocked on the door and stepped inside, trying not to get blood everywhere.  "Hello?  Professor Storm told me to come out here and get my feet taken care of.  There was an accident in defense against the dark arts."



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Tulojow looked up from the pile of just-dried towels as the door creaked open and the young first year stumbled in, almost literally.  The boy's injuries didn't seem immediately life threatening so Tulojow finished folding the towel in her hand and set it on the stack before crossing the main room towards the young man. 

"Why am I not surprised?" Tulojow asked, her voice nothing but bright and amused.  Second day of classes and Ignan was already sending her work.  The young man didn't seem immediately familiar; she didn't remember him from previous years and, therefore, assumed he was a first year.  She knew better than to try to carry the lad - even on their death beds, most young men insisted on some level of self-reliance but she did offer the young man her arm to take as much of his weight as he'd allow and helped him over to one of the cushioned chairs by the fire. 

"Don't worry about the floors, dear.  They're easy enough to clean.  So - care to share how this came about?  I presume this was a magical accident?  Do you remember what spell was used?"

"It was supposed to be the expelliarmus spell but somehow fire got involved," Blossom replied, taking the offered arm.  "It blew my shoes off and set fire to my socks."  He held up the ruined shoes.  "Then I had to go outside to find something that had gotten knocked through a window and I stepped on broken glass.  That's where the blood is from.  Professor Storm did something to numb the pain and told me to come here after class."

He settled into one of the chairs by the fire.  It reminded him of the chairs in his father's study.  He'd always felt quite adult sitting in them.

Tulojow nodded.  "What kind of fire?" Tulojow asked, summoning a small stool with her wand and taking a seat, her knee crackling in protest as she did so.  "Did the fire actually originate in a fireplace or was it magic in origin?  Or ... did the fire actually come from the expelliarmus charm?"  That would have been strange, if that was the case.  From Tulojow's experience, the disarming charm didn't usually have the side effect of making things spontaneously combust.  But, stranger things had happened on account of magic. 

The cut from the glass would be easy enough to handle.  She took a close look at the cuts from the glass, simultaneously checking for any lingering shards and any reaction from the young man that would give her an idea of the strength or integrity of what Ignan had used to numb the lad's feet. 

"The fire came from nowhere, so it was magical,"  Blossom said.  "It was white.  I think Lucy was angry when she cast the spell."  He twitched slightly as Madame Nagde probed the cuts on his foot.  The spell professor Storm had cast had dulled the pain of the burns but it hadn't had any affect on the cuts.  Then again, he hadn't returned to class before heading to the hospital hut.

"My spell cut her hand, so I guess she just reacted."  He didn't blame Lucy.  Neither one of them was really in control of their magic yet.

"And, you didn't hear her use any incantation?" Tulojow asked for verification.  Accidental magical 'misfires' were to be expected among first years.  Control came with practice.  But, it also wasn't unheard of for first years (or older years) to repeat spells they'd heard parents or older siblings use.  White flames narrowed down the options but it wasn't definitive so, unless the young man had heard this Lucy use an incantation, Tulojow would be restricted to universal treatments. 

"Is Lucy alright?" Tulojow asked after hearing of the girl's own cuts as she drew her own wand.  She gestured towards the young man's knees, magically blocking the nerves and numbing the lad's legs from the mid calf.   
 
"It sounds like it was an interesting class.  Did anyone actually succeed in disarming their partners?  By parting them from their wand, I mean." 

"A lot of us did,"  Blossom answered, mildly concerned about the sudden numbness in his leg.  The healer had to know what she was doing, otherwise she wouldn't be here.  "That's how the window got broken.  One of the Gryffindors cheated and knocked one of the girls down, so I disarmed him so hard that his wand went through the window.  I'm surprised that I'm the only one here.  It was a pretty rough class."

Blossom looked at his ruined shoes.  "Would it help if you looked at my shoes?  They got burned pretty badly.  Maybe that would tell you what sort of fire was used."  He didn't expect Madame Nagde to be able to learn much from his shoes but he was hoping that she might fix them for him.  They were the only pair he owned and they were well past being wearable.  He was just too proud to ask, at least at that particular moment.

Poor Ignan.  And, the rest of the professors.  If one of their first classes proved to be 'a rough class,' it sounded like this group of first years was going to give the previous group a run for their money.  They'd probably be debating years from now which incoming class should have caused more eye-rolls when they first walked into the castle.  "Well, at least you all learned something,"  Tulojow took a close look at the offered shoes.  They, indeed, provided insight and clues but nothing definitive enough to use a spell-specific anti-curse or antidote. 

But, she'd spent enough years doing field triage work.  Most of the time, in the field, you didn't know what you were up against - especially since the majority of the time the patient was unconscious and the Healer was rarely present for the initial attack.  She pushed herself once more to her feet and moved over to a cupboard to gather supplies.  "Retaliations do have a tendency to spin out of control and bite you in the rear when you least expect them to.  Perhaps, in the future, it might be worth leaving it to the Professor to address other students' cheating.  I'm sure you know the old saying about two wrongs.  Leaving it to Professor Storm, at least, would have saved you from stepping on the very glass you broke." 

"But he cheated!" Blossom exclaimed.  "He was a Gryffindor and he cheated, like he was trying to impress the Slytherins or something.  That's why I stepped up to him and showed him that he couldn't get away with it and wasn't going to be able to do the same thing to anyone else, especially one who was prepared for him.  I'm a Pureblood and I know you're not supposed to cheat with magic.  What was I supposed to do, let him get away with it?  I'm not even sure the professor saw it.  I had to tell him that my shoes were on fire on the other side of the room.  He hadn't even seen them burst into flame."

Professor Storm had dropped Annette off at the Hospital Hut, turned around and left. She could barely breathe and blood flooded from her mouth with every exhale. She struggled up the stairs, her vision was funny too. "Two more steps, one more step" Annette urged herself onwards, wheezing and hacking as she went. Finally she reached the door and promptly wretched over the banister. The pain in her chest was excruciating.

She rapped her knuckles on the door, hoping Madame Nagde was there. She had met the healer just yesterday when Alice had broken her nose. "Please, oh, please, oh please be here" Annette wanted t collapse there on the spot, but she had to stay awake, for a few more moments anyway. She held her stomach, waiting for the door to open.

"What does him being a Gryffindor have to do with it?" Tulojow asked, adding spoonfuls of various pastes and herbs into a bowl.  There were elements of the young man's defense that troubled her; this was clearly going to be a young man that needed to be watched.  He used house placement and blood purity as justifications for his actions and his actions seemed to be fueled by a self-appointed role of class sheriff.  "Do you believe it would have been appropriate for one of the other Gryffindors to then cast a hex on you for attacking one of theirs?" 

"It wasn't your place to decide when and how to retaliate," Tulojow answered, calmly.  "It was the Professor's classroom and it should have been left up to him to decide how to deal with rule breaking.  In the future, if you find yourself in that situation, you should alert your Professor to what's going on and let him handle it." 

At the sound of knocking, Tulojow left the half-mixed salve and opened the door to find the young Hufflepuff on the other side.  Quickly, Tulojow extended a hand to help the girl into the cabin and over to a chair so she could sit down.  "Are you the one who got knocked over by the Gryffindor?" Tulojow hazard to guess.  "Do either of you recall what spell he used?"

Blossom flushed crimson.  "He was a Gryffindor.  He was supposed to be brave but he did something cowardly by taking advantage," he exclaimed.  Her suggested response was even more ludicrous than her idea that he'd done the wrong thing.  "So you want me to be a snitch, rather than do what any gentlemen would?  I saw what happened.  The professor didn't.  If the Gryffindor denied it, it would have been my word against his."

He tried to stand to help the healer with Annette but the numbness in his leg made it impossible for him to stand properly, let alone walk.  He sat back down.

"It was just an expeliarmus ," he said.  "She didn't have her wand out though."