Unseen and under the cloak, Casey was shivering. His hands were across his mouth both for feeble warmth that his haggard breath provided and to deafen the chattering of his teeth, lest it be a tell tale sign. It also stopped his hands from exploring when he already knew how his body would feel different. It would only be a few minutes to get to the castle, to somewhere warm and private. Running through his options he would quickly have Dingy fetch an emergency healing kit, a Pepper-up Potion would warm him up, then task the elf towards a remedy for the missing amulet business. That jointly kept Dingy away from the castle in case anyone tried to interrogate the status of his master out of him.
The numbness in his extremities contributed to the hollow feeling in Casey's bones, as if his current state was unreal. But it was real and the moment Casey took time to rest it would hurt like hell, once the pain receptors in his nerves finally made an alert. There were, luckily, plenty of places to hide unnoticed in the castle and Casey had discovered a few useful for past solitudes.
The question was how long he would have to wait for someone to notice. Would Nadge notice from her hut? Even still, the gimpy legged healer would be slow to hobble in this weather. How many people would look outside the castle at the right moment to notice the red sparks? That brought forth paranoid thoughts, in the slim chances of anyone recognizing two students falling in the lake and then lying on the dock, with one disappearing on the spot...
No one came from the castle but coming from the direction of the path to the gate was Professor Storm. What had he been doing out of the grounds? Deputy headmaster duties, probably. Did you need to know the location of the recipient of a patronus message for it to work? Casey had been imagining Storm to be in his office when he had made his attempt.
Whatever the circumstances this was fortunate. Storm would know exactly what to do in this situation. Which, unfortunately, meant that Casey was really going to half to think up a clever enough cover story for later. The foreboding and guilt made him miss scrutiny of the professor's own successful patronus messenger as the weathered Irish phoenix flew off.
That was Alvis taken care of. Casey had to tend to himself before exposure and exhaustion staged a coup. His hands gripped inside the cloak as he looked down to make sure his feet were still covered, ready to hightail it to the castle. That's when he noticed the red sparks, littering around his feet like still burning embers. Like breadcrumbs.
[1] Blazes, the last thing he needed was more uncontrolled magic from his wand, and this his new one and not the original.
Casey managed to stop the flow of lingering sparks from his wand as he made his retreat as quickly as he was able.
[Nov 22] An Unexpected Emergency Wash-Up