He stood, walked over, and quickly glanced over the wand. Nothing appeared to be wrong with it. "That is bizarre," he admitted. "I've never seen anything quite like this. I don't know if I can say one way or another if it's contagious, but..."
He trailed off, thinking back. About this week, the minor problems he'd dealt with throughout it. And the one great big one he'd solved days earlier.
He almost slapped himself in the face. Of course--so obvious, why hadn't it occurred to him earlier?
But just the same, he could be wrong. And even if he was right at pinning down the inciting incident, that didn't necessarily mean it was or wasn't contagious.
Gerard shook himself, bringing himself back to the situation. He was already forming a plan in his head, but containment--that was key, first and foremost. "I know that it's not going to be much fun, but I'm going to have to take you down to the infirmary. If this is contagious we can't risk any of the other professors catching it. We'll likely need all the help we can get suppressing it, and if you have the same symptoms as the students, and it seems like you do, then when we do figure out how to fix it we'll need you all in one place."