"Now, what are you doing awake again?" Gerard scolded gently, brushing the little girl's sweaty bangs off her forehead. Feverish again, dammit. He accioed over a glass of the willow-hellebore-peppermint concoction he'd created last night and helped Elsie sit up.
"I know it's nasty, sweetheart," he whispered ruefully when she made a face and looked at him with huge beseeching brown eyes. "But it'll help, I promise. It's got Whomping Willow bark in it, which tastes disgusting, right? But the stuff that makes it disgusting is what makes it work, the salicylic acid part." Elsie looked at the cup suspiciously and Gerard grinned at her. "It's not the kind of acid that burns! Even Muggles use it to help stop fevers, isn't that cool?" Elsie nodded at him gravely and began taking small sips, watching Gerard as he dried and warmed her sweaty sleeping bag with a few quick spells. "Of course, Muggle willows don't produce as powerful an acid as wizarding willows," he continued. "I've always wondered how they're related, Whomping Willows and regular willows. We should ask Professor Smith later, huh?"
"That would be nice," Elsie said sleepily, finishing the rest of the drink. Gerard exchanged the empty cup for a chunk of a Honeydukes hazelnut-honey bar. He'd been trying to conserve the supply of chocolate they had, but she deserved a reward -- most of the older students were being huge babies about drinking the bitter mixture, holding their noses and trying to stealthily pour it out on the floor, which was just a fucking waste, especially when they didn't have much medicine to start with.
Elsie nibbled the chocolate daintly as Gerard checked her bandages and tried to keep a calm expression on his face. The wounds wouldn't stay healed. Why the fuck wouldn't they stay healed? Some of the students seemed to be holding up better than the others, only running low-grade fevers and getting red, itchy patches where their wounds had been. He thought it might have something to do with the deepness of the bites and how quickly they'd been cleaned and packed with Dreamvine. Poor Elsie had had to wait over an hour to receive any kind of treatment, and she was just so tiny. Maybe extra honey, and a reparo spell instead of salvio? That might do something. Gerard was ready to try anything.
"Auror Way?" Elsie said tenatively, and Gerard looked up from casting another scourgify on the raw, green-tinged patch of skin.
"Did that hurt?" he asked anxiously, fumbling for one of his markers to draw a few more ice crystals onto her shoulder. "It shouldn't have hurt, but if it did I can fix it right away--"
"No, it's not that," Elsie said, biting her lower lip. Gerard relaxed a bit and got started coaxing the wound closed again. "It's Joo-Eun, I-- have you seen her, sir? I haven't seen her. She was supposed to meet me in the Great Hall at dinner, and I haven't seen her." Her voice got suspiciously wavery towards the end, and when Gerard looked up her eyes were bright with tears.
"Hey, now, none of that!" Gerard said reassuringly, plastering a fresh bandage over her arm and adding extra spiderwebs -- maybe that would help keep the skin knitted together a bit longer, but fuck if he knew at this point. "I'm sure she's fine," he said, moving down to check her ankle. Shit, that bite had re-opened too. "She's probably in the library, right? Professor Smith said there were a bunch of students in there with Mr. Beckett. I'll send a message and check later, but you have to promise to stop worrying and get some rest, okay?"
Elsie calmed a bit at this, nodding sleepily at him as he finished patching up her leg and tucked her back in. Once she closed her eyes, Gerard sat back on his heels. He had no idea if Joo-Eun was in the library, and no idea where to start looking if she wasn't -- maybe in the Ravenclaw tower? He hoped so. The thought of a first-year trapped alone somewhere in the castle made him feel like ripping something to shreds.