William already had questions. First and foremost among them was what precisely Gabe was reading with a sub-chapter heading of On stoppyng up the sweate glandes, which causeth a painfull deathe by the cookying of the bodie. He could only guess it had to do with attempting to erect wards, as he was doing, and was abruptly, fervently glad he'd decided to risk the awkwardness of asking Gabe for help, rather than experimenting on himself alone.
It took him long enough to digest the letter Gabe had offered that he absently pulled his wand out in the middle of reading to Transfigure a chair for Gabe on the other side of his desk. Any longer and he thought Gabe might do as he had always done in the past, draping himself over William's desk and playing with whatever happened to be within arm's reach as he grinned down at William behind the counter. Or he wouldn't at all, which might be even worse. William wasn't sure he knew how to deal with either right now.
"So in essence," he said slowly, after he'd read the letter twice and made mental notes on the dozen things he didn't fully understand, "the reason so many people use inanimate objects as protective charms is because drawing the boundaries of organic material is next to impossible. Either it's too fragile and the ward breaks as soon as something passes through the skin, or it functions like a suit of armor, making the physical body itself an inanimate object incapable of surviving. We need a flexible, permeable ward, bound to the skin, which recognizes an entire body as its boundary and recognizes organic functions. One which can allow magical energy to be expelled and absorbed by differentiating between spells cast by or on the person bound by it, and the effects of Dark magic as defined by the potion itself attempting to pass through the ward."
Well. When he'd decided to take this on as a pet project, he certainly hadn't chosen an easy task.