Lucy watched him carefully, noting the momentary pain fleeting across his face. She knew he must not be feeling very well, but Lucy couldn't be sure that Nikolas would want any sort of help from her. Some boys were like that, you know? They could take care of themselves. She returned the smile, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear.
"I do hope so," she told him. "Otherwise Madame Pomfrey didn't do a very good job of fixing you."
She shifted in her spot for a moment as Nikolas approached the various texts on the floor. She followed him to the spot, momentarily crouching down to pick up a particularly large one - it was a collection of journals documenting various transformations.
"It's important to understand how easy it is for things to go wrong," she told him before pointing to a particularly strange diagram. "This one is of a silly bloke stuck between human and eagle. See the way his left eye is all black and beady? A bit creepy, isn't it? Apparently it took St. Mungo's months to sort him out."