Closed Physical Problems for Once Jack Burnett

Though Jack constantly made an effort to look like he was slacking off in class, that didn't mean he wasn't paying attention. Instead of directing his focus on the professor and his lecture, however, the Slytherin found himself wondering about his housemate. She often looked tired due to her insomnia, but today she seemed even worse than usual.

He blinked when she sat down next to him, not even giving him a glance, and watched as she attempted to stare ahead at the front of the room. Her gaze might have been forward, but her mind was elsewhere; at least by the look in her eyes. He didn't think it was his business to say anything, however, not really in the mood to get snapped at, until he heard a wooden clatter on the floor and noticed Opeila had dropped her wand right after attempting to perform one of the more simple spells.

Leaning over slightly, he watched as she bent down to retrieve the wand, moving her leg to assist her in reclaiming it. Though he couldn't see her face, he noticed her body tense and was familiar enough with such tension to recognize physical pain when he saw it. Was that the leg she'd been bitten on before...? It had already been a while since the spider attack, though. Shouldn't it have been healed by then?

"Seilun, are you not feeling well?" he asked, his tone a mix of concern and sternness. Why couldn't anyone take enough responsibility for themselves to take better care of their health? How difficult would it have been to just ask to go to the Hospital Wing? Some people were so obnoxiously stubborn...and somehow, Jack felt like he ended up being the babysitter for them all.

Noticing her perspiration, he reached out to delicately feel her forehead with the back of his hand. It was uncomfortably warm.

"Excuse me, Professor," Jack said, shooting his hand up and speaking without really waiting to be called on. "I think Seilun's got a fever. She can't even hold her wand properly. Can I help her to the Hospital Wing, please?"

@Opeila Seilun

Opeila would not snap at anyone, she didn't have the energy for that right now. She was thankful and annoyed at the same time, that she happened to sit next to Burnett, who of course would notice that sonething was wrong. Opeila wasn't surprised at all.

When she bent down to pick up her wand and the pain shot through her leg, she heard him asking if she was not feeling well.
Opeila had underestimated this, she had just thought nothing about the lighter pain that came up the days before and this was the price she paid for not listening to the signs her body sent her.
The Slytherin lightly shook her head. "I... I don't think so. Something is wrong...", she murmured, looking at her leg. It was still black like it had been before, nothing changed, Opeila was sure of that.
Then why... For a second she had an image in her head, that appeared almost as fast. She couldn't say what it was, but something had happened after the attack. Her tormented mind had just pushed it all in a corner and sealed it away. She had to remember, what happened in the hospital wing... It had all been some sort of blur...

Opeila didn't protest when Jack first felt her forehead with the back of his hand and then asked the professor if he could take her to the hospital wing. She knew he was right, something was going on, and if that really came from the venom, then it was a curse. Nothing she wanted to have inside her any longer.

@Jack Burnett

Opeila's lack of comment or comeback after simply confirming something was wrong worried Jack all the more, especially when she didn't try to move away from his hand. Nor did she give any other indication like he had expected her to that she thought he was being rude, inappropriate, or otherwise obnoxious by ignoring her personal boundaries. Once the professor had given his permission, the Slytherin boy thanked him, immediately got to his feet, and moved to assist Opeila out of her chair, offering her an arm or shoulder to lean on if she needed it.

"What's the matter? It's more than just a fever, isn't it?" he asked, thinking about her leg. "How long has this been going on? When did it start? And can you walk?"

If it really did have something to do with her previous spider bite, as he was starting to suspect, then he felt somewhat at a loss. He hadn't stayed at the Hospital Wing after he'd delivered Arlo there the night of the spider attack; he'd been too sleepy. Instead, he'd gone back to his dorm room and promptly attempted to scavenge whatever sleep he still could get from the remnants of night.

Since it had been about a week ago, Jack had assumed that all the students who had been bitten were cured with whatever magical remedies the Hospital Wing staff had concocted. Magic should have made it simple and easy, right? So why, then, was there some lingering effect? Were all the other bitten students experiencing this or just Opeila? Was it possible they were just still healing?

Well, the sooner they got to the Hospital Wing, the better. No doubt the adults there would have a better grasp about what had happened and what was currently happening to the brunette Slytherin girl.

@Opeila Seilun

Opeila would not snap at anyone at this point, she was way too grateful for whatever help she got now. The pain she felt now scared the hell out of her.
The Slytherin hardly had a moment where she wasn't scared after all that happened, but this was a different fear. No enemy to fight, no threat from the outside. Opeila was never good at biology, she didn't have a lot of knowledge over the human body and different symptoms, what made her feel even more helpless. Was she dying? Was her leg killing her now?
She totally felt like it.

It was that thought, that only gave her the strength to pull herself off the chair and up, one hand on the desk, the other clasping Jack's arm. Immediately she lost her balance and caught herself on his shoulder.
"W... What on earth...", she murmured, pressing her eyes shut for a moment, but it didn't make the dizziness go away like she hoped.

It took her a few seconds to process what Jack was asking her. The words were spinning in her head, almost like a puzzle she first had to solve before understanding. "I... there were... little waves of pain from time to time. I thought they were normal..." Her hands, which still held on tightly to his arm and shoulder, were shaking, the Slytherin was so scared to fall...
What is happening to me? she wanted to ask, but who? Jack wouldn't know, would he?

With another short wave of pain in her leg, a thought appeared in her head, a memory. A different pain, suddenly getting way worse... The silhouette of a person next to her hospital bed. Black hair...

"Hospital wing. Someone was there that night. They... They did something to my leg and it hurt...", she said in a confused, almost surprised tone.
Did someone poison her? The thought came out of nowhere, but made her fear grow immensely. Something killing her from the inside seemed way scarier than being killed from something outside.

@Jack Burnett

When his housemate tried and failed to stand, Jack quickly moved to try to support her better as she also made an effort to catch herself. If she couldn't even stand properly, it was likely going to be a long journey to the Hospital Wing. If he wasn't so physically weak, he might have offered to try to carry her. As things were, though, he thought it more likely his efforts would send them both sprawling down staircases if he tried. Best to just help support her weight at her side as best he could.

"What is it?" he asked again more urgently than before. He wasn't even sure if she could answer him properly anymore. Maybe she had a headache or was light-headed or dizzy; something messing with her head."Is it your legs that you just can't stand or walk on? Or is there more to it than that? I know you're in a lot of pain, Seilun, but I need to learn as much as I can if I'm going to help." Or if the school nurses were. Maybe it was just better if she tried to tell them herself. It wasn't like he'd be much good trying to pass off information like that second-hand anyway.

"On second thought, just keep talking to me," Jack said, realizing it was more important to keep her as conscious as he could. She would have to remain awake on their way to their destination if he didn't want to try having to carry her to get her there. "But for your information...consistent 'waves of pain', however frequent or infrequent, most definitely isn't normal."

He kept one of his hands firmly grasped about her waist so as to keep her upright if he could. While they went, he listened, frowning at what little he thought he could make out from what she was saying. Maybe she was delirious, but despite understanding the words, Jack was having some trouble making sense of why she was saying them.

"A lot of people were there that night, Seilun," he reminded her, trying not to laugh, sound sarcastic, unkind, or amused. "Hopefully you're not thinking of the spiders and what they did to your leg. That was in the common room."

He considered, lips twisting in a thoughtful frown as his gaze grew distant. "Could someone have been giving you an injection or something? I don't know how common it is as a medical practice in the wizarding world, but muggle doctors do that sometimes. Or maybe some medical staff were poking and prodding your leg to test it and see how badly you were hurt after you got bitten."

@Opeila Winters

When Opeila lost her balance, Jack was at her side quickly, stopping her from falling as well. Where only did this come from? Earlier she had been... well, not particularly fine, but... also not this terrible. Jack asked one question after the next, Opeila first needed to bring them into some sort of order in her head. The first year vaguely pointed down towards her leg.
"I- It hurts...", she stated the obvious.

Jack told her to keep talking to him- this had some sort of medical reason right? Opeila had heard of it before, that with certain injuries, one would keep the person talking to... prevent something. Her head seemed to still be spinning with pointless thoughts that went in no particular direction, so she gave up trying to put sense into it.

Her housemate told her that consistent waves of pain were not normal- was he being sarcastic with her? She really couldn't tell. "I know it isn't normal... But the black colour either. The spiders either." Opeila tried to put it into words, but she couldn't say if it made any sense. Was she talking nonsense right now? Was she throwing some sort of rubbish at Jack?

Jack answered to her claim that someone did something to her leg, wondering if she was talking about the spiders. Opeila shook her head. But another thing he said caught her attention. An injection. That could be, right? "It was a student... I think they stuck something in my leg.", the girl said frowning. But they didn't use injections in the magical world, right?

Opeila's voiced recollection caused her companion's frown to deepen. "A student stuck something in your leg?" he repeated, trying to think of why one might have done such a thing. He couldn't imagine their peers trying to give an injection on their own, especially on that night of all nights and right after the spider attack. "Could it have been on accident? Do you remember anything else?"

It was so odd. Surely none of the nurses or teachers or other staff would let another student purposefully do something like that to another student in plain sight, right? Then again, everyone had been pretty busy and panicked dealing with the situation at the time. Jack supposed it was possible something like that could have happened and simply been overlooked.

"What makes you think it was a student? Was it someone you think you knew; someone you recognized? Did you see what they might have stuck in your leg? Or...uh, do you remember where?"

Perhaps if it had been something like a needle or like the spider fangs, there would be a mark left behind even if it was a tiny one. "Flash was with you that night too, wasn't he? Did he stay with you at the Hospital Wing?"

Opeila nodded almost a little impatiently when Jack repeated her words. The pain made her even more irritable than normal- was she talking that unclear? She gave up trying to regain her balance, in the end she would just cause both of them to fall downstairs and accepted Jack's support. He asked her more questions, if she could remember anything, if it was an accident. Opeila had to think about that for a moment, she went through her memory and tried to find something... She shook her head. "No... No accident. They stayed for too long." The dark silhouette next to her bed... She wouldn't even try to guess a precise time, her sense of time had been completely off that night... But the person had for sure been staying around ten seconds, right?

"They were small... Smaller than any of the teachers, maybe my height." There was no professor who she could think of who was that small. Did someone break into the school to steal some venom for his purposes? Getting it from the spiders would have surely been risky, but letting them bite students, weakening so much that there would not be any resistance when they came back? Was that realistic?

Jack then mentioned Flash. "Was he?" Opeila knew that Flash had come to visit her later on, but she did not know if he stayed with her all night. She had not noticed a lot anymore after the attack. As soon as it had been her turn to get the cure, she drifted off to sleep, exhausted like she had never been before in her life. "Maybe he was asleep... It was a long night." Who could have been the person, who caused her so much additional pain that night? "Who... who would have a reason to inject... or take blood? I don't think it was personally against me, I was just conveniently there..." Was there another detail she could think of?