She watches what she can of Pomfrey's movements anyway - even the movement or lack thereof of her shoulders is something - and the mist that emanates after her failure catches Ophelia's attention.  She'll look that up later.

"I did throw out a Vermillious.  I think.  I'm not sure; I saw red sparks flaring, but I was actively casting Protego at the time so whether it was actually the specific signature that the wards pick up or not...

"I'm assuming 'not', though.  On account of we would have surely noticed that sort of response by now.

"...And I don't exactly have any clandestine ways of sending messages to Dumbledore lying around, ma'am, if any available analogues to owl post aren't secure enough.  Still...

"Whoever did this, this being known to have happened is bad for them.  They almost killed a baby Slytherin in the middle of an unrelated plot - even if I'm something of a divisive subject amongst my House, that is far overstepping what bounds of, mm, propriety, still exist even amongst the most fervent devotees of the skull - or they just threw all subtlety and House pride out the window in an attempt to get rid of me for whatever reason, and they didn't even succeed.  They can't have it both ways, either.  Especially since their plan failed because of my presence, the idea that they could possibly have been clever enough to spring a multi-pronged attack like this is simply - beyond consideration.

"I'm not certain what in particular you fear will happen to your message, as of yet, but it is tactically sound - perhaps even ideal - to, if you'll permit me the drama, cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war."

The question of whether she has clandestine ways of communicating with non-Dumbledore persons is, a clever ear might notice, quite carefully elided.

(She and Lily have gotten quite good at bird calls, she thinks - practically out of necessity.)

Awkwardly, the Vermillious detector wards kind of suck inside the building due to the magnitude of the magical noise floor. They're mostly for catching kids who've fallen off a tower or gotten lost in the woods or something. 

Pomfrey blinks the now-familiar blink of someone experiencing Ophelia's general Ophelianess for the first time, and then rallies and says, "Right," and magiscribbles a note to the headmaster on her paper airplane, which zoomes off when she tosses it. "I don't think I can advise you on your, uh, politics situation," she adds, dubiously. She is a healer, not a politician. 

"I wasn't expecting you to do so, ma'am.  I merely expected that you would like to know about those politics, since you seemed to be taking them into account yourself."

"...While I have your attention, and there's nothing apparently critical - I've been wondering if there are ways to practice healing charms without risking improperly healing actual injuries?  I've been doing a bit of self-study, but I hesitate to put those skills into practice sight unseen."

"As you should," Poppy says, nodding approvingly. Trying to magically heal someone and doing it wrong frequently makes the situation dramatically worse and harder to fix. (The debate in the academic community on whether this warning should be printed in large bold angry letters on every page of every healing textbook, or doing that will just make people more prone to double down on insisting they can't possibly have made a mistake once they do, is ongoing and furious.) "You really shouldn't ever try on any people unless it's a dire emergency until you have a Charms OWL, but... well, look, I do remember being really mad about that answer when I was your age, so... Don't tell anyone I suggested this but I used to go looking for injured squirrels and things and practice on them. Helped a lot." 

And also involved sobbing to her roommate about three times a week over the dead squirrels until she managed to get good enough to save every single one she found, but she hears Slytherins care less about that sort of thing. 

"I was actually wondering more about - simulacra or substitutes that couldn't be meaningfully harmed by a failure to heal, and could therefore be re-injured or reset for further practice without raising questions of medical ethics, rather than practicing on random animals; despite that, it's good to know that some charms can be used for veterinary purposes.  ...I expect Transfigured flesh would not hold to a sufficient level of detail - did you ever try such?   And, hm - non-magical medics that handle cases involving gross trauma often practice some of the more difficult work on cadavers - willingly donated for the purpose, at least in modern times."

She has a thinking face on, now.  This seems like it could be a problem, but also like a problem that could be solved.

"I would never-" wait, shit, eleven-year-old Slytherin. "... I mean, um, that's. That sort of thing is usually considered Dark magic?" 

"...But why?  I mean, aside from the, uh, corpses, thing.  I don't expect magical society to be quite so...  Willing to treat the bodies left behind by departed souls as a resource to be spent, given the sorts of things I'm well aware they can be spent on - even if using one in some ways denies it to worse ends - but is the entire subject of false bodies taboo?"

Whyyyy does she have to be a professional adult about the baby death eaters. And after she tried so hard to be nice and supportive, too. 

Discomfited squirm. "I don't know, I'm a healer, not a philosopher. Just... doesn't seem good, to me, to be trying to find exactly what line to toe instead of staying well away?" 

"The merit of a tool is ultimately in the using, as far as I'm concerned.  A wand is far easier to kill with, than preserve the lives of others - do we then condemn all wands on that fact alone?  Or do we judge what their users turn them to?

"Or, to borrow an ancient adage of pharmacopoeia - it is the dose that makes the poison.  In life as in medicine, and in medicine as in life, sometimes the only choice to make is how to do the least harm; I would rather pursue what knowledge might be needed to make proper training dummies, than say I've done less than I could have when I would otherwise leave every future healer predictably incapable of perfecting important skills before they are placed in a situation of using those skills correctly or failing a patient.  But that is, indeed, a matter of philosophy."

She was not prepared to have this conversation today and she doesn't want to. She'll just... think about it later, maybe. 

"Anyway," she says, insistently, "why don't we see if Professor Weasley's ready to get up?" Tap tap. "Renervate." 

Septimus goes from flat on his back to on his feet, wand drawn, with several shields up, in approximately two seconds, then observes that no one is dead or trying to murder him and relaxes slightly. "Oh, well done, Prince. You figure out what's going on yet?" 

           "Why'd'you think she'd've done, I mighta figured it out just as well," mutters Vector mulishly. 

"Sweetheart, no offense to your usual standard of deductive reasoning, but judging from your pupils you are incredibly concussed." (A mundane human would be quite dead of head trauma, in fact! But she is a wizard and will be fine by next Monday.) 

            Pained grumbling noise. "Nnnnnot wrong."

"Well, clearly someone just tried to assassinate you using Miss Vector as a catspaw of sorts - we all saw that her shield spell was sabotaged, and clearly the runes work was, too.  Kind of impressive, in a 'you utter fucking bastard' sort of way - an explosion that triggers when a specific person touches it, while still looking like something else entirely enough to fool you?  Even if you're not a Runes master yourself, I'd hope you know what 'big boom' looks like given your choice of career.  ...I think they must not have known I'd be here or that I actually care about your continued survival, one or the other - probably the former, because I can't imagine someone who knew I was going to be here trying to keep the variables down before all of Slytherin house fell on their head for making a mess.  That or they were trying to get me too, but I doubt it - they could have Confunded me six ways from Sunday for all they know, it's not like most first-years have anything whatsoever to do with the mind arts, and they didn't, which suggests that they had a failure of intelligence in turning up that I'd be involved.  It likely would have worked if I wasn't."

Oh.  There's the shell-shock.  She stares at her shaking off-hand, her grip on her wand still white-knuckled.

"No idea who the culprit is in particular, but I expect it to be an elder Slytherin - likely the only sort of person who'd have both knowledge to implement such Confunding, and access to Miss Vector to do so and supply that Runes work without raising suspicion or alarm from the mail wards I should hope Hogwarts has, and, of course, actual motive because they're an elder Slytherin - and likely one that doesn't get out much, as was, because they should have noticed I was going to be here, but they didn't take me into account in any way - which they were and are positively obliged to as far as I understand House norms.  One just simply does Not catch another Slytherin up in one's plots without doing the courtesy of informing them, at the least - and if this was internal business then it should not have touched either of you."

"That said, I don't know if there's someone in Ravenclaw with a particular hatred for your guts, Professor.  It would have been easier for the malcontent to - oh, but then Ravenclaw's door is particularly ill-secured to begin with, so it's not like it would have kept any old Slytherin from solving a riddle and walking in to plant something where one would have not been as precisely vigilant as one might otherwise have done because one thought one's House was safer than the surrounding school...  ...Bother.  Anyway.  We know they must be an associate of Miss Vector, because to do something like this would require - Merlin, probably hours of detail work to make it as iron-tight as it seems to have been - Miss Vector had no idea anything was off about the paper or her spellcasting, which suggests that either it was done very shortly before this happened, or that it was long-term work to implement the entire contingent scenario, and in neither of those situations is one going to trust a random stranger to be alone with them for as long as would be needed..."

Her gaze snaps to the Ravenclaw, Ophelia's eyes boring into hers as if the answers to this conundrum can be found within their depths.  (Perhaps they even might.)

She speaks, and for all that she asks a question, the tone is one of command.  "...Miss Vector, who was your partner for this Runes project?"

Vector is listening very attentively to this entire analytical speech. This doesn't actually mean she gets more than about one word in three, because she is still really very concussed and Pomfrey is also busily blanketing her in Healing charms now that Weasley is conscious and talking, but she is sure trying. 

She accordingly didn't really follow why she's being asked this question but it's not like it's a hard question. "Ted Tonks?" she says, bewildered. "He can't've done- I mean I guess he could but what possibly for?" 

"He wouldn't have.  But someone did.  You worked on this project with someone, and part of you still knows who, no matter how they try to hide themself."

It's not what Nelya says that matters, although it's still useful that she can likely involve Andromeda in her vengeance if she recalls certain personal details correctly.

It's what the question draws to the surface of her mind.

She gently sets Ted Tonks aside.  If someone's disguised as him it'll come up later.  Who worked on these Runes with you, Nelya Vector?

Nelya is thinking very hard about it. Her mental images are blurry, fractured, sliding over each other like skipping records; but not for nothing does the House of Ravenclaw declare itself the home of those who have processing power to spare. 

Up late, working through a frustrating tangle of math - Ted adrift in a pile of notes, grumbling about what could possibly have possessed him to take this class - Andromeda Black asking pointed questions about her intentions toward her research partner, that had been easy enough, she really didn't want him and was happy to bewilderedly support his insane romantic choices - (this is irrelevant and she tries valiantly to focus instead on the extremely important question at hand but nevertheless spends a couple seconds dwelling on her own crush on Aidan Lynch, who is a year younger and in Gryffindor, which is obviously incredibly embarrassing) - the satisfaction of figuring out a part of the problem and then realizing, half annoyed and half excited, that there was more to do - sitting in the library holding court, explaining the project to two dozen underclassmen and soaking up their starry-eyedc attentiveness with glee - oh, it's got to be that, hasn't it, who else was listening--?

Nelya folds over on herself, making a sad pained noise. "M'be Pan," she mumbles, which would probably be totally incomprehensible if you hadn't been following her train of thought. She means, ask my sister Pancha, she was there too. 

She makes an agreement noise.  "I'll make sure we ask her.  You did good.  Get some rest, okay?  You're really not supposed to think very hard when concussed, and I was rather underestimating how much you'd be trying."

"Professor Weasley, Nelya's sister - Pancha, I believe? - was present at the one time she recalls publicly discussing the project with anyone - following up with her to see if she knows who was there seems to be the most reasonable course of official action."

Unofficially, she's going to be dealing with some Internal House Business for the next little while - she already has a notepad out.

Andromeda,

You may be interested to know that someone bespelled your boyfriend's lab partner in an attempt to assassinate Professor Weasley by means of a Runes project that had apparently been replaced with an explosion.

(They failed by the sheerest coincidence of my having been there at the time and therefore vociferously objecting, so I'm rather looking for an excuse to bring the wrath of Slytherin House upon them for their multiple plausible transgressions against plotting-related etiquette.  Who knows who the next explosion will catch in its blast radius, with this poor diligence in checking their targets, and suchlike.)

I may drop your name at Umbridge.  My apologies in advance.

  --Ophelia Prince

And then...

Hmm.  To Umbridge.

Prefect Umbridge,

You may be interested to know that someone's plot to assassinate Professor Weasley had the dubious audacity to leave me in the crossfire without the slightest shred of warning due to me as a fellow Slytherin - with quite predictable results, given that any rational young woman would of course vociferously object to being exploded.  Being as internal house business cannot be conducted thusly, and external affairs should not leave Slytherin bodies in their wake...

Well.  I rather figure you will know better than I the means to ensure that Slytherin House maintains its proper functioning, lest the ensuing internal strife tear apart all that you've worked to build.  I know I, for one, am quite offended by this failure of both intelligence and planning - goodness knows that picking Andromeda's boyfriend's lab partner to ensorcell for this scheme could well cause her to take offense.

  --Prince

And to Lily - this, for her own peace of mind, and since she has the pad out, rather than for any matter of plans.

Lils,

I imagine you're probably going to hear a bunch of rumors about the explosion that just happened by tomorrow, so I want to save you the trouble of worrying about it, and tell you what actually happened, though I imagine you might want to keep quiet on how you know, given the House politics.  (Though it's not like I'm owling you this letter, so the smarter ones will probably already know it's me.  Eh.  Use your best judgement.)

To wit, someone tried to blow up Professor Weasley with an exploding Runes project.  (Er, not one that was meant to explode on a design level, to be clear.)  I successfully objected, seeing as I was in the room at the time and would rather not be exploded.  (I'm fine, not even a scratch.)  Probably going to be a bit busy tracking down whoever thought that was a good idea and making them regret their choices, though, over the next few days.  (Slytherins aren't supposed to be that bad at checking their nominally 'friendly' fire, or they'd never get anything done.  I expect that most others will share the sentiment, even the incipient Death Eaters.)

With love,

  --Ophelia

P.S. Stay safe yourself, okay?  I'm sure you already want to come charging to the rescue, but I can hardly involve outside forces in what's technically Slytherin House's internal affairs.  I'd rather know you're safe and well, anyway, regardless of whether there's even anything to be done about the viper pit.

A moment spent folding and sealing, and some birds bribed appropriately, and her messengers are off on their way.

Are they sealed with wax, with magic, with both, with neither, secret fifth thing...? 

Inquiring Slytherins want to know.

Both.  Both is good.

There is also the security factor of Smart Birds being Smart, for that matter, and good at biding their time for the right moment.  If it matters.

The first letter gets a response fastest, the corvid in question still glittering with the temporary speed charm it was gifted and the faint impression as Ophelia retrieves the letter of the pressure of a spell checking whether she's the intended recipient before it even lets her take it from the bird. Andromeda's usual elegant cursive has become a furious scrawl; it vibrates slightly on the page, as though the enchantments on the quill were being rattled uncomfortably in their housing as it wrote. 

o someones about to regret their choices!! 
I cant be seen talking 2 aunt Ced til grad, mb you can if N hasnt said anything yet? should, in-house, Prof W gr8 but Gryff
want me 2 yell @ people now or wait til not-you source or 3rd thing? 
ted eta 19:15 to check for 2nd stage fuckery 

I am at the present moment still investigating.  Yelling with no evidence seems too...Gryffindor...to dissuade future attempts.  We must disassemble the plot and thereby its perpetrator.  Then the knives come out, etc. etc..  But do feel free to be above-average menacing in the near future.  Protective instincts, and whatnot.

N (the flower, I presume) has not said anything about your aunt C.  Will reach out.

"Professor Weasley, you should call your wife.  She will be able to help with this.  Andromeda has seen fit to call in Ted Tonks to, quote, 'check for second stage fuckery,' endquote.  ETA on him is - Tempus - " It's presently 7:06 - "Ten minutes, plus-minus."

He casts a suspicious look at the gently smoking pages on his desk. "...yeah. Wise on both counts." 

The defense professor's office has a large fireplace; he lights it, then tosses Floo powder into it and says a series of completely incomprehensible syllables(*). As the emerald green roars up to the roof of the brick arch, he whistles a little tune, strangely piercing forward and nearly inaudible any farther backward than where Ophelia is standing (**). Roughly five seconds later, a witch appears in the flames. She has the recognizable sharp pale facial features and ink-dark hair of all her family, cut very deliberately and artfully "raggedly" short, and a lightweight linen dress that would be called astoundingly austere were it not vividly scarlet. She surveys the situation. 

"My most beloved idiot. Why did you touch that without knowing what it was." Septimus makes a vague pained grumbling noise, leaning into the fire to bonk his forehead against her shoulder. She pats the side of his face. "That is fair, I suppose, but still, really." Pause. "Oh, is she!" Her gaze swings to Ophelia. "The little Prince who so outperforms her mother! I had hoped to meet you in better circumstances, but such is the era we find ourselves in. What's your plan for making sure half our House doesn't end up in the Headmaster's line of fire over this foolishness?" 

She says this, of course, with the precise tone one takes with an ally who 1) you don't want to disrupt because you approve of their goals and 2) you consider to have jurisdiction over the circumstance in question in a way you yourself do not, much as you would if, for example, attempting to help someone French with a problem occuring in France. Hogwarts is, of course, located physically on the island of Britain, but when one is litigating acts of war it is customarily considered to be distinct. 

(*) Ophelia may recognize this effect from her reading, though she hasn't heard it before: it's the distinctively contentless sound you hear when somebody says Fidelius-protected information out loud without intending to share it with you specifically. 

(**) This is a nonverbally cast directional amplification charm, which Ophelia and her fondness for mimicking animal sounds as a signalling mechanism has probably not only heard of but learned to cast. 

"Well.  I have a claim for... recompense.  House business, after all, should not involve outsiders, and outside business should not so carelessly risk the House.  Neither circumstance allows the fool who has walked themself onto the horns of this dilemma to hide behind us - to hide behind Slytherin.  And if Slytherin House handles its own affairs before the Headmaster has had the time to meddle...  Is seen to be taking on that duty, instead of vanishing the crime behind the dungeon's doors -

"Well.  Headmaster Dumbledore is a busy man, I've heard.  I expect that should the plot be properly unravelled, and the perpetrator dealt with - by Hogwarts staff, the Ministry, or even certain concerned third parties, I should think - he will take what is done as done, rather than place another burden on his plate that he knows he cannot handle on his own.  At least, if the proof is sufficient that it has been.  ...And if he is such a veteran of war, he can surely understand tactics enough to let the House turn its focus inward rather than create an external problem - his attention - that will unite us in the face of it - even if he believes every Slytherin who has not bent their knee an enemy.  Don't interrupt one's enemies when they are doing what you want, after all.  And cutting loose Death Eaters, or aspiring Death Eaters, from House protection, even if it is only when they overstep...  He will want that.  It remains that I do not know if he knows this will happen, but I do expect he'll be willing to accept it.  Though, come to think of it, I'm not sure he won't still...mm, be driven, perhaps by guilt, to take unwise actions to prove to himself he is acting...I'd need to know more, there, than I do."

"...The question of how Dumbledore will move is open, yes, but I believe he can be convinced of the soundness of letting Slytherin handle those who would betray us - and this plotter cannot be said by any contortion of our rules to have not.  After all, in Slytherin business, it is hardly as if there are accidents.  Even if this was one."

Thoughtful nodding. "My understanding," and she tips her head fondly at her husband here, to indicate where that understanding is primarily located, "is that Dumbledore's principal priority, where Hogwarts is concerned, is holding the strict boundary at its edges. I think you are quite correct to expect that if you can be seen to have a firm handle on internal affairs, he will have the good sense not to meddle and risk being perceived as breaking his oath not to treat any children here as hostages against their parents' good behavior." There was a very tense meeting about this several years ago. "I'd caution you against, however, attempting to bring Ministry attention, or to be seen involving third parties for more than consultation. The Auror Office is still in operation right now but Marchbanks has been threatening to call it for months; at this point all it might take is for someone to breathe too partisanly within her field of view..." They're neutral government agents as a matter of principle but under conditions of sufficiently large disagreement about what's legal and/or what's the government they'll formally disband and take individual sides, which is on the one hand useful because it means people like Alastor Moody feel free to start doing incredibly justified murders and making them stop losing the war so badly, and is on the other hand a huge problem because it means people like Alastor Moody are doing that instead of preventing regular crimes and this historically causes, shall we say, additional problems. "Well, if the plot needs unraveling, you need more information, yes?" She nudges Septimus. "Dearest, spell memory." 

Septimus is currently curled around her in a sort of half protective half hug-me-I'm-sad posture, murmuring his way through a series of protective charms. Judging from the progression from angry hissing to calm recitation, it's partly for their function and partly a habitual emotional soothing mechanism. He looks up when addressed, the measured soft syllables of a spell for detecting eyeglaze hexes (*) continuing quite uninterrupted, and then grins and nods and makes a meditative thinking face. 

Cedrella proceeds to begin scribing onto paper a detailed multicolor spell-structure diagram, clearly plucked directly from the visual cortex of someone who watched the bomb go off while wearing the dozen different magic detection charms particularly paranoid adult wizards go about wearing at all times. The two-dimensional representative notation is standard but the ability to do it from memory is not. 

(*) an unusual type of illusionary magic which alters the physical visual information being conveyed to a single target's eyeballs