Miss Wormwood, the Nurse, greets Eric.

You're lying in a bed somewhere. Not too big, not too soft, but with clean sheets and comfortable enough. You remember a wild episode where they were about to throw you in that icy lake, but somehow you escaped, leaving your clothes behind, and you froze in embarrassment and they threw you in! Like a terrible nightmare. Was that real?

You blink your eyes and look round to see you're in a little room somewhere in Boarbristle Academy -- the old stone walls testify to that -- but what, where? Your House, maybe?

"Mister Mothwing-Marshall, I presume," you hear a voice. A thin but definitely female figure in a white dress and apron, but there's something strange round her head that doesn't quite make sense. "I'm Miss Wormwood, the Nurse."

Your eyes blink again and focus on Miss Wormwood's face. Around it, a living garland, Miss Wormwood has a head-full of waving green snakes in place of hair.

You freeze in fear, your mouth seizing up. You utter some kind of unintelligible babble that dribbles off into silence.

"No, no, don't worry," Miss Wormwood says, in an attempt to reassure. "I shan't turn you to stone. I'm the Nurse, after all. I'm here to make you better. I have a little tonic for you that should warm you up. I understand you manifested a raw magical talent -- very draining, those can be -- and then the prefects levitated you and dropped you into the Chilly Tarn." She sniffs. "I'll be pleased when that tradition is abandoned. Hard on the first-years, and there's always someone who ends up in the Infirmary. Usually more than one someone, as indeed it is today."

Miss Wormwood looks to the side. The room is partitioned with a curtain, and you figure there's another sickbed there.

"Well then, Mister Mothwing-Marshall," she says. "Let's see what we can do about getting you better."

Her voice is even and rhythmic, maybe a little hypnotic, and you relax enough to let her caress your cheek -- her hand, cool and pale, and her skin dry on yours -- and to open your mouth for her spoon.

The tonic is bitter-sweet and warms as you swallow it down. You feel a definite pulsing from the core of your body that drives heat into your extremities. Your fingers and toes tingle, and even your nipples, and your penis, well, it swells and stiffens. The bedcover hides next to nothing, rising up in a sharply angled tent.

Miss Wormwood smiles. "Working already," she says. "You were exhausted and cold when you arrived, so we may need to repeat the dose." Her dark eyes scan your face, and the serpents round her head curl forward with curiosity, their forked tongues flickering. She looks at your expression, sees your glance darting to the covers and back, and shakes her head. "Now then, Mister Mothwing-Marshall, who do you think rolled you out of a blanket and put you in bed? There's nothing I haven't seen." She pats your chest. "Better to rest. Don't go running off anywhere." Her serpent-tresses all bow in unison, turning an emphatic nod into a dance.

You are in the Infirmary with a CONSEQUENCE (-1 to all rolls) (Embarrassed at being exposed/Recovering from the Chilly Tarn).

You have 1 XP.

Miss Wormwood is tending to you, and there is probably another first-year suffering similarly behind the partition.