The next morning, she awoke to a smothering headache. It felt like a sack of potatoes was pressing down on her forehead. Obviously, her body had not appreciated its venture into the forest yesterday. Sariah tried to breathe in, only to find that both of her nostrils were completely blocked. She groaned and rolled over. In the pale morning light, her alarm clock (an hourglass, adjustable in hourly increments) sat squarely on her wooden bedside table. A steady stream of purple sand trickled down inside the glass. There was at least half an hour before it would go off. She massaged her temples, unsuccessfully trying to soothe the throbbing pain behind them.

As it triggered by her consciousness, her nose started running. Sariah sniffed reflexively and reached into her drawer. Realizing she had no tissues, she awkwardly stood up, bundled herself up in her fleecy dressing gown, and staggered to the bathroom, the wooden floor cold on the soles of her feet. She procured a roll of toilet paper, and collapsed back onto her bed, feeling wretched. A phlegmy cough protested its way out of her lungs. Sariah moaned, cocooned herself in her duvet, and closed her eyes. She had a sudden longing for her mother's lemon, ginger and honey tea.

A harsh beeping shocked her awake. Sariah squinted at her hourglass, which was flashing with the vibrancy of a helicopter searchlight. The light sent a searing pain through her head. She screwed her eyes shut, reached out to her hourglass, and placed it gingerly on its side, ceasing its alarm. Sariah pulled the covers over her head muffling the sounds of Britta and Sabriel getting up. She could hear Sabriel rummaging through her drawers, and Britta lamenting over a new cluster of pimples that had sprung up on her forehead overnight. Those noises buzzed in her head like an angry swarm of wasps, as did her forced breathing through her nose and her pulse pounding in her forehead. She imagined this was a hangover felt like.

"Aren't you coming for breakfast, Sariah?" Britta asked long after Sabriel had departed for the great hall.

"Mmmphh, maybe later," Sariah replied.

"Sariah, it's already eight-thirty, and classes start at nine." There was a slight pause. "You are going to get up, aren't you? You'll get points deducted from Hufflepuff if you don't turn up to classes again, and we're almost coming second now."

"Well, whoop-dee-doo," she muttered, followed by a spasm of coughs.

Sariah listened for Britta's leaving footsteps, and hearing none, unfurled the warm duvet from over her head. Britta was standing, conflicted, by the door. A golden Hippogriff was flapping on the front of her jumper, apparently frustrated by Britta's blonde hair, which obscured the fabric.

"Are you alright?" Britta asked.

"I feel fine," Sariah lied, her voice grating out of her vocal chords. She sounded a pubescent bullfrog.

"You sound awful," Britta said. "Should I fetch someone from the Hospital wing for you?"

"If you want to, I guess," she croaked. "Thanks."

"Not a problem," Britta beamed and sped out of their room.

A short while later, Sabriel returned to the room, with her toothbrush jammed in her mouth, to pick up her school books.

"Britta told me that you're not feeling well," she said, minuscule blobs of toothpaste foam flying from her mouth, finding refuge in her thick curls. "But you don't have to pretend to be sick just because you've lost your wand, you know. People will understand."

Sariah didn't know which 'people' those were; anyone who lost their wand after their first year was publically ridiculed. She reached into her drawer and waved her wand in her roommate's general direction.

"Oh," she said quietly. "Well, if you're really sick, you can have my copy of the Daily Prophet. I've already finished with it." 

She passed it gingerly to Sariah and exited the room. A dragon covered in with nasty looking spines dominated the front page. It breathed a jet of fire, consuming the entire picture space, and when the flames cleared, it was gone. She watched the image loop like a .gif a few more times, then folded it shut, leant back into her pillows,  kneaded her eyes. 

She was woken again by a knocking at her door. "Come in," she croaked.

A flustered young woman entered the room, toting a leather bag behind her. She skimmed her clipboard, her mouth moving almost imperceptibly. "You must be "Say-rye-ah," she said, brushing a strand of black hair that had come loose from her bun behind her ear. 

"It's Sariah," she wheezed.

"Sorry Sariah," she said, smiling apologetically. "I'm Asami, I'll be looking after you today."

She had a calm, soothing voice, and it sounded like she was reading off a script. 

"You look pretty young, to be a nurse, I mean," Sariah said, propping herself up into a sitting position.

Asami put her bag down and brushed at her apron with both hands. "I'm on placement at Hogwarts for a couple of months, I just started last week. I'm sorry I took so long to get here, I had a bit of trouble getting into the Hufflepuff commons."

Sariah wouldn't be surprised if Asami smelt of vinegar; if you gave the incorrect passcode to the common room, the barrels that guarded the entrance would shoot generous volumes of vinegar at the unlucky intruder. She sniffed and wiped her nose on a wad of tissue paper.

"So, how are you feeling?" Asami asked.

"Not good," she replied, wincing at how nasally her voice sounded. "I think I've caught a cold."

"That would be my preliminary diagnosis too," the trainee nurse smiled,  "I'm just going to do a quick check up, and then we can get a pepper-up potion for you." She produced a long, pale wand from her apron pocket and moved it slowly over Sariah's body. 

The silence was interspersed by Asami's generic 'things you should ask a patient' questions, and Sariah's short answers to them. Sariah's eyes flicked between staring at the ceiling and examining the line of freckles that spotted across Asami's nose. Where was she meant to look? She glanced nervously at the nurse's wand as it hovered over her chest. 

"Don't worry," Asami reassured her, "You're doing fine."

Sariah frowned slightly. Great. The first test she had passed this term, and it was a medical examination. After checking her eyes and temperature, Asami seemed to have gathered enough information to satisfy her.

"You've got a slight fever, and flu-like symptoms," she reported, wringing her hands together nervously. "So - uh," She summoned a small vial that flew out of her leather bag. "This pepper-up potion should put you right."

Sariah held the vial in her hand. The violet and orange coloured substance swirled like a lava lamp. "Does it contain any animal products?"

 "Oh no! I completely forgot to ask you if you had any dietary requirements. I'm so sorry, are you allergic?"

"No, just pescatarian," Sariah replied. 

The trainee nurse looked at her blankly

"The only meat I eat is fish," she elaborated. 

"Hmm... well it does contain mandrake and bicorn horn."

   Sariah felt conflicted, and her stomach tensed. Her parents never ate anything with red or white meat, and they encouraged her to do the same. It was one of the beliefs they stuck strongest with.  She glanced down at the potion in her hand. Did this count?

"Do they, uh, farm bicorns?" she asked.

"Oh no, silly," Asami said. "Bicorns are much too dangerous to farm. They tried centuries ago, but the beasts kept trampling the wizards or impaling them; too many accidents, you know? So now if you want fresh bicorn horn, you have to find one during spring time and wait for it to shed its horn." She waited for Sariah to nod back before continuing. "Now, if you take the potion there'll be steam pouring out of your ears for a couple of hours. I'll check in with you just before lunch, to see how you're going, okay?"

The violet and orange colours danced with one another as Sariah swirled the vial in her hand indecisively. Her father wore a woolen tam to cover his dreadlocks, even though he would never eat lamb, so if the bicorn hadn't been killed, she supposed it was okay. Taking a deep breath, she gulped the potion down. She gagged; the pepper-up potion seared her tongue and throat like hot sauce.  Asami slung her bag over her shoulder, straightened her white apron again, and left the room with a cheerful, "See you soon."

 Seconds later, a high-pitched whistle began to sound from her ears. Sariah reached her hands up to her ears, feeling hot steam being pushed rapidly from both of her ears. The whistling wasn't an unpleasant sensation, and within minutes her headache had almost completely disappeared. If there was a cure for the common cold, maybe magic wasn't so bad. Snug and cozy under her duvet, she reached out to Sabriel's copy of the Daily Prophet and began to read.