North came to tell Lorelei about Tanner, and despite the hour, she forced herself up to go see. Lorelei had never been fond of the werewolves. Even the sight of Tanner's injuries didn't soften her opinion of him. He was lying pale and still under all the blood, half-wrapped in a stained blanket. Madame Pomfrey was tending him. She had laid his broken bones straight and mended them, and then started on the torn flesh. She didn't even look up as Lorelei came in.
"He'll be all right," Pomfrey said, before Lorelei even spoke. "But it will take time." She was healing a nasty gash along Tanner's jawbone.
"Least of my worries," Lorelei nearly snapped. Worry and lack of sleep and her own poor health made her sound colder than she meant to. She wasn't even sure why she had been so anxious to see the werewolf. He had always been Esme's friend, but never hers. Always grinning and winking and up to trouble and dragging Esme along into it, Lorelei couldn't help but think that Tanner hadn't gotten anything he didn't deserve.
Pomfrey made no answer to that. The infirmary witch might not have even heard her. She was too absorbed in patching up Tanner. Once all the torn skin had been repaired, she magicked his mangled clothing away and began to gently wash the blood off of him. She conjured up a basin and some warm water and washed his hair too. The amount of blood and filth in it surprised even Lorelei. Once he was clean, Madame Pomfrey magicked him into a clean nightshirt and tossed the bloodied blanket into a nearby hamper.
It was then that Hagrid came in, carrying a kettle in one huge, mittened hand. Steam rose from it and he poured something brownish green out into a shallow cup. A thick smell of wet leaves and something sharper filled the room. It made Lorelei feel a little queasy.
"I brewed some tea," Hagrid explained as Pomfrey raised an eyebrow. "From moonsbane and wolfswort and lunaweed and-"
"None of which have any healing properties that I know of…" Pomfrey interrupted. Hagrid's face fell a little.
"I've seen wolves eat it when they were feeling poorly," he insisted. "Why not werewolves?" A little smile appeared on Pomfrey's face.
"Go ahead then," she said. "If it works, I may ask you for the recipe." Hagrid nodded and carefully approached Tanner's bedside. With one hand, he lifted Tanner's shoulders so that the werewolf's head fell back against his arm. With the other, Hagrid gently poured some of the brew into Tanner's mouth, tilting him back so it would flow down his throat.
"I think he does look a little more peaceful," Pomfrey said kindly. She tucked a clean blanket around Tanner and smoothed it over him. Lorelei turned away in disgust and left before they could call her back. Her head was starting to hurt again and she was feeling shaky. She considered getting some of her own tea to steady herself.
She had never liked Rosie, either, but at least the black wolf had the good manners to keep her distance. Tanner was too touchy-feely. You couldn't get near him without being handled in some way. Even in normal conversation, he would lean in so close you had to step back to keep him from breathing on you. Esme had claimed that wolves naturally touch each other all the time. Since they don't have hands to gesture with, she had argued, they do whole body handshakes. Tanner was no different.
Lorelei was able to empathize with cursed werewolves. She knew too well how a monster's bite could change your life. The trueborn shifters though, weren't human enough for her to understand. They looked human when they acted like wolves and when they looked like wolves they could still act unsettlingly human. It was eerie, and Lorelei didn’t like it.
It didn't help that she had always suspected Tanner of being after her sister. More than once, Esme had staggered in from the night with leaves in her hair, a grin on her face, and smelling like an animal. Who knew what they had all been doing out in the woods?? Lorelei forced that thought away and cut down a hallway to see Snape. She'd get something for her headache, she decided, and then try to get some sleep.