Jessa had, as usual, asked a realllly interesting question. Emmeline always found the older girl's questions in lessons interesting (when she understood them, anyway), and she was super glad to hear Professor Wayland say that scale rot didn't hurt the salamanders until it got realllly bad and their tails fell off. Which was a terrible thing to think about, really, so Emmeline tried to shove that thought into a box and move on. Surely none of these salamanders would get that bad since they were helping them and all...

Until she overheard Derf's question and peered over at the salamander in his hand -- the TAILLESS salamander!! Emmeline clapped a hand over her mouth 'cause the poor thing looked...bad. Her eyes went wider than those fancy gold plates they used in the Great Hall as she stared and stared at the salamander. But, finally, she shook her head a little bit to clear it from allll gloomy thoughts. Hopefully Professor Wayland would know a cure or something -- he'd had a cure for Sirius's chizpurfles and stuff. Obviously Derf's salamander was waaaayy more hurt than a cruppy with chizpurfles, but STILL. Professor Wayland knew things, mhm.

There was nothing that she could do for the salamander in Derf's hand, but there was something she could do for the salamanders still waiting to be helped in the fire. So, the second year took a deeeep breath and reached into the flames once again.

Emmeline had a bit more trouble pulling her third salamander out of its fire; it reallllly wanted to stay where it was, mhm. She bent closer to the flames, briefly setting her chili powder thingy on the ground so that she could use both hands to scoop him up and out. She had initially thought that he was so hard to get out 'cause he was probably mostly healthy and stuff, but she was shocked to see that this was NOT the case as she slowly stood back up and examined him more closely.

This salamander had awful, flaky scales alllll down his WHOLE back!! Thank Merlin it hadn't reached his tail yet, but Emmeline still muttered, "Merlin's socks!" under her breath as she studied the extent of the damage. None of his scales were coming off or anything, so he obviously wasn't in as bad a shape as Derf's salamander, but the condition looked bad enough to Emmeline.

It took her a few minutes to get the salamander situated and laying on only ONE arm so that she could get LOADS of chili powder out of its container thingy with her free hand. As she started applying the powder to the salamander's neck area, he started wriggling wayyy worse than the other two. Professor Wayland had said that scale rot didn't hurt them at this point, so Emmeline figured that the salamander was just getting used to the sensation and stuff. She kept up a steady flow of chatter as she gently massaged loads and loads of chili powder over every single dry scale that she could find on the salamander's back; she was saying stuff like, "It's okay" and "You're doing soooo good, buddy". You know, comforting things like that. The salamander was definitely squirming less and less as she kept going with the chili powder and the soft, soothing baby-voice tones.

Finally, after fifteen whole minutes, her third salamander was thoroughly covered in chili powder -- 'cause he'd had loads of scale rot. Emmeline gave him a biiig, reassuring smile before she gently lowered him back onto his spot in the flames. With that salamander being okay now, though, Emmeline tried to keep an eye on the one that Derf had AND keep her other eye out for another salamander that she and her classmates hadn't gotten to yet.