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."