Gideon caught himself holding his breath as she started to read the letter, and had to force himself to exhale. He could almost see the way the words would look on the page, in her familiar handwriting — could guess at her misspellings. He was touched that she'd offered to come help, but was dreading that she might actually try to do it. He could just picture her packing up a bag with things she considered necessities — candy and bowtruckle bait, perhaps — and then setting off into the Forbidden Forest in the vague direction of Hogsmeade.

"Would you?" he asked immediately, obviously relieved. It might be better for Billie if someone she was familiar with wrote to reassure her, but the logistics of having Miss Chevalier write to someone who would then write to Billie without any context seemed too complicated. Getting a faster response was better, he decided, even if it came from an unfamiliar healer, which might add to her worry in and of itself. "If you could just say that I'm —" he was about to say fine, but hesitated at the last moment; he still had no guarantees that his sight would ever be restored to him, and while he was not ready to give up hope just yet he was reluctant to use such a superficial word when such a monumental factor was still an unknown.

"I'm in very good hands, here, and I don't need her to leave Hogwarts to help," he decided. After a beat, he added, "And that I'll write her myself as soon as I can."