There will now follow an argument that this margin does not know enough math to contain.

Does Ophelia have thoughts on the political ramifications of this revelation? 

...Why is there a long-duration calming charm involved in this clusterfuck?  Oh.  Oh dear.  Hm.

"...But how, exactly, did they know anything like that might be involved?"

"Which is to say, that is surely private information and not just anyone would have it.  Either they have been observing Professor Weasley in enough detail that I'd hope he'd have noticed, or they suborned whosoever told him about long-duration calming charms."

"Great question." The wizard cultural understanding of medical confidentiality is 'what's that?', but... "You can't very well tell by looking, at least not with any spell I've heard--" 

"Course there isn't, wouldn't that be like figuring out how to count exactly how many photons a nox spell doesn't emit?"

Shrug. "...I'm still not totally clear why you can't do that either, but it's not important. My point is that I think even if somebody managed not to be noticed spying that's not enough. An observer would have to be reading the nonverbal incantations in my morning routine and if there's another one of you this generation I'll eat my hat. Even two this close together in age-" (gesture between Ophelia and Cedrella) "-is already really unlikely--" 

"Gambler's fallacy! Either it's independent and therefore exactly as likely as before or it's related somehow and a higher than expected rate should tell you to expect more!" pipes up Nelya, from the floor. 

"What?" 

Wince. ".... please don't talk unless it's really important, it'll jostle your skull and then take longer to fix." Why are wizards all like this. No, she knows why, it's that it doesn't kill them,  but augh.  

:( but statistics :( okay she will shut up now :( :( 

"Okay. I.... guess maybe it's only regular unlikely then,  but that's still not very. Much more likely it's spread of secondhand information, somebody casually mentioned it to a friend because they didn't realize it has any combat implications... ugh, I'm going to have to assume it's not safe to keep doing, aren't I." 

"...Very possibly.  There are, depending on the reasons it's needed, some possible nonmagical alternatives...?  I don't know your medical history, and I don't rightly want to, but - well, without magic available, Muggle doctors do some very inventive things with chemistry that might be relevant."

"...If a nox spell is a more generalized darkness, wouldn't it be possible to measure the energy of the - but photons are their own antiparticle --  But that's math, not counting --  I really don't know enough about Arithmancy to have any useful input to that whole line of theory, I don't think, but the physics does suggest...  Well, if it emits, then surely it has to be emitting?"

"...But then what does the annihilation reaction emit, or are we just completely throwing conservation out the window -- probably the latter but we don't know, do we? --"

"...But.  Magic theory can probably wait until after the assassination plot."

She carefully tucks away the train of thought running wild on speculation of how one could think about and possibly manipulate anti-thaums for later.

"Right! It's like saying you have a negative temperature! Why is magic like this! That's not how anything--" 

"What? There's negative temperatures all the time. It's negative degrees in Scandinavia for like half the winter." 

"Not if you use a SANE MEASURING SYS--" 

"Boys. Can we focus on the security implications please." Appreciative nod at Ophelia for restraining herself. 

"...sorry." Ted goes back to poking numbers, grumbling to himself about the unfairness of the universe for presenting him with insane wizard physics. 

"Nonmagical alternatives, huh. Well it's probably better than quitting my job, my poor NEWT students. Miss Pomfrey, what happens if wizards take Muggle potions?" 

"What happens?? Professor Weasley no offense but that's an insane question. Especially if you don't even know which potion. Absolutely anything could happen." 

"... right, going to follow up with you on that idea later," he says to Ophelia, because they literally just now learned an important lesson about apparently harmless personal facts around friendlies who do not strictly absolutely need to know them. "Meantime... sounds like maybe we might want to know... which people might want me dead and are an unusually small number of social steps from both the Vectors and me?" He says this with the mildly despairing tone of someone who both hates that kind of thing and is terrible at it.  

Nelya, who enjoys that sort of thing in theory and is also well aware she's terrible at it, heroically refrains from saying "oh no" out loud. 

Cedrella rolls her eyes fondly and then grins at Ophelia. "So have you got a network chart yet or are you more of a memory palace type?"