NEWT HERBOLOGY

Tuesday, April 30th

Snargaluff Pod Harvesting

Tuesdays were not the worst days of the week. There were no first year students mucking about in her greenhouses. That was something to always be thankful for. She had dealt with third years earlier in the morning, but it had only been for an hour. Their double Herbology lesson came on Thursdays. The lull after lunch before the afternoon lesson with her NEWT students had allowed her ample time to prepare the pod harvesting stations. 

Preparations took so much longer now without magic. She had enlisted several elves to assist her. The plants looked docile enough at first glance. It seemed as if she had just positioned a series of gnarled stumps around on the tables. That wasn't the case, though--and was why she had needed the help of house elves to get the space configured. 

The Snargaluffs were notoriously cranky--and they were keen to attack with their wicked thorn covered vines if you got close to them. So, levitation really was the best way to move them about. But you had to get close to harvest the pods hidden inside them. The new potion professor had requested a bushel of fresh pods for a class later this week. The timing of it all couldn't have been more perfect honestly. 

Sweeping her skirt up, Amaryllis moved to the center of the workspace. She gave a stern look to a pair of whispering students, before launching into instructions. "We've discussed the Snargaluff at length, previously. You will recall the lecture, I have no doubt. But to refresh us all and ensure we are, indeed, all on the same proverbial page of our beloved Flesh-Eating Trees of the World textbook. The Snargaluff is a plant with the appearance of a gnarled stump, but this benign sight would mislead you. The plant hides dangerous thorn-covered vines within itself. These are prone to attack when provoked. That is why we will be working in pairs today. Within the center of the Snargaluff, there are green pulsating pods. These are just a smidgen smaller than a grapefruit. Your task today is to harvest these pods. Now, pair up. You're NEWT level. I shouldn't have to assign you a partner. When you have chosen your partner, migrate to a table, and begin the harvest. Alternate wrangling the vines and extracting the pods. Each person should participate in both activities. If you have questions, feel free to raise your hand and I'll come to your table. Magic is not necessary for accomplishing this task. So, wands away please and to work with you all." 

421 • amaryllis's outfit

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Registered students eligible for participation in the class: 
Aphrodite Nia Herraro-Morgan , @clio , Helenus Caolán Fawley , Oralie Slughorn , Rhea Amberly Nott , Athazaz Acanthus Bones , @nick , Zoe Genevieve Shafiq, and @roxanne

No arrival posts, please. Class has been called to order and your student is either there or is absent for the day. 

Also, we are going to pretend I was able to post this two hours ago when it was still Tuesday, okay?! Fantastic! With the limited number of students in play, I've chosen to do all houses for this class. If participation is just grand, I will do another class and split them based on the schedule in the student handbook. 

Students may pair up with played or NPC students! 

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

Ring, ring goes the bell

Back in the classroom, open your books

Keep up the teacher don't know how mean she looks

Herbology was not Oralie's favorite subject--but she did not hate it. It was necessary learning for a truly masterful potioneer. For the most finicky of potions required the freshest of ingredients, she knew this well. So, learning to grow and tend to magical plants was critical for a Slughorn. Herbology was not something that Eternelle advertised mastery in, but some of the most brilliant herbologists in the country were on staff at the Slughorn family business. They paid extremely well to maintain a monopoly on expertise--at least to some degree.

But she and her brothers, they were expected to be experts in their own right. Brenton and Ian had exceeded all expectations in that regard. And she would, too. But it was more complicated for her than for the elder Slughorn sons. They had only one thing expected of them. She had to match different roles. She was to be what a Slughorn was supposed to be. And she was also supposed to be what a lady was supposed to be. She was to follow the family legacy--as well as her mother's legacy, which was why her internship was at Avalon instead of Eternelle. 

It was Tuesday, though. So, there would be no trip to Avalon--or to pop over to see her brothers today. This evening was Quidditch practice. Just one class and a free period between now and then. Herbology was all that stood between her and that delightful free period. Maybe she could coax Rhea out to lawns to get a bit of sun. They could not properly sun bathe on campus, but it would still be better than going back to the dungeons. It was too pretty a day to be inside. 

Deputy Headmistress Blackwood gave them a rather lengthy spill about what the class was doing today...as if it was not already obvious from the stumps scattered about the room. There was the temptation to pair up with a boy and flirt him into doing all the work, but she slipped her arm into Rhea's instead. "Work with me," she half asked, as she offered the witch a smile. "We can talk. Much more fun that way."

_{Rhea Amberly Nott ♔ uniform ♔ 361}

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

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[attr="class","ctopline"]One taught me love

[attr="class","cscriptslytherin"]one taught me patience

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[attr="class","clyrics"]And one taught me pain[break]
Now, I'm so amazing

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[attr="class","cbody"]Herbology was okay. It wasn’t necessarily her favorite subject, but she had always enjoyed it. It just had the unfortunate issue of being the last class of the day before she was done. She was up for her internship in the morning and stayed in London until after lunch. By that time, she would have just preferred to not have any classes to deal with, but unfortunately she had two. First, she had to make it through Charms and after that, she had to trek all the way down to the greenhouses for class with her aunt. After a long day, that just wasn’t ideal at all.
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Rhea knew that she was already on thin ice with the woman as it was. She wasn’t the closest with her mother’s sister, or that side of the family at all really. Amaryllis had married a halfblood and she knew that her mother had plenty of opinions on that. But the Notts weren’t exactly the strictest of families anyway. Her uncle had been harboring a Muggleborn, for Merlin’s sake. Everyone but Caerus and Remy were aware that they belonged together. And she was shagging LJ.
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Not that that was necessarily going anywhere, but still. It was a little hypocritical to judge her aunt’s choices when she’d made some questionable ones herself. She actually cared about LJ. More than she probably should. They still weren’t anything, but that didn’t change the fact that she cared about him.
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Maybe she should ask her aunt for advice. Wouldn’t that be an interesting conversation? She was pulled from her non-herbology related thoughts by her aunt’s instructions, which she figured she should probably pay attention to. They were in advanced herbology, after all—far enough along that things could bite off an arm or have a fatal bite or something. That was so not the way that she was going to die.
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As she expected, the Snargaluff actually could attack people—something that she did remember reading, now that she thought about it. She was definitely going to have to keep thoughts of her personal life at a minimum. That was the plan, anyway, until Oralie spoke. Partnering with her and talking was much better. “Good. Because I need some fun when I’m harvesting pods,” she wrinkled her nose, before heading in the direction of one of the free tables near the middle. “So, do you want to wrangle or extract? I’m not going to lie, neither sound appealing.” If neither was an option, she’d definitely pick that.
[break][break]

[attr="class","cnotes"]420 ● Oralie Slughorn ● outfit minus trashy bits -- necklace, eyeshadow, nails

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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Ring, ring goes the bell

Back in the classroom, open your books

Keep up the teacher don't know how mean she looks

Oralie did not mind hands on, active lessons. Potions and Alchemy were both very engaging--and she loved those. But they were different than Herbology. While they could be messy, they didn't often involve literal dirt. Whereas, dirt was basically a staple of the greenhouse. While charms would protect her manicure, and they were to wear gloves anyway, she always seemed to end up with a bit of dirt under her nails when she finished a Herbology lesson. It was an annoyance to have to clean--and had to be addressed before leaving the greenhouse, because the horror of actually being seen with dirt under her fingernails, even just one, was unthinkable. She had very high standards aesthetically. Her mother had cultivated her to be a lady--at very least, in appearance. 

Having the class with Rhea made it it much better, though. She liked having her friend around. Conversation with the Nott always proved to be interesting and amusing. Rhea was a bit more brazen with her misdeeds than Oralie, but they had a fair bit in common. An aversion to the task at hand was certainly on that list. The Slughorn wrinkled her nose as she looked at the unassuming plant. She made a little face at Rhea as she gave a noncommittal answer. "Professor Blackwood will insist we do both, so it really doesn't matter which was start with." She produced her wand, though, favoring the less involved option to start with. The girl really did not want to have to stick her hand down in the thing and pull out a pod. Maybe if they had gloves that went further up their arms it wouldn't be so bad. But it just seemed gross. "I will wrangle first." She thought that seemed the less bad of the tasks. And while she and Rhea were very good friends, that didn't mean she was going to take any extra suffering onto herself. They were friends, but they were also Slytherins. Individual first, family second, friends third.

"Just poke it, so I can try to bind some of the tentacles...That way we look like we are doing something. And  maybe the pods can be levitated out?" They were witches, after all. They didn't need to be doing things the manual muggle-esque way if they didn't absolutely have to. Professor Blackwood had not told them explicitly how to perform the task, only to perform it. As long as they harvested all the pods, what did it matter how they did it?   

_{Rhea Amberly Nott ♔ uniform ♔ 417}

MADE BY VEL OF GS + ADOX 2.0

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[attr="class","title-hels"] Last Train to Clarksville

[attr="class","subtitle-hels"]Now I must hang up the phone
I can't hear you in this noisy railroad station all alone

[attr="class","wordz-hels"]Now, Helenus was many things.

Brave was not particularly one of them, as many people knew. Therefore, when he'd walked into the Herbology classroom, and seen both Clio and Aphrodite somewhat near each other, and someone's head beginning to turn in his direction, he'd panicked and found himself at the side of one of the Seventh? year girls he'd never known. She was a Ravenclaw, but he thought she was a muggleborn, which definitely explained why she didn't seem all too familiar.

There, and it was better that he'd looked like he was paired off already, so it didn't like he was choosing one over the other. Both would be furious. Neither would forgive him for that. They would both take this personally, they would both be upset at him, and maybe that would be some half bonding! Right? Right! He knew that wouldn't happen.

He gave a Customer Service smile to the dark-haired girl near him. "I'm Helenus, and you're. . ?" He trailed off, waiting for her answer. When the girl-- Medea, apparently-- answered, he tried making conversation at her, but it wasn't quite too successful. Admittedly, some of it wasn't the best-planned out conversation, but not everyone liked sharing things about themselves other than their age. That was fine, not everyone was able to talk in classes. He'd gotten out she was left-handed, that was the only important thing. Comfortable silence it was, then.

"Wrangle? Or. . ." He was met with a very blank and patient stare as he glanced at his gloves. "Right, yes. Me then." He peered at the vines, trying to remember how exactly to do it. Right, so, memory not working. Medea seemed to be on the verge of making a remark, and he glanced at the tables to see what they were doing. A pained sigh, and his partner brushed her hands along the plants. They immediately responded, and Hels tried to restrain them, or hold them apart.

"Yes! Right."  They were going by somewhat successfully, and Medea plunged her gloved hand into the stump, drawing out the pods, uncaring of the ridges that scratched at her skin or the vines trying to fight at her. They weren't the first pair to be successful, or even the third, but a success was a success!

[attr="class","tags-hels"]☆ @i looked at the pairs and decided these combinations would be the funnest to write, oops. 379 words ☆

[attr="class","credz1"]❤fai

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[attr="class","ctopline"]One taught me love

[attr="class","cscriptslytherin"]one taught me patience

[attr="class","cline"]

[attr="class","clyrics"]And one taught me pain[break]
Now, I'm so amazing

[break][break]

[attr="class","cbody"]Herbology wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but she could definitely do without getting her hands this dirty. The only reason that she had even kept up with this class for as long as she had was really just because it had always been one of her mother’s favorite subjects, and she had insisted upon it. She had made it very clear to her that it was important to know how to deal with all manners of plants. Keeping up a family garden was a lady’s responsibility, or something like that. Rhea had sort of stopped listening once it got to the point in the conversation where they started talking about her future responsibilities.
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Somehow, she didn’t think that her husband, whoever he might be in the future, would care all that much if she had a house-elf take care of the garden or greenhouse instead of doing it herself. Rhea did not think that was going to be a make or break factor in their relationship. But her mother had plenty ideas of what she should and should not be good at, and Herbology just so happened to meet that first list. Tending to plants and all that was important to Rosalind Nott.
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What was absolutely not important to her was what Rhea wanted to do that she did not deem appropriate. Take an internship somewhere that she could actually use her brain, for instance. It wasn’t that she disliked her internship at Witch Weekly or anything. She definitely didn’t hate it. Rhea just thought that she would enjoy an internship at Desiderium more. But she had not yet managed to convince her mother of that being a good idea. The last thing that she wanted was her daughter scaring off potential suitors when they realized that she was smarter than them. It was ridiculous, in her opinion, but there was no denying that it was the way that their world worked sometimes. She knew there were plenty of purists out there that truly did want meek and obedient wives that did not want to even hear their wife disagree with them, let alone have a job that they weren’t capable of having themselves.
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Rhea didn’t think that she was going to end up marrying a man like that, but that was just not the point. There were times when she had to choose her battles, and that meant taking Herbology when her mother wanted to, instead of dropping it.
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Luckily for her, Oralie being in the class definitely made it easier. She had someone to suffer with during and to lament about all the dirt and grime left on their hands afterwards. “Fine…” She rolled her eyes, knowing that extracting was definitely the worst of the two. She supposed she might as well get it over with.
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Taking a breath, she eyed the Snargaluff again. It still resembled a stump, or at least it would until she touched it. Then Oralie would have to wrangle the thing, and she’d have to get the pod out. Though she would definitely try to levitate it. If there was a chance of getting it out without reaching her hand down inside the plant, she was going to take it. Pulling out her wand as well, she brought the tip of it to the top of the stump, prodding it lightly.
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Immediately, the vines flew out and started flailing through the air with enough force that she took a step back while she waited for Oralie to figure out how to wrangle them so she could get a look at where the pod was.
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[attr="class","cnotes"]603 ● Oralie Slughorn ● outfit minus trashy bits -- necklace, eyeshadow, nails

[attr="class","cred"]MADE BY VEL OF WW + ADOX 2.0

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