Open Prodding Petals

[Lucas Fletcher]

Open after Teigs posts with Mary Lou
When Lucas had heard there was a garden at Hogwarts, he had been pretty excited. A garden at a magic school just had to be magical, right? So on a sunny day, he headed out there, ready to meet talking plants or color changing flowers. To his frustration, the gardens were just... gardens. True, it was pretty beautiful, but there was nothing inherently magical about it. Lucas wandered past the different plants, trying to figure out if any of them were new to him. There may be magical plants here, even if they didn't look obviously magical. Lucas carefully looked at a flower, then prodded it carefully with a finger. Maybe it would show its true magic power if he did the right thing?

 

[Mary Lou Layton]

It had been one of those kind of days for Mary Lou. Initially, when she'd gotten up that morning, she had everything planned out. She was going to write a letter to her Mother, since she couldn't call her, figure out how to get the letter to her, (she'd been informed of owls at some point) get some breakfast and then head to the library to try and figure out what a bezoar was. Everything had gone very wrong. Firstly, she'd slept right through breakfast. Next, she had misplaced her pencil, the only one she had and since she didn't know how to use a quill and ink (nor really did she want to learn) she'd been unable to write a letter. Not that her mother would have written her back anyway. The only thing that had worked out so far was that she'd managed to find the word Bezoar in one of the books in the library, but it was in regards to Potions, which made very little sense to her anyway as she wasn't aware of that class on her schedule, which told her it would go way over her head. At least she'd found it though, and it was a good way of distracting herself from literally everything else that was giving her anxiety. She'd needed to be outside and so she'd taken a little walk for some fresh air, something she'd had a habit of doing since she was a little girl back in Alabama. She'd found the garden not long ago, or, rather, Elysia had found it and dragged her around. She supposed, in some way, Elysia was something akin to a best friend, but as she knew virtually nothing about the other girl and the girl knew virtually nothing about her, she wasn't even sure that was a fair assessment, just something that was. Once she'd reached the gardens, she was slightly stunned to see a boy from her house who looked to be studying the plants rather intently. She wasn't sure what he was focusing on, but incase he hadn't heard her approaching, she took a couple of steps back to step purposely on a twig and snap it, before clearly her throat lightly. She didn't want to frighten him. "I'm sorry to disturb you.. but... can I ask what y'all doing?" He had a name, he definitely had a name, what was it?​

 

[Lucas Fletcher]

Lucas jumped a little as he heard a twig snap nearby, and felt himself blush at the sight of a girl from his year. She asked him what he was doing, which was a very fair question. He'd noticed the girl before, and thought he knew her name was Mary Lou. But there wasn't much he knew about her, and clearly, he wasn't giving her a very good first impression either. He laughed a little, standing up straight again, his hands now behind his back. "I... was just looking at the flowers." He said, then shrugged. "I mean, honestly? I was thinking maybe they're secretly magical flowers," he admitted a little sheepishly, "they're at a magical school... so I was expecting them to do something cool. But I think they're just flowers." He said, a little disappointed. "I know it sounds silly." He added quickly. "But portraits move too...."

 

[Mary Lou Layton]

Magical flowers? Goodness, Mary Lou hadn't even thought of that. As if she thought the flowers would suddenly come alive and attack her, Mary Lou covered her face with her hands and shook her head. "Oh, no no no, please tell me they aren't magical too, I couldn't bare it." She said, not really thinking about how she might look to this other student who was clearly fascinated with the thought. All she could think was how incredibly horrifying it would be if they had magical plants like the ones in Alice in Wonderland or this (now she realised they were quite silly and very wrong) Disney movies. A rose that could call her name, or a tree that moved, goodness no, she really didn't want that to be the case at all! "I can not deal with something else today, I can not." She didn't even want to think about the fact that it could easily be a very real possibility in a school of magic like this. She didn't think it sounded silly to think the plants might also been magical in some way, especially since Professor Landon had specifically suggested that plants in the non magical world and magical world were often different. She just hoped she didn't have to deal with a jazzing jasmine or a singing sunflower. Nope, no, that would absolutely be the last straw. "Solid assumption, but I dearly hope you're wrong. I've had about enough of today already. I can't cope with another surprise." She had started to calm down somewhat from the first couple of weeks, but tears were still common and wand refusal was assumed. Spells just didn't work for her it was something she'd simply have to grow accustomed to. Eventually she'd be sent back home, until then all she could do was try not to jump at every little sound she came across. It was becoming difficult to avoid things that scared her or she didn't understand. Every corridor had a scary door, or a terrifying ghost or a mean portrait. Getting to her common room after another class was especially fun when she had to factor in the staircases.​

 

[Lucas Fletcher]

Lucas hadn't expected such a strong reaction from the girl, and was a little alarmed as she seemed to think it was a horrible idea. He faltered, glancing at the flowers and then back at the girl. "Well, I don't think they're magical." He mumbled, still a little disappointed by that. Then he realized what the girl's words meant, and he perked up a bit. "Does that mean you're from the normal world too? Or uh, muggle world?" He had to get used to these words now. "It would've been cool if they were magical, though, right?" He added, not sure why she was so against the idea. "I don't mean dangerous..." He added, glancing at the plants around them again. "I don't think they would allow it in a garden like this if they were dangerous." He paused, looking over in the direction of the forbidden forest, which had both fascinated and terrified him. "Maybe those are in there?" He wondered, thinking out loud. "Like, that's why it's forbidden?" He realized the girl had told him she was having a bad day, and here he was just rambling on. He turned his gaze back to her and frowned a little in concern. "Sorry. Are you... okay? Did something bad happen?"

 

[Mary Lou Layton]

Mary Lou shook her head. She couldn’t believe this. Magical plants, of course she hadn’t thought about it because it was so far from what she’d been thinking about, which mostly included how different this world was than the one she had thought about before. She had hoped that maybe her initial first impression was flawed, but so far nothing had done to show her that she was wrong, only attested to being much worse than she’d thought in the first place. She looked at his when he used that word, Muggle, she heard it a lot but it did nothing to really make her feel like she belonged or help her understand the context. “Uh, yeah, the normal world,” the word Muggle just didn’t sit right on her tongue. “I’m from um, Alabama... Daphne, Alabama or just outside of Daphne.” She told the boy, not really sure what to say about the magical plants business. She really just couldn’t deal with anything out of the ordinary today, much as she might have wanted to. She realised she’d stopped listening to the boy when he asked her if she was okay. What was his name? Larry? Lawrence? She was sure it started with L. “Oh, Uh,” she looked around for a moment. “No... yes, I mean, kind of?” How did she explain to someone that this entire world set her on edge?​

 

[Lucas Fletcher]

Lucas smiled when the girl also referred to it as the normal world, it did seem a little strange to call the place they had come from 'muggle', as if it was something strange to them. "Oh, awesome. That's pretty far away." He said, nodding. "I'm from Te Auau." He told her, though he wasn't sure she would know where that was in New Zealand. To be fair, he didn't think he could point out Alabama on a map if he tried, and he'd never heard about a place named Daphne. He was a little sad that she didn't really seem interested ins peculating about the forest or magical plants that may be in there, but when she said something bad had kind of happened, he guessed maybe that was why. "Do you wanna talk about it?" He asked her, though he would understand if she wouldn't. It wasn't like they were that close, as this was their first real conversation.