Second Years, Lesson Two

As far as Landon knew, the first lesson with his second years had been a good success. He just hoped that the batch were as sensible as they made out to be considering the dangerous workload that they had this semester. Today's lesson was going to be their first lesson with an actual mandrake and he was probably more nervous than he had ever been. Before his students arrived, Landon was busy making sure each workstation was set with large clay pots, potting tools, watering cans and small pots of Mandrakes. Nothing was to go wrong that lesson and he was sure of it.

When each student was situated next to a workstation, Landon quickly began the lesson. "I hope you all have your earmuffs today because, as you can see, we are going to get started with handling mandrakes. The mandrake you are standing in front of now will be your pet for the rest of the semester. You will look after them and you'll be writing a journal all about it. For now, your first step is to repot them and place them comfortably into a new home." Landon couldn't help but be nervous for the students and what they were about to do. He had only ever seen the majority of them once before and now he was trusting them to do what they were told when dire circumstances were involved. "One thing you must understand before you even begin touching your mandrake is that you may not cause your mandrake any harm. Anyone who is found to do that will get an automatic fail for this course this year which I'm sure none of you would like." He continued, with a sarcastic smile. "Mandrakes fancy damp soil, shade to sunlight, and occasional food. Remember to take proper care of them."

After a good overview of the rules, Landon was a bit more confident with them all. He was never a stickler for rules but going through them would hopefully ensure that all of the twelve and thirteen year olds were safe. On the bright side, the students would never have to hear Landon go through them again as he was sure they'd all be mature enough to remember each and every one. Professor Carter walked over to his desk and leaned against it to observe all the students. He instructed, "Put on your Dragonhide gloves and your work robes and we shall begin." Landon put on his gloves also. "I will demonstrate for you. However, before I demonstrate, I will verbally tell you what we are about to do. First, you will grasp the leaves of your Mandrake gently, yet firm. Then tug them upwards. Your Mandrake will come out of the small pot, and then you will transfer them into the large pot already filled with dirt, put them in, plant the dirt around them and give them some water. And that’s it. Watch me. Put your earmuffs on." He waited patiently for everyone to put them on and gave a few of the ones who had forgotten them one of the spare pairs of earmuffs from the box. "Their cry is pretty strident. So, make sure you have them on correctly."

Landon put his on and made sure it was in place. He did everything he had ordered them to do and eventually, the Mandrake rested comfortably in the large pot, dozing off. His Mandrake was rather small but vociferous. Landon took off his gloves and went to sit behind the desk, watching as the students began to work on their mandrakes.

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Assignment: RP today's lesson AND write a short diary entry about your mandrake for full marks. For extra credit, you may draw a picture of your mandrake if you wish.

 

[Christa Langley]

Christa had no idea what a mandrake was. Even though they’d sort of been told, the idea of it resmbling a baby and being… well, a plant, that moved and made noise sort of freaked her out. She didn’t know if she believed it could actually be more alive than a standard plant but the very nature of it was not appealing to her in the slightest. So when she saw the small pot at her station she wasn’t very happy about it. She pulled on her gloves and her earmuffs (she wasn’t about to test any theories here) and stared at it. This didn’t feel like it was going to be very pleasant. She pulled the mandrake out, after several attempts and then felt her entire body shudder as it wiggled around in her hands. It wriggled and wailed (she assumed as she couldn’t hear it) as she dropped it into the larger pot. She was absolutely going to have nightmares about this. She did the needful and then focused on her diary entry.
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Mandrake Journal - Entry One

I'm going to be honest, I did not like this class. At all. We had to repot a mandrake today and I'm still not sure how I feel about mandrakes as a whole - they seem far too alive for my taste and as someone who knows a lot about plants and animals it made me extremely uncomfortable. It took me more tries than I was comfortable with to even get the plant (if thats what it really is) into the pot. Personally I was waiting to it to address me by name and call me mama, especially since it looked right at me and then screamed the place down. Obviously I couldn't hear it because of the earmuffs, but that wasn't really the point here. My imagination filled in the blanks and it wasn't very pretty. When I got to this school no one warned me about his ridiculous a lot of this would be, and you can't tell me I'm supposed to be okay with what is going to happen to this plant at the end of the day. It feels like you've just given me a puppy that I'm going to have to shoot in the end and frankly I'm not okay with that. I don't care if this gets me a bad mark, this is how I feel. It felt like I was hurting it, like I was forcing it to do something it didn't want to do. I don't even know if I did any of it right because my hands were shaking the whole time. I don’t want to take care of it. I don’t even want to look at it again. It might be a magical plant, but it felt way too close to human for me.​

 

[Miles Flynn]

He had been basically dreading the next Herbology lesson just because he really wasn't looking forward to having to deal with mandrakes all year. Miles had made sure to bring along his earmuffs, surprised that he actually remembered that he needed them in the first place. Listening to the Professor, he was almost tempted to fail the whole course, just because then it would give him an excuse not to show up to lessons. But he knew his parents probably wouldn't approve all too much, so kept that thought on the back burner. Besides, he didn't fancy getting a detention or losing house points or something. The whole thing as was unpleasant as he thought it was going to be, wrinkling his nose up the whole time he spent having to repot the stupid root, patting down the soil a little harder than he probably should in the hopes it would just shut it up. And, what was worse, he was supposed to be keeping a diary about all of this. Miles ended up just writing the bare minimum he could probably get away with without getting a fail before eagerly leaving once class had been dismissed.