Seventh Years: Lesson Two

Today’s plant was already sitting innocently on the bench as the class began to arrive, rather at odds with other floral, festive Valentine's decorations about the greenhouse today. Angel was grateful for the distraction, turning away from the plant. It looked not unlike a grey cactus, only with boils instead of spines to greet the class. The whole thing looked quite sickly and frankly unnerved him.

“Afternoon, kids, got something special for you today,” he said, motioning to the plant and having the class gather round once everyone had arrived. Unnerving or not, the plant had been hard to come by and Angel was excited to show it off.

“So,” Angel said once the class was gathered and quiet, “Any volunteers to touch it? I promise it won’t harm you,” Angel said, before nodding to one particularly bold student who’d volunteered. Stepping preemptively out of what was effectively the splash zone, Angel smiled glumly as the student touched the plant, resulting in it releasing a stream of vile stinksap. “And this is why we don’t touch anything when we don’t know what it is,” he said, trying not to breathe in too much before vanishing the stinksap as quickly as he could with a flick of his wand. “Ah well, nothing risked, nothing gained, 5 points for your trouble, Happy Valentine's,” he said to his poor volunteer, patting them gamely on the shoulder.

“For those of you who don’t know, this is a Mimbulus Mimbletonia, bit of a mouthful that, a rare plant from Assyria. It’s a member of the cactaceae family, so from the spine plants family, related to the muggle cactus. It’s most notable for its unique defensive mechanism, which is quite potent as we just witnessed. When prodded-” Angel smiled at his poor volunteer once again, “-It will spray out Stinksap from it’s boils here, which as you might recall, smells not unlike rancid manure. Stinksap, while I don’t recommend touching it if you can help it, is non-poisonous and usually dark green in color. If you need a reminder we could prod it again,” he offered, relenting with a laugh after a few vocal protests from the students.

“Native to arid climate, Mimbulus need dry soil and sunlight to really thrive. Supposedly a well cared for and calm Mimbulus make this cute little crooning sound, though it's arguable if the plant is actually sentient or it that's just an autonomous reaction to ideal conditions,” Angel hadn't heard this one coo yet, but they had been poking it a fair bit. Feeling the class had been subjected to enough of the mimbulus, Angel checked his pocket watch, deciding to wrap up the lesson there. “That’s all for today unless anyone needs another round with the stinksap. Go, be free,” he said, shooing the class away and out of the greenhouse.

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RP the lesson. First poster can volunteer for some extra house points.

 

[Elio Boneheart]

It was probably a good thing that Elio liked Herbology, or he probably wouldn’t enjoy the seventh year course at all. As he walked into the class he eyed the sickly-looking cactus thing on the bench, already suspicious. He learned a long time ago that nothing in this class was as it seemed, but that woudln’t stop him from taking a closer look because quite honestly he was sort of morbidly curious. He was the kind of person who watched people get arrested by sticking his head out of a window, or watching from across the street when something was happening on someone elses door step. He coudln’t help it, he’d always been a gossip. When asked if there were any volunteers, Elio stepped forward and rolled up his sleeves. “Alright, let’s see what you got,” he said as he gave the boil covered cactus a swift poke. Nothing happened for a second and he thought he was in the clear before a comically ridiculous amount of dark green stinksap sprayed out and onto his robe covered arm. “Oh f-merlin, that’s bloody foul”. he tried to get the stuff off of his arm as though that was going to help with the stench - it didn’t - and then moved away, some smarter classmates giving him a wide berth so as not to inherit his stench. The smell lingered even despite Castillo’s efforts. Yuck. “Happy Valentine’s to me, I guess,” he said, cringing at the smell. At least he got housepoints? Not worth it.​

 

[Savannah Walters]

Savannah walked into the herbology classroom and took her spot in the room. She looked up at the professor and then raised an eyebrow at the offer. She wasn’t sure she’d ever trust the herbology professor when instructed or offered to touch something. Right enough as someone did touch it, it was bad. She rolled her eyes at what he said and then just began to take some notes from what the professor was saying about the plant. She made sure to get how it looked, what it could be used for and where it tended to be found. Making sure that she got all of the important information. The lecture wasn’t too long and soon enough Savannah was able to pack up and leave the room.

 

[Ruto Vernier-Raison]

The first week back of classes weren’t really different to what Roo expected them to be, despite being her NEWT year. She hated seeing her classmates so tense, as they really had no reason to be. The teen knew that her overall grades were not going to affect her future. Roo followed her classmates to wherever she had to be, already keen for the classes to be over.

Ruto's next class was Herbology and the teen happily entered the classroom, eager to get started on learning about some dangerous plants. At the front of the classroom was a rather interesting looking plant, and Roo was surprised as the professor asked who wanted to touch it. She did not trust it at all, especialyl after the professor told them last lesson that they would be learning about dangerous plants. Eagerly, she watched as a Gryffindor classmate approached it, and couldn't help but laugh as it spat at him, producing a thick liquid towards him with a foul smell. Roo took notes as the professor explained what it was. As the lesson ended, Roo packed away her belongings and headed out.

 

[Cassius Styx]

Cassius Styx did not know what to think of the first set of NEWT lessons, but he knew that the lessons ahead would end up being difficult to say the least. Some classes might be easier than others, but the time to rest was last year, and not this one. Cass hoped that Aubrie was doing better than he was. He was already stressed, which was showing as he paced his dorm. He was sure that Terror was going to be annoyed if he kept doing it. He needed to read a book to help calm himself when it got closer to exam time at the end of the year. Cass finished getting ready, and then left the dorm to head out before he would end up late.

Cass entered the Herbology greenhouse and found his bench. He looked at the plant that Professor Castillo asked if anyone wanted to touch it. Hell to the no, Cassius Styx would not do that. He knew that some plants were just as dangerous as the ones in the Dangerous greenhouse. And yet, someone was dumb enough to get sprayed with stinksap. Even though it was quickly cleaned up, Cass still got a whiff of how vile that stuff was. He wrinkled his nose as Professor Castillo went over the Mumbulus Mimbletonia. Who thought of the names for these things? He took notes over it regardless. And that was it for today. Cass gathered his things and left for better smelling pastures.​