Magical Hogwarts

“Très bien,” Arsène said as the first student, one of his daughters in fact, announced that she was done with repotting the plant. A satisfied smile spread across his face. Clearly, his children had inherited his green thumb.

“Once you’re all finished with the repotting, find a place for your plant where it doesn’t get too much direct sunlight.”

He watched his students finish their tasks and went over to Amandine and Mathilde who both had been among the first to complete the task. “Well done, both of you. I hope you’ll find that these plants are really special just like every person is. They have their own characteristics and are all beautiful in their own way.”

Knowing that this was neither the time nor the place to reveal that he was more than just the girls’ professor, Arsène turned around and checked on the other students in the greenhouse. There seemed to be no further incidents and mostly everyone was making good progress.

“Before you go, please give your plants some water and then make sure to check on it every few days. For your homework please start a plant journal, describing what your plant is like and what you did with it and add whenever you checked on it and gave it some water. À la prochaine!”

[~ end~]

While she liked approval from teachers, Amandine just couldn't warm to this creepy old guy. She almost wished she hadn't been first to announce she had finished, because now he was going to remember her name, and she wasn't sure why, but the thought somehow unsettled her. Still class was nearly over and she would likely have time to read a few pages of her latest novel before the next lesson began.

Smirking, Amandine briefly wondered about leaving the bitey plant in direct sunlight, see how it liked that and whether it was advanced enough to move itself into the shade, but decided getting revenge on a plant wasn't worth risking her grade. Just as well, because the professor came to speak to her before she could decide where to put it. Special just like every person? Eww. She didn't respond and Professor Dutour moved away again, and she quickly found a place underneath a bench. No direct sunlight there, at all. Well alright, if it looked sick in a few days maybe she would move it somewhere nicer.

She cast Amnis aqualis and directed the stream of water into the pot, thinking that a plant journal would be both the easiest and dullest piece of homework she was likely to be given this month. Once finished she stood up, collected her belongings and left without a word or backward glance.

[out]

Fortunately his tablemate obliged, and Julien managed to free both of his hands by the time he returned.

“Thanks,” he told the younger boy gratefully, reaching for the reclaimed pot – but choked slightly at his musing-aloud about the plants moving across the room on their own accord. “Let’s not,” the Papillonlisse replied with a thin smile, the joking in his tone much feebler than he’d intended.

The unmistakable shattering of pottery immediately followed by a shriek made Julien flinch visibly, nearly losing his grip on his newly re-acquired pot. Their professeur instantly moved toward the scene, so the Mousquetaire didn’t feel the need to intervene. Instead, he took a step back from the bench and prepared to repot.

His plant seemed to wave lazily at him – its tendrils just out of reach of his arm, intentionally – while he filled the new pot (which was only slightly larger than its current one, again intentionally) with the appropriate amount of soil. Then he took a deep breath and, with a smooth swift motion, loosely gathered the foliage as close to the root as possible with one hand and upended the pot with his other hand to shimmy the plant free. Seemingly confused by the motion, the leaves rippled and writhed until Julien set down the old pot, righted the plant and simultaneously supported its base before depositing it into its newly-prepared home. He took advantage of the plant’s apparent re-orienting to scoop-and-pat-down as much loose soil as he could before it decided to latch onto him again – with, to his mild surprise, relatively good success.

Again stepping away from the bench to ensure he was out-of-range, he looked to their professeur to silently indicate that he was finished – and tried to ignore the seemingly self-satisfied wriggle that his plant made upon exploring its new residence, in the interim. Fortunately he didn’t have to wait long: mostly-indirect sunlight, water, check on it every few days… keep a plant journal.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that his plant was studying him (though, mercifully, it kept its tendrils to itself this time) as he lifted it from the bench and carried it to a reasonable-seeming place on one of the many shelves lining the perimeter. As he cast Aguamenti (again noting rather against his will that it seemed to shiver with… happiness?), he thought that perhaps it would be less likely to plot his demise if it sensed that he wasn’t trying to harm it…

As he turned to pack his things and go, he had the strange urge to say goodbye to it, if only to add some dimension of humor to this rather foreboding lesson: waggling his fingers like it had waved its tendrils seemed fitting. Which led him to wonder just how far he should let his mind wander about its degree of sentience…

Blowing out his breath sharply, Julien cast a quick glance around the room and gave it an imperceptible nod instead, before retrieving his things and hurrying out of the greenhouse.

[[ out! ]]

Mathilde wasn’t sure why, but Dutour’s approval felt awkward. He had been nothing but kind to her all year and Mathilde was generally the kind of person who rewarded kindness with kindness herself, but Dutour was creepy, old, and he smelled badly. The girl didn’t quite understand what she had done to earn so much attention from him. She liked Botanique, yes, that was true, but there were other students who liked plants and excelled at the class as well and not all of them received this special attention.

While Mathilde usually preferred to water plants manually with a can, she now used her wand from a safe distance and watered her plant. Then she looked around for a place where she could leave it. Although the girl couldn’t say that she liked the strange hybrid, she didn’t want to leave it to die either and so she found a spot on the North side of the greenhouse. Here it would get light but less direct sunlight than in the other areas. That would have to do.

Once she had tidied up her work space, she quickly sneaked out of the greenhouse, relieved to leave Dutour behind and hoping that the old man would soon find some other students he found more interesting than her.

[out]

Aristide’s tactic of watching how the others did first before trying to repot his plant was maybe not the smartest decision he had ever made in the end. As a consequence of his caution, the boy was not among the first to finish his task and while some students already packed their things and left, he was still busy dealing with his plant.

It surprised Ari that Julien wasn’t too eager to imagine how it would be if the plants could move. Clearly, the Papillonlisse didn’t feel as intrigued by dangerous things as Ari sometimes did.

However, no matter how intrigued Ari was by the thought of what the plant could do, he was far less pleased when one of the hugest oval leaves of his plants closed around his fingers as he tried to lift the plant out of its old pot.

“Oh no, you won’t do that,” the boy said angrily, dropping the plant carelessly into its new pot and ripping off the leaf that had enclosed around the fingers of his left hand with his right. “See, that’s what you get when you try this,” he snarled and then quickly pulled out his wand to vanish the ripped off leaf before Dutour would notice it.

Remembering that Dutour had told them to give their plants water, Ari watered his just a little too generously and then put the pot on the floor where he hoped that someone (hopefully Dutour) would stumble over it.

He hastily tidied up his space and grabbed his things to follow the group of students that were already leaving the greenhouse.

[out]