Advanced Herbology on Herbology

Nathan Xavier

February 09, 2019 9:41 PM

Advanced Herbology by Nathan Xavier

Advanced Herbology was Nathan's first class every Tuesday and Thursday, starting at 8 AM. His day, lately, started around 4:30 AM when Theodora decided she was done sleeping for the night. He tried to catch a few extra minutes of sleep while Isis fed the baby, but then it was his turn to change the diaper and get her dressed. He got himself dressed while she did a little bit of tummy time on her play mat (which she hated) and then he rescued her and they had a little bit of story time as a reward for her head lifting practice.

By the time 7 o'clock rolled around, it felt like he'd already been up half the day, and he didn't even feel a little bit guilty for dropping her and her bottles off at Grandmother Xavier's house for the day. Then he apparated back to the school, had a quick breakfast in the hall, and made it out to the Greenhouses with enough time to review his class notes from last time so he remember what exactly it was he was supposed to be teaching today.

On this particular autumn day, it was the Flicker Fern. The advanced class was a small one, so Greenhouse House Two didn't need a lot of extra space in it for the students. As such, there were a lot of different plants filling up most of the available room.

"Good morning class," he greeted them. He didn't have the endurance this month to meet them at the door as he usually did, (though he was doing much better now than at the beginning of the year; Dora was usually just waking up once during the night now) but once each student entered, he greeted them by name and floated their recently graded homework assignment over to them. So it wasn't too much different than his prior routine. Especially for advanced student, he didn't usually have to remind anyone about his office hours.

"Today, we are continuing our unit on camouflaging plants. The one under discussion today, as you may have noted from your syllabus, is the Flicker Fern. Does anyone know anything about this fern?" He half expected a response that it flickered, but he got luckier than that today. "Yes, good. It is a plant that can take on the appearance of other nearby plants, but which can be identified because the illusion has a distinctive flicker where you can very briefly see that it is in fact a fern."

"Before we go into more details about how and why it does this, I'd like you all to take a walk around the greenhouse. Mixed in among the other plants, there are seven Flicker Ferns. I'd like you to try to find them all, and note what kind of plant it is mimicking when you see it. When everyone is done, we'll discuss that and see if any of them changed looks during the time it takes for us all to do that. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves, but please don't give away where the ferns are to anyone who hasn't found them yet."

OOC - As you all know already, points will be awarded based on length, relevance, realism and creativity. The Flicker Fern is made up for this class, so additional details can be invented as needed. This is the Advanced Greenhouse, so the other plants may be less than entirely benign. Particularly dangerous ones are probably labeled as such, but Nathan's been a bit distracted lately . . . So be careful and have fun.

Subthreads:

I wish I could flicker away. by Juniper Brockert, Teppenpaw

1 Nathan Xavier Advanced Herbology 28 Nathan Xavier 1 5

Juniper Brockert, Teppenpaw

March 12, 2019 5:37 AM

I wish I could flicker away. by Juniper Brockert, Teppenpaw

Initially, Juniper had decided to take Herbology because barely anyone else did. The only people in her year that took it were her, Finn and Zevalyn. And, though she didn't mean it in a nasty way, she wished Zevalyn wasn't in the class. Furthermore, she would be happy if none of the sixth years joined the class. If it was just her and Finn, that would be utterly perfect. Even with Professor Xavier there. Juniper admittedly was fond of the Herbology professor and even though COMC was her favorite class, she liked him better than Professor Taransay. Not that she disliked the COMC professor, she just liked Professor Xavier better.

Also, she sincerely hoped Gwen wasn't taking the class. Juniper honestly hated her with a passion that surprised the seventh year. It was with the intensity that she loved Finn and Butterscotch. She didn't even need to know anything about the sixth year as a person, she was going after Finn and that was enough. Juniper had been utterly devastated when Gwen had beaten her to congratulating her friend on Head Boy. She had wanted to do that!

Of course, she was super proud of Finn for getting the position and had congratulated him later. The problem was that she'd had to see him with Gwen during the feast and that was so not conducive to her appetite. Juniper had ended up getting up, going to her room and crying her eyes out for the rest of the night.

She really didn't know what she would do if she didn't get to be with Finn. Well, okay, actually she did, she'd end up married to someone else. Her family would make her. Father might be compassionate about it for a bit but eventually Uncle Clifford would push for her to be married-and Mother would be pushing it all the way from the beginning.

But she didn't want that.

Juniper tried to push these thoughts aside as Professor Xavier began the lesson. Herbology wasn't as important to her to learn as, say, Transfiguration as she wanted to be an animagus. Still, she wanted to be respectful and listened to what her professor had to say.

Okay, Flicker Ferns. The Teppenpaw wandered off to look and for a moment, she thought she saw one. She wasn't sure though so she stepped closer and peered down at it.

She was debating whether or not it was there when someone came up behind her. Juniper jumped when they spoke. Her face flushed, embarrassed. What was wrong with her? This was why she should never be around people. "I-I'm sorry, you startled me." She said, wanting to crawl into a hole. Maybe she was going to be a turtle animagus-and she'd so been hoping for a horse.

OOC-I'm going off the class sign up spreadsheet for whose in Herbology. If you're a seventh year that's taking it other than Finn and Zevalyn, ignore that and pretend Juniper mentioned you too. Also, apologies to Zevalyn. Juniper just wants to be alone with Finn.

11 Juniper Brockert, Teppenpaw I wish I could flicker away. 345 Juniper Brockert, Teppenpaw 0 5