Partners? (Tag Dathan) on Herbology

Nathan Xavier

September 17, 2021 11:07 PM

Advanced Class: Whomping Willow by Nathan Xavier

"Hello," Nathan greeted his advanced class for the first time this year. They were in Greenhouse Two, the smaller of Sonora's two greenhouses, and the one that housed the more dangerous plants. Fifth years were very occasionally permitted inside for certain lessons, when the subject matter covered by the CATS was too risky to be encountered by the younger Intermediate students, so he would split the class, dismissing the third and fourth years early, and having the fifth years show up later, but there were only a handful of lessons when he found it necessary to do that. Mostly, this greenhouse was reserved entirely for the RATS level lessons.

This was the first time the new sixth years would be meeting here as a matter of course, so he made sure to smile warmly at them and invite them inside, so they would be reassured that they were in fact in the right place despite it being in a different place than their past five years of Herbology lessons. Fortunately, there wasn't too much to worry about yet as the shelves and growing areas along the walls were still mostly just sprouts and pots full of soil.

"Welcome back to Sonora, everyone," he continued his greeting. "I hope you all had a nice summer at home." Xavier wasn't old enough for this class, and he hadn't heard of any other major tragedies, so he felt reasonably safe in saying that to this group. "Welcome to Advanced Herbology to our sixth years, and welcome back to the seventh years. Plants in Advanced Herbology get a bit more dangerous, so I ask you all to be very careful of anything you find growing in here." He spoke slowly and clearly for this warning, and glanced toward the two Zauberhexens to make sure they seemed to understand the caution.

"For the seventh years, you will hopefully remember that we started a unit on Deadly Defensive Vegetation last fall. We will start this year with a continuation of that unit. Over the next three weeks, I will introduce you to a new set of plants that can have quite dangerous defensive mechanisms. Fortunately, today's specimen is outside." The greenhouses in early September were uncomfortably hot, and he was sure they would all be glad to get out into the fresher air of the Gardens. Even after only just the couple of minutes it took to make his start of term reminders, Nathan already felt his robes sticking to his back with sweat. "So head on out. You may leave your personal belongings here, but bring your wands."

Once everyone was once again outside the greenhouse, he started leading them down the paths. "I put it well off the usual paths," he warned, because it was going to be a bit of a hike to get there. "I didn't want anyone stumbling upon it by mistake." They walked for some minutes before they came to a gate across a hedged arch. A sign warned "Authorized Personnel Only". He used a spell to unlock the gate, then pushed it open and encouraged them all to follow him through it. "Last one through, please close and latch the gate," he called out to the back of the group.

They walked several more minutes (Nathan looked back to make sure he hadn't lost anybody quite frequently, as this was a restricted area of the gardens) and eventually came to another gated arch, this one labelled "BEWARE OF WILLOW - Enter at your own risk". He unlocked and opened this one, too. This gate opened up into a large clearing, with an impressive looking willow tree growing in the center of it.

"Stay along the side of the hedge," he advised as he waved his students inside. "Don't get too close to the tree."

"This," he said, once everyone could see what they were studying today, "is a Whomping Willow. They are . . . quite violent. They will attack anyone and anything that comes close enough to hit with its branches, and needs no provocation at all to do so. They are considered sentient, and they are quite rare, and quite restricted, as obviously, they should not be grown anywhere near any populated areas where people might get hurt, or even wilderness areas where non-magical people might stumble across them. They are most often cultivated as a means to keep people away from areas they should not be allowed to go."

"Today, you're going to see its defensive attacks in action. You should all be able to transfigure or charm an object to be able to move about under its branches. See if you can get your object to the tree's trunk." He handed out a rock to each student. "You will find smaller items will have an easier time of avoiding the branches, but feel free to charm or transfigure it into something larger for a full understanding of just how powerful this tree is. I have more rocks for anyone who needs them."

Subthreads:

Partners? (Tag Dathan) by Ellie Alperton with Dathan Fischer

1 Nathan Xavier Advanced Class: Whomping Willow 28 1 5

Ellie Alperton

September 17, 2021 11:23 PM

Partners? (Tag Dathan) by Ellie Alperton

The first ball had been the most perfect thing Ellie could ever have imagined. She was perhaps slightly discounting the build up to shopping, which had been a dysphoria-induced, anxiety-laced nightmare. But once she had started shopping with Jasmine, it had improved, and the outcome of the whole thing had been so perfect that she was willing to gloss over and rose-tint those experiences looking back. She had felt just like a princess, and she had even had a date, even if it was only a friend one.

This time around, the ball was looking to be a logistical nightmare. She was happy that Freddie was happy, and she guessed she needed a replacement hold-my-hand-whilst-dress-shopping budddy, and that was a role he was much more likely to fill than Anya, in spite of her being Jasmine's sister. It did rather limit her prospects for a date though, and she needed one because she was a prefect. It wasn’t even convenient on the level of ‘at least it spares him from having to choose whether to help out me or Anya’ because apparently Anya was now dating Alexander. Ellie was trying not to consider the fact that she thought herself prettier or more obviously crush-worthy than her friend because a) that was a mean thing to think and b) it led her brain to bringing up ‘except for one thing’ which wasn’t a thing she wanted to consider. Still, the Alexander and Anya thing had sort of come out of nowhere, as last she’d checked Anya was still more into playing ‘the floor is lava’ than dates, and it really sucked to be the only one of her friendship group who didn’t have anyone. That had been bumming her out since she’d heard about Anya and Alexander, and realised it made her the odd duck out, and the ball was only amplifying that.

Even if she considered boys in the year below her as ‘within the acceptable age bracket,’ it was still exceptionally slim pickings once she’d discounted everyone who was already dating someone else or was Jeremy Mordue. Basically, it was Gabriel (whose status on non-Purebloods she wasn’t totally sure of), Dathan (who was maaaybe making eyes at Sadie, but either the gossip mill was being slow to air that news or nothing was official yet, which made him fair game), and Theo (which was a definite ‘no’ from her, but would clearly have been fine for Anya, so why couldn’t she have got with him if she was so desperate to date, and left Alexander for someone else?). She also knew that she didn’t have to date or dance with a boy. She could dance with a girl (or any other category of person), and dancing with a girl she liked as a friend was better than both being completely alone or dancing with someone who was a straight up racist or transphobe or just didn’t even like her as a person. She just didn’t feel it was very genuine. She was pretty sure she didn’t swing that way, and it was just a far cry from having a perfect evening with a lovely, romantic date.

It really all came down to how annoying/racist Gabriel was, or how available Dathan was, she supposed… And there was only one of those options to investigate in her advanced classes.

Herbology seemed like a pretty good choice, seeing as that’s where they’d first got to know each other. Ellie slid into place next to Dathan in the greenhouse with a friendly ‘hello.’ It was slightly annoying when it turned out they wouldn’t be staying there for the day, and that picking her spot carefully was about to be wasted. Still, it was logical enough to stick together as they made their way through the gardens.

“How was your summer?” she asked, as they walked, though her brain was also ticking over, wondering what they might be about to encounter. It was big, outdoors, and restricted, which narrowed it down somewhat, although it turned out there were a disturbing number of trees and large plants in the magical world that wanted to do you harm. Still, the second sign was much more of a give away. She only knew of one Willow that met that description.

She listened carefully to Professor Xavier’s summary, even though it didn’t cover much more than the textbook had. The challenge sounded kind of like a live action computer game, which was something she was much more likely to be bad at than memorising facts or explaining theories. She wondered whether it would even be possible. Perhaps if they all sent things at it at once? Could it be distracted, or did each limb operate separately? How many directions could it pay attention in at once? Feeling much better now that she was armed with research questions and not just a physical challenge, she picked a rock.

“This is a pretty far cry from making cute little splicey cacti, isn’t it?” she offered Dathan with a smile, watching a few of her classmates attempts to gauge what spell she wanted to use.

13 Ellie Alperton Partners? (Tag Dathan) 1456 0 5

Dathan Fischer

September 26, 2021 10:26 PM

Huh - uh, me? by Dathan Fischer

He could still barely believe it, but somehow, Dathan had made enough passable grades on his CATS to take more than the bare minimum number of Advanced classes. His schedule was still light enough that he was sort of vaguely embarrassed about it when he thought about it, which he tried not to do, but it was passable, especially since the four classes all went together well enough that he thought he should qualify for some kind of wizard job eventually. He had a nagging feeling that it wouldn't exactly be a spectacular one, but then, he had never been all that ambitious back home, either. Someone had to be the local ordinary guy, right? Even among wizards.

Of course, being a normal wizard was still a world away from being a normal guy back home. Dathan was reminded of this as they looked at today's Herbology specimen. He knew there were plants in the home world that could move a little, and some that could digest flies and stuff, but he was pretty sure none of them could do...any of that....

He chuckled nervously when Ellie compared the tree they were working with today with the little cacti they had once spliced together in this class. "It really puts spines into, uh, perspective, huh?" he agreed. "Especially since they couldn't think. You'd think that if this could, though, that sometimes it would...like somebody and not attack them?" he added, hoping to sound less dumb than he knew he was capable of doing.

Ellie, he noticed, looked pretty today. Ellie often did this. Normally, he accepted this as part and parcel of the world and didn't think much about it, at least not in any sort of organized way. However, the Headmaster had kind of made girls a problem at the Opening Feast, and he wondered if he might not have a potential Decision, capital letter emphasized, on his hands.

Ellie was pretty, and while he still ended up feeling kind of stupid around her a lot of the time, he didn't really...think she minded, maybe? It was hard to put into words, but it didn't seem as awkward and embarrassing as it could. Sadie, however, was also pretty, and he just...didn't feel all that stupid with her in general. These were excellent things about both of them, things that could make either of them a good choice for asking to the Ball that was going to happen at the end of the year. They both, however, also came with some drawbacks. For one thing, asking anyone out was the kind of thing he had gathered could end in abject humiliation. That wasn't good. It could also make things awful and awkward forever with one or both of them afterward, no matter which way the answers went. In that department, it did not help that, as a guy, he probably had an advantage as far as prefects went, since everyone was supposed to dance and there were only so many guys around, and....okay, so maybe some of the girls might want to date each other, that was a thing, and he kind of hoped it was the case here so that maybe his cousin could land a date she'd actually enjoy going to a dance with, but there was a good chance that either Ellie or Sadie might just agree because, well, there was a requirement and he was...here. And how exactly was he supposed to know if that was the case, and how was he supposed to act? It was all a potential disaster no matter how he looked at it.

Right now, though, was probably a bad time to think about it, what with the murder tree going strong here.

"I wonder what would happen if you did try to splice, like, a twig from that thing onto a cactus, though," he said, as much to divert his own thoughts as anything.

16 Dathan Fischer Huh - uh, me? 1457 0 5

Ellie Alperton

October 04, 2021 6:02 AM

Absolutely! by Ellie Alperton

“If it could,” Ellie repeated, emphasising the first word. “Is there any evidence that it can?” she asked, not aware that her tone - a little sharpened and intensified because she was interested - could come off as critical to someone who wasn’t quite so Aladrenly inclined, and didn’t love dismantling problems and really thinking about them. “It’s motion-sensitive, sure but… So’s a burglar alarm. Those don’t learn to tell well-intentioned people from bad ones. Or even from cats and racoons half the time,” she added, with a smile.

She was pretty sure she could have wiped the floor with Dathan in any situation where wits or logic came into play - for example, if they had been competing rather than collaborating in class, or if they had been in a debate. Still, that didn’t rule him out as potential boyfriend material. That stuff was also about what was on the outside. And other things were important, like being kind, which as a Teppenpaw, he definitely was.

“Well,” she considered his question. “I suppose it depends how well it recognises that the thing its been spliced to is now a part of itself. I suspect there would have to be a lot of additional spellwork, not just joining up the pieces, otherwise it might see itself as a hostile entity and start beating itself up. Kind of like how a body can reject a donor organ. Then again, if it’s motion sensitive, rather than sensitive to things that are different to itself, it might work out just fine. After all, it’s not assaulting the grass it’s standing on. It’s only when things move near it that there’s a problem.

“Speaking of which…” she added. She observed a few of the rocks sent forwards by her classmates. They were getting smacked back quite resoundingly. Ellie flinched a little as one came within the perilous zone of absolutely-no-where-near-her-in-reality. She had never liked sitting out when Seth played soccer for the reason that a soccer ball flying at all in her direction screamed ‘potential threat’ to her. “Yay, flying rocks too…” she muttered.

“What if we teamed up?” she suggested, observing that the smaller rocks seemed to be doing generally better. “If you levitated a big rock, and tried to keep it parallel above a smaller one that was scuttling in, it might shield the little one, and by the time the tree smacks the big one one out of the way we’d be part way in. And it would then need to notice and co-ordinate a second attack to get the smaller one.”

13 Ellie Alperton Absolutely! 1456 0 5

Dathan Fischer

October 09, 2021 2:09 PM

Oh - great! Sure! by Dathan Fischer

"Maybe not yet," he joked cheerfully. "But back home, everyone swears it's just any day now before we have robot overlords...which now makes me wonder if, like, wizards have books about people working on Whomping Willows and making Whomping Willow overlords...seems like robots that are real have motion detectors, and so do those, so I guess it's about as much of a leap both ways?"

All absurdity, of course. If you couldn't be the kid with something smart to say, then...was he funny? He didn't think of himself as all that funny. It was just what he did instead of being totally lame and just admitting he knew he was kind of a loser and definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Luckily, talking to Ellie only involved so much of that. A token contribution from him, then she said smart stuff and he mostly listened and tried to remember what she had said against the next exam. If nothing else, it had the virtue of simplicity....

He nodded when the smart-sounding stuff she was saying this time included a plan. It sounded reasonable, as far as he could tell. It would probably work best if, like, the whole class all threw big rocks while one person aimed a small rock, but some branches' motion detectors being distracted was better than none. "Sounds good," he said, and took out his wand and pointed it toward a good-sized rock. "Uh...lapis leviosa!" he tried, and the rock did end up in the air, so that worked. "Ready to throw it when you are," he grinned.

16 Dathan Fischer Oh - great! Sure! 1457 0 5