Kay managed to smile when Professor Virohsa asked how she was feeling. "B-better," she replied through chattering teeth. "I asked Nadia to g-go ask for some P-Pepper Up p-potion." She was quiet for a moment as she thought about the events that had transpired in the -15 C section. She had been wearing the proper winter gear when she was in that section of the greenhouse and the temperature was fine when she started to clear the floor. She never had any issues with cold environments and was accustomed to working in frigid conditions, thanks to her aunt's obsession with wintering in Siberia for the past eight years.

"Professor Virohsa, what do you think happened to the th-thermostat? The t-temperature suddenly d-dropped as soon as I f-finished clearing the floors," Kay asked while flexing her aching fingers.

"Let's go, I think we're done in here, but perhaps..." Zekke finished brushing off the snow on the last row of plants and walked back over to the thermostat and examined it.

"I wonder... I know Kay said she had adjusted the thermostat earlier, so the temperature shouldn't have changed like that. Maybe the thermostat needs to be recharmed?" He offered. "It reminds me of our refrigerator at home. The freezer charm only works for a month at a time and when the charm is on its last week, the temperature fluctuates in there to reflect the decomposition of the charm."

He snorted and grinned. "Remember the summer of our 5th year when you all came to visit and the freezer was going bonkers that week before we went back to school?"

Professor Virohsa gave Kay an encouraging smile. "It may be dirty or may the spell protecting the temperature charm may be wearing off", she explained. "Either way, it is something that can be easily fixed", she added.

ooc- Laurasia must have consider it from the coherence of the storyline, which would be correct to asume =S But let's make it it were different rooms for the sake of game rules.


Nadia walked in from the Hospital Wing and back the area where she had left Kay. Walking her to her, she had on her hands a tiny bottle with the subtance that was the Pepper Up potion. "Here," she said, panting a bit and giving it to her. "From the healer himself, this should make it better."

She only just realized she had been interrupting the conversation between the professor and her and 'oh'-ed as well as stepped back. Idly she wondered if Zekke and Jaren still were down there, at the freezing room. If it was up to her, Nadia would put the place in quarentine, but then again, it wasn't her greenhouse. She grimaced.

Moving to a calmer place, she encountered an uncouncious Alex and a put-out looking Laurasia. Making quick maths, Nadia decided she must be feeling guilty about the incident with Kay and patted her shoulder in comfort. "Don't worry, it happens. I had to do that task in the task and it was dead tiring, and it was you alone too. Somebody should have helped you with that," she offered.

"Professor, I hope that Jaren and Zekke don't end up freezing while trying to figure out what went wrong with the thermostat," Kay replied and spotted Nadia entering the room carrying a tiny bottle. She gratefully took the bottle of the Pepper Up Potion from the girl. "Thank you, Nadia," and gulped down the potion. Within seconds, steam was coming out from her ears and her body finally felt warm.

"Very well," Jaren replied dryly, remembering how long it took for them to defrost everything without magic as he and Zekke exited the infamous greenhouse.

Outside Jaren brushed the remaning snow off of his cloak and scarf as he pulled them off, noting that his fingers were slightly stiff from cold as all he was wearing on them were dragonhide gloves.

Nadia noted the boys were back and most of the other tasks being dealt with. And she was very inactive doing... nothing. Nodding at Laurasia to let her know she was going, she went back to her previous spot in the 40-50 rows, her own assigned row, and finished the watering. Actually, it was quite fast a duty and she was to either start with another row or...

Remembering Alex hadn't actually finished the feeding of the biting plants, Nadia went over. Last time she tried, thing had gone pretty good, so she was optimist. First off and recovering some clothing from Zekke, she put a coat and entered the fridge, where she took, cut and weighted exactly the ammount she remembered from last time, put a pile of meat over a tray and walked out, closing the door behind with her hips. Now once outside, approached the bitting plant section but stopped at the entrance.

First off, she took her wand and performed a small cleaning spell on her to make sure she wasn't smelling of meat. Not healthy or pleasant. She even tried cleaning the handle of her wand, just in case. Later, grabbed the dragonhide globes and put them on, even if it made it difficult to grab the wand. And then, lastly and easily, levitated the pieces of meat over with her wand and into each of the plants, one for each. Other than the plants being unfriendly to each other, everything seemed alright.

Once he exited the greenhouse with Nadia's supply bag in tow, Zekke immediately pulled off his scarf and mittens and thick winter coat.

Merlin, but compared to in there, it was a desert out here!

It was strange, but his fingers and toes and ears and nose were achingly cold, but other parts of his body were way too warm.

To hopefully return circulation back into his body, he stamped his feet and rubbed his hands together.

"Professor, the thermostat's been reset to the proper temperature, but I'm not sure how long it will stay there," he remarked to Professor Virohsa.

Seeing Nadia working on feeding the biting plants, he decided to return to his original task of watering the plants in sections 40 to 50, careful to not give them too much water.

This time, he kept a wary eye out for any stray vines or shrubbery or leaves which seemed altogether too... grabby.

"Is Section 1 to 10 watered yet?" He called out to whoever might be in earshot.

Professor Virohsa nodded as Zekke stated what Kay had been wondering about. "Thank you, dear", she replied. "I will go and see what was wrong", she added. Deciding it was about time she checked on the thermostat herself, she walked over to the closet and put on her heavy winter coat, gloves, earmuffs, scarf, and boots. With her wand at hand, she went inside the cold weather area and walked quickly towards the thermostat.

Zekke watched as Professor Virohsa disappeared into the cold-weather greenhouse and made a mental note to keep an eye out. Who knew what could happen in there considering that the thermostat was going bonkers. Not that she wasn't capable of watching over herself because she most certainly was, but below freezing cold weather always had some danger to it...

Xavier had overheard Zekke tell Virosha about the wacky thermostat in the other room. Once she disapeared through the door, he comes up next to him and asks, "The thermostat's going weird?"

"It would seem like it. Kay said she adjusted the thermostat and then it suddenly readjusted itself and the greenhouse became an icebox and when Jaren and I went in, the temperature was negative twenty degrees celcius and slowly dropping," Zekke nodded thoughtfully, pausing in his watering of the plants to speak to Xavier.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the thermostat is dropping again right now as we speak," he glanced over at the closed door and wondered how Virohsa would fix the problem.

"You know how some charms are permanent and other charms are temporary? I'm thinking that maybe there's a charm that keeps the temperature set in that room and that it is wearing off and therefore going nutters."

He shrugged a little and grinned ruefully. "It's only a wild guess, but I've seen it happen to my family's freezer compartment before."

Alex gave Professor a small nod which was followed by a rather weak smile.

"Sounds good," the girl replied. But then again, anything sounded better than having to feed biting plants. She noticed Nadia was feeding them now. Well, if she had the courage and the patience, it was all good. Mind you, it wasn't that she hated working with plants, she found most of them quite fascinating, but the really dangerous plants just weren't her thing.

When hearing Zekke ask about the plants between Section 1 and 10, she wandered over to check. "I'll water those," Alex called back to Zekke.

She hurried over and grabbed one of the water pitchers carefully. Once she got on Section 1 of the Greenhouse, she started watering the plants with her left hand while in her right hand, her wand was clutched ready for any plants that wanted to even get close to her legs or any other parts of her body.

The plants on Section 1 were actually rather calm and Alex had no problem with them. They did not seem as agressive or agitated as the ones on the other Sections. But as she got to Section 2 of the Greenhouse, the plants were at it again. There were a few that were already crawling towards her legs. ACK, but they couldn't afford to cut any more plants.

"Immobulus!" she commanded under her breath and pointed her wand at the plants in Section 2 of the Greenhouse. All the plants had stopped moving instantly. Why didn't she think of this before?! Upon finishing watering them, she placed the empty water pitcher on a dfferent table and pointed her wand at the plants again. "Finite Incantantum!"

The plants had started moving again, making weird sounds and it looked almost like they were trying to attack each other.

Alex repeated the same process on the other eight remaning Sections of the Greenhouse -- and this time, without any odd incidents.

"Do we need more stones crushed for the water? Or is there enough to finish off?" she adressed Zekke.

"Do you think she'll need some help?" Xavier asked, looking a bit worried. "I know she's an experienced witch and everything, but the cold may be a bit too much for her. We don't want anything else to go wrong. Not after the mishaps we've already had."

Maybe he was just being the worry wort he was, but after all, it had paid off a couple of times in the past. He'd also had to feeling that something was going to happen. Maybe the thermostats were that problem. He could only wish.

"There should be enough stone mixture to go around, Alex. I ground up some extra just in case." Zekke called back to Alex and returned his attention to Xavier.

"I think she should be fine. She's worked with plants for longer than we have and I'm sure she's had experience with situations like these. She let Jaren and I go in and take care of things on our own, so..." He gave a little shrug that wordlessly said, "She trusted us so I'll trust her back."

"But considering how fickle that thermostat is, let's keep an eye out anyway," he conceded with a nod.

Nadia kept with the feeding of bitting plants, almost distractedly. You would say she had grown overly confident with the task. And for a change, that didn't mean any more accidents. In fact, the only accident was putting some meat over a plant and watching it wasn't eating it, only to realize she had "fed" meat to a common plant at the start of row 33. She pulled it away (levitated it) hastly and missing Xavier's head by inches.

In fact, this time there were only a couple of bitting plants, less than last time... or maybe it was a visual effect? Anways, she didn't have to even make a second trip to the fridge and kept the rest of the meat away, then came back out.

So what was now to be done? She heard Alex call that she would be dealing with plants from second 1 to 10, and they have already dealt with 41 to 50 all too recently (at least her case, and it was a matter that she didn't quite know if each had finished with their corresponding rows earlier - she did). If so... she had run out of activities for the Plant Caretakers.

Meanwhile, if not for Larasia and Xavier (and Jaren's little intervention), the Greenhouse Caretakers duties were a bit forgotten. So making up her mind, and as she waited for a certain time to be "up" before re-do the watering, Nadia went over to her stuff, with gloves, googles and other such needed attire, went over to section 27 to dig a couple of holes.

Since she had too already made this once before, it should be easy. Then she could resume to her due duties, as plant caretaker. Others needed the experience with plants more than she did.

Professor Virohsa walked into the cold room slowly. She made sure to notice where the ice was, so as to not fall. Once she reached the thermostat she touched a couple of times with her wand. Each time, trying something different.

She noticed the thermostat was getting colder as a couple of minutes passed by and wondered what spell could be failing. After a couple of minutes, she finally realized that the thermostat's internal checking system was wearing off. In no time, Professor Virohsa touched it again with her wand, this time making sure the spell would last for a longer time than before. As it turns out, sometimes temporary spells are more efficient than the alternative.

As she looked around the rows, she noticed that the floor was too icy and snow covered the normal walking areas. Casting a spell on the floors, they were instantly cleaned and free of ice. Smiling to herself, she started to walk back towards the warmth. After all, she must have been in there for about 20-30 minutes.

Giving a nod to Zekke, Alex checked the list again to see what else she could do. There wasn't much left, after all. Just to water the plants from time to time in sections 41-50 to keep them hydrated. After all, it was rather hot there.

As she walked towards the table where the water pitchers were, she eyed Nadia intently as she was feeding the biting plants. Well, truth was, she had always admired Nadia but after seeing how good she was at EVERYTHING, it hard not to.

The girl moved swiftly between the plants when yet another one had grabbed her ankle. "Not this again," she whined quietly and pointed her wand at the plant. After performing the Severing Charm, she was let loose and jumped away from the plant -- only to knock over another one. At least this one looked normal. Or ... at least she thought it did.

As the plant fell to the floor, it started growing these -- pins, if that's what you wanted to call them. Perhaps it was the plant's way of defeding itself? Why couldn't there be a sign or something saying what each plant does to you?! They were getting longer and longer and were all going in the same direction -- her body.

Alex stood rooted to the spot and quite dumbstruck, not knowing what to do. When reality finally hit her, she gave a small squeal and said in a loud voice, "Make it stop!!!" But before the words even came out of her mouth completley, there were pins -- or rather ... extremley sharp and thin branches digging in her legs. And the weirdest part was that there was this odd, dark green liquid coming out of them.

She fell over on her knees, no doubt hurt, but somehow she had enough power left in her to perform Immobilising Charm (and a strong one, at that). The plant had stopped moving immediately, although the long, thin and sharp branches were actually digging in her skin.

All she could do was give a small whimper.

Upon hearing Alex's voice, Zekke dropped the pitcher and raced down the rows to where Alex was kneeling, ducking and dodging various plants along the way.

"Stay still, stay still, I've gotcha..." He murmured and Immobilized the plants even though he knew they were already immobilized. Two charms wouldn't hurt in this case.

Before he did anything else, he rested a hand against her forehead briefly, as if checking for her temperature. In fact he was opening his empathy - something he had done on the extremely rare occasion - to feel and absorb some of her pain and give her some emotional reassurance.

He dug into his pockets and after a moment, pulled out his pocketknife and flipped it open. Using it, he cut off each thin thorn that was digging into Alex's legs, careful to pull at the thorn as little as possible. The goal here was to get her detached from the plant. The removal of the thorns could come later at a safer time.

"I know it hurts, Alex..." his voice was warm and soothing as he cut away with deft fingers.

The sight of the seeping wounds and the nasty plant sap made him a bit nervous, but he managed to cut away at the thorns without betraying his own anxiety. He pretended that this was a timed Potions examination and it helped him to remain focused.

"Got it!"

The last thorn was cut off just as the Immobilization charm was wearing off and he snapped his pocketknife closed, tucked it into his pocket and scooped Alex up in his arms and made a long-legged dash to where Virohsa had levitated him and Jaren earlier.

"Someone quell the plants!" He called out as he barely escaped the plants with Alex in his arms.

"Professor Virohsa...?" He cradled her protectively against his chest as he looked at their Herbology Professor and his Head of House with a pleading expression that clearly read, "What do I do?"

He thanked everything bright and beautiful at the moment that his mental and emotional shields were firmly in place because opening his empathy like that was draining and well... painful.

Even though he only partially shared in the pain, it was still painful. He wasn't sure just how bad the injuries were, but they were enough that he could feel it radiating from his classmate in his arms.

Was the plant poisonous? Or was it harmless? Or...?

Jaren went immediately on full alert, running over to where Zekke was leaving with his wand out to Immobolize the plant in question. He picked it out easily because it was on its side as opposed to resting upright in its pot and the cactus-like spines were still searching around for the person that was no longer there. Performing a quick and silent charm he Immobolized it, then backed out of the area in case the other plants got cocky and tried to do something to him as well.

She kept whimpering quietly as Zekke cut the thorns from her legs. But the pain had calmed down a bit as Zekke placed his hand on her forehead. Alex got to the point where she couldn't feel her legs anymore. The pain was quickly getting worse. Squeezing Zekke's arm, she closed her eyes and fought the pain, trying to keep herself concious.

"I can't feel my legs," she muttered quietly, her eyes still closed and now squeezing Zekke's arm even tighter than before (and almost digging her fingernails into it).

Uttering a soundless curse in his mind, Zekke acknowledged Alex's dilemma with a brushing of his fingers through her hair and speaking in a soothing, if in a slightly teasing voice.

"Don't go to sleep on me just yet, hmm? Stay awake for me, otherwise everyone will know you as Sleeping Beauty. I want to make sure you're okay." He pulled her against him a little closer and anxiously waited for Virohsa to either say or do something. At this point, he was about to just make a mad dash for the Healer or remove the thorns himself THEN make a mad dash to the Healer.

The thorns apparently were poisonous in some way or another and he knew they needed to be removed as soon as possible. But Merlin only knew how long the wait would be at the Healer's office. The thorns, from what he had seen, were all straight, so removing them shouldn't be a problem. The pain, however...

"What would you like me to do, Alex?" His voice was warm and calm as he rested his fingertips against her forehead and temple again and opened his empathy again.

Alex gave a very weak smile as Zekke made the comment about the Sleeping Beauty. And some of the pain was wearing off again, thanks to him. She didn't know exactly what kind of magic that was, but it worked nontheless.

"Can you remove them?" she asked, her voice shaking slightly.

He took a deep breath and after a moment, nodded. He sure as heck was no Healer, but perhaps removing them now would be better than waiting for someone else to remove them later.

"All right. I'll see what I can do."

With some careful maneuvering, he shrugged out of his robe and laid it down on the floor and carefully rested Alex down on it in a sitting position. He took off his gloves and performed the Scourgify charm on his hands to sanitize them.

"Can someone bring some clean water and cloths and someone else help me watch her?" He called as he charmed his hands clean. Very briefly, he wondered if he'd get into trouble for not taking her to see the Healer right away, but he was under the distinct impression that it would just be better to get the thorns removed now than later.

He dug into his pockets and procured his non-Herbology dragonhide gloves and cleaned them with the same charm again and put them on and carefully examined her legs. Each thorn was rather long and thin and from the looks of it, they were smooth as well. That would make the removal that much easier, at least.

"It's going to hurt and it's going to hurt a lot, I won't lie to you. But try and stay awake for me; scream if you have to. I just don't want you going under," he murmured and started to remove the first thorn.

"Slow or fast?"

ooc: I'll be back online in another hour or so. I have to run to class.

ooc: The plants here are evil. EVIL.

Jaren responded to that, being nearest to the sink anyways. Washing his hands first with more soap than was probably needed, then pulled a nearby bucket towards him, scrubbed it out at top speed and filled it with water. As for cloths...clean cloths, he had no idea where they would be in the Greenhouse, but he brought the bucket of clean water over and procured his clean hankerchief, which would have to do for now.