They needed to be in groups?? Nina could do just fine... maybe better.. on her own. Sooo.... she looked nervously around. She needed a partner.. or two.. or three.... fantastic. Maybe someone nearby would just offer to be partners with her. She was much too shy to ask anyone herself. And the people she knew already had partners...

Looking around, she saw a familiar face. It was Nina, the first year from DADA. Calling to her, Becca said, "Hey Nina! You still need a group? If it's alright with Alexa and Jake, you can join the three of us." With a smile she waited for Nina's response.

Isabella noticed the girl that had talked to her, Mina?, from the common room. She smiled at her, "Hey Mina, im Isabella Evans, but Bella for short" She told the girls, looking round there table, "So what do we do first?" She asked.

Wow. The older students at Hogwarts are really nice. In the muggle world, older kids would probably just exclude the other ones. Nina thought.

"Yeah I do." She smiled at Becca, relieved. "I hope it's alright."

Becca's smile got wider, "Great! Okay, so Nina, this is Alexa-" she said pointing to the girl on one side of her, "And this, is Jake. Jake and Alexa, this is Nina. She's a first year." Turning back to Nina, Becca said, "Take a seat, don't be shy."

"Hi." Nina nodded to each person introduced. "So what have you done so far?"

Yes. Nina was shy. She just wanted to work and keep herself busy.

Looking up at the sound of his name, Jake brushed the blond hair off his sweaty-ish forehead, cursing the heat of the greenhouse. "Hey," he nodded, pushing his shoulders back and making his back pop.

"Juhh-just puhh-plucking," he butted in, sneaking his hand over to the plant and shiftily edging it away from the Gryffindor, before finally pushing it quickly over to the youngest girl. "Your tuhh-turn. Ssssmallest buds."

And then they all had enough. Woop.

"Okay. Thanks" Nina smiled as she took the plant from Jake. She searched the plant and began plucking the smallest buds she saw.

Alexa looked up from her plucking and smiled. *pluck pluck pluck* "How many of these things do we need to pluck?" she asked of no one in particular.

Noting the new arrival Alexa grinned and said,"Hey Nina," then giggled as Jake pushed the plant out of her way and closer to the newbie.

Adrienne shrugged as Torin simply nodded at her theory about what they were looking for, and continued trying to look for buds or whatever exactly they were looking for. They didn't want to lose points for being too slow or anything. But she pulled her hands back as Kiri lifted the pot, and flinched as an enormous sneeze came out of her fellow captain before the pot fell to the ground with a crash. "Are you okay?," she asked Kiri, before glancing around the greenhouse to make sure it didn't look like Professor Bunbury was close enough to have noticed. At least the younger girl had had the presence of mind to fix the pot and everything. And the plant didn't look the worse for wear.

Going back to looking for buds to break off, as Torin did as well, she took a moment to look at Kiri again. "Have you gotten that checked out? I mean, gone to see Healer Ashford about it or anything? Because that doesn't sound good," she said with a bit of concern, as she rearranged the buds they'd already picked on the table. The girl might technically be a rival, at least on the pitch, but that didn't mean she had to wish bad things on her otherwise. And right now she was part of their group.

Destiny ignored the question Evelyn asked her. She didn't care who plucked the first leaf, as long as it wasn't herself, there would be no harm done. Besides, it was really only a tea plant and tea plants had no teeth, unless they were microscopic and Destiny did not bring her microscope to class. Actually, she didn't know what a microscope was..

She held the plant out closer to Marie when she went to grab it. So far so good. It didn't jump up and attack her, which was good.

But as soon as Marie put her hand close to it, the tea plant attacked!

'Marie!' The plant had bit her!

With her face drained of color, Destiny shoved the plant to the side closest to Evelyn and slapped her hands over her eyes, which caused her glasses to fly right off her face. Who cared if they broke, they could be fixed unlike Marie's hand. 'Is it bleeding!?' Blood would be bad right now. 'Oh Merlin!' Oh Merlin indeed. 'Oh Merlin!'

Still covering her eyes, Destiny shook her head to answer Evelyn, 'I didn't really think it would bite!'

In these last minutes, the Hufflepuff, who's head was still spinning around Professor Bunbury and Azkaban, had been trying to get a grip on the idea of making tea. The professor had said, just last term, plants should be treated with respect. Wesley didn't think killing buds before they even had a chance to bloom (because buds were sleeping flowers, right?) was very respectful.

But. At least it was better than burning down Devil's Snares.

And by the time Wesley arrived at this semi-comforting conclusion, everyone had already formed groups, and she was the only one partnerless.

Wait. Scratch that.

Running over to the girl, Wesley stopped right in front her (so there would be no doubt who was speeking), and exclaimed, "I do! I need a partner! I'm Wesley, and we should form a group!"

Giving her very best, most friendliest grin, the tiny brunette added, "Please?"

"'m fine," Kiri said morosely. She forced herself to look at Adrienne and Torin and smile. "It's just a cold... No need to bother the healer with that. I think I picked it up on the Pitch the other day."

She dropped the leaves she'd plucked off on the table and dug around in her bag for a tissue. Blowing her nose hurt. The skin was becoming pretty sensitive to the constant twisting and rubbing of the tissue. Kiri made a mental note to put some lotion on it before going to bed.

She crumpled up the used tissue and dropped it in her bag. Then she focused on the tea plant again. The leaves she'd collected so far looked as if they would make lousy tea. Maybe, Kiri thought, she should pay more attention.

Grabbing the leaves and likewise making them disappear in the bag, she turned to look at what her partners' plants had yielded so far. Most of their leaves, Kiri noticed, didn't look so much like leaves but more like... little, green, rolled-up buds. Those did look tastier (if that was the right word) than proper leaves. She turned her own plant around in its pot and began searching. They were hidden here and there, small patches in-between dark green layers of older leaves. Whenever she found one, she plucked it off - more carefully now - and dropped it onto the group pile, next to whatever Adrienne and Torin contributed.

"Nice to meet you Bella," Mina smiled before she wandered off to retrieve a camellia sinesnis for their group. Walking back she gently set it on their table. "Well, I think we are supposed to gently pluck the leaves off."

She kind of looked at the plant and tried to see where exactly they should start plucking. Reaching forward, she gently touched a leave that looked to be quite young and plucked it. "Something like that, I guess."

Partners? Really? Brilliant.

Kel sighed, looking around the room. Most people already had partners, and he felt a bit left out. Although it was his own fault, of course. He scanned the room, looking for a friend. Finding none, he stood up, trying not to seem too alone, and started searching for a small group he could hopefully join. Seeing two girls he didn't know standing by each other, he hesitantly walked over to them.

"Hey, can I join your group?" he asked, running a hand through his hair and trying to sound friendly. He smiled briefly, and looked from one girl to the next. "Oh. I'm Keltan." he added hurriedly.

Marie could hardly contain the laughter when she seen the way Destiny reacted. The girl really thought she had been bitten by the plant, muahaha.

"Blood?! Oh no, I haven't looked yet, I'm too afraid of what I'm going to see. What if it ate my whole finger?!" Okay, so her finger was perfectly fine but Destiny didn't know that. Since she had her eyes covered this plan was going to work out even better than she thought ti would.

Trying not to laugh she held her finger out to Destiny, "I can't look, you tell me, is my finger still there?" Of course she had her eyes wide open because she wanted to see the look on Destiny's face when she realized there was nothing wrong with her.

Looking over at Evelyn she whispered "sorry, I couldn't resist." She then looked to see where Evan was but he seemed to have disappeared. 'Where did that boy go?' she thought as she stood there waiting for Destiny to look at her non-bleeding finger.

"That's a young plant, so we'd better be careful pulling the leaves off. Professor Bunbury said the youngest, littlest buds, not leaves. Hmmm... I wonder if she means the leaf buds. Those seem to be the buds." Sidney picks one of the roled up tea leaves. "How many do we need to pick?"

Ooooooh.

"Grassy?" He hadn't ever noticed that. "I guess. I'd never..."

Oh. Neptune.

Oh.

Raiden's face turned bright red. He hadn't seen her since he'd... and she'd... at least she didn't seem too worried about it? And she was sitting next to him and talking and smiling, so maybe she hadn't minded as much as he'd thought.

"H-hi Neptune." He glanced at her, a slightly uneasy smile on his face. His fingers still worked over the plant, searching for the smaller bud things. "You want to help?"

"Umm Hi Barry. Do you think I could join your group? I don't have anyone to work with." Kay asked hoping her cousin wasn't still mad at her about the courtyard. "Please."

"No clue!" Becca said with a shrug. "I suppose we continue until they're all off." She added as she reached up and picked a few off.

Torin wasn't really sure how well he was doing here, but he had a pretty good idea that he was wielding the best from his pot, so he was happy enough. And it seemed that the pile they were adding to was growing to be a decent size. So that was good too. He wanted to do good in this lesson because it was Professor Bunbury's class.

"You think this is good enough?" he asked his partners as he looked at all they had gathered so far. It was a pretty nice pile he figured.

Adrienne's blue eyes went back to Kiri from her most recent attempt to find more buds on her plant, as the younger girl said she was fine. "It's possible. I mean, it seems like colds are going around, and we're more likely to catch them being out on the pitch as often as we are," she said calmly, "but if it doesn't get any better, you should probably think about seeing the healer. Because I don't know if it's safe for you to play like this." And she had no idea now why she sounded like a concerned older sister or something, especially since she barely knew Kiri. But there it was.

As Kiri went back to her own search, Adrienne did the same, adding to the group's pile as she located the buds and stripped them from the plant. The worry about being behind in the class faded as she saw their pile grow, and then Torin was speaking. Glancing over at him to see he was examining their buds too, she shrugged. "I don't know. We weren't really told how many to get, so I don't have any idea how many we need for good tea,' she said honestly. It looked good to her, but she didn't know how the other groups were doing.

"Yup, you can join us." she replied cheerfully, glancing at Mina for approval... which came, sure enough. Melanie just nodded through the introductions, feeling a little impatient to get started. "My name's Melanie." she informed Isabella politely, as Mina went off to get their tea plant so they could finally start gathering buds.

Soon enough, Mina brought a tea plant over and set it one the table. She watched as Mina tugged the leaf off the plant, her mouth opening slightly as if she wanted to say something... Too late, though. Melanie eyed the young leaf in Mina's hand a bit warily. "It should be a bud, not a leaf... I-I think." she said, only slightest amount of hesitation showing through in her voice. Melanie plucked a little bud off the plant herself, holding it up in the air, as if examining it, for a moment, before setting it on the table in front of her. One down. Many more to go.

Meanwhile, Melanie decided, she may as well make some small talk...get to know her group better. "What houses are you guys in?" She asked the most cliché question in the book, plucking bud after bud as she spoke. Melanie would have asked them something a bit more creative, but she didn't really know them yet... and they might think she was a bit off if she asked them their favorite flavor of ice cream, or something imaginative like that. So she refrained. "I'm a Hufflepuff." Melanie added offhandedly, using her fingers to gather the buds she was pulling off into a nice neat pile in front of her.

After listening to Bunz's instructions, Chris felt a nudge at his side and turned towards the Hufflepuff Prefect beside him, "Yeah Sarah, of couse I will be in your group. Who else do we have here?" he asked with a smile as he saw two girls join them one he knew and the Hufflepuff he didn't really know.

"Hey Nancy how are you?!" he gave the Slytherin a quick little wave and then held out his hand to shake the unknown badger's hand. "Hello there, Im Chris Potter. Its nice to have you as a member in our group today." he chuckled.

"OK so we need a tea plant?" he said just as Sarah had asked who was going to go get it. "I will get if for us!" the Prefect said cheerily as he got up and bounced happily to the front of the room, flashing a smile at the Bunz and then grabbing the little plant and returning to his group.

"Ok so who wants to pick the little, baby buds first?" he said with a grin.

Evelyn scooted as far away from the plant as possible while swatting at it, glaring at Destiny for pushing it closer to her. What, did she want it to bite her too?!!

"You didn't think it would bite?!" she asked, trying not to trip over the fallen chair while moving away from the table and finger biting tea plant. "So you have Marie test it for you. Oh, that's logical." She could have at least had Kay test it for her.

This was all Bunz's work!! She liked dangerous plants, and if Evelyn were to admit she too liked dangerous plants, but...still. It bit Marie's finger off!! Wait...the girl was whispering, sorry? Pausing in her step, she narrowed her eyes at the Slytherin, leaning closer to really see her finger. It looked...fine. OH, she definitely was a Slytherin. And she fooled Evelyn...

Well...this was embarrassing. Clearing her throat, she straightened herself out and picked up her chair, setting it correctly on the ground. No one saw that..."You're going to get it, Marie." she mumbled. Once Destiny found out Marie was joking, there would possibly be an attempt to get her back. Nothing serious, but still. Even Evelyn herself was starting to think about it.