"Thank you, Professor Bentley," Kurumi smiled with a slight bow.

Kurumi blinked a few times at the professor's comment. The roses wouldn't mind? Kurumi rather thought that perhaps they would mind having bits of them torn off their stalks.

Walking towards one of the rose bushes, Kurumi thought that it would probably just be best to pick a few roses, then remove the thorns, and set the de-thorned roses in the common room to liven up the room - not that it didn't need anymore livening up.

Pointing her wand towards one of the red roses, Kurumi flicked her wand and spoke, "Diffindo!" and easily severed the rose from the rest of the bush. There was a large amount of thorns on this particular rose, but Kurumi decided she ought to take one more just to make sure that her potions vial was filled to the top with rose thorns.

Now with two roses in her hands, Kurumi turned her attention back towards Professor Bentley, who was enchanted by one of her trees, and smiled brightly. "I-I think I've got everything I need," she chirped holding up her vial and shaking it to emphasize the thorns she had collected. "Thank you for your time and for allowing me to take things from your greenhouses."

...perhaps a spinkling of dragin dung wouldn't go astray, thought Seren as she continued to inspect her trees.

It wasn't long before she was summoned back to earth, Kurumi's soft voice floated to her ears.
"Oh not a problem dear, anytime." she replied turning to see the Gryffindor holding up her rose thorns.

Kurumi smiled and returned the vile to her bag along with the flowers she had picked earlier and adjusted the straps on her shoulder. "I'll see you in class then, professor." Kurumi bowed deeply and took one last look around the greenhouse. "I-I hope your plants survive everyone coming in collecting ingredients. Perhaps...sometime I can help you replant if they do suffer too much." Or, you know, just for fun. Kurumi didn't mind getting her hands dirty.

Bowing once more, Kurumi took her leave and headed back towards the castle to meet up with Heather in the Gryffindor common room.

Seren returned Kurumis bow, "I'll see you then dear." .. Hmmm yes the next class.. she would have to start preparing for that.
Offering her another smile, she said, "Sounds lovely, perhaps I can even make an assignment of it if need be..." If Lafay could get the students to restock her storeroom then surely she could get them to restore the gardens... sounded fair enough.

After watching Kurumi leave, Seren continued to circle the greenhouse... just to keep an eye on things.

Penny entered the greenhouse, still wearing her protective robes (she'd just finished planting Knotgrass in the student garden), putting on the protective goggles beside the door, she made her way up the middle looking for the Flutterby bush that she had planted yesterday...

Half way up, she seen it, waving as if in a breeze, she made her way over to it..

"Hello little one, how are you doing today?", Penny thought that her bush needed a name, she couldn't keep calling it 'little one', cos what happened when it grew... was she going to call it 'big one'?

Looking down at the plant, she mused for a few moments before deciding to name it 'Helge', after Helga Hufflepuff....
Helge was an old norse name which meant prosperous and brave..

Taking off one of her gloves, Penny felt the soil and noted that it felt a little dry.... So after retrieving a small watering can and some dragon dung from near the greenhouse door, she watered the plant and put down around the base of the plant some dung..."There you go Helge, thats better isn't it"., trimming off a couple of dead leaves as she spoke to it..

Happy that her Flutterby Bush was happy again (for it was swaying as if in a gale now).. she left it to find another plant that needed attention...

Eino made his way to the Herbology Greenhouses with a list of the potential plants he could harvest for his potions homework. He had also brought his leather bag to gather the ingredients, as well as a pair of dragon hide gloves, and scissors. Hopefully, he could find something in here that could be useful for a handful of potions. Being here also reminded him he had to complete his Herbology homework, but that would probably be easier, and he could always plant whatever he took for his potions homework in compensation. Unfortunately, Hugo was too busy with Quidditch practice and whatnot to do homework now. He was probably going to be yelled at by Professor Lafay, and Eino would end up having to share his findings with him to avoid losing house points. Maybe he would find someone else here he could do the homework with...

Penny walked into the greenhouse with the aim of finishing her Herbology homework....

As she walked around, she put on her protective robes, goggles and gloves..
Then looking at the different plants to see which one needed attention..

Spotting a Belladonna plant that looked a little dry, Penny walked to the supplies at the door of the greenhouse, a watering can and some dung.

When she arrived back at the plant she took off one of her gloves, careful not to touch the plant, and felt the soil, which was indeed dry...

Tipping the water onto the soil gently to give the plant a good drink, then laid a thin layer of dung on top of the now moistened soil.....

Putting the glove back onto her hand again, she removed a tissue from the box and dampened it down, then wiped the dust and webs off the foliage...

Seeing a few dead leaves, Penny removed her wand from its holster - pointing it at the plant, she said...."flipnsnipwitit", three times to safely dispose of them...

Stepping back, to look at her work - Penny was pleased - Herbology homework was complete

Entering the Greenhouses, Thea decided to tend to her Flutterby Bush as part of her Herbology Homework. As she past the supplies, she grabbed the small watering can she had used in class, and one of the small sacks of dragon dung.

Pulling on her gloves, she bent down infront of the cluster of bushes. She easily spotted her own, as it was waving aobut a bit faster than the others.
'Hello, again!' Thea smiled. Patting the soil around Delilah, she frowned. 'Oh dear, you seem a bit dry!' Picking up the watering can, she sprinkled water around the bush. Soon, the soil around her was nice and moist again. Delilah seemed fine apart from a few cobwebs attached to her. Wrinkling her nose, Thea easily swept them off! Then extracting a bit of dragon dung, she also sprinkled that around Delilah. Her Flutterby Bush looked ver happy now.

Standing up, Thea was satisfied. 'There we go!' She cried. 'See you later!' she told the plant. Picking her watering can and dung up, she headed off to find another plant she could tend.

Why was it that the least subject one likes, the longest time it requires? Louisa needed to search for the answer somewhere later when she was done with... what was she doing again? Looking at the rolled parchment in her hand, she frowned. Looking for herbs. Right. If only Enya was an ordinary girl who would hang out with humans, they would've done the assignment together and Louisa wouldn't be going through a stressful day. But nooooo, she had to take a bully as a friend. Hmph.

Someone!! Someone with a blue scarf!! Louisa played it cool and walked accidentally next to the boy. "Looking for herbs?" She spoke blatantly. No introductions, no smooth words, no nothing. She was on a mission so no one could blame her. Especially if Vashti knew about this and had to go through another Being-Nice-To-People lecture *scoff* but she wasn't around, was she? So..

Right. Potions. It wasn't a bad subject. Quite useful really. Vashti even sort of liked it - not enough to make it her favorite subject, but it certainly wasn't her least either. But when it made her go into a greenhouse full of plants that she swore she'd never go into again - except for Herbology classes - well, then, she decided she didn't care for it all that much. She didn't mind using herbs and plants in potions, but when she had to actually go out and get them herself? She wasn't very happy about that.

But even so, she was here, and hopefully she'd find an ingredient quickly. The sooner she found one, the sooner she could get away from these horrid plants.

Vashti plunged her hand into her pocket as she carefully eyed the plants around her. She pulled out a crumpled piece of paper with a list of potion ingredients on then scanned down the list for the little section she'd gathered the herbs together. She frowned slightly then looked around, wondering if there was anyone around that she knew who was good with this plant stuff.

Oh look, there was Louisa and the boy she'd met in the fifth floor corridor where the giant X was. Maybe one of them was good at handling plants and what-not? It was worth a shot.

"Hey," she said with a friendly smile as she walked over to them. "What're you guys up to?"

Humming, Eino consulted the ingredient list suggested by Professor Lafay, and every once in a while looked up and around the greenhouse. He wanted to make sure he could retrieve the herbs that were most useful in a variety of potions, especially healing ones. The School Healer probably depended on those same ingredients to brew her healing potions and pastes, so they should always have a full inventory in case a student, or many, got sick. He took his time, going from herb to herb, and making notes on his list and he examined them.

He was fully invested in searching the plants, as well as identifying them, that he hadn't even seen a girl approach him. That was, until she broke the silence, and scared the magic out of Eino. "Y-yes..." He said turning around, calming himself. It was only a student, not devil's snare. "I am looking for herbs for the potions storeroom." He explained, whether the girl was willing to listen or not. He liked to talk. "What about you?" Hopefully, she was there for the same purpose. That way they could work together and gather even more herbs that he intended.



However, before the first girl could reply, another Ravenclaw approached them. This one he had seen, and spoken to before. He could recall meeting her one year ago, but not speaking to her until the recent incident on the fifth floor, with the red X. "Hello!" He couldn't quite remember her name, but greeted her and waved as she walked closer. "We're gathering potion ingredients!" Eino said enthusiastically, showing Vashti his bag and his ingredient list as evidence. Well, he was, but he wasn't so sure about the other girl. "You too?" Maybe this was an especially good time to gather herbs? It certainly was nice not having to do it alone, so hopefully the two girls were there for the same purpose.

He seemed quite cheerful for someone surrounded by evil plants, so he probably knew what he was doing, right? And he was trying to do the Potions assignment! Excellent! Vashti nodded. "Yeah, me too." She glanced around again, eyeing the plants around them mistrustfully. "I'm not...really sure about some of these though," she admitted, turning back to Eino. "Are you good with plants and herbs and things like that?" She sort of directed this at Louisa too, giving the girl a brief glance.

Oh, that was a perfect! Someone he could do the homework with! Now he wouldn't be so lonely in the greenhouse, but hopefully they wouldn't get too distracted and end up not completing their assignment. "Yes!" He responded reassuringly. He was very good with plants and potions, so this assignment was perfect for him. "I have received very high grades in both potions and herbology! I've learned much of it from my grandparents." He always helped them gather ingredients then watched and helped them brew potions. Of course, since he did most of this back home, he never was allowed to use magic, which was why he still used scissors and gloves. "There are some great choices here!" He said gesturing to the entire area. "That's goosegrass." The said pointing to it. "That is snakeweed." But there was one particular plant that caught his attention. "Nettle!" he said pointing. "This is very useful for the Boil-Cure Potion. Should we take some?" Although, they would have to be very careful since they had little stinging hairs.

Obviously, she had sneaked up on him. It was his fault though, he was too into staring at those plants. However, he managed to start a conversation within a second after making sure she wasn't… armed? "Of course I am. I don't like hiking in a place where poisonous plants live." She replied dryly and turned around to look at whatever caught his attention.

Or whomever.

Louisa beamed at her friend when she caught on and watched the boy going all cheery about plants and potions and…. his family history about them? 0_0 "Yeah, yeah, yeah.." She said quickly begging him not to go on forever about his family tree, "It means we can collaborate and gather some plants. Great!" And nope, she wasn't asking. It was meant to be.

Since he already pointed and collected some plants, Louisa scanned the scene around them looking for anything familiar useful at all. There were jars of this circular pointy… plants, "Isn't that fluxweed? The one we use in Polyjuice Potion." She said thoughtfully approaching the thing. "I guess we can take some?" Her gloved hand sank into the jar and snatched two out. Here! She knew something about Potions, right?

Oh thank Merlin! He was good at Herbology and Potions, and he seemed willing to help. Vashti grinned, for once glad that she'd come into the greenhouses. She looked to each plant as he pointed them out, knowing that she would have to study these sometime soon because she wouldn't have recognized any of them without his help and with her luck they'd probably be on the Herbology OWL.

"Sure, I guess," she replied when he asked about taking the nettles. Ingredients for something like the Boil-Cure Potion ought to be pretty good to have, right? She reached into her bag and pulled out her dragonhide gloves. "We should probably wear these, though, right?" It seemed like gloves were always a good idea when handling these plants, even when they appeared harmless.



And Louisa was up for working together as well. Great! Three minds were better than one, Vashti thought, especially when one of them (i.e. her) wasn't going to be much help with this kind of thing. Louisa and Eino would balance out her lack of Herbology skills.

Fluxweed for Polyjuice Potion though? "I guess that could be useful," she said uncertainly. Did Professor Lafay need ingredients for a Polyjuice Potion though? Of course, fluxweed could surely be used in something other than that, right? Eino would probably know of one.

Some Mandrakes caught Thea's eye next. They were only young, so could use some TLC. Not that they'd appreciate it..

Settling down her watering can and dung next to a pot, she selected a small looking Mandrake to tend to. Dusting off the cobwebs, she made sure his little leaves weren't all heavy and dusty. Watering the Mandrake, Thea stopped when she thought there was enough. Touching the soil, the little lioness found it just moist. Gripping a bit of dung inbetween her forefinger and thumb, quickly she sprinkled it around aroun him. Thea giggled as she felt the pot vibrate as the little Mandrake felt a bit happier.

Louisa proudly took a pouch out of her bag and carelessly stuffed the fluxweed in. She knew she was supposed to be more careful with these stuff but she just wanted to get it over with. No offensive feelings toward the subject itself, she just didn't belong here. Just sayin'.

Moving on. She glanced around looking for another useful ingr--
Wait a minute. Her head snapped to Vashti, "Why aren't you looking?" Could she be even worse than Louisa in Potions? Really? Vashti? Because the older girl couldn't just let her friends do the work for her. Would she? A teasing smile played on Louisa's face. Let's test the older smarter friend, shall we?

"How about you get some Star Grass? I saw some over there." She said, the taunting smile still on, and didn't direct the way. Let's see if she could recognize the thing *smirk*

Why wasn't she looking? She thought that was obvious since she'd admitted she wasn't any good with these stupid plants. Sort of admitted, anyway. And...star grass? What in Merlin's name was that, and was it capable of eating humans? Vashti had no idea, and Louisa wasn't helping with her vague comments.

"I honestly have no idea what that is," she replied bluntly. No use pretending, right? She'd probably end up getting to near some freaky plant who had an appetite for humans and then she'd get eaten. That thought wasn't at all appealing, so she definitely wasn't going anywhere in this greenhouse without the guidance of the Ravenclaw boy - or the professor, if she happened to show up.

This girl knew of places where poisonous plants lived?! "Wicked..." He said with his eyes wide open, in awe. He would have to make a note to ask her about where that was. He would definitely want to go there. But for now they would have to gather some herbs not-so-poisonous plants instead.

Eino looked over at what the girl had gestured to, and it was indeed fluxweed. Well, the jars had a label, so duh, but he would have known what they were even if they didn't have the label. He nodded in response to her. They were one of the many necessary ingredients for the Polyjouice Potion, but they could also be used in other potions, although none of them were health beneficial. Fluxweed wasn't that useful, but uncommon, so they probably shouldn't take too many of them.



"Oh, you're right!" Eino said then sank his hands into his own bag and pulled his pair of dragon hide gloves. After putting them on, he got on his knees and took out his pair of scissors. He would have to be very careful harvesting the nettle. He used one hand to hold the plant with a loose grip, and cut parts of it with the other. Once he had a sufficient amount of it, he placed it on the ground gently, and took out a jar and a piece of cloth from his bag. He wrapped the cloth around the nettle, but not too tight so it wouldn't suffocate, then placed it inside the jar, without a lid, again so it wouldn't suffocate. Well, if it did dry out it could still be useful, but fortunately these were fresh, so Professor Lafay could either use them as they are or dry them for other potions.

He then repeated the process and gathered an additional branch of nettle for both Louisa and Vashti. They were both wrapped in cloth, too, so it was safe for them to touch it, but he didn't have any more jars for them. "Here you go." He said handing one to each of them.

Okay, some nettle had been obtained but the greenhouse was still filled with other plants. He got up and started to look around again. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted some dandelions, which he could harvest and use the roots for potions. "We can use those, too." He said pointing to them.

Making her way into the greenhouse, Aiden wastes no time and starts to look for the pond Professor Bentley told her earlier.

Aha! There it is! She approaches the pond and spots a rather large Victoria Amazonica. Aiden draws out her wand. With a hand pointing the wand towards the leaf at the stem, her other hand is holding the leaf. "Diffindo!" instructed Aiden with a clear voice.

As the leaf has been parted with the stem, Aiden puts the Victoria Amazonica leaf into a small jar. Next, she takes out the list and crosses over Victoria Amazonica.

AHA! Vashti had potions as a weak subject! Good to know the girl was cool with it though. Additional reason for Louisa to stick with her for the next year. Despite her constant lectures that is. "It's okay. I didn't see Star Grass. I was just messing with you." She grinned at her friend.

Okay back to the mission... sort of.

The boy was working... dramatically, Louisa thought. She approached the place where he sat and harvested the nettle. For a boy, he wasn't messy. "You're good." She said quietly watching him wrapping the thing in a cloth and soon after he gave her one.

Wait a sec. She was not so nice to him and he just gave her harvested nettle? 0_0 He was a Ravenclaw.

"Thanks." Although she had no idea where to put that. Maybe in the same pouch as the fluxweed? "I don't even know your name," She said after he'd pointed at the dandelions. "Mine's Louisa," She added. He didn't seem as interested in sharing names as much as doing the homework though.

The dandelions were a more common stuff luckily and she was familiar with. Louisa placed the nettle on the ground next to her bag, intending on placing it in the small pouch later and then took her dragon hide gloves off. "Those are safe, right." her gloves might get in the way of harvesting the tiny roots.. and well she wasn't that good. Without waiting for an answer, she knelt down before a plant. Eyeing it, she nudged with one finger. Just in case the boy was mistaken and it was that thing that bites you when you bother it.

Nope. He was right. Good to know.

"Okay. Ready." Talking to plants should work too. She straightened herself and cupped her hands around the stem and the leaves. The soil around the dandelion seemed wet enough so she didn't have to justify forgetting to get it wet herself.

1... 2… 3… PULL! And it worked. Some roots stayed back in the soil but a fair share were still intact. Now that the plant was fully in her hand and after giving herself a minute of triumphal staring, she frowned. "Do I cut the roots or pluck them out?" It does make a difference in other plants so nope it wasn't a stupid question.

With her clean gloves on, Helena entered the greenhouses to start doing something for her Herbology assignment. She decided to start with something simple, like caring for a Flutterby Bush, since that's what they did during the last lesson.

But she won't be taking care of any Flutterby Bush, she'll take care of her Flutterby Bush. The... No-Name Flutterby Bush. It's not going to get upset if its name is No-Name, right?

Alright. First, the girl took her wand and pointed it towards No-Name. "Flipnsnipwitit." Swish, swish, swish. There. No-Name was already looking better.

Helena was not going to do the repotting thing again, since she did that not a long time ago. Instead, she pointed her wand again at No-Name and muttered "Aguamenti". It should be happy now. Freshly taken care of leaves and a bit of water...

... oh.

It still needed that smelly and disgusting thing.

She looked around for the dragon dung, and sprinkled just a little bit around No-Name's base. There. It was really happy now.

And... what should the other plant be? The one she was going to take care of?

Awesome, she'd got something right. See, being cautious wasn't really wasn't a bad thing. Vashti pulled her gloves on then decided to watch the boy as he gathered the nettle. He obviously knew how to properly handle them, and Vashti didn't want to do this incorrectly. Besides, she hadn't thought to bring her own scissors, so she'd need to borrow his. When it seemed he was done, she started to open her mouth to ask if she could borrow those scissors for a moment, but before she could speak, he was cutting more. Well, that was fine. He could take as much as he wanted, she could wait.

Eh? She blinked. He was giving her one of the extra? How nice of him! And he was officially on her list of awesome people for helping her out like this. "Thanks!" she replied with a grin, taking the nettle and putting it carefully into a side pocket on her bag.

Hm, now what? Ohh, dandelions! Finally something she actually recognized! She saw these all the time whenever she had to help Aunt Grace with her garden. "So what do we harvest from them?"



Vashti smiled at Louisa but couldn't of anything to say in reply, so she said nothing, simply returning her attention to the dandelions Eino had pointed out. Whatever they were going to get from them, she was going to wait for one of them to demonstrate how they were going to get whatever they needed.

This time, Louisa went first and pulled one out. Oh, was that all they had to do? That wasn't too bad. And it seemed like the roots were what they wanted.

So, keeping her gloves on, Vashti knelt down by a dandelion, gripped it with one hand, and dug a little bit around it with her other, trying to make it a little bit looser. Then she pulled and after a couple seconds, the dandelion parted from the ground, most of the root in tact. For once she was glad she'd had to help her Aunt Grace with that garden of hers. It was great practice for pulling out weeds and things like this, even if it wasn't all that enjoyable.

Penny had just finished a very trying and tiring day.... One of her Professors was a very confusing man - and she'd been walking around thinking about what she could do to make the classes easier for her... and him!...
On the upside quidditch practice was great, the team worked well together

Suddenly, she came out of her reverie and found herself outside the greenhouse - Maybe she should go in and check out how her Flutterby bush was getting on....

Making her way down the aisle, she put on her protective gloves, robes & goggles., she found her sweet lil bush and smiled....

"Hello sweet Helge, how are you today?, taking off the right glove, she felt the soil and noted it was dry and saw the Helges' leaves looked dirty and dusty...

Walking towards the front of the greenhouse, she grab a watering can and moistened some towels as well, went back to her plant and watered it, taking care not to over-water.... Then leaving the can down, she put on the glove again as she gently wiped the dust off each of the dirty leaves..all the while humming a lullaby, Helge was doing that swaying thing that showed she was happy and content

Penny left the lil bush swaying happily... with a new feeling of contentment - the nutty professor and his idiotic ideas could keep until tomorrow....

Helena. Was. Out. Of. Her. Mind.

...

She still had one more plant to take care of, but she didn't quite know what to choose, since last year's professor had been eaten by a plant disappeared, and then had a rather... interesting lesson with professor Vindictus. So... hating herself for what she was going to do, the girl made her way to a Chinese Chomping Cabbage. Yes, CHOMPING cabbage.

Deep breath.

She wasn't sure if it needed trimming, so she skipped that part. The plant was crazy enough; she didn't want to cut something wrong and get it crazier than that.

Helena pointed her wand at it, but kept a small distance away from the cabbage. She didn't want to risk having her wand grabbed by it and, why not, eaten. Once she muttered "Aguamenti" to water it a little, the plant started moving crazily in its pot, which made Helena feel the urge to run for her life, screaming. But she only took a few steps back, until it calmed down.

Now... which fertilizer did they use last year?

Dragon dung! Uh... dragon dung. Still smelly and disgusting.

Helena tried to carefully sprinkle it around the base of the plant, but barely noticing, she touched it and it... bit her hand. The girl was about to let out a scream, but she didn't. She just took a deep breath, again and again, trying to remember what she had to do. She had to poke it.

So... really really really carefully, she poked the plant, then quickly took away her both hands, since it wanted to bite the other one this time. Alright, Helena was DONE. She should get extra points for the bite. Hmph.