Glenn hefted her borrowed her gardening equipment over her shoulder and trudged into the greenhouse. Her hair was half tied up with a scrunchie, her blonde curls spiralled down her back and twigs and leaves sprung from it. Almost like the plants were growing out of her hair themselves.

She carried a single Flutterbuy bush that was in a pot already. She planned to re-pot it in the student garden. She set it down and started digging the hole to plant it into when a bunch of iris flowers caught her eye. She walked over to a hose and filled her water can with water. Hopefully, these flowers only needed water and not anything special. She was only a second year after all.

The blonde badger sprinkled it with water then went back to her own plant. She went about tucking it into the earth and watering it. It was peaceful in the greenhouse, with no one but the plants and herself.

Presley was in a mood. The kind of mood where she wanted to do something she hadn't done on her own since she was a six year old kid. She wanted to plant flowers, and she wanted to plant them in an arrangement that meant something. Like her mother had done with her. Presley could remember the few times in her life she'd ever felt she was doing hard physical labor. All of those times were when she was little, outside on hot summer days, her mom planting flowers, and explaining to her daughter what they meant and why she planted them.

Presley sorted through the variety of seeds available to the students, and selected several. Peonies for healing, rosemary for remembrance, iris for inspiration, lily of the valley for change, and peppermint for warmth. They would all look awful together, but who really cared? Only Presley would pay attention to these plants, and they meant something to her.

The student garden always had the same fresh smell that was quite pleasant and made you feel the 'outdoor..sie' it was hard to explain but back to the point, it was very quiet, fresh and of course pretty from the many plants the other students had worked on the last few years!

LuLu smiled but also sighed since 'going deep' was not her thing she looked around the beds looking for an un-occupied piece of earth, she put on her safety gear, then cleaned up around her little spot! But that stuff really meant nothing the big question was; What was she going to plant? Something magical but pretty not boring but not annoying! Hmmm... Puffapod.. yes they were pretty! She nodded to herself in pure agreement and wandered off for her various supplys, needed

Presley was in the corner grabbing a trowel when the door opened and in walked Luna! Pres smiled brightly. "Hey, Lu. What'cha up to?" She glanced around for a free spot of dirt and located one near the door. Presley knelt down on the earthen floor and set to work planting her carefully-chosen flowers in a very specific arrangment.

Maybe not... Well Puffpods were nice and all but it would be coping the teacher wou-

''Hey Pres,'' she smiled, blinking to get rid of the unusual argument in her thoughts, she looked over at Presley's piece of earth they were all very.. different which made them look most odd together but she didn't really care Presley's choice and since Pres was sometimes a perfectionist as she, she'd probably make new plants later in the year! ''Emmm... Just deciding what I'm going to plant really, haven't given it much thought this year,'' she replied and shrugged turning to look at the seeds!

After having stopped by Professor Roslund's office to pick up a sundial and a nocturnal, Kurumi had put both in her bag and then made her way to the grounds looking for somewhere to attempt to get some of her Astronomy homework done. Truth be told, Kurumi had made her way towards the lake first, but seeing the Forbidden Forest sort of gave her the willies and she decided against going anywhere too close for fear that another creature would come out. She loved creatures but when it came to homework she needed to focus and super awesome things coming out of the forest were not going to help.

Finding a wide and grassy area, Kurumi set her things down and was about to take out her sundial when another thought crossed her mind first. Really, you didn't need to use an actual appliance for this, you could just use yourself. Kurumi removed her wand from her pocket and gave it a small flick. "Point Me," she chirped. Her wand suddenly veered to the right and Kurumi's body followed it until it stopped resisting and remained pointing firmly straight ahead. "Well, this must be North," she nodded. Now, there were a few other things that she needed to set up before she would be able to really test this, but it didn't take too much time thanks to a few conjuring spells and moving some rocks around, Kurumi made a little addition to Professor Bentley's garden.

Now, to see if she could get the same reading on this human sundail as the small one provided by Professor Roslund and, eventually, her pocket watch.

Holding the sundial and nocturnal instrument which were the objects shown to them by Professor Roslund on their earlier Astronomy lesson, Beezus traveled the path to the Student Garden. She was supposed to do it on the Observatory yet when she arrived there, many students had already piled up and seemingly decided to do their Homework in the said location so she thought of another place. Her second option was actually the Topiary Garden, which she had not visited before. But her feet seemed to have its own mind that it carried her to the Garden.

At first, she hesitated but seeing as there were only a few students around, it was the perfect place to do her homework.

As she turned her head from side to side in order to find a good location, she spotted someone not too far from her who was doing something odd on the Garden's ground. Beezus frowned, she was going to let off who that someone was when she found out it was Kurumi. Her feet having its own mind again, paced quickly to where the Gryffindor Prefect was. "Kurumi!" she called as she drew nearer. And then she saw what she had done. "What did you just do?" Won't Professor Bentley get mad?

Let's see here...Kurumi looked down at her feet until she stood on the plaque that said December and planted her feet firmly together and made herself as straight as possible. Okay, so now she looked straight ahead and searched for her shadow out of the corner of her eyes, trying not to move her head too much. Noticing the shadow off to her left, she slowly turned her head and looked at her shadow. 12:30...about? That made sense considering that she had eaten lunch a little earlier than usual and come straight here. Only one way to be sure...well, two ways, but she would only use one of them right now.

Kurumi bent down again and rummaged through her bag for the sundial when...
Woah, why was Beezus going into a panic attack over some rocks being laid out? Most of them had already been in the student garden anyway. The lioness had simply...made a few additions. It wasn't like she had cut down a tree or anything. "Beezus, hey," she smiled with a small wave, stepping off the 12 month plaques and onto the grass. "You mean this? A simply human sundial. Thought it would be nice to have a second sundial based guesstimate for this homework assignment before referring to a pocket watch."

Finally finding her sundial now, Kurumi had herself all turned around due to Beezus' arrival, so out the wand came again. "Point Me." Now facing North once more, Kurumi held the handheld sundial out so that it caught the light best and made the proper adjustments before squinting at it to make a reading. "11:30?" she said, blinking in confusion. How was that possible? Even if they were a bit off from each other...they shouldn't be off by an entire hour...

A 12 month whaaaat? She didn't knew about that. But then again, the girl knew way more, more than her. "Errr--I see." She nodded as she surveyed the plagues. There were indeed 12 of them. But what she did not know was how to use it. Maybe it was best to ask from an older student? "How does it work then?" Beezus asked as she placed her own sundial, nocturnal and backpack on the ground.

Then Kurumi was using her wand as a direction pointer. Why was she seemingly pinpointing a certain direction? Wasn't the light of the sun enough to make the sundial work? That was what Beezus knew. Yet she was always open to new ideas. And perhaps the Prefect's technique would help her finish their homework easier and faster. But she was still confused. So here goes another query. "Kurumi..I thought sundials only require the light of the sun. Why are you looking for a direction?" Or was her knowledge about using the instrument not enough?

Kurumi looked at the ground and gestured towards the flatter of the stones. "Well, you first stand on the appropriate month, and then stand as tall and straight as you can to see where your shadow falls," she explained. "If the shadow is to the left (west) of the noon marker, it is morning. If the shadow is to the right (east) of the noon marker, it is afternoon." Which meant that it really was 12:30 about and made perfect sense...by why was her handheld one so far off?

Kurumi was about to look down again when Beezus asked her another question. "Well, if we were in the Southern hemisphere we would need to point South," she winked. Sundials needed to be aligned with the axis of the Earth's rotation to tell the correct time, which isn't exactly magnetic North like you would find with a compass, but Point Me does the trick. Still, putting up a marker sort of did that for you, but Kurumi just felt more confident having another constant in her equation instead of a variable. Kurumi held out her sundial and then took a glance up at the sun. "The shadow cast will be the same no matter what direction really, I've just always felt things to be more accurate and consistent when I gave myself a limitation. Less chance for something to go astray, you know?"

Kurumi looked down at her sundial now and...oh...well...that would explain the reading being an hour off. She was holding it upside down.

The young eaglette listened as Kurumi gestured the 12 month plagues and told her how to use her so called alternative to the small sundial that was given to them by Professor Roslund. So that was how it worked. Could she possibly have a go? "Can I try it then?" She paced into the plagues, looking down to see where the month of December was located and moved herself there. Once she was settled, Beezus stood straightly, doing what her mother always instructs, "Shoulders even..breast out..chin up.." she mumbled, her body following after. Then, without moving her head, she searched for her shadow out on the corner of her eye. "It's a bit on the right." She told Kurumi. "That means its afternoon already right?" Right! For they already had lunch. Or was it still noon? Either way, it was not morning anymore, that meant the method was a safe one to use. Based on her shadow's distance though, she figured the time was around 12:45.

Getting off from the noon marker, Beezus picked up her own handheld sundial and walked to where the Prefect was.

So that was her explanation about the whole searching for direction thing. Frowning, she tried to figure out what she said. 'If we were in the Southern Hemisphere, we'd look for South?' she thought. "So..since Scotland is in the Northern Hemisphere then we'd need to find North, correct?" But then, it was followed by her saying that the direction wasn't that necessary. OH. "Yeap..you're right." Then she started squinting the sundial on her hand. Then an idea hit her. "Kurumi..how about I try using the sundial without considering the direction and we can compare our results to see if there's any difference?" That was a good idea right?

"Of course," Kurumi nodded. It was a rather rough one, but a human sundial was a human sundial. Still, Kurumi didn't find all this to be very accurate. In fact, measuring by the sun alone was a rather inaccurate. While the pull on the poles and the rotation of the earth around the sun was constant, so many factors went into it all and it often times made the Gryffindor's head spin. Horizontal sundials, which were the ones Kurumi was most 'familiar' with, relied on the sun castings a shadow from its style onto a flat surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. As the sun moves across the sky, the shadow-edge progressively aligns with different hour-lines on the plate and therefore relied on the style being aligned with the axis of the Earth's rotation. Hence, if such a sundial is to tell the correct time, the style must point towards true North and the style's angle with horizontal must equal the sundial's geographical latitude. But...not all sundials required this and...she needed to stop thinking because she was going to give herself a headache. "Hmmm?" Beezus had just asked her something, right? The Ravenclaw had a look on her face that implied that she had anyway. "Oh, right, yep. Your are spot on." It was probably closer to one in the afternoon now that she thought about it.

Kurumi nodded. North it was for all intensive purposes. "Actually, that sounds like a great idea," the prefect nodded. Granted, even if you stood a few feet apart from each other the time readings were bound to be a little different, right? One's angle to the sun and all that shifting just a hair. Then again, it was also entirely possible that she was over thinking things, as usual. "We can check the time using my pocket watch after we each get a time reading."

See? That was that. It was past a bit past noon. But certainly was too cold for noon right now. It was December, yes, that would explain that. Still, she has not yet recovered from her fever so it would've been quite better if she wore a jacket.

Anyway, back to what they were doing. So the human sundial implies that it was past noon. Now, would the handheld one say the same? Beezus looked at the Prefect as she asked if her observation was correct. Based on her reaction, the eaglette figured that she was thinking the same thing as her. The human sundial wasn't that accurate. It could tell time yes, but then again, it may have a difference of an hour or so. Not to mention the fact that she wasn't knowledgeable enough when it came to the relationship of the sun and the earth's latitude and longitude and all those stuff that geographers are experts on. So yeah, she wouldn't know. Sighing, she nodded at Kurumi's response.

"Okay.. I'll go this way." Beezus told Kurumi as she walked off to the left side of the noon marker, not even attempting to determine the direction. Although, she was disregarding the direction, she still walked around in circles to find the angle where sunlight hit the sundial most. When she did, she adjusted a bit of it based on what she learned on the book she had read about it earlier. 'Hmmmm.. let's see,' Beezus said mentally. Then suddenly she burst out, "Kurumi! I've got 1:05 here." She took a second look at her own sundial to make sure. "Yep! How about you?"

Nodding, Kurumi used Point Me once more to find herself facing true North and then held out her borrowed sundial. Problem was that her own shadow was sort of getting in the way seeing as the sun was almost directly overhead now being only at most an hour after noon. Kurumi swerved her head back and forth a bit, try to not have her own shadow interfere with her reading. Leaning back a bit, Kurumi did her best to read the sundial when she heard Beezus call to her.

"I've got...1:15...I think," she said looking at her sundial again and checking the time once more. Yep. 1:15. "So, we have a ten minute difference between us." Which really wasn't all that bad all things considered. If things had been an hour or two off then there was something to be worried about. Kurumi set her sundial down and reached for the pocket watch in her pocket. "And...the time is...1:10." So, they would either be late or early depending on whose sundial they used. "You know, time is more of a human made concept anyway" she laughed. "When we think of time we tend to think of the ways in which we measure the passing of time, such as a clock or watch, or perhaps a measured interval of time such as an hour or minute, but not of time itself. Besides, there is no constant Universal time. We all experience time as passing at different speeds, relative to our speed in relation to one another and the strength of any gravitational field that we may happen to be in."

Random bit of information to chew on for the moment at least.

She got 1:15? And Beezus got 1:05. Not much of a difference. She nodded towards the Prefect as she said that they had a ten minute difference. "Yeah. Well..at least it wasn't an hour or more than," Then she walked to where Kurumi was to find out what the time was based on the girl's pocket watch. Merlin bless her for she really did hoped against hoping that the time on the watch won't be too far from their experimental results. That was why when she found out that it was 1:10, she couldn't help but jump! "That was cool! We were almost there." the young eaglette exclaimed gleefully.

"You're right." she replied as the Prefect told her that time was in fact a human-made concept. Beezus couldn't help but stare at her as she then continued to tell her about the real concept of time. She was right, everything she said was correct. Humans just tend to find answers to their question by making their own solutions and own methods. And yes, there wasn't a constant universal time. No..even before everything in the planet has been made, time wasn't measured. "Mhhhmmhm.." she nodded. Well.. what could she say? Kurumi said it all perfectly. Now Beezus knew why she really admired the girl. Then a thought suddenly hit her. "Oh. Kurumi, as we're speaking about time and that kind of stuff, when was the start of time being measured?" Now she was really getting curious about that.

Kurumi smiled and nodded as she returned her pocket watch to her robe's pocket. "I think we also got lucky given the time of day we are doing this. Hard to really make too much of a mistake a reckon with the sun almost directly over head." Not much of a shadow to cast and all that. had it been closer to 4 or 5 then, well, they probably would have had a bit more of a struggle. Not to mention the whole time correction thing that sometimes needed to be done and...she just needed to stop thinking. They had just accomplished part of their Astronomy assignment.

Kurumi cocked her head to the side. "You know...I don't think I know the answer to that," she laughed. "When the movement of the sun was realized by following shadows on the ground I suppose that that was the first conscious recognition of trying to track and record time..." She scratched the back of her head as she thought a bit more. Nope, she really didn't have an answer for the girl, and that wasn't really a bad thing either. Concepts of time were, well, all rather advanced really.

Again, she was right. Has this girl ever been wrong before? She practically had a sensible response to everything. "I suppose. But don't you think its just a bit cold for noon time? I mean, the sun is shining brightly up ahead," she took a quick glance at the sky. "Yet the air...it's just a bit breezy.." Oh, of course. It was December so it wasn't that unusual for such a thing to take place. Silly little eaglette she is. "Naaah..don't mind me." she added quickly when she realized what she said a while ago was just a bit of nonsense.

Placing her hands inside her pockets, she nodded again. See? Kurumi had an answer again even if she said she wasn't certain. Now Beezus felt really small next to the Prefect. Not only small in height but in everything else. Heheh. "Why do you seem to have an answer to everything?" There. The innocent eaglette let it out. Oh. She nipped her lip. 'Kurumi doesn't really like being asked that, it would make her feel different and she did not want to be an alien from everyone else,' Beezus thought. "You don't have to answer thaaaaaaat.." Beezus shuffled her feet and she quickly thought of another matter that they could discuss. "Errrrmm..are you still going to try and get a work on the nocturnal instrument?" Because that was still part of their assignment right?

Kurumi laughed softly and resisted the urge to point out that it was December already and that it was only natural for it to be cold. But it seemed that the little Claw figured that bit out on her own. "I should have worn a scarf," she nodded. She had thought about it, even laid it out on her bed that morning when she had been getting dressed in fact.

Kurumi blinked at Beezus. Well, when someone asked a question she tried her best to answer, that was just how things worked...right? Kurumi still felt the need to answer, but decided to just drop the matter entirely when Beezus changed the subject. "I was planning on it," she nodded. "Perhaps later tonight in the Observatory or in one of the corridors through the windows right after sunset." It needed to be dark and stars to be out to be able to use a nocturnal after all. "I've actually never used one of those before...so I am not entirely sure HOW to. I just know the principles behind it." Which had been why she had been able to answer Professor Roslund's questions in class. "You want to meet up later? I can bring some hot chocolate and we could even get some star gazing in after." Two birds with one stone, right?

Holy Quaffle! Why was she laughing? It might be just a small and soft laugh but Beezus' ears could hear it. Now she was really feeling a bit embarrassed in front of the Prefect but she tried to conceal it with listening to the girl's response when she asked about her plans on the nocturnal instrument.

Of course. Of course. It was vital that the testing of the said instrument be done at night since it needed the presence of a certain star and for a star to appear, darkness had to land first. "I'm sure they'd be many students in the Observatory later though." she told her. The place would surely be crowded since it was the most ideal place to do the experiment. Given that fact, Beezus then fell into thinking where she would do her own nocturnal reading when Kurumi asked if she'd want to meet up later. Waiiiiiiiiiiiit. That meant they'd be working together on the other part of their homework? EEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP! Was she just dreaming? How could she say no? Swallowing the excitement that was starting to build up inside her, she replied. "Errrmmm..I guess so." No! She really know so! "So, I'll meet you later then? I'm gonna look up some books on the library about the instrument. Perhaps it could help us." Beezus suggested.Granted that Kurumi also said that she didn't knew that much about the instrument.

Oh, she was just so excited that a small giggle came out from her mouth. "I..I'll go ahead okay?" And without waiting for the girl's response, the young eaglette ran to get her things and borrowed instruments, ran back to where Kurumi was, said goodbye, thank you and see you later and jolted out of the Student Garden back up to the castle.

With his hands stuffed in his pockets, Alec wandered down this... slightly weird, new place. Everywhere he looked, all he could see where plants. Big ones and small ones and ones that people like Anya are likely to like. There were also ones he had never ever ever seen before.

... Did Hogwarts have a gummy bear plant?

That would be a nice new addition. A gummy bear plant. Someone should make one and plant it here at Hogwarts. He would definitely make sure to look after it. But they didn't have a gummy bear plant so... he was just going to have to look at the other plants instead, on this cold January day. At least he wasn't likely to get bored.

Ad was so bored. With Maria back at home, and July coming faster than she wanted it to, there was nothing she could do but sit back and watch.

She saw a boy strolling around, and decided to make a new friend. She walked up to him. "Heya" she greeted him.

Yay for new friends. :33

Alec was too busy gazing at some flowers to notice anyone walking by him. They were... nice, as flowers would go. He wasn't a girl, he didn't know what kind of flowers girls liked. But he really should know what kind of flowers his best friend liked if he was going to throw her a little picnic.

But before he could think about flowers anymore, a voice came out of the blue. Or... out of the green/snow. Heh.

Alec blinked up at the tall girl. She didn't want anything with him, did she? Maybe she just wanted some of the gummy bears in his pocket. But she couldn't have known that there are gummy bears in his pocket, could she? ... Odd. The twelve year old smiled sweetly up at her. "Hey!" he said. She seemed nice, for just saying 'hey'. "Erm, you like flowers?" The girl was out here... in the snow... amongst flowers.

Ad raised an eyebrow at the question. "Well, yeah. It depends on the occasion" she said with a slight shrug. "Why do you ask?" She was curious now. And he had a cute smile :33 But ANYWAY.

"I'm Adrianna by the way" she introduced herself.

Alec blinked. He was pretty sure asking someone if they liked flowers was a perfectly okay question. Had he asked something wrong? Maybe this was a girl who didn't like flowers at all. ... But then she said that she did. "Well..." he started, "It's cold and you're out here so i was wondering if you liked flowers enough to face the snow." And that was his slightly odd answer. But in his defence, you can't make a snowman here. Or have a snowball fight.

Right! He should have introduced himself first seeing as she started talking to him first. Or something. "Nice to meet you, Adrianna," SHe had a nice name. "I'm Alec, Alec Summers."