Better than her cousin? Juliet snorted. "He's a neat freak" she said while continuing what she's doing. It's true. Her cousin is not a big fan of this. Weeding, fertilizing, pruning, etc... etc... etc... Thing is, potions is as messy though but he's not mostly complaining about it. He's just biased and weird.

After piling all of the weed into the compost, Juliet is now ready for some repotting that Kurumi told her about earlier. She has been such a great help for her today that Juliet really does owe her a lot. Hey, maybe she could give her something. Like a muffins or brownies. Juliet can whip up some later, so she can give them to her. Thank you present.

Juliet stared at the pots and right when she was about to suggest some fertilizer, Kurumi had already mentioned it. Juliet nodded as her eyes scanned for the board. Weren't the Ravenclaws in charge for it? Now they needed a Ravenclaw for the the fertilizer, so that she can start with the repotting of these plants.

Anyone?

When he as done, he rose, taking his bucket of fertilizer and started making his way to the next clump of herbs. As he did so he passed by Kurumi and another Slytherin girl, overhearing them saying something about the need of some fertilizer. Detouring from his original path he neared the two girls "Need any help?"

Kurumi laughed again while pausing her Trimming Charm for a moment. She couldn't accidentally slice open her finger or something. That would make her faint most likely...blood and all. "Well, Jonathan was a little...you know," she giggled, not finishing her sentence but knowing that Juliet knew about his OCD. It was something that Kurumi had surprisingly never found...odd. Which was perhaps why they had hit it off so well when they had first met. She had never judge him. And all this was making her miss the Slytherin more. How was he? He hadn't left her with an address so there was no way she could write to him...unless...

She smiled at Juliet again briefly before returning to pruning another one of the basil bushes. More dead leaves and unneeded sticks were soon in a pile at her feet and she would need to make a trip over to the compost heap again soon. Like right now perhaps.
Kurumi was just about to bend down to scoop up the leaves and sticks when she saw a pair of familiar shoes. Peeking up, Kurumi's violet eyes met Vickers' piercing blue ones and she offered him a smile. "Vickers! Hey. Actually, we could use some fertilizer in this flower bed around the lavender and basil...if you wouldn't mind."

Meanwhile she was going to scamper off to the compost heap.

The fifth year had helped quite a lot of plants around her and decided it was time to move on to some place where not many students were working. Those plants needed love too, right? Making sure her gloves were still intact, Ariadne examined one of the herbs and counted a total of 5 weeds that shouldn't be there.

But some of those proved to be really tricky. She was still struggling with one for a while, but in the end managed to pull it out and threw it away. Apart from the occasional struggle though, this task was starting to bore her. Just a few more, and I can start pruning..., the girl consoled herself.

He could see the old and shriveled bits from the pruning the girls have been doing, and there was a part of him that kinda wished the Eagles were assigned that task instead. See even if he can stomach something as nose-wrinkling as dung fertilizing, he would almost always opt for the cleaner task....

... but yeah someone has to do the dirty work and he wasnt one to complain not usually.

As Kurumi scampered away to dispose of the trimmings he gave the young Slytherin girl a smile and a short "Hi..."-- since he didnt know her name-- then proceeded to haunch down again with the bucket of fertilizer and the trowel in hand. Carefully he distributed the brown stuff around the base of the lavender bushes, patting them down until all the clumps have been sufficiently covered.

The basil herbs were trickier as they were more sensitive than the sturdier lavender herbs, so the Ravenclaw had to scoop the fertilizers with his gloved hand and patted it around the base of the herbs. After a while he stood and surveyed his work "I think that just about covers them all doesnt it?" at least for these set.

The last plant Kat had to weed was the worst one ever. It had soooo much weed that Kat almost wanted to run away from the horror. It made her wander if anyone even BOTHERED weeding it. It looked so untouched and the weeds were about to like... Ahhh, nevermind. The mere thought of it could make Kat go crazy and be sent to St. Mungo's. Ok, that was exaggerating.

Kat pulled all the weeds as fast as she could so the horror could disappear. She made sure no weed was left. After weeding the plants, she put the weeds on the compost pile. Now... time for repotting. Oh my Merlin... Even more dirt.

Minerva noticed a group that had someone from each house in it. She had looked around for another puff to prune with and wasn't sure if she was suppose to work with other houses since they had different jobs, but seeing the three together she thought maybe she could help them. Walking and taking a water can, Minerva filled it and then went over to the group. She had noticed that they had the same sunlight plants that she had just pruned, so she took the little plant with her to add to their plants. She hoped they wouldn't mind her coming into their little group, but she wanted to help.

"Umm.. Hey guys, since you have all but a puff with you, could I join you and help out with the pruning and watering?" she showed them the plant she was working on, "This little guy was pruned but could use the loving care of everyone else as well if that's okay?" She hoped that they wouldn't mind an that she could work with them.

At least the repotting part of the lesson didn't contain much dirt in it. Kat pulled on of the herb she didn't recognized that surely needed a much bigger space. She watched as the soil feel from the roots of this herb. After that, she cupped her hand and scooped a hole from a plantless pot filled with soil. Then she placed the herb and covered the roots with soil. She patted both of her hands... job well done.

Next plant...

When she didn't continue, Juliet stared at Kurumi with a smirk on her face with her eyebrow cocked "...weird" yeah, that's what she describes her cousin. He always is. Well this is weird. She's talking to her cousin's ex-girlfriend and they talking about him. Which is not a bad thing BUT it's just really different. The two had something before. Or maybe Juliet's just having one of her crazy imaginations again and just needs to stop over thinking about things. Yeah, she should do that. Do more Herbology stuff instead.

While getting on with the repotting, Juliet saw a Ravenclaw guy coming near to them. Finally, someone that could solve her fertilizing problems. Hooray! Juliet stood up as the Ravenclaw and really tall and really good-looking guy asked for their help. Of course, Juliet nodded. Then the follow-up is a hi. Which made her smile "Hello" and said her greeting as well. "...Juliet" continuing his sentence. Cue, more smiling.

Then the Ravenclaw just quickly got to work. More hooray for that as he distributed the fertilizer into each lavender plant. Juliet can now re-pot these plants now that they have fertilizer underneath. "Yeah, it's enough i guess. Thank you...." now she's the one that doesn't know his name.



And then here comes the Hufflepuff for the last step of the task which is the watering. They have pruning too, like Kurumi. "Sure" she said to the Hufflepuff. She can start watering with the plants that are done OR she can help Kurumi with the prunning of some plants.

She was done weeding only to start repotting! Cassia suddenly that she wanted to stick to weeding as it didn't require holding all of the plant like repotting does.

The second-year glanced at other students around her and got a general idea about the whole repotting thing. She wanted so badly to speak up and ask Professor Bentley why in the feathers were they moving plants. But surely she did not.

Cassia eyed one of the plants and got closer to it. grateful for the gloves she took it out of the pot making sure she didn't mess any of the roots and then she put it right down in another pot. "Here! Feeling better plant!" Cassia muttered under her breath. Were they doing this for real!

Having deposited her leaves and sticks in the compost, Kurumi returned just as Vickers was finishing up with the fertilizing. "Thanks, Vickers," she smiled, patting him on the shoulder as she went into the soil with her still gloved hands and turned the soil just a bit. Hmm...still sort of dry...

"Oh, Vickers, this is Juliet....Jonathan's cousin," she said as she introduced him to the younger Slytherin. Her voice did waver just a little on Jonathan's name, but nothing too noticeable. Probably. "Juliet, this is Vickers. One of my best friends." There. Now everyone was acquainted.

Or not.

"Hey Minerva," Kurumi waved as the Hufflepuff joined their group. "This flowerbed could use a bit of water actually, if you wouldn't mind." Kurumi stepped to the side to give her some room to do her work.

Which left...once last thing.

"And....um...we all need to show the plants some...love," Kurumi said as she bit down on her bottom lip shyly. Which meant singing or dancing, right? "Maybe...we should all join hands and...um...dance around the flowerbed singing something?" she suggested as she grabbed the hands nearest her - which happened to be Juliete's left and Vickers' right. "Anyone have any...um...song suggestions?"

Cassia had been breathing through her mouth the whole time since they stopped sniffling plants. She thought it'd be way worse if she had to smell. Anyway, Cassia moved to the other side of the greenhouse. She chose another plant and picked it up from it's pot.and yeah she was making sure to keep the roots attached to the plant. Moving a couple of feet she put it down in another pot with what looked like new DIRT or something. Whatever that meant.

So from watching ,Cassia understood that plants are to be moved from pot to another. Well, Cassia actually wondered why? So what the plants get bored from the same pot or something? They should be appreciating the familiar space you know. assuming they had feelings as the professor indicated they needed love and that kinda stuff.Meh.

Umm...okay so she knew that she wasn't supposed to cut off everything, that was a good start, yes?

Alexa took a step back so she could size up the plant. It could afford to lose a few leaves before it started looking bare. Snip. Snip. Snip. Heeeeeey, there was nothing to this pruning thing! In fact, it was pretty fun! Snip. Snip. Snip. SNIP. Why didn't anyone introduce her to this before? SNI. Snip. SNIP. Snip. Who knew helping a plant out could be so fun?

GIGGLE--

Lex raised her hand from the plant immediately when she realized she had taken off everything but the stalk. That was just ridiculous. She was positive that she hadn't been snipping off that much. Just a bit here and there...and there too--okay and maybe she took some from there;...nevermind. Glancing around to make sure there were no witnesses she slowly stepped away from the plant and thought to find a new one. Maybe no one would notice that one anyway. Now that it didn't have all the pretty leaves and stuff anyone could look pass it; she would.

Ahhh and now onto a next victim plant.

Minerva smiled at the group and was happy that they didn't mind her helping. She had knew she knew Kurumi and Vickers, but she wasn't sure about Juilet so she just smiled, "Nice to meet you." She then turned and listened to Kurumi, "Oh okay that sounds great I brought the watering can over just for that job." she smiled and began to water the flowers that had everything else done. Making sure every flower had enough water. As she was watering one of the plants she noticed it needed a bit more pruning. She hoped Kurumi wouldn't mind ,but since the puffs were to prune as well she finished the job and then went back to watering.

Once done with watering she looked at the others and then Kurumi said about singing and dancing. Oh, she should have seen this one coming from previous terms and previous lessons singing to the plants. A smile crossed her face even though she felt a little awkward singing and dancing in front of plants, it wouldn't be like she was doing it alone. Setting the watering can down nicely she took hands with the others and looked to them for a song. "Think we should do like twinkle twinkle, or something small like that, or something bigger and longer?"

So the young Slytherin's name was Juliette. "Hello Juliette..."-- Jonathan's cousin? Brows goes up and he moves his head in a slow nod, recalling Jonathan from previous terms but most specially from that memorable summer party. "Its good to meet you Juliette, I remember your cousin when he was a Slytherin upperclassman around here."

He turned his head when they were joined by another blonde "Hey there Min." Did she say she needed help with the loving care part? Vickers brows now twisted perplexed-- they were taking care of the plants-- that was alrady loving and caring as far as he knew. But it was Kurumi's next words that nearly got those piercing blues to pop out. "Uh.... song and dance?" Before he can shake his head to gracefully bow out he felt Kurumi's hand grasp his.

Oy he's a dead man....

What in Merlin's Merciful Mustache will they sing and dance to? He of all people doesnt dance let alone sing... well maybe except for one thing which is really more of a school requirement "--The Hogwarts Hymn?" he blurted out all of a sudden.

Oh wait Min said Twinkle Twinkle. Thats a Muggle lullabye right? he didnt know the words to that but that got a nod from him too. At least he can just hum along

Couldn't this lesson get any longer. Cassia shook her head trying to refresh her mood. But of course it didn't work. She made a mental note of doing a very interesting activity once out of here. Just to make up for the time wasted at moving plants. Speaking of which, Cassia stood plant in hand and darted her eyes in the directions around herself. Need a pot to put this annoying plant.

After staring for a couple of seconds Cassia spotted a pot. She walked there and planted it. Making sure that it was fixed and well and all the roots were covered in dirt. Wait is this a root or a stem. Nah definitely a stem. So all was well. In Cassia's opinion at least.

Cassia straightened. She was done right? Professor said they were to weed and repot and that was done. Cassia removed the gloves and headed back to where she had left her bag waiting for the next instruction or a signal to leave.

Sierra nodded in understanding. She liked this whole 'breaking off into teams' idea. That meant she didn't have to do all parts of maintenance, only the weeding and the repotting. Well, love, too, but that didn't really require a whole lot of work. She'd hate the be one of the Claws. They had the unfortunate task of dealing with the dung...

So anyway, what were her two tasks now? Ahh, yes. Weeding and repotting. She guessed she'd get on the weeding now, since that was what was technically listed first. She slipped on her dragon hide gloves and turned toward a patch of weeds.

Nothing but weeds. Right.

Sierra gently pushed a good plant to the side so she could grab onto a handful of weeds. She got a good grip on them then tugged up. Out they came, and she put them to the side to start a pile of them.

Jonathan's cousin. Juliet smiled as she scratched the back of her neck. Well, hopefully she won't get that nickname forever. But it's nice hearing that they knew who her cousin was. Well, that bloke is off to college to pursue something he likes and Juliet has no idea whatsoever when he will come back to London. That guy just loves surprises.

Anyway, she smiled to Vickers as he recalled her cousin. "Nice to meet you Vickers" and then she turned to Minerva, again with a quick smile "and you too Minerva" or Minnie as Vickers called her earlier.

Juliet has finally finished taking out the weeds from the flowerbed and she did the repotting as soon as Vickers was done putting in the fertilizers. That was easy and fast. Juliet just needed a little extra push from all the Herbology stuff. It's nice that the higher years were helping her out. However, she doesn't know whether Minerva is older or same or younger than her. She knows the two are higher years.... positvely sure.

After when they had done their part in this activity weeding and prunning and watering and repotting and fertilizing, all of those. Juliet is a bit startled when Kurumi held her hand and then Vickers. Then out-of-the-blue she just suggested to sing and dance?

"Eh??" Juliet's eyes widened as her head quickly glanced over to her. Did she hear it correctly? "D-dance?" she repeated. Minerva even suggested the famous muggle nursery rhyme Twinkle Twinkle. Easy enough but.... why?

She'll deal with staking a bit later then. Right now, she was focusing on fertilizing...with Hippogriff Dung no less!

Sending a nod to Vickers and Professor Bentley, Beezus then paraded with her pail of dung and trowel to find a flowerbed that looked deprived of nutrients. Placing the bucket of dung on the ground, the Ravenclaw stooped low and checked a bunch of violets near her. Hmm. This guys totally need some dung feeding.

Beezus turned around, and scooped a fair amount of the fertilizer using the trowel and sprinkled it around the plants' stems, patting the soil lightly. Scoop. Sprinkle. Pat. Scoop. Sprinkle. Pat. It was going to be the last trowelful for that certain flowerbed, when accidentally, her wrist did some sort of whisky motion, sending the dung into a pair of hands pulling some weeds owned by someone beside her.

Oops.

Why were people staring at her like hat? It WAS on the board...show the plants some love. Kurumi wasn't losing her mind and was just as awkward about this whole notion of singing to plants as they were. Well, maybe not as awkward as Vickers whose palms seemed to be sweating a lot under her touch. Or maybe it was her palms...

ANYWAY!

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star sounds alright," Kurumi nodded with a slight frown. It reminded her of Roro, which reminded her of Professor Williamson, which reminded her that neither of them were at Hogwarts...which made the seventh year frown even more. Next year...once she had graduated and she was off in Romania...

Although that didn't make her smile either. Graduation...Kurumi didn't want to think about that either.

"Professor Bentley did say that all houses needed to show the plants some love..." she said, trailing off as she looked at Juliet. "You weren't around for this, but we had an assignment where we had to sing and dance for plants. Professor Bentley assigned it." See, Kurumi wasn't crazy. Her Head of House...maybe just a little.

Still holding on to Vickers' and Juliet's hands, Kurumi took a small step to the right. "Twinkle twinkle little star....how I wonder...." she began to sing.

By this point, Sierra had gathered a pretty good pile of weeds she'd plucked out the ground. She ran her gloved fingers through the pile, double checking to make sure she hadn't accidentally plucked out anything that was good. Going up to the professor and admitting she'd killed one of the plants wasn't exactly something she wanted to do today. Well, come to think of it, she'd probably just blame somebody else.

*shrug*

Not that she had to worry about that, though, because all she had was a pile of weeds. She grabbed another handful of weeds and pulled up, uprooting them from the ground and adding them to her growing pile. She'd just reached for another handful when *SPLAT*, a lump of dung landed on her gloved hands.

At least they weren't her bare hands, but--her gloves! She paused and turned a glare toward the Claw. GET. THIS. OFF., her look seemed to say.

EEEEEEEPPP! Slytherins giving her glares really sends chills to her spine. "Errr.." The brunette tried to smile, but unfortunately, failing in the attempt. She only needed to clean the dung off her right, and apologize and then the glaring would stop, eh? Eh?

Quickly, she edged to the Snakette. A bit panicky, she brushed the dung off her gloved hands. But since her own was pretty much smudged with dung, it only made matters worst. O.o Not a good thing. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." she uttered, still trying to figure out how to get rid of the dung on the Prefect's hands. Wow. She was looking like Sierra's slave.

Seeing the pile of weeds behind her, she grasped a handful and this was what she used to wipe the fertilizer from Sierra's hands. WIPE. WIPE. WIPE. Phewww. At least, it worked. Grinning a bit now, she sent a question to start a small conversation...possibly..."Uhmm..you don't like dung?"

Eyes still trained on the Slytherin, Beezus reached out for the bucket of fertilizer. Hippogriff dung wasn't that bad. Psshh.

Minerva laughed a bit at the reactions from everyone about the singing and dancing for the plants. "Yes Kurumi is right, was it last term or the term before we had to sing to our plants. Professor Bentley says that it shows them love." Minerva looked down, "Oh no hold on a second." she let go of the hands and picked up her watering can seeing a flower she had forgotten to water. Setting the can back down and going back to holding hands with the others she smiled, "Can't miss any plants." she then took her attention back to the singing part. "Oh Vicker's that sounds like a good idea." she tried to think if she knew the entire Hogwarts song. That was horrible being a fourth year and not sure if you knew the entire song.

Than Kurumi started singing twinkle, twinkle. She hoped everyone would know it. It was pretty easy and repeated itself, so it shouldn't be hard to learn if they didn't know it. Taking her partners hands she joined Kurumi with the singing and stepped with the rest towards the right to circle around the plants. "Twinkle, Twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are, up a above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky." she looked around the group to make sure everyone was okay with that song.

Ethan gave the small girl an amused smile. He seemed to have a way of startling girls lately without really meaning to. "Alright, then," he said, lifting the bucket as she agreed to his help, and he turned his head in the direction she gestured. There was a shelf full of basil plants that he hadn't noticed earlier in class. And he saw that a few of them had some yellowing leaves near the bottom of their stems. "Good call," the fifth-year said with a confirming nod. "That basil definitely needs some fertilizing." Ethan chuckled lightly as he took her bucket over to the needy herbs. At least the girl had a sense of humor about her tiny stature and wasn't all drama like many of the girls he knew from his old school.

"No problem," Ethan said as he set the bucket down in front of the section of plants. "Nice to meetcha, Cora... I'm Ethan," he replied in kind, thinking better of giving the small girl's hand a shake as he was sure he'd gotten some of that Hippogriff dung on his glove. "Sure, why not?" he said with a shrug as Cora suggested they work together. Maybe they'd get their work done faster and it would beat working alone in silence. "Just let me go get my bucket..." he added as he started back to the fertilizing area.

Cora laughed. He seemed so care-free about things, and Cora's already good mood brightened. She was so thankful she didn't have to do all of this alone, even though the task at hand sounded very...fun.

As he set her bucket down, Cora smiled and grabbed a small shovel. What she lacked in size she hopefully made up for in enthusiasm. "It's nice to meet you, too, Ethan," she said brightly. Ethan. That was a nice name. Cora had met someone named Ethan at the playground when she was little, before her mom stopped letting her go there.

To Cora's surprise, he agreed to work with her. Yes, everyone was definitely a lot nicer this year. "Sounds like a good idea," she responded with a smile, since Ethan would need his bucket, too. As Ethan went to grab his bucket, Cora got started scooping fertilizer into basil plants' soil. Poor plants, Cora thought. She realized helping plants was a lot like the help she was giving to the animals in the barn with Professor Newlin. She really liked to help.