Well, things were really coming along now. Sophie could make out the head of her dragon, even though she still needed to cut out its ears. Right now, the topiary looked like a dragon head with boxes for ears and a big rectangle for a body. It wouldn't be that way for long, though. Sophie raised her wand and began to cut out the dragon's ears. "Flipnsnipwitit!" she said.

Oh, look--ears! Two of 'em!

So with the ears now done, Sophie examined the dragon's head. It was just as she'd imagined it, and she was pretty satisfied with her work. She was no artist, but this would do.

Bay looked at Lex and gave her a very weird look and said "Wack???? seriously??" he didn't even want to know what she meant by that. even thought he was in a lot of pain, he thought that Lex had lost her mind.. maybe it was the old age…



PHEWW……

She didn't want to whack his leg… thank goodness.. he gave a sigh in relief… "this is going to hurt isn't it?" he said while trying to move his leg… ughhhh owwwwwwwwwww…….

Listening to the Professor Bay started to wiggle his knee and POP and a SCREAM and a SIGH…. it went back in… "ahhhhhhhhhh" he said in relief.. he still had an achy-ness to it but nothing he couldn't deal with… "thanks for the help Professor and errrrr Lex" he tried to stand up but he stumbled a bit.. but he regained his balance and took a few steps… just like a baby deer… he was good to go now… "best go back to my tree and finish trimming it"

he hobbled his way over and took out his wand for he thought it would go faster. Pointing it to his tree he said "Flipnsnipwitit" seeing a few branches fall.. "oh this is much better than those sheers" he said to himself while he kept trimming his tree.. one shape down two more to go.

Alright, almost done, now to just add the blossoms and rocks to make a face and he'd be all done with his snowman topiary! He walked around the greenhouse, scavenging for rocks and flower heads that had fallen off naturally to attach to his topiary in a strange sort of collage. Once he had a good collection of some daisies, a sunflower that had fallen off, a few rose petals, and a good selection of black round stones that he'd snagged from some of the soil piles, he was good to go.

He walked over to his topiary and placed each one of his findings strategically on the topiary before waving his wand. "Epoximise!" he said as he waved his wand, then tried to pull one of the stones off. It didn't budge. YES! He was all finished!

He wasn't sure how this would actually help them in the real world BUT whatever.

It was a pretty terrifying thing to watch a friend put something non-food in her mouth, especially something he'd handed to said friend, and Mo sagged over in relief when Alice decided that the moss was not edible after all. She stuffed, and he returned to his sphere. It was full and entwined and very very pretty looking.

So anyway... first sphere done. Mo removed the second sphere out of his pocket and expanded it... just a little smaller than the first ball with flattened planes on each side. This sphere, too, was stuffed with the moss, and then Mo balanced it on top of the first. It rolled off. He tried it again, this time tying it in place with some ivy. It rolled off again.

Oh, right! In that same pocket, Mo had an unsharpened Muggle pencil, which he brandished with a ridiculous flourish, considering no one was paying him any attention. He enlarged the pencil with an "Engorgio" and stuck it through the top of the bottom sphere until it was firmly planted in the dirt. And now he had a post to work with.

His second sphere went on top of the first, separated by a few inches of post so it looked like it was floating above it. Mo pulled the loose strands of ivy up to twist around the second sphere, cutting off those that were too short to work with. "Diffindo. Diffindo." With the few that were left, Mo began wrapping the second frame.

When Toby had designed this topiary castle, it was in the belief that he would still be fully mobile and energetic and bouncing around as much as he needed. Now, he was sort of regretting it. A bit. It just seemed a bit... excessive, and his arms were tired.

Aside from being physically exhausted, Toby was getting a headache. He supposed it was all the squinting at his design and having to pay really close attention to detail. But still he soldiered on, because he was a HUFFLEPUFF. AND HUFFLEPUFFS DON'T GIVE UP. RARRRR.

Tobias snipped away at the wiggenbush. He made a few mistakes every now and then, but even those he couldn't quite fix still sort of worked with the design. Windows, see? Plus, it made the castle look more authentic, technically, because total perfection just didn't seem realistic. As for those wonky bits... well... holding shears was hard. Tobias reckoned that when he stood back, he probably wouldn't even notice.

FIIIIIIINALLY, the Hufflepuff found himself finishing off the Great Hall and one of the courtyards. These were the only three sections of Hogwarts that he'd decided to incorporate into the design, because even Tobias knew that much more than that would really be pushing it. And he'd been RIGHT. Gosh, tough work.

So once those parts were done, Tobias figured he could technically say he was done. And it looked pretty awesome too, when he stepped back and took a look at it. Not bad, not bad at all. It certainly looked like that familiar view of the castle, and Tobias was pretty darn proud of himself...

...

........

...................

........

...

... but it wouldn't hurt to keep trimming it down a bit. A tiny bit. Just to get it as good as possible. But, uhhh, with magic again, because Toby's arms were hurting.

He stepped closer to the topiary once more and began scanning the surface of Topiary!Hogwarts, looking for anywhere that needed neatening up.

Ah-ha! "Flipnsnipwitit."

Once she had sufficiently planted and watered her little flutterby seedling, not to mention cast the Vitari charm on it to make it nice and big and fluffy, Brynn walked around it, eyeing the plant appraisingly. She had really wanted a dog topiary, but she wasn't exactly sure how to go about doing that. She probably should have had a preformed wire thing, but the fact remained that she didn't. And she was pretty sure there weren't any generic ones to suit her wants.

Still, it was a scraggly looking thing, wasn't it? Brynn wasn't sure if she had cast the charm on it correctly, being all overgrown like it was, but a lot of the other ones appeared that way to, so she guessed she was on the right track. Could she just free-form a dog shape though?

She tilted her head as she came to a stop in front of the bush. Maybe she could shape a head from its back.. possibly. Brynn pointed her wand, slowly moving over it. "Flipnsnipwitit... Flipinsnipwitit..."

Sophie paused as she realized a piece of branch she'd been trying to trim just wasn't trimming away. It was getting shorter little by little, but she didn't have an hour to sit here and wait it out. Merlin, with the way she was aging, she might not even have a week to wait for it...

She readjusted the hold on her wand then said, "Diffindo!" The branch was off within seconds. Sophie put her wand away and went to to get some sheers. She sort of thought the details would be better if she used the sheers instead of her wand. Now that all the excess branches were out of the way, all she needed to do was finish shaping her dragon. She brought the sheers back to her topiary and began working on the body of the dragon.

*snip snip snip*

Wow. This was actually starting to look like a dragon, after all. This completely confirmed it--she was AWESOME.

The second sphere was well covered in ivy now, the mesh densely intertwined with the broad leaves and trailing vines, and Mo wrapped up the ends of the vines he was working with. "Diffindo. Diffindo." Mo snipped the ends of the vines where they were too long to tuck and too short to keep wrapping.

And now the last of his spheres. Mo eyed the remaining vines of ivy speculatively as he removed the small mesh ball from his pocket and expanded it. This one was smaller than the other two and had delicate mesh wings, making the theme a little more obvious. A quaffle, a bludger, and the Snitch on top. The final sphere squished down on the end of the post, floating above the other two spheres.

Mo picked up the trailing ends and started to weave them into place before remembering he needed to stuff the frame. Moss moss spaghettttttti moss... where was his moss? Hadn't he just had it... right... Merlin, he'd lose his head if it wasn't glued on. Finally, he found the moss in another of his pockets, and Mo finished stuffing the frame and resumed wrapping the last frame with trailing vines of ivy.

He shuffled his feet around his frog snipping and hacking with the sheers at some of the bigger branches. Was it looking like a frog yet? He wasn't sure. Shuffling around he moved away from it and turned to look. Yes it seemed like.. or well maybe.. he tilted his head one way and then the other to see if it did look like one. Yes a deformed one, but still a frog.

He looked around to see what else was needed. Maybe if he trimmed a few more places. "Flipnsnipwitit" some little twigs fell. He moved again, "Flipnsnipwitit" He felt like a Jedi moving his wand around zapping away the twigs. He swooshed and moved "Flipnsnipwitit" Chuckling to himself. Did it look done now?


He shuffled his feet out again and looked. It was at least looking like something.. maybe not exactly sure what, but something.

Asdfghjkl. Marigold took out her parchment with her plan for shaping the topiary out of her pocket and straightened it out. Starting with the base, she took out her wand. The base only needed to be trimmed a bit, so...

"Flipnsnipwitit." A few branches snapped. She did it again and again until most of the base was rather round. Okay, moving up a bit to the next part.

All of the white blossom clusters removed from the shrubbery, Cutty again picked up the trimmers and replaced his glove. It was time for the detailed work and experienced as he was at the trimming charm, he felt like it was far better to use the scissors for this job. There were wedges to cut out and eyes to shape. It wasn't simply a vertical trimming.

He started with the first moundy shape and he would, periodically, knock the metal beak of the trimmers against the shrubbery seeking out the exact placement of the frame so as not to miscalculate where the make the cut. With a few of the soft little clangs this caused, a cut wedge shape was removed toward the top of the mound. That was going to be the frog's mouth. And he did rather well shaping it out. It was the eyes that looked a little buggy, but it sort of worked for the overall depiction, perhaps even implying a boiling effect upon the little chocolate escapees.


Cutty moved on to the second and middle-most mound. This one was a little lop-sided. He made sure of that when he'd cut away at it turning it into a mound. It would have no real frog-like mouth to speak of, but in it's place a spacious and misshapen hole with threads of branch hanging down to give it a gooey sort of look. He would repeat this technique later on as well. In the meantime, Cutty put down the trimmers, sneezed and took another look at his preliminary sketch for comparison as a long dripping of snot hung and hovered just above the drawing in his hand.

Seren's face was contorted with pain, not only because she was in pain by bending at the knees herself, but because she could only imagine how Bay felt. Such a trooper. "I'd say so..." she replied, regretfully.

"Easy... easy..." her eyes were closed, she closed them, she couldn't watch... so the moaning and groaning and the small screams made her skin crawl. Was the boy dying? His sigh of relief suggested otherwise, so she finally brought herself to open her eyes again, all sympathetic looks for him. "Are you sure you're alright?" she asked uncertainly, noticing he still wasn't fully recovered from the pain. Merlin. She didn't have anything on her to ease it either, but ...

"Lex, you got any chocolate we could poach off you?" she asked kindly, cause really the boys blood sugar might be alarmingly low after that shock. And on top of that, when did Lex not have chocolate on her??


...

...

Minor emergency aside, the lesson had to continue, and it seemed that most were ready to progress. Excellent.

"Excelleeennttt! Exceellleenntt!" she mused as she wandered back toward the front where most would be able to hear her if not see her. "I am sooooo excited to admire your efforts, buttt! before I do that, we have some finishing touches." Important details and care requirement stuff.

"Now that we've established our creations, we need to fertilise," she gestured to the buckets of dragon dung stationed behind the board. "If you are intending on animating your topiary, then you will need to mix a fetiliser solution though we won't be using mooncalf dung for this one." Simply because it wasn't necessary.

With a tap of her wand on the board, the existing words rearranged to form new ones.

"If you are intending on your topiary to be fixed, then normal fertilising is all that is required... again, those of you looking to animate, get a spray bottle or watering can from the shed and have a go at mixing... you can get away with estimating quantities. Just note, you will need to wait to administer the fertiliser." It was only dung and water, it wasn't alchemy by any stretch of the imagination.

OOC: Fertilise OR mix your dragon dung solution. Lesson will continue in 2 hoursISH.

Lex gave a nod and a smile to Bay. He was welcome and she couldn't have just left him there hopping now could she? Think how awful that would have been of her especially given she was his Prefect and he'd been asking for help. Bad form, that's what it would have been and as much as she didn't go around yelling 'lookit I'm a prefect' she wasn't trying to lose her badge either.

Lex went back to admiring her plant, only vaguely hearing the screams from Bay from what she could only imagine was the Professor popping his knee back in. Much better than having her do it, just listen to how fast he recove--

Plant loving grey haired Head of House say WHAAAAAT?

Did she have any chocolate...........yes. Did she have any they could poach off her............................................... ......that was a reluctant yes and a couple minutes of blinking. Could she get away with pretending she didn't understand the question to begin with? Nah, that'd never work, she was having intelligent conversations about jumping off towers only a minute ago. SIGH. This was going to kill her a little on the inside, especially now that she'd lost her candy bag and was living off candy scraps. She needed to speak with Cutty. "I've got a chocolate frog left--" Oh wait what? ONE left?? Onnnneeeeeeee? She would cry. Legit.

...Eh. "Here you go Professor." She said fishing the last of her candy supply from her pocket and handing it over. Her attention turned next to one Cutty Mordaunt. "We need to talk."



Animation! Yes! She didn't want a fixed topiary obviously so at the mention of watering cans and special kinds of fertilizer she was making her way to the supply shed again. She grabbed both a spray bottle and a watering can just in case. Had to experiment with methods afterall and while she was there she grabbed some dragon dung before getting back to her spot by Jun.

"Nah, not the Astronomy Tower. Professor Airey might see and he's got this rule about red shirt syndrome or something." Basically speaking out against the Gryffindors mhmmmm. "He'll think we'll get ourselves killed or something. Which we wouldn't. We're not Firsties and we know how to fly a broom." Plus she and Lottie had dived from Gryffindor Tower, it wasn't that hard. "Maybe a window on the seventh floors corridor when no one's looking or after everyone else has gone down?" That could work instead.

Lex added what she thought looked and felt roughly like an ounce of dung into her spray bottle. Potions came in handy for estimating in the long run. "Aguamenti."....That...was about it....."Finite." She closed the top over the bottle and began shaking it vigorously. "I think it's rubbish to do that. Don't we already suffer through enough exercise these days?"

Shake shake shake. That looked dissolved enough, yeah?

Mixed fertiliser for animated topiaries! Sounded fun! Sophie's design was definitely animated, so she promptly went to get the necessary stuff. She chose a watering can and tried her best to put the exact amount of dragon dung in it before casting a nonverbal 'Aguamenti' into the watering can.

...Nah, she wasn't going to shake the watering can - because that would probably create a mess. Instead, the Hufflepuff pointed her wand to the inside of the watering can and after an exact second, the water and the dragon dung started stirring by themselves. Sophie smiled - even though it looked slightly gross - and watched the ingredients get mixed. She looked up at her topiary and got even more excited! She couldn't wait to see it all ready and animateeddd!!! That was going to be too cool!

Ok, Caleb didn't really want his snowman to MOVE - that might be kind of creepy - so he decided to just do the plain old mooncalf fertilizer. He walked over, pulling on his gloves as he went, and got two big handfuls of the fertilizer and walked back to his plant. For some reason, this was putting him in a very good mood!

Whistling happily to himself, he patted the dirt down with the fertilizer, making sure to make it nicely in there and get all the nutrients into the soil and whatnot.

Ian glanced at his topiary, pleased to have achieved the shape he desired. It was a right fine looking penguin if he did say so himself. Granted, it was a 'little' rough looking, but it wasn't overall bad. He wondered if having an animated penguin topiary would be creepy looking as it waddled around. He had wished to do a rock-hopper, but his shaping skills weren't great. He had gone with an emperor because they were larger and he felt a little more forgiving.

He went and gathered the dragon dung, water and a spray bottle. He filled about 4/5ths of a bottle I think this is a liter bottle Ian said to himself. He then added some dragon dung. How does one go about gathering dragon dung?Ian thought to himself. He capped the bottle with the spray nozzle and shook it vigorously and waited for the professor to instruct them to add the fertilizer. He walked around his topiary a bit more, trying to conduct a bit more shaping.

The Professor was speaking now. It was time for them to fertilize their topiary. Sander quickly took down notes because in order to animate his topiary the method and type of fertilizer used would be different.

He would need one ounce of dragon dung and 800 ml of water plus a watering can. It was time for him to retrieve the items he needed.

Sander got off his seat and walked over to the tool shed and retrieved a watering can and then walked over to where the dragon dung was kept. He opened up the bag and scooped out what he hoped was an ounce of dragon dung which he then poured into the watering can. Next was the water.

Taking out his wand, he pointed it inside the measuring and said, "Aguamenti.". He watched as water streamed out of his wand and began filling up his watering can. Once he estimated there was at least 800 ml in it Sander ended the spell saying, "Finite.

Then he picked up the watering can and returned to his topiary, where he knelt down. Now to mix it all up. Sander looked around until he found a branch which he had cut off his plant a few minutes ago. Picking it up, he stuck it inside the mixture in his watering can and began to stir.

Stir....stir.....stir.....stir....

He stirred and stirred until the dung had thoroughly dissolved in the water.

Then he waited for the Professor to tell them what to do next.

Fertilizer, yup.

Ella was definitely going for an animated Topiary so she quickly scribbled down the type of fertilizing she'd need to be doing since she'd clearly forget it in about, oh, five minutes from now? Yeah, the memory was becoming a problem.

Scribble. Scribble. Scribble.



And then off to the shed she went. The eighteen year old opted for a spray bottle because she figured it'd be easier to mix without spilling it everywhere and when she'd found one, she slowly made her way back to where the Dragon Dung was situated. Now to do some estimating.

That...looked about right. Maybe. Ella tilted her head and eyed the spray bottle before giving an approving nod. Dragon Dung was done. Then her wand-oh, there it is!-was picked up and pointed into the bottle. "Aguamenti!" Now for some more measuring. 800 ml, yeah? Yeah. "Finite." Brilliant! Now for some mixing.

Ella made sure the top of the spray bottle was secured and then held it in both hands and swished it around, mixing up the contents well. She took her time and made slowly circles, eventually changing it up and shaking the spray bottle up and down. Mix, mix, mix. And now she'd just need to wait. Mhm.

Oh, yeah--animation! Sophie did need to mix that fertilizer then. She spent the next few minutes collecting the ingredients and bringing them back to the area she was working in. Of course she had her gloves on. Who wouldn't, dealing with DUNG. Eww.

Anyway...

Sophie measured out 800mL of water and mixed it with an ounce of dragon dung. Dragon dung for a dragon topiary. hee hee Only she would be amused by that. She continued mixing until everything had dissolved. When it had, she collected a spray bottle and poured the mixture into it. This thing would be pretty cool when it was done!

Okay so they were moving on. Adi's topiary was to be fixed. Yep. So he would just need to put the fertilizer on the ground just like that, yes? He hobbled off on achy feet to gather the fertilizer.

His gloves were on so he wasn't squeamish about holding the fertilizer. Back at his topiary, he mixed it in with the soil. There, topiary! You can be healthy with all those nutrients.

Brynn continued to slowly move her wand over the "back" of the flutterby bush/dog (maybe) as she cast the trimming spell a few more times. "Flipnsnipwitit.. Flipnsnipwitit.." She stopped for a moment to check her progress. Was it starting to shape up like a dog? Maybe a bushy sort of dog with.. no tail? Oh no, she didn't leave enough at the back end to shape much of a tail. Maybe she could sort of shape a little one.. oops.

She trimmed a little more back there to attempt to shape things up, then stepped around to the front, glancing at it, before she heard the teacher's voice again. Fertilizing.. well, she wasn't quite finished shaping hers, but she stopped for a few minutes to listen to the instructions. Wrinkling her nose a bit, the first year looked over her "topiary." Yeah, it probably wasn't a good idea to animate this shaggy mess so she'd just stick with the regular fertilizer.

But first, she wanted to try to shape a little more.. maybe create a neck and some ears. Brynn cast the trimming spell a little more, moving her wand around to do a little more shaping, then stepped back a minute. It sort of looked like a dog? Like.. a lopsided scraggly lump of one, that if you told someone it was a dog, they might be able to see it? Or at least humor you and say yes.

Well, she wasn't going to try anymore lest really mess it up so she decided to tend to the fertilizing part. Gloves still on, Brynn retrieved the dragon dung fertilizer and placed it in the pot all around the base of the plant. That was it right? Trying not to breathe in too deeply, she patted it into the soil, then stood up and glanced at the professor, waiting to see what was next.

As Lux watched the whole Bay situation, she winced as he brought his knee back in with a scream of pain. Poor Bay, she would have to see if his knee was okay and maybe help him out if he was still hurting. But at least he wasn't in a lot of pain anymore, and that was a very good thing as far as she was concerned.

Turning her attention back to the Professor, she took note of everything that was being instructed. Her mermaid was supposed to move, so the mixture would be needed. Fortunately it seemed easy enough, though estimations would have to be made as far as amounts. No big deal.

Heading over to where the spray bottles were, she grabbed one; she figured that it might be easier for her to control the distribution this way as opposed to with a watering can. Next, she walked over to where the dragon dung was, and placed what she hoped was 1 ounce into it. Once satisfied, Lux pointed her wand into the opening of the bottle and said, "Aguamenti." Watching the water stream in, she estimated what 800 mL was before ending the spell with a, "Finite."

Attaching her nozzle to the bottle, she ensured that it was fastened on tightly before heading back over to her topiary. As she walked, she swooshed the solution together with her hand, watching as it gradually blended together.

A loooong, slow sniffing sound was made as Cutty retracted the thick thread of snot into the nostril from whence it came before it hit his reference drawing. The gross boy rolled up the parchment drawing and picked up the trimmers again. He went straight for the tallest mound perched on the far back corner of the entire sculpture. The trimmers made their short, sharp metallic sound as he began to chop away at the mound, an almost oblong shape took hold not yet resembling the rear-end of a chocolate frog until the long, thin legs were added. They were bent towards one another as if the subject were in post-leap having lost the front half of itself to, well it would look like melting once Cutty added detail to the bottom of all the sculpted, globulous bits of chocolate frogs he had made so far. H'mm, how to do that?

Referring back to his drawing, Cutty began to carve out tiered bulges toward the base of each sculptural protrusion. The intention was to make it look a bit liquidy, though having not much experience, it may have only symbolically succeeded. It did manage to convey a sense of unintended collision, however and maybe the on-lookers would get what was happening there-That the chocolate frogs were meant to be melting into the ground.

And speaking of the ground, now would be a perfectly good time to establish a flat even surface of shrub from where the chocolate frogs could emerge.






That sounded ominous. They were words he was warned to dread coming from a witch and directed toward himself, but he experienced far more curiosity than anxiety. Lex Cambridge needed to talk to him. Was she taking offense to his sculpture of melting chocolate frogs?

"Of course, Cambridge. Name your time and place." He intended to give his best client carte blanche.






OOC: The snot trick was very heavily inspired by the writing of Kelvin Lee. Merlin bless that little monkey man! :3

Bay finally finished trimming his little tree.. the shapes looked good and round.. Listining to Professor Bentley Bay only needed normal fertilizer which was great he didn't want to walk any further.. taking some he placed it by the bottom of his tree to wait to place it down as he was told.. but his plant looked thirsty so he took out his wand "Aguamenti" he said while waiting for the right amount of water to hit the plants bottom… then he ended the spell.

Sitting back down he felt real tired.. but he looked up at his tree and smiled.. it looked real pretty.

Bentley had wanted to move on to fertilizing. If he were being honest with himself, Cutty would've called the unfinished legs of his topiary sculpture abstract additions to his surrealistic expression just to have an excuse to play with dragon dung, but he was possessed of a more meticulous nature and couldn't leave unfinished....unfinished. So with the trimmers he took pieces off here and there from the last remaining spire-like cylindrical protrusions. Slowly, they began to take on the web-footed, naturally bent feet of frogs. And that was about where Cutty left them (for now) to go and play with dragon feces.

What did Professor Bentley say was the approximate ratio again? Cutty looked over to see the blackboard instructions. He thought about animating his, but he hadn't put that on his submission sheet and maybe it was too late? Also, the way in which he was thinking of animating them would not have been in the same way that he'd seen the animal topiaries from the lesson before the current one move. So, with his gloves still on his hands, he moved over to the fertilizer and grabbed two handfuls of the substance and brought it over to his sculpture sprinkling it around the base. Aaaand, maybe he'd water it a little bit, just one more time to make sure the nutrients went in and the plant didn't suffer from shock (hardy as privet was known to be). "Aguamenti!", he fired off the spell at the base of the shrub.