Tom had been sat twiddling his thumbs for the past few minutes, seriously he had no idea what sort of hybrid toadstool he would want, he looked at the table and then at his parchment seriously, he could say anything but what if something went wrong would he get blamed, there was so many issues with just making up a hybrid toadstool.

Tom looked down at his parchment and just put a few things down, well surely it would be save to just have a red toadstool, that would be an epic one but what would it hybrid with, now something cool would be like a sunflower but that would just look crazy.

Gus was officially terrified of Flora. He was scared of what she was going to say, ask or enquire about. He didn’t have the answers for her questions and he pulled up a stool in silence to look over her notes and her drawing. Hm. Well.. he didn’t know how she was going to achieve any of it. And he would have asked, if he wasn’t so scared of her suggesting that a moustache daddy would be able to help. So he nodded, smiled and walked off again. ”Good work, Miss Thiese.” K bye.



Gus swung by to listen in to the last couple of moments in the discussion between Naya and Carsyn. ”Herbs? Interesting! Could be fun when it came to cooking them up -- no need to season, you know? All ingredient in one.” It was an interesting idea for sure. Pretty easy to do if you had the right skills, but Gus thought they could do better. But they needed to agree that they could do better before they could actually do better.



Ok so they hadn’t been talking about literally cooling toadstools. More for the aesthetic then… ”I actually think a cooling one could be helpful in camping situations with a lack of first aid kit. Obviously not leaping though.” But their projects were their projects.



Gus nodded at the final thing that Ewan said. ”It gets harder when you overcomplicate things. You’re teenagers. This is to investigate and explore the possibilities, not to come up with the thing that might change the world. Start small. Get better. Get bigger.” But also dream big so you could aim big.



”I like the screaming to deter theives, definitely. A defence mechanism is always a good shout. It also then works as a sort of burglar alarm, you know? Win win situation.” If they wanted his opinions anyway. Half of these kids didn’t seem to care what he had to say.



Gus laughed, nodding. ”I’m a lot, I know. But you know that I have your best interests at heart, right?” But he did appreciate that Claudine could tell him straight how she felt about his personality. ”Would it be something that talkative people would willingly eat? Or would you be using it unethically?” Important questions.



He was cool? Yessssssss. ”Could you put that in writing please, Isla? I’d like to send it to my kids to prove to them that my students think I’m cool.” Because his kids thought he was the most embarrassing dad in the universe. ”But levitation -- yes! Go with that one!” None of the death talk anymore pls.



Now this was an idea that made Gus grin. ”Want to know a secret?” Of course she did. ”I’ve got some of those for the next bit of our lesson.” But they were an incredible idea. ”How would you do it?” He wanted to see if she’d got the same route he did.



Cecelia was right. There was a lot of sense making happening over in this group that he was very impressed with. ”I think one of you should grab the garden glowing idea. And when you perfect it, I want them in my garden at home.”



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

What was it with these kids and trying to hurt other people? Why couldn’t anyone just want to create something that complimented you or gave you sweets? Was teen culture just to be unkind to others? Ugh. ”Professor Rainwater doesn’t think anyone is a p-word, Nina. But…..he does think that that idea is not approved. Too dangerous.” GOODNESS. Nemesis Upstead! GOODNESS. ”Why don’t you go work elsewhere, Nina?” Unless she wanted to sit with Nemesis? Had she taken Nem under her wing? DID NEM HAVE A CRUSH ON NINA?! What was HAPPENING?



See. He knew these girls knew their stuff. ”Good ideas, girls.” Colour him impressed.



No, no, Miss Renaldi. He was asking you and not that boyfriend of yours who probably still had achy knees after they took a thwack on the workstation earlier. ”If you girls continue on that track, I can tell you that you’ll have yourself a perfect hybrid.” He was more than impressed. And he hoped they continued with it, or at least one of them did. Did Missa know that she had a knack?



Okay? Okay? Was that it? Gus had been expecting a little more than that. But he’d take it at least. ”Come by my office over the next week and we can chat a bit more about it.” Once they had things sorted, then they’d speak to Noble. There was no need getting him involved until he was needed.



Gus was going to have to come to terms with only communicating with Heath’s brain through written notes and even though it was unhelpful, if it meant he was going to be able to help the kid in his subject then he’d do what he had to. But he did not intend this to be long term. He headed over towards the boy, sitting down and looking over his notes quietly before drawing a smiley face in the top corner of the parchment. ”What’s the significance of growing in pairs? Is there a reason to grow in pairs?”



And the last stop was Mr Simpson who had barely any notes outside of a red toadstool with sunflower aspects? Was he okay? Brain fart?


- - - - - - - - - - - - -


Heading back to the front of the greenhouse, Gus took a seat on top of the wheeled workstation he had used earlier and clapped a couple of times to get their attention. ”I’m really impressed with how far you’re pushing yourselves and thinking about how you can bring in different elements. I’m loving the imagination level this is inspiring and those of you that are considering allowing your creation to have a purpose and not just an aesthetic are heading in the right direction. I don’t expect you to have a solid idea yet and I don’t want you to. I want you to know that you can come up with these excellent things. The talent is in all of you and it’s not something I can teach. I’ll be your biggest cheeerleader and your right hand man when we get to doing this properly. So take all of your notes with you and work on them outside of class - I’ll open up my timetable for scheduled brainstorming sessions with each of you. You can book in whenever. No work will be done in the greenhouses for your projects until I have cleared you for them. If it takes you two years, then it takes two years. Seventh years, I’ve considered this for you, too and if you’d like to continue this project after graduation -- I’ve arranged for locations and professionals to be available for your use.” BUT they were moving on.

As much as Gus wanted to listen to them talk for the next few hours, he was confident that they all had the right steps to begin to research on their own outside of class. They’d need the research later in the school year when he got them started up, so… it was best to get ahead now! He thought so anyway. It would show in their project meetings with him if they hadn’t done their research.

”And now that I’ve exercised your brain, I expect that you’re all in need of some fun. SO I have a game for you. Pack your written work away, get your gloves and goggles on and come and collect one of these woven wrist pouches.” It was time to take a deep breath. ”Phoebe had an idea that actually mimicked my own project I’ve been working on since early last year. It’s been something I started before I came here to teach and I want to share it with you today.” Gus swung open the double doors into the extension where his activities that needed a whole lot of room always took place -- like the wheeled pots last year when practicing venenum hortus. And there was his project.

LARGE red toadstools with white spots, much like those they had talked about earlier being in fairytales, except the caps were at least two metres in diameter. ”TRAMPOLINE TOADSTOOLS.” There were enough in there for double the amount of students they had today. ”Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to go and bounce. There are over TWO thousand miniature toadstools all of different colours in the air. You can collect ONE per bounce of any colour and put it in your pouch. The house with the MOST at the end will win extra points for their house, a week with no herbology homework AND access to my stash of chocolate frogs and other candied goodies.”

There had to be a catch, right?

”Some of my toadstools are little tricksters though, so beeeeeeeeeeee careful!” Hehehehe.

”ON YOUR MARKS, GET SET……………… GO!!!!!!!!!!”

OOC: HI GUYS. We’ve reached the big old fun activity after testing your kiddos brains for the last little while. Just a reminder that this one class will not be the only class your kids have on toadstools, mushrooms or crossbreeding. It’s a topic that will last past the winter break for sure! Gus has plans to start the project later on in the year, but we’d both love to play out more discussions with your characters in prep for that!

I’ll be posting every so often with toadstooly reactions to some of your posts! If your character needs Gus, don’t worry! I’ll be reading all of your posts (probably howling laughing!!!) and will catch any calls out for him!! There will be nO injuries -- lots of magic in the room to prevent all the things happening.

This is all for fun - but here’s a couple of things to note IC and OOC for the activity:
- Each student will receive a woven pouch that attaches to their wrist.
- They are not to use magic, Gus will confiscate wands if he needs to
- In each post your student can collect a MAXIMUM of two miniature toadstools or mushrooms (in each post, but one per bounce) and put them into their pouch
- Some of the giant toadstools won’t be helpful… I’ll post if you get stuck with one of those and what happens to your character!
- Obviously no double posting, but lets get BOUNCING. The more people from your house involved might give you more chance of winning <3
- HAVE FUN. Please. The more things collected, the more chance your house has of getting points and your character getting chocolate!


Any questions, drop me a message! <3

Got about three days for this!

Okay ... so the moderate discomfort comprise was ignored .. bummer ... but Rainwater did seem to like the idea of the levitation. Okay, notes to keep for later!! and now they were going to BOUNCE!!!!!!!! This was epic!!!!!! Blake had been to a few bounce house places in his day in the muggle world, and weather you were 6 or 16 they were epic. This was going to be fun.

After attaching his pouch to his wrist as instructed, Blake took off like a rocket. He bounced off a huge red one to begin with and caught himself a blue ish looking one in the air, and got ready to bounce again!

1 yellow mini-mushroom!
 

Aboli was confused about which direction they were going..so...maybe SHE would take initiative and kind of...decide? Eh? She tapped her fingers against the tabletop. "Okay...so...with Professor Rainwater's suggestion - " she gestured at the very helpful professor! "Maybe we should do a cooling toadstool. It WOULD be helpful in a camping situation, and it would a no-magic approach in case you were going camping in muggley areas." She nodded, and before they could discuss further, they were moving ON?!

WHA?

They had just gotten started! The prospects of a game helped, but Aboli's little noggin' was a-turning, and she wanted to keep brainstorming, alas. But bouncing toadstools sounded COOL. And the cool-guy cool, not the cool-cool. So they had to jump on the large mushroom tops and grab as may of the tiny ones in the air? Aboli's competitive side would come again, eh?

She grabbed a little pouch, put it through her wrist, and LEAPT toward the giant toad-stool top. Yoooohoooo, NOAH? POINTY ELBOW TIMEEE? "Good luck!" she told Alexandre and Valencia before she was OFFFF -

Off to fall on her face? As soon as she jumped once, she landed on her BOTTOM, and then she was just........... bouncing there. She quickly managed to HOP UP but not without her cheeks turning a daaaaaark shade of scarlet. OKAY.

COME ON NOW, ABOLI! She had managed to grab ONE mushroom of a YELLOW color and shoved it into her pouch.

Start small? Uhh, clearly, he did not know the Ravenclaw in his class. Sure, he’d get in over his head and then it would just all come crumbling down but…where was he going with this again?

Aaaaannnnywaaay, the prefect just nodded and smiled as Professor Rainwater walked to the front of the class. Ewan just smiled a little as he heard the Professor talk about pushing your selves because that was cleeearly about him and Noah. Although, now that the Professor had mentioned about them continuing this after leaving school, his interest had risen somewhat. ”That’s great Professor. I don’t think I’d want to start something I couldn’t see through to the end”. What would be the point in that?

Slipping his notes back into his bag, making a mental note to send a copy to Noah if he wanted it later, he looked up expectantly as the Professor began to explain the game they’d be playing apparently. Grabbing his gloves and goggles, the giant prefect followed behind the rest of the students through the double doors to…Giant toadstools? Errrr….woah. He wasn’t sure exactly what he had expected but it wasn’t that.

If he was being honest, this wasn’t exactly his thing but he figured he’d try it out, you know, to set a good example to the younger ones. And also, because he wouldn’t exactly have to jump that high to get the miniature toadstools.

Stepping up, the prefect grabbed one of the woollen pouches and placed it around his waist and got ready to step onto one of the toadstools, slightly hesitantly if he was being honest. He wasn’t exactly steady on both legs at the best of times so this would be a little testing. ”Professor, are these going to be really soggy?” because he didn’t really fancy having damn, smell shoes. Not waiting for an answer, the prefect hopped onto a medium sized toadstool and started to bounce.

Starting off slowly, the prefect set his feet as steady as he could and bounced, his knees slightly bent so that he was braced for whatever type of landing on the toadstool would happen but thankfully, the toadstool was surprisingly firm. He had this! HE HAD THIS!

AND HE DIIIID! Jumping up ever so slightly, the tall prefect reached one of the smaller toadstools without much drama and slipped it into his woollen pouch.

”Oooooooshhh!”

Why was he so happy? Well, he wasn’t in a heap on the floor for one thing.

It wasn't that she didn't want to work with anyone, but the minute he said about cross breading and Morgan jumped up about their dad, her mind went to her internship at the German ministry and working with her dad and honestly she felt a bit homesick to see her father and mother, okay even her two younger siblings, but that was what took her mind out of the classroom enough that she didn't realize they were to get into groups, but instead had been quiet and not at all finding partners.

So now she was just finally figuring out what they were doing and pulled her parchment. She wondered how the crossbreeds were doing that she was watering this summer too. Writing a few things down about toadstools she thought about what could be something fun to cross with and she had thought about when someone said fairy tales. They were right about the fairy tales, she loved them in her stories when she was younger.

An idea hit her and she began to write:



She sat trying to think of other things she might want to see in the vision that was forming in her head. Making them very fairy tale like with vibrant colors and fresh scent would be ideal, but what was the best plant to cross with to do this.

Toadstools with herbs ... bright ideas... Carsyn was thinking when the Professor suddenly appeared distracting her from what she was about to say, talking about how useful they could be with cooking. Which actually gave her another idea, to which she nodded at the Professor, "An all ingredient in one actually sounds interesting. Like," she looked back at Naya, "What if somehow we produced a product that could be a variety of spices. Kind of like the bertie bott of toadstools, except you know what flavor you're getting. So like, you feel like sushi flavored herbs, you can cross it with some soy sauce and horseradish... or maybe garlic, but the point is it could really change the cooking game because instead of needing to add five ingredients to get the desired flavor, just add the crossbred toadstool."



......

What?? They were bouncing? On giant toadstools? But also collecting miniature ones? Okayyy... so basically she was meant to use her seeking skills except instead of just catching one snitch, she needed to catch lots of snitches.

Attaching the wrist pouch to her wrist, she stepped gingerly onto one of the toadstools before testing it out, jumping to the next one. Okay this was actually fun and just like flying. Almost.

And then Carsyn jumped onto another one... and another ... oh wait, she was supposed to catch the miniature toadstools not just jump around. With another jump, the sixth year's hands outstretched she felt one in her hand, clasping her fingers around and didn't even bother to check what colour it was (did it matter?) and slid it into the pouch.

Morgan was pleased that not only did Yoyo seem to like his ideas, but that she seemed organized enough for the both of them to do the notes. "Me too! They're not my favorite, but red hot cinnamon candies make the most sense if it's a firestarting toadstool." Obviously. And he did like them a fair amount.

He was just about to say that he changed his mind about yelling part, as it had been something he threw out as he was thinking aloud - he did a lot of that - when the professor came over questioning that very thing. "I dunno, maybe it doesn't... I was just throwing out cool ideas to see which ones stuck," he shrugged. But he liked Yoyo's suggestion a lot! "Yeah! It could yell to scare off predators!" NOT when it was getting eaten. Though that would be kind of funny. Or just weird. Was she writing this stuff down?

But they didn't have time to think about it anymore, because it was game time! Awesome! Morgan grabbed his gloves in one hand and his goggles in the other, then managed to grab one of those wrist pouches too. "Come on, Yoyo!" They were working together, so she could be his partner for the game if she wanted. Did they need partners?

He followed the professor out to the extension. "Wow! This is so cool!" Morgan looked at all the giant toadstools and tried his best to listen to the instructions. He just wanted to start bouncing on the toadstools already! What, and there was an awesome prize for the winners?! Even better!

The thirteen year old hurried to pull on his gloves and goggles, and attached the pouch to his wrist. And once the professor said GO, he JUMPED onto the nearest unoccupied toadstool trampoline.

sorry idk how this got so long please excuse
 

Grateful for the professor's encouragement, she continued to listen to her teammates' opinions. She was relieved that her Mandrake idea was well-received by them, because she felt uncertain when she initially voiced that thought. She tried to erase the strange image of the toadstool-Mandrake hybrid in her mind and read Jillian's summary notes. This was really interesting stuff, though their ideas were not crazy imaginative like some of the things their younger classmates were coming up with. She nodded satisfactorily with a smile and paid attention to the professor as he explained the next activity. After discussing the basics of toadstools and crossbreeding, she was expecting a challenging task to follow but -

Trampoline toadstools?? Heck yes! Giggling despite herself, she put on her goggles and gloves and attached a woven pouch to her wrist. "Yes, let's do this! Sorry in advance if Ravenclaw wins, Jillian," she said jokingly and moved towards the giant toadstools with Jillian and Missa.

At the professor's signal, she climbed onto one of the toadstools and began JUMPING wooo!! Since she was short, she had to aim for the miniature toadstools in the region near her. Hopefully the taller kids showed some sympathy and chose to collect toadstools that were higher up. She bounced a few times to warm up, then bounced hard to catch a blue toadstool. Yay! This mini toadstool entered her wrist pouch. She moved to another giant toadstool and jumped again.

Blake's second jump into the air off of the rather large red toadstools was more fun, he had managed to do a front flip in the air like he use to do on the trampoline at home. He had a gotten pretty good at some flips back in the day (and by that he means last summer). Blake reached his hand out to snag another mushroom, he had a green one in his hand, lost it during the flip, but managed to grab it again by the very tippy tips of his fingers and land back on the ground safely. Whew!!! This was fun!!!!!

That was 2 in his pouch and blue and green one ... next up .... whatever he could grab!!! Blake prepared to make his 3rd jump.

caught another yellow one lol -__-
 

The Slytherin was back on her feet and hopping about. She was slowly growing comfortable with this...and getting used to it. It was similar to jumping on a trampoline, but it wasn't QUITE exactly the same, either. Especially since it wasn't ONE big jumpy-thing - it was multiple ones they had to jump between. But she was getting better! In fact, she nearly forgot she had to grab the mini-toadstools, and for a few bounces she just laughed as she managed not to fall over.

On her fifth or sixth bounce, though, she managed to grab another yellow one! Whooh! She quickly stashed it in her pouch and saw a GREEN one not far away - BOUNCE - BOUNCE -

Almost thereeeeee!



BUUUUUUUUMP!


Aboli accidentally veered too far left and had trouble repositioning where her jumping was AIMED at and she....BUMPED into the younger snake. Blake! The little first year she had met the night of the feast! GAHHH! It wasn't a hard bump, but things tended to feel more powerful when JUMPING.

It also ended with her on her bum.

AGAIN.

"Blake! I am SO sorry!"

Alexandre had never heard of a durian fruit, to be honest. But it sounded funny. "Well maybe we could crossbreed with that." If that was the direction they wanted to go, which he wasn't actually sure they did. He turned his attention to Valencia, whose ideas were good but did confuse him a little. He didn't know how to go about the actual crossbreeding part, and she seemed to know some things about that. More than him anyway, which she always did. But she was also talking about leaping ice packs. "I don't think it has to be leaping." Because he agreed that a leaping ice pack would be a bit inconvenient. But they could just make it so it didn't leap. She had another idea too. "What would we want to burst out of it?"

And then they were playing a game! That was fun! Those giant bouncy toadstools looked very fun. And they were on teams according to their houses which meant he and Valencia were splitting from Aboli. He raised his two fingers to his eyes, and then pointed them at hers in a I'm watching you/bring it on sort of motioned. But he grinned, because this was just for fun.

Alexandre grabbed a hip pack and put it on. It made him feel like an adventurer, or an explorer. Except the things he was exploring were giant bouncy toadstools, which seemed much more fun than exploring a rainforest. He did a bit of bouncing just for fun, without really attempting to catch any of the little toadstools at first. But then it was time to get down to business. He had to catch a lot of toadstools, because he wanted to win. Instead of bouncing around he eyed one of the miniature toadstools and bounced UP. He snatched the miniature toadstool out of the air with both hands and stashed it in his pouch.

Blake and just taken his third bounce and had collected a yellow mushroom when he felt a rather large thump and down he went ..... THUMP! He landed hard on his butt and his left arm....... "OOOOOOOOOO!" Blake sort of shouted and sort of screeched .... his arm wasn't bent at any strange angles but it hurt like the devil himself.

"Oh man, my arm!" Blake stood up and managed not to fall back over or pass out though his arm was still killing him. He was a little afraid to start moving it ... just in case. "It wasn't done on purpose." Blake added rubbing his arm again ... the pain was starting to ease a little.

And then ... she had called him by his actual name, I mean often the older students knew his name especially if they were in the same house as each other, but Blake was certain he had never been on first name basis with this girl. "You'll have to forgive me, I don't know your name." Blake added ......

OH NO. She had HURT HIM. Alas. Though, perhaps he was being dramatic because Aboli didn't think it had been THAT hard. Hmm. However, she was still patient with him. "Of course not! We're on the same team, here! We HAVE GOT to win this for Slytherin!" she said as she scrambled up and bounced without letting her feet leave the ground, holding out her hand to help him up. "I'm sure if your arm was seriously hurt it'd hurt more. So you're fine, most likely!" she gave his arm a pat!pat.

She had only ever heard his name said by professors so..she didn't KNOW he went by another name. Hmm. She at first had thought he was someone else, too - Merlin, he brain was SCATTERED. "It's Aboli!" she suddenly BOUNCED up high to grab a mushroom and put it in her pocket. "Come on - let's get these mushrooms!!"

Where was Noah? She wanted to nudge him with her pointy elbows now!

1 blue toadstool
 

Avalon listened intently to her classmates' ideas. They were surely creative! She really did like the idea of a glowing toadstool. "Yeah! And the good smell, like candy or fruit, could be what attracts the bugs, if you wanted to make the toadstool a bug-eater!" Glancing at Bernie's notes, it seemed the Gryffindor already had that idea. "I kind of want mine to have some special power, but I don't know what." She tapped her quill on her workstation in thought. But she didn't have too much more time to think, as Professor Rainwater as moving them on to the next activity. At least she would have a little while longer to think about the perfect characteristics for her toadstool.

If anyone would have told Avalon that she would be jumping around on giant mushrooms in Herbology class today, she would not have believed them. But she wasn't going to complain - it seemed pretty fun! After she tied a pouch to her wrist, she climbed up onto the mushroom. With one bounce, she reached for a little blue toadstool. But she wasn't used to the momentum from the jumping yet, so she missed it. Oops. Luckily, after a few more practice bounces, she was able to snag a green toadstool. Avalon went to tuck it into her pouch. Alright, she could definitely get the hang of this!

lmao is Blake getting injured AGAIN
 

Fortunately for Naya, Carsyn did have ideas. Good ones at that. Naya listened as her dorm mate explained exactly what she had in mind. Yes. That was definitely an improvement on her idea. “I like that. That makes a lot of sense. Why buy several items when one will do the job? Variety is good. People like to have choices.” There were a lot of different directions they could take this project.

The professor’s came by and offered his thoughts. His comment was “interesting”. Well it wasn’t bad, but the feedback wasn’t “awesome” either. That meant there was room for improvement. Naya believed that with Carsyn’s ideas, they could take this to the awesome level. She didn’t have time to think about it further because class was moving on. They would be working on the toadstools later. Ok.

As Rainwater was about to explain the next activity, Naya had a flashback to the cup and saucer ride from last year. Please, oh please don’t let it be anything nausea inducing. Turns out, it wasn’t. This activity actually sounded fun. Trampoline Toadstools? Naya was all for that, especially since a little friendly competition was involved.

Naya put on her googles and gloves and got one of the woven wristlets. She was ready to bounce. When the professor said go, Naya was on top of the toadstool immediately. Naya began to bounce, trying to get higher with each one. When she felt she had her rhythm going, she reached for a red toadstool and.......got it. She continued to bounce while stuffing the mini toadstool in her pouch. This was so...much...fun. Naya resisted the urge to shout WHEEEEEE. She was enjoying the bouncing so much, she almost forgot her purpose. As she went up, she reached for another toadstool. This time it was a blue one.