#16 Afternoon Gardening

Amelia nodded her head, though was a little bummed that she couldn't get started on that. At the question about anything else, she shook her head and gathered her things before she left the greenhouse and headed on inside the castle and towards the Gryffindor tower.

Oscar was relieved to see that his planting of the magically appearing unknown seeds had not destroyed anything. Instead they had grown into a fairly beautiful blue flower with wild vines growing around it. He was not sure what the plant was called or what he was supposed to do with it, but there it was. Grown and moving about.

"What are you?" he muttered as he eyed the plant, trying to figure out the best way to deal with it. He glanced over to where the Professor was talking with other students, wondering if he should ask her. But no, she looked busy, so he thought he should try to figure it out on his own.

Eventually he decided that maybe picking the flower and collecting the cotton-like pollen that he could see was the right answer. The only question then though, was how. The vines did not look the friendliest and, after seeing how dangerous some plants could be in his class earlier, he was wary about what they might do.

He took his time as he collected some sheers to use and then pulled his protective gloves on. Better safe than sorry, he thought.

Oscar kept his focus on the plant as he moved the sheers in the direction of the plant, trying to spot a way to get around the vines. He was still surprised, and jumped, when the vines went to wrap around his sheers. The fact that he had jumped seemed to be the only reason that the plant did not end up armed with a weapon. Thank Merlin for small mercies?

"Oh, so it's going to be like that," he sighed, looking at the plant in disappointment. Why couldn't it just play nice?

He moved faster on his second attempt to get close, figuring that he would need to be speedy to manage anything. He managed to snip at one of the vines, only to be shocked once more when it did not seem to do much of anything.

Oh yay, as well as having violent vines, the plant was also hard to damage. Because that was fair.

His attempts to deal with the plant soon turned into a game of dodge-and-attack. He would have to dodge the vines to attack them with his sheers, his movements more like he was hacking at the vines than snipping them now.

Eventually he managed to overwhelm the hardy vines and they started to fall, leaving him free to investigate the blue flower. He was drawn to the pollen that he could see, and decided to pick that first to see if it had any use.

The pollen felt damp even through his gloves and as he was turning it over in his hands to study it, he nearly missed seeing the remains of the plant beginning to wither. Huh. Was that because it had lost too many vines or could the plant not survive without the cotton-like pollen? Maybe he could find out if he ever figured out what the plant was to plant it again.

Since the plant was no more, he focused on the one remaining good bit - the pollen that he had collected. It had a sweet herbal scent to it that managed to remind him of his Mamma's kitchen. It was nice, calming.

He was tempted to remain there, 'investigating' the pollen, but he still had other plants to deal with. He set the pollen to the side with his gloves and was soon dealing with his berry plants, making even quicker work of them than usual.

Soon, he had the sunurk and moonurk berries set to the side too. The remains of both plants pushed back with the withered remains of the mystery plant, red and blue tipped leaves tangled in a pile. Had he just grown used to dealing with both of those plants or was his focus better at the moment? He wasn't sure, but what he did know was that he had one plant left to deal with.

The Eglower. His worst enemy. Why did he keep planting that one?

Even that plant seemed to go better than usual though. Grab, dodge, sneeze, and twist.

Sure, the sneezing was annoying, but he had soon managed to twist the flowers off and set to the side with his other harvests. The only thing he couldn't forgive was the stinky pollen covering up the sweet herbal smell that had reminded him of home.

He may have been more grumpy as he cleared away the remains of his plants because of that.

His workspace cleared up and his collected bits put away in his bag, he pulled three new garden pots out and filled them with soil. Yellow, blue, and pink seeds followed to be buried under a layer of dirt. He brushed the dirt off his hands and then pulled out his wand, pointing it at the pots.

"Aquamenti," he said, watching as a spurt of water splashed down on the dirt, one pot after the other. The soil in each pot nice and damp, he pushed them back into place in spots 48, 49, and 50.

Once he had brushed away any spilled soil, he was finished in the greenhouse. And yet he had not done as much thinking about the polyjuice problem as he would have liked. He figured that he would probably have to see about getting that potions kit that people talked about, that might be a good start, but even then he knew he did not have the skill to make such a potion.

There was that kid that made deals that he had heard rumours about, but that meant talking to someone else about the whole thing. He had got the hint that was frowned upon. Unless the whole deal-thing was no questions asked. Oscar could only hope so, since it looked like that might be his only option and lying was not his strong suit.

His mind once more occupied with worries about what could go wrong with the whole polyjuice thing, Oscar made his exit from the greenhouse.

'Well done,' Sprout praised Kassia. 'Eight points to Slytherin. Impatient, aren't we? Well I do say you're ready.'

She then gathered supplies to get her started, which included some seeds. She didn't comment on the Lotus, as unfortunately they didn't have time for that right now -- with dinner right around the corner.

'You may use this greenhouse any time during the day, unless it's mealtime,' she said. 'It'll be locked at night, so don't get any ideas.' Sprout gave Kassia a stern look.