Thus far, Teodosio had been relatively unimpressed with Hogwarts professors and their capabilities. Most seemed utterly incapable of keeping control of their class (such as the horse professor), or seemed to be giant buffoons (like the half-giant whose class he luckily was not a part of).

Though he did his best not to let on, Teodosio was struggling to keep up. His own grasp of the English language was mediocre at best, and they had not provided the gramophones for translation during class as they had during the welcoming event and the speeches. There were no simple charms to ease his discomfort, and the best that he had managed was to find a quill which would transcribe English into French or Italian, but even that was inconvenient. Having to pick through all spoken words of a class was a hassle.

Teodosio saw his name upon the board, listed with others. He spotted the name of one of the Fontaine sisters, and assumed that they must be doing group work of some kind. He could puzzle out that much, though most of what the professor had said about the assignment was lost on him.

He stood up, and approached Miss Fontaine with a charming smile. "I am afraid I do not quite understand the assignment given to us," he said to her. "I shall trust you to guide me as best you can throughout this... class." He looked at the other names near his, wondering how many of the people in his group would be entirely unsuitable for socialization.

Élodie found the right greenhouse just in time. Five points on her personal counter with Cici! She was able to check the stations full of pots, the names on the board – get unsure about what she could expect of hers – and listen when Ishane began to speak. She was a beautiful professor, just lacking refinement to be mistaken to a Beauxbatons professor, Lola thought. And as normally distracted as she was in classes, especially with long explanations, she didn’t really get the whole thing. Grow plants in water, with the fish thing beneath it and the filter with watercress in the middle; don’t let the whole thing dies etc. Someone else could take care of the numbers, she hoped, as for her, she could obviously plant something and perceive if it was growing nicely and if the fish was swimming gladly. No mystery on that.

What concerned her a little was the group part. Have to stay with the same non-French-nor-Italian people and Teodosio Medici for the next couple of months would be an… experience. Being probably the only one capable of reasonably translate everything to her colleague who simply refused to learn English – oh, Dieu, if she was able to learn, why wouldn’t be he? – would make the whole thing quite tiring.

And, not taking any longer, there was Teodosio approaching with his smile. Élodie smiled at him as well, sweet and elegant as expected. She had nothing against him really, despite the fact that he wasn’t really sociable. “Naturally, mon cher. I hope my guide to be enough for us to survive this class,” she winked with an affected humor she thought as pleasing to someone like him. “Well, our station is the one the professor used to explain everything,” Lola started; heading to the station and letting him follow her naturally. “The two big pots below are for the fishes, we’ll be raising tilapia, the water is magically flowing from there to the middle pot that is a filter, and from the middle pot to the ones we should grow aquaponic plants of our choice, from what’s available of course… and ah, ” she took her wand, pointing at one of the tubes just to show Teodosio and also test the spell. “Sisterium Aqua… non… Sisterium Aquam! It’s the spell that makes the water stop if we need it,” Lola bend slightly to check, and once confirmed, she casted again “Aqua Fluensium!”

Smiling at herself for the successful spells, she straightened again to find other member of her group. Élodie got a little closer to whisper one more relevant detail to Teodosio. “The group as a whole is responsible for everything… and we shall stay with the same people for the next months, no changes allowed.” In her smile was implicit a Be nice she couldn’t say. Instead of trying, she turned and introduced herself in English, “Hi, I am Élodie Fontaine, but feel free to call me Lola… so, from which school you all came? Who is used to this greenhouse so we do not feel so lost?” She gestured her and Teodosio with a lively smile.

The assignment itself wasn't horrible, in fact it was somewhat interesting. Growing plants and making sure the whole system worked and nothing withered and died. He was definitely better with plants than he was with living creatures, which meant he wouldn't have to trick any first years into helping him with this one like he had with his egg project the year before. Not to mention Professor Blaine saw fit to have him work with a whole group of others he could trick into doing the work for him anyway.

He scanned the names of those in his group before making his way over to Station Three. He grimaced slightly. The only name he recognized was Neely's and he doubted he could convince the Slytherin Princess to do any of his work for him. There were three others in the group and judging by their names alone he was likely looking at two Beauxbatons and a Salem student. Which of course made it that much harder to figure out which of them were the bookworms and overachievers.

When he approached the station the two Beauxbaton's were babbling off in French. The dark Slytherin grumbled softly. This was not going to be a smooth few months of work. Then one of them introduced herself. She was cute but he wasn't interested, after his serious screw up with Strellie he doubted he'd be interested in anyone else for quite some time.

"Xavier Tawse, this is me school." His strong Scottish brogue rather apparent. He glanced at the three he didn't know wondering if his uncle's notoriety had made it to other countries. Just because he was the most wanted Wizard in the UK didn't mean the French or the American's had heard of him. Perhaps working with the foreign students wouldn't be so bad after all.