When the professor called his name, Ted's eyes lit up, switching from blue to green. In the week since Professor Blair announced that she was leaving, he'd received letters from both Harry and Uncle Ron, hinting none-to-subtly that a familiar face was heading to Hogwarts soon. They'd both told him to be patient for the reveal. For once, patient didn't disappoint.

"Hi, Neville!" he said brightly, dumping his books at an empty station. It occurred to him that a teacher should probably be called 'Professor Longbottom,' but there was no taking it back now. "Gran says you need to come around more often. She said she hasn't seen you since Harry's birthday and that there's no reason to be a stranger."

She'd also said that she was worried about him, but she'd been worried about him ever since his engagement got broken off. Ted would bet dollars to donuts Neville didn't want that getting brought up in class. So he held his tongue and hopped onto the stool, feet danging several inches off the ground. As they waited for everyone to get settled, he wondered what the word on the board could mean. What could evil twins and look-alikes have to do with Herbology?

Dessa skipped into Herbology, rifling through her bag for the notes she'd taken during History of Magic about gillyweed, wanting to ask if the teacher if she could shed some more light on the plant-related connection between the three portraits they'd been shown. "Professor Blaine, I found something  I wanted to--" she glanced up and stopped dead in her tracks, tilting her head to the side. "You're not Professor Blaine." she said stupidly, then blushed. "Right, you probably know that. Who are you? Are you our new professor?"

She made her way over to the seat beside Teddy and plunked her bag down, momentarily ceasing her search for her notes.

Annette proceeded into the class room right after Dessa, her nose in a book, as usual. She found the middle seat of the second  row with her hand and sat down. After finishing her page, she put the book down.

"You're not Professor Blaine."... "Right, you probably know that. Who are you? Are you our new professor?" Annette looked up from her parchment. Her jaw dropped and her eyes grew huge. She looked at Teddy, a large smile on his face, then back to the professor.

"You- I _Har- Pot- You're -Dessa!" Annette exclaimed, looking over to her friend, "It's Neville Longbottom!-You're Neville Longbottom!" Annette turned back to her teacher, starstruck. Anni never got in such a fuss over celebrities, but Neville Longbottom... he was just as handsome as his pictures in the newspapers.

"You'll be teaching Herbology all year?!?!" Annette asked excitedly.

Dessa startled when Anni shrieked her name, and her eyes widened in surprise as her friend continued on, slowly working herself into a frenzy over their Herbology professor who was, apparently, Neville Longbottom. Looking over him more carefully, Dessa realized that Annette was right. She wondered, in fact, how she had not noticed before. "Oh, wow. Sorry I didn't recognize you...unless you don't like being recognized...Either way, thank you for coming to be our teacher!"

Feeling slightly stupid for not realizing that their replacement professor was a celebrity, Dessa busied herself with the search for her notes on Gillyweed. She had been thinking about using one or several of the paintings they'd talked about during History of Magic for her project, and she thought it would be a good idea to get an opinion on the Herbology part of it from someone who knew what they were doing.

Alice walked into the class sliding into a chair in the first row. Alice knew exactly who the professor was, but kept her cool. Famous or not, the professor was a teacher, and all teachers deserved the same amount of respect. "Hello Professor." She said, as she took out her book, her quill and ink, her notebook, and flipped to a clear page of her notebook. Alice dated the page nicely, and then placed the quill back down, folding her hands. First impressions were the most important impressions, and Alice decided to make a good one.

Behind her, Annette was having quite a panic attack of the sort over the teacher, in which Alice quietly laughed. Annette always loved  people who were directly or indirectly related to Harry Potter in any way. It was much like her to act that way.

Lucy sauntered into the class rather calmly, sitting down, and looking up. There was a new teacher in this terrible excuse for a class, and Lucy just couldn't bear it. She hated the last one, and figured she'd hate this one. Lucy watched as Annette spazzed out about the teacher. Supposedly, he was famous or something. Not like it mattered to her. He was still teaching a lame old class about flowers. And if that didn't say something about him to Lucy, nothing will.

But, Lucy was curious. How far could she push him? Lucy smiled with a mission. She was going to attempt to be as terrible as she could be. He was a newbie, and probably didn't know how to run the class. So, it was a perfect opportunity, as she loved to push newbies to their breaking points, both students and teachers.

Blossom took his spot at the front of the class.  Bar none, this was his favourite class, not because he had a huge advantage over most of the class but because he truly loved plants.  He considered it only natural, given his family's former fame.  He looked at the new professor curiously, until the words trickled across from Dessa and Annette, at which point he shot to his feet.

"The professor Neville Longbottom?" he asked.  "It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."  Pureblooded.  One of the heroes of the Battle of Hogwart's.  A master of herbology.  Blossom had a new hero.

I wonder if he ever tried to take a cutting of the whomping willow when he was a student here?

Dione, sitting straight-backed on her stool to Blossom's left, pursed her lips with barely-concealed disgust. Fawning over one of the biggest blood traitors in the world because he had some meager skill with plants...Honestly. She'd thought the Roses to be of better stock than that, even with their fortunes in the gutter.

And the Lupin boy! Oh sure, he acted all humble and in denial of his origins, but Dione knew better. The casual greeting, the 'slip' of the Professor's first name -- he was flaunting. He had an advantage with their new teacher and he knew it. It made her blood boil.

But she couldn't let it show. Aside from the tightness in her mouth, Dione's face did not betray her frustration. She folded her hands regally over her stack of parchment and watched their new teacher impassively, judging his every twitch.

Lexi walked into Herbology, noting the new professor and some of the reactions of her classmates. Dione seemed to be sulking, typical pureblood she was; Blossom looked particularly excited, but his last name was a plant so her should be excited. Annette's reaction was the best though, she looked like a fawning fan girl who wanted to just run up and hug Professor Longbottom.

The Gryffindor walked up and set her books on the table next to Alice, sitting down next to her cousin with a smile. "Hey Alice," she said before turning back to the front of the room. She definitely liked this professor, no one else was cool enough to wear jeans and hiking boots to teach. She noted that Alice had her quill and book all set out to begin with, but for now Lexi was busy taking in the daunting way that the room was lit, the shadows bouncing off the varieties of plants and the chalk board with a single word. Doppelgängers. It sounded interesting enough, so Lexi kept her eyes forward in eager anticipation of the lesson.

Neville nodded to Ted in response, though he'd likely have to have a talk about him using his first name. He doubted Professor Reid would be all that fond of the prospect. Though he couldn't help but smile at the mention of 'Gran' the formidable Andromeda Tonks was definitely not a woman Neville wanted to disappoint and he couldn't help but have the utmost respect for the woman, whom much like his own Grandmother had taken Ted in after his parents were killed, "I'l be sure to send her an owl." He spoke softly before the rest of the students filed in.

He watched their assorted reaction's to him with a small smile and the hint of crimson poking through his stubble. He could never quite get used to the 'fame' he had acquired after the war. He had always believed he was doing the right thing, standing up against the Death Eaters as they took over Hogwarts and finally staring down the Dark Lord himself but he was still just plain old Neville Longbottom. He supposed he'd never get used to being treated as such.

His eyes briefly moved over the sullen looking girl and he didn't need to see his house colours to know she was a Slytherin. He had once hoped that the 'old ways' would be squashed out after the war was over but there was no real way to fight against prejudice, not when it was so ingrained in certain families it almost ran as deep and thick as their own blood.

Neville cleared his throat to get the attention of the class and began to speak, "For those of you that don't know, I'm Professor Longbottom and I'm going to be taking over for Professor Blaire. Thankfully she was rather adept at keeping notes so I'm sure the transition will go smoothly." Neville had his hands folded behind his back to keep them from twitching and betraying just how nervous he was about being a teacher. He supposed the nerves would leave after his first few lessons.

"Right now, we're going to focus on Doppelgängers. Doppelgänger is a german word that means double walker, in modern days it's a phrase that's often used to describe a double or an evil twin. There are several that exist in the world of Herbology and learning how to properly identify them just may save your life."

Neville paused long enough to take his wand out of his back pocket. With a flick the piece of chalk behind him began to write names of several 'twin' plants on the blackboard behind him, "Now can anyone tell me the difference between Wolfsbane and Monkshood?" He glanced around, "Miss McGee? How 'bout you?"

Lexi paled, great. Her first class with a new herbology teacher and she had to answer the first question, while she knew all about Wolfsbane, she had only heard of Monkshood in passing. Was this just because she was a werewolf that she was expected to know the difference? Or wait... no she had heard the answer to this question.

"Professor, aren't they the exact same plant, with just two different names?" Lexi answered, "And they both can be used to create the wolfsbane potion which keeps werewolves somewhat sane during the full moon. But if anyone else were to ingest any part of the plant, it would be fatal."

Neville smiled, "Excellent, thank you Miss McGee, and three points to Gryffindor." He then turned to the rest of the class, "As Miss McGee has pointed out Wolfsbane and Monkshood are the same plant, though most would believe them to be different, given the separate names. In fact the true name of the plant is Aconitum but also goes by Leopard's Bane, Woman's Bane, Devil's helmet and Blue Rocket."

As he spoke all synonyms of Aconitum appeared on the board behind him, "Now you might ask, 'But Professor if we're learning about Doppelgängers why bring up Aconitum?" He grinned again finding his footing in the lesson, "Which would be an excellent point. The reason being is that plants such as Aconitum which are well known by many other names give us a false sense of security. The average person could assume that plants that look the same but are known by different names are simply that, the same plant. What we want to focus on today are plants that look the same but are very much different and in some cases mistaking one for the other can be quite dangerous."

Two more names appeared on the board behind him, "Can anyone tell me the difference between a Flitterbloom and Devil's Snare?" 

Blossom raised his hand immediately.  Ten years ago, his family had produced some of he most impressive Devil's Snares in the world.  Now they had only a handful of plants that were struggling to survive.   "Devil's Snare is a plant with mobile tentacles, which can constrict and kill, whereas Flitterbloom has tentacles that sway but don't really move.  Devil's Snare is deadly and Flitterbloom is decorative."

Neville gave a wide smile, "Well put, and take three point for uh," He looked the boy over catching the house colours, "Slytherin." He did his best to keep the surprise out of his voice. In his experience at school none of the Slytherin's were all that interested in academics, but then he supposed those had been different times.

"Right so, we'll be focusing on determining these differences in several plants over the next month, starting with Devil's Snare and Flitterbloom." He pulled a long rolling tray out from the side and removed the cloth from the top revealing several small pots of dark quivering plants, "Back in 1996 an Unspeakable being treated in St Mungo's was strangled by a clipping of Devil's Snare that a healer had mistaken as a Flitterbloom. One may argue that given the Christmas bustle the healer may have simply been overworked and had easily mistaken the plant, however since Mr. Bode died a fair amount of time after Christmas it's more likely that the healer simply couldn't tell the difference."

He motioned to the small plants on the tray, "The easiest way to identify a Devil's Snare hiding amoungst Flitterbloom is with an Incendio charm, however I've been informed that last year one of the first years actually set the greenhouses on fire so we'll be using a different spell, that's just as effective but not as . . . destructive." He removed his wand from the side pocket of his jeans, "Lumos Solem!" He flicked his wand and a jet of bright light burst from the tip of his wand momentarily illuminating the otherwise dimly lit greenhouse.

"Working in threes you you take two plants and try to determine which of these are Devil's Snare and which are Flitterblooms. However I'd like you to make your decisions based on the descriptions you find in your texts and to use the spell only if the Devil's Snare attack."