Carefully chalked diagrams of leaves, dried, powdery roots, and thorny stems decorated the blackboards, Juliette's pretty hand spelling out commonalities beneath them. These, of course, were only a primer-- something for the students to copy down while they settled in for the lecture. The bulk of the instruction would come from a collaborative presentation: Juliette and the Herbology professor, who had kindly loaned himself and a few choice plants.

The choices, of course, were in some cases purposefully inadequate. Tampered with. Weak. Dangerous for reasons one mightn't find listed in a standard potions guide that assumed just that about one's working materials: that they were standard. This was the difference between a textbook and a teacher. While Juliette always began term with safety reminders, equipment refreshers, and brief highlights on certain ingredients, the level of detail varied by year, skill level, and what was expected of certain classes. (NEWT students, for example, worked with the most temperamental ingredients, but they were also expected to remember the foundations of potions-making and lab safety without needing constant reminders.) But a successful potioneer-- one who desired professional prosperity-- could not take one's resources for granted, even if they knew their way around a cauldron. They had to be able to discern which individual ingredients were bad or good. It was a variable that was usually controlled in the classroom. Accidents could happen to the best of witches and wizards if they put their trust in the system (as evidenced by Juliette's welcome to Hogwarts some years back.)

After the explosion, Juliette had completely cleared out and rebuilt the school's stores. She was highly selective, desiring no repeats of the cleanup. (Though it had brought her closer to Landis.) But the students had yet to learn the hard way that following instructions perfectly did not always end with a perfect result. Thus Prewett's cartload of gifts for today's class. His expertise with plant-based ingredients combined with Juliette's own experience brewing and choosing her stock made for maximum controlled chaos.

"You all know Professor Prewett," she began with a toothy smile, mere seconds after the bell faded and the door shut behind the last student rushing to a seat. "In his off hours, the kind professor often helps me cultivate the freshest ingredients for our classroom. Generally, those of you who pay attention and follow instructions brew decent potions-- though some of you have more natural skill than others." Her eyes shined over a face or two. "But oftentimes the ingredients you buy in the real world aren't always perfect. You won't have a professor sourcing and testing things for you, nor another to the meet our needs with fresh supply."

"Outside of the average standard ingredients kit, the market supply can be a mixed bag. Wizards who hunt for a discount and assume quality control in the process are fools. The best apothecaries are often the most expensive, and definitely the most likely to take their time sourcing. Rare ingredients are often cultivated by those angling to make a quick profit rather than establish a good name. The black market thrives when supply can't meet demand. And so even if you are paying a heavy galleon for something hard to find, the price-gauging hardly guarantees the quality."

"We will begin with the Mandrake. Professor?"

Fred had a vague idea of why they were in the greenhouse, but at the same time, he really would have preferred to be in the dungeons doing a potions class where they actually brewed something.  Ingredients were important, obviously, or they wouldn’t be here.  They certainly wouldn’t be able to make anything if they didn’t have the ingredients, but herbology while something Fred wasn’t necessarily terrible at wasn’t his favorite. 

He much preferred to do things with the product of growing, rather than the growing itself. Fred was decent at brewing even without perfect instructions (he felt like Professor Vaillancourt had to be smiling at him at one point during her little speech to begin the class), but the growing part was not his primary concern.  It took too much time and patience was not his strongest suit.  He could do it, but he didn’t want to.  So, this was kind of a weird thing to be doing.  Shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, he looked up at the professors; standing there with eager, but confused eyes.

Then, his pupils widened as she mentioned mandrake.  Oh Godric, he hoped he had his ear muffs in his bag… Looking to Professor Prewett, he waited, fiddling with the cuff of his sleeve, waiting for further directions. 

Celene was both anxious and excited. If the herbology professor was here, that meant this was probably not going to be "potions class as usual". Which could be a good thing, or a very, very bad thing. And so she sat, bouncing her knee under the table, trying very hard to pay attention to what the potion's professor was saying, and only having mild success.

She was sort of getting that this all had something to do with the quality of ingredients they used in their potions. It made sense; you could't make a good potion out of bad ingredients.

But what did  Vaillancourt expect them to do about it? Up until this point, Celene had used a pretty simplistic rule of thumb  for whether or not an ingredient was good enough to use.
 
"If it looks all manky, don't put it in your potion."

If Vaillancourt wanted them to know more than that, then Celene was possibly going to have some trouble. But she did not know  just how much trouble until Professor Vaillancourt uttered her final word.

Celene's heart sunk. Mandrakes?

"Thank you, Professor."  Owen said picking up the jar of prepared mandrakes.  Mandrakes happened to be faked more often than not if one wasn't going through a proper supplier, mostly because no one wanted to prepare mandrake for use given their nature.  So it was usually purchased ready for brewing.

"As I'm sure you all remember from your studies, as mandrake is particularly dangerous to grow.  This leads to most not growing their own, and to many not purchasing it whole.  Though all one really needs for the process is a good pair of earmuffs."  He held up the jar for the students to see.  "For example, this jar is labeled mandrake.  But, do you know for sure when the mandrake was harvested?  Was it allowed to properly mature to the point where it's cry can kill?  Are you even sure it is a mandrake?"  He asked looked directly at one of the students.[1]

1.	Can be anyone. Also, there would be both a non-magical answer and a magical answer to the question.

Celene slowly raised her hand. She may not know all the answers to the herbology professor's questions, but she did know some of them.

"As a mandrake matures, it begins to take on more a more adult appearance and more adult behaviors. So, if you've purchased a properly matured mandrake, it should look more like an adult than a baby."

Celene smiled weakly at the professor. She hated speaking up in class, even when she knew the answer. This was out of character for her.

"Please let that be the right answer" she thought. "I'll look like an idiot if its not".

She clenched her fist under the table and waited for him to respond.

“Correct, Oglesbee,” Juliette permitted, with a brief upturn of her mouth. “Premature features are quite obvious in immature Mandragora roots, if they’re kept whole. They’re shorter, proportionally wider, and their features are largely undefined, apart from the mouth. If the leaves are attached, they’re not especially lustrous or green.” Juliette had known more than one Herbologist who would have made a wonderful midwife for their patience and gentleness in nurseries full of baby mandrakes. Juliette preferred to be tested by the angry bubbles of a cauldron.

“Those that are on the verge of maturation but which are still harvested too soon will be bumpy with acne and prone to moody behavior. What you want is defined adult features set in a relatively clear face.” She offered a nod to Celene, again reiterating to the students that their classmate had been correct— and they’d be wise to keep her words in mind. Unfortunately, there were one or two in the room who might as well have been wearing mandrake stifling earmuffs.

“But,” the redhead continued, leaving those very same stragglers to fate: a healthy panic on the eve of an exam. “If the mandrake has been butchered and pre-chopped for mass consumption, you very likely won’t be able to pick out any adult facial features or rely on the vegetation. You’ll need a more discerning eye. Any smooth, pink patches or teenage bumpiness are to be avoided. Redness nearly always hints at infantile or adolescent root. Mature mandrake skin is rougher than a brand new root, but also more uniform and less fatty. It’s not dissimilar to a potato in texture and density. Real mandrake root does not yield to gentle pressure.”

“Whole mandrake root should always be stored in child-proof, sound-proof glass with proper warnings and harvest dates. If the glass isn’t sound-proof and you’re still standing, it’s not a real mandrake. If it’s chopped—” She looked back to Owen, gestured to the jar. “The container might be less exacting, but the labeling should still include a date and source. The packaging should be perfectly transparent so you can look for signs of redness and study the texture. Some stockists keep dried, chopped mandrake in large bins and allow you to jar it yourself in the apothecary. I highly recommend this. It gives you, the informed potioneer, the most control.”

Behind Juliette, chalk began to scrawl in her hand: Texture, Density, Color. The shrewder students would be filling in notes beneath each heading on their own.

"Professor, will you give us a better look at the contents of your jar? It will be up to you all to decide whether its the real thing-- and what shape its in, if so.” Juliette donned a single dragonhide glove, reached into the jar, and plucked a few pieces from its midst. She began at Fred Radley, saddling the Prefect with the responsibility of passing the first chunk of mystery ingredient down the line for each student to exam.

At Professor Vaillancourt's acknowledgement, Celene's body melted with relief. She tried unsuccessfully to not grin like an idiot.

Answering questions in class is bad for your health she thought.

All self-imposed anxiety aside, Celene was happy for the compliment. Professor Vaillancourt had not said much, but it had meant the world to Celene. She was all about that public recognition.

Basking in the warm glow of her minor achievement, she quickly began taking notes. There was no way she was going to disappoint Vaillancourt by getting a sub-par score on the next exam.

Potions had never, ever, been one of Ambrose’s strong points. Despite the fact it involved little use of his wand, he struggled with the general academic nature of precision and calculation. A potion which didn’t explode, melt, set light or ooze horrific smells were all celebrated victories, even if the potions themselves were absolutely useless. Ambrose reckoned their upcoming OWL examination supervisors would be unaware of the catastrophes they had managed to avoid if he made it through the exam. The Gryffindor had already vowed that once he was out of Hogwarts at the end of the year, he would leave any potion brewing to those capable, and stick with what he was better at.

In the meantime, he did his best for Professor Vaillancourt.

“You all know Professor Prewett,” their patient, red-headed professor began, and Ambrose’s ears perked up. He tried extra hard in herbology because magical plants were a bit like animals, and animals needed plants to live and those links were important to Ambrose and his attention span. “… those of you who pay attention and follow instructions brew decent potions— though some of you have more natural skill than others.” Ambrose propped an elbow on the bench before him and propped his chin on his upturned palm, pouting his lips a little. “… you won’t have a professor sourcing and testing things for you…”

“Hrmph, anyone remind St Mungo’s about that?” Ambrose muttered bitterly, lifting his fingers to cover his lips from obvious sign of interruption.

“We will begin with the mandrake. Professor?”
“Thank you, Professor.” Ambrose glanced from one teacher to the next, and shuffled a little in his seat, watching their herbology professor carefully. He was relieved to notice that the jar was prepared mandrake, and there’d be no reaching for earmuffs this lesson. “… do you know for sure when the mandrake was harvested? Was it allowed to properly mature to the point where its cry can kill? Are you even sure it is a mandrake?”

Ambrose was relieved the question was posed towards Celene.
“As a mandrake matures, it begins to take on more or an adult appearance and more adult behaviours. So if you’ve purchased a properly matured mandrake, it should look more like an adult than a baby.” The Slytherin offered as a possible response. Ambrose paused before scribbling it down, simply because his classmate didn’t look convinced in her response.
“Correct, Oglesbee,” Professor Vaillancourt confirmed, and Ambrose scratched his quill across his parchment, gaze dropping down to the table before him as he focused on writing. His speed wasn’t as quick as the others, but he managed to get a few of the points down, his brown hair drooping down towards the end of his quill feather.

“But…” Ambrose glanced up, his tongue poking out the corner of his mouth in concentration, brow furrowed as he tried to keep up.

“Professor, will you give us a better look at the contents of your jar? It will be up to you all to decide…” Ambrose glanced up and across the room to where Professor Vaillancourt was handing Fred some of the mandrake. Or imposter.

Seeing it was going to be passed around, the Gryffindor fished out the left of his well-singed dragonhide gloves so he could also take a look. One by one, the students passed the samples along. Ambrose watched what his classmates did, noting how they copied each other, glancing at what each other decided to do. When it reached Ambrose he received it with mild trepidation in his left hand, and gave it an enthusiastic sniff and wrinkled his nose and squeezed it between thumb and forefinger, nearly losing the second bit between his fingers onto his notes before he passed it over.

The classroom became a game of hot potato, tense, braced for drama, plagued by murmurs. Hand after dragonhide-clad hand was only too glad to shove it off to the next tepidly outreached palm, though one or two diligent potioneers— or mini herbologists— took their time evaluating the jar’s contents.One boy had somehow managed to pack the wrong pair of gloves on his way back from Easter holiday, and could not squeeze a hand into his little sister’s metallic pink dragonhide to save his life. Others might as well have been in the same cauldron, their fear of live mandrake manifesting in pools of sweat, palm-covered ears, and wincing.

Ambrose Pepper, while unmistakably absent an affinity for potions, at least heeded instruction in earnest: Juliette was watchful as the Gryffindor used his senses. Sometimes they were the best tools for the job.

Other times, not so much.

The witch’s fingers tightened on her wand, prepared to save the specimen as it wriggled (as if it had come back to life) in the Gryffindor’s grasp. Luckily the boy caught it, and passed it on, but not before the student immediately behind him flew out of her chair in melodramatic splendor, and knocked into the table behind her.

Like a game of Exploding Snap, students sprouted up, ducked down, unnecessarily flung about near-new laboratory tools, and rained down bits of parchment for good measure. “It’s alive!” shouted someone in the back, causing a third girl to scream with perfectly mandrake-like soprano.

“Accio Mandrake root,” Juliette cried, solving the mystery for them.

"Apologies, professor."  Owen said to Juliette as her summoning spell summoned nothing living, but a few of the pieces of the mandrake root that had been in the vicinity of the slug.  He pulled his own wand and pointed it at the wriggling slug on the back table.  "Accio slug!  I wasn't sure if the eggs would hatch in time for this lesson."  He said as the slug flew into his outstretched gloved hand.

 "You can all take your seats again, there was probably only the one." he addressed the class now smiling, "Quality is not just about the ingredient itself or the preparation.  You may get surprises beyond a mislabeled ingredient.   Slugs, insects, any number of molds and fungi that you weren't expecting if the quality isn't up to scratch."

He pulled a box out of his robes, stuffed some lettuce into it and carefully deposited the slug inside.  "Would you use the rest of the jar?"  He asked the class.

Ayla had been following along with the lesson well enough. She had been bent over her parchment, scratching out her usual haphazard notes. Most information was written in short form accompanied by anecdotal side notes to help jog her memory, sketches and a recipe or two tucked into the margins. Her friends had learned early on that, while she attentively took notes in nearly every class, they were not the most reliable when it came to studying (at least for anyone that wasn't Ayla)

She was a good potioneer, would likely be getting regular O's if it weren't for Vaillancourt's strict grading and she had a bit of a green thumb when it came to growing plants even if she didn't know all the important information behind said plants. All this made for a lesson she was fully intent on enjoying and doing well with.

Ayla caught Ambrose's quip about St. Mungo's and was a little shocked. Her cousin was currently a Healer at the Hospital and had dealt with the potion poisonings. She was also an expert potioneer which caused the whole thing to hit her harder than some of the other Healers. She was a little surprised Ambrose had been so callous.

It didn't take long for chaos to break out once the students were allowed to handle the mandrake root. Ayla was knocked out of her chair when panic broke and was brushing off a scraped knee as Professor Prewett retained order. She scowled, looking at the small blossom of blood gathering on her nylons, "bloody idiots act like they've never seen a slug before." She cursed under her breath.

Ambrose thought he was doing fairly well considering he’d not dropped it after all. He was only a little surprised at his classmate’s reactions as he turned to pass it on. Normally it was just when he wielded his wand at them, not some potions materials. He watched them ricochet from one to the next, screeching, and began to wonder if he’d missed something.

“Accio Mandrake root.” Professor Vaillancourt interrupted.

“Accio slug!” Professor Prewett followed a moment later.

“Slug?” Ambrose uttered quietly, watching Professor Prewett ferret it away with lettuce.

“Would you use the rest of the jar?” Their herbology professor asked. There appeared to be a resounding no in response.

Ambrose only hoped the St Mungo’s staff were more versed in checking their materials. His earlier grumbles had been down to the loss of his mother to the tainted ingredients. A long-term patient there, she’d only been administered something simple, and she’d been dead hours later.

“How did the slug get in there, Sir?” Ambrose asked, a rare question in this lesson, admittedly.