February 10th
9:30am
Greenhouse One

Roster
Erik Collins
Mairead ó Fearghail
Hannah Harper
Keengan Kearney
Tynan MacFusty
Dahlia Collins
Cartery Morsely
Pax Wintergreen
Eirene Antonopoulos
Phillipa Purdue
Cyhirae Trishna
Xander Perdue
Noriko Wakahisa


As the door swung shut to permit the last student entry, Graham hid with a maniacal grin behind a rather large shrubbery, the dark berries helping to blend with his robes.  The greenhouse was filled with many plants he had brought in that made up three quarters of their text book, along with a few herbs that didn't--which were predominantly poisonous or dangerous in other ways.  Once the first years were within the greenhouse, Graham jumped out, laughing maniacally as a large banner unfurled from the rafters with large neon green letters blinking "What Would A Herbologist Do?" 


He paused, briefly, frozen in his pose--crouched, hands outstretched forming hieroglyphic claws as he bared his teeth.  Now that he was confronted with his audience, Graham wondered briefly whether this would work, whether he had doomed himself for eternity for jeering, mockery, and general merriment at his expense, not to mention the destruction of his sanctuary.  But he had to believe that they were capable of something.  Their response to the midterm had shown Graham the way to finally reach them:  give them responsibility, force them out of their comfort zones.  Well, this was Graham's backward way of doing so. 

He withdrew his wand, flicking it at the tables to conjure six burlap dummies, one on each table.  "A wild chimera has attacked!  Use the herbs and plants to heal your dummy!  Pairs of two!  Go! Go!  Their well-being depends on your due diligence!"

Graham braced himself for the imminent deluge of students flooding the area.  "Go!" he shouted again, somewhat caught up in his own self-imposed urgency as well.  He stood smiling at their reactions, enjoying the mix of confusion, determination, and a variety of other emotions his self-esteem might not want to identify.


He gazed over his handiwork, proud of his trust in the first years.  They would do fine, they had already saved the life of one of their own.  This should be a cakewalk. 


The first dummy shivered and was slowly turning a pale shade of blue.  There were bruises and a wound on one side that began to exude a disgustingly green puss. 


The second had claw marks on the protrusion that identified as the dummy's head.  The rips in the burlap were smeared with a purple residue and the body was turning red with warmth.


The third dummy had a white foam issuing from a mouth that was crudely drawn on with black ink.  Cotton stuffing had emerged from a tear at the elbow that threatened to sever the limb. 

The fourth dummy bore a twin puncture marks on the foot that oozed green and purple, as well as a huge question mark in black ink written on its forehead. 

The fifth dummy had a rash of pus-filled boils on its hip next to another cotton-seeping wound.

The sixth dummy was slowly turning red from heat, bore two twin puncture marks on the heel and the torso. 


As the students assessed the situation and reaction, he paused a moment before calling out once more.  "Oh yes, if bitten, the chimera's venom becomes fatal within...fifteen minutes.  Hurry!  When the proper herb or combination is applied, the afflicted area will glow yellow.  Turn the whole body yellow to finish!"

---

Students will be awarded 5 house points for attendance.  Students who do not attend will have five house points deducted as an incentive for participation, unless they contact Graham Bombay via pm stating that they will not be attending the class. 

Cyhirae retrained herself from rolling her eyes at Professor Bombay's antics. It would do her no good to agrivate him this early in the class. She'd have enough of detentions for a while and the whole hullabaloo over the lost points was not something she wanted a repeat of. Though this time her father would probably be more sympathetic than angry, especially if she didn't actually do anything to deserve it.

She had never understood why Professor Bombay seemed to hate her so much until her father had explained that he and her Uncles had tormented Bombay when they were all in school. "Okay, maybe it was more Uncle Luthas and Uncle Ryan than Daddy, but still."

Pushing such thoughts aside, Cyhirae quickly ran over to the sixth dummy, ducking to avoid a stray elbow before skidding to a stop. "I'm on this one." Cy hovered near the dummy, not touching it but clearly staking her claim.

Oh.  Joy.  It was Mairead's favorite class, taught by her favorite Professor. 

Or not. 

Mairead hadn't ever quite determined whether Professor Bombay had ever forgiven her for trying to set the greenhouse on fire during her first class.  Of course, she hadn't really tried too hard to find out.  She assumed he hadn't and was content to assume the hatred she still felt towards the man was mutual.

It was for that reason Mairead's first instinctive reaction to the Professor leaping out from behind the plant was to assume he was, finally, going to kill her.  He seemed the sort to be unbalanced enough to do so.  But, after the initial startle, Mairead's mind was able to reason through the situation and come to the conclusion he was unlikely to kill her in front of the whole class.  So, once her heart slowed to a more normal pace, the young Gryffindor muttered a quiet "sit in a field of daisies and sniff flowers," in response to the question blinking on the banner. 

Mairead stared at the collection of maimed dummies that were tossed out on the tables.  They were supposed to heal them?  They were supposed to know how to heal them?  Was that the last chapter they were supposed to read?  If that was the case, Mairead's chances of passing this class were just getting slimmer. 

Unless...she was smart about choosing her partner.  Maybe.  Just maybe, Ravenclaws did have a purpose.  After casting an apologetic and self-sacrificial grimace in Tynan's direction, Mairead squared her shoulders, crossed her arms over her chest, and approached Eirene.  "Yer me partner," she said.  It was a statement.  Not an invitation or a request. 

As the student amassed into teams, it was curious to see who ended up with whom.  Tappy's daughter ran to the sixth dummy, more interested in the assignment at hand than whom she teamed up with.  Interesting. He hoped to goodness she would show signs of becoming less and less like her father.  Otherwise he'd find a way to strictly discourage her from continuing in herbology during her later years.  At least she hadn't teamed up with the firestarter.  Although he knew having the firestarter and Antonopolous together would start some trouble, he hoped maybe she'd learn from the exemplary Ravenclaw.


"Get a move on, guys.  Think about the dummies.  What symptoms are they showing?  Poison?  Bleeding?  Fever?  Which plants are known for helping with those symptoms?  Think.  It's time to put your textbooks away and use what you've been studying for all these weeks."  Of course, that assumed they had been studying.  After the incident with fire and their subsequent confinement into a classroom for the majority of the year, they should have absorbed something.  "Hurry!"

"Stranger danger!" Eirene gasped when the professor jumped out of the bushes at them, poised to feed them to the plants (or so she imagined).

He shouted their mission at them, and Eirene jumped, then glanced around wildly, hoping to choose a partner that wouldn't bring her down or outshine her. She listened to his additional instructions, very excited and anxious about the healer bit, since of course, she wanted to be a Healer when she grew up and saw Herbology as one of the most important classes. Maybe if she did well enough, she'd get to graduate early, and go to St. Mungo's early, and be the youngest Healer ever-

"Yer me partner," Mairead appeared in front of her. Her mouth was moving and words were coming out. She was... she was addressing her! Telling her they were partners!

Eirene stared at her in horror. "No!" She exclaimed childishly, then ran over to Cyhirae and latched onto her arm.

"I'm pairing with her! Find someone else!"

Sure, Cyhirae had lost Ravenclaw fifty points, and Eirene didn't personally like the girl. But if forced to choose between her and Mairead, she'd act like they were besties!

Charles saw thta they would be treating summies this lesson. well, he had managed to prevent Keegan dying recently, and Dahlia Collins, who had bene helping him then, was generally smart, like him, so he called out " Dahlia, want to work with me?" Without waiting for a reply, he headed for Dummy number 6, and looked at it quickly.  Then he heard the bickering over partners. Charles rolled his eyes, just hoping that in future, when he inevitably got badly hurt in his desired career as an Auror, he didn;'t have any of these clowns treating him. For Merlin's Sake, the longer they faffed about arguing over partners, the harder it'd be to save soemone if this was real.

"I'm pairing with her! Find someone else!"

The look on Cyhirae's face as Eirene grabbed her arm was a cross between on of revulsion and being struck dumb. "Says who?!" she snapped, attempting to dislodge Eirene from her arm. "Go away, I don't want you to be my partner, ever."

Cyhirae finally yanked her arm free of Eirene's grasp. "Go find someone else and leave me out of it." She turned to her dummy, pulling out her books and notepad, ignoring whatever Mairead and Eirene chose to do. She scribbled down the dummy's symptoms and started flipping through her books, scribbling down the occasional note or page number as she attempted to find a cure for the dummy's ailments.

"The redness could be a rash, or a burn or maybe even some sort of reaction that just colors the body red. Though I don't remember that being part of a chimera bite." She glanced at the puncture wounds on the dummy's body. "I don't see infection, but defiantly an antibacterial/anti fungal just in case, and something to start up clotting and seal the wounds."

She scribbled down a few more ideas for treatments before flipping to the index page of her book, continuing to ignore her surroundings as she worked. "I don't care who my partner is as long as it's not Eirene....or Mairead for that matter."

5 seconds.  Hardly a record by any standard, but it was still frustrating to Graham to see the first years fall apart to petty squabbles within the first five seconds.  He understood Antonopoulus's concern, he'd hardly want to work with the firestarter either, but things were getting ridiculous.


"Ms. Antonopoulus, your patient is dying.  Do you want to have his blood on your hands or will you start acting like a witch!" he growled, impatient at the students' argument. Although Trishna was flipping through a textbook, students had yet to start assembling ingredients.  He pulled out his timepiece, watching the second move.  "The clock is ticking, guys!"

The moment Bombay jumped out randomly like some weird crab, he stared at him blankly. Oh Godric, they’d done it—they drove Graham Bombay mad. Not that it was a bad thing, but how'd it take so long? Maybe they should practice on other teachers.

But wait? Dummies? As Erik surveyed the dummies, and all the interesting ailments and scars he smiled, running between them, trying to decide which one he wanted, rather than fret over a partner.

Finally he paused and rubbed his hands against the first dummy: Blue, shivering, and exhuming puss. Erik poked one of the wounds and the fuzzy looking goop oozed onto the table and Erik laughed out an ‘ew’ before getting to work. If a partner wanted to cure the oozing blue dummy then they could join him, otherwise he was transfixed on the shriveling heap.

Although, Erik wasn’t a professional about this, he did remember a few things about herbology, having to treat wounds and such all the time, but he’d tackle the wounds later, and focused on the shivering. He managed some mixture of seeds, and herbs to reverse the shivering and some of the blueness faded away. He was almost excited at his progress until his dummy also started to breakout into patches of purple, red, and his face turned green. Great.

Erik cringed and looked around the room. They were being timed, and as much fun as he found in changing his dummy colors, he couldn’t do this the whole class, ignore Bombay, and then leave and forget about it. It was only fifteen minutes.

He caught site of Cyhirae being picky about partners apparently—geeze girls were sensitive. But since Trishna didn’t want Eirene Erik decided he could use her help for a minute. With how she’d help during the Forbidden Forest fiasco, and without Pippa in sight, she’d steal the other Ravenclaw brown-noser for a moment. He paused, fidgeted, looked back at his dying dummy, and then through a whisper towards the Ravenclaw, “Pssst, Eirene. Can you come here for a sec?”

What a bleeding cry baby. 

Mairead rolled her eyes as Eirene darted towards Cyhirae.  But, to Mairead's distinct delight (and she made no attempt to hide her delight), Cyhirae bluntly rejected the girl.  "Yeah, Ms. Antonopoulus, yer patient's almost dead." 

Of course, Mairead's wasn't doing much better.  She looked around the room.  She needed another boring know-it-all to partner with if she was going to get a good grade.  She heard Charles calling Dahlia over to his dummy and quickly stepped to his patient of choice.  "Dahlia's busy," she offered, having no idea where the girl was or what she was doing.  Charles did well in class; he'd certainly qualify even if he didn't know how to break the rules. 

She leaned across the table towards her fellow Gryffindor and dropped her voice.  "I say, we let this one die and then sell his guts to the others," she said, nodding her head pointedly.  Surely, in at least a few of the cases, the chimera venom would require transplants; people that sold organs on the black market always made a killing in those movies.  "He's almost dead, anyway." 

"Mairead, Bombay won't let ye do that. He'd sell your organs, maybe," Tynan said darkly, stalking over to the 5th dummy since it seemed unattended - unlike the 6th dummy, which now had Cyhirae, Eirene, Charles and Mairead around it. "Let me know if he wusses oot, Mairead," he added as he walked over to the pus-spewing dummy.

Seeping pus - lovely. He frowned at the wound and looked up at the leaves around him. He spotted Dittany - handy once he got the pus stopped and cleaned up, but probably not before. He made a 'hm' sound and looked over to Bombay. "Professor - are we allowed tae get stuff froum the rest o' the greenhouse, or just froum the table?"

" fine, you can work wiht me Mairead. Now, as amusing as it sounds to sell someones' organs on the black market, we'd be better off treating the dummy. Dittany would help the bite marks" Charles said, then mentioned the name of a plant thta would help with poison. " Can you get me those, Mairead?" Charles saked, keeping a keen eye on his patient.

"You have full use of the greenhouse, Mr. MacFusty," Graham announced loudly, wanting the other 'healers' to hear. 


Harcroft and Firestarter, now that was a team.   Overall, though, it seemed that many of the students were taking their jobs seriously.  Although the recent incident with Grosvenor may not have helped, perhaps the students were taking their subjects a bit more seriously now.  Of course, they may just all want to be bleedin' healers as well.  Graham could have almost snorted.  Typical.


"Ten minutes!"  He yelled loudly over the hubbub of squabbling first years. "It seems as if only dummies 6 and..." He glanced over at the Collins boy, who seemed to be having a unique brand of trouble, "...is the only one with responsible healers.  Let's go, guys.  And two healers per dummy," he added, giving the team huddled around said dummy a rather vicious glare. 

Eirene's face flushed when Cyhirae loudly rejected her, and she turned away, stunned and hurt. How dare she! Being housemates meant sticking together for the sake of points, in her mind. She didn't even pause to think how Cyhirae's response had mirrored what she'd just done to Mairead, and instead hastily apologized to the professor when he pointed out that her patient was dying. Nooooo.

Glaring at Mairead for another precious few seconds, Eirene caught wind of her name between Professor Bombay's shouts about the time. She hurried over towards Erik, deciding to work with him. She didn't much like the boy and he was still a dreaded Gryffindor, but he wasn't Mairead, and he'd asked for her help.

Though it looked like Rainbrow Bright was possessing the dummy, some of the shivering had passed, so Eirene made an approving little sniff and glanced at the plants and herbs on the table.

"The shivering is down, so we should focus on the icky wound next," Eirene told him, trying very hard to adopt her mother's Healer-esque stoicism, though her face scrunched up as she studied the oozing pus more closely. What would stop the green icky? Eirene had a vague idea from the readings they'd been assigned.

"Crush the dittany roots and the jewelweed together," she instructed him, pointing at the two different plants.

"Eww..." she muttered softly as she patted at the wound with a clean cloth and waited for Erik, hoping she'd remembered the right combination of plants that would help with the wound.

Tynan nodded curtly when the Professor spoke and quickly made his way off along the greenhouse with long strides.

He returned to the 5th dummy a moment later hauling a clean bucket full of water and with a wash towel over one of his shoulders, scavenged from the far corner of the greenhouse. He seemed to be focussed on his task as he carefully whetted the towel and started cleaning the oozing wounds, one of his lips bitten as he did so.

Once the puss had cleared up somewhat - and the cuts where clean for the moment and clear of blood - he started pulling leaves and grinding them up, mixing the Dittany with other healing herbs he could find, creating a paste as quickly as he could.

When puss welled up again, he paused to clean the wound again, trying to keep the infected areas clean and puss-free.