Herbology 101 for Intermediates on Care of Magical Creatures

Professor-in-Training Nathan Xavier

May 06, 2016 2:29 PM

Herbology 101 for Intermediates by Professor-in-Training Nathan Xavier

According to the class schedule sent to the homes of each student over the summer, the intermediates were supposed to be learning Care of Magical Creatures right now. They would report to the CoMC classroom, as expected, but today it was not Professor Tallec standing at the front of the room. It was Nathan Xavier.

Nathan had spoken to Headmaster Brockert about maybe looking into possibly some form of staff led Herbology club the day after the opening feast, and it turned out the board was pressing for adding that as an actual class already and Nathan was still kind of wrapping his head around how fast he'd been given a pile of textbooks, an advisor, a student ID card at a nearby wizarding college, and a classroom full of students he was supposed to educate. He was in an accelerated program, yes, but, wow, wizards knew how to accelerate when they were motivated to please rich folks who wanted their kids learning Herbology.

Accreditation required teaching experience, and the TA work he'd done at NYU's greenhouses wasn't going to cut it for a teaching degree at the 11-18 age level, so here he was, standing in front of a class at Sonora already. He thought it seemed a bit backwards to require experience to get the degree that would allow you to teach, but he supposed his situation solved the conundrum well enough. Particularly since Richard Tallec needed extended periods of time off this year, so it just seemed logical to split the CoMC timeslot between them, for both Beginners and Intermediates so Nathan would get experience with a range of different levels. Advanced was not on his docket because (a) the advanced students needed all their CoMC time to prepare for their RATS, and (b) no advanced students had any background or CATS prerequisites in Herbology.

The board behind him read "Welcome to Intermediate Herbology" but truthfully the intermediates didn't really have any background either. He figured he'd just do a quicker beginner curriculum for them this time around, getting through what he had planned for two years of beginner classes in just one year, and take things from there.

The students arriving would also notice an older man - not yet elderly, but older than Nathan at least - sitting in the back row. Once everyone settled into seats, Nathan began by explaining what was going on. "Hello, and welcome back. I'm not subbing for Professor Tallec, today, but introducing a new subject. Sonora is adding Herbology to its curriculum, and I am in the process of getting a teaching degree. My advisor, Mr. Muddle, is sitting back there to make sure I don't mess up too badly in the mean time." The older man gave a wry smile and small wave as attention turned briefly toward him. "And so Professor Tallec has agreed to split his timeslot with me until I am qualified to teach full time. We will continue to meet here in the Care of Magical Creatures room until I can get a Herbology space set up, so probably until midterm at least." It had been a long time since Sonora had offered the course and none of the current greenhouses were equipped for class use, which was another reason higher level classwork was just not possible yet.

"For the fifth years, you will still be taking a Care of Magical Creatures CATS at the end of the year, and extra study sessions will be provided for anyone who needs it. Professor Tallec will be streamlining his syllubus to account for the two days a week I have you instead and will give you further details when he gets back next week. A Herbology CATS will not be offered this year since we will not be able to cover all of the subject areas you'd need to know in just the two hours a week that I'll be teaching you this year."

He wiped slightly sweaty palms on his robes and hoped the nerves would go away as he gained experience. "Basically what we are going to cover this year is two years worth of beginner material, so it will be fairly simple, but we are going to go through it very quickly, since you should be familiar with some of these plants already after using them in potions. I'll have office hours posted later this week once I get my own class schedule finalized, so if you find I'm going too fast and you need some extra time with the material, you are encouraged to come to that. Are there any questions so far about how this is going to work?"

Once he had fielded any concerns about the new schedule, he moved directly into his first lesson. "Since this subject is new to most of you," he did know of one exception, but he thought it better not to call her out on the first day, "we're going to start very basically: with the definition. Herbology is the study of plants, particularly magical plants for our purposes, but some mundane plants will be covered as well. Even seemingly muggle vegetation has been used in potions to moderate or enhance the magical qualities of other ingredients, or just to make it more palatable when ingested, though even that can have an effect on potency. Another thing that affects potentcy is the conditions under which your ingredients were grown, and that will be the first unit we get into."

Nathan turned around and wrote "Growing Conditions And Magical Potency" on the board. Turning back, he said, "I'd like you all to name as many growing conditions as you can think of and guess how or why it might change the properties of plants grown like that." He pointed to the first raised hand he saw, "Go ahead."

OOC: Welcome to Herbology. This is a discussion class so we'll run it Quidditch style rather than taking turns. Even if your character has no answer to contribute, feel free to post your reluctance to speak or your terror that you might get called on, or just your reaction to what has already been said. Nathan's going to keep calling on people, mostly volunteers unless you want to be picked on involuntarily (he's a Teppenpaw though, so he's not going to call out anyone who is obviously unwilling to contribute unless you're goofing off and he wants you to stop), until he gets at least six or so good answers.

1 Professor-in-Training Nathan Xavier Herbology 101 for Intermediates 28 Professor-in-Training Nathan Xavier 1 5

Jack Spencer, Aladren

May 07, 2016 4:25 PM

I like being first. by Jack Spencer, Aladren

These days Jack felt more like the stereotypical teenage wizard than ever. He didn’t know why he felt so capricious and irked by the smallest things. He was getting better at hiding it from the general public because he really wanted to make friends and meet people, but it was difficult to contain particularly when he saw Lily chatting and exuberating her charisma.

He was excited for this new class, however, and felt grateful that he had the chance to begin with the Intermediate course instead of the Beginner. Jack didn’t know much about Herbology except that it was the study of plants - a blatant fact he could gather strictly from its name. Dad had loads of knowledge about plants that he’d needed for his job as a medicinal ingredients collector. He’d travelled all around the world collecting different ingredients like nightshade on a full moon in Central America or valerian flowers and roots in the European countryside. Jack had heard bits and pieces of the adventures his father had gone through during his travelling days, but the more interesting ones usually involved getting the tooth of a wolf or a crow’s beak. Henry was working at the hospital as a mediwizard now so his knowledge had expanded to healing potions. Jack liked to think he inherited his father’s voracious thirst for knowledge and learning.

He was surprised to see Nathan Xavier teaching, but in any case if anyone on this campus was knowledgeable about Herbology it would be the groundskeeper. Jack took a seat next to an acquaintance and smiled pleasantly at them. Today he was feeling content and he hoped it would stay that way. It was awful, being unhappy and not really knowing why. The groundskeeper - or Professor Xavier now - relayed information about the class, and he wondered if surprising students with new courses would become a regular habit. Jack certainly hoped so because Astronomy was another interest of his.

Starting with rushed beginner knowledge seemed doable and Jack, though he had no particular affinity towards plants, was looking forward to their discussions. Today it seemed as though they were going to begin with the very basic, information that Jack knew simply because his mother kept a garden. He raised his hand immediately, wanting to be the first. “There are plants that grow in the full sun and need slightly damp soil.” Jack hesitated, unsure how that would affect a plant’s magical potency. “I think perhaps that would be the best condition for herbs to make potions more soothing or pleasant when ingested, plants like lavender.” That was one he remembered his mother talking about often, but he couldn’t say much more on the subject.

Answering questions that he knew the right answer to always lifted Jack’s spirits. He liked being the vocal smart one in class as opposed to his extremely shy older sister and verbose younger sister.

40 Jack Spencer, Aladren I like being first. 299 Jack Spencer, Aladren 0 5

Lauren Song - Teppenpaw

May 10, 2016 2:18 AM

Trying to be invisible by Lauren Song - Teppenpaw

The last month of summer had felt bittersweet for Lauren. Her dad had come to visit in August for the entire month and their family felt complete again. Isaac was ecstatic to have another male in the house and Maia was happy to have a Daddy to toss her around and spoil her. There was the ever-looming deadline of his visit, though, when Mom would cry and Daddy would tell her he'd pay for them to visit him in Korea during Christmas. It was hard having her dad work in another country and only getting to really see him twice a year. It was especially hard for her mom, but it was getting a little easier to return back to school after the summer. Her mom seemed more used to it now, not having Lauren to lean on for support, and Lauren had her roommates to look forward to seeing.

Over the past year, however, she'd developed a nice little crush on someone. She'd kept it a secret from her roommates because it wasn't really a crush, at least so she said, he was just eye-candy. Lauren walked into Care of Magical Creatures, plopped down, and leaned her chin against her hand as her brown eyes flickered over to one of the Aladren boys in her year. There were a lot of attractive boys at Sonora and Jemima and Ginger had taken two really good-looking ones. One day Lauren imagined having a boyfriend and falling in love with one of them, but she took a little more time to open up unlike her other two roommates, at least from her perspective.

Her black hair was braided to the side today and she wore a thin brown headband to keep everything in place. She liked just wearing plain dresses underneath her robes or jeans and a T-shirt. She was a Californian girl all the way, and casual was always good. Even if other people didn't find it appealing, at least she hid it all underneath her uniform.

Lauren turned back to see Nathan Xavier--wait, the groundskeeper was teaching? She looked around to see if anyone else was surprised before seeing the board behind him. They were taking Herbology today. She should have seen it in her schedule, but clearly Lauren wasn't really awake right now. She sighed, but studying plants couldn't be that bad. She really had to work on DADA and Potions this year. Cutting veggies and being a little squeamish didn't help with her potions grade.

It looked like he was going to tell them about Herbology first, a very helpful sentiment, before forcing them to do something with it. Lauren wasn't afraid of speaking out in class, but she was terrified of giving the wrong answer and looking stupid in front of everyone.

Going over the basics was pretty helpful and Lauren took notes with swishy "y's" and open circles over her "i's." Magical potency and its relation to a plant's environment was going over her head right now and Lauren really didn't know what exactly he wanted to hear. She decided to just wait and see what others were going to say before saying anything. One of the Aladren boys her year spoke up first and she wondered if his roommate was going to say anything. She glanced at the other Aladren with slightly dreamy eyes. Even though she'd hardly said two words to Barnaby before, she thought he was pretty nice to look at it. That was about as far as she'd ever admit to.

Lauren really hoped Nathan Xavier wasn't going to be the kind of professor that called on random students. She made sure to look like she was listening aptly without ever meeting her new professor's eyes. Eye-contact with the professor usually meant being called on, or so she'd learned in the past few years. She definitely want to avoid that right now, but at least Jack's answer seemed to make some sense to her.

0 Lauren Song - Teppenpaw Trying to be invisible 0 Lauren Song - Teppenpaw 0 5

Laila Kennedy, Crotalus

May 11, 2016 1:55 PM

Don't worry, I'll cover for you. by Laila Kennedy, Crotalus

Laila had enjoyed working in the library the previous two years and she had indeed made a commitment to getting involved with as many extracurricular activities as possible, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted to sign-up again that year. Now that she was out of beginner’s classes and had moved up a level she had to think about her classwork. Not only would there likely be more, but it would also be harder which meant more studying. Plus Herbology was being offered alongside Care of Magical Creatures and Mr. Xavier was teaching it and she wanted to make sure to devote enough time to this special subject. However she was also torn because Gia was in the Library Helper Program and Laila liked hanging out with her older friend.

Her hand hesitated as her eyes flickered over the sign-up sheet where Gia’s name alongside a few others already rested and then towards the library clock. She had to make a decision quickly, it was almost time for her to leave for Herbology and she really didn’t want to be late for Mr. Xavier’s first class. In the end, Laila tucked her self-inking quill back in her bag, not sure if she’d be able to make such a decision, and she hurried out of the library, her head down, feeling rather ashamed to no put her name down since she really did think the librarian was sweet and since she spent so much time there studying.

When she arrived at the door to the classroom for Herbology, Laila was a little out of breath and her tanned cheeks were slightly pink, having run down from the library just to make sure she got there before the bell rang and she ducked her head as she entered the classroom, embarrassed to look so dishevelled in front of everyone when there was still at least five minutes until the bell rang, so to speak. She found a seat in the second row—never having been a first row kind of girl, not even for Mr. Xavier, as she had always felt as though she were on display when she sat at the very front—and took out her notebook and the quill she had put away only moments before in the library.

Laila smiled as Mr. Xavier began to speak, nodding her head along. This class, though it wasn’t in a proper greenhouse, was going to be so much fun! She couldn’t wait to learn even more about the lovely plants and things that she helped Mr. Xavier with almost daily in the gardens. She had no questions about the new schedule and was rather excited that the program was starting in her third year as it meant she would be able to take it for all three years as an Intermediate. She also hoped that the subject would prove popular enough that she could continue it in her Advanced studies.

She took notes throughout Mr. Xavier’s introduction to Herbology dutifully, her perfectly round, neat handwriting pressing nice little rows of notes into her notebook, her ponytail swishing slightly as her head nodded slightly when he mentioned something she knew already or something that intrigued her in particular. The idea of a discussion class intrigued Laila as it reminded her of how some of the older kids in Turner’s Point said middle school would be like. She almost wanted to be first to talk, to show Mr. Xavier that she was taking his class super seriously, but she didn’t want to seem like a teacher’s pet already since she did hang out with him rather frequently, and she was pleased when the decision was taken away from her as Jack Spencer from her challenge group the previous year said something.

Jack was a nice enough wizard, she thought. Certainly he hadn’t stepped in when Oliver was being particularly nasty but neither had any of the others. Perhaps because Oliver was so much older than all of them or perhaps because he was clearly society and she was clearly not (a concept that was still hard for her to digest since back home it was she who was the special one). Or perhaps yet because they hadn’t realized what it was he had been doing. Laila was trying hard not to hold it against him, especially because she found Jack to be a rather handsome wizard and, as it appeared, he was smart too!

She blushed slightly and looked down to her notes so she could busy herself scribbling what he said down and trying her hardest not to look like she was thinking about what it would be like to hold hands with the older student. As she finished writing down what he said, she realized that she didn’t have a distraction anymore and she cleared her throat, hoping it would simultaneously clear her mind. Unfortunately all that did was cause the rather quiet classroom’s attention to turn towards her and she blushed even deeper. She didn’t have anything prepared to say! Why had she thought that was a good thing to do? Right, cute boys… Stupid cute…

“Um, well,” she started, unsure where to go exactly. She looked around kind of timidly—a look that was not really natural on her face since though she wasn’t friends with most of her classmates she also could never be considered a timid girl and they likely knew this by now. Her eyes moved up to Mr. Xavier for reassurance when suddenly, looking at his face reminded her of one of their conversations in the Gardens the previous year and she knew what she was going to say. “Other plants need hardly any growing conditions at all,” she shared. “An example would be the puffapod which will sprout anytime it comes in contact with pretty much anything. Plants like this usually come from areas that are hard to grow things in so I would guess they are rather hearty in magical properties and might be popular ingredients in potions that could be useful for witches or wizards who also live in similar environments.”

A few years ago she could have stumbled over the use of witches or wizards instead of people since she had still been adjusting to the changing terminology. A few years ago, too, she might not have even included ‘witches’ in her statement as she had genuinely thought for much of her first year that everyone at the school was a wizard, honestly believing that there was a difference between witches and wizards that went deeper than the difference between females and males in the Muggle community. “And, um, yeah…” she trailed off, her face on fire, determined not to look in the direction of any Aladren boy since so many of them seemed to be absolutely deadset on being some of the most attractive males she had ever met in her entire like—the Mills brothers and Scottie Tucker excluded, of course.

10 Laila Kennedy, Crotalus Don't worry, I'll cover for you. 318 Laila Kennedy, Crotalus 0 5

Ginger Pierce, Teppenpaw

May 11, 2016 3:53 PM

And I'll cover for you. by Ginger Pierce, Teppenpaw

Ginger was excited about starting Herbology. While it was a subject her vegan family approved of whole heartedly, it wasn't exactly something they practiced much at home since, well, the California Pierces didn't stay in one place long enough to grow any roots. But she'd seen enough end products used by Elly and Jose's vegetarian and vegan potions business that she felt she had a good handle on plants.

That the new class was going to be run by her Head of House made it even better. He'd talked at Science club once before and he was the groundskeeper, so obviously he knew what he was talking about, but it was still kind of exciting that Teppenpaw was being so super amazing this year already: two Head students, a quickly filling Quidditch sign-up sheet, her own promotion to Assistant Quidditch Captain since the school believed they would pull together a full team again this year, and now Mr. Xavier's promotion to teacher. It was a big year for her House.

She consequently wanted to be actively involved in the class discussion to show her support for her HoH, but she was initially stumped because Mr. Xavier started it on the one part of the plant life cycle she knew very little about; the actually growing it part.

Fortunately, Jack's answer about full sun and damp soil reminded her about some of the potted plants Mom kept in the RV. (They were not particularly healthy plants, largely for those exact reasons; they rarely got watered and didn't get much direct sunlight.) And that made her think of other things that had killed the plants her mom tried to grow.

So after Laila shared about some hardy plants that could grow anywhere (Ginger now had an idea for Mom's next birthday gift), Ginger raised her hand, eager to answer the question and also to help out her classmate who seemed to be floundering a little bit at the end.

"Another thing plants need is enough growing space. If they are in too small a pot or trying to grow in a cracked sidewalk or something, they won't be as big or healthy as they would be if they had all the ground they needed to grow and expand their root system. So I guess, maybe, that would reduce their potency, too, if they couldn't reach their full growth potential. Unless you were trying for a shrinking potion or something, then that kind of condition might actually help, maybe."

1 Ginger Pierce, Teppenpaw And I'll cover for you. 302 Ginger Pierce, Teppenpaw 0 5

John Umland, Aladren

May 12, 2016 12:43 AM

I guess I've got your back. by John Umland, Aladren

The classroom was familiar, Mr. Xavier was familiar enough, but everything else was completely different. John had spotted the most unfamiliar thing, an older wizard, immediately, but he didn’t think to connect him to the groundskeeper’s lack of teaching experience until Xavier pointed him out and introduced him to them. It turned out that the new person was Mr. Muddle; an unfortunate name, that. John imagined that Mr. Muddle had had the definition of his last name pointed out to him even more often than John had been reminded of the somewhat less than flattering uses North American slang put his first name to before he'd started school. Poor guy.

Partially qualified professor and unfortunately-named supervisor of said professor or none, John was excited about the new class. It fit in neatly with several of his extracurricular projects, possibly saving him time which would have otherwise been spent looking things up, it was likely to be at least as scientific as Potions and was therefore going to be a useful thing to have under his belt when he did his university applications, and it was both using an accelerated curriculum and just new, which meant he hadn’t read Julian’s books on it already, which was almost certain to make it more interesting. He was less pleased, though, about the new class only lasting a year for him; he wondered for a minute if he could come to some kind of arrangement with the staff if Herbology did turn out to be something he thought he needed more of, but he thought the odds were slim that he’d have a free period next year exactly when the Intermediates met for this class. He couldn’t, after all, see how he could really drop anything next year and was just hoping that the professors would let him do some synthesis projects, both because they were more interesting and because they would save time.

Still, whatever he could learn this year might come in handy. He took out parchment and a quill (his mother agreed with him about nib pens being much easier to work with, but had suggested he write with a quill more often when he didn't strictly have to this year so his quill penmanship would improve before he had to take the CATS with a government-issued one) and got ready to take notes over growing conditions.

The first three people to speak were all, he noted with some pride while remembering Laila’s name, Science Club. That seemed like too good of a run to break, so he put his hand up after Ginger finished. “Interesting theory,” he said to the fourth year, smiling briefly. “We should try it out in Science Club. Er – speaking of Science Club – Professor – “ he continued quickly in case Mr. Xavier wanted to scold him for the semi-digression. John hesitated a little over the address, but guessed ‘professor’ was the proper form in this setting, as Xavier was in a teaching position even if it was sort of on a technicality. It seemed smarter to assume he was ‘Professor Xavier’ until he specifically said that he wasn't anyway. “Last year we did some experiments to study how the presence of certain metals and minerals affected magical potency in us, wizards. I don’t know this for sure, but I’d hypothesize that the presence of greater or lesser amounts, er, quantities of the metals that have an impact on, on magical potency would also – affect the development of magical plants, or the use of any plant in magic." He realized he had left out a key part of his hypothesis half a sentence earlier. “Depending on – the amount of those minerals in the soil the plants grew in,” he added. “Or maybe if they’re near large deposits of a metal that has an impact.”

16 John Umland, Aladren I guess I've got your back. 285 John Umland, Aladren 0 5

Ingrid Wolseithcrafte

May 14, 2016 12:56 AM

Huh? What? Who, me? by Ingrid Wolseithcrafte

Ingrid was kind of disappointed to learn that half their creatures time would be given over to herbology. She liked playing with animals for credit. Sure, it could be a bit dull when they had flobberworms or something, but eventually they would get to dragons and if being a pro-Quidditch player didn’t pan out, she planned on being a dragon handler. Or maybe both, seeing as Quidditch careers were pretty short. She had been super excited to move up to intermediates, where they might get some more exciting and exotic creatures, and now they would have to study plants instead. Sure, plants could be kind of weird too, and sometimes dangerous, but unlike their creature counterparts she didn’t have much wish to tangle with the more deadly ones. Venomous Tentacular strangled you, and Bubotubers covered you in blisters, all without the trade-off of being cool or really interesting in return. Maybe it was useful for Muggleborns, because to survive in the wizarding world, it helped to know which of the vegetation wanted to kill you, but she’d grown up having that kind of thing pointed out to her.

She tried to focus on the lesson, which admittedly was something she didn’t really know about, but it also wasn’t something she was that interested in, and most of her classmates’ answers seemed kind of obvious… Plants needed light and water. Duh. Were they really going to spend an hour talking about that? Badly grown plants would make bad potions ingredients. Also duh. She began doodling dragons on the edge of her parchment. She was still listening, more or less, she just needed something to do… Apparently though, Mr. Xavier wasn’t pleased. Or it had just hit a lull or got to her turn. Whatever the reason, she found him calling on her.

“Um, there’s some plants you have to pick at certain times for certain potions,” she offered, not really realising that picking conditions differed from his question, which had really been about growing conditions. She was more just skimming her brain for anything she had filed under the general mental category of ‘stuff I know about plants,’ and remembered the instructions from her Potions book, as well as just the embedded knowledge of having grown up with that being A Thing. Having grown up with it didn’t really help her answer the other part of his question.though. “I don’t know why,” she added. “They’re just… like that,” she shrugged. It was like why a Charm needed a certain wand movement. Sometimes it made sense, like it had to be all flowy to make the little dolls dance, but sometimes it just… was. Having grown up around magical plants, it didn’t seem odd to her that they might have these little caprices.

13 Ingrid Wolseithcrafte Huh? What? Who, me? 322 Ingrid Wolseithcrafte 0 5