Advanced Herbology: RATS on Herbology

Professor Xavier

February 09, 2018 9:26 AM

Advanced Herbology: RATS by Professor Xavier

For the very first time, Professor Nathan Xavier was teaching RATS material in Sonora's Advanced Herbology class. The seventh years had taken the CATS last year as sixth years, and the sixth years had taken them as fifth years, as was normal when the whole school wasn't playing catch-up in a new subject. After four years of accelerated coursework - one of which was split over the CoMC time slot while he was still a student teacher - Herbology had finally reached where it was supposed to be for everyone except maybe the seventh years, who only had one year to learn their RATS material, if they wanted to try to take that.

"Welcome to Advanced Herbology," he greeted the students for their first class of the year in Greenhouse Two, the smaller of Sonora's two greenhouses. "I was pleased with all of your CATS scores and I'm glad you chose to continue into RATS. Seventh years, as you only just took your CATS last year, I will leave it as entirely optional as to whether or not you want to take the Herbology RATS this year. Upon request, I can write you a letter of recommendation to your college of choice to tell them you have made a start at RATS material, if you decide to opt out and not risk a low grade that may look misleading on your transcript."

"For sixth years, congratulations, you've caught up to where you're supposed to be in three and a half years, where it normally takes five. You should all be in great shape for your RATS, since we're actually going to start slowing down the pace now. Good job everyone."

He started distributing the syllabi, handing one to each student personally - partly to make sure Neveah got the Braille one, but mostly because it was a small class and using magic just seemed excessive and pointless, and unnecessarily impersonal. "As you can read in the syllabus, we'll be covering more advanced and some dangerous plants this year. Seventh years, you can also find additional recommended reading you can do to try to learn the material we won't be getting to in class this year to get ready for your RATS if you choose to take them."

"Today, we're going to be starting with just planting some of the flora we'll be studying this year. They're all just seeds at this point, so they are fairly harmless, but I do recommend wearing your gloves anyway, as some of the oils on some of the seeds can cause irritation. Each work table should have a variety of pots on them which you can use. Bags of soil are next to each table. Remember to label your pots with your name and the species. Make sure you do two each of Devil's Snare, Preacher's Porridge, and Chinese Chomping Cabbage. We'll plant some more next week for later study as well, but we'll start with those three. Once those are planted, we'll have some discussion on what kinds of environments and conditions they need to be grown in."

Subthreads:

Fully accredited CATS passer right here by Raine Collindale, Teppenpaw

1 Professor Xavier Advanced Herbology: RATS 28 Professor Xavier 1 5

Raine Collindale, Teppenpaw

February 16, 2018 10:08 PM

Fully accredited CATS passer right here by Raine Collindale, Teppenpaw

Raine took her seat proudly in Herbology. Her sixth year studies were composed of the two full courses - Herbology and Defence - in which she’d actually achieved passing CATS grades, plus a few other subjects where she would just study the practicals. This was partly a safeguard in case she couldn’t handle the RATS level exams, because if she passed enough practical subjects, she could scrape graduating high school, and partly because it was always useful to keep improving her practical skills. Still, she felt a bit of a fraud sometimes in those classes. Everyone knew she wasn’t that academic, and that there was no way she could achieved passing grades in all those subjects, especially as her courseload included practical Transfiguration (conjuring and vanishing things in the middle of a circus act was definitely a useful skill to have!). But with Herbology, she actually deserved to be here. She had earnt a place in the greenhouse.

She had been a little bit afraid that the second she got into a RATS classroom, she wouldn’t understand what anyone was saying, but that hadn’t been the case. She actually found she could follow the classes and do the work. And today’s herbology assignment seemed well within her capabilities. She took a glance over the notes for each plant, to know what kind of soil they prefered, how much room they needed, how deep to plant the seeds and so on, but it all seemed fine. And Professor Xavier was someone who she trusted not to have put a hidden catch in the lesson to trick them. He liked his plants and he cared about them. He wouldn’t risk letting the students manhandle them. And he wasn’t mean like that anyway. She liked him for both of these things.

She began by labelling her pots, copying the plant names carefully from the books so she didn’t misspell them. Then she put on her gloves, dragonhide for protection but charmed to give more sensitivity through the fabric which was handy in a delicate job like this. She filled one of her pots two thirds full, before firmly pinching one of the Devil’s Snare seeds (they could be known to wriggle just a little) and dropping it in. She would chat happily with her neighbour if they approached her but she didn’t feel the need to always be striking up a conversation. She hummed softly to herself as she covered over the first of her seeds and set that pot to one side.

13 Raine Collindale, Teppenpaw Fully accredited CATS passer right here 327 Raine Collindale, Teppenpaw 0 5

Joe Umland, Teppenpaw

February 25, 2018 10:00 PM

Certified awkward person here. by Joe Umland, Teppenpaw

Joe was not going to have a dangerous occupation. Joe was not going to have an occupation that involved world travel, dangerous personalities, outside, dangerous substances, or anything like that. He didn’t know what kind of occupation he was going to have, but he knew it was not going to involve any of those things. Why, then, was he in Advanced Herbology?

It was so easy, he thought, to just keep checking off little boxes when signing up for classes. To say ‘well, I’ve always taken this, so where’s the harm?’ It was only now, with the stack of syllabi rising in size by the hour, that he began to realize how truly foolish he had been. Five advanced exams wasn’t unheard of, especially at larger schools, but nor was it anything a sane, average Joe (pun emphatically intended) had any business taking on. John did things like this, and Joe, sad or glad to say, simply wasn’t him.

It was a little too late to do the right thing now, though – quitting wasn’t an option. He was an Umland. He was John Umland’s blood brother. He had to finish these courses in good standing or die trying, because he could otherwise never look John and Paul and probably Mom as well in the eye again. So he took the syllabus Professor Xavier handed him and tried to look enthusiastic.

The first assignment of the year was at least not horrendous. Plant seeds. Gloves would make his hands a little clumsier, but better than that unspecified irritation. Later, he assumed a lot of this would involve dodging around and firing off spells to control the plants, which would be good exercise to relieve stress from his other classes, too – another win. For now, though, there were seeds, and also Raine.

Joe was still not sure where they stood after last year. Last year had been weird in so many ways, but the topper had no doubt been when Raine’s brother had been bizarrely casual about the idea that Joe might be – that she and Joe might have – well. Now it was increasingly hard not to think about – that – whenever he thought about Raine, which was…a problem for so many reasons, and then on top of that, it was a Ball year. How did he have two fairly good female friends and reasons not to ask either of them? Raine a) might dislike him intensely after last year and b) might not want the center of attention that came with that dance, and Tasha, well, Tasha was out of the question. Nevaeh was cool, assuming they could figure out how to dance with Scout underfoot, but did Raine or Georgia – who he barely knew, but was a Teppenpaw prefect now and so in the same boat – expect him to ask them, opening up the door to hurt feelings if he did not? Why did this all have to be so complicated, and why did he have to have such a strong feeling that the scenery wouldn’t involve any humanoid figures this year that would have allowed him to pull a John in the worst-case scenario?

“I bet these are going to be a pain to keep alive,” said Joe casually, dropping a Pritcher’s Porritch seed in a pot. “Being, uh, rare and all – they probably die easy, I guess. So, uh, have a good summer?”

That was it. He was officially lamer than John. He had not even known that was physically possible before this moment, but if there had been any doubt, there wasn’t now, not after that last sentence. He contemplated finding a larger Devil’s Snare and sticking his head in.

16 Joe Umland, Teppenpaw Certified awkward person here. 329 Joe Umland, Teppenpaw 0 5

Raine

February 27, 2018 6:24 AM

Make that two by Raine

Raine’s spirits dropped slightly as Joe pointed out how likely to die all their plants were. She supposed it made sense… If something was rare… Perhaps? But there were lots of things that were endangered because of what people did rather than because of their own issues.

“Maybe people just haven’t protected it,” she responded uncertainly. Joe was usually right about things. Joe knew a lot. And she usually didn’t. She was about to add a mumbled ‘I’m probably being stupid,’ but she actually thought she might have a valid point, and she wasn’t stupid, because well… they’d both passed the same exam to be here, right? Joe a lot more convincingly than her, she was sure, and with a lot more subjects besides, but she… she knew things. Some things. Sometimes. And it was a really depressing start to the year to think all their projects were doomed to fail and die.

“It was okay,” she responded about her summer, trying to shake off the vibe that Joe… suddenly disliked her? He didn’t really seem happy to see her, or like he actually wanted to be asking that. “I mean, quite good really. With the exam results…” she trailed off. Joe would probably think her results were stupid. He’d probably passed everything with top grades. “Yours?” she asked back, just as uncomfortably.

13 Raine Make that two 327 Raine 0 5

Joe

February 27, 2018 1:06 PM

The more the...merrier? by Joe

“That’s a good point,” said Joe when Raine pointed out that it might not be the Pritcher’s Porritch’s own fault it was not very good at being alive, at least in the wild. John was always ranting about how some birds were getting rarer and rarer because of this and that, so it made sense that the same would apply to plants.

“I guess we’ll see with these,” he concluded.

He was momentarily distracted from the awkwardness by Raine putting the words ‘quite good’ and ‘exam results’ in the same sentence, enough that this news was met with a genuine smile. “Mine? Oh, pretty good - went on vacation with the family.” He felt extremely awkward mentioning that he had traveled around two countries with his sister and what, to a casual observer who didn’t realize they were her family, had probably looked like a retinue - at least to Raine. With Jozua, it was okay to chat about that, because Jozua was richer than Joe and also traveled abroad and whatnot. With Raine, Joe was afraid it would make him sound like some kind of, well, rich snob, like he was pretending to be something he wasn’t.

“I’m really glad yours was good,” he said. “Especially with the exams, like you said - I know you were worried about it a lot last year.” Which brought to mind the time she had suggested they ‘relax’ together and he had sort of panicked...nope, nope, nope, he did not want to think about that -

His planter shot up in the air, then came down and upended itself over his front. He jumped back from the table with a startled exclamation, trying to get the soil off as quickly as possible to both avoid stains and to ensure that the seeds which had been in the planter didn’t make contact with him - supposedly it was just minor skin irritation which would come from contact with the seeds, but he did not have enough robes to take chances with dangerous plants damaging them.

“O - okay, then,” he said unsteadily. “That was...I don’t know what that was. I didn’t know we were planting jumping beans today,” he tried to joke as he took out his wand, mouthed ‘sorry’ in Professor Xavier’s general direction, and began sweeping the potting soil into a mound. Should he just Vanish it, or were the seeds valuable enough that he should make a go at returning it to the planter? He started to run a hand through his hair but caught himself in time, remembering his gloves. “If these things do that when you try to plant them, though, I think it makes a little more sense that they’re rare - but I don’t think it was supposed to do that, do you?”

16 Joe The more the...merrier? 329 Joe 0 5

Raine

March 02, 2018 8:42 AM

Yay by Raine

Good point. Joe had just told her that she had made a good point. Raine smiled into her plant pots.

“Sounds nice,” she commented cheerily, when he talked about having vacation. She spent most of her summer on the road, travelling around different places in the US and, though it was technically work, she found it more fun than anything. They hit a lot of the same cities, but some had favourite spots she was glad to see again, whilst in others she made new discoveries. “It’s nice to travel. Where’d you go?” she asked pleasantly.

“Thanks,” she positively beamed when he congratulated her on her exam results. He’d seemed to relax a little bit, and she was wondering whether she’d just imagined his tone before. Although she was usually pretty good at picking up on how people were feeling… “I-” she was about to share further details when his plant pot upended itself all over him, causing he to squeak in surprise.

“I… Professor Xavier wouldn’t try to catch us out like that,” she said, when Joe asked her to confirm that that was not supposed to happen. If it had been any other teacher, she might have suspected it, especially with them stepping up to advanced, but her tone was one of absolute certainty. “But… maybe you got given a seed for something else by mistake?” she suggested.

She cautiously placed one of her own seeds into its pot, but this action went off without incident, and she gave Joe a small shrug, having nothing further to offer in terms of explanation as to what had just happened to him.

13 Raine Yay 327 Raine 0 5

Joe

March 05, 2018 9:26 PM

And now I look foolish. by Joe

Oh, dear. Now he had to either sound like a jetsetter or lie. Lying was bad when unnecessary. “My sister’s husband decided to take her to France for their anniversary, and Julian decided to invite me and Mom and Dad and John to come along,” he said, trying to make it sound as casual as possible. “It was really cool, I enjoyed it - but I had no idea what anyone was saying.” That was true. Mom had tried to teach them French, but Paul was the only one, staying at home, who’d had the opportunity to gain any real skill in it. Joe could probably not die on his own in Quebec, could acquire food and lodging, but it would be a challenge, especially if there was more talking or listening than puzzling out signs.

Raine sounded very sure in her assessment of Professor Xavier’s character, and Joe had to admit that he had no real reason to suspect she was wrong. Plus, nobody else had a plant exploding all over them. Just him. And teachers, being adults, didn't pull pranks on individuals, and how could someone else have set it up? Raine's explanation made much more sense. Raine, for someone who had nearly had a breakdown last year over academics, was being remarkably good at sounding smarter than him this class....

“Maybe you’re right,” said Joe, glumly brushing more dirt off his robes - how did the stuff spread so widely so quickly? “Again,” he added with a smile that wasn’t entirely forced. “If I’m ever in charge of something, remind me to ask you to come on staff to say reasonable stuff when I think everything’s a conspiracy,” he joked.

16 Joe And now I look foolish. 329 Joe 0 5

Raine

March 06, 2018 6:42 AM

Been there, done that by Raine

“Wow, your sister’s husband sounds fancy,” Raine commented, entirely neutrally. She had never thought much about whether Joe’s family had money. She suspected they had more than hers because most people’s did, and that was just something she was used to. Her family technically wasn’t poor, in that they owned a fairly decent business, in some senses, but all their money was tied up in it. They didn’t have assets or disposal income in heaps. But she hadn’t ever really thought about how much more money Joe might have than her because ultimately it didn’t really matter. First and foremost, it didn’t matter because other things mattered more. Joe was nice. If he was rich, it hadn’t made him into a snob, so why resent him having money? It wouldn’t make her any richer, and anyway jealousy was an ugly emotion that was bad for the soul. And her family had enough to live on, whilst others didn’t, so what right did she have to complain? Maybe if she had coveted holidays in France she would have been jealous now, but she didn’t really care whether she ever got to go there or not. “How was it?” she asked, polite and curious, because Joe was her friend and she hoped he had had a good holiday, not because she was dying to hear tales of the wonders of some far flung land. She was sure France was fine, if you were into it, but she was fairly sure she wasn’t.

“Ok, sure,” she laughed and nodded, when Joe offered to put her in charge of being reasonable if there was ever a conspiracy. She wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but she had long ago learnt how to hide her ignorance, and when it was safe to just smile, laugh and agree. Joe was saying something broadly nice, he was laughing, she should just laugh along.

She planted a further seed without incident, strengthening her assumption that Joe had just got unlucky somehow.

13 Raine Been there, done that 327 Raine 0 5

Joe

March 07, 2018 2:34 PM

It's not a club I wanted to join. by Joe

Joe shrugged at the assessment of William, glad that he had apparently successfully been able to deflect blame from his family and onto his brother-in-law. “Yeah,” said Joe. “He works for the government and has no problems with self-esteem whatsoever that I can tell.” He had concluded that this, ultimately, was what made John and to a lesser extent Joe himself want to punch William in the face so often: every time he smiled, the expression seemed to suggest not so much friendliness as amusement with everyone around him, as though they were all not-particularly-bright children. Joe supposed it was fair enough - William was twelve years Joe’s senior, which meant that William had been of age when Joe had still been proud of himself for recognizing his ABCs, a time period during which John had routinely spent evenings whacking Joe about the head with plastic swords - but it was not welcome or appreciated behavior.

“France was...French. Paris wasn’t too bad, there was interesting stuff to look at there even if I didn’t understand any of the words, but then we ended up at the beach and there wasn’t much to do - for me, anyway.” he amended. “I went swimming a lot.”

This was not untrue at all. He’d done that. A lot. He’d also spent more than his fair share of time thinking about girls - both the ones immediately in front of him and in general - but one didn’t just say that, did one? Of course, her brother was remarkably matter-of-fact about the whole matter, which he was now reminded of, but - damn it, he was not going to think about Raine in a crop top again, they had just started having a conversation like people again.

“Now I kind of regret it - apparently I should have looked for dance lessons instead,” he said, tentatively floating a current problem instead of dwelling on old ones.

He examined his next seed carefully before doing anything with it, but it did not explode, so he cautiously put it in dirt, waited a moment before covering it over, and then eyed it cautiously for a moment later before saying, “whew. I guess this is one of the correct seeds for today, or else it’s someone else’s turn to have bad luck.” He worked quietly for a moment without further incident.

16 Joe It's not a club I wanted to join. 329 Joe 0 5

Raine

March 09, 2018 8:52 PM

Choice in the matter would be a nice luxury by Raine

Raine wasn’t quite sure what to make of Joe’s assessment of William. Firstly, she wasn’t sure that working for the government and having no self-esteem issues led automatically to being rich enough to holiday in France. Or, if it did, it was the ‘working for the government’ part that did it. She knew plenty of people who seemed to experience a zero on the self-doubt scale - Kyte and Dallas both sprang to mind - but she could hardly imagine either of them pushing off to far flung destinations over the summer. Still, as neither subject was anything she knew much about, she just sort of nodded and made ‘mm’ noises to indicate that she was listening. She wasn’t quite sure why Joe had mentioned William’s lack of self-esteem issues as such a defining factor either. Joe, with his easy good grades and shiny school badges, his easy way of talking to people and making friends, struck her as someone who couldn’t possibly have them either.

He seemed to have had a nice-ish time, though he didn’t make France sound very much more exciting than it had previously been in her head. She thought she would have liked the beach part the best, and enjoyed filling her time with swimming, though to Joe that seemed to just be a way of filling up the time than something he’d particularly liked, so she didn’t venture that opinion, and just made further “I’m still acknowledging what you’re saying” sounds. Although Raine had gradually become more talkative, especially with familiar people, she was still someone who tended towards the quiet. Her lack of many remarks in return to Joe were not unusual, and were simply indicative of her being unsure what more to say.

She turned her attention to her next seed. She was fumbling for the right page in the book about them when Joe made his comment about dancing. She had no idea why he’d have wanted to spend his summer dancing, and Raine wasn’t someone who liked to showcase her ignorance or lack of understanding when it was avoidable. After all, it was unavoidable often enough that she had to take advantage of not looking like an idiot when she could. It worked better in group conversations, where she could just keep quiet and hope the conversation wound back round to something she could join in with, but one to one she still tried as best she could to gloss past such moments.

“Oh?” was all the comment she gave his dancing comment, figuring he could explain further if he wanted to, still flicking through pages in her book.

13 Raine Choice in the matter would be a nice luxury 327 Raine 0 5

Joe

March 12, 2018 10:18 PM

I’m rapidly developing my awareness of this fact. by Joe

Oh?

Well, that was helpful. In that vein, he also had some oceanfront property here in Arizona….

“With this ball thing coming up,” he elaborated. “I thought for sure they would cancel the prefect’s dance after my brother’s...stunt a few years ago, but I guess tradition doesn’t give up that easily.” Much to John’s chagrin generally, though Joe suspected that in this case, the main problem was probably the staff just assuming John was Just That Peculiar rather than that he’d meant to mock the whole tradition. There had to be some disadvantages, he supposed, to being John, and one of them could well be that one’s regular behavior was eccentric enough that it went unnoticed when one went out of one’s way to extend a seven-foot-tall impudent digit in the staff’s general direction….

“I guess my sister goes to them sometimes, now that she’s married to the would-be Minister and all - “ that was a part of Julian’s life that he knew relatively little about, and which he suspected she tried to downplay severely whenever she was with the family, as Paul and John were apt as not to have a bit of fun with the idea of her as some kind of Pureblood dame even when she didn’t admit to things like going to honest-to-goodness balls despite still being, well, Julian - “but fancy dances are...not something I really know much about.” Of course, he had been to one, a few years ago, but he had not really had attention to spare for the event itself due to unforeseen circumstances. The regrettable incident with the scenery was amusing in retrospect, but at the time, Joe had spent most of his evening contemplating the merits of trying to drown himself in a vat of punch.

16 Joe I’m rapidly developing my awareness of this fact. 329 Joe 0 5

Raine

March 19, 2018 9:38 AM

Unintentionally putting your foot in it is a frequent issue by Raine

“Oh. Right. I’d forgotten about that from last time,” Raine smiled sympathetically when Joe mentioned having to do the prefect dance. “It doesn’t seem like a lot of fun,” she added. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than having to parade around in front of the whole school like that. Even though she was a performer for a living, that was different. She had a costume and make up to hide behind, and all the eyes who were watching her were far away, and she was good at her aerialist act. She couldn’t imagine people watching her and being able to see that they were watching, whilst she did something very, very badly and then having to mingle with them…

“It’s a good job I didn’t get prefect. Not that I think there was ever much danger of that. I’d die of embarrassment if that was me. So, how does it work? Do they pair you up with the other prefects?” she asked. No. That wouldn’t work… There were three in each house, so the Teppenpaw prefects couldn’t just dance with each other… There’d be a spare one. But then each of the other houses would have a spare too, she supposed, and that might mean there were enough spares to pair with each other. Luckily she didn’t have her brother’s tendency to think everything out loud, which meant she was spared the embarrassment that it had taken her that long to count there were (probably) an even number of prefects.

“You- your… you have family in the government?” Raine asked him, failing to hide a note of anxiety and suspicion at this revelation. The Government, regardless of who was actually in power (a fact which they paid limited attention to) were not people her family were generally overly fond of, mostly because the feeling was more than mutual. The Government made all kinds of hoops for them to jump through (of the non-entertaining variety), and it was The Government’s random ‘stop and search’ wizards who always happened to ‘randomly’ target families like hers, and it was The Government who had said that she and Kyte had to go to ‘proper school.’ In her family, The Government was a dirty word, and a byword for the people who bullied them.

13 Raine Unintentionally putting your foot in it is a frequent issue 327 Raine 0 5

Joe

March 21, 2018 9:58 PM

What about putting both feet in it? by Joe

Well, that was clear enough. I’d die of embarrassment if that was me. No room for ambiguity, anyway. Joe supposed that was a good thing. Ambiguity had been the source of some of the awkwardness last year, so a lack of it now was good, he thought.

“Nope,” he said when asked how it worked. “We have to find dates on our own just like everyone else.” Though now that he thought about it, Raine’s plan was again a sensible one - if they were all paired up for that one dance, there would be no problems. So much simpler for everyone, and the prefects all had to suffer together, and then it was done...

...Except that there wasn’t an even divide between male and female prefects. There was that problem. Maybe that wasn’t a problem for some people, but the odds were high that most of them were straight people and the purebloods in particular would flatly refuse to even go through the motions. Joe himself would be hideously uncomfortable slow-dancing with another dude, or thought he would; it honestly wasn’t something he had ever pictured himself doing before.

"You'd have made a great prefect, though," he said. "And a better dancer than me I'm pretty sure, with your - training." Aaaand he was back to picturing her in a crop top. Damn it. Perhaps he should just point-blank ask about that whole thing and if she found the idea interesting now sometime; at the very worst, she'd slap him so hard the brain cells which conjured up the image sometimes might get dislodged....

He was prevented from thinking further about that, however, not so much by Raine’s words as the tone. Joe looked up, startled by that tone. He had mentioned his brother-in-law worked for the government already, hadn’t he? Maybe it had slid past before he’d joked about William’s ambition?

“Very, very technically,” he said. “Just that one brother-in-law - “ not that he had the option for many more brothers-in-law; he was pretty sure Steve and Paul were straight and that John, whatever he was, if anything, would never marry at all - “and he’s...more ambitious than important. His job’s so boring I don’t even remember the details of what it is. The rest of the family is - Dad's a Quodpot announcer and Mom and Julian are housewives and none of my brothers are into anything like that.” He refrained from adding the remainder of the thought, which was that they didn't have the right sort of background. Whining was not very attractive, besides having no discernible point to it.

16 Joe What about putting both feet in it? 329 Joe 0 5