Chapter 4 – Hospital Wings and Traumatic Brooms
Clever's POV
Chatty was whistling dementedly as we meandered down the path to greenhouse 1. Herbology was our next lesson, and we were all hoping desperately that it didn't go as disastrously as our previous class. In our first lesson, we had arrived an hour late, lost 80 house points, and nearly gotten detention. Cheeky was still talking in Shakespearean, but his babble was getting more and more meaningless, for which I was relieved, as some of the stuff he had been saying before was just, well…
With luck this class would go better. Nev- no, I must remember to call him Professor Longbottom, taught it, so we should be fine.
"Good morning students. Today we will be learning about vernacular aranthosnaps. Can anybody tell me about them?" I raised my hand, resting my elbow on Charming's head. He shot me a look with a playful groan in it, but otherwise didn't seem to mind. His arm sat on Cheeky's shoulder, who shrugged it off angrily, at which point it found its way onto mine. I glared at him, but a smile was on my face. Chatty was struggling to suppress giggles. "Miss Davies?" At that she flushed bright red.
"Umm…?" I made frantic gestures towards the plant next to the professor while his back was turned. She seemed to get my message. "They're green, with… fangs?!!" At that she stepped back in shock. The plant had many tentacles with fanged Venus fly trap style jaws on the ends of them that snapped angrily at anything that came too close. It was kind of scary to look at. Albus used to keep one in his room, so I was used to watering and feeding them.
"Very good." He sounded sarcastic. I guess he'd noticed me then. Oh well. At least he had a pleasant sense of humour (instead of giving us detentions). "Would you care to elaborate, Miss Potter?"
"Vernacular aranthosnaps are creepers. The snappy bits are the seed pods, and when they see a new place to grow, they will detach themselves from the main plant and begin to grow another one. In this way the can spread very easily and quickly. It takes two months for a seed pod to reach maturity. The plant defends itself with the fanged seed pods, which are also venomous. This venom is used in many potions, including the draught of living death, but can also be used to cure hangovers, if taken in the correct dosage. If not, it is often fatal."
"Extremely well done. 20 points to Gryffindor for that perfect description. Now, today we will be collecting the seed pods. I hope you all have your dragon hide gloves, as you will need them. You may put your picked pods into the bowls which I am about to hand out."
Cheeky was looking worriedly around. Chatty groaned. He hadn't spoken yet, but that wouldn't have helped much with understanding his problem. She whacked him over the head with a pair of gloves. "You want them or not?" She asked.
The boy stepped back in terror, and somehow managed to get a coherent sentence out of his mouth. "B-bb-but they're…p-p-pp-pink!" She glowered at him.
"They're the only ones you're going to get, so I advise putting them on. You're very lucky I brought a spare pair at all." He sighed his unwilling thanks and reluctantly put them on. I grinned at Chatty. Her gloves were plain black.
We began depodding the plants. It was a lot harder than it looked, because as well as the fact that the pods bit, even after being picked, you also had to dodge the various other ones sneaking up on you. I twisted out of the way of a particularly long stalk and dropped my latest pod in a bowl, having great difficulty wrenching it off the end of my finger. Thank goodness for dragon-hide gloves.
"ARGH!!!" Someone screamed behind me. With all my usual clumsiness, I knocked the bowl over and the pods started hopping about the floor. Within seconds, complete and utter chaos had broken out.
"Umm…petrificus totalus?" I had been taught a few spells by Aunt Hermione before coming to school, and they usually worked. Aha. Yes. That seemed to stop the pods from snapping. I repeated the process with the others I could find. I had disabled about a dozen before I missed, and hit a black and white sneaker. Charming promptly fell backwards, unable to move, into one of the plants. I swore. Loudly.
10 minutes later, all was calm once more. Professor Longbottom had gone to fetch Hagrid, who then stunned all the plants with his umbrella, and rescued Charming, and Cheeky, who I had also accidentally knocked into a vernacular aranthosnap. They were fairly vicious, and I hoped we wouldn't have to deal with them again.
Aqua and I were currently being treated for minor bites, but fortunately not much poison, and sitting on the edge of a bed opposite the two boys, who both seemed to be in the wizard equivalent of intensive care. Madam Turpin was fussing over them, and muttering angrily about dangerous plants being unsuitable for first-years.
15 minutes after that, she came over to us once more. "You four must be the only people ever to have ended up in the hospital wing on their first day at school. Even your brother needed a month before he fell off his broomstick. Oh dear. You have flying class this afternoon. I hope not to see you again. You two go off to lunch now. The others will be back to class by tomorrow." With that she shooed us from the hospital wing, and we left, waving goodbye to our friends.
"Did she say flying class?" Chatty was looking decidedly nervous as we walked to the great hall for a lunch of chocolate spread sandwiches. I nodded, then explained all about quidditch. She was looking greener by the minute. It looked like she wasn't in for a great afternoon.
We sat down at our table.
"I feel ill," said Chatty, her head resting on the table. "I have a serious phobia of heights."
"But we're not even on the brooms yet." I replied, patting her on the back. She glowered at me before moaning some more.
"I'm going to die. I'm going to die." She repeated, ignoring the food. I, meanwhile, dug in.
I had sparsely taken a bite when James, followed by our cousin and his comrade Fred, sat down beside me on the bench.
"Hullo, sis." James said, taking one of my sandwiches.
I glowered at him, as he managed to finish off my lunch with less than five bites. Chatty had by now taken her head off the table and was rubbing her red eyes with her sleeve. You could sense her irritating need to make a good impression on anyone kicking in.
"James." I said curtly. "Don't you have someone else to go annoy?"
"Now, now." He teased, taking a cupcake from the tray in front of us. "Lickle Lilypop must remember that we have company. Lilypop must be good."
I hit him as he continued to grin.
He winked at Chatty. "And I don't believe I have been introduced to your friend. James Sirius Potter." He extended his hand.
"Chatty." She shook his hand once.
James laughed. "What kind of a name is that?"
Chatty blushed. "It's not." I said angrily. "It's her nickname."
"Doesn't seem all that fitting to me." Fred butted in, looking between us.
"Shut up." I said. "She's not feeling well, that is all."
The boys shrugged, and James turned to me again.
"So Lilypop, I heard about you almost getting a detention on your very first day. Mum and Dad would be very disappointed to hear about their youngest beating all previous records within hours of her arriving here."
I scowled.
"Records?" Chatty asked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," said James, "Things like; first person to get a detention, biggest prank, most detentions in time here, etc etc." He grinned. "And Lilypop and her friends are right on the list. Bravo sis."
"Actually," I said. "We didn't get a detention. We got out of it."
"I salute you dear sister. Now, my fellow master mind, tell me how you did it." He faced me determinedly.
I protested. "We didn't do ANYTHING! We were just late and he is Evil."
"You know," James said, "You even beat our grandfather's record."
"What?" I said. "The dead one or the live one?"
"What do you thing?" He said rhetorically. "The live one never got detentions."
I shrugged. "What was their record?"
"Well, our grandfather and his friends got a detention on the second morning, so you beat them. Mum and Dad will be very proud."
I hit his arm, and he and Fred left laughing.
Chatty was staring at James, a curious expression on her face. I clicked my fingers in front of her face, and she blinked, turning to smile at me.
Later- The anticipated Flying Lesson (aka the doom of mankind)
Chatty's POV
Lily and I headed down to the Quidditch pitch along with the rest of our Gryffindor classmates, and the Slytherins.
Lily was talking to her cousin Hugo, who was small and incredibly ginger, like Lily. Maybe this ran in the family.
The other Gryffindors were very different, to put it lightly. There were two other boys in our year, both equally stupid and dull. I suppose maybe I was judging them too quickly, but as they walked and made ridiculous comments of the kind that James would find amusing. Jack Barns was the taller of the two, and had long black wavy hair, with piercing dark blue eyes. He was overconfident in his walk and in the way he boasted. He was followed by Mark O'Connor, who was small with short blonde hair and grey eyes. He winked at me as I passed, and I swear I nearly threw up my uneaten lunch. Instead I settled for an angry glare.
I instantly hated the girls. Maybe it was the fact that they were late to every lesson (OK, maybe not the first…) because they had a dire need to perfect their heavily over-applied makeup, or that their shrill giggling was killing my eardrums. But in any case, they were devil spawn if ever I saw it.
They weren't necessarily pretty, in fact they weren't at all. Ellie was small and dumpy, with the overly frizzy hair that so many detest. She wasn't ugly, but she had that "I try way way way to hard" look, as if she was really desperate to hang out with the 'pretty' crowd.
Jenna was the typical High School Queen, the one that is the most popular, albeit the most detestable person wherever she goes. She was tall, thin and pale, and her long black hair was perfectly straight. She was quickly followed by Stephanie, who was small and dark skinned, and seemed nicer than the others. She had dark hair and eyes, and she didn't seem to be wearing quite as much Miss Belle's Magic Sparkles as the rest.
"Right girls and boys," Madam Johnson yelled (necessary to be heard over the girls excited chatter about the latest advice from Witch Weekly on how to brighten up that lovely smile, something about powdered beetles, from what I could hear), placing an ominous-looking chest on the ground. It was rocking slightly, and there was a definite banging noise emanating from it. "Today, we will learn how to get on the broom. And off again, preferably safely."
I started hyperventilating. And I was still firmly on the ground. This was not going to be fun.
Lily came over and held my hand. "Don't worry." She said. "Hugo is scared of heights too."
I looked over to where her cousin was standing. True, he was looking rather shaky, but that could easily be due to his extreme proximity to the Slytherin equivalent to Jenna and co., even more terrifying.
"All stand by a broom." I with great difficulty made my way, one step at a time, to the least dangerous looking one. Why do people enjoy this? Flying around in the air with nothing but an enchanted stick keeping you from falling hundreds of feet to your certain doom. If we were meant to fly, we would have wings! As it is, we have some wood, a very small piece of it, that is incredibly easy to fall off. I had read the legend of Harry Potter. I knew how easy it is for even experts to fall off their brooms. And even he, the hero, usually obtained some king of nearly fatal injury. And there was no-one about to save me when I did fall off.
I panicked.
Severely.
Ten minutes later, in the hospital wing.
"WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT NOT WANTING TO SEE YOU AGAIN?" Madam Turpin yelled at Clever, who was sitting on the end of the bed I had been placed on.
This is what I opened my eyes to see. One crazy nurse, yelling furiously at my friend, who seemed to be suffering greatly from this, and two boys who seemed to be crying with laughter. Great, thanks.
"So, how long was it before you were knocked out by a bludger?" Cheeky inquired, struggling to form words through his giggles.
"Actually, she didn't even touch the broomstick." Clever too was having difficulty suppressing her laughter, as Madam Turpin stormed off to go and yell at several seventh years, who had apparently accidentally flushed one another's heads down the fourth floor toilet.
I glared. I did not like heights. That was not a reason to laugh. Although I had got out of leaving the ground at all, which was a good thing.
"Come on guys, she's had a traumatic time," said Charming, who miraculously wasn't actually laughing. I smiled at my saviour x3billion.
"Yes, it is really traumatic staring at a broomstick for two minutes," joked Cheeky, as he examined one of the black bruises on his arm. That earned him a glare.
It was the middle of the afternoon, and Clever and I had earned ourselves an excuse to miss the last of our lessons. FREEDOM!
Pleased with this, and the fact that I didn't have to worry about flying for awhile, I chatted to my friends.
