Felicity smiled to herself and hummed a little tune as she collected a few leaves from the viny plant sitting on the greenhouse windowsill. She placed them on the cutting board and began to chop them into slivers when she noticed a strange, purple plant sitting on a shelf up high to her right. She gasped and immediately grabbed the ladder and leaned it against the shelves. She couldn't believe that Hogwarts just had such a rare herb just sitting there in their greenhouse. As she climbed, she thought on how lucky she was that she happened to have mentioned to Professor Sprout that she was training in magical healing before she transferred in Herbology that day. Sprout had been delighted and gave Felicity special permission to use the greenhouse when she wished to practice and study. Reaching the plant, she picked it up carefully. It was heavier than expected, and she turned on the ladder to examine it. It shied away from her touch when she brushed one of the tendrils aside to examine the stalk sprouting from the pot. She giggled.
"Shh...it's alright. I'm not going to hurt you." She brushed the tendrils softly, and it cooed, beginning to brush her fingers back. She was careful to touch it softly as she'd read the tendrils were extremely fragile.
She was entranced with it, humming to it softly for a few minutes before all at once, there was a sound of something shattering and she became aware that her ladder she was perched on had been slowly tipping to the wrong side. Frightened terribly, she screamed and accidentally released the plant's pot in her effort to grasp the ladder and shift it back to the shelf. In that millisecond of panic, she felt her heart break with the knowledge that the small, shy plant would be destroyed immediately on the greenhouse floor and that it was her carelessness that would put it there.
She shut her eyes, expecting the ladder to tip her, like the plant onto the hard ground, most certainly hitting a table and damaging, if not crushing, whatever seedlings happened to be on it with her weight. But to her surprise, her ladder was shoved, just a second before it was too late, back towards the shelf and although it shook, neither Felicity nor any of the plants fell off of it.
Shaking hard, Felicity glanced down and at the base of the ladder, leaning forward against it to stop it from falling, was a boy her age who seemed to be huffing with his own panic. He peeked up at her from beneath his messy, auburn hair.
"Are you quite alright?" His expression was surprisingly calm. She nodded and still shaking, managed to make it down the ladder. The boy didn't let go of it until she was safely on the ground again and when she turned to face him, she gasped. In his arms was the trembling, shrunken, purple tendrils. It was obviously frightened within an inch of it's life, but it was completely intact.
"You caught it?" She breathed and held her hands out and he carefully handed the plant to her. She pet it gently and cooed to it. "Oh i'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I didn't mean to. Oh if you hadn't been here." She looked up at the boy again. "Thank you so much."
The boy shook his head. "It's no problem really." He didn't make eye contact with her and shifted uncomfortably before turning as if to leave.
"Wait, but what's your name?" She caught hold of one of his arms. "What are you doing in here".
He smiled nervously. "Ah...it's um.. Michael. Michael Sult. Pleased to meet you but I'm in a hurry." At this he pulled out of her grasp and ran quickly out of the greenhouse and back up the hill, leaving Felicity alone once more and very confused.
"But…" He was obviously lying about his name. But why would he lie? Maybe he wasn't supposed to be in the greenhouse. Professor Sprout did say that few received that privilege outside of Herbology class. Regardless, Felicity was beyond grateful to him for saving her and the precious plant. She became determined that she would find out who he was and pay him back one way or another.
