Chapter Eight Mandrakes and Detentions

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had all assembled in the greenhouse for their Herbology class, but something was amiss. Professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher was no where to be found, and they all had a pair of thick ear muffs beside their potted plants. "Where do you think Professor Sprout is?" Hermione asked worriedly, "I just saw her yesterday about my extra credit Herbology paper!"

"And what are THESE for?" Ron asked, lifting up the heavy pair of earmuffs.

At that moment the class room door swung open and Rinoa stumbled in with a huge stack of papers falling out of her arms. "Sorry I'm late, everyone!" She called, "But Professor Sprout gave me a looong list of instructions." She dumped the mountain of papers on to Professor Sprout's desk at the front of the classroom.

"Ah, Professor Heartilly, why isn't Professor Sprout teaching us?" Harry asked curiously.

"Oh. That. Yes. She just had an accident. Nothing related to what you'll be doing today. You won't be handling any alarmingly dangerous psycho-plants. Just a normal day, yessirrie-"

"Um, we are going to be doing something dangerous, aren't we Professor?" Ron asked.

"Was it that obvious?" Rinoa sighed.

"D-Dangerous. In Herbology?" Neville, not the brightest wizard ever to grace Hogwarts grounds, squeaked. He liked Herbology primarily because it was NOT a dangerous class. "P-Professor Sprout was hurt?"

"Yeah." Rinoa said, waving her hand absently in the air, not noticing how pale Neville Longbottom had become. "She made the mistake of uprooting a Mandrake and she thought it was Asphodel so she wasn't wearing her protective gear."

"Goodness!" Hermione exclaimed suddenly, "But the cry of Mandrake is fatal!"

"Very good," Rinoa nodded, "However, it was only a baby Mandrake, so she only just fainted. Professor Sprout is recovering as we speak under the care of Nurse Pomfrey."

"Whoa. Back up. One, what is a Mandrake?" Ron asked, "And two don't tell me we're going to be handling these-these plants that kill!"

"Excellent questions, Ronald." Rinoa said, smiling, "Mandrakes are plants that scream when you pull them out of the ground, the cry is fatal except for when they're babies, and then it only knocks you unconscious. Their roots cure petrifaction. And yes we WILL be handling them today."

Neville looked ready to faint.

"But don't worry," Rinoa continued, "These special earmuffs should protect you. Well, there's your Mandrakes in those pots in front of you, just lift 'em out and plop 'em in their new homes, these bigger pots. Make sure to pack lots of dirt around them to keep them warm and stuff."

"Uh . . . aren't YOU going to do one first, as like, an example?" Asked Lee.
"Well, aha-you see-the thing-about that-is um," Rinoa fidgeted and peered over at the potted Mandrake plant on the teacher's desk. "I really- HATE-these things."

"But they're very useful!" Hermione objected, "Their roots can be ground up and used to cure people who've been petrified! You said so yourself!"

"Yes, that's very true." Rinoa agreed, "But how often does THAT happen?" She looked around; the class was still expecting her to provide an example. She sighed, and put on her earmuffs, the class did the same. It was a surprising amount of work, but Rinoa did manage to yank her Mandrake out of its pot, the thing looked like a hideous shrivelled up monstrosity of a baby and shrieked at her. She wanted to drop-kick it FAR away from her, but grimaced and planted it into the second pot, covering it with dirt. When she looked up, the class had begun to try uprooting their own Mandrakes, except for Neville, who had fainted, regardless of the earmuffs.

*

That day at lunch, Harry, Hermione, and Ron all sat around the Gryffindor table excitedly, "So when does Quidditch start again, Harry?" Ron asked, Quidditch was the most popular wizard sport, played on broomsticks far above the ground. Harry was known as one of the best Quidditch players the Gryffindor had ever had, he was a Seeker, whose job was the most important on the entire team.

"It starts in a couple of days." Harry replied, "Oliver's insistent that we win this year!" Oliver Wood was the team captain.

"Oh, but we have to serve our detentions tonight right?" Ron asked, "It's kinda weird how we got to wait so long before serving them, huh?"

"Detentions?" Hermione inquired, looking up from her lunch.

"Yeah, for the aeroplanes in Snapes class."

"Oh right. I got out of it, so did the rest of the class but you two. Sorry." Hermione added.

"What?!" Ron gasped, "Why'd it only us! We're practically the only ones who DIDN'T throw the darn things!"

"I know, but, well, that's the way it goes I guess." Hermione shrugged, taking a drink from her goblet. "Besides, you to should be lucky you got out of detentions for that flying car charade!"

"What?"

Hermione sighed exasperatedly, "Do you have any idea how dangerous it was to be driving your father's flying car to Hogwarts? Can you imagine what would have happened if one of you fell out?"

"Harry almost did!" Ron said, the two boys started laughing, Hermione, however did not think it was something to joke about, and she shook her head at them.

"Seriously, Hermione we had NO choice!" Harry told her, "We've already told you we couldn't get through Platform Nine and Three Quarters."

"Yes." She nodded slowly, "And that House Elf in your bedroom you said told you not to come to Hogwarts this year, right? Maybe it's connected somehow."

Ron shrugged and popped a chocolate frog in to his mouth, "All I know is we couldn't get through, we crashed my dad's car into the Whomping Willow tree, almost got killed, and now have detention! Oh, and I broke my wand, it's held together with tape!" Ron held it up to show Hermione, indeed his wand had snapped in half, Harry hadn't noticed it before, but he grimaced at the look of it. A wizard's wand was his most valuable possession, and Harry didn't know if Ron's family would have enough money to get it properly repaired.

"Well, you two have detentions and that's that." Said Hermione, ". . . Even if you don't really deserve them."

"Well, I have to serve mine with Professor Heartilly so it shouldn't be too bad." Harry said. "I bet Snape is furious, he probably wanted to torture me himself. But he has a parent-teacher conference or something tonight, so Dumbledore assigned us different supervisors."

"Heartilly?" Ron asked, "Man, you're lucky, I got stuck with boring old Professor Binns, the ghost history teacher!" He groaned. "It's gonna be the most boring hour of my life!"

"At least we don't have to serve detention with Snape!" Harry said.

"Oh yeah," Ron nodded, "To true!"

*

That night, Harry sat in Rinoa's office, waiting to serve his detention, and waiting, and waiting. Finally the door swung open but it wasn't Rinoa, it was Snape. "Potter! What are you doing here?" The professor scowled angrily.

"Waiting to serve me detention, Sir." Harry replied truthfully.

". . . I see. Well where is Professor Heartilly?"

"I don't know Sir, I've been waiting for half an hour."

Snape's frown deepened, "Very well, I'll tell her you're here when I find her." He stormed off angrily.

A short while later, the door opened a second time and Rinoa came in, "Oh my! I am SO sorry, Harry. I totally forgot about you're detention. I was just talking with Hagrid," She shook her head, "Never mind, hey, have you been sitting here the whole time?" He nodded. "Well then I guess we'll call it even okay, you can go and I'll tell McGonagall you served you're detention."

"Thanks, Professor!" Harry said, standing up. "Um, can I ask why Professor Snape was looking for you?"

"Ha ha. You want to know everything, don't worry I don't mind, but you're just like your father." Rinoa said, smiling.

"My father? You knew my father?" Harry asked.

"Of course, we went to school together." Rinoa nodded, "You look exactly like him, you know. Messy hair, glasses, and all!" She laughed a little, but then her expression turned sad and she sat down behind her desk. "I was friends with your mum and dad, back when we were in school. Harry I'm so sorry about what happened-"

"No, its okay, I mean you couldn't have stopped it, right?" Harry said, "But could you-do you think you could tell me about my parents a little?" He asked hopefully.

Rinoa looked surprised, "Sure, I guess so. Well, you're dad was quite the troublemaker back in our day!" She grinned, "He was my brother's best friend, and they were always sneaking around the school in James' invisibility cloak and pulling pranks and stuff. A lot of them were on Sev- Professor Snape you see, so he kind of has a grudge against you. Those were the good times . . ."

Harry laughed, picturing his dad playing practical jokes on Professor Snape.

"Oh yeah, I have something here." She pulled open one of the drawers in her desk and lifted out an old Hogwarts year books, she handed it to Harry, "That was from our last year at Hogwarts, you can have it."

"A-Are you sure?!" Harry asked.

"Don't mention it." Rinoa smiled, "It's too sad for me to look through, see if you can get some happiness from it."

"Th-Thank you, Professor!" Harry beamed, taking the old, hardcover book in his hands, he left the classroom.

On his way back to the Gryffindor Common Room, however, the good night was going to turn bad. He heard a voice, it was slithery and thick, it sort of hissed by his ear, Harry turned around but there was no one else in the hallways. The voice almost seemed to be coming from the walls. Harry shuddered.