A/N: House points to whoever gets the reference in the title.

-

#11 - gardenia

Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Gardenias!

- in which we learn that it really is a jungle out there

-

Ron and Pansy stared at the plant.

The plant refused to do anything but sit there.

Pansy leaned closer and poked it with her index finger.

Still, the plant just sat there.

She turned back to Ron.

"Well, Weasley, what are we supposed to do?"

Ron pulled out the parchment with the instructions for the project from his pocket.

"The instructions are still the same," he said, shrugging. "We're just supposed to, well, observe. 'New magical species of gardenia, reactions unknown, blah, blah, blah.'"

"But it's not doing anything. We've been doing this for a week, and nothing's happened. It hasn't grown or changed or anything. This has to be the most boring project ever. Being forced to observe a gardenia with a Weasley. My life sucks."

"Yeah, just imagine the wonderful conversations you could be having with Goyle in the Slytherin dungeons just about now." Ron snorted. "Anyway, Professor Sprout did say we could try some of that growth enhancer stuff if we liked today in class. As long as we observe."

Pansy grimaced. "Well, at this point, I think pretty much anything is worth a shot. I think I might die from boredom otherwise."

She went to get a bag and poured the stuff on the plant. And of course, nothing happened. Pansy sighed and turned away from the plant. "Think we're done observing for today," she began, but trailed off as she saw the surprised look spreading across her rather unwilling project partner's face as he looked at something behind her.

Turning back, she saw that the plant had started to grow. Alarmingly fast. And were those tentacles? And were some of them ripping apart the other plants in the greenhouse? No, not ripping apart, she quickly realised. It looked more like it was devouring them.

Oh.

Not good.

Before either of them could react properly, one of the tentacle-like things made a grab at Pansy's foot. She gave yelp and jumped backwards, only to have her other foot grabbed by another tentacle.

Ron, jumping out of the way of another tentacle, pulled out his wand and pointed it at the thing that had grabbed Pansy and was apparently attempting to strangle her.

"Impedimenta! Petrificus Totalus!"

The plant didn't react at all, but Pansy, who had been struggling furiously, froze.

"Oh, sorry," Ron yelled, jumping out of the way of yet another tentacle-thing that was lashing out at him.

"Finite Incantatem!" he yelled, and Pansy started struggling again. The gardenia had wrapped itself around her arms, so she wasn't able to reach her wand. So she settled with biting the thing instead.

"Expelliarmus! Protego!" Ron was going through most the spells he had learned in DADA as well as the DA, none of which were apparently working, all while jumping out of the way of ever growing shots from the plant and cursing the fact that all they had ever learned had to do with fighting You Know Who and Death Eaters and other unnamed creatures of the night. Which was all good in theory, but no one ever bothered to tell them anything they'd have any practical use for, like what to do when your local greenhouses turned into a jungle consisting of one single gardenia gone mental.

And now it was lifting Pansy up in the air. She screamed angrily at it, and bit it harder.

"Have you gone mad? Are you a witch or not?" His own voice echoed through his head. Well, he wasn't technically a witch, but his younger self had a point.

He pointed his wand to where he assumed the roots should be - it was difficult to tell for sure now, the room was too overgrown. "Incendio!"

The plant took on fire, and seemed to pause for a moment. Then the tentacles started to withdraw, it let Pansy go and she, according to all the laws of gravity, coincidence and irony of the world combined, obviously fell on to Ron, who, according to the same laws, toppled over backward onto his back.

They stared at each other.

"Took you long enough to figure that out," Pansy finally said. "And great job stunning me and almost setting me on fire there, too."

"Hey, I just saved you from a rampaging gardenia! I think I deserve some thanks!" Ron answered, angrily.

Pansy stared at him for a long time. Ron suddenly realised they were still laying on the floor, and that they were awfully close somehow, her breasts were pressed to his chest, his arm around her. He suddenly found himself staring at her mouth. If she leaned any closer...

He swallowed, and realised she was looking rather confused, too. Blinking, she pulled away from him and sat up.

"How did you know fire would work, anyway?" she asked, sounding a bit awkward.

"Didn't. It works on Devil's Snare. Lucky guess." He shrugged, desperately trying to think of something else to say. "Maybe we should go report this to Professor Sprout or someone?"

Pansy nodded, looking relieved. They got up, and turned to look at their plant. It had gone back to looking like a usual, innocent gardenia, no signs of anything out of the ordinary there except the ashes and signs of fire around it.

"Where do you think Professor Sprout got that gardenia from anyway?" She asked as they headed for the door. "Has Hagrid been getting into herbology lately or something?"