Chapter 7: Herbology: "Lumos Solem!"
"OMG! I like her! Hey, I've heard that once, there was a teacher, Head of Slytherin House who taught Potions, that was like SO totally biased to the Slytherins and like totally despised everyone else!" said another one of Rose's dorm mates, Marina Osborne.
"Ohh, yeah. I'm named after him," said Albus plainly.
Marina gave Albus a look of confusion and pity before going on chatting with her friends.
The first years were just walking out of Hogwarts' main entrance following Emma to Herbology along with the Hufflepuffs. They walked across the fields to Greenhouse One and stepped in.
"Hello class!" said Neville cheerfully. "This year, we won't actually be dealing with many real plants." There were some 'awws' and 'yes!'s from the class, but Neville paid no attention to them. "We will be learning about the properties of many different plants and discussing how to deal with them. Are there any questions?"
A Hufflepuff raised her hand. "Yes Miss…?" "Gallin, sir, Mary Gallin," Mary said eagerly, yet nervously. "Yes Mary?" replied Neville. "Well, er, professor, the thing is that I… well, er… could I talk to you somewhere else?" she said nervously.
"Oh yes, sure. Rose, tell me if anyone touches anything. You have no idea how dangerous some of these plants can be if not handled with care. Some of them can even be deadly," winked Neville at Rose.
With that, he walked out of the greenhouse along with Mary following timidly behind.
Immediately, Mack opened up his bag and dug through it. "Ah, here we go!" he said smiling mischievously. He pulled out some big object that looked oddly like ears.
"Extendable Ears!" exclaimed Albus and Rose. Rose frowned immediately and cocked her head, "Why do you have Extendable Ears?"
"I keep them with me. Now who wants to hear what Mary is saying to Professor Longbottom?" Mack answered and questioned excitedly.
"Oh, me!" said around five kids. The rest of them were too busy talking to notice. Albus and Scorpius weren't one of them. They wanted to find out. Not in the mean way of finding out something embarrassing about someone, but in a curious way.
Rose frowned even more, "No! That's mean! It's none of your business!"
But her classmates just ignored her. Albus just gave her a glance before going on.
Mack released the Extendable Ears and gave the other sides to the kids.
"…our garden, when a plant started creeping around me. I was scared out of my wits. My mum saw and helped me, but ever since, I've been scared of magical plants. My parents were going to tell the school before, but I told them I would," said Mary.
"Oh, that's okay. I understand. I'll arrange something where you can theoretically learn about plants," said Neville warmly.
He started on something else, but suddenly, a girl screamed! Everyone listening whirled around and the Ears fell away. Mack quickly picked them up and put them in his bag.
On the girl's leg was a small dark plant creeping up suffocating it. Then another girl screamed! On the pot with the plant were the words: Devil's Snare.
There was scrambling. Lots and lots of scrambling and movement. People were pulling out their textbooks and looking for something to help. Albus and Scorpius ran to the front to look through Neville's binder panicking, trying to find something to release the girls.
"LUMOS SOLEM!" screamed Merope, pointing it at the devil's Snare. It quickly released the girls looking as if it had shirked back at the light. Everything was quiet.
A few seconds later, Neville walked in. The sight was quite peculiar for him. Albus understood why. If he had walked into his classroom after leaving it for approximately seventy seconds to see four girls purple from suffocation, some sunlight from an eleven-year old girl's wand, a dose of textbooks and notebooks and papers and pencils scattered all over the place, he too would be completely and utterly…stunned!
"What in the name of Merlin happened in here?!" asked Neville with a look that screamed, 'This would be one of my top most surprised moments in my life, next to the time where I fell off of the Hogwarts bridge during a deadly battle.'
"Well, er, you see, these girls were unintentionally leaning against the Devil's Snare and then it crept up on them and people were trying to help by looking through their textbooks and Merope here found the spell and released the Devil's Snare. Just a few seconds ago," explained Rose nervously.
"Okaaaaaaaay, well twenty points to Gryffindor for quick thinking. Are you girls okay?" Neville asked worriedly turning to the four girls. They nodded, obviously scared.
Neville said considerately, "Do you need to go to the hospital wing?"
"Okay," one of the girls nodded shakily for the other three.
Neville took out his wand and muttered something pointing it at the edge of the long table. He then motioned for the girls to follow him. They walked out, and inside the greenhouse, everyone made sure not to lean or touch anything that was there before they got in.
People started cleaning up the mess that they made from trying to help the girls. It was the only sound in the room.
After around five minutes, Neville walked back in. He smiled upon seeing that everything was cleaned up, and then said, "I totally forgot to give both Hufflepuff and Gryffindor ten points each for trying to help and another five points each now for cleaning up."
"Anyway," he started, walking up to the front of the greenhouse, "we won't actually be doing much hands-on activity as I said before this year. Just the basic discussions about the greenhouse plants. In fact, today Merope here did the sunlight producing version of 'Lumos', or the Wand Lighting Charm. That works against Devil's Snare. 'Lumos Solem' is the incantation. Repeat it."
"Lumos Solem," repeated the class. They did it multiple times until Neville instructed them, "Okay, good everyone. There is another spell that repels Devil's Snare, Bluebell Flames. We won't be talking about that until our next lesson though. So for the remaining time of our lesson, we will be practicing the Sunlight Producing Spell. So if you could all line up.
The class made a line and waited. "Now, starting from the person at the front, point your wand over here," explained Neville, pointing at an area in the greenhouse, "then you may say the incantation out loud."
The first person in line was Marina Osborne. She looked quite nervous. Marina brought up her wand and pointed it at the area and muttered, "Lumos Solem." A bright light appeared in the spot and Marina smiled.
"Great job…" started Neville, giving Marina another one of his 'What's your name?' looks. She took the hint and said, "Marina Osborne."
Neville nodded, and then motioned for the next person in line to come up. That person was Scorpius. He walked up and raised his wand. Neville momentarily fidgeted a bit at this action, something which Albus noticed and was sure that nobody else did.
"Lumos Solem," said Scorpius confidently. The sun shone where Scorpius' wand was pointed. Neville just managed to give a weak smile which in a few extremely short moments turned into a grimace and nodded. Scorpius looked quite disappointed for yet again being judged as a pureblood supremacist.
Some more people went and all succeeded, some with struggle, but still in the end, succeeded.
Then it was Merope's turn. She said the incantation slowly, "Lumos Solem." Nothing happened. "That's okay, try again," Neville said warmly. He himself looked surprised at the tone he had used. Albus smiled at that, only enough for him to know.
"Lumos Solem," muttered Merope. Again, nothing happened. "Er, maybe you're just nervous, you've done it before. Sometimes, if a wizard or witch regularly would struggle with a spell, in the time of panic, if they truly cared about what they were doing, they would be able to perform the spell greatly," explained Neville comfortingly. Merope nodded and walked to the back.
Next was Albus' turn. He walked up, pointed his wand at that misfortunate area, (if it was alive) for being scorched by the sun so many times, and said, "Lumos Solem," while concentrating. Again, the sun shone. Albus beamed before walking to the back watching the spell's effects wear off as the concentration wore off.
Since Albus was the last one, everybody looked up to Neville for further directions on what to do.
"Well that's it for today. You don't have any homework since you're coming back to me tomorrow. You will tomorrow though. Sorry, not much I can do about it, it's the standards set by the Ministry, and I've got to enforce them. Anyway, your prefect will be coming soon," Neville announced.
He was correct because right then, Emma walked through the door to escort the first years to lunch. "I can take them Professor," said Emma politely.
"Sure thing Emma," smiled Neville. Emma led the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs out of the greenhouse and towards the castle.
"That was great Merope!" exclaimed Albus. Scorpius shot him a glare-like look. Then Rose did the same to Scorpius and gave an encouraging smile to Albus. Scorpius on the other hand, wouldn't give up on trying to figure out any vibes of being the most powerful Dark Wizard of all time's daughter coming from Merope. Albus decided to just talk to Rose and Scorpius later with maybe his dad or someone.
Albus was so lost in thoughts to see where he was going; he bumped straight into a familiar light brown-headed girl.
"WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" shrieked Ruby Altice.
"Well you could be a bit nicer about it! It's not like I did it on purpose!" replied Albus coldly.
"Ugh!" Ruby sneered as she rolled her eyes and strode off completely oblivious to the many non-Slytherins narrowing their eyes at her and shaking their heads in disgust.