| Details for First Year Herbology |
| Summary: | Grace and Fiona are paired together in herbology and discuss costumes, sausage dreams and planned pranks. |
| Date: | 28 October 1938 |
| Location: | Greenhouses, Hogwarts |
| Related: | — |
| Characters |
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First Year Herbology on a Monday morning, just before lunch, finds Fiona happily paired up with Grace. They're well into the lesson and are potting some snackleberry vines in amongst bits of day old potato peel and mulch. Gloves on her hands Fiona regales Grace with the last bit of her tale of breakfast. "And then he went off to poop." She glances at her friend's plant pot, "No, Gracie, you have to put some stones around the bottom to keep it loose for the water to drain out." Her head lifts as Beery dances past them on his twinkle toes holding an already potted snackleberry vine and singing to it. Fiona can't help but giggle. "Mad as a badger that one," she whispers to Grace.
"Badgers aren't mad," Grace insists, although she does pause for thought as she empties the pot out to start again. "Are they? How can you tell if a badger's mad?" She begins stuffing her pot with stones as she thinks, tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth to give her brain more space to work. "I think Professor Beery's really nice."
Barely able to see over the top of the worktable Fiona has been given a little step to stand on so that she can see inside her plant pot. "I don't know," admits the dark haired girl. "Maybe they roll around on the ground all funny like. I've only ever seen them scurrying away." She adds another handful of peelings and mulch to her plant pot. "He is nice and cheery, not like some of the others. I bet he'd be fun to have as a dad. You'd sing songs and dance and I hear he's a very good actor. I bet he'd be a great panto dame."
Grace continues putting stones into her pot, filling it close to the brim with the things. "I don't think it would be very good if your dad was a teacher," she decides. "You'd have to share all his sweets and things with everyone. I know sharing's a nice thing to do, but if he only had two sweets, what would you do? I'd give you one, and then I'd have one left and I'd have to think about who to give it to and everyone would want it and then everyone would be really angry if they didn't get it and I'd probably just eat it while I was thinking."
Fiona glances over at Grace's pot. "Too many stones Gracie. You have to fit in the dirt and potato peelings too." She takes a few out and drops them onto the work table then just to be sure takes a few more out. "I'll always share my sweets with you Grace. We're mates. Mates share." She peers at her own plant pot and adds just one more handful of the mulch for good measure. "Our costumes are going to be the best at the feast. We'll look like we're part of the feast." Fiona grins and nudges Grace because it is just too funny.
"That's why you're the best," Grace tells Fiona with a bright, beaming smile, hands falling to her sides as the smaller girl adjusts her plant pot. "Do you think anyone else will be a sweetie or a cake?" she asks, tilting her head. "Or maybe a sausage!"
"I asked Angelus if he and Megan maybe wanted to be sweeties but he wasn't that interested and I haven't really spoken to Megan." Megan being the boy's first year sister. "But a sausage would be clever." Fiona makes sure Beery isn't looking and swaps her plant pot for Grace's then starts adding mulch and peelings to it. "They could be a curly cumberland sausage or just an ordinary chipolata."
"I had a dream that I was a sausage once," Grace informs her matter of factly. "And then I got eaten up by a seagull, but it didn't hurt because it was a dream, but it ate my toes first and I couldn't walk."
"Sausages don't have toes," laughs Fiona. "Gracie you're so funny." She pulls over the small vines they're meant to be transplanting. "One for you. One for me." Then just because she knows Grace, Fiona gives the Hufflepuff her vine. "Remember brown bits down in the dirt." Thinking about it she asks, "What do you think animals dream about?"
"Well I was a sausage with toes," Grace stubbornly insists, jamming the vine into the dirt as best she can and poking around to try to bury the end in mulch. "Well, until the seagull ate them. Then I was just a regular sausage." She thinks hard about this last question, plant forgotten for the moment. "I think they dream about not being eaten. Because if I was an animal I'd want to dream nice things, and being eaten isn't very nice."
"Alright you were a sausage with toes," agrees Fiona. She puts her vine in the plant pot and packs more mulch around it. "You would know. I've never dreamed about being eaten." Looking around she finds a watering can but it is too heavy for her to lift on her own. Fiona grunts and tries again then looks at Grace, "Help?"
Grace beams a huge smile. This. This she can do for her friend, and nothing makes her happier than knowing she's helped. "I'll get it," she offers, gripping the handle of the watering can and lifting it with a grunt onto the tabletop in front of them. "I'll hold it and you can tip it."
Fiona gives Grace a hug and then hops up onto the step again. She tips the watering can forward so that they can water the plant pots in turn. "I was thinking, do you want to help me pull a prank? The pirates are too boring they only care about fake apple bosoms and don't like families like your's and mine."
Grace frowns slightly. "But my family's really nice. They probably just don't know them very well. Sometimes you don't think somebody's going to be very nice, but then it turns out you're wrong all the time and they're lovely and kind and everything." She turns a smile to her friend. "What sort of prank are we going to do?"
"I want to," Fiona looks around then leans in and whispers to Grace, "I want to short change the bed sheets of the older students so they are all confused when the come back from the dance late at night." She lifts her head to see if anyone was watching.
Grace thinks. "How do we get to their beds, though? You're not allowed in the Hufflepuff dorms, and I'm not allowed in yours."
"Well you can do the Hufflepuff ones and I can do the Ravenclaw ones and we can get Gel to do the Gryffindor boys, but not the girls because he says girls can go into boy spaces but boys can't go into girl spaces." Fiona has given this a bit of thought. "But we get stuck with the Slytherin. I don't know any of them well enough."
"Maybe we shouldn't do the Slytherin ones," Grace suggests worriedly. "They might get a bit angry about it. Sometimes they don't think things are very funny."
"Yeah, maybe you're right," agrees Fiona. She drapes an arm over Grace. "So will you help? I think it would still be funny if we only did the other three." An idea occurs to her and she giggles, "I wonder if they might blame a Slytherin for setting it up."
"Of course I'll help," Grace informs her solemnly. "That's what friends are for, silly." She beams Fiona a smile, turning to hug her, and knocking the watering can with her elbow in the process.
When the watering can clatters loudly on the floor people turn to look at the pair of them. Fiona just giggles and says, "Oh Gracie."
Grace has the good grace to look embarrassed, hands going to her cheeks before she stoops to right the watering can again, admittedly too late and now splashed from the knees down with water. "Sorry!"
Fiona hops down to help her friend. She can't do much about the water but she can at least offer moral support. "I'm sure you'll dry off soon enough. And it doesn't look like you wet yourself just got stuck in a really big puddle."
Grace shakes off one pudgy foot, then shrugs. "Oh well!" she decides with a big smile. "I shall have to wear my wellies to class next time."
Fiona looks up as Beery comes round to check their work. She looks hopeful that the pair of them did well enough, but is distracted by her thoughts and looks back at Grace. "I'll wear wellies too and then we can give it some welly." She grins. Solidarity.
Grace gives Beery a hopeful smile, fingers actually crossed, and when he gives the pair an encouraging nod, she punches the air.
Fiona grins at Grace, "You did well Grace. Good job." She tugs off her gloves and asks, "Want me to sit with you at lunch?" The Hufflepuffs to have the best cakes and she can avoid more pirates that way.
"You did well," Grace insists loyally. "You helped loads." She hooks her arm around the smaller girl's, nodding. "That would be brilliant! I'll share my lunch with you."
"We are going to see how far we can skip," declares Fiona as she leads Grace to the door of the first year greenhouse, class now being over.
Grace widens her eyes, squelching as one foot hits the ground, even as she does her best to keep up, less skipping and more sort of loping after her friend.