Sprinkle a good bit of soil into the pot, check.
Gently dig the rosebush out...AFTER having cast aguamenti? Check.
Paul hummed to himself as he worked, eyeing the students around him to make sure no one was catching fire, or trying to sneak the roses out of the greenhouse...absolutely not, kiddos! It seemed that just when he thought he’d make it through the lesson without ANYONE catching fire at all, a
Gryffindor happened.
Of course.
He didn’t even have a chance to continue his conversation with
Paige Skeeter, no, because the badger had sent a, well, perhaps TOO well placed aguamenti on the boy. He covered his mouth to keep from laughing.
“Wow, Miss Skeeter...that was...enthusiastic! An enthusiastic hero, eh?” he smirked, but soon enough his eyes caught sight of
ANOTHER FIRE EMERGENCY?! Paul was about to help her out when
Kitty seemed to get it under control…
’Be careful Miss Valentine..” THEY WERE DEALING WITH FIRE.
Abandoning his pot before finishing the potting process, he merely nodded at
Paige. “Finish that up for me,” he whispered before moving to the front of the room to proceed with the lesson! ONWARD!
“Now, once everyone is finished up with their fire roses...leave your pots where they are and move your bodies AND your attention over to the black flowers--the FLOO FLOWERS--” he wiggled his fingers ominously, as if this were the REAL treat of the lesson [s]which, come on, it was![/I]
“There are a few things I want to go over about them before we actually get started with what we’ll be doing with THEM.”
Ahem.
Meaning, take notes!
“Now, Floo Flowers have been around...for a good long time. A witch named Ignatia Wildsmith, however, is the reason we have floo powder! It’s rumored that she had been toying with the idea of both of these flowers--” he gestured at the floo flowers and then at the fire roses.
“But for whatever reason, she picked floo flowers. And that is why we call it floo powder!” he explained.
“Now, the flowers only begin to smoulder in the summer time...and as the season goes on...they slowly crumble into ash,” he sighed a bit. It was...a beautiful image.
“If any of you ever get the chance to witness it, I highly recommend it. It’s...beautiful,” he said gently.
“
They ARE hot to the touch! And we get floo powder from their petals...by grinding their petals up. NOT from the ash they produce. As you can see,” and Paul bent down DRAMATICALLY to SWEEEEEEP up the ashy soil from which the floo flowers seemed to spring out of,
“The soil floo flowers rest in start to develop a very ashy quality from housing these guys. Floo flowers ARE also a cousin of the fire roses, as I explained before! "
He let the soil drop from his hand back onto the ground.
“Now, I thought it’d be...interesting if we procured from these floo flowers the petal dust needed to make floo powder...and I would simply send them away to the Ministry, to the Transportation department...where all the rigamarole involved with making floo powder can happen. But...then each of you gets a small jar of the finished product from the petal dust you yourself produced!” He smiled.
“SOOO...since the flowers are hot to the touch, if you could put your gloves on…” he put his back on.
“And...go right in, pluck the petals GENTLY from the flowers. Five petals...from five different flowers, please, if you can manage it. There should be enough flowers for all of you do that with!” He took a deep breath.
“Once you have your five petals, grab one of the mortar and pestles from the front...and grind up your petals to a find dust. Once THAT is done…” Paul whipped a little plastic baggy from atop the table that was in front of the blackboard.
“GRAB THIS and put the dust in here. Label it. Place it back on the table here…”
He grinned.
Once that was done...they could do the COOL THING he wanted to do.
OOC: SORRY I'm taking so long guys! Busy Uni week for me, unexpectedly O_o Anyways! I'm giving this about 24 hours, all right? Whee! Easy enough, <3