In the room, waiting for Mr. Daxton Prince, were enormous, six-foot-tall screechsnaps. They were waiting impatiently to be repotted into BIGGER pots, bouncing around in the dirty and yelling their little......nonexistent lungs out. There were five in total, and the across the room from the five plants were the five soil-filled points. There were various tools that would help Mr. Prince on his task to repot the engorged flowers.

It looked like one of the screechsnaps was about to break free of its pot--its root was ALMOST loose!

The noise was almost unbearable.

Good luck, Mr. Prince.

Almost unbearable. Almost unbearable?

No. Definitely unbearable. The noise was, understandably, the only thing Daxton could focus on when he first entered the Hooligan Hole after Myers. At once, he screwed his face up, pained by the noise, and clamped his hands down over his ears, before attempting to scramble for the earmuffs that hung around his neck at the same time, made clumsy by suddenly sensory overload. After the detention with the daffodils, he had made sure to bring the earmuffs along this time.

As he tried to get hold of his earmuffs, Daxton glimpsed exactly what was making that noise. Screechsnaps. He had not recognised the sound at first, given how the size of the plants greatly affected the noise they made, as well as the fact that Daxton had always made sure to cover his ears before approaching them in the past.

And they were huge. They were utterly ridiculous. They were... they were...

... They were the results of one of Daxton's experiments; he recognised them. He could see what was-

No, there was no time to see. Daxton was far too busy trying to cover his ears, and block out the terrible noise.

Paul was irked to see that Daxton had brought some earmuffs only because he WANTED the sound to get to him. Hmph. He had half a mind to summon them to himself and put them over his OWN ears------weren't those HIS earmuffs?!?!?! They looked VERY FAMILIAR.

*SQUINTS*

Paul gave his wand a quick wave and silenced the screechsnaps. "Well, Daxton, m'boy, it's your job to repot them. Whatever YOU did to them has me not able to shrink them down back to normal SIZE." He must have added multiple potions or something. "SO...you have to dig them out--if they don't dig themselves out, mind you--and somehow get them to stay long enough in their pots over there--" he nodded at the empty, larger pots. "And fill them with soil. It'll be a smidge tough without magic." Paul cleared his throat. "Well--GET TO IT!" he waved his wand once more, and the screechsnaps were, well, SCREECHING again.

The screechsnap who was close to coming loose from his pot had finally shifted all of the soil from atop his roots. He (or she? who knew, really) stepped out of the pot and gave a loooouuuuuud wail as it began to march right for Paul and Daxton, its leaves flailing in their direction. The wails of this one caused the others to start wailing, too, and they all began to try to wriggle free of their pots.

Another one came loose, but this one lay on the floor, wailing in discomfort, kicking its roots in the air.

Once he had a decent hold on them, Daxton slammed the earmuffs down over his ears with so much force that he winced, and then, of course, Myers went and silenced the screechsnaps anyway. That earned a glare from Daxton; the plants had been so loud that even the earmuffs could not completely block out the sound, and he could tell exactly when the noise had stopped.

With the earmuffs on, he could not hear Myers, and though Daxton thought that that was actually quite an improvement on the whole situation, he had to know exactly what he was supposed to do in order to get out of the detention. He nudged the earmuffs so that one ear was un-impeded.

... Wow. Real original, Myers. All Daxton had done every Saturday for the past month was to tend to plants, and it was just... so... boring. Being forced to drink some of the potions he had added to the plants would have been more interesting than this. More horrific, but not boring at least. Daxton did not care about plants, not past their practical uses. This was getting excessive, and it was not his fault that Myers did not know how to handle his own plants.

Okay, so maybe it was Daxton's fault that the screechsnaps were that big in the first place, but Myers was supposed to be a Herbologist. He should know how to handle the plants, no matter what happened, and if he could not, then could Myers even continue to call himself and real Herbologist, and what on earth made him think that Daxton would manage it instead? It defied logic.

Daxton had developed a habit of knowing exactly when someone was about to cast a spell, though really it was obvious. The slightest wand-waving motion from Myers had Daxton hurrying to cover his ears again, and just in time, too. He turned to look back at the screechsnaps, only to see one headed straight for them.

Naturally, he darted out of the way, instinctively putting as much distance as possible between himself and both the plant and Myers.

Pressing the earmuffs down over his ears, Daxton frowned and considered the situation, but not necessarily how he would handle the detention; he could not care less about completing the task correctly. Instead, he was more preoccupied with how he could win the accompanying mind game. It was an easy enough answer - he needed to appear as though he was unbothered, even bored, by the events - though it was much more difficult to put into practice. Either way, right now, he was avoiding going near those dangerous looking plants at all.

Daxton should have killed more of Myers' ridiculous plants, maybe then it would be worth the effort of going through this detention.

Paul had conjured a chair and was now sitting, one leg crossed over the other, observing Daxton silently. He hoped the child was bored. Bored bored bored. He thought boredom might affect him more than cruelty, anyways. Or yelling or anything. So, if not for anything, maybe Mr. Prince wouldn't do this again in order to escape the BOREDOM of Paul's detentions.

But he knew Daxton was a little...afraid of the screechsnaps. He wasn't going near them. "They won't hurt you." He called out with a shrug. Because the flowers were still yelling at the top of their........well, not lungs. "Did you know, Mr. Prince, screechsnaps feel pain? Pleasure? They have a rang of emotions." He was certain the boy did not. Daxton probably thought plants were all...mundane and boring.

He stood up and walked towards the plant that was wondering around aimlessly, and he took its giant leaf in his hand and began to stroke it gently, and the flower rested its....head/flower part on Paul's shoulder, the wailing quieting. "Are these flowers okay to experiment on, Mr. Prince?" He doubted Daxton would understand, though.

While schreechsnap #1 was being comforted by Paul, #2 was still lying on the floor, wailing and crying. #3 was wriggling so hard in its pot that the pot knocked over and cracked in half, soil spilling out of it. Soon, it stood up and headed for its fellow on the ground, attempting to help the flower up, but they ended up tangling roots together, causing #3 to come crashing down to the floor.

#4 was quite cozy in the pot for now, ignoring the chaos of his fellows.

#5 was screaming the loudest, being the biggest one, and its pot was just too small!

'They won't hurt you.'

Daxton could not quite stop himself - and why would he want to, in any case? - from repeating Myers' words in his head in a comically high, mocking voice. Because he totally believed the six feet tall plants that were screeching and bounding around the room would absolutely not hurt him.

Except for the fact that that was an utter lie.

Stupid bloody screechsnaps. As for what Myers was trying to communicate to him, much of it was lost on Daxton; he refused to remove the earmuffs purely to listen to whatever garbage Myers was now spewing. The only important thing was that one screechsnap was now being comforted (comforted... a plant) which meant one less to deal with for the moment. As for the rest, Daxton soon located the loudest screechsnap, the biggest one, and decided he would tackle that one first, prioritising his own comfort over any of theirs.

Because, though Daxton knew that the plants were apparently semi-sentient and could feel pain, he could not process the concept that they might also have emotions. Indeed, Daxton still struggled to understand the idea that other people had feelings at all, so the plant thing was reaching just a little too far, especially considering they did not even have any brains to speak of.

As he approached the chosen screechsnap, Daxton glanced over at Myers in time to see him say (yell?) something else at him. Daxton was not exactly a skilled lip-reader, but even he could make out the word 'experiment', soon followed by 'Mr. Prince'. He could only guess that Myers was lecturing him and so, naturally, ignored him, turning back to the plant and leaning down to pick up a trowel as he did so.

Best just to get on with it, to pretend it was not affecting him, as though the horrific screeching of this loudest one was not driving him crazy even through the earmuffs. Gritting his teeth as a surge of anger shot through him, Daxton gripped the plant tightly, to keep it steady (and to let out a concentrated amount of frustration), and began digging up the roots of the plant. He was half tempted to hack the stupid thing in half, and shut it up that way. That, however, would be stupid. At least in a supervised detention.

Paul let go of the plant and returned to his seat. The screechsnap followed him, lying on the floor next to Paul and hugging the leg of Paul's chair while....wailing. Merlin, Paul thought this bunch was very whiny compared to the usual screechsnaps. But perhaps they were scared of being so big; this was new to Paul, too. He'd never had to care for HUGE screechsnaps before. Maybe he'd have to contact a friend.

He watched Daxton begin on one that was still in it's pot. #5. He folded his hands in his lap, and was silent. The way Daxton was holding that shovel, though, Paul was a little nervous he was going to...hurt the flowers.

Well, the boy better not.

The screechsnap Daxton had begun to try to dig out of his pot was #5, and the flower WANTED to come out of this too small pot. It stopped waving his leaves around and stood very stood for Daxton as he dug. It even stopped wailing, and one of its leaves scooped some of the soil at its roots and dumped it out of the pot, following Daxton's lead, as if it had caught on to what had to happen in order for it to move to a bigger pot.

Only, it didn't know it needed a BIGGER pot. Because screechsnaps only felt emotions and were semi-sentient. Paul thought that schreechsnap was actually kind of clever for a flower, you know?

#4's flower part had turned to face Daxton and #5, as if it could see what was happening.

#2 and #3 were still entangled, and their crying was getting louder. Paul could only stand it because he'd been dealing with these guys for about a month. #1 was trying its best to get into the new pot, but it couldn't quite get its roots into it correctly.

If Daxton was the type to talk, he might have grumbled to himself about the task put to him, or perhaps snapping a threat or two to the plants, despite the fact that the one he was working on was being somewhat cooperative.

As he worked, Daxton did his best to ignore both Myers and the screeching of the screechsnaps that seemed to totally disregard the presence of the earmuffs. It was relatively easy to get the roots of the plant free from the soil, and soon enough, he had managed it. Still with the trowel with one hand, he picked up the screechsnap in both hands, heaving it up by the stem and starting to drag it across the room to its new destination, still attempting to ignore all the other screaming plants for now.

He would need to move fast, not being amazingly strong as well as quite lacking in stamina. Daxton knew that if he could hurry through the task, he could finish before he got too tired, otherwise he could be trying to re-home screechsnaps for hours.

As he reached the other side of the room, Daxton - with a scowl fixed quite firmly onto his features - dumped the roots of the screechsnap into the soil, and started moving the soil around, to get it firmly planted there.

#5 was getting quite cozy in this new pot. After being dragged across the floor a bit (it did its best to walk WITH Daxton but wasn't as quick), it was settling quite nicely. One of its leaves snaked around Daxton's shoulders, hugging the boy to itself, making small, happy noises, not at all resembling the screeching of its siblings. It lowered the flower part of its body right in front of Daxton's face and make a loud WHOOOOOOOOP noise, the petals touching Daxton's face slightly before it pulled back and grew still.

#4 was not screeching, but it wasn't moving at all. The student better not DARE come try to touch IT. It would throw an absolute fit.

#1, still trying to get into the pot itself, fell over, and simply lay halfway over the side of the pot, screeching its disproval of this whole situation. #3 had gotten itself untangled from #2 and was not making its way for Daxton, its wailing louder than before. It suddenly wrapped its leaves completely AROUND Daxton and SCREEEEEEEEECHED.

Paul watched, still sitting comfortably in his chair, and widened his eyes as the flower engulfed Daxton in what HE considered a hug. A hug for help, mhmm. He would step in if Daxton either A. tried to hurt the flower or B. the flower freaked Daxton out too much.

But for now, his grey-blue eyes merely watched.

... It was touching him, it was touching him, the plant was touching him.

Except that it had actually already let go. Daxton, however, had frozen at the moment that the relocated plant had hugged him. Usually, he had little problem with touching things, including plants, and was generally unbothered when things would touch him, as did sometimes happen in a magic school when objects would appear to have minds of their own. But the act of the hug was just slightly too much, slightly too human. He had stopped, dead still, unable to process what was going on, as he had not expected such an action from a plant.

As soon as he realised he was free, Daxton backed away from the plant, quickly, roughly brushing at his arms, shaking them off as if it still had hold of him. He took a moment's pause to hug his own body, each hand clutching tightly to his shirt at the opposite shoulder, and refusing to so much as glance in Myers' direction, so as to avoid letting on being at all unsettled. The urge to squeeze his eyes shut and try to pretend he was somewhere else was almost overwhelming, but Daxton ignored it for the moment, instead taking the time to check first that all of the other screechsnaps were occupied.

No such luck. No sooner had Daxton looked around, than had another of the plants bounded right over and ensnared him, no doubt capitalising on his brief distraction, almost as though it had been part of a big plan. This time, Daxton was expecting it, but that made it no easier to deal with, especially with that infernal screeching.

Finding it just slightly too much, Daxton felt a surge of panic and reacted on impulse, immediately scrambling to try to wrestle the plant off of him with force, prepared to rip its leaves off if he had to, or give it a good kick in the stem. This was Myers' plan all along, he just knew it. Throw him in detention, set giant plants on him to kill him, then act as though it was all a horrible, tragic (or perhaps not-so-tragic, according to some people) accident. Well, Daxton would not give Myers the satisfaction of winning.

The plant shrieked when Daxton suddenly wrestled it off of it, and it flailed its leaves around as if in pain. One of its leaves had gotten squished in the current situation, and it was now shrieking, if possible, EVEN LOUDER.

Its fellows were beginning to shriek, too, because the sound of #2 being in pain was just very agitating to the rest of them.

Paul finally stood up, wand clutched in his hand, and he helped #1 stand up straight in its post and then gently pulled #2 off of Daxton wordlessly. He pointed examined the squished leaf and did his best to press it out, straight, feeling just AWFUL at the whines the plant was giving him.

"Mr. Prince, are you OKAY?" he said LOUDLY to the boy. And yes, Paul knew Daxton was just as agitated as the screechsnaps right now; it wasn't hard to see. He gestured with his hands at the REST of the flowers who still needed to be repotted, yes?

Stupid plant, stupid plant, stupid plant.

The very second Daxton was free from the screechsnap's clutches, he made sure to put as much distance between him and all of the plants as was physically possible. As if being manhandled by a plant was not bad enough, the screeching was getting worse and worse, and he had to press his hands down over the earmuffs, holding them down as firmly as he could, while subconsciously screwing up his face as though that would somehow make the situation any better. The earmuffs, he had decided, were practically useless in a scenario like this. The sooner he could master magic, the better he would be able to fix any overwhelming sensory problems himself.

A peek at Myers, long enough to read his lips, told Daxton exactly what he was being asked, and in reply he simply shook his head angrily. Of course he was not okay, what kind of a stupid question was that?

He wanted this finished, this whole detention nonsense. He wanted it to be over, he wanted Myers to leave him alone, he wanted everyone - and everything - to stay away from him. The sooner he could get through this task, though, the sooner that could happen.

Gripping the trowel so tightly his knuckles had gone white, Daxton suddenly moved for one of the other screechsnaps - the one that had fallen earlier only to be helped up by Myers - with such an alarming sense of purpose that one might understandably believe he had sinister motives. But no, instead, Daxton simply repeated the process from relocating the first screechsnap, digging up the roots with slightly more frenzied actions than before, desperate to move on and get out.

Sigh.

Daxton was NOT okay, and therefore...Paul needed to help him a little. He thought he had irked the boy for long enough. They'd been in here...for what, an hour now? It felt that long. And the screeching was giving Paul a very bad headache, but he would tough it out for the sake of the detention.

Plus, he'd had to deal with this bad boys for weeks now. And he was FRUSTRATED as all heck about it. Maybe the detention had been spiteful on his part, but he didn't care.

Daxton had moved on to help #1 get settled into its pot, and Paul waved his wand and moved #2 and its squished-leafed self to an empty pot, and with magic, Paul repotted it perfectly, soil and all. Daxton would be all set when he could do nonverbal spells, yes. And Paul couldn't wait for that day because he knew, he could TELL, the boy had potential.

"I'll help you, m'boy."

By the time Daxton had lugged his second screechsnap across the dungeon room, moved it to its new location, and covered the roots in soil again, he was exhausted. Physical work was not his forte; Daxton preferred to be stationary, to conserve energy in case he really needed it at any moment, at which point the adrenaline would take over. But even an adrenaline boost was counterproductive, once it ran out and the exhaustion took over.

Looking up from the plant after covering its roots with soil, Daxton did a double take at the plants on his side of the room. Three of them were now there, in bigger pots, but Daxton could only remember moving two. His eyes widened ever so slightly in alarm, as he mentally retraced his steps, trying to work out when he had moved the mystery screechsnap. He was unable to recall when he might have done it, but nor could he locate any gaps in his memory; the whole ordeal played itself out quite fluidly in his mind, with no gaps or apparent time jumps or anything of the sort.

A split second later, he noticed Myers, wand out and still raised at the plant. The sight, far from pleasing (though the realisation that he had not moved a screechsnap only to have no memory of the event was something of a relief), made Daxton scowl. Myers was trying to help him, clearly thought him inept, in need of help. Whether or not any of it was true, Daxton refused to accept it. He shook his head firmly, his face like thunder.

Before Myers could give him any more help, Daxton turned and moved towards one of the two remaining screechsnaps (one that was still on the floor, that he been tangled with the one that had attacked Daxton) unable to keep from tiredly dragging his feet as he went. This one, at least, did not require Daxton to dig it up from the soil, so he leaned down to pick it up, and start moving it across to the other side of the room. It was too heavy to move completely upright just yet, and Daxton found himself staggering off to the side slightly, and into the dungeon wall. He took a moment to rest, before using the wall to push off from with his shoulder, and move across to a bigger pot.

Was Daxton telling him NO? Paul clicked his tongue impatiently. "Mr. Prince it is--" he checked his watch again. "We have been in here FAR too long and I honestly just want to leave," he said loudly. "I will just--"

And just then, one of the still free screechsnaps WHACKED Paul in the face as it flailed about, wailing and screeching as its namesake would suggest.

Well.

Paul took an ENORMOUS breath. "You know what---just go--detention over--Merlin--I'll deal with them myself--" because getting whacked in the face with a giant leaf was...totally not fun, and it had set Paul off to be slightly irked at EVERYTHING for the rest of the evening.

Plus, Mr. Prince would probably do what he had done before AGAIN and experiment on his plants because the child JUST DID NOT LEARN LESSONS.

And Paul. Was. Done.

"So just GO." He gestured at the door.

Still adamant that he did not need any help, Daxton continued to heave the screechsnap across the dungeon, aware that Myers was still talking to him, as he could see him out of the corner of his eye. Unfortunately, stubbornness did not make up for tiredness, and before he was even halfway across the room, Daxton was forced to stop as his knees came dangerously close to buckling, and he sat himself heavily down on the floor.

A breather, that was all he needed. Just a moment to breathe, think, collect himself. While he did so, he dropped the screechsnap onto the floor in front of him, to give his aching arms a rest.

Pushing his hair off his sweaty brow - sweaty? When had he started sweating? - Daxton just so happened to glance at Myers just in time to see him gesture to the door.

The door?

The... door.

Daxton was not exactly skilled in the art of deciphering non-verbal communication - ironic, given his general predicament when it came to speaking - but he had, quite literally, been shown the door by many people in the past. What Myers was doing, that meant 'get out', Daxton was sure of it. But... what if it was a trick? What if Myers was acting like he was telling him to leave, only to stop him, and lengthen the detention for trying to escape? The task, after all, was not even finished.

Not removing his earmuffs - because the screechsnaps were still going - or asking for clarification, Daxton simply sat where he was, taking steadily calmer breaths as his body began to recover from the manual task, and stared at Myers. He was more accepting of the idea that the detention had been ended early, than he was of receiving help, but it was still just... suspicious. Then again, his detention with Ichihara had ended almost as abruptly and without him progressing at all, with - though Daxton had not been able to tell - an air of resignation on her part too.

In the end, Daxton decided that it would be stupid to pass up an opportunity to get out. Without waiting another moment, he quickly pushed himself to his feet and all but ran to the door, eager to put as much space between himself and this noise (and Myers) as he possibly could.

A month of detentions over, finally.