Post 5!

Thea carefully poured 3 litres of water into her tank, and put one drop of her Mooncalf Solution onto the cut piece of specimen.

Standing back, Thea removed her dragon hide gloves and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. Phew. Done. She grinned.

Finally something she could do without worrying. Adding water…

All right, this seems fine, she thought and looked over to the instructions. Only one more thing to do…

STEP 3

Using your fingers mould the bottom end of the cutting into a small whole in the clay, about five cm deep.

That was the next thing, according to the instructions on the board. Now Ariadne was downright confused. Mould the bottom of the cutting? She had never worked with plants so she had no idea what that meant. But she understood while looking at other students working nearby, and then copied their moves. Done.

The last step seemed confusing. WHAT?, the girl thought and looked around. She kind of needed help. Never mind, she thought, I can do it myself.

She added 1/4 ounce of Mooncalf Dung, 700 milliliters of water, and mixed them.
Following, she added one drop of Mooncalf Solution. Gwendolyn then looked around. I am actually done?, she thought. The girl couldn’t help smiling…She was indeed so happy that she didn’t mess things up, and that she didn’t end up looking like a total idiot.

Yeah, step one had been completed successfully. Bissy stood up by her desk and looked at the board once again to check what the next step was. Hmmm, the tank and the clay part… She went to the counter where the tanks were and took an empty one careful not to drop and cause it to fragmentize. That would be dreadful and mortifying especially when Josh was around but it was really hard to handle it properly with such thick gloves. The blonde snake placed the tank cautiously on the desk and gave a lovely smile to the Head Boy and his friend Neptune.

She went back to retrieve some clay; she got some and put it beside the tank. She started to fill the tank with clay till she was sure that it was 30 centimetres deep. She looked at the tank narrowing her eyes. Well, it really looked like 30 centimetres. Phew!

STEP 4

Add 3 Ltrs of sea water.

Finally, an easy, non-disgusting part. Ariadne simply measured exactly three litres of sea water and added it over her tank. Nothing could go wrong with this step.

With the clay easily settled on the bottom of the tank once it rested on the top of his workstation, Simon reached his one gloved hand down into the bottom. The boy systematically scrapping a hole in the bottom of the clay trying to eye it to make sure it was big enough for the circumference of the base of his coral piece to fit in. Once it was big enough, he placed the coral into it, molding the clay around it so it fit secure in place.

STEP 5

Then finally add one drop of Mooncalf Solution
Making Mooncalf Solution
1/4 ounce Mooncalf Dung

700 ml water

Mix until dissolved.

Mooncalf Solution? Ari hadn't heard of that before, but how difficult could it be to prepare, since it just had two ingredients? True, dung was disgusting enough, but it would be a pity to give up at the end. Frowning, the girl mixed a quarter ounce of Mooncalf Dung with 700 ml water until the composition was dissolved. Afterwards, she added one drop of the obtained solution to her tank. Phew. It was OVER! Now all Ari wished was to get as far away as possible from all plants and disgusting things.

Penny was delighted that they were getting to do something practical..
Having read the instructions carefully, putting on her dragon hide gloves, she made her way up the tank and selecting a silver knife Professor Bentley had provided, she cut a 20cm length of the plant, using her ruler to measure it...

okay... whats next - witha glance up at the board for confirmation...

Bissy looked at the coral to see the shape she had to mould into the clay. It had to be neither too thin nor too thick. However she couldn’t decide which finger to put into the clay as she was wearing the gloves. Hmmm, her ring finger would do it well, though. She placed her finger at the top of the clay and started to twist it through it. Seeing the hole was big enough to fit the coral inside it she stopped and got herself ready to skip to the next step.

Okay, so now it was time for an activity, let's get down to it. Oakey walked up to the front of the class and grabbed a silver knife. He wasn't quite ready for a severing charm. Then he went to the back of the class and obtained his tank. He had almost cut off a piece of the coral when he realized he hadn't put his gloves on. He ran back to his desk, removed his cloak and put his dragon hide gloves on. Oakey got back the purple coral and carefully cut off a piece of it making sure it was just the right size(he figured measurements mattered especially in the magical world).

Simon didn't like this one bit but he did what he was told and put his gloves on, they should not be allowed to cut a plant he felt like starting a club called Protection of Plants they have rights too but he knew if he did that he would be in trouble and as he needed to earn the points back so he decided he would just do as he was told, looking at the plant in a forgive me look he took a 20cm long cutting off.

Oakey placed his piece of coral to the side of his desk. He then focused on the Tank in front of him.

He filled the tank the exact measurent of clay. He felt like he was making a fish aquarium minus the fish

Sierra sighed to herself as she realized the practical part of the lesson was beginning. She normally wouldn't feel this way about a Herbology activity, but all she really felt like doing was going back to the common room and sleeping for a while. She still felt terrible, but since this was her last class of the day, she'd hang in there.

Her brown eyes flickered over to the blackboard, and she halfheartedly read the instructions before pushing herself out of her desk and heading toward the back of the class. As she walked, she considered heading back and getting one of those silver knives instead. She didn't have too much experience with diffindo, but then again, she really didn't have the strength to work with the knife right now.

So with her wand now in her hand and aimed toward the specimen, she cast "Diffindo!" and watched as a piece easily snapped off. Hmm. Maybe she was a little better at this than she was giving herself credit for. She'd used only her eyesight and good judgment alone to try and cut a twenty centimeter piece, so when the specimen was out of the tank and in her hands, she double-checked everything before moving on.

Simon looked to see what the next step was and once again, he had no idea why he hadn't told the Professor that he didn't want to do this and that Plants like everyone else had a right to not be cut or moved, saying that he knew why he hadn't he'd probably lose house points and he didn't want to lose more.

Simon went and got a small tank and started to fill it, he accidently but 31cm of clay in but he didn't see how the Professor would know and so he didn't take the extra 1cm out, it couldn't do any harm could it.

Kyle looked up to the board and ran a hand through her hair before writing down what she was told to do. Five steps, she thought that would be easy right? And wouldn’t it be nice to have the pretty pretty stubby coral at school? She thought with a smile.

Putting on her safety gear ahead of time, as she didn’t want to slip and cut her hand or damage the delicate coral as she cut off a 20 centimeter specimen. Carefully she cut off a bit from the original plant soon, very soon she’d be replanting it and making her own pretty coral that could be used for potions if needed.

This was getting boring, Simon wished that he had some thing that would make this more fun like maybe an explosion of some sort, oh no why was he thinking that, he shook the thought out of his head, ever since him and Treyen had started fighting Simon had sort of gone a bit mental and he didn't like it.

Simon looked at the next step, now he had to mould the bottom end of the cutting into a small hole in the clay, like that was going to be fun, surely the Professor realised how boring this was but maybe she wanted them to be bored as then they couldn't cause any trouble.

Simon started to mould the bottom end of the cutting into the hole when the hole was around 5cm deep he smiled he had done that step see it was just so easy, though Simon had to admit he was glad the Professor couldn't read minds.

Checking to make sure her piece of coral wasn't drying up any in its water filled cup, Kurumi returned her attention to her clay filled tank and her eyes flicked to the instructions. Kurumi had always liked playing with clay. Her mother had bought her a set of colored clay when she was younger and she would spend hours upon hours creating all sorts of things. Mostly animals, however.

She picked up her coral for just a moment, trying to judge how big a hole to begin molding with her fingers and found an end of it to be about the size of her thumb. Well, that certainly would speed up the process. Returning the coral to its temporary home in the cup, Kurumi leaned over her tank and pressed her gloved thumb against the bottom as if she were giving the thumbs down sign. Using her other hand, she began pushing clay this way and that until she had created a thick wall around her thumb.

Alright, now time to add the coral...

As Kurumi moved to grab her specimen, she realized she had a problem. She had done a little too good of a job in making the clay casing around her thumb nice and tight and was not stuck. Fantastic. Kurumi wiggled her thumb, hoping that that would loosen things up a bit, which it did, and after a few minutes of wiggling was free from her self-made thumb prison.

Now with her piece of coral in hand, Kurumi inserted it into the hole she had made and patted down the sides of clay to make sure she had as tight a fit as possible. She used her index finger to try and wiggle the coral, and when she found that it hardly wiggled at all, she returned her gaze to the board to read the next set of instructions.

Selina listened as the Professor began to explain the directions to what they were doing. For a moment Selina had a panic attack. All of the directions looked like they may have been brewing a potion- but she was relieved when it was just potting a plant. Selina HATED Potions. She and it did not intermix at all.

So she put on her dragon-hide gloves and prepared to start. The first thing she did was, well get to the tank where the specimen was. All of the book nerds, including Kurumi whom she loved, were crowding the tank. She waited until the coast was clear and then approached the tank. Her hand raced the scalpel and the measuring stick. From there she cut a twenty centimeter long specimen and returned to her previous station.

Simon looked at the list and smiled well at least he was about to play with water, which is something he liked doing though with it being sea water he decided he wouldn't chuck it all over the class since he'd probably get into trouble, he had gotten everything at the start so all he had to do was pick it up and pour it into the Tank, though he felt like pouring some on the Professor to see what she would say but once he saw how many Hufflepuff's were in the class he decided against it and instead poured 3ltrs straight into the tank.

Well, well… That was the easiest step in the activity – adding water to the tank. She went back to the counter where the supplies were. Bissy then, grabbled the pocket of her robes but her wand wasn’t there; she had forgotten it on the desk. After taking her wand from her working station she smelled the bucket; yeah it was certainly smelled like sea, actually like moss. The snake girl pointed her wand to the bucket and murmured: “Locomotor Bucket”. Blimey! How come she couldn’t think of using this spell to carry the clay? Meh! Anyway…

The bucket fell on the desk with a soft thud. She poured some into a cup with graduated markings on the side; it made two litres; she poured the whole content into the tank. She need one more litre of sea water and added it into the clay filled tank. That was over, too. All right…

Simon looked down, he was finally at the final step he was glad he was starting to get bored, though he was happy that he done what he had been told since Herbology was normally good, it probably was the fact he wasn't in the best mood today.

Simon added one drop of Mooncalf Solution and smiled, hopefully the Professor would be happy with his work, though he wasn't really sure if she liked him or not.

Oakey looked int his tank now filled with clay. He picked up his piece of Stubby Purple Coral and viewed it. with his other hand he poked a hole into the clay and gently placed the piece of coral into the hole.

Seeing as she had already cut off a 20cm section of coral it was now onto step number two. Reaching forward Kyle grabbed one of the small tanks and immediately filled the bottom of the tank with around 30 centimeters of clay.

Next step moulding it - this was going to be easy. And she'd make the moon calf solution last before adding it in. Best fresh after all.

Oakey looked at his waterless tank. He took his pitcher of Sea Water and carefully poured it into the tank with the clay and coral neatly placed inside of it.