Annabeth added to her notes the ingredients which seemed to fit with Jory's new job and personality. And his great heart. Anna knew her friend had a girlfriend. She found in an ancient book four herbs to complete the tea's blend. She wanted to find seven ingredients, as she believed on the power of the number seven. She had chosen three herbs from the Hogwarts blends. Now she need just four lovely ingredients to her nice friend have a good tea for sip at the Ministry.



Anna wrote down a little summary of the magical properties of the ingredients she had chosen to the blend:


Now, all she had to do was to pick up the herbs, put them into the basket and dry them. Nice.
The first ingredient was inside her bag: an apple. She took the apple and cut it in fine slices, put them on the table and cast the spell to dry them:
"Siccus Aerous!" She said, pointing her wand towards the slices and makind the circular movement required.
"Nice!" She said, grinning. She took the slices and put them into purple cotton bag, and said to the sliced and dried apple "now you must wait a little while aunt Anna is going to pick up your friends... soon we will make a tea party!" She grinned once again. She didn't have talked this way with "things" since Jory had left the school. She felt good.

Sarah was happy that the professor smiled back. She was happy that her sour mood upon her entrance did not affect the others. More thinking... She wrote some more before the professor gave her the next instructions. Okay, they had to collect from teh herbs.
That was when Sarah had a plan, less planning and more doing. She would use her textbook and take herbs as she went along. She first came across the bay plant. Bay was used for protctions and her family made her feel protected. She was about to take a leave or two off, when she remembered about the basket. She went back and grabbed a basket.

Now back to the plant. She just plucked off a few leaves and added it. She then started a new note about the tea. Speaking of courage, Burdock was also good. Another pluck Borage was spotted next. Her family was that. Another pluck and there were more things in the basket. Oh,there was dill, Sarah took out her wand this time and deftly casted the diffindo spell and added the dill to the mix... Her family was soo special. which reminded her that she had so much that if there were such a thing as an evil eye, she would need protection. Figwort was found and added. What was that.. honeysuckle? She HAD to add that. She took out her wand and with a quick movement she had another thing in her collection.
Then she spotted.. "OLIVES. I did not know you had them here!" she exclaimed and she got some things from the plant. She made sure no one was looking before slipping off ripe olive and rubbing it clean on her clothes before plopping it into her mouth. She looked around. Everyone else was busy with their collecting they did not notice it. She took the oppurtnity to write so more notes

Kace heard what the professor was saying. So he wasn't restricted to just the house blends. That was good because some of the herbs from the other houses described his sister pretty well. He listed the possible herbs he would need for Belle's tea.



His list seemed to be in order and he nodded and closed his notebook. He went to go get his basket and wondered what first ingredient he would get. Hmm...well he saw dandelion leaves right there so he went over and grabbed one. He was gentle with it to get the leaves. One he picked them off, he put them into the basket and he looked on his list and thought he might try to get the caraway seeds.

He wondered where they could be....possibly in the greenhouse storage room? Yeah that was logical. He went over to the cupboard and started to look.

So Adi had his list herbs which surprisingly did not take him forever to compile. And now they were moving on! Pick the herbs and dry them! That's what the baskets were for and the spell that he had needed to practice. Okay! Time to get moving. Adi scooped up his basket and list and set off.

He hummed as he wandered around the Greenhouse. The first herb he came across was the Chickweed, which he carefully picked from the plant with his hands. And not long afterward, he was doing the same for the Passiflora.

Caraway
Chickweed
Licorice
Hawthorn
Borage
Passiflora

She wasn't quite done with the herbs yet so Ella listened carefully to Bentley's instructions before adding a few more things to her list. She wanted to have options to work with, yeah? Many options.

Scribble. Scribble. Scribble.



Okay, time to pick some leaves. Ella set down her quill and grabbed for the basket, eyeing her list of herbs again. The first one she'd go for was Hawthorn, then Chamomile while she was up. She'd even decided to pick them by hand because she thought it'd be more of an experience than using her wand. Sometimes it was nice to do things without magic. Especially gardening things. It made her think of her Gran and good thoughts this time. She needed to hold on to those for reasons.

The hawthorn leaves were shiny, yeah? Ella eyed them curiously as she knelt in front of the shrub, basket sitting on the ground beside her. It was a bit thorny too. That meant she'd need her gloves. The seventeen year old summoned them and placed them on before she started to pick at the leaves, working very carefully so as not to damage the plant. When she'd finished, the blonde placed the leaves inside the basket and moved on.

Chamomile. Daisy-like plant, yeah? Ella wandered around the greenhouse in search of it and smiled a little when she recognized the herb. She then set to work gathering leaves that she could dry. She even hummed a little as she worked because it was good for the plants, yeah? Maybe it'd put them at ease while she was picking from them. Maybe.

Mo settled back for a few minutes to consider his list of ingredients. He wasn't actually sure how they'd work together, particularly because chamomile was pretty distinctive and turmeric had a little kick to it. It was a nontraditional combination, but he supposed that sort of went well with the lady in question. And if it was really terrible, then no one would ever drink it but Mo.

And now it was time to pick out his herbs. Mo made his way carefully through the potted trays of plays, noting some of the ones he'd helped plant, plus loads of those he'd pruned and weeded and watered. It was nice to be able to be part of the full circle for these plants - the planting, the caring for, and now the use.

Mo meandered through several of the rows, making a point to stop off and pluck the flowers from the chamomile plant - no stems or leaves, please. Even though he had the bag provided by Bentley, Mo carried the open flowers in his hand so he could take in the heady scent as he worked.

Next, he spotted the rosemary, with its spiky needle-leaves. Mo took some of those as well, swirling them around in his hand with the chamomile flowers to see how they seemed to balance with each other. The rosemary was sharper, but they smelled pleasant together.

The Professor began talking about them not limiting themselves to the herbs from the other lesson. Good because she had two more herbs that she felt should have been added. Bay for it's protection, like her Daddy and Honeysuckle because it dealt a lot with the mind and her father was plenty smart. He probably knew everything. It was like a fact.

She glanced down at her list again. This wouldn't take too long. All she had to do was find them and pluck them off then add them to her basket. Thanks to the competition she was a lot more familiar with herbs now which should cut her time in half...in theory. There was still the matter of her being easily distracted. Something to work on for this lesson.

At the Professor's go ahead she hopped off her stool and began walking around the greenhouse searching for the leaves she would need. The first thing she ran into was the licorice herb. She plucked a few leaves off it before continuing her walk. So many herbs along this wall but none that she wanted. Turning she ran right into the lavender that she'd also need and plucked it as well. Just a few. The plant wouldn't mind.

Next to the lavender she spotted the honeysuckle. Good good.

Lemon balm. Ella leaned a bit closer and sniffed the leaves, smiling at the faint lemon scent. She loved that smell. Clean and calming and lovely. The blonde was careful as she picked several leaves, knowing how fragile they were. She didn't want to damage them before drying them, that was for sure. After placing them in her basket, she hurried on. She'd read that you wanted to harvest these particular leaves in good time.

Licorice next. Ella worked carefully and as she harvested she thought about the scent and sweet taste. She'd never been a big fan but her Granddad was immensely fond of black licorice. Funny how Botros reminded her a lot of him.

Peppermint. There was no shortage of that, it seemed. The smell was lovely. Ella picked numerous leaves this time, knowing that peppermint was the type of plant that didn't exactly have a shortage of them. They came back year after year, yeah? And they grew pretty abundantly too.

Rosemary came last. Ella recognized the needle-y leaves as well as the smell. Would this be weird when mixed with the others? The blonde wasn't too sure. It'd be worth a try, though. The seventeen gathered the leaves carefully, plucking them by hand. She then added them to the basket, surprised by the mixture of aromas coming from it. She wasn't sure if it was a good mixture of not.

Time to do some drying.

Mo spilled the chamomile flowers and rosemary leaves into his bag before moving on in search of ginkgo. Ginkgo trees could grow to be quite large, and Mo kinda thought it would be awesome to have one somewhere on the grounds. Not just to harvest nuts and leaves, but because they were, according to one textbook, 'living fossils'. Mo might not be top notch at History of Plants like he was with History of Magic, but he thought that was pretty impressive.

He did find a small tree, and Mo plucked a few healthy leaves from one of the branches. He crushed one of the leaves between his fingers to release the scent, and it mingled with the lingering chamomile on his fingers. Mild. Definitely not going to be overpowering, and probably needed the chamomile and rosemary for interest. He gently added the leaves into the bag.

What should he look for next? Mo spotted the turmeric, which looked a lot like ginger. If he remembered correctly from his text, the part of the turmeric plant that was most useful was the rhizome. The roots. And if Mo wasn't supposed to kill the plants, would the professor mind terribly if he went digging out the root system? He gave Bentley a cautious look, before carefully digging around the thick rhizome at the bottom of the first turmeric. It didn't seem like it would be bad for the plant if he cut off one of the thick knobbly bits, considering that was how new plants were potted.

"Diffindo," Mo carefully sliced off one of the roots and dusted dirt from it before placing it in his bag too. Just... gonna over up the rest of that root with dirt so it looked normal again.

Adi continued on his hunt for the herbs. So far, he had collected four of the six and what remained were Hawthorn and Borage. He had stacked the collected herbs in neat piles in the basket.

Still humming, the first year continued his search and finally came across the Borage. He hand picked the herb, careful not to cause any damage before continuing on again. Minutes later he collected the final herb- Hawthorn.

Time for some drying then. Adi couldn't wait to use the spell.

The first to collect on Kat's list of herbs for the Elise!tea was horehound. Well, she didn't know how that looked like but, thanks to her textbook, she knew now. Kat went closer to the plant, double checked her textbook just in case her eyes were deceiving her, and nodded. Yeah, that was definitely it. If the book was lying to her, then she'd have to complain. Textbook were, after all, supposed to be free of errors. But anyway, the Slytherin picked a leaf.... and four more. She got five of them in total because she didn't exactly know how much of each herb she needed, but five was enough for her.

Moving on, Kat went to search for jasmine. Now that was a herb she knew because her grandmother had them, and grandma sure loved tea. And the textbook was vivid about it so yeah, plus points. But back to the jasmine, she needed the flower right? Shame. She didn't want to hurt the flowers, and that was out of her Slytherheart.

This time, Kat took her wand out of her pocket. She would rather slice it off using her wand than picking it, apparently. "Diffindo," Kat said and caught the flower with her free hand. And she did the same with another flower, so that she had two in total. Yes, that was the most she could do... and no, she didn't want to cut more.

So...... Peppermint was next.

Then she spotted a pretty plant.. in her favourite colour.. it had to be Rehmannia. Sarah confirmed that using her textbook. BY now her olive was finished and all she had left was the pip, and not wanting to mess up the greenhouse and having no other place to discard it, Sarah simply swallowed it. Now the Rehmannia. What could that represent? Oh, memories. Her family had unforgettable memories so they had to remember them. Sarah made her way over to the Rehmannia plant and bent down next to it and began to make her way around the area with surgical precision, with only the least bit of soil excavated, until she got to the root system. She used her wand to get a bit of the root before closing off the soil again. She hoped that she had not killed the plant. She added the root to her basket.... what else.

She eyed her collection in the basket. "professor" she said, "I have a very diverse and arge collection, I don't know how they will blend. My pickings are rather sentimental"

Ooohhhhhh this was so exciting, Seren could hardly wait to see their tea's! And taste them toooooo.



Steering herself toward Sarah as the girls hand darted up, Seren listened and nodded her understanding. That, would always be an issue... or well, in most cases at least. "Let's take a look," she smiled, peering at the girls parchment. She uuum'd and aaahh'd as she read, and then pursed her lips in consideration before responding.
"Well..." she started, "you have three which more or less represent protection, you could, eliminate two that you think are particularly disharmonious in terms of flavour.. without compromising the blends meaning."

Sentimental or not... it wasn't always going to be easy. "What you don't put in, is just as important as what you do..." she added, a few words for inspiration perhaps.





And speaking of... students were still rather busy. Good. They could stay that way for some time then.

OOC: I've decided to hold off on dismissal, so if you finish, don't leave just yet. I will post/update in approx 12 hours.

Sarah was eager for the input. She listened and nodded, absorbing it all. She then cocked her head from side to side, thinking it through. Especially the teacher's last words... BUT...She wanted to use it all! "ehh.. thanks for the advice, " she said. She took her basket back to her workplace. She placed it front of her and rested her head in her palm, deep in thought. She then looked at her basket then back at her list and then back at the basket. She could not part with any of them.. she wanted them all in her tea. That was what made her family so unique, there was unity but not uniformity. So in the end she decided to stick with them all. With that being said, she thought it was time to stop with the collecting and work on the tea, she would note the others herbs she wanted to add later.

She took the figwort out first and placed it in front of her. She then took out her wand again and did the two clockwise circles and then moved her wand up and down on the length of the herb, "Siccus Aerous" she said. She then felt it... not bad

Hmm... okay then. That was pretty much what Sophie figured. In the end, she decided to do some limiting, because some of the traits listed with the Gryffindor tea were also traits she'd listed in her own list for Potter.

Herbs for Potter

1. Dittany, because it's commonly used as a restorative. I think this fits in perfectly with the way Harry was able to go to battle so many times yet make it through and become restored in the end. There were times when most people just wouldn't make it through, yet Harry did.
2. Mandrake, because it's used to help people who have been hurt and feel pain. As I said before, Harry went to battle and basically had to defend himself time after time after time. This put him in a lot of emotional and physical pain.
3. Refer to Gryffindor qualities and herbs in original list. (dandelion, borage, basil, and sarsaparilla) I'm only keeping dandelion and basil, because the other two are really already represented in my own list.
4. Refer to Slytherin qualities/herbs in original list.
5. Nettle, because it's commonly used for healing, and not only was Harry healed many times in his battles with Voldemort, we also read in history books where he's been known to heal other people, too. He once was able to think fast and give his friend a bezoar when he was poisoned.

So on that note, Sophie reached for a basket in front of her and began to make her way around in search of the herbs she needed. She wasn't really sure what she could or couldn't find right here in the greenhouse, but looking over her list, she decided that her ingredients were pretty basic and shouldn't be too hard to find.

After a while, she looked around and noticed most people finishing up. UGH. She hadn't even found the first ingredient yet! She picked up her pace but tried to be as thorough as possible. Within the next ten minutes, she'd found mandrake, dandelion, and basil, which meant she only had two ingredients left to find. After that, all she had to do was dry them out, and she'd be done. Now she knew what all that practicing for homework had been about...

It took only another turn for Lex to realize that she would have to get back to walking around the greenhouse. Not much else she would need over here. Let's see...what was next? Just across from her she could see a few potted lemonbalm herbs. Weeeeelll....she was gonna head for the nettles across the room but seeing as these were right here...convenience would be the order of the day. No way was she going all the way over there to go back over here.

And here they said she wasn't smart. Pfft.

Alexa walked around to the pots she would need and contemplated plucking them off as well. The simple tug she'd been using wasn't working. In fact she gave a few tugs, nearly pulling the pot right off the table before immediately letting go and clearing her throat.

Ahem. "Diffindo!" Just a couple leaves just like with the others. Later she'd decide which would be put in in what amount.

Off to the nettles. Lex cut off a few of these as well and with luck turned right into a table of Bay. How did they know she wanted them right THERE?? Such smart plants. Mhm. Just needed the Earl Grey now and she'd be through. To her surprize they were actually close to the table she'd been sitting at. She grabbed some and threw into her basket then plopped down in her seat again. Drying. She could do this.

Sophie glanced into her basket and adjusted the mandrake, dandelion, and basil so that none of it would get crushed. She was already behind, so all she needed now was to get even further behind, and she could hang up this Herbology grade. She looked around, wondering where Caleb was and if he'd found all the stuff he needed. Maybe she could enlist his help...

He was nowhere, though. At least, nowhere she could see. BAH, brother! You're supposed to be here when I need you!

She frowned but turned her attention back to the search for...what did she need again? Oh. Right. Dittany and nettle. It took her another ten or so minutes, but she finally found what she needed and had it all packed into her basket. She sat the basket down and withdrew her wand. So what was that wand movement and incantation again?

Two little clockwise circles, an up and down motion, and then Siccus Aerous, right? Right.

Sarah put the now dried herb aside and turned her attention back to the basket... hmm. what next. She picked up the bay leaves and spread them out before her,"Siccus Aerous" she said again, repeating the wand movement. She did it again on each leaf. She would probably not need them all, yet it was good to come prepared.

Sage was next... also a good one. Sarah dried three of the sage leaves and added it to the pile of things already dried. Feelling 'leaved' out, Sarah got the honeysuckle flower ready to do next. She hoped she was doing the right thing. "Siccus Aerous" she casted again. hmm.. more honeysuckle was needed so another flower was dried. This was a match easier way to dry flower petals for weddings and stuff.

What should she do next?

So with all her ingredients gathered and the spell to dry them fresh on her mind, it was time to finish up. Sophie plucked the first ingredient out of her basket. Dittany. She held it up then raised her wand toward it. With two little clockwise circles and an up and down motion along the length of the dittany, she said, "Siccus Aerous!" She repeated that until the dittany was dried.

She placed it off to the side then plucked the dandelion from the basket. She repeated the same spell she'd done before. She moved her wand in two little clockwise circles then moved up and down along the length of the dandelion. "Siccus Aerous!" she said. "Siccus Aerous!" She placed the dried dandelion off to the side with the dittany.

She continued in this way until all five of her ingredients were dried: dittany, mandrake, dandelion, basil, and nettle.

Blair settled on creating a blend that reflected upon her father's best characteristics. Now the difficult part : deciding which herbs would best represent them whilst also complimenting each other's flavours. She made a quick list of what she would require.



Blair set her quill down, it was time to start collecting some herbs. She picked up her basket and list and went to work. Bay first, she wandered round the greenhouse in search of it. Ah ha, she gave the leaf a quick smell before picking a couple of and placing them in her basket.

Blair consulted her list once again, borage next. Spotting the blue star shaped flowers that marked the borage plant she collected a few of these too. The leaves felt a bit fuzzy, she didn't like the texture of them much.

What next? Ginger.

Alright so now he got the dandelion all set, now he needed to find more herbs on his list. He checked it just to be sure. He was checking in the greenhouse storage space and he managed to find the caraway seeds. He smiled and put them into the basket to keep safe. He hoped they wouldn't get crushed.



Now he was going to look for the chickweed and passiflora plant. He needed to use a spell to get the leaves off. He wondered and then it popped into his brain. It was..."Diffindo!" he said and the leaves came off the plants. He caught the chickweed plants leaves and put them into his basket and then he got the passiflora leaves into his basket as well. Now all he needed was three more ingredients!

Ginger. Said to have properties of success and power, that suited her father perfectly. Blair gathered some of the ginger and moved on. Sage next, she recognised this herb immediately. She had seen her mother using it on the rare occasion that she cooked a meal.

Finding the next herb on the list, horsetail, Blair decided she would try using her want to attain some leaves. She pulled out her wand and as she had heard some of the other students repeated, "Diffindo!" As the leaves fell off the plant she carefully collected them into her basket.

Lastly, hibiscus. It took her a while but she eventually spotted it in a corner of the greenhouse. Once again she said, "Diffindo." After placing the leaves in the basket with the others she consulted her list to double check. She had everything, time to go dry the ingredients out.

Well, since the Professor seemed to be busy with other students, Tora thought that she would go on collecting plants and ask the Professor again for some Pine later. She glanced down at her paper to see which plant she would be looking for next, and froze. She had forgotten that Fanged Geranium was next. Could that even be eaten in a tea? Although it went with a characteristic of Forrest, she really really didn't want to go anywhere near a plant with fangs. She was about to turn to the professor again and ask about this particular plant when she remembered that the professor was busy, and just skipped that one for now. St. John's Wort. Nice and normal and non carnivorous. She glanced down in her textbook for the picture, this time taking the whole book with her in her basket so she wouldn't have to keep running back to her workspace, and then started walking around the greenhouse looking for the plant. Not that she actually needed the book for this particular plant; one sideways glance at the picture reminded her that this one had bright yellow flowers, easy enough to remember. Pretty soon she found the plant and "Diffindo," carefully removed some of the flowers and leaves, adding them to her herb basket on her arm.

Next on her list was Black Tea, something she didn't know how to get here either, so she skipped that one too. Bilberry and Lemongrass were found fairly easily, the blue berries and the long grass stalks standing out against the background of the other plants. Ginko followed easily with it's distinctive leaf pattern; the Ginger was a bit harder to find, but Tora managed. With the ginger she finally had to get her hands dirty as she had to dig up the root. She hoped that Professor Hadley would be OK with her taking the whole plant this time, she could always share with anyone else who needed it anyway.

All she had left were two flowers, a Lily and Echinacea. She smiled as she snipped off a couple of each flower and placed them in her basket. Now all she had to do was dry it and make a tea out of it. She returned to her seat and looked over at the Professor to see if she could come over and help the second year Ravenclaw. In the meantime, Tora had best start drying.

Minerva looked at her paper, was that all the herbs and which should she get rid of. She knew she shouldn't use all of them, but which to actually pick she wasn't sure. Hearing Bentley she looked up oh they were going to collect the herbs now. She chewed on her lower lip and looked at her list again. Now this is when she needed a certain claw here still. Did she even know exactly what these looked like. She grabbed her book for reference and got up from her work area.




Walking over with the rest of the group she blinked at the plants. They all looked about the same to her really. She sighed afraid she might not be able to figure these out when she spotted probably the easiest on the list, Lavender. She walked over to it and pulled out her wand "Diffindo" just some pieces should do the trick.

Now she wasn't sure of the next one so she opened her book. Looking through it she glanced back at the plants. That one seemed to look like the Turmeric with it's leaves. She walked over to it and looked closer. Hmm she just wasn't so sure. Glancing at a few others she decided it wasn't he right one and went for another one. Now this one seemed like the Turmeric. Using her wand she took a leaves from the herb and moved along to the next one.

After returning to her seat and organizing the herbs on the work space in front of her, Ella was ready to begin the drying process. She'd had plenty of practice with the spell seeing as she'd had to help Tobias down by the lake after he'd fallen in. She was practically a pro after that. Mhm! Picking up her wand, the seventeen year old set her sights on the Hawthorn first.

Siccus Aerous, yeah? The blonde nodded to herself in confirmation and focused on the hawthorn leaves in front of her. She could totally handle this. "Siccus Aerous!" Circle. Circle. Uppp. Dowwwn. Hm. Ella ran a hand over the leaves gently and tilted her head, noting that they could probably use a bit more drying. "Siccus Aerous!" Circle. Circle. Uppp. Dowwwn. Much better this time around. The definitely looked tea ready.

Next up was Chamomile. Ella scooted down a bit so that she was seated closer to what she'd gathered and concentrated again, wanting to get the spell correct. "Siccus Aerous!" Circle. Circle. Uppp. Dowwwn. Grin! See? She could totally do this.

Too early to think about a career in tea?