"Plantea Locomotor." Incantation practice it was. Back to square one, huh? "Plantea Locomotor. Plan-te-a Lo-co-mo-tor. Plantea Locomotor." The wand movement was more difficult to rehearse, seeing as all she had to do was hold it aloft, so Alice didn't bother. She did check her intent, though. Did she WANT this enough? There had to be true desire for her plant to move or nothing was going to happen.

"Hey, ostrich guy. You gotta move, okay? Please? I can't hold up my arm forever. Elbow will fall off and such." No, really. Her elbow felt as if it was about to.

Giving the topiary another pointed look as if it could understand her, Alice tried again. "Plantea Locomotor!"

... and........ nothing.

It just occurred to Adi that Professor Bentley might have meant that he should cast the spell he was going to use even if it weren't one that would make his topiary move. Yes, he'd better get a move on.

He grabbed his wand and swished and flicked it in the direction of the "SA" on Superman's chest. "Coloro Fulgeo black to yellow!'' The little Puffer eyed the letters. They still looked plenty green to him. Ugh! He was pretty sure the spell was right because he had done thorough research on it.

Oh well. He'd try again. "Coloro Fulgeo black to yellow!'' And with that, Adi threw in a it more concentration which was always key. Eeep! Looky! The SA was flashing from black to yellow! Yay! He had done it!

She was clearly doing something wrong, for her topiary still hadn't moved by a single centimeter's mark. What was it? Was her wand not held 'aloft' enough? Her pronunciation not enunciated clearly? The intent not fully focused? Squinting at her giant ostrich, Alice picked her brain for whatever it was that she was missing before it came to her.

... was she meant to be envisioning its movement? Whoops.

So THAT was why this was so hard. The seventh year spent a few moments thinking about how real ostriches moved, the way their legs lifted when they walked, how their heads bobbed, the way their beaks lolled open. When she spoke the incantation again, it was in a far more determined manner than before. "Plantea Locomotor."

This time, there was an eerie pause, almost as if she was staring the plant down. And after a few seconds, it began to move.

Yes! Finally. She pumped a triumphant fist in the air in celebration, then promptly pulled it back down and cradled her arm. Ow. Joints. Owww.

So he failed the first time which meant he had to keep trying. Well alright he would keep this up, because he wanted a friend for Leo in the common room and he wanted to ride the frog. So he did what any twelve year old did he whined, "Professor I don't think I'm doing this right... It won't work? Maybe my frog is a dud." Clearly something was wrong and it probably wasn't him. So it had to be the frog. He looked back at the plant. "See you need to hop.. Hop frog hop." He began hopping around his plant to show it what it was suppose to do.

Pulling up his wand and not hopping anymore Bart tried to concentrate, "Plantea Locomotor" He watched, but the plant still didn't do anything. Stomping his foot again he felt himself getting even more crabby about it. "I don't think this spell works, nope I think it's a dud too." Had to be something other than him. Though he wasn't that great at spells, never could focus long enough.

He pouted a bit staring at the plant. Maybe if he stared long enough it would move?

Was there movement? Sander blinked a couple of times to clear his vision. In a blink of an eye, the topiary came alive. Like before it shook its head, wagged its tail and began to move both its fore and hind legs.

"Yes...yes...you did that before. Please do more," Sander whispered softly to it.

....and then it seemed like the topiary heard his whispered request. His dog jumped down onto the ground and then ran...away from him.

"Wait!...Wait!...I need to fertilize you," Sander called out as he quickly grabbed his watering can filled with the dragon dung/water mixture and gave chase after it.

....or tried to give chase.

For an eighteen year old who felt like a seventy year old, running after a running object wasn't as easy as it should have been. As he struggled to keep up with it....while trying at the same time to avoid running into the other students and their topiaries.....Sander tipped his watering can and sprinkled fertilizer on its roots every chance he could.

Eventually, his topiary stopped running and became inanimate again. Sander stopped next to it and collapsed on the ground to catch his breath, before sitting back up. What was he supposed to do next? Keep watering it with fertilizer? Was the spell permanent? How did the topiary know when to move again?

Sander's head began filling up with questions that only Professor Bentley could answer, so he turned around to look for her and when he spotted her, he raised his hand.

"Professor do I continue to pour the dragon fertilizer on its roots after my topiary has stopped moving? How long does this spell last? Um....how does the topiary know when to move again? Is there something else I need to do?" Sander bombarded her with questions, before belatedly realizing that he was doing so.

He smiled sheepishly at the Professor, stopped talking and waited for her to answer him.

Ian finally decided on what he wanted his topiary to do. He wanted a waddle. It seemed the most likely and simplest type of move. It was more or less just a move to the left and a move to the right with some locomotion that would propel it forward.

Ian began to practice the pronunciation. Plan-tay-uh lo-ko-mo-tor....plan-tay-uh lo-ko-mo-tor.. He did this a few times until he felt he was competent enough to say them confidently. He lifted up his wand in his hand, pointing in the direction of the topiary's head and spoke the incantation PLANTEA LOCOMOTOR He concentrated on the movement he was seeking and after 30 seconds or so, he thought he saw movement in the shrubbery.

It was ever so slight, but he knew the penguin's head began to bob to the left first, and then the right. This encouraged Ian and he continued to chant as he focused on the movement. It wasn't the whole penguin, but he thought a good first step.

As comfortable as her armchair was, she couldn't see much of anything from there, so sadly, she coaxed herself off of it and started doing the rounds. It was definitely nap time soon. Seeing Bay's had shoot up, Seren wandered over, giving him sympathetic looks. Of course he was still hurting - no surprises there, so she found herself nodding in agreement. "Of course, and feel free to warm my seat, I'm not using it," she added, pointing to the soft and plush armchair.



His loss indeed. Seren shrugged letting go of the subject and observing the rest of the class for the time being.

...

...

Only.. after some time, Cambridge's insisting the plant get on with it, caught her attention. How, amusing.



It was perhaps poor planning on her part, or more likely, her old age - but Seren had completely forgotten that some of the students had other intentions for their creations. Whoooops.

Oh well, if they were smart enough they'd have done their research to begin with and could simply (in Lex's terms) get on with it. Yep.

"Excellent work, Aditya."

Very impressive.



Bart caught her attention next, and his exclamations at his frog being a dud almost made her laugh. "No no no, you just need to work on it a bit more... it's quite technical," she encouraged. "Remember to focus on what it should look like, envision the movements and anticipate them before casting the spell." Intention. He had to have it.



And what was that?

What was he saying? Seren cupped her hand to her ear, her mind working to discipher the boys questions. So many of them all at once!...

OOOHHH...

"Just a few quick sprays every so often will do the trick," she nodded, trying to retain the memory of his other questions so she didn't miss anything. "It generally lasts up to a month before the charms need to be renewed, but it all depends on the strength of the caster as well .... it'll move as it sees fit," she nodded.

As for other things to do... "Have you cleaned up yet?"


OOC: another 24 hours methinks... yep. I'll post a wrap up in about 12 hours for peeps that be finished.

When Professor Bentley began attending to some of the student's questions, Sander waited patiently for her to get to him.

When she did, he listened attentively while scribbling down some notes. But when she asked him whether her had cleaned up yet, Sander knew that he had misphrased his last question.

But the Professor had somewhat answered that too. So he in turn answered hers.

"No I haven't cleaned up yet, Professor. I figured I'd do that once I was sure I didn't need to do anything else for my topiary, like enhancing the spell or something," he explained to her.

"I'll go do that now. Thank you for answering my questions," Sander thanked his Herbology Professor before proceeding to clean up after himself.

Sander looked into his empty watering can glad that he made sufficient to water his topiary's roots while it was moving. Pointing his wand at each of the tools he had used, including his watering can, Sander cleaned them by casting the Scouring charm on each of them.

He then inspected each tool to make sure they were thoroughly cleaned before ending the spell. Carrying the tools over to the tool shed, he returned them to their original storage location.

Returning to his topiary, Sander bent down and began picking up the branches and twigs he had snipped off. By the time he was done, he had a pile of cuttings in his arms and his back was killing him.

Slowly making his way to the compost pile, Sander dropped the load he was carrying onto it before rubbing his aching arms as he returned to where the other students were still working on their topiary.

Sander began picking up their cuttings. He figured he might as well help out with the cleaning up that way the others wouldn't have to worry about it later.

"I'll be there." He said with a smile. He was more or less done with his sculpture and removing the over-sized gloves, he reached into his bag, pulled out an object about the size of his palm and discreetly passed it to Alexa. A chocolate frog. Just to remind her of their goodness and of course, tide her over until dinnertime. They had more than a few hours left before then and you know, rations for the journey.


He replaced the over-sized gloves and continued on with his pruning, finishing up the details on the eyes, ripples, and their little webbed feet. Except for it's green colour, it looked as close as he could get it to the drawing and hopefully when people looked at it, it would look like the mess of chocolate frogs trying to escape on a hot summer day it was meant to. "Colovaria." He said casting on the plant the spell he'd practiced down in his common room for this project. The deep and bright green of the privet gradually morphed into a light, milk chocolatey brown and that made a huge difference removing all possibility that the sculpture represented nothing more than bits of actual frogs. Now they definitely looked like chocolate frogs, the familiar and beloved sweet of so many witches and wizards.


He'd heard Bentley tell them that she could use help gathering for the compost heap. Yep. He could do that whilst everyone else was busy trying to animate theirs. He took note of the spell though as he thought this was going to be a hoot sometime in the future. With the gloves back on his hands, Cutty began to gather up the cut-away branches and bring them to a pile out of the way of the working students.

Ian stepped back and looked at his creation. It's head was moving rhythmically back and forth. He started humming a tune in time to the head bob and was quite mesmerized. He was liking his work. He began to work his wand back and forth, back and forth in time to the head bob. He was digging this. He thought perhaps he was content with this.

He took out his spray bottle and lightly sprayed the roots, still humming the tune. He stepped back again...muy fabuloso! he said to himself, one of the few phrases he'd retained from a spanish class he'd taken a couple years ago.

Now it was time for Lux to do the more complicated part. Excited from her success at making the end of the tail move, she tried to clear her head enough that nothing besides the hair moving was in her thoughts. Once she was sure she had accomplished it, Lux swished and swirled her wand at the section she wanted animated. "Motofolius."

...

Okay, once again nothing happened.

Swish and swirl. "Motofolius."

And the hair still wasn't moving.

"Come ooooon, topiary!" Trying not to get frustrated, Lux wondered why it wasn't working. Was she not focusing enough? Was she too short to perform the spell on this part of Ariel? The Second Year had no idea.

Just to be safe and cover all bases, the got on her tip toes and focused really really hard on what she wanted to do. Swish and swirl. "Motofolius."

Aha! She had done it!

Beaming, Lux proceeded to spray the mixture she had made at the roots of her topiary. Things were going swimmingly.

Bay was so glad that Professor Bentley was being so nice.. not every Professor would let their injured students sit down while everyone else worked… not to mention in her very own chair.. Bay almost beamed with light…

the chair it was like calling to him.. "Thank you so much Professor" he said.. he had the sudden urge to hug her… ohhh well Bay was going to do it.. she was just the best.. he wrapped his arms around her and...

HHUUUGG

he let her go and stared blank into nothing… his face starting to turn red so embarrassing he thought "ughhhh sorry" hopefully she didn't get mad at him… hobbling over towards her chair he sat down in it.. and awesome it was still quite warm.. wiggling around on the chair he found an awesome spot… ahhhhhh this was the life… now the hardest thing to do was trying to keep his eyes open..

It just wasn't moving.

Ella stared at the dinosaur topiary, pouting because this was extremely frustrating. She'd come all this way from her desk and it couldn't even move its tail for her? Well FINE. HOW RUDE, yeah? She was just going to continue to pout and make puppy dog eyes until the dinosaur decided to cooperate.

Stare.

Stare..

Stare...

This wasn't working either. SIGH. No, okay, this wasn't how you were supposed to handle these situations. You had to have patience and relax and... ...what else again? OH! You probably had to think of what you wanted the plant to do. Yes. She could do this. She would do this. Relax, Bishop. Concentrate.

"Okay, Dino. You're going to move, yeah? Swing your long necked head and tail. That's what's going to happen. I know you can do this." Pep talks had worked with the team last term so why not now? Ella couldn't see what was wrong with giving it a go. Now breathe and, "Plantea Locomotor!" ...Nope.

She was feeling sort of defeated now, y'know? What would SOPHIE think? Her best wouldn't be impressed with her work right now and worse, she'd be disappointed that Ella was getting so upset about it. Practice makes perfect and she just needed to keep trying. Yup. Positive attitude. She was going to look at this positively. Failing only gave her more opportunities to practice the incantation. Yeah...

THIS would be it. Mind was cleared and Ella visualized the dinosaur, long neck slowly moving the head left and right while the long tail swept across the ground. She could see it happening in her mind and when she could do so vividly, she turned her attention to the topiary.

"Plantea Locomotor!"

AJHDJLKHJLKSHDHKHD! MOVEMENT! Did anyone see that? DID THEY? Her dinosaur was moving! Oh gosh, okay, this was exciting! She needed to breathe or she'd have a heart attack but the Head Girl was grinning! She'd done it. Awwwww yes.

Bart turned his head as Bentley started speaking to him. Looking at his frog again he listened to Professor cool plants. "I am trying to visualize." He really was trying to see it move, but it just wasn't working. He huffed when he saw others doing it and he still wasn't. This just wasn't cool. Nope not cool at all.

"I'll keep trying." He said before turning and pulling his wand again. Shutting his eyes the second year tried to see the frog jumping. Jump frog.. jump, with a deep breath and opening his eyes he did the wand movement, "Plantea Locomotor" watching as the frog just stayed still.

"Stop laughing at me." He glared to the frog. He was going to trim a frown in it if it didn't stop looking like it was laughing.

Wait, why was he doing this with his hands when it was a perfectly good time to practice ones charms. Cutty went for his wand again and staring at the accumulated piles of foliage now scattered about the greenhouse ground, he tried to decide on which of the spells would be best suited for the job. The banishing charm, perhaps? It was the one he was least good at. He took a walk. Having cleared away the branch and leaves from around his own sculpture it might've been a good idea to do the same for the others.

"Depulso." He moved his wand in the sweeping motion and paused when he came to Caleb Newell's sculpture. Why hadn't he opted to animate his? It would be so wonderfully creepy if he did.

Beverly wanted ALL of her plant to be animate.

ALL. OF. IT.

She hadn't worked on it just for her winged horse to move part of itself. No. He was going to move about and shove other topiary spread its wings. So Plantea Locomotor it was!

When Bentley mentioned practice Beverly almost scoffed. She didn't need practice. She was practically old enough to cast a Jelly-Legs Jinx with her eyes closed.

She'll show her, yes she would.

"Plantea Locomotor." And move, you beautiful beast!

... Cough... Cough....

Beverly rubbed her face with her wrinkly hand. It didn't work. Ares (yes, that was the winged horse's name now) was as still as a rock. She was going to have to practice, wasn't she?

SIGH. "Plantea Locomotor!"

To communicate her understanding, Seren nod her head, "not a problem, dear," she replied before leaving Sander to continue. At least he was thorough.



She was feeling rather rotten in her old age, so she could only imagine how much worse off he was feeling with the whole knee thing. And really, her seat would do him more good than his, or the ground. "You're welco---me," she replied, momentarily stunned by the arms around her...

...

Aaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

Seren beamed, her cheeks reddening slightly from the gesture. "No, no.. it's fine... thank you..." she replied after returning the hug, watching her Lion hobble to claim her seat.



And try was all the second year could do...

Seren took a pace backward, watching as he attempted the charm again. Still to no avail.. she was almost tempted to do it for him - perhaps even let him think he had done it himself, but no... there was no lesson to be learned in doing that.

"I wouldn't say it's laughing at you," she replied, though taunting was another matter. "Keep at it, if not today, then tomorrow..."


And speaking of today's and tomorrow's... a glance at her pendent watch told her time was running out. Meeep.

Clearing her throat of the raspy old person mucus that had formed, Seren waited for an opportune lull in conversation before relaying her dismissals.

"Well done everyone on a successful lesson, I see many marvelous works of art here today..." some were more abstract than others, but they were all beautiful in their own way. "If you designed your topiary for indoor use, then what you do with it is up to you... if however yours is for outdoor use, then I'm afraid it will remain here until the end of term and then you may choose what you wish to do with it." She wouldn't object to them sending it home, if they had the correct measures in place and parental consent. It was nice being able to take your handiwork home to show the family. "I assure you they will be safe and secure in the gardens and will not venture beyond these walls ...... once you are finished and packed up, you may be dismissed."

"Homework will be posted in the coming days."

OOC: The lessons over! Thanks all who came! I'll close the thread in 12-15 hours.

Brynn wasn't sure if she was only supposed to clean up her own clippings or if she was meant to clean up the trimmings from everyone else too while they got to animating their topiaries. But she got the distinct impression that it was the latter.. which wasn't really fair now that she thought about it. She was tired and just wanted to go back to her dorm and take a nap. And this walking back and forth, not to mention the bending down repeatedly to pick things up from the ground, was only making things worse.

The first year was making yet another round dodging in and out of topiaries, trying to avoid getting hit by a spell, and picking up more trimmings, when she heard the professor's voice again. Outdoor use.. hm, yeah, she thought that's what hers was for. It was really too big and scraggly for anything indoors, but she wasn't sure what she would do with it at the end of term. Would her mother let her keep it? Did she even want it? Maybe it could just stay here. And seeing as they were dismissed, Brynn shuffled over to the compost bin once more and tossed in what had been in her arms, then went back to her workstation to retrieve her things. "See ya professor," she said before heading back to the castle.

Ian heard the professor say it was time to go and they needed to leave their topiaries here. He was slightly disappointed as he was quite excited to have a head bobbing penguin. Ok...maybe it wasn't the best looking penguin and he'd only partially animated it, but it was still pretty stinking cool. He thought about asking the professor if they really had to be left here, but then thought if she agreed to let them take the bushes with them, he'd have to carry it. That didn't seem very exciting. He decided to clean up around him and head out. He picked up the trimmings surrounding his shrub. It took some time as he would slowly bend down....pick up a twig here or there and then carry it to the composting pile. After an eternity of up and down, he was done. He departed, ready to take a nap, since it appeared the professor's couch looked all comfy and nap-worthy.

Adi beamed at the Professor's praise. "Thank you,'' he said. Was she in a good mood again? He hoped so! And he must show Alec his creation. Yes! He knew the soon to be graduate would love it.

The Puffer packed up his stuff. He was all set to leave. Was a certain best friend ready to go too?

Oh, they were finished? Ella lookeed from Bentley to her Topiary and frowned slightly. Was it weird that she didn't want to leave him here like this? What if the dinosaur got lonely or the other topiary were mean to him? She was nervous but she tried to keep a brave face. Parting was such sweet sorrow, after all. After spritzing her topiary with the special fertilizer, the eighteen year old stepped back and said quietly, "Alright, that's all for now. I'll be back to check on you as soon as I can. Get some sun, okay?" Beam! Then Ella slowly made her way back to the table where she'd put her things and packed them away. Cleaning happened too. Habit.

...

"Goodbye, Professor. Thank you for the lesson!" Ella said cheerfully but somewhat quietly as she headed out. She needed a bath..and a nap. Yup. With this in mind, she made her way back to the castle.

Bay was so glad that Professor Bentley wasn't mad with him.. she had even thanked him for the hug.. d'awwwww…..

almost falling asleep he heard her say that they could pack up to go. opening his eye he spotted Sander… oh yay.. he will help his mate.. right.. "Hey Sander!!" he called while getting up out of the chair.. hobbling over towards his little tree.. "see you later little tree" he told it while hobbling over towards Sander more…

ohh he should thank the Professor again.. "Thank you Professor Bentley" he called out to her.. oh finally made it to Sander.. "mate.. would you help a brother out and let me lean on you on our way back?" hoping his mate would say yes.

When Professor Bentley spoke up, Sander listened as she told everyone that class was dismissed. He had a choice to bring his topiary home and for a second, Sander thought that he would but then he decided that he'd leave it here in Hogwarts, like a legacy. If his siblings followed in his steps and transferred here, they could come and visit Spike.

Sander picked up his things and made his way up to where Professor Bentley was standing and sadly smiled at his Herbology Professor.

"Thank you for another interesting lesson. I don't know whether this is my last lesson with you for this term. If it is, I want to say that it has been an honor learning from you. Your lessons are definitely stimulating and interesting that the ones I have attended at Durmstrang, Professor Bentley," Sander thanked her.

Then he turned to his friend, Bay who had called out to him. Sander quickly walked over to him.



"Of course I will. I was actually going to come to you to ask whether you needed my help, so I guess we had the same thought in mind," Sander smiled at his brave Gryffindor friend.

"Alright, place your arm around my shoulder and lean on me," Sander suggested but when he saw that Bay was in a lot of pain, he decided to do something he knew his entire body would yell at him later for doing so, but for now Sander knew his friend needed him more.

"Bay this isn't going to work. You can't hobble all the way up to the castle. I'm going to give you a piggy back ride. Hop on," Sander told Bay as he bent down to let Bay get on his back.

"awesome" he told his friend.. he was so glad that they were both on the same page.. hop..hop..hop.. "ouch" doing as Sander instructed he placed his arm around him.. trying a few steps Bay was grinding his teeth.. "yeah this isn't going to work"

PIGGY BACK RIDE!!!!

"omg dude your the best!!" he jumped up on Sanders back all excited like and couldn't help but go "YEEE-HAWWW" he wanted to say giddy-up little horsey but he didn't think his friend would like that.. shifting his weight and body around he got to a place where he was comfortable.. "dude I'm not to heavy am i?" he wondered if his friend couldn't make it all the way back to the castle.

Sander got the breath knocked out of him for a second, when Bay excitedly jumped on back. He laughed at Bay's enthusiasm glad to see that he had temporarily taken his mind off from the pain. Sander hefted Bay up higher on his back as he helped support with his hands.

"No you can never be heavy for me cause you're my brother," Sander turned his head to smile at Bay. "Alright, let's get you back to the castle and maybe to the Healer, if your knee continues to hurt, Sander told his good friend as he began walking back to the castle, with Bay on his back.