Well she had been off by her including carrots and mandrakes in the same family judging by the response Professor Myers had given to another who had mentioned it before her. But the Plant DNA idea had gotten a positive reaction from the man so Cass had been partly on the right track. The Ravenclaw listened as he went on to explain the truth behind the connection, scribbling down some of what was said into her notes for later reference. Cousins and all that.

But then they were moving on, making more cuts, more incisions into the plant so she swapped quill for her wand once more. Cassie studied the diagram placed on the board, trying to visualize what she needed to do to complete what was directed. It was slow and cautious but eventually she had the two flaps only to freeze as Professor Myers got loud and informed them all that mandrakes had lungs. LUNGS of all things. The 5th year was taken aback no matter how much sense it made given the screams for it made the situation of cutting into the humanoid-looking plants weirder when thinking of ORGANS.

And she clearly wasn’t the only one, Derf the Hufflepuff definitely affected. Badly.

Must…move…on.

She poked and prodded and found the lungs on her own plant, swallowing as she let her gloved hands touch what she had found, Then as she listened to Professor Myers pushing them on, Cass used the cutting spell once more to cut along the mandrake’s ‘neck.’

"Sure! Of course!" Personally, Jessa brought many dead things with her back to her dorm and didn't care for whether or not it freaked her dormmates out but she would gladly agree to the Professor's condition if it meant having her very own dead mandrake--or two...she definitely needed tw--three. Three was a solid number. It was hard to have an even split in results with an odd number of subjects, y'know? Forward thinking.

The Ravenclaw side-eyed her crying bestfriend, unimpressed with the way he'd begun to cry. The noticeboard asked anyone who felt they couldn't handle this lesson not to show up. She'd been doing a good job of ignoring the others who were having issues with the lesson, but it was much harder when it was your bestfriend and he was standing right by you with those Nile long tears.

Jessa scowled as first Althea, then the Professor (WHO HAD TO STOP THE LESSON AND THEREFORE HER CUTTING AND EXPERIMENTING) came over because...because WHY did he and anyone else who seemed to be having problems even bother showing up? Jessa Cambridge was overly tolerant, until it came to knowledge acquisition, at which point her tolerance shrank three sizes. It was a dead plant, a killer dead plant.......and he was sobbing.

Sweet Merlin. "Maybe you should go." She suggested, catching a bit of the man's words--as he was standing right by her. "Might be for the best and you'll feel better." Couldn't gain much when your friend was upset right there and he clearly wouldn't be feeling any better as they carried on. In the forced pause the lesson had taken, Jessa looked about the greenhouse, unable to stop the faces she made when she saw some of the others having minor issues as well. Clearly reading was not the strong suit of many. They were going to ruin the lesson then Professor Myers would never let them cut anything open ever again and she'd be SO upset.

Thankfully they would be moving forward with the lesson and not calling it in for the day. Jessa straightened a bit where she stood, giving the Professor her undivided attention to show him there were still a few who were very taken by the lesson.

Carefully she followed his instructions, cutting up the neck and making the triangular shapes. The flaps she pulled away to get a better look before her curiosity and the Professor's prompting took her to the plant's mouth. "Do they produce their own air? Using the lungs as the production centre?" It would make sense if they did since they apparently didn't breathe it in. Had to come from somewhere, right?

Back to poking she went, this time sticking her hand down it's mouth and watching it appear through the incision she made. Curious.

He grinned sheepishly as the Herbologist spoke to him. Slow down. Yes that should be the motto of this boy’s life. Slow Down. Control you must learn control. Heck he could make a song of this….

Some students doesnt seem to be taking very well to the activity, and the Gryffindor Ace had to give them a sympathetic gaze. The one Gryffindor girl, Emmeline, he just had to sigh. Lions seems to be randomly docked points lately. Maybe he ought to gift his housemates a stress ball or something. Gryffindors are more expressive than most, and he was starting to feel its unfair that they get nailed for just being themselves.

But oh they are moving to the larynx! And the Professor did confirm that magical mandrakes do have vocal cords. Fist pump right there! The Curly Top was very curious what it looked like, so he quickly got to work trying to slice the throat as instructed. Which by the way was tricky, oh so tricky. This part was both delicate and tough to slice open, with so many vital parts underneath, and Tenacius was far more concerned making sure he doesnt ruin anything under the skin. So them flaps looked more shredded than he wanted. Oops.

But he can see the larynx! And the voice box! And the tongue and all that. Ahh the system that makes the sound that can kill ya…. now all silent and exposed. It was both equal parts amazing and terrifying. This lesson is so cool!

Oh there was a question. How do Mandrakes make sounds? The leonine lad mulled over the question, which nearly had him stumped-- because he did think that Mandrakes makes sounds like humans do. And then a thought. Up goes the hand “Professor…. Mandrakes dont inhale oxygen… they inhale carbon dioxide? And thats what they use to produce sound?”

It was like falling into a void and the worst part about this void was that only the Hufflepuff could see and feel. He wasn't entirely sure how spaghettification felt like, but he was sure it was something like this. Also kinda like butter over too much bread. He just did not feel like himself right now and it did not help that he was having a hard time seeing because of his blurred vision from tears.

Something DID draw him out of his little spiral and that was a hand on his head. Eyes refocusing, Derf looked up at the older Hufflepuff and then without another moment's hesitation had thrown his arms around her middle and was CLINGING to her. Sorry, he hadn't noticed the tissues. Just the person and the person was appreciated LOADS.

Wiping his tear stained and runny nose aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall over Althea's robes as he tried to hide in her somewhat, the Hufflepuff was once again unaware that Dark Lord Myers was speaking to him. Not because of the soft voice but because of the earmuffs. Still could not hear a thing. Which perhaps only came across as him thinking about what to do - stay or leave - but that was certainly not the case.

And he of course could not hear his FRIEND, Jessa, talking to him either.

Feeling Althea's MOTHERLY warmth gave the second year come comfort...until he was struck with another thought as his little mind spiraled out of control to last term once again. "W-WHERE IS-S ABEY?! S-SIMON? HENRY? ETTA? JUNIA?" he shouted. He likely would have shouted even without the earmuffs, but they only amplified things in the moment as his bright blues darted around looking for them and for safety. His arm? Yup. Those were very much still latched on to Althea with no intention of letting go. "WHERE ARE THEY? ARE THEY SAFE?!"

Quote:

SOOO we can see their lungs. The lungs have been pretty different from ours since they are plants. They don’t need lungs to breathe like we do. Their lungs’ SOLE PURPOSE is for...well, if you know anything about human anatomy, you might know that the lungs are the powerhouse, but the larynx, the voice box, is what causes the vibrations that make our voices. The same has been said for the mandrake. So..next, we’ll be cutting into their necks. Right in their esophagus!

She made her next incision in the neck. It was hard to picture but she just needed to concentrate on her dead mandrake. She stopped right under its chin. She made a straight line. She was making flaps but in the shapes of triangles. She started on the straight line, cut up, started at the beginning and cut down. Then she folded the flap back. She repeated it on the other side.

She saw the larynx. She then set her wand down.

Next she looked at the mouth.

Alright, now time to poke around the root! He took his scalpel and poked around - ewww, it was squishy, like a sponge! This was soooo cool man. He eventually just pushed everything out of the way with his scalpel until he found the lungs. They looked sort of like human lungs...but made of plant matter, of course. WEIRDDD! This was so cool!

He looked up at Myers' and his example and continued his incision. Two more flaps, this time, triangle shaped...he was getting better at anticipating how much pressure he needed to cut through the skin now. He made his margins a bit bigger than needed, since he learned that the skin was kind of tough on this guy. Then, once he had access to the throat, he went back to the lungs and followed the thorax up, which would lead him RIGHT to the larynx. Which it did! Cooooool! He moved things around, looking at the voice box, the epiglottis, and all the fun stuff up there.

He raised his hand to answer Myers' question about their screams, which he didn't really know the answer to but he wanted to guess anyways. "Well, I'm guessing there's some sort of...magic involved? I mean, their screams ARE magical. They make you pass out or even die, depending on how mature the mandrake is. So I'm guessing they are just magically able to produce the noise without the same biological makeup as humans?" he guessed. It was his best answer, really.

Kane was trying hard to concentrate on his mandrake, but it was hard with Derf crying and screaming over there. Kane stopped and blinked a few times, not exactly sure WHAT was going on that had caused such a meltdown of epic proportions. Was he upset about the mandrake? He was all in to magical creatures and all that, the whole SCHOOL knew that by now, but mandrakes weren't creatures. They were plants! Still, Kane felt bad that he was so upset about...something, and since he was just a few feet away from him at his station, he stopped for a second and went over to the younger boy.

"Deep breaths, Derf! Everyone's fine," he told him. Well, he had no idea where any of those people were that Derf had mentioned - but they weren't trapped in another dimension with a monster, that was for sure. "It's ok, man. You're ok," he added, trying to comfort him somehow. That Kenning girl was holding on to him too, and he gave her a look and a shrug that said 'IDK man but I'm trying to help'.

Um...Myers? Help please!

Jessa was being a little harsh and Paul sent her an eyebrow raise in order to maaaaaybe tell her to stop that. Derfael clearly didn't need that right now. It wasn't helping.

He was proud of his badgers, though. First Althea, and now Kane were doing their best to comfort their younger housemate. But he approached Derf once more. Paul pulled the earmuffs off of Derf's head and tucked them under his arm. "Derf...calm down. Junia, Etta, and Henry are all in here. Simon and Abey are in another lesson at the moment," he could at least vouch for knowing where Simon was, being the Hufflepuff head of house and all. He had no clue where Abey was. But Derfael didn't need to know that.

"But they're all safe..."

Clearly, someone else was going on here??

Only because it was Derf. That was the only reason why she stopped cutting into the mandrake. She hadn't expected Derf to move or even react to her. He was supposed to accept the tissues, nod, and let her get back to the assignment. She'd hoped that Myers would've sped through his explanation so that he could come and tend to the young Hufflepuff. That didn't happen, of course, and for that, Althea had to wonder if being openly nice was a good thing. The fifth year looked around to see if anyone else was going to come in to comfort Derf (so she could go back to her table) but they were either too invested in cutting up the mandrake or too unsympathetic to care.

She caught the scowl on Jessa's face, and she narrowed her eyes at the younger girl. "You sure you don't want him to go because you're annoyed by the crying?" she said coolly before turning her face away quickly. Had she known that Derf would've taken so well to her presence, Althea wouldn't have made the decision to approach him at all. Because he took her "kindness" as an invitation to hug her. Publicly. She sighed, and patted his head again. There was nothing else she could do but continue to comfort him. As Kane approached, Althea watched him carefully to see if he would help or agitate Derf even more.

Helga help her (and Derf!!!) He was wiping his all on her robes and she did her best not to make a face. Taking another deep breath, Althea continued to allow Derf to have his moment and hug her. If it helped him feel better, then she'd stand there until he was finished. She was grateful that both Kane and Myers had words for Derf, though she wondered if he would actually hear them as he seemed extremely upset. This, she felt, was another reason why she felt that they'd needed a longer summer break. Clearly not everyone had gotten over what happened last term. Her Head of House had better give her at least 25 house points for her saintly assistance.

Ooooh, so the lungs were the same material. Thinner and in a different shape, but the same material. Interesting. Honking daffodils did not have lungs, so there must be some other way that they produced sound. Wasn’t that amazing? Herbology was so cool! Mandrakes actually had lungs! Isa jotted down a few notes regarding what Professor Myers had just told her about mandrake lungs and honking daffodils.

They were going to be cutting into the necks to look at the larynx! What was that that Professor Myers said about an esophagus? ”Mandrakes have an esophagus?” Like, wasn’t the esophagus part of the digestive tract? Did mandrakes even have a digestive tract? Because the “windpipe” of the respiratory system in humans was the trachea. Okay, well, they were cutting into the throats and that was the important thing to know. Professor Myers mentioned what he had told Isa! She smiled when he mentioned it again and wrote plants are not animals on her paper. It was good to know that plants were not animals, because if plants were animals she would have to seriously reconsider her vegetarian diet. Actually, she probably couldn’t be a vegetarian if plants were animals given that vegetarianism was basically not eating animals. But then, if plants were animals, what would she eat? This hypothetical situation was getting complicated. It was such a relief that she did not have to worry about this.

Moving on to the next part of the dissection. Isa listened intently to the instructions for the next step. Incision on the neck. Seemed complicated, but having the diagram was useful. Picking up her scalpel, she made one small vertical incision on the “neck” of the mandrake. Then she made a diagonal cut up and a diagonal cut down from the middle of the vertical incision on the right side and repeated that on the left of the vertical incision. Peeling back the flaps, she could see the larynx. She did it, she could see the larynx! Mandrakes had a larynx! This was amazing! Herbology was awesome! Ahhh, so exciting! Isa kept the excitement to herself, trying to act in a manner that was appropriate for a lab that involved the use of sharp and potentially dangerous tools. The excitement was definitely there though. Isa had learned how to express her excitement in ways that did not involve screaming and flailing arms.

Setting down her scalpel, Isa poked the mouth open on her mandrake. They had tongues and noses? Wow. It looked a lot like a human respiratory system. Mandrakes didn’t breathe? Then what were the lungs for? How did they get air in their lungs? ”Does something happen with the lungs when the mandrakes are out of a pot and exposed to air? Because they scream when they’re taken out of a pot? Maybe air flows into the nose or something?” Something to do with the mandrakes being out of a pot, maybe? The idea of mandrakes having lungs but not breathing was confusing. She needed to think more about this. The gears were turning in Isa’s head. ”Why do the structures in a mandrake resemble the human respiratory system? Just to produce sound?” Obviously it wasn’t the same and was made of plant material, but there were similarities. Maybe the structure had something to do with how it worked. Were there other ways of living things producing sound that didn’t involve lungs?

Oh no. Derf was upset. Friend having a meltdown alert. Isa didn’t want to overwhelm Derf with too many people around him and she knew he couldn’t hear anything with those earmuffs, so instead Isa wrote a note on a spare piece of parchment and brought it over to Derf. Isa hugged Derf and handed him the note. Maybe it would help him calm down. Hopefully he would actually read it, because she couldn't effectively communicate with him by talking to him while he still had those earmuffs on.

Text Cut: note

Derf,
Don’t panic. You are safe. Abey, Simon, Henry, Etta and Junia are safe. Take a deep breath. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Focus only on breathing. Feel your worries subsiding. Your friends are safe. Breathe. It’s okay if you’re still worried about your friends, but if you can calm down a little bit you’ll know that you can calm down more and everything will be okay. Notice what is around you. What do you see? What do you smell? List what you notice. This will help you get out of the spiral of worry. Keep breathing.

Take a walk if you need to. Don’t worry about what’s going on in the lesson. If you need anyone to talk to about anything, I’m here.

Isa

Etta studied the diagram for a moment before carefully following instructions. Casting a diffindo, she created an incision down the centre of the neck of the mandrake, making sure the line was straight. Hm.. neat enough or so she thought. She moved on to make triangular flaps on either side of the incision she'd made earlier, basically wanting to get this over with as soon as possible. She peeked into its mouth as per instructions, trying to get a good look. She could see the tongue and leaning forward even more, she could see clearly see down the mandrake's throat as well. She sat back on her seat, considering the professor's interesting question. Um. If they don't breathe, how do they make such loud noises? Um. "Since they are magical plants and completely different from humans.. they probably have a body mechanism that lets it manufacture its own supply of air." Maybe. It was just a guess, after all. But she couldn't give it any more thought because DERF.

Derf was clearly upset. But.. upset about what exactly, she couldn't tell. He always did seem to end up panicking in Herbology, though. Didn't he mention once that he was scared of plants and that his dog was eaten by one? But Derf just made her upset. All she wanted to do was to go over and give him one BIG hug, tell him that everything was fine.. So she quickly walked over to where he was, a comforting smile on her face. The girl skipped the hug part for now. "DERF! See? I'm fine." She waved at him before turning towards Professor Myers, looking extremely concerned. "Uh.. professor, do you think he should leave?" Because she thought that he very much should. Staying in class would only make him even more upset and she wanted him to be HAPPY, not sad. It hurt to see him crying so much. Her Hufflepuff heart couldn't take it, okay?

Emmeline made a face behind the Dark professor's back. Okay, she shouldn't have been drawing SUPER LIGHTLY on the table, but any normal professor would've just told her to stop. Instead, she had lost her very first House point and not even for doing something fun. Normally she wouldn't sulk about one teensy point, but this was clearly yet more proof that the Herbology teacher was NOT normal and was totally a Dark wizard. His words stopped the first year cold, however; how did he know she'd wanted her notebook out? The Dark professor could read minds!!!! She had just turned around to face Derf to tell him (or more likely write a note, because earmuffs) about this horrible discovery when something even worse happened -- he was crying!!!

The Gryffindor was frozen in shock, because Derf seemed almost unaware of the Dark professor's words or of Miss Althea -- that was her name, right? -- until he was clinging to the older girl. Jessa was not being very nice about this whole crying thing, which really shocked Emmeline; Derf was her best friend! She figured that maybe all the Dark energy in the room from the professor was affecting the Ravenclaw girl. Yes, that had to be it.

Then a Hufflepuff boy she didn't know had come over and tried to talk to Derf, and Emmeline had still been kind of frozen because Derf seemed super worried about certain people and one of them was Abey. Then Professor Dark Wizard was back, and flat out LYING to Derf, because Emmeline knew for a fact that Abey did NOT have another lesson right now. He was probably hanging out in the common room or around the castle or something, so there!

Emmeline, who after all was sitting next to Derf and at the same table as Jessa, got up and walked over to one of her best friends. The other one (Stasya) was probably really shocked and upset by all this too. The Gryffindor girl put her hand firmly on her friend's shoulder, hoping maybe he'd calm down enough to let Miss Althea go? Because Miss Althea was super nice to come over and everything, but she looked maybe a little uncomfortable. She was sure that the professor's LIES wouldn't help anything so she said in a soft, soothing tone: "It's okay, Derf. Abey's in the common room, you know he doesn't always come to this class." She paused and shot a guilty look at the professor, because even Dark wizards had some feelings, but surely he knew about Abey not coming to classes too far from the castle sometimes? All the normal teachers did. She thought Derf would feel better if he could really LOOK at someone, and she wished she could fish Scamander out of his pocket without upsetting him more, but she didn't want to try to make him unbury his face from Miss Althea's robes either.

If the Dark wizard had said anything about mandrakes or moving on or whatever, it had completely escaped the first year's notice.

While Henry was somewhat interested in using the scalpel for this activity, he also really wanted to try dissecting the mandrake root with magic and so settled on that method for cutting. He didn't really think much about the question posed by the professor, something about carrots? But he did glance over at Nicky, noting that he chose to use the scalpel, and watched him a moment before turning to his own plant.

It did look a little too human-like, but he knew that it was just a plant, even if it took him a minute and a deep breath to prepare to cut. One diffindo was all it took to make the middle cut. It was pretty easy and yeah, the inside did look more planty than anything else.

Wait, they had lungs? Henry looked up from his workstation to hear that explanation. He guessed it made sense considering how much noise they made when alive, but it wasn't something that he had ever given an ounce of thought to. He squinted up at the diagram as Professor Paul spoke, but he wasn't completely sure he'd have enough control over the spell to get the cuts that precise. Perhaps he should use the scalpel for this part.

He had just picked up his scalpel and made the next incision under what appeared to be the mandrake's chin when he heard yelling from Derf, and his name happened to be among that shouting. He turned to look at him a moment, realizing exactly what all those names had in common. There were a lot of people swarming around him now, doing their best to comfort him. But since he had been worried about him too, Henry felt the need to go over and reassure him.

He walked over to Derf's workstation right after Etta, stopping right across from him to make eye contact. "Derfael. I'm right here. I'm okay too; we're all okay. And you're going to be just fine." But he wasn't sure what triggered this reaction just now and he glanced up at Professor Paul to see what he thought to do next.

....

.......

.............

The shouting right by her ear was not appreciated. Nor was the meltdown Derf had run himself into during possibly the most informative and hands on Herbology class they would ever have in the history of forever. The ONE TIME Myers let them cut something open. Merlin's beard. Merlin's soggy, rotting beard, tell her this wasn't happening. This was exactly why she no longer told him about her experiments. This was why the notice was printed in all caps.

Jessa's scowl only deepened when the Professor raised his brows at her but she said nothing. Clearly the class wouldn't be moving just yet. She'd have had better luck getting her own mandrake and cutting it to pieces. "That too." She admitted at Althea's question, unabashed by her own confession. There was an alternative assignment. They had choices. Derf KNEW he got weak in the stomach about things like this and now her dissecting was on HOLD.

So yes, she was annoyed. This was why she conducted her experiments alone. Add other people and suddenly everything went wrong. The human element was often her least favourite when it came to this sort of thing. In general, people were great, she loved them but NOT when it came to learning. That she took very seriously.

Jessa tapped her fingers against her section of the desk, waiting as patiently as she could for them to move on but in another minute, she'd go back to cutting on her own otherwise they'd run out of time at this rate. In the mean time, she set her gaze on the lungs she'd removed. The young girl cut them open and took a look, noting the structure and the design. There would not be a moment lost. She WOULD learn something even in this pause.

Vivian still felt all the pity for her dead mandrake. Would he be able to feel the pain? Could he possibly still be alive? Was his mandrake soul looking upon her from above, judging her for opening up his lifeless body? There were so many questions she had in mind, but she still felt guilty for doing this to the poor plant. But then she remembered her mum telling her it's a great experience to know plant anatomy, so the Slytherin hoped the encouraging words from her mum would suffice for the entire lesson today.

And see? She was right about the mandrakes not being edible. They definitely weren't palatable, either, because these things were apparently POISONOUS. Not that she thought of ever trying to eating one. Ew, no.

Moving on to the second incision, Vivian looked up at Professor Paul and nodded along as he explained. She looked back down at her precious mandrake and sighed. However, the mention of the VOICE BOX definitely caught her attention. How did they shriek? Why were their shrieks so deadly to begin with? Curiosity! Eager to know and to see for herself, the blonde went over to create her second incision with a few "Diffindo!" charms cast to create flaps on the first incision she made earlier, then peeled it open. Eek, kinda gross. But now, it looked like her mandrake had an awkward flappy butterfly on its chest, to put it lightly. Cue a tiny immature giggle at that.

But no, she wasn't going to cut out the lungs. Thank you very much. A little too brutal for her own liking, sorry. However, Vivian did try poke one lung, and Professor Paul was right about it feeling different. It felt like an actual PLANT, so very root-y and natural. Though, well, she wouldn't know how her own lungs felt like. LOL.

DERF! The little ickle Puff was a crying mess. Vivian's softie heart was triggered at the sight of it, and she sighed. "I'll offer marshmallows if it makes you feel better...." Those soft sugary confections did wonders for her, so hopefully they'd provide slight comfort to him. She'd even offer an entire pack of them, if he wanted. Her dad had sent a new batch a few days ago, so she still had a lot more stuffed inside her trunk at her dormitory.

Vivian gave Derf a tiny smile before looking back at Professor Paul to continue with the next incision. They were moving on to the NECK part, which sort of creeped the fourth year out. She sent a couple more severing charms to create the triangle flaps at the neck part of her dead mandrake as seen on the new diagram on the board. Once she had those triangle flaps made, she folded them back to reveal the larynx. The Slytherin poked it a few times. So thiiiiis was where all the shrieking originated from. Hmm. "Magic can do anything, Professor." She wasn't going to deny that, but it also seemed the best answer to the reason why mandrakes don't need nostrils to breathe. And as instructed too, Vivian opened the mandrake's mouth for examination. Look at that tiny tongue!

These things bite, right?

Ah yes, she had a feeling been slightly off about the carrot and mandrake similarities. But Isa Wright!?! WHAT IN THE WORLD? Skylar made a mental note to speak with the younger girl later, in regards to, Herbology tutoring. Not that she didn't trust Professor Myers, but sometimes having someone your own age help you was more conducive to the learning process. And not that she needed help, because she did scrape by with a passing grade, but she didn't want to just scrape by. She wanted to be ensured to pass. Even if she was nearly positive she wanted to nothing to do with Herbology when she graduated, one never knew when they would have to tell the difference between a Devil's Snare and a Flitterbloom and if it was a life-death situation.

And her distractions kept her from moving on with mandrake, as Professor Myers was rambling on about carrots and mandrakes being cousins... uh what? Were they first cousins? Second cousins? Second cousins twice removed? Ah, well, that probably wasn't terribly important because she was missing about where to make her next incisions. Lungs ...... what? They were plants? Gosh, she was way to distracted and it was probably mostly because of how vastly incompetent she felt with Herbology knowledge. Three years of Herbology education and apparently she had nothing to show for it.

Stabbing her scalpel along the upper chest of the mandrake, with probably far too much force needed, she had to admit at least it felt good. It felt like she was in control, even if she felt like a complete nincompoop at present. Stab. Stab. And finally her squares were made, except due to her excessive stabbing, the skin weren't even flaps, like they were supposed to be, but just sloughed off with ease.

Um. Okay, well, at least she could see the lungs easier? Were those scalpel marks on the lungs? Oops?

And now they were moving on to find the esophagus. Why did they need to see the lungs again? Feeling the lungs, because why not? Skylar noted that they felt rather squishy and while she didn't know what human lungs felt like, surely they didn't feel as these did? Because plants.

Small incision, to which Skylar just did with a stab and dragged the blade through the skin just a bit further. Triangular flaps and because distracted Skylar was ... well distracted, she may have inadvertently cut the triangles the wrong way. As in, the points were facing out instead of in, like a bow-tie. Oopppppsss... well, she'd still be able to see what she needed, right? Unless she completely wrecked its voice box, but on the plus side, at least it was already dead? So like it's larynx wasn't working anymore anyway.....

RIGHT?

Also, what had Myers asked? About how the lungs help make their voice if they don't breathe? "Plants have a different way of breathing... isn't it like photosynthesis or something?" Okay, so that was probably completely wrong, but meh, she already had one wrong answer today, so may as well make it two.

Olly was busy poking the lungs when he heard Professor Myers speaking again. It was time to do more cutting and peeling. He listened carefully and watched the diagram so he was sure he knew what he was supposed to do. Everything made perfect sense to him.

The first cut was a small line straight up under the mandrake's neck. That was the easy part, but the next steps weren't too difficult. From the middle of the cut he had just made he made another cut going diagonally up to the right, and then another down. That made a triangular flap that he peeled back. Olly repeated the action but going to the left of the first line until he had two triangle flaps peeled back. That was right, right? Yes, it looked good. He set the scalpel down and used his fingers to open the mouth a bit and look in. That was the voice box. What the mandrake used to make its scream. He was glad they were working with dead ones because those were a lot less dangerous.

"They can still take the air in and push it back out, can't they?" That's what Olly was getting based on what Professor Myers was saying. "Even if they don't need it to live they still use it for other purposes. Like screaming." Except he said it sort of tentatively because it was very possible that he was completely wrong and actually didn't know what he was talking about.

The lesson was slowly morphing into a disaster, BUT PAUL WOULD KEEP IT GOING IF IT KILLED IT. He had put so much planning into it and ordering the dead mandrakes and….it had to go on.

Not that he didn’t feel bad for Derf.

Sigh.



OOOOHH SO CLOSE! “You’RE RIGHT THEY DO INHALE CARBON DIOXIDE! BUT BUT BUT---” he would wait to see if anyone else piggybacked off this idea? And finished it? Because they certainly didn’t breaaaathe really.



Paul chuckled at Kane. “Magic is...amazing, for sure. And magic plays a big role in the mandrake’s makeup...and how they work, in general.” Again, not entirely wrong.



“Well to answer you question, it exists solely for the sound. They don’t need any of this for eating or anything.” And to her...guess. “Well they only produce sound when not in soil, correct? So...well, that does affect the sound, yes.” Might be more clear once he got into it.



Producing air! Much like Jessa had said, but slightly different. “On the right track, yes, slightly!” Smart students. Paul was glad he had such a smart crew of kiddos.

Even crying Derf, honestly.

Which, he was figuring out how to handle it, Miss Kramer.



….well. “You’re...well, yes.” Ha! Paul laughed. Magic was amaaaaazing again, yes?




“Photosynthesis is IMPORTANT in this process, yes.” He clapped a little. GOOD JOB SKYLAR.



“Well, not EXACTLY...but you’re in the right way of thinking. Like…” and now was the time EVERYONE NEEDED TO PAY ATTENTION. “They use photosynthesis. They take in the CARBON DIOXIDE we produce...and create OXYGEN, right? They do the plant thing, but they release it in the plant way while in the soil, still. Once we pull them from their pots, they SHRIEEEEEEK out air. Oxygen.” Simple. Kind of. “So MANY of you had your thoughts in the right direction and I am VERY PROUD of that. “ Good job, kiddos. “And of course, magic plays a HUUUUUGE role in this,” he sent winks at both Kane and Vivian. Because lulz.

“I know Derf is having a meltdown---which is perfectly fine, everyone--” He said, mostly to Jessa, ahem, “BUuuuUUut we’re going to continue---” The yelling. THE YELLING. WAS REALLY DISTRACTING AND PAUL was torn between just ending the lesson and continuing and he was doubting himself profoundly.

“Now, let us explore another part of the mandrakes. Your next incision will be in the head. As the diagram shows,” And Paul placed the next picture on the blackboard. “It’s in the middle, there is a ridge, thankfully, you are able to cut along.” THEY COULD SEE IT, RIGHT? “Now, cut square chunks out of each side--” Paul gestured at the lines--- “about half an inch thick. And if you dig, or keep going, you’ll see….Mandrakes do not have a brain.” Which..they were now encouraged to do, obviously. “In fact, the only thing we have in common anatomy wise are our lungs, larynx, mouth, nose….they cannot make speech like we do. They just...y’know, scream.” And kill people. NBD.



Paul let that sink in...let them make their incisions, cut the squares out….find the lack of brains. All that...fun stuff.

“Mandrakes are known for having personalities. But what makes...a being...sentient? Do you think mandrakes are sentient? Why or why not? THEY DONT HAVE BRAINS!!! So… GIVE ME DISCUSSION. LET’S GO!” More questions. Paul had his own ideas about mandrakes and their supposed sentience. “This is the last incision we’ll be doing! So you all got through this mostly okay!” Looking at you, Derf.

Which, speaking of, Paul had to...skip making his own incisions in the mandrake up front and….go next to Derf. Again. “Derf….are we okay? Do you need to leave?”




OOC: O___O LMAO. CHAOS HAS ENSUED. HAPPY POSTING. WE'RE DOING OUR BEST. PAUL IS CONFUSED. MUWA! *KISS*

….. Oops. Zoryn shot her professor the most INNOCENT of all INNOCENT smiles. Aheeeeeem. Maybe she really did need Dora’s help to become a stealth ninja. How the heck was she supposed to get away with even BIGGER things when she got caught trying to sneak out a mandrake baby lung. Not that it was a baby lung. But it LOOKED tiny enough to be one. Do mandrakes have babies? These were the kinds of questions Zoryn needed answers to.

The second year skipped to the front to grab herself a small container, and plopped the lungs right in! For safe keeping, mhm. After pocketing it once more, she returned back to her workstation JUST IN TIME to hear the next set of instructions. Uhm. This was starting to get reaaaaal confusing. Never mind the rogue Derf who was causing a HUGE scene. Zoryn felt really bad for him. But since he was getting LOADS of attention from everyone else right now, she decided against crowding him in the moment.

She’d go check on him later. ‘Cause that one time when Jonas attacked her in CoMC, he came and comforted her too. It was only right. They were FRIENDS. Anyways back to her Professor, who was getting REAAAAAL WORDSY. All Zoryn took from his lecturing was that “plants are weird and not animals”. ”Couldn’t have said it better myself, Professor!” she chimed in. They were SUPER confusing. Which is why Zoryn had to drop this class next term. Unfortunately, it wasn’t something she needed in her life. NOPE. Hopefully her head of house would understand.

She studied the diagram for all of TWO SECONDS (which was a lot for her) before she picked up her scalpel again and started working. Making a small incision in the neck as caaaaarefully (or not) as she could, she cut open a straight line. Man. This was a lot harder than she had expected. They should’ve practiced on carrots first tbh. Then, doing her very best she tried to make flaps again by starting in the middle of her crooked line and sort of cutting diagonally. Instead of cutting triangles…. She sort of got two weird, pointy rectangles?

OOOOOOOH they had tongues? Weiiiiiiiiiird !!!!!!

She didn’t have an answer for the question either ‘cause she was WAY too entertained by poking the mandrake in it’s mouth!!! HAHAHAHA. It’s tongue was wild. She only looked up again when she realized they were receiving further instructions??? WAIT A MINUTE!!! SHE WASN’T LISTENING!!! Um. Okay so they were sort of cutting the head or something? That’s what Zzoryn got from the diagram. She tried to follow along the best she could, but maaaaaaaay have cut too thickly. So uh, WAIT. No brains?????

As for the next question??? Zoryn had NO clue. ”If sentient means they can, uh, FEEL and mandrakes are like carrots… Then I sure hope they’re not sentient…” She was thinking out loud. ”Cause then I’d feel really bad about biting into carrots.” And that was her answer. Yup. Definitely not a real answer, but at least she spoke up this time??? Maybe??? IMAGINE IF CARROTS COULD FEEL!!! Dude. That would be SO sad. Rabbits would be MURDERERS!

Jessa was going to ignore that. In fact, she gave no acknowledgement when the Professor justified a meltdown where there shouldn't have BEEN one if the right measures had been taken. It was all too easy not to show up, he could have done the essay, this should have been a non-issue.

Rather than focus on that and the fact the Professor was now back beside her AGAIN trying to console her friend, she would focus on the information he was handing out and the fact she'd almost been right.

More importantly, they could keep cutting.

The Ravenclaw reclaimed her scalpel, carefully creating the box shaped incisions along its head. No brain on the inside was interesting and brought forward a whole lot of other questions that she assumed the Professor would get to at some point.

"I think they can still be sentient in some way, 'cause they're plants and have a working system that carries messages through them without the need for a brain specifically. Kinda like how some plants KNOW to release poison when they're being eaten. I think they just find another means."

Which was rather curious and if true, she would very much like to study these means.

Emmeline smiled at Miss Etta and Mr. Henry and everyone else who came over to where Derf was standing. She was glad that so many people wanted to help her friend, especially the older kids 'cause older kids don't always care about kids younger than them. She squeezed Derf's shoulder lightly and muttered: "C'mon Derf, wanna go outside?" She was definitely thinking that staying in here with all this Dark energy the professor was giving off was NOT helping him. Besides, they could go to the barns and he could see Picketta. That would cheer him up for sure!

One thing that she was super positive would NOT cheer her friend up was Professor Dark Wizard screaming to the whole class that he was having a meltdown and that it was okay! It was definitely not okay, because now he'd be all embarrassed and everyone would notice and it would just make everything soooo much worse.

Emmeline was 95% focused on her friend and the other kids around them, but she was lowkey kind of listening to Professor Dark Wizard and all his talking. And what he was saying was so scary! They were going to cut the heads open?! She hadn't thought that dissection meant messing up the faces, and she hadn't expect plants to have people parts or look like babies or anything like that. Or she would've stayed in the common room.

And then something even worse happened. The first year had no clue what "sentient" meant, but unfortunately she was able to figure it out from her classmates' answers to the professor's awful question. "You mean...they can think and FEEL?", she asked with wide, round eyes and a dawning sense of horror. If that was true, then..then...they weren't really very plant-like at all. It was like they were dissecting creatures! Which was... No. No no no no. She had NOT signed up for that. It didn't even matter that they were dead now, because the Dark Wizard someone had had to murder them to get them that way. Emmeline took a couple of steps away from Derf, because her stomach was churning and full of worms suddenly, and her hands were all sweaty and why couldn't she BREATHE?! Tears streaked down the girl's face as she took a few more steps back, but she still couldn't breathe. The Dark wizard had killed the mandrakes and now he was killing her too...

Why was the greenhouse spinning?!

Etta was mildly upset that Derf wasn't allowed to leave. So was he going to have to stay for the entire class being sad? Why wasn't the professor trying to understand? But then again, it really wasn't her place to think what was best for the younger Hufflepuff at the moment so.. she simply let it go. She gave Derf another bright smile, hoping that would cheer him up somehow before making her way back towards her workstation since the professor was already moving on to the next part of the lesson.. although was it just her or did he look confused? Professor Paul was almost always hyper anyway. Ahem.

Mandrakes didn't have a brain.. interesting. But what wasn't interesting was that they had to make another incision. Like, really? There were already enough incisions on the poor thing, ugh. Looking slightly disgruntled, she observed the diagram for a moment before proceeding to use her wand to make an incision on his head. She casted a Diffindo down the ridge on its forehead until it formed a straight line. A reasonably straight line, at least. Then she went on to make square-shaped incisions on both sides of the ridge.. about half an inch thick, just as the professor instructed. Okay, that was done. She examined the inside of it's head for a little bit, confirming the fact that the mandrakes didn't have a brain. Hm. The girl wasn't keen on digging too much, though. Yeah, no. At least, this was the last incision.. that was a relief.

"Yes, professor. I do think they are still sentient because they're plants and plants.. are living creatures after all. Maybe they don't think or feel the way we do but they have a life of their own and I'm sure they have their own way of looking at things.. of differentiating things between good and bad. Etta answered, raising a hand.

So his answer hadn't been completely wrong. Olly felt relieved and kind of good about that as he listened to the next instructions. He took the scalpel and cut a line on the mandrake's head, and then cut two chunks off from either side of the line. He poked around in the little holes he'd made and discovered, as Professor Myers had said, that there was no brain. That was kind of a relief, actually. Brains made things smart, and smart plants could probably take over the world.

Olly didn't know that mandrakes had personalities. Sure they could move around and scream and whatnot. Sentience he got, but personalities? That was a bit more difficult for him to wrap his head around. "Things can be sentient without brains. It's probably....the magic. Portraits, for example, would be considered sentient, yeah? But they don't have brains either."

Skylar wasn't sure if Professor Myers was just being nice, but the way he said Photosynthesis is IMPORTANT in this process, yes; well, the fourth year just blinked and stared. Was that sarcasm? She knew sarcasm but why was she having a hard time recognizing it all of a sudden. Probably the fact that Myers was a professor and older meant she had a difficult time processing that wasn't being completely serious. Even if he did wear ponchos that made him look ridiculous. Probably too because she struggled with Herbology concepts.

But then when he carried on with the discussion and said used photosynthesis, Skylar determined she actually HAD said something useful. What!?! Complete accident, of course, when she said something intelligent in this class at least.

And last incision she had to make, it seemed... they were exploring the head of the mandrake. With care, she jabbed her scalpel into the little ridge on its forehead and drew the blade down just a bit. Squares were easier than triangles because at least she didn't have to think too much which way to invert the triangle. Gouging out a chunk on each side of her initial incision, she noted the lack of brain as Myers said it so very loudly the revelation as well. And now they were talking about the fact that they didn't have brains and how they couldn't vocalize speech in the way humans did, but just screamed.

Uh, why were her classmates talking about the mandrakes feeling? "Mandrakes can NOT think or feel without a brain though because a brain contains the hippocampus and amygdala, which are two key centers for controlling emotions. So while the mandrakes scream, they don't necessarily realize that's all they are doing because don't have the ability to think about their actions. They don't have that frontal lobe for thinking. They don't have the Broca's area for speech and dialect. They just make noise because they have the vocal cords and lungs for it, but they can't put that noise into any communicative words." She might not have known about the inner workings of plants, but human anatomy and the workings of the brain was actually fascinating to read about and it definitely applied here. Didn't it?

Also, she was pretty sure magic portraits were different and couldn't really be compared here because the portrait was based on a human who likely did have a brain.

Derf was having a meltdown - as always!

The next incision was the head.

It was the last incision she was going to make.

Something was seriously going on with Paul.

Huh, so the plants made their own oxygen. Interesting. By this point in the lesson Isa was more focused on Derf than the dissection. Really? Professor Myers had announced Derf’s meltdown to the whole class? Okay, so Derf had been loud so the whole class knew about it already, but Isa didn’t think it was nice for Professor Myers to single Derf out in front of the whole class like that.

What makes a being sentient? ”Plants are living things, but not everything that is alive is sentient. I think sentient beings have some degree of autonomy to make decisions, can feel emotions, and can think for themselves. The mandrakes aren’t really thinking, it’s more of a self defense thing like roses on thorns. Plants also don’t have nervous systems which sentient beings have. There’s also magic, which makes this question more complicated. I don’t think the mandrakes are sentient, but what makes something sentient is a really complicated answer so it’s probably not an absolute no.” She really hoped that they weren’t sentient, because she was morally against harming sentient things. If plants were sentient, she would have a lot of trouble eating. If plants were sentient, Isa wanted to be a sunflower or a tree instead so she could get her energy from the sun and nutrients from the soil instead of eating sentient things. Maybe a tree because those lived a lot longer than flowers. Yes, being a plant was something Isa had always wanted to do. Just, like, not now because she loved her family and friends and would prefer to be around for them. Actually, being a plant might not be a good idea. It would make her life pretty awkward. Hard to keep up good friendships with people and see your family or go to lessons when you were a plant. Not that she would be worried about any of that stuff if she was a plant, but Isa was perfectly happy with her life as it was.

In the midst of all of the fuss over Derf, Isa spotted her friend Emmeline. Oh no, Emmeline didn’t look so good. Isa walked over to her friend and stood right by Emmeline with a hand on the younger girl’s shoulder. ”Emmeline? Are you feeling okay? You look like you’re about to pass out or something. You should sit down. Do you need anything?” She was staying right here with her friend. No way was she going to leave Emmeline’s side when Emmeline wasn’t feeling well, and Isa needed to make sure that Emmeline wasn’t going to faint and hit her head. Emmeline was crying too, and Isa needed to be there for her friend. Isa wasn’t going to go back to her mandrake, not when one of her best friends was having a meltdown and one of her other best friends looked like she was going to pass out. Friends were more important than mandrakes.