After classes on Friday was usually Baby Creature Time. Emmeline's faaavorite thing to do at Hogwarts was to take care of her cruppy, Sirius, and the baby nifflers who hadn't been adopted last term. Soo she was kind of super mad at herself for getting a detention at the start of the weekend that cut into that time, mhm. She felt like 50 points off Gryffindor AND a detention was a bit much, too, but if she was honest with herself, she was more okay with the detention part than the house points part. Just 'cause a detention only punished her -- and her creatures but she totally wasn't gonna think about that -- but the loss of points punished allll of her Housemates too. Who hadn't even done anything wrong. Plus, Zoryn had done looooads worse stuff to professors and hadn't lost so many points (not even in total). So the points thing was totally unfair, but she wasn't going to argue about it or even bring it up with Professor Myers.

It was a good thing that she'd been practicing controlling her facial expressions and tone of voice so much for the upcoming play auditions, 'cause she was able to keep allll of her internal anger and disappointment in herself OFF her face and out of her voice. Instead, she approached Professor Myers outside of his meeting space with a fairly neutral look on her face. She swallowed nervously as she got closer to the professor, 'cause he looked realllllly happy and she had a feeling that that was a BAD sign for her. Still, she gave him a small smile and said perfectly politely, "Hiiii, Professor." She even resisted the urge to ask how long this was gonna take, mhm. She could totally handle this.

Oh look! Emmeline had arrived right on time, then. Paul smiled gently in her direction as well. She seemed less upset than earlier this week when Paul had actually caught her in his meeting space. "You're on time. Good, good. Take two points for being prompt," he winked.

"Before we go inside, I must tell you...you have a very simple task for today. You simply have to walk across the sand pit....and write some lines on the chalkboard located on the other side. You'll find a few...obstacles along the way," he cleared his throat, keeping his tone casual.

Paul smiled, waited for any questions she may have. "Oh! The lines you have to write are... "I will not sneak out of bed after curfew." Easy, right?" he nodded and opened the door. "You may step inside and begin."

---

The sand pit looked the same, but slightly off. The sand had been siphoned into the middle, and on either side honking daffodils lined the 'trail' in their pots, very peacefully swaying in the quiet room. At the end of the sandpit pathway was a chalkboard, and on the chalk holder were multicolored pieces of chalk. "Oh! One more thing!" He gestured at the daffodils. "Do...do not wake them up. Or....or something very bad will happen. It will...set you back a bit," he remained vague, and headed for a lounging char over in the corner, putting his sunglasses on as he flopped down, and leaned back, in his chair.

"You may use your wand if necessary, Miss Sparkes." He yawned.

A small smile crawled its way across the second year's face as she earned back a couple of points for being on time. Emmeline's smile QUICKLY faded, though, as she listened to the professor's instructions and scanned the now-transformed sandpit. Something was OFF, all right -- that sounded wayyyy too easy. Which, naturally, meant that it wouldn't be easy at all. She didn't remember annnnnything about these plants other than their name -- honking daffodils. And the name sort of implied the dangerous thing about them, didn't it? They were probably SUPER, ridiculously loud when they woke up. And and, they probably did something EVIL too; Professor Myers had been wayyyyyy too mad when she'd tried to sneak into his office to give her something easy to do.

Emmeline scanned the room suspiciously, trying to search out any other traps that might not be super obvious at first glance. The professor had probably done something to the sand trail too, mhm. Something to wake the plants up on purpose or hidden traps to keep her from crossing the room. He was wayyy too creative for this detention to be all easy or straightforward; this professor ran drama club, after all. He was creative.

Still, the Gryffindor didn't complain and tried not to show anything on her face that could be taken as her having a bad attitude. She simply looked up at the professor and asked quietly, "How many times do I have to write that, Professor?"

At least he wasn't taking her wand away. If the plants turned out to be changed to do something EVIL, well -- at least her wand was good at fire spells.

The honking daffodils were eerily still. Unwavering, so to speak. It was, indeed, ominous. Were they sleeping? Could they sleep? Was now the time to really wonder, or should you just begin your task?

Not to mention, was there something different about the sand, Gryffindor, or was it just your eyes? Take a dip and see, won't you?

That chalkboard at the end of the room doesn't seem so far away, does it? Let's see how long the task takes you, rule breaker.

What, she hadn't started yet?! Paul had taken out a magazine to start reading, too, while he lounged! He cleared his throat. "Um...." he squinted at the board. "Let's say...thirty times? Is that too little or too much?" he didn't quite know because, frankly, the lines were going to be the least of her worries.

But she'd soon figure that out.

"Let's go with 45. Maybe 30. Let's see how long this takes you, actually. Maybe it'll only be one time." Hmmm. "Go on, then, child."

Professor Myers's attitude about how many lines she'd have to write totally confirmed her suspicions: the lines weren't the point of this at alllll. Emmeline had a STRONG suspicion that even reaching the chalkboard was probably just some made-up goal. Like like, it was to make her cross the room and whatever EVIL stuff was hiding in the sand, but the board wasn't actually the point of the detention, you know? The evil stuff was.

"One is gooood," she replied hopefully. As in, she hoped she'd be able to cross the room and back -- but it didn't sound like Myers even reallllly expected her to. Plus, the way he was sitting in that chair kind of reminded her of how she and Cami would sit on the couch and watch those Muggle show things on Cami's Muggle box, mhm. Which meant that this detention was about to get reallllly evil, reallllly fast.

Hopefully not TOO evil. She'd already seen the inside of the hospital wing as a patient once this term and she wasn't eager to go back annny time soon. The twelve-year-old took a deeep breath silently, squared her shoulders in pure determination to get through this, and pulled her wand out of her holster. Okay. This would be fine, eventually, right?

Cami would come looking for her eventually. With that thought in mind, Emmeline bit her lip and slooooowly stretched her legs out until she'd taken a step into the sand. She paused, listening intently and just WAITING for about half a second, before...

Before breaking out into a RUN and trying to sprint towards the board. 'Cause being cautious wasn't going to help, not if something bad was going to happen either way. Plus, if the sand was normal -- well, then it should cover the sound of her footsteps and keep the flowers "asleep", right??

At first, it seemed as though the lion's footing in the sand was normal, but soon, as she quickened her pace, it was very apparent that the sand, as she had suspected, was not normal.

She was sinking.

And the faster she tried to run, the faster she was sinking into the ground, or, sand.

Did you expect quicksand, young lion?

Suddenly, the sand is up to your knees, and is it just you or...is this quicksand also...weird for quicksand? It almost seems to have a life of its own...forming its way up and around you...

This was SOOOOOO much worse than evil plants or anything else that Emmeline had been expecting. In fact, it was eerily similar to being in one of her nightmares; magic was causing something to circle her, to TRAP her, and suddenly she couldn't move, couldn't breathe...

Why did it always have to feel like she was drowning lately? Her first biiiig panic attack (or at least that was what the Healers called it -- she would've sworn it was reallllly dying) had happened earlier in the term, when she'd thrown that gnome at the BoGer and he'd trapped her by wrapping vines around her body. She'd frozen then, exactly like she was doing now...

And and, she couldn't see anything now either; her eyes were clouded over with tears that she desperately didn't want to shed... She needed to wipe them away, but her arms and legs allll felt heavy and like they couldn't move.

She was already dead. Any second now, her father's face was going to loom out of the darkness -- the way it always did when he'd trapped her with his magic -- and then her world would be nothing but PAIN and blood and darkness...

She wished the darkness bit would hurry up sometimes. Because all she could do now was all that she could ever do; Emmeline screamed as loudly as she could. She'd forgotten about the loud plants, forgotten where she was or what was really happening. There was a familiar yet strange pounding in her ears, sort of a cross between a drum and a river roaring off in the distance...

It didn't matter much, anyway. She'd always known that He'd win in the end. Isn't that what Mum always told her whenever she tried to fight back? And that one time she'd actually managed to get a wand in her hand.... Well, she'd heard the Healers telling her big brother that she was lucky to be alive.


The wand in her hand now felt just as useless as her mother's wand had back then. Emmeline briefly tried to remember a spell -- any spell at all, really -- that could help her, but her mind just felt the familiar blank numbness spreading throughout her body and...

She was done. She'd bought herself a year by coming to Hogwarts, and maybe a few more months by living with Cami, but none of it had mattered in the end. He'd been right all along because she couldn't breathe at all now, and even though the pain hadn't hit yet, the magic wasn't going to let up ever, and she could already see spots of darkness forming in front of her eyes.

Sometimes she secretly wished the darkness would hurry up.

As soon as she screamed, and the screams filled the air, the honking daffodils soon joined the screaming with their intense honking. The noises echoed around the small room, which filled it to the brim with sound waves. Anyone listening would think it was a lot of noise.

Since the daffodils were all disturbed and awake, the sand suddenly stopped sucking the lion down into its depths. It gathered around Emmeline, moving almost in a way that would make someone think the sand were alive, and became dense enough to pick Emmeline up within itself and push her back to the beginning. Back to the part of the room that came before the sand trail. The sand rattled back into the pit, falling still instantly as it was back in its place.

Paul hadn't expected Emmeline to be happy about the sand, but he supposed he had higher hopes for someone in Gryffindor to be able to handle it. He was wrong. There was some trauma in Emmeline's life, too, and he wondered if that had to do with her inability to handle the quicksand. Perhaps, this was it. Hmmm. His internal thoughts were swimming around. The scream proved as much to him, and it jolted him into standing and rushing over to her once the sand had pushed back to the beginning. The daffodils were giving him a HEADACHE, so he quickly waved his wand and silenced them. They were still honking, but no sound had come out. Another wave of his wand, and the daffodils were calmed and....they would be quiet.

He helped her to her feet. "Emmeline." He said gently, his hand on her shoulder. "You can do this," he said encouragingly. "There is a way to do this. And all you need to do....is sneak. Slowly. And with precision." He gestured at the sand before taking a step inside himself. "Come on. I'll do it with you." He was whispering. "We just have to be slow and steady. And not...wake...the daffodils. Are we have to start over."

Her eyes were the size of saucers as the sand kept climbing up and up her body -- until her screams woke up the daffodils. They were so LOUD!! Emmeline was briefly distracted from her panic by the sound, and had just been thinking about maybe trying to send red sparks out the window or something 'cause Professor Myers was trying to kill her, obviously, when--

When the sand sort of somehow got reallllly heavy and picked her up and pushed her back to the other side of the room like it was nothing. Honestly, that part was pretty scary too 'cause she'd first thought that the sand was going to do something loads worse than carry her somewhere. She supposed it probably would have kept on killing her if she hadn't screamed. The Gryffindor clapped her hands over her ears to cover them as much as she could until Professor Myers made them be quiet again. She flinched at his hand on her shoulder and stared and STARED at him as he kept talking.

She was firstly all embarrassed and stuff 'cause he'd had to help her up -- not to mention save her from his evil killer sand, which she should've somehow done herself. Soo her face was turning a realllllly bright shade of red. Like way beyond tomato red and probably going towards purple kind of red, mhm. She could tell 'cause even her ears felt all hot and stuff. But then...he really shocked her again. Twice.

First when he was all telling her he'd do it with her. While she hated the idea of needing help and stuff, she thought that the sand probably wouldn't kill her if he was with her. 'Cause what he was saying about sneaking made NO sense at all to the second year. She opened and closed her mouth with small pop!s a few times, like a fish and spluttered, "Sneak?! But...but I got in trouble for sneaking in the first place." The sneaking was the second shock. And it was totally bigger than annny of the others, except for the sand turning out to be murderous and stuff.

This was why she didn't understand adults at ALL. First they say don't sneak, then they say it's totally okay to sneak in the SAME place... It made 0 sense. Still, Emmeline had a nasty feeling that she wouldn't be allowed to leave this detention until she'd completed it. Really, that was the only thing that compelled her to step lightly and softly onto the sand and slowly advance towards the blackboard next to Professor Myers.

She didn't trust him at ALL and made suuuper doubly sure that her pace matched his exactly as they moved on. She still didn't think the professor's killer sand would hurt him no matter what, but she really wanted to get out of here and get some cruppy cuddles some time before curfew -- so she wouldn't have to sneak into the barns too.

Paul turned to her with his head cocked to the side a little, almost like a child playing. "That's the irony, though. In order to get out of this punishment...you have to sneak." Paul was a fan of the ironic punishments, okay? "And maaaaaaybe you'll think twice about sneaking around next time, Miss Sparkes." He grinned. "You know, one of my bandmates names is Mark Sparks. But he doesn't have an E in his surname. I had wondered if you were related when we first met." But since the spelling was different...he doubted it. And with Emmeline's family problems...the chance was slim.

He was wading through the sand, though, VERY slow. He whispered. "Honking Daffodils are easy to please, did you know?" he asked in a hushed tone.

As the duo inched their way into the sand, slowly, the sand thickened around their legs, but as long as they moved slowly, it did not suck them into its pull. It stayed tame.

The daffodils rocked gently as if in lullaby.

Keep on, young lion and old plant-man.

As the sand started thickening around her legs, Emmeline grew more and more tense. She half-expected it to attack at any second, but she still tried to stay all quiet and stealthy anyway. And and, she made a much bigger effort to stay exactly even with or a tiiiny bit behind Professor Myers as they walked closer and closer to the board. 'Cause she was still preeettty sure that the killer sand wouldn't attack him, mhm.

Her brow knitted in confusion as Professor Myers tried to explain his punishment. She still didn't get it, 'cause how was learning how to sneak through sand better going to make her NOT sneak next time? She wasn't super sure what the word "irony" meant, either, but she quickly decided to drop it. Adults were just confusing people in general, and she didn't really expect to understand any of them any time soon. Soo she just nodded silently as the professor said maybe she wouldn't sneak next time. Of course, this wasn't going to make her stop sneaking or anything like that, but as long as the professor thought his detention was working, that was all that mattered.

She blinked in surprise as Professor Myers started talking about a band mate, though, 'cause that was weird. She had a hard time picturing the Herbology professor in a band or doing anything fun, you know? She whispered back, "I don't think there are any Marks in my family, Professor. But you're in a band?? What d'you play?" 'Cause she had to admit that being in a band was kind of...cool. Maybe. Maybe it was a weird, poncho-wearing band of Dark wizards or something -- but Emmeline had a hard time picturing that, too.

The second year shook her head as the professor asked about his loud flowers. She'd only remembered the name of the flowers and stuff. Keeping her voice a soooft whisper too, she said: "Noooo. But Derf's dad says reallly annoying people are like honking daffodils." Her friend had told her that in conversation some time ago. And she could totally see what his dad meant now, mhm.

Little steps. Slow, little steps. Paul was sure to stay close to Emmeline, too, so she would feel like they were in this together. He just nodded at her question. "Yes, I'm in a blue grass band. It's like...folk music. And I play the banjo," he grinned down at her. "I started playing when I was a...fifth year? Sixth year?" Couldn't remember exactly now. "It's one of my favorite hobbies. We do shows over the summer when I'm not here. But I practice year round." Talking about his band made him cheerful! "We call ourselves BLEU GRASSE. Spelled all Frenchy," he winked. They thought they were SOOOOOO clever, eh?

He almost snorted in laughter, VERY LOUDLY, at the tidbit about Derf's dad, which...HA! He could see it. "Well, he's not wrong. Honking daffodils can be annoying, like anything else, because if you don't appease them, they continue to honk like little ducklings. But I...I have a soft spot for them." For some reason. He could remember his anger when Daxton Prince had experimented, VERY illegally, with his little flowers.

At least Emmeline hadn't made him that angry.

Folk music? Emmeline supposed she should've known that the Herbology professor would be in some reallllly weird kind of band and stuff; he liked to dance around in ponchos and stuff too, so being a banjo player was kind of right up his alley in the twelve-year-old's opinion. Still, she couldn't help giggling at the band's name, 'cause it was, well, funny. She clapped a hand over her mouth as soooon as the first giggles escaped and shot apprehensive looks at the honking flowers AND at the evil sand below her. This task was taking aaaaages 'cause they had to walk SOOOO slowly to get across the room. Emmeline wasn't the most patient child ever, but as long as the sand didn't attack again...

She whispered back conspiratorially, still thinking of the professor's band: "That's cooool. Loads of older kids here are obsessed with people in bands. They have all these Muggle magazines and they STARE at pictures in the common room." She thought he should know. Emmeline wasn't really sure why she thought that was important, but she had this FEELING and stuff.

Normally the second year's eyes would be glazing over by this point after so much talking about plants, buuut flowers were usually the exception to her "Herbology is boring" rule. Plus, she thought it was a good idea to learn stuff about the flowers looming over the path right now, mhm. "They're pretty," she offered as Professor Myers started talking about his soft spot -- mostly 'cause she couldn't think of anything nicer to say about the flowers. And, she was sorta glad now that she'd frozen up when the sand attacked (even if that was embarrassing and un-Gryffindor-like and uggghhh) 'cause her best defensive spells were fire-type spells. And she probably would've fired one off by accident if she hadn't frozen up first, mhm. Which would totally not be fair to the flowers, since apparently all they did was honk.