Class Time: An Abundance of Ick

As Haruhi started third year, it was time for her to pick up two other classes. She didn't have to look twice at the list of courses offered to know she wanted to take Care of Magical Creatures. She always loved animals and since she was not allowed to have any pets at home, she figured taking the class would give her the opportunity to pet some unique and cute animals. She didn't realize that would also mean caring for some less than pleasant creatures.

Their first assignment was flobberworms, which were as pleasant as their name sounded. Taking notes on them in the previous class made Haruhi less than excited than she was when she had signed up for the class. She considered pretending to be sick, but she knew she couldn't skip class forever, so she sucked it up and went to class.

They were to be harvesting the mucus of the flobberworm, which was a useful potions ingredient. Useful or not, Haruhi stuck her tongue out at the notion that they had to actually pick them up. They were to partner up and then receive a bucket to put the flobberworms in, taking them from a compost bin, and then get to work. Haruhi sighed heavily. Maybe if she found the right partner, they'd do all the work and she could just watch. She scored the class before settling on someone who looked like they might not mind getting their hands dirty. "Hey! Want to be partners?" She asked.

Julie-Pierre took Care of Magical Creatures because it seemed the least horrible of all the other third year class options. It couldn't be that bad, taking care of cool animals. So far he was disappointed. Not that he expected too much from a class. He just thought it would be more fun than it was so far. At least the homework wasn't too time consuming, even it was incredibly boring. 

They had been observing flobberworms but hadn't actually had to touch them so far, which was more than fine with him. Now they had to harvest its mucus. Autumn was probably having more fun in Muggle Studies, doing stuff that didn't require getting her hands dirty. He looked around for a partner when someone approached him. He looked up. "Haruhi?" His face brightened. Harvesting mucus would probably be more fun with friends. "Sure!" He lined up with her to get a bucket of flobberworms. One glance into the bucket made his stomach lurch. "I hope you can touch them without throwing up," he cautioned.

Haruhi smiled as Julie-Pierre agreed to working with her. Surely it couldn't be too bad now that she had a friend for a partner. However, watching as his face changed colors upon seeing the bucket, Haruhi could scratch the idea of having him do all the work.

Before Julie-Pierre could throw up, Haruhi quickly snatched the bucket of flobberworms and moved the pair of them far from the abundance of worms. "Maybe we could use gloves?" Haruhi offered, sympathetic of Julie-Pierre's sensitive stomach. She didn't feel nauseated herself, well, when Julie-Pierre wasn't dry heaving, that was, but still wasn't eager to start picking up worms with her bare hands.