Somewhere that's Green

Pink. Fluffly. Earmuffs. That's what he was required to wear that herbology class, along with gardening gloves and the marvelous brown-colored, possibly once white, scrubs. Quentin wasn't much obsessed with fashion, but the thing that really bothered him about the pink earmuffs was the inability to hear anything else with them on. He couldn't hear his own charming voice speak when they were clapped over his ears, let alone the Professor when he told them to listen up, that class was starting.

Quentin watched with partially glazed over eyes as the Professor spoke animatedly about the potted plants in front of him. The leaves shifted slightly every now and then, but Quentin was still vastly confused as to why they must wear the earmuffs which forced Professor Ellis to yell them their lecture. That was, the confusion lasted until the Professor gripped onto the plant and then pulled it out. The leaves were attached to a large root that was almost shaped like an infant and it screamed a high pitched scream as it was removed from the secure soil. Quentin's hands reflexively went to his ears and landed on the pink earmuffs as he watched the Professor repot the plant. Only when the root was covered with soil again did it stop its screaming.

They were to do the same with partners because, as Professor Ellis mentioned, the screams of the plants could knock them unconsciously, which would be, to say in the least, inconvenient. With the signal for them to get to work given, Quentin turned to the person next to him to see if they would be interested in being his partner. "Seems simple enough, right?" He said to them. "They're kinda freaky, though, whatever they are. But what's the worst they can do?" He said, with a smile and then turned to the potted plant in front of the two of them for them to repot. "I think he looks like a Frank. What do you think?"

Another year of Herbology and Marie-Laure didn't hold out much hope she would improve. There was something about the combination of plants and herself which spelled disaster. Her essays were relatively reasonable in comparison to the practical side of this awful subject. Better than being made to wear pink fluffy earmuffs. Why were they pink when the school uniform was blue? Wouldn't that be better?

She begrudgingly put the earmuffs on and watched Professor Ellis pull a plant out of a pot. A screaming baby. It looked scarily like her baby cousin back home. And she bet if she weren't wearing earmuffs it would sound like her cousin. Loud and screaming cries which disturbed the entire street. "These plants are just plain weird," she remarked to her neighbour. That was the main problem with herbology. Marie-Laure could handle a houseplant so long as it was someone else taking care of it. The plants she learnt at the school so far were worse than anything she'd ever encountered before. Even that cactus plant she'd had the misfortune to walk into on a school trip back in Brussels a couple of years back was preferable to this lot.

Marie-Laure could see Charon's lips move but she was not a lip reader. After her previous experiences with this boy it was probably just as well she couldn't understand what he was saying. It was all just a faint distant murmur which would be utter nonsense. Instead of asking him to speak louder she just mutely picked up the bigger pot and placed it in front of them before filling the bottom of it with a thin layer of soil. She may be no good at Herbology but even a fool could put a little dirt in a pot. She put the shovel down and then folded her arms. "Since you're the one with the put you can pull it out and put it in there. Then we'll fill it up." The possibility that she may not have put enough dirt in for the mandrake to sit on hadn't occurred to her.

This had to be the most boring class ever, at least that was Caleb's opinion. Why should he take a class that he had no interest in? He had no interest in plants and his grade in this class last year was awful. He didn't understand why they had to wear these pink earmuffs. Why couldn't they make them wear different colors? He was okay with having different colors, but just pink was terrible. He didn't like the color pink much.

His hearing was muffled by the earmuffs, he couldn't hear what was going on around him. He wasn't good at reading lips either. But once the professor demonstrated pulling out the plant out of the pot and replanted it, it was pretty clear what they had to do. He know knew why they had to have their ears covered and he was now greatful for the pink. He just hoped that he did this right. Maybe he'd just let his partner do all of the work.

Herbology wasn't Paige's favorite class but it was by no means one she hates either, she just didn't particularly care either way. Some of the plants were really cool and others were just plain weird but it was, interesting to say the least. Today there were met with huge, fluffy, pink earmuffs at their stations and the little blonde just smiled, they looked like cotton candy. It was cute she thought, cotton candy earmuffs for her day of plant potting. She was partnered up with Caleb to other candy loving twelve year old in the school, she couldn't hear anything but assumed they were just to pull it out and move it to a bigger pot. The 'it' she referred to was actually a screaming baby root thing, mandrake as the teacher had said earlier.

She turned to her partner when it was time to start and smiled before handing him the bigger pot and a hand shovel. She then pulled the baby plant out of its pot and placed it in the pot she had just given Caleb. She hoped he understood that he was to recover the plant with the soil and it was stop screaming soon, she couldn't hear it but it looked absolutely miserable squirming like it was.

Of all the people to be partnered up with, it had to be Marie-Laure Sylvian. The girl was brilliant, he'd give her that, but she was also rather cold to his childish-ness and very demanding and didn't like it when he messed up. He looked around the classroom to see who he could've been partnered with and felt a pang of jealously of the group of Paige and Caleb. He'd give anything to have either as a partner instead of Marie-Laure. Nonetheless, he faced his partner with a smile and nodded along to her command. He pulled the creepy screamy plant closer to himself and then grabbed a hold of the leaves on top, holding them close to the roots.

"I'm gonna call him Frank," he told her, before yanking at the plant. She never agreed nor disagreed to the name so the plant's name was now Frank.

Frank was stubborn, Quentin decided. Though he was only twelve, he still had some sort of muscles going on from intense Quidditch practices but it took at least three good yanks before he pulled Frank from his nest in the ground and up to the cold air. Immediately the screams of Frank filled the classroom along with the other screaming baby-root plants that were in transit of being repotted.

Quentin stared at the thing for a moment, wanting to examine it up close. He really wanted to get the thing to stop crying, so he decided to tickle it, like one would a crying baby. However, Frank was having none of that and decided to bite him instead. "Ouch ouch! He bite me!" He announced to Marie-Laure, hoping to receive some sort of help from her.

Caleb hated the sound of the screaming plant, it reminded him of a baby and babies were loud. He could faintly hear it over his earmuffs. He couldn't imagine hearing it without the pink fluff. He was not having fun. At all. If anyone found this fun, they were weird and a bit stupid. The poor plant screamed and looked like it was in pain. He wondered if it had a gender. How could you even tell? Do plants even have genders? He wasn't sure but it looked just like a baby. A very ugly baby, but still a baby.

After Paige put the ugly creature into the bigger pot, he set it down gently and began to scoop soil onto the plant. The plant still looked upset even though Caleb was almost done filling the pot. "This isn't so ha-" He spoke to soon, the mandrake spit soil at Caleb and screamed on. "Gross! It got in my mouth!"

What was he saying? She couldn't be certain but one word sounded like prank. However that was all she could pick up with those awful pink earmuffs on her ears. "Who do you want to prank?" she asked as she watched him try to yank the plant out of the pot. Marie-Laure was more than thankful she let him have that task. It sure did look hard to pull a plant out of the pot.

The faint sounds of cries all over the room filtered through the earmuffs. Their plant joined the others and Marie-Laure wrinkled her nose at the mandrake. It really did look like one of her little cousins having a tantrum and that was not a pretty sight.

She pushed the larger pot closer to Quentin but he looked to be taking longer to put the plant in than necessary. Then he did the unexpected and moved to tickle the plant like it were a real human baby. The result brought a smile to her face which then laughter burbled up from deep within and out her mouth.

Perhaps this wasn't the best place for conversation, Quentin was finding, as he couldn't seem to convey his words correctly to Marie-Laure, nor could he understand any of what she was saying. He wanted to get the plant's name set, though, and tried to explain again, when he thought she had asked him who he wanted to call Frank. "Him!" He said, slightly shaking the plant. "I'm calling him Frank!"

The talking situation didn't improve much once Frank was out in the open either, for it seemed only logical that having a screaming plant right in front of your face was much more noisier than the chorus of screaming plants sounding in the far. He thought though that having a mandrake biting down on one's finger and sort of shaking the plant with a horrified expression on one's face was a universal symbol for asking for help. Apparently not, for Marie-Laure didn't move an inch as he struggled to get his digits free of the plant's mouth, which involved literally pulling the plant off.

Once his fingers were saved from being pulled off and possibly eaten by the plant, Quentin held his hand far away from the plant and cradled the plant in his other arm before realizing he was in danger of getting bitten again and then dropped the plant hastily into the new pot. Looking up, it looked like Marie-Laure was smiling. Though she had done nothing to help him in the dangerous situation he had found himself in prior, he couldn't help but take the time to experience the shock that the facial expression gave him. "Woah! Was that a smile?" It seemed rare. He didn't think he'd ever see one of those again.

Quentin had really gone nuts now. "You want to prank a plant?" Why on earth would anyone prank a plant? That had to be the craziest thing she'd ever heard muffled or not. She couldn't help asking, "how do you plan to prank it?" despite herself.

She knew she should help pull the plant off his finger but Marie-Laure found the situation so funny she couldn't pull herself together enough to act sensibly. The way he struggled with it after trying to tickle it like it were a baby was possibly one of the funniest things she'd seen in a very long time. Now she could understand why her friends had laughed at her with the cactus plant. That, however, did not have the sort of personality this mandrake did.

"I don't think it'll take a mile to fill in the dirt," she replied placidly as she calmed down. Marie-Laure began to tranquilly fill in the dirt around the crying mandrake. Soon enough they would be able to pull off these silly earmuffs and then she could really interrogate him about this prank he'd planned to pull on the mandrake.

Honestly he thought Marie-Laure was smarter than that. How was he going to Frank a plant? Well first off, Frank wasn't even a verb and secondly, the answer was obvious. "I'm just going to refer to him as Frank from now on!" He explained. Honestly, he would've thought she being the smarty know-it-all she was when it came to potions she would understand the simple concept of naming something.

After Frank viciously tried to make a meal of his ligaments, Quentin was starting to feel less fond of the plant and just wanted to get rid of him. He dropped the plant into the pot and while Marie-Laure casually filled the pot up with soil, Quentin was grabbing fist-fulls of dirt and tossing them in as fast as he could. "I like it when you smile!" He called to her, steadily reaching the end of their task. "It makes me feel less afraid that you are going to hurt me if I mess up!" He added. He was sort of horrified of her, after the whole experience with the swelling solution in the beginning of the year.