Afternoon Clean Up, Part Two

[ch_fireball]

Charlie looks around. From what he can see of them, Sprout's got her students well under way. Potter and a band of stragglers are making their way towards the Quidditch pitch, and he saw Bones and her group rounding the greenhouses some time ago. He assumes that the group with the Devil's Snare to tackle have tucked into that project

Comments

Brown, Li, Longbottom, Zabini

[ch_fireball]

Continued from here and here.

Re: Brown, Li, Longbottom, Zabini

[zabini_b]

Blaise tries to fold his hands and fails. He's still wearing those bloody awful protective gloves that Weasley forced on him earlier. Blaise has a feeling they won't be charmed off. He shakes his head in disgust and props one leg against the wall instead.

[ch_fireball]

Charlie picks up one of the remaining implements from the grass. (Things are strewn all over, but that mess can wait for later. Right now he has more challenging work to do.)

Moving quietly to a position just around the corner of the wall from the boy, Charlie extends the handle on his snare...

... and ...

... reaches out just so...

... and ...

... drops the rope over Zabini's head, tightening it as it falls past his shoulders.

[zabini_b]

"Argh!"

Blaise lurches forward, unable to put his hands out to stop himself, and lands head first in a trailing rose bush. At least it's not a magic one, he thinks, and then re-evaluates his judgement as the bush's tendrils begin to wrap themselves around him. Thorns dig in where no thorns should go.

"OW OW OW BUGGERING HELLFIRE!" he cries, and begins to thrash from side to side in an attempt to free himself. The bush encroaches further, winding itself as far as his neck. Blaise goes limp in the hope of dissuading it from going any further. If his hair gets messed up, people will pay.

Corner, Patil, Parkinson, Thomas

[ch_fireball]

Continued from here.

[Michael Corner]

[randomwiz]

"I say we do it over by the Quidditch pitch and leave the beanstalk up for everyone to see when they come out for the match later," Dean Thomas says. Dean Thomas is an idiot.

"What part of ' secret and sacred tradition' do you not understand?"

"Oh. So I guess we have to chop the stalk down, then."

"Yeah. And plant it somewhere that it won't be seen by every student who's out for a bit of sun this afternoon."

"Then maybe we could leave it standing. I mean, how are we going to chop it down? And what would we do with it then?"

Michael just looks at Thomas. Completely simple, that one. Goes after the wrong end of every problem.

"Um, maybe we could do it over behind the green houses." Thomas suggests.

"There's no clear space over there: it's all old equipment and broken pots."

"Uh, in a clearing in the Forest, then. That would keep it secret."

"You're an idiot, Thomas. You can go play farmer with the Centaurs if you want to, but I'm not going in there

[army_of_p]

"Boys," Pansy snarls, swanning across to them with a double handful of articulated gardenware. She's come to the conclusion, while rummaging admist the kit, that the entire male half of the species was, in fact, created purely to aggravate her. Should she ever meet whoever was responsible for this, she will congratulate them, because their creations were doing a bloody spectacular job.

"Any of this useful?" she asks, holding up her booty. She feels like a Muggle thing - what's it called? Swiss army knife? Metal against every knuckle. "I have no clue what I'm doing, but I'm getting the feeling that makes us equals." She pulls her best arch-superior face, and gets a sneer back from Corner, which gives her spirits the faintest tug upwards. "So what the hell is the hold-up here?"

Dean Thomas gives her the potted summary - Michael says, but it's too shady! - and Pansy rolls her eyes. "Oh please. It's a magic fucking beanstalk. Like it needs full and natural sunlight. Unless somebody has a better idea, let's do this already. I do actually

[padma_daily]

Padma wholeheartedly agrees. But Pansy's far too smug with her hoe and rake and abundance of other tools that Padma has no attention of getting aquainted with.

So she digs into the turf with the toe of her shoe - points do have a use after all - and picks the seed or bean or whatever out of the box, depositing it into it's new home.

"Watering can, anyone?"

God, she can't wait for this to be over. She has a real life to get started with.

Granger, Macmillan, Malfoy, G. Weasley

[ch_fireball]

Continued from here.

[Ernie Macmillan]

[randomwiz]

Ernie stands up and then sways dangerously. He's got Ginny Weasley on his shoulders so she can get a closer look at the Clabberts and their nests. Malfoy and Granger are supposed to be distracting the vicious things.

Ginny's not heavy, but she keeps shifting up there and digging his ribs with her knees.

Bulstrode, Finch-Fletchley, Finnigan, Lovegood

[randomwiz]

Continued from here.

[Sprout]

[randomwiz]

"Now, dears, you look almost ready to attack my Devil's Snare, but just in case you can't locate me when it's time to move on to your next project, I want to be sure you understand what you have to do with the Gingold Fruit. Who can tell me what their difficulties are?"

Finch-Fletchley's coughing escalates as she finishes, and when none of the others leaps to answer, he doubles over and coughs harder.

"Miss Lovegood. Yes, dear, you. Can you explain the ticklish bits of working with gingold fruit?"

Abbott, Goyle, Potter, Smith

[randomwiz]

Continued from here.

Bundimuns

[hannablicious]

It's hot in the Quidditch stands. Hannah blows a strand of hair out of her eyes and looks around. She has made it all the way along one row of seats and her bucket is approximately 1/3 full of Bundimuns she's pried loose. It's not quite as difficult as she thought it would be to get them off.

She leans back against bench she's been working on and wipes a drop of sweat from her chin with the back of her glove. She doesn't really want to find out what the cleaning agent would do to her skin.

Several rows down, Goyle looks up and grins. He holds up his latest conquest for her to evaluate.

"How long you think this'll take us?" he asks.

She looks up the rows and then around the stadium, section by section. She shakes her head hopelessly.

"We oughta charm these chisel things to work for us," he says.

She smiles weakly. And then she thinks about it.

"You know, that's a really brilliant idea, Greg!" She beckons him closer. "Do you know a spell for it?"

Personal Questions

[wiz_kid_zach]

Zach recovers from Hannah's jug-assault with dignity (mostly based on hiding the event from Potter and feigning nonchalance), and follows the group to the Quidditch stands, not at all relishing a hot afternoon of manual labor. What do they think he is, a wannabe groundskeeper?

Hannah seems to be coming along well with the ordering-around - doesn't she always? - and taking charge, so he meanders over in Potter's direction and blows a stray lock of hair out of his eyes while pretending to actually do their assignment and look for Bundimuns.

Now's as good a time as any. "Oi, Potter," he calls, twirling his chisel casually between two fingers. "What's all this everyone's saying about your mate Weasley rolling around under tables with Parkinson?"

[Greg Goyle]

[randomwiz]

Greg steps back and smirks at Hannah. She's not so bad. And nothing says he has to tell Draco that he didn't mind so much spending the afternoon with a coupla Hufflepuffs and Potter cuz it turns out the girl wanted to ditch the other two and that was good with him.

Turns out she's pretty good at Charms, too. It only took her a coupla goes to figure out a spell that'd do what he'd said.

So now, they're grinning at each other, and their chisels are crackin away at the Bundimuns all by themselves.

Greg turns around to see Potter over by the goal posts, wiping sweat off his face and lookin annoyed. That'll make a good story to tell Draco later.