The Bug Collector | marauders

Our Little Botanist

After their venture in the wilderness Sirius and Rose returned to the Herbology greenhouses, a few coughs could still be heard between them on occasion, but mostly the glass structure was filled with the echos of laughter.

"We're never going to find a unicorn!" Rose whisper yelled before plopping down next to some potted plants.

Sirius was leaning ever so slightly on the table.

"No we're not, but, I do have a more do-able proposition for our little botanist."

"Me?"

"Yes you, Love. Now, if Moony or myself got more of what we tried, do you think you could grow it?"

"Sirius! Absolutely not!" she said playfully.

"It was worth a shot, right?" He responded, laughing and thereafter leaning further into the table.

That's when she heard the sound of a clay pot wobbling, then that same flowerpot smashing on the ground. Followed by a piercing scream. The scream of a mandrake, something that could render someone unconscious or worse.

She covered her ears quickly and displayed for Sirius to do the same.

_____

Rose woke up in Madam Pomfrey's.

"Oi! Sirius, she's up mate!" James yelled to Sirius' hospital bed before Rose could even process being awake.

"You guys are lucky Remus found you and not some professor or prefect." James said an honorable amount quieter.

"How did you find us?" She asked Remus who was seated next to Potter.

"Just did." He responded in a mellow voice.

"I also cleaned up, couldn't tell a thing had happened."

"Thanks, Moons." James said for the other two.

Once she was feeling a little more awake Rose spoke up again

"Hey guys? I had another idea for a prank last night."

"I'm listening." James said.

"And it'll involve Snivellus." She continued.

"And now I'm listening" Sirius said

"We'll need five vials of polyjuice potion." Rose said with the hint if a smirk.

Polyjuice potion allowed the drinker to look like another person for an amount of time, but you needed a part of them to make it.

Remus seemed to understand what she was implying.

"We'll need some of Snape's hair." He said to the group, as if telling them to start working on who will be retrieving it.

After a good bit of argument and being shushed by Madam Pomfrey it was decided.

"We'll all get our own then. We'll have to tell Peter too." James said as Madam began shooing Remus and James out.

"I'll return your friends to you soon, Potter, but for now you and Remus have to go" The woman said sternly.

"Alright alright." James said as they exited. He also mumbled something to Remus that sounded somewhat like "now you know how we feel" but Rose couldn't quite understand it.

After that it became a race to see who could get ahold of Severus' hair the easiest, the boys had all kinds of idea, Potter suggested they should try to romance him, to which Sirius looked beyond horrified and James burst into laughter. Rose simply went to see Lily after she hung out with him to see if any fly away hairs had made it onto her sister or her things and luckily she found one. That should have made her the victor, but the game was really between the four boys.

_____

It took a whole month to collect the rest of the hairs and brew the potions, but once they did Snape had three clones of himself following him around for a few solid hours after they all returned from Christmas break, and two more separated from the group and each other to commit individual hijinks as the black haired Slytherin.

All in all it was a well-devised prank, and Rose had begun spending more time with Remus as as side effect, as they mostly worked on the potions together.

In that time Rose had come to the conclusion that something was up with Moony.

Moony.

Remus Lupin.

Moony.

With his scars and his sweaters.

The boy was always tired, as a result he usually spoke with that bit of attitude that comes when you haven't gotten a proper night of sleep.

It was when Rose started studying the moon cycles for potions that a conspiracy in Rose's brain began to unfold.

She started taking extra watch of Remus while paying attention to the days and the moon phases.

____

Months had passed since the polyjuice prank and things had really started to line up, a d halfway through her third year, while working late into the night for a herbology project, Rose was finally going to test two hypothesis she'd been working on. As for the project, she was creating a new charm, having herbology in the colder months made it difficult to test since it had to be plant related but that in itself gave Rose the idea.

It it common knowledge that plants bloom in seasonal intervals.

Some plants are even as specific as blooming during certain hours, such as only at night.

Rose intended to create a spell that when placed on a flowering plant, would alter it's blooming cycle to match that of the moon's lunar cycle.

As she worked, beams of moonlight shown through the glass, appearing as a cool violet tone on her skin.

By this time the full moon was high in the sky.

And so she waited. She waited and listened so intensely she almost stopped breathing.

And there it was.

Far in this distance, probably inaudible to anyone not listening out for it, was the sound of howling.

A sound filled with anguish.

It was time to test her second hypothesis.

She pointed her thorned wand at a flower she had grown to test the theory, it was simply a closed bulb currently, but if her charm worked the flower would bloom completely on a full moon, halfway on a half moon and so on.

"exo lunflos"

She said pointing the wand at the flower.

And it opened it's large petals before her and she smiled to herself.

The next day she went to the boys' dorm and applied the charm to the flower she had gifted Remus in her second year. It was still alive and well taken care of, the note of instructions on how to take care of it had been tucked away long ago. Rose left a different note on it this time around. One Rose had charmed go disappear after it was read by Remus.

Magic flower!

Hey Moons, this is to help with...your...well, moon thing.

We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, but I know, and I've made this to help. It will keep track of the moon phases, just keep watch on how it blooms.

Stay safe,
Thorns

They did talk about it, and Rose's suspicions were in fact correct.

Remus was a werewolf.

He didn't say more than he deemed absolutely necessary when they talked about it, he'd no doubt had this talk at least one other time with the boys. He ended his speech wistfully.

"So now you know I'm a monster." He said.

"You're not a monster Moons, you're just a boy" Rose responded as comfortingly as she could.