Grace hated Herbology with a passion.
One would think that a girl with such an interest in animals and creatures of all different kinds would also have a small amount of interest Herbology as well, but Grace couldn't stand the subject. It nothing to do with the plants themselves however. In fact, Grace quite liked plants, she just despised the Herbology teacher.
Professor Eischeid was a tall woman, with thinning grey hair that was always piled on top of her head in a small lump. She was stern and rather cryptic at best, and confusing and completely illogical at worst. It was easy to say the she and Grace didn't exactly see eye to eye.
And of course she had to be in the Potions classroom at five o'clock on a Wednesday evening - the exact same time that Grace, James, Peter and Sirius had decided to sneak into the storage closet to collect the mandrake leaves that they needed for the next step of their Animagus.
"But the map said there was no one in there!" Peter cried, shaking the mystical map that they had created in front of them as they waited outside the entrance to the classroom. He then peered into the room to double check that she was still in there.
"I told you the map wasn't ready yet," Grace said. "There are still plenty of things that need to be fixed."
"Nonsense. Eischeid only doesn't show up on the map because she's not human," James quipped, causeing he and Sirius to burst out laughing.
"Shut up, will you! She'll here us!" Peter hissed. "We should just come back tomorrow and get the leaves."
"Or not. Do you have the cloak, Prongs?" Sirius asked his friend.
"Of course I do, Pads," he replied, holding the shimmery piece of material up. "Never leave home without it."
"Well then, Fel, Worms, I think we have ourselves a new plan."
---
"Hello Professor," Grace smiled cheerily as she entered the room.
Professor Eischeid looked up from the plant samples she was delivering to the Potions store room and turned to her. She stared at Grace for a full five seconds, just blinking with her head slightly tilted to the left before before replying "Hello, Ms Thorne."
She then put down the plant in her hand - a red mangled thing that Grace had never seen before - and took a step towards her.
"What are you doing in the Potions classroom at this time?"
"Oh, I was looking for Professor Slughorn," Grace replied, taking a step away from the door which she deliberately left wide open. "I had a few questions for him about something he mentioned in class the other day, but I think you might be able to help me as well."
The Professor stared at her for another five seconds before answering "Oh. Well then, how can I help you?"
Grace could feel the air moving behind her and began her question.
"I was wondering, does dittany do any harm to actual werewolves themselves? Because we were learning about dittany as a potion ingredient the other day and Professor Slughorn mentioned that it can be used to combat werewolf bites. If it effects werewolf bites, does it affect werewolves too?"
"Well that was certainly a very long question," Professor Eischeid remarked, chuckling as if she had just told a joke.
"It was," Grace replied, shuffling from foot as she watched the storage room door on the other side of the classroom swing open as if by some mysterious invisible force.
"Well, uh," Eischeid started, tilting her head ever so slightly to the right this time. "What do you think?"
"I don't know, that's why I'm asking you," Grace replied impatiently.
She chuckled again. "Well, I don't actually know either."
This made Grace frown. You would think that a Herbology teacher might know a little bit more about one of the more famous plants of the magical world.
"Right. Okay."
Grace then felt someone tap on her back as the air moved behind her again and she knew this was her queue to wrap things up.
"Thanks for your help, Professor, but I really should get going now," Grace exclaimed and Eischeid nodded in response.
"Um, bye." Grace then left the classroom as quickly as she could.
"Did you get them?" she asked as the Invisibility Cloak was pulled off to reveal James, Sirius and Peter underneath.
"We sure did!" Peter cried, holding out a jar full of mandrake leaves. "We weren't sure how many we would need though, so we grabbed the whole jar."
"The whole jar! Slughorn's definitely going to notice that a whole jar of mandrake leaves is missing," Grace exclaimed.
"So?" James asked, as he snatched the jar out of Peter's hand. "It's not like he's going to know that it was us that took it, is he? And besides, it's for a good cause."
"Oh, fine. But we need to get back to the common room. Moony's going to be wondering what took us so long," Grace sighed, before making her way back to the common room with James, Peter and Sirius in tow.
---
So i somehow managed to convince my brother to let me use his laptop and wrote another chapter (the one after this one).
I've also written a rough plan for their fifth year so hopefully it'll be a bit more structured and there'll be less time skips so get excited kids.
Professor Eischeid is based off my homeroom teacher this year. She's a very... interesting person.
-Grace
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The Forest - R.L.
Fanfiction(Remus Lupin - Marauder's Era ) She was wandering through the forest when she saw it. A wolfish being, about as tall as herself, with scruffy grey-brown fur and a snarl forming on its lips. But she wasn't afraid. --- Grace Thorne is an eleven year o...
