Ancient Warlocks at Hogwarts

Professor Sprout stood behind a stool in the middle of the greenhouse. There was a pile of earmuffs of different colors placed on the stool. She faced the students and said, "We are going to replace the mandrakes today." Pot. Now, who can tell me what the properties of mandrake are?"

As expected, the little witch was the first to raise her hand: "Mandrake, also called mandrake root, is a powerful recovery agent used to restore people who have been transformed or cursed. to its original state.”

"Very good, ten points for Gryffindor." Professor Sprout smiled and nodded to Hermione, and then said: "Mandrake is an important component of most antidotes. But it is also very dangerous. Can anyone tell me why?"

"Hearing its cry will kill you." Undoubtedly, it was still the little witch who answered.

"Exactly, ten more points for Gryffindor. Now, you see, our mandrakes here are still very young."

In front of the students are flower pots with deep bottoms. The exposed parts above the soil are some green and purple seedlings. If you don't know this kind of plant, you may not know that these seemingly harmless seedlings are under the soil. What a horror of buried rhizomes.

"Okay, each person gets a pair of earmuffs," Professor Sprout continued: "When I ask you to put on the earmuffs, be sure to cover your ears firmly. When you can take them off safely, I will Two thumbs up. OK – put on earmuffs.”

Andre quickly complied. He didn't want to try the consequences of being knocked unconscious by Mandrake.

At this time, Professor Sprout also put on the only pink earmuff left on the stool. Then she rolled up her sleeves, firmly grasped a clump of grass, and pulled it out of the flower pot with all her strength. Pulled it out.

Everyone saw the strange-looking rhizome under the grass blades, which looked like a newborn, wrinkled baby. They could even clearly identify human-like facial features and limbs from the grass roots.

As soon as it was exposed to the air, it immediately started wailing at the top of its voice. Fortunately, the earmuffs purchased by the school were of sufficient quality, and Andre didn't hear a sound.

Professor Sprout took out a larger flower pot from under the table, then stuffed the mandrake into it, burying it with moist dark compost, and finally only the green grass blades were exposed. .

She patted the mud on her hands, gave the students two thumbs up, and then took off her earmuffs.

"Our task today is to repot the mandrakes here. The original cultivation pots are already a little too small and not suitable for their continued growth. They need to be replaced with larger pots." Professor Sprout looked at all the students. He took off the earmuffs and began to talk: "You don't have to worry too much about these mandrakes. They are not mature yet, they are just seedlings, so even if you hear their cries, they will not be fatal. However, they will still Put anyone who hears it in a coma for a few hours. I don't think any of you will want to go to Madam Pomfrey's on the first day of school, right? So be sure to wear earmuffs when you are working later. "

Next, she divided the students into groups of four, with each group responsible for a mandrake. Andre was assigned to Hermione, Neville, and an unknown Hufflepuff boy.

It was supposed to be Harry and Ron, but because Ron was having a conflict with the little witch, the two of them chose to team up with Seamus and the others.

"Each group gets a big flower pot, come over here, it's all here." After dividing the groups into groups, Professor Sprout asked them each to get a flower pot for replacement. "The compost bag is over there, be careful. That poisonous tentacle, it’s teething.”

She was talking about a crimson plant with spikes. The tentacles of this thing had quietly reached out to the professor's back, but she patted her mercilessly hard, which made the plant look at it. The plant that was not easy to mess with immediately retracted its irregular branches.

Andre did know that this kind of poisonous tentacle could make some poisons. Its seeds were used in the quick-acting truant candy invented by the twins later, and its leaves were also valuable potion materials. Professor Slughorn was stealing them. Harry had discovered them while taking them.

"My name is Justin Finch-Fletchley," the Hufflepuff boy began to introduce himself to Andrei and the others: "I know you, Andrei Ivanov, the youngest Winner of the Order of Merlin, you are the pride of our school, and you are Hermione Granger, always number one."

While the child was saying these words, he kept holding Andre's hand and shaking it vigorously.

However, he didn't seem to pay much attention to Neville. After introducing Andre and Hermione, he began to talk endlessly about his experiences.

It is said that he originally wanted to go to Eton College, but he and his father changed their minds because of Professor McGonagall's visit.

"My mother is a little disappointed, but I think having a well-trained wizard in the family is actually a very great thing. It is much more interesting than being a politician or an excellent businessman."

Andre actually had some doubts about this, because as far as he knew, the admission age of Eton College was 13 years old, and the admission target of Hogwarts was 11-year-old children. The boy in front of him seemed to be out of reach. Entering Eton age.

But soon they had no chance to continue talking. Professor Sprout had already asked them to put on earmuffs again and start the task of changing the plates for Mandrake.

Andre also specially warned Neville. He remembered that in the plot of the movie, the little fat man was attacked by those doll-like grassroots with sound waves because he did not wear earmuffs, which caused him to pass out in class. .

He had forgotten whether this paragraph existed in the original novel, but there was no harm in reminding the other party.

Just now I saw the headmaster of Hufflepuff doing it very easily, but after Andre himself got started, he realized that it was far from that simple. The mandrake was not willing to be pulled out of the soil, and they had to work hard. It took a lot of effort to accomplish this.

And when these ugly grass-root dolls were exposed to the air, they seemed not to want to go back to the flower pots. They struggled desperately, twisting their fat bodies in the air, and their two branches of roots that resembled human feet couldn't stop kicking. .

It took Andre several minutes to stuff the mandrake in his hand into the big flower pot again. Neville and Hermione on the side quickly poured the compost they had prepared long ago, while Mr. Finch-Fletchley He was leisurely watching the three of them busy at the side, with an appreciative smile on his face, making him seem like a leader who came to inspect, rather than a student who came to study like them.

The class finally ended after everyone had finished repotting. Professor Sprout seemed very satisfied with her teaching results. She smiled and told everyone that the mandrake would need to be repotted twice before it was fully mature. The game needs to be completed by sophomores like them.