Herbology Assignment

Annie stepped into the library in front of Kerry. The enormous room astounded her, yet again. The circular room stretched on and on; thousands of volumes crammed into every available space. She also noticed there were more kids in here than their last visit. Some were spread out on the long tables set up as study areas, while others were coming and going from several staircases leading under the giant room.

She fell back next to Kerry and took his hand, looking around for the librarian they had met the first time they were in the library.

After the excitement of flying and the calmness of lunch, Kerry knew that the only thing left was the banality of study. Not that he didn't expect it, but everything this morning had been fun.

The last time they'd been here it had been dark and lonely. Now, even with the cloudy weather it was bright and bustling. Quietly bustling, but bustling none the less. There were quite a few people here today, and all of them out of uniform. Strange to see everyone walking around in normal clothing, Kerry thought. He recognized some of them from class but didn't stop to talk.

"You looking for librarian?" Kerry asked, noticing Annie looking around the room. Of course she's looking, you dip, he thought. Kerry looked around as well; how hard could it be to find a well-dressed guy in this place?

Annie looked up at him and grinned. “Actually, I’m looking for something much more complicated…but right now, the librarian will do.”

She winked and quietly made her way to the center island where they found the librarian hovering last time.

Stepping up from the 1st Floor East Reference, Trevor noticed two students standing by his kiosk in the middle of the library. As he walked towards them he thought they looked... hum, where have I--oh, the backpack! Yes, now he remembered--

"Mr. Malibey," he said, strolling smoother up to the kiosk. "Back for advanced divination today?" He looked to Annie and smiled. "And a Good Afternoon to you, Miss Krum. Now, how may I assist?"

“Good afternoon to you too, Mr. Parkman,” Annie said, smiling up at the librarian. “Kerry and I need to reference a few Herbology texts for an assignment by Professor Holoc.

“I think we would rather spend some time studying in the library than checking out the books to bring back to the coven.” She turned to Kerry to make sure she hadn’t assumed something he was not interested in.

Trevor's face pulled back into a soft smile. "Professor Semplen is starting off his herbology class early," he said, slightly stressing the professor's last name--but they they all get his name wrong, Trevor thought. "If you'll come this way--"

He led them over toward the north end of the room. "The general books are all on this level," he explained. "The level above is the more advanced and specific texts, and then, of course, we have reference below and our restricted sections." He looked them over closely and thought about making a joke on that last, then thought better. "Everything you should require will be here.

"Is there anything else?"

“No thank you, Mr. Parkman,” Annie said, not missing his emphasis on their coven head’s last name. She perked up at the chance to explore the level below the main floor. “I don’t think we will have any trouble finding what we need now.”

She crossed over to the endless wall of books and began hunting for those she thought might have the information they would need to begin their assignment.

Kerry was really digging the library. While he loved to read, it seemed that it was getting harder and harder to find the huge old places like this. Most of the libraries these days seemed like a movie theater lobby.

Here, though . . . the divination books were fantastic, even if about 75% of what he was reading didn't make much sense. And these books--there were about 20 titles in front of him, all about herbs and plants. And these are general books, he though. The specific ones must be crazy.

He pulled one off the shelf. "Magical Flora and Fauna of New England." He flipped it open to the title page. "This was written in 1873." He slid the book back onto the shelf. "Incredible."

He turned to Annie. "You finding everything okay?" He cocked his head.

Annie pulled a few random titles she thought would work for their assignment from the shelf along with Good Gardens Guide 1990, and Ingredient Encyclopedia, and handed them over to Kerry.

“I think these will cover what we need to know…though, I’d really love to check out what’s under the main floor.”

Kerry wandered down one of the spiral staircases to the first floor. The look here was completely different, and this was the first place he'd seen outside the bathrooms--and a few classes--that seemed gloomy. Though the ceiling was high there was only a little light filtering in from the outside, and the subdivision of the floor into differ, closed off areas added to the gloominess.

Much of the floor was taken up with reference material. Makes sense a 400 year old school would have a lot of material like this. Kerry flipped through one set of draws outside a room designated Institute History and pulled up the current registration records, divided by coven and year. He flipped through to Cernunnos and sure enough, there her and Annie were. There was an interesting notation next to their names: "trnsf". Transfer, he thought. That's what it's got to be. No record of where they'd transferred from, but then, maybe that was on another sheet--

Hard to believe; maybe 400 years from now someone's going to be looking for our names. He put the registration back where he'd located it and walked back over to Annie, who had appropriated a table. "Any ideas about what you want to grow?" he asked.

Annie loved the vibe down here. The subdued lighting combined with the high ceilings and lack of distractions forced one to keep their attentions on studying. She adored the catacomb quality, wondering what lie further beyond.

Deciding they should get to work before any further explorations, she flipped open Good Gardens Guide 1990 and said, “I’m not entirely sure yet. I think we should each agree on two together and then split the other four between us. How does that sound?”

Kerry nodded. "I like that idea. Let me think--" He looked over the list of plants they had to choose. "What about Fire Seed Bush and Valerian as our group?"

Annie thought about it for a moment. She had only ever read about the Fire Seed Bush, and knew that it grew in caves and the seeds were so hot you needed to cool them with the Glacius Charm before you could harvest them. Beyond that, she assumed they would eventually learn what potions they might be used in.

Valerian was something Annie knew well. Her mother kept a few plants in their garden, using it to make Treacle fudge. She looked up at Kerry and wondered if he’d ever eaten the treat.

“I think that sounds perfect,” she said. “What other two would you prefer? I’ll take whatever you don’t want.”

Kerry already had a good idea what he wanted to try. "I'll take Dittany and Moondew." He smiled as he shrugged. "They sound cool."

Annie raised her eyebrows with his reply. She wondered if he knew anything about the plants that he’d just selected. “Alright then,” she grimaced. “I’ll take Flitterbloom and Goosegrass.”

She guessed the Flitterbloom and Goosegrass plants would be relatively simple since they were so common. She pushed the books at Kerry, positive that he would need them more than she would. “I’m pretty sure your plants are in here. I’m not sure about the Fire Seed Bush, though. It’s a plant I’ve never actually seen.”

Kerry looked up dittany as soon as he took the book from Annie. "Powerful restorative; makes fresh skin grow over a wound--" he read. "Wow, nice." He was amazed by this. When he first entered school he thought herbs and plants were crap, but now that he was getting an understanding of what they did, and how they interacted with potions . . .

"This is really interesting, Annie." He jumped over Moondew and skimmed the selection. "Whoa . . ." Kerry spotted and entry that turn his interest meter to 11. "What is the Draught of Living Death?"

“It’s a powerful sleeping potion,” she said. “You can also use Moondew to brew the Wiggenweld potion…which is kind of like the antidote to the Draught of Living Death. My mother grows them in her garden; they smell amazing.

“We also grow dittany. My mother used it when I had my accident. I was cut up pretty badly.” She held up her slender arms, pushing the sleeves up to her shoulders. “I’d say it works.” She held her arms across the table for him to take a closer look.

Kerry looked at Annie's unmarked arms. "I'd say so." He continued to look at Valerian and Fire Seed Bush. He read a little bit on the later and then-- "A cave?" He looked up from the text. "We gotta go crawling in a cave to find this?"

Now it was time to shake his head. "This isn't going to be like heading down to Home Depot for all your gardening needs, is it?"

“What’s Home Depot?” She laughed and piled the books up. “I don’t think I’ll have any trouble spotting these on a hike and we have a while until dinner. What do you say? Up for a cave hunt?”

Kerry thought about looking for a cave. Not the easiest thing to do, he thought, mostly since they're like, underground. But he had an idea--

"This is reference, right?" He looked back at where he'd found the current registration. "If they have maps of the grounds," he said, turning back to Annie, "then they might have an opening marked. Just because . . ." He shrugged. "They'd need to know where an entrance is in case someone got lost on the grounds.

"And the school's been here 400 years, so they've had plenty of time to map out just about everything in the area." Kerry got a bit of a self-satisfied smile thinking about digging into hundred year old maps. "That would make it a lot easier if they have that."

Annie watched while Kerry rummaged through old school documents. “You know,” she said. “These are really all various types of flowers. And I seem to remember someone giving me two huge bouquets of flawless red roses not that long ago…” which are still perfect and sitting in a vase next to my bed.

“What if we used magic to make the flowers instead of hunting all over the grounds for them, Kerry?”

Stopping for a moment, Kerry thought about what Annie just said. "Do you think we really could do that?" he asked. But he already knew the answer.

"I did make different color flowers come out, just by thinking about it." He walked over and started looking through the book. "Wouldn't we need to know what this looks like in order to create it?" He gave Annie a half serious look. "I mean, I wouldn't want something strange to pop out of my wand, now, would I?"

She smiled, grabbing the one book with the illustrations of all the plants they would need, and stood.

“I think we need to find Professor Douglas.” She took his hand and they left together to find Mr. Parkman and checkout.