Harry Potter: Master of Talismans

On Wednesday morning, Professor Sprout unlocked a door we had spent our first year walking past. I had expected second year to announce itself through harder books and longer essays. Being allowed into greenhouse three was more convincing, especially when a vine withdrew from the path as she pushed it aside with her boot. Ron put his hands in his pockets before anybody told him to.

Warm air carried the smell of wet earth over us. Leaves crowded the benches, with some climbing frames too high for me to reach and others curling towards the sunlight. I recognised a few plants from our earlier lessons. Farther inside, I found myself studying a root I knew perfectly well in small dried pieces and scarcely at all with the rest of the plant attached.

‘Keep your fingers to yourselves,’ Sprout said, waiting beside a particularly thick patch of foliage. ‘Some of these dislike being touched. Others are rather too pleased.’ I stepped away from a leaf which had been turning in my direction and followed Hermione to the central bench. Several of the pots there looked reassuringly ordinary, though I had learnt to mistrust that as a description of school equipment.

My father’s notes had given me a place to begin. Looking at the plants made it easier to understand how much work could remain beyond them. Every useful preparation depended on what went into it, and I had spent months recognising ingredients by labels on packets. Here they grew, moved and occasionally attempted to touch their neighbours.

Sprout called my name. I turned to find her waiting for me to join the lesson, with an expression suggesting that curiosity was welcome once it stopped delaying everybody else. Hermione shifted her bag beneath the bench to make room. The Slytherins took their places opposite, and I noticed the thick earmuffs laid out beside our pots.

‘Today we’re repotting young mandrakes,’ Sprout said. ‘Who can tell me why we grow them?’ Hermione’s hand went up while several of us were still looking at the leaves. Sprout nodded towards her, and she explained their use in powerful restorative preparations, including the treatment of people who had been petrified.

‘Very good. Ten points to Gryffindor.’ Sprout lifted a pot so that everyone could see it. She added that mature mandrakes were extremely valuable, although preparing them required considerable care. I raised my hand before she could move on, having encountered something which mattered rather more to my work than the appearance of the leaves.

‘Petrified as in a Full Body-Bind, Professor?’ I asked. She shook her head and set the pot down. An ordinary Body-Bind immobilised someone and could be lifted as a spell, she explained. The deeper petrification requiring a restorative draught was a different matter. We would not need to grow a mandrake every time somebody hexed our legs together.

I wrote the distinction down. It was tempting to sort magic by what happened to the victim, especially when several results involved being unable to move. Sprout’s answer made that look like a poor guide to undoing the damage. Across the bench, Ron exchanged a glance with Malfoy, who appeared to have found a practical use for the example already.

‘The cry of an adult mandrake can kill,’ Sprout continued. I stopped writing and looked at the earmuffs. She assured us that these were young plants, capable of making us unconscious rather than killing us, which explained the protection without greatly improving the prospect. Nobody laughed when she asked us to check that both ears were covered properly.

She gave the instructions before we put them on. Once work began, we were to leave them in place and raise a hand if we needed her. Lifting one side to ask for help would give us an excellent opportunity to discover why help was necessary. I fitted mine carefully, pressing the padding round both ears until the conversations beside me disappeared.

Sprout inspected the nearest pairs. She pointed out one crooked muff farther along the bench and waited for it to be straightened, then took a firm grip on a tuft of leaves. What came out of the pot was considerably less reassuring than what had been visible above the soil. The root had limbs, a wrinkled face and a wide-open mouth.

Its expression suggested a lengthy complaint. Through the padding, I felt a faint, unpleasant vibration, but the noise was mercifully unlike what the small creature appeared to be producing. Sprout held it away from her robes, lowered it into a larger pot and pressed fresh compost round it. Only when the root was covered did she signal that we could remove our protection.

The greenhouse sounded startlingly loud. Sprout explained that we must work firmly and promptly, keeping the plant out of the soil for as little time as possible. Letting it get cold would harm it and reduce its usefulness. She also warned us not to give it time to wind itself round our fingers, which seemed advice worth remembering even without a medicinal reason.

‘Pairs to begin with,’ she said. ‘Check your partner’s earmuffs before either of you touches the leaves.’ Hermione inspected mine with enough attention to make me glad she had the job. I checked hers, and we moved our fresh pots close enough that there would be little distance to cross. She steadied the first container while I took hold of my mandrake.

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It gripped the rim on the way out. I pulled, the pot tilted, and Hermione caught it before it could send compost across the bench. The root came free with its mouth stretched open and one dirty hand reaching for my sleeve. For a brief moment I found myself considering whether an apology would help, which was an unpromising response to a plant I needed to repot.

I lowered it into the larger container. Its fingers caught my cuff, and I had to work them free before Hermione pushed the soil within reach. We covered it together. When Sprout allowed us to remove our earmuffs, my sleeves were filthy and the leaves looked much as they had before, giving no indication of the trouble beneath them.

‘You looked as though you wanted to negotiate,’ Hermione said. She checked the soil around the stem while I inspected the mark on my sleeve. I admitted that I had considered offering the new pot more politely. She reminded me that it was a plant, which was true but did little to explain why it had seemed so personally offended by my efforts.

Her turn went more smoothly. I held the pot, she pulled firmly, and the mandrake spent very little time discovering opportunities to grab anything. We were preparing another pair of containers when Neville swayed on the far side of Harry. At first I thought he had stepped back from his root. Then his knees folded beneath him.

Seamus caught the pot as it tipped. I went round the end of the bench while Sprout reached Neville, whose head was dropping towards the stone. One muff had twisted away from his ear. Between us, we eased him down, and Sprout gestured sharply towards the exposed mandrake before anybody tried to remove their own protection.

Seamus got the struggling root into the new soil. He covered it quickly, then looked up for Sprout’s approval. Only after she had checked the benches did she give the signal. Neville was breathing, but his face had gone pale enough to make the instruction about fainting feel very different from when we had been standing safely beside our pots.

‘Everyone stays where they are,’ Sprout said. ‘Mr Mercer, help me move him to that clear space.’ I followed her instructions, keeping out of her way while she checked him. She loosened his collar and spoke until his eyelids began to move. I sat back on my heels, suddenly aware of the earth covering my hands.

Neville asked what had happened. Sprout told him that his ear had been uncovered when she reached him, then asked whether the muff had slipped. He thought it had happened when he bent down. She said we would find a pair which stayed in place, and he could watch the next round from beside the door.

He looked embarrassed when the others returned to work. Knowing about plants had not made him immune to their cries, and I could see no reason to behave as though it should have. I fetched his notes and put them beside him. They gave him something to look at besides the students trying to see whether he was all right.

‘Seamus saved your mandrake,’ I told him. ‘It seemed annoyed about that too.’ Neville managed a small smile and asked whether his new pot had survived. I assured him that it had, along with most of the compost, then returned to Hermione before Sprout needed to collect me again. Neville stayed where she had put him until he was steady enough to stand.

We left smelling of damp earth despite washing our hands. Hermione was discussing restorative preparations with Harry, while I considered the difference between a useful ingredient and something useful in my inks. Repotting a mandrake had supplied no answer to that question. It had supplied several reasons to find out carefully.

Ron took his wand out as we crossed the grounds. Spellotape covered the break in a thick sleeve, holding the pieces together at an angle he tried to correct with his thumb. I asked whether he had shown McGonagall, remembering the promise upstairs. He said she had seen it that morning and had liked it even less than I did.

‘Tape doesn’t make it safe,’ he repeated wearily. He had to tell each teacher before practical work and borrow under supervision where that was possible. Otherwise he would observe and write up the lesson. He rubbed the edge of the tape as he explained, concentrating on a loose corner which seemed unlikely to be the principal difficulty.

Harry offered his wand when he had finished using it, if the teacher allowed them to share. Ron thanked him without sounding pleased about the arrangement. I could understand wanting to arrive at a lesson with something of his own that worked. Understanding it did not produce a repaired wand, so at lunch I offered to lend him the money for another.

Harry had already tried. I learnt this after putting coins on the bench between us, where Ron pushed them back hard enough for one to roll over the edge. I caught it against my shoe. He said he did not want to owe me for a wand, and my assurance that repayment could wait seemed to make him more annoyed.

I reminded him that we were friends, picking up the coin as though that should settle it. Ron looked directly at me. ‘Then listen when I answer,’ he said.

I put the money away. Hermione watched without adding anything, which made me hear the exchange again with rather less confidence in my part. I had wanted to remove a problem I could afford to solve. Ron still wanted a choice in how it was solved, and presenting the money as though agreement were inevitable had not left him much room for one.

‘The offer stays,’ I said after a moment. ‘I won’t keep putting coins in front of you.’ He nodded and returned to his lunch. The broken wand remained beside his plate, no safer than before, but at least he had shown a teacher. I would have to let that count as progress without pretending the rest did not matter.

By Friday, Harry and Ron were learning parts of the trophy room most visitors never noticed. Their ordinary homework waited for them afterwards, along with the exercises Ron had been unable to complete in class. He kept adding tape to his wand. It was becoming easier to find the break by looking for the thickest part than by seeing any damaged wood.

No letter had come from home. At first the delay had seemed to comfort him; now he looked up at every sound of wings near the windows. He had even asked McGonagall whether she had definitely written, and received an answer which left no room for hope. At Friday lunch, he turned his cup without drinking, waiting for the part of his punishment the school could not deliver itself.