there's a life in our hands -- max

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maxima ruqayyah greyback

every second step eli took, he hopped. it was morning and he was headed down to the herbology greenhouses to check on the seedling he and max greyback were growing. it was an assignment they had been given in their first week of school and so far it wasn't the hardest thing they'd ever been asked to do in a class. this morning he'd woken up with more energy than he knew what to do with and he was trying to use some of it before he had to sit in classes all day. he pushed open the door to the green house and shivered a little, the change in temperature noted as the warmth from the greenhouse met with the cold of outside. "well that's a little different .." he said to himself as he blew into his hands and walked to where the seedlings were. he leaned his hands down as he looked at them all, spotting theirs in the mass of them and he leaned his arm down, leaning over and tapping his foot against the concrete of the floor lightly as he waited.

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

A partner project in the first week of Herbology—one that they were meant to continue until the end of the term—hadn't been Maxima's ideal assignment, but it wasn't as though she had much of a say in what she was assigned to do for her classes. Mostly, she had to grin and bear it. With any project that wasn't solely her responsibility, she had still come to expect that she would be the only one who would do any of the work, and that was how Max had envisioned that raising a Screechsnap sapling with Elliot Chevalier would go.

She'd been in classes with the Gryffindor for all of her years at Hogwarts, and the most that she could say that either of them had in common with one another was a recent development: Both had relatives who were Champions in the Triwizard Tournament, and neither of those two were the Champion for the school they themselves attended. Elliot was Émile Chevalier's cousin, and Max was Elias Greyback's half-sister.

That was probably the only topic of conversation that could be had between them, really, which was probably why Max never particularly looked forward to having to take care of their project. She still had to do it, though, and not delaying in getting down to the greenhouse was best, since she had a full day of classes ahead of her.

Carrying her notebook of observations against her chest, Max could see her breath. At least the greenhouse was warmer than outside, and that prospect made her move a little bit faster, until she stepped inside the greenhouse itself.

Elliot was already there, looking at their sapling among the many. Without greeting him, Max went ahead and flipped her notebook to the next blank page, dating it with the Self-Inking Quill that she had stuck inside of it. “How is it?” she asked, walking over to where he was so that she could see the plant for herself.

The one downside to Screechsnaps was that they were, to a degree, sentient; they could respond to the slightest changes in their environment, as Max had discovered when she'd witnessed a classmate putting too much dragon dung on theirs. It was better than trying to raise a Mandrake, anyhow.

@alexandre

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maxima ruqayyah greyback

“How is it?” eli rolled his eyes slightly and kept looking at the little plant they'd been told to keep alive. "hi eli. how're you? nice day outside isn't it .." he said, sarcasm in his voice as he turned to face max, leaning on his elbow as he leaned on the table the plants were all sitting on. granted they weren't friends and they didn't really know each other aside from the classes they had together, a simple hello wouldn't go astray. "hello max, how's it going?" he said as he looked at her, serious that time as he straightened up and looked at the plants, leaning forward to lift the pot their seedling was in and he brought it to the front of the table. "seems to be okay. it's not making any noise so i'm guessing that means it's comfortable." he said as he looked at it, crouching down to pull his notebook from his bag and he rested it on his knee so he could write on it. "looks like it's grown a little since yesterday .. would you say about 2 centimeters?" he studied the plant a little closer and wrote down a few other things about it, wanting to keep decent notes on how it was growing and changing so they could put together the end result properly. he stood up and put the book down on the table next to the plate, touching his finger to the soil to see if it was dry.

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Elliot didn't so much as look in her direction, and it didn't take much to figure out that he wasn't thrilled that she hadn't even greeted him. Talking about the weather, Max thought, could only go so far. She was there to do her work so that she wouldn't fail her Herbology O.W.L. and get on with her day, though there wasn't much avoiding conversation when Elliot decided that he would turn around.

He leaned on the table where the plants were, and Max blinked at him. She didn't know what he was trying to do—crack some sort of a joke, maybe?—but she was taken by surprise to see that, no, he wasn't trying to get under her skin. “Hello, Max,” he said. “How's it going?”

She shrugged. “Alright, I guess.” And, luckily, it seemed that the Screechsnap was doing alright, too.

“Seems to be okay,” Elliot observed after bringing their specific plant closer to them. “It's not making any noise,” he noted, “so I'm guessing that means it's comfortable.” It wasn't dead, so Max thought that that was a fair assumption. She also thought that Elliot was right in saying that the plant had grown, even just from when they had been in the same greenhouse the day before.

With his guess having been about two centimeters, Max eyed it. It looked about accurate to her, too. She scribbled her notes down, glad to see that her balancing her notebook on her arm wasn't any more awkward than Elliot's using his leg. As she finished for the time being, she noticed that Elliot had already gotten to work on making sure that their Screechsnap had gotten enough water.

“…You're really not terrible at this, you know,” she remarked. Raising a sentient plant wasn't too different from taking care of an animal, and Max had done her fair share of that with her veterinarian stepfather. Putting her trust in someone else not to mess up on a project that involved a living thing, though, was a risk.

@alexandre

[Deleted]

maxima ruqayyah greyback

“…You're really not terrible at this, you know,” he couldn't help but laugh at that almost declaration from her. it was nice of her to say though, he'd never had a pet before so his experience raising anything that was alive was limited to the plants that had been in his house growing up and someone else had looked after them. "well i guess i found my life's calling" he said with a grin as he closed the book, having finished marking down all he wanted to about the plant for now. if he needed to write anything else he could always get it out again, after all it wasn't a one time deal. he tucked the book away into his book bag so he had both his hands free and he looked at the screechsnap. he grinned slightly as he leaned his arms down on the table to get a closer look at the sentient plant. "i feel like we should give it a name. 'the screechsnap' is a little bit of a mouthful to write all the time." he said as he brushed his fingers against some of the leaves that were growing from the top of the plant.

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Elliot seemed pleasantly surprised to hear that he wasn't a horrible excuse for a Herbology partner. He grinned, saying that he guessed that he had found his life's calling, and closed his notebook.

Max laughed slightly—and not entirely in spite of herself, either, she realized—and nodded. “Maybe?” she responded. She couldn't see Elliot as a Herbologist in the future, though (at least not when compared to Professor Longbottom).

Once he was done working on his notes, Elliot returned to his observation of the Screechsnap, leaning against the table it was on as he did. “I feel like we should give it a name,” he considered. “‘The Screechsnap’ is a little bit of a mouthful to write all the time.”

Naming the plant wasn't that ridiculous, Max felt. Sure, they would probably end up with more of an attachment to it after giving it a name, but the whole purpose of the assignment was not to kill it. It was worth trying.

“What should we call it?” Max asked, guessing that Elliot had an idea in mind. There were the obvious choices—Screech and Snap came to mind—but both of those sounded too trite.

@alexandre

[Deleted]

maxima ruqayyah greyback

“What should we call it?” he thought about it as he looked at the screechsnap. he hadn't been thinking of an name in particular, just something that would be easier to write and say out loud while they were talking about it. he tilted his head slightly as he brought his hand to his chin and pretended to stroke it like he was thinking deeply and then he snapped his fingers softly, turning to max with a smile on his face. "fido." he said with a laugh and a shrug. "because why not? and i think it looks like a fido to me." he said as he looked back at the sap and he reached in carefully, lifting the pot as gently as he could to avoid setting it off and he brought it to the front of the bench so they could see it fully. "don't you think?"

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Whatever they were going to call the plant, it needed to be something shorter and easier to write than "the Screechsnap", which didn't eliminate much. It meant that Elliot couldn't come up with anything too strange or embarrassing, though; the plant wouldn't have any royal titles bestowed upon it.

No, Elliot's suggestion was short and sweet: “Fido.” He laughed as he said it. “Because why not?”

Max couldn't say that she had any objections to it. She would just have to write an explanation somewhere back at the beginning of the notes that she had made to clarify that she would be referring to the Screechsnap as “Fido” from that point forward. It wasn't as though giving it a name would change anything from Professor Longbottom's side of things; the quality of her notes themselves wouldn't be diminished.

“And I think it looks like a Fido to me.” He picked up their particular Screechsnap's pot and brought it nearer to them. “Don't you think?”

If any plant was going to be called Fido, thought Max, it might as well have been that one. She had to laugh, too. “It does look like a Fido,” she agreed. “Should we make it official, then? Professor Longbottom might think we've gone mad, but…” (If anyone didn't think that about her already, after she had tried to take her own life, they would now, anyway.)

@alexandre

[Deleted]

maxima ruqayyah greyback

"It does look like a Fido,” he had to agree. it was a good name, even if he'd only ever heard it be used in reference to a dog .. and once a cat but that had been a little too far-fetched for him. this didn't seem to much. he turned the container around as it looking at the plant and he nodded once. “Should we make it official, then? Professor Longbottom might think we've gone mad, but…” official. the plant was now called fido. he reached into his pocket to pull out his wand and he waved it at the pot, using his wand to carefully write the words fido on the front of the pot so people, and they, would remember it. "there, it's official." he said as he pocketed his wand and opened his book to the page he'd been writing on, scribbling the name fido on the top of the page. "fido the screechsnap." he said as he put the pot back. he didn't think there was all that much left to do right now, they were only supposed to track it's growth and keep it comfortable and it seemed to be doing well in both of those departments. "well i think it's all in order. want to get something to eat?" he turned to her as he asked, putting his book back into his bag. he'd become aware of the slight growling in his stomach a few moments ago and figured now was as good a time to act on sorting it out.

[maxima ruqayyah greyback]

Fido. Its name was right there on the pot and everything; there was no questioning it now. She and Elliot had given their Screechsnap an actual name, and—remarkably—Max didn't feel all that silly that they had gone and done that. “Fido the Screechsnap,” Elliot proclaimed.

Getting her quill ready to write again, Max repeated what Elliot had said. “Fido the Screechsnap.” Hopefully, it—Did Fido need a gendered pronoun?—would stay as alive and thriving as it—Fido—was now until the end of the term, at least. She wrote the name down in her notes, drawing a star and an arrow to a blank space where she added in that she would be referring to the plant as “Fido” from that point onwards.

It was at about the same time that Elliot said that everything seemed to be in order, then. Maxima had all but forgotten her displeasure at having to work with Elliot when he suggested that they go and get something to eat. “Think we've still got time for breakfast?” she asked, realizing that she, too, had skipped eating to come down to the greenhouse.

@alexandre