Plants for Thought [Neville]

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Part of this was of her own need, and part of this was for her job - that was usually the best situation to be in, to be honest. Nazirah didn't want to neglect one over the other, even though choosing could be difficult, at times.

For her, she needed plants - Spagyric was a branch of alchemy that was too little explored here in Great Britain, and had only been covered a little bit at Uagadou, and she truly enjoyed it. It was one of her contributions towards finding the Panacea, as well as simple solutions for every day things - after all, Potions were not the only cure for ailments, nor were spells, and alchemy had been around longer than the former. In fact, Potions was a branching off of Alchemy, focusing on the specific making of, well, potions, and having different goals. Their differing methods, solutions, and goals slowly changed and divided until they weren't similar at all. True, most alchemists were good with potions, because you had to be, but they were also good with spellwork, because you had to be.

Alchemy was difficult, in general. It was something you had to work hard it.

Even though a large part of doing this was for her own research, her own advantage, she also had to do this as a part of her job - and she didn't mean as an Alchemy Professor. Part of being an International Auror was forging connections between people who could possibly be of use, and Neville Longbottom was certainly one of those. Someone close to the three fighters of the original war, it was very likely that if those three were doing anything in this time... he would be among that. There had been no recorded falling out, no nothing, so he should be right alongside.

Ergo, she was here.

"Professor Longbottom?" the woman called, dressed in a light green, but worn robe - not as nice as the ones that she wore to everyday class, a bag of seeds tucked underneath her arm, stepping into the greenhouse and glancing around hopefully for the man. "Are you in here?" She knew he was, she had been tracking his movements - though it also wasn't unusual to assume he was here, so it shouldn't give that away in the slightest. They hadn't exchanged much more words than a 'hello, nice to meet you', so she hadn't quite gotten a good grasp of his personality yet, aside from the reports...

Tagging: @superluigi64 [Sorry about the lateness! Hope this works, lemme know if I need to change it.]

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Greenhouse Four was actually not that well-known among the faculty, despite its popularity with the students. It wasn’t particularly kept secret, but its location beneath the other three greenhouses made it impossible to see for yourself if you didn’t know where to look. Currently, Neville was down here, harvesting seagrass from the bed. Seagrass had little popular use in magic, but the stuff was more valuable than people thought. For plants grown in sandy soil, it was superior to dragon dung as a fertilizer, and seagrass was very nutritious for species that ingested plants, like the thorn elementals on Longbottom Hill, or grazing animals like fish, crabs, ducks, and geese. Seagrass could be woven as well, though the need for such a thing had yet to come about. With the seagrass collected from the bed of Greenhouse Four, Neville kept the thorn elementals fed, as well as providing feed to a fellow Order member, ensuring a steady supply of duck eggs and meat for those using Longbottom Hill as a temporary residence. There were a dozen such agreements that kept a variety of foods for the Order, most of them originating with Neville’s harvests. This in addition to growing fruits, vegetables, herbs, and magical plants for the Order, along with Hannah making homemade spices for the Cauldron and the Hill, made Neville the primary breadwinner for the Order, which was extremely valuable. As they relied on secrecy, being able to supply food without the use of galleons or agreements outside of the Order was a major advantage.

Currently, Neville was underwater, dressed in trunks and a Bubble-Head Charm, rhythmically moving his wand to cut and gather the seagrass into a large ball. Generally speaking, he wore his robes into the underwater greenhouse when teaching class, both to hide the numerous scars marking his body (that he didn’t care to be asked about) and to make sure none of his students felt compelled to undress as well. But by himself, he didn’t mind stripping down for a proper swim. He had a decent section harvested out, with five knots of seagrass the size of hay bales floating behind him, but he needed more. At this rate, he’d have to send what he had on ahead and hope to gather the rest over the weekend. Ears picked up the sound of scratching, and Neville looked up. It was difficult, but he could just make out the form of Percival, far above, scratching on the floor to alert Neville through his Supersensory Charm. He turned and began to swim upward, bales of seagrass following in his wake. He anchored them to the underside of Greenhouse Two with Muggle fishing cord, just as the door to Greenhouse One opened. He swam over and looked up through the underside of the greenhouse floor, enchanted to be a window from below, both to let sunlight in and to make sure nobody was standing on the trap door you needed to climb out. Professor…Saree, one of several new teachers this year.

She said something, his charm picked it up, but through the water, her words were distorted enough that he couldn’t make out anything more than his last name. Neville dispelled the charm on his hearing and moved to the front side trap door in Greenhouse One. A wave of the wand opened it up, exposing a square of water near the Alchemy teacher. Neville emerged from the water slowly, to make sure he didn’t splash salt water into any nearby plants. Neville pulled himself up into a sitting position on the underside of the trap door—the only clean place to sit in the area—and waved at his fellow teacher. “Sorry about that, I was baling seagrass to make fertilizer. Afternoon, Professor. Can I help you with something?” Neville pointed his wand at himself, blowing hot air from the tip to speed the drying process along, as he looked up at the Alchemy teacher curiously.