Herbs Galore

Meghan Diaz awoke early, the sun looked like it had only juts risen as she crawled out of bed and began preparing for her day which she intended to spend in the garden helping to pick plant and herbs.

She quickly headed along to the Herbology garden, on her way she passed a few students who were up early to study and a few who were only awake so they could beat the queue in the great hall so to get the best breakfast. Meghan herself popped in and grabbed a piece of what looked to be toast with she ate on her way to the gardens. Meghan hadn’t been to the garden yet so she made a wrong turn and had to double back on herself just to find it, but she got there eventually and the garden looked pretty empty so she wasn’t the last one to arrive there obviously.

Meghan walked up the path to the garden where she opened the gate quietly and immediately headed into the greenhouse. There was someone there, but they looked busy so Meghan excited the greenhouse and began to pick some of the herbs.

Meghan picked a lot of them all at once, then she knelt down on one of the stone slabs that formed the path and began to air dry the picked herbs. It was quite relaxing actually- although it had its frustrations. Some of the ends just wouldn’t tie together, whereas others snapped as her fingers fumbled with them. Meghan cursed but kept on going every time this happened, and soon she had a small pile of herbs ready for air drying.

Meghan very carefully inspected these to make sure she had done it right - she didn’t want to look a fool in front of all these people. Especially the older students.

Again, Meghan wondered why she had been chosen for this errand. She was a first year so it made zero sense but Meghan wasn’t complaining. Gaining house points seemed to be the best way to get people to like you around here, and Meghan didn’t want to be the loner like she had been at her last muggle school.

Once that first batch of herbs passed her inspection, she turned her attention to the rest of the garden. Leaving her herbs on the side of a garden patch, she carefully made her way over to the other side of the garden and this time gave the herbs a proper look over before picking them and then returning to her spot.

Luckily the other Herbs hadn’t been nicked by the other students, so she left them where they were and knelt down once again.

This time, because her herbs were the same length it was easier and so her mud covered hands made quick work of the herbs, and soon they too were ready to be given to the guy in the greenhouse.

Meghan went up to one of the tables and started to tie her small bundles into bigger bundles, felling embarrassed because she obviously wasn’t supposed to have already tied them.

Meghan left her 3 bunches with the other students’ and headed back outside again, and repeated the same tedious process of inspecting every single herb before she picked it, then moving on to find another of equal quality.

Meghan’s hands and especially her fingers kept getting cut on the sharp sides that were on a certain type of herb, so by the time she headed back into the greenhouse her hands were covered in paper-cut-like scratches. No blood was flowing from the cuts, but they stung like hell.

Meghan’s fingers throbbed as she began to tie up the herbs, but soon it was all worth the work as she finally finished up that bundle and went outside to harvest the herbs for her next one. Soon, she found herself enjoying the task, the birds from the forests were tweaking in the sunny morning as she sun lazily rolled itself over the clear blue skies above her. Meghan smiles to herself and memories of doing something quite similar to this when she was younger cane to mind.

Meghan remembered sitting out in a meadow, making daisy chains with all the flowers around her. Except Meghan didn’t just use daisies - no, she threw everything into those things. Dandelions, poppies... buttercups ... you name it, Meghan had used it in a daisy chain at some point. Heck, even nettles.

Meghan smiles to herself and really began to appreciate the light wind making her blonde hair fly around her, sometimes whipping across her eyes.

Meghan went back into the greenhouse one final time, and made quick work of her task to tie up the herbs so that they would dry in neat bundles. Her bundles were beginning to look neater than they had when she’d started this task, and she was proud to say that she had made 7 bundles in total.

Grinning, Meghan pushed her bundles across the table into the already existing pile of them. She wasn’t sure if she was supposed to tie them up but didn’t recall being told to do so so she just left them where they were and practically skipped out of the garden, when she then decided that it wouldn’t hurt to do one more bundle of Herbs.

So she made her way over to the patch she had been harvesting and plucked a couple of herbs from their roots in the garden soil, then carried them over to the greenhouse. Meghan set them out on the table and began to tie once again, her fingers nimble now that she had down it a lot. She folded and twisted, tying the herbs one by one, gradually making the bundle get bigger until eventually if she had added any more it would’ve been too big. She then added it to the big pile, nodded to Professor Boniface as she exited the greenhouse and began her walk back up the semi-long path to hogwarts, the chilly wind whipping her hair across her face.

WC: 1015