Plants and Assignments PV Avis Greymond Complete

Avis had woken up that morning in a good mood, relieved that it was the weekend and happy to have slept in a bit… that is, until she noticed the bright red interior of her Remeberall on her nightstand. For a moment of frozen horror, she desperately tried to recall her schedule for the day and groaned when she realized she had that blasted group project to do in the Study Room.

Dragging herself out of bed, she quickly pulled on a wrinkled white t shirt before shrugging a large green pullover on top to hide the shirt’s stains and tugging on a pair of jeans.

Shoving her notes and quills into her satchel, Avis slung it over her shoulder to hurriedly lace up her brown converse. A lazy outfit but an outfit nonetheless.

What seemed like hours later, the girl found herself in front of the Study Room door, breathless and hair everywhere. Absentmindedly smoothing it down, she pushed her way through the door and glanced around the room, instantly spotting a firey mane of red hair in the corner. Her partner.

Wasting no time, Avis trotted up to the girl, setting down her satchel on the table and plopping onto the bench opposite from the fellow Ravenclaw.

“Cassandra, right?” she said distractedly, pulling out her supplies from her bag and awkwardly trying to smooth out her crumpled notes. “Sorry I’m a bit late. Woke up to a bright red Rememberall,” she said sheepishly, giving the girl a half smile.

Once she had all her things set out (which were noticeably less organized than her partner’s), Avis glanced back up.

“So we’re supposed to draw some plants or something right?” she asked with a grimace.

Word Count: 349

Cassandra had almost completely filled the page that she had started doodling on when she heard the sound of a bag hit the table. She jumped slightly and looked up to see a girl about her age ask if she was Cassandra to which she nodded her head and realized that this girl was Avis. She watched as the girl somewhat haphazardly took out her supplies and placed them on the table, apologizing for being a bit late.

"It's alright, it happens," she responded quietly although she wasn't quite sure if the girl had heard her as she still seemed to be sorting her stuff out. Cassandra moved some of her stuff to the side a little so that Avis could have more room and waited for her to get settled.

Eventually, Avis seemed to have settled and now they could begin. The girl across from her asked to make sure that she knew what they were doing and Cassandra made sure to take note of the, less that excited look she had. She couldn't exactly blame her, she really wasn't excited about the group part but she figured the actual work part of the project should go by fairly quickly as long as they focused.

"Yes, the assignment was to draw the plants as accurately as we could and label the separate parts of them so we would have a good point of reference later on," she explained, pretty sure she had remembered the actual assignment correctly.

She opened one of the books to the correct pages with what they needed as a point of reference besides what they already had for their notes.. "I have extra pencils, pens, and paper if you need anything before we start," she offered, figuring that even if she wasn't excited about the project she at the very least was going to be polite and offer help were she could. After all, she wasn't entirely sure how the girl was going to find anything in the mess of her workplace but Cassandra wasn't exactly going to say anything about that in particular.

“Merlin,” Avis groaned as her partner described the assignment. The girl remembered hearing about it in class of course, but her brain had desperately wanted to omit the ‘drawing’ aspect of the project.

Avis tugged a piece of parchment out from under one of her Herbology textbooks as Cassandra located the reference page their group had been assigned.

Avis gave her partner a grateful smile when she offered her own supplies.

“Might need a pen if that’s alright,” she said and glanced over at Cassandra’s neat workspace, taking note of the expertly drawn sketches in front of her. Her eyes widened slightly. “And might need to borrow some talent if you can spare any. Those are brilliant!” the Ravenclaw gasped, studying the drawings from her place across the table. She grimaced at the empty piece of parchment in front of her, knowing full well her own drawings weren’t going to be even half as good. Hopefully, the professor would be able to tell what her drawings were meant to be, otherwise the two might be facing a bit of an issue. She looked up at Cassandra.

“Could you… teach me… if you don’t mind, of course?” she asked hesitantly. Avis didn’t care much for the arts but if the grade of their assignment depended on her talent, she was going to need a little help.

Word Count: 314

Opening her bag, she pulled out one of the spare pens she had brought and handed it to Avis, looking down at the doodles she had done as the girl complimented them and said that she might have to borrow some of her talent. Cassandra didn't think they were much to look at, but she said a quiet "thank you" in response. She didn't think that the assignment really required any high-quality sketches, just pictures that vaguely resembled the plants so that they could be recognized so hopefully, her partner would be able to do that.

She felt the other Ravenclaw's eyes on her and looked up to meet them as Avis asked if Cassandra wouldn't mind teaching her. This caught her slightly off-guard, she had never taught anyone before, much less how to draw. However, if she was asking, then that implied she was not confident in her ability to draw, possibly explaining the disdain she had when she had asked about the assignment and then when Cassandra had explained the assignment to her.

Tapping her pencil slightly, she thought about the request before speaking, " I suppose I could, although I can't say I've ever really... taught someone to draw, but I can try."

Grabbing a fresh sheet of paper, she looked over at one of the pages in the book and began to sketch, explaining as she did. "For this, the best place to start is just drawing a basic outline of shapes. It doesn't have to be exact; you just want to get the basic shape down so you have a good base," she said, turning her paper slightly so that Avis could see. A few vague connected shapes were visible, and while it didn't look like much at the moment, it was a good baseline to ease into drawing the rest, at least, she hoped it would be for Avis.

“Well, anything you could teach would be more than I know now. I can’t draw to save my life,” Avis admitted as she took the spare pen from her assignment partner. As the two conversed and interacted, Avis, in her haste, hadn’t realized the bright haired girl sitting across from her was rather introverted. Being a recovering introvert herself, she always made it a subconscious mission to pull other shy students out of their shells and unfortunately Cassandra seemed to be her next target.

Avis desperately needed some drawing tips to be sure, but now, she realized this was an opportunity to befriend this closed off but seemingly very nice Ravenclaw. And if she knew how to draw, who knew what other interesting things there were about her? Avis could practically feel her curiosity taking over.

The girl watched Cassandra expertly sketch out an example drawing as she talked and when she turned it towards her, Avis cocked her head in confusion. The vague shapes looked strangely unplantlike but she decided to trust the girl and copied her technique as best she could.

Avis held up her paper when she finished, a light blush coming over her face. The shapes were even rougher than Cassandra’s “rough” sketch and Avis hoped it would do for the next step.

As she compared their drawings, Avis looked up again.

“Do you have any other hidden talents? Besides being on time to things, of course,” she joked, hoping she could pry an answer out of the quiet but helpful girl before they began on the next steps of their plant sketch.

Word Count: 313

Cassandra watched as Avis attempted to follow what she had done and looked at the sketch as the Ravenclaw girl lifted it so that she could see it properly. She wasn't going to lie; it was rough, but that was ok. It was meant to be a rough draft, and they would be cleaning it up later, so they would just have to continue on, no reason to get worried.

As she was about to comment on the sketch and continue with the drawing process, Avis asked if she had any other hidden talents. Cassandra wasn't exactly sure what the girl meant by "hidden talents," so she paused to think. She didn't think she had any hidden talents, she was good at drawing but she did that pretty openly so she didn't think that technically that counted. She was also pretty sure being on time wasn't particularly a hidden talent, if anything it was just basic time management skills but she supposed not everyone was particularly... good at those sorts of things.

She tapped her pencil slightly before answering the girl's question, "I don't think I have any hidden talents. I like to draw, and I'm good with plants, but those aren't exactly things I would consider to be hidden talents." She thought about it some more as she began carving into the base shapes she had drawn, turning her paper enough so that Avis could see. She carefully sketched the actual shape of the leaves and body of the plant, the base shapes they had drawn had mainly been for size reference and guidelines, so they would later erase them.

Looking at the sketch that now slowly began to look more like the actual plant, looked back up at Avis. "How about you, do you have any hidden talents," she questioned, figuring it was only fair to turn the question back around.

“I think being good with plants is a talent,” Avis mumbled in response as she stuck out her tongue to focus on the next part of the drawing. She didn’t quite understand how the base shapes were going to end up looking like, well, not base shapes but the girl dutifully began to draw her leaves as best she could.

When she was done, she frowned at the parchment. Her ‘leaves’ closely resembled what looked like Muggle tennis balls that she’d seen dogs playing with. Maybe a bit too round? Avis grimaced and decided she’d keep her paper to herself this time. She looked up when Cassandra returned her question.

“I dunno. I’m good at killing plants and I’m pretty good on a broom. Oh, and I’ve never lost a game of Exploding Snaps… except to my brother once,” she added regretfully. Avis couldn’t quite think of any real talents though. She was just very competitive which led her to put her all into winning, like at Quidditch and card games.

Looking down at her drawing, she sighed. Art, however, had never been her forte. “I think I messed up the leaves,” she said sheepishly, turning the paper towards her partner once again. The body of the plant wasn’t too terrible considering it was just made of lines but the leaves were much too bulbous and much too large. Avis wasn’t exactly sure how to fix them but maybe she’d start with making them smaller.

Word Count: 344

Personally, Cassandra thought that being good at a game and being good on a broom could both certainly be considered talents. She wasn't entirely sure what Exploding Snaps was, a wizard game she figured, but she knew that being good on a broom, especially for Quidditch, was certainly a good skill. Or at least the amount of people she had heard talk about the game made it seem like being good with a broom would be a good talent to have.

Almost forgetting what they had been doing, her attention was drawn back to the project as Avis said she might have somewhat messed up the leaves and turned the paper towards her. Cassandra studied the picture for a short moment, tapping her pencil once again as she studied it. It wasn't necessarily bad, but the leaves were definitely a bit bigger than they were supposed to be. "They're not too bad, but they are a little... big," she started, thinking about how Avis could easily fix them. "The good part is that since they are a bit big, you can erase those lines a bit so that they're lighter but not completely gone and then try again within those lines so that they're smaller and a little less round." She took another blank sheet of paper and quickly drew a mimic of what Avis had and then proceeded to show her what she had just explained.

It was a fairly simple fix, but given how... unconfident Avis seemed to be when it came to drawing, Cassandra decided it might be a bit better to bring her partner's attention elsewhere. After all, she knew that stressing over a drawing sometimes didn't exactly help, so perhaps going back to the topic of "talents" would be useful. "And, from my understanding, being good on a broom is not easy, so I think you could consider it a talent," she commented, hoping this would help, "and I'm not sure what Exploding Snap is, but if you've ever only lost once then I would consider that a talent."

Avis watched with intense focus as Cassandra showed her the technique she had just described. As she did so, the Ravenclaw couldn’t help but feel the familiar rise of frustration in her throat. She struggled quite a bit with getting things right the first time, which was impossible to be sure, but a notion Avis couldn’t seem to shake all the same. She desperately wanted to get this drawing done in easy simple manner but anything creative seemed to be her downfall. She simply just couldn’t get her brain to connect with the pencil she was currently clutching with a whitening grip.

Finally, the other girl looked up and Avis nodded, getting to work on her drawing once again, carefully she rubbed out her earlier lines lightly with an eraser and began to draw inside them, doing her best to mimic the redhead’s expert hand. The lines were shaky and uneven but the redone leaf did look much better proportion-wise. Avis let out a sigh of relief and looked up as Cassandra seemed to have picked up on some of the tension flowing through her nervous system.

Avis smiled gratefully at her straightforward comment. She rather liked the way the girl stated everything so matter-of-factly, with no room for fluff or flattery.

“Thanks, I think I would too,” Avis admitted proudly. Her eyes widened a little bit when Cassandra mentioned she’d never heard of Exploding Snap but as she’d done several times before these past two terms, Avis reminded herself that Muggle-borns did indeed exist and grew up far differently than she had. “We’ll have to play then. It’s loads of fun once you get the hang of it… and don’t mind an eyebrow or two being blown off,” Avis said, taking a moment to remember that one summer she’d spent without eyebrows or eyelashes for that matter.

Holding up her redone drawing, she slid it over to Cassandra for another consultation.
“What’d you reckon? Think the professor could see a Shrivelfig in there somewhere?” she asked with a small flicker of hope in her voice.