Herbology by Any Other Name... PV Rose Moon Closed

Rose absolutely hated the feeling of needing help. It made her feel so weak, so stupid, so helpless. Rose was used to helping other people, using kind words to encourage them that it was normal to have hiccups- everyone did. But when she was struggling herself, she said the exact opposite things to herself. How weird she was. How hopeless she was. How ashamed she should be. And how she could never get anything right. And then, she would spend her time trying to figure it out by herself, not accepting any help. Saying that she could handle it. And, most of the time, eventually, she would get it right.

It was on this particular day, however, that she was accepting help. Rose could not, for the life of her, figure out how to cast the Slug-Vomiting Curse. Her partner for the last couple of lessons- Aly- had knocked it out of the park and so kindly offered to help her. Before really thinking about it, Rose had taken her up on her offer and they had agreed on a time and place.

Which, right now, was here and now for Rose. She was hovering just outside the study room, scanning the room for her beautiful classmate. She pinpointed her, noticing her more by her hair than anything else, and made her way over there.

But what Rose hated even more about needing help was actually getting help. She hadn’t been able to say the incantation, or the way they were supposed to wave their wand. And she really didn’t want to ever bring that upon anybody, so it was hard for her to imagine herself doing it, which was helpful with other charms and spells she was good at. But she was pushing through it because she needed this. And she was going to have a fun time with Aly.

Rose sat down next to Aly, placing her bag beside her. “Hey, Aly. Again, thanks for offering to help me with the charm,” she said in a friendly tone. Her voice was a couple shades softer than most people’s, and was tinted by an American accent. She, of course, was still understandable, but it was how she grew up with her mother speaking, so she had gotten accustomed to her own version of the accent. “You totally rocked it when you tried, so I appreciate you taking your time and helping little old me.”

@Rose Moon

After just a few minutes of waiting, Aly spotted the familiar redhead from Herbology lingering just outside the Study Room in the corridor, scanning the room with a green gaze that matched and even outdid Aly's own in its vibrancy. Realizing that Rose must have been looking for her, Aly raised a hand to wave at her to catch her attention- she didn't want to shout something out in the ever-quiet room, after all, and distract other people- but Rose's keen eyes had already noticed her and Aly's pretty classmate was already heading over to join the curly-haired Ravenclaw at her table.

"Hey, Aly. Again, thanks for offering to help me with the charm," Rose greeted her softly as she carefully pulled up a seat beside Aly herself; after a while of being partners with the redhead in Herbology, Aly had grown fairly used to the other girl's light American accent that mixed with her British- the hard, rhotic sound of the r, among other things. "You totally rocked it when you tried, so I appreciate you taking your time and helping little old me."

Aly flushed slightly pink with pride, trying not to look too pleased with herself as she cleared some of the books she'd spread out across the table away from the area where Rose had sat down. She wanted her- classmate? acquaintance? friend?- to have space to herself, after all. "It's really no worry at all!" she said cheerfully, moving one of the Herbology books slightly further away from herself so that Rose would have somewhere to put her own books, quills, ink, and whatever else she had brought to the study session. Her voice was pitched a bit more loudly than her study partner's, and she tried her best to quiet herself down to avoid getting cheesed-off looks from other students nearby. "I don't think we should be trying to cast the Slug-Vomiting Charm in here, though... now that we're here and all, I'm beginning to think we should have picked somewhere out-of-doors if we wanted to work on that..."

She offered up a nervous smile to Rose. Aly was a happy girl, joyous and cheerful and generally charming, and her enthusiasm was often infectious, but that did not mean she was universally liked. And Aly hated when people didn't like her, whether it was due to something she did or something she said or some promise she didn't keep. And she had promised to help Rose Moon with Herbology, but here she was, sitting in the Study Room and explaining why she wouldn't help her with this one charm.

But it's common sense, isn't it? the petite brunette thought to herself. We don't want to be vomiting slugs all over the Study Room, or else we'll get kicked out by some prefect or fourth-year for sure!

Emboldened by her train of thought, which chugged along as persistently as the Hogwarts Express itself, Aly's smile grew more confident as she opened up one of her Herbology textbooks to the table of contents and handed it over to Rose. "But that doesn't mean we can't work on Herbology concepts, or something else, if you'd still like to study," she suggested. "Something from last year, maybe?" Aly pointed two fingers at the table of contents, her brain working overtime to try to come up with something that her classmate may have struggled with. "The Fire-Making Spell, maybe, or... the Extinguishing Charm?"

There were also other subjects, things that Aly herself was struggling with, but she wasn't going to ask Rose to tutor her with anything seeing as this whole study session had been planned out around the idea that Aly would be the one helping out! That was not to say Aly was perfect, though, for she decidedly wasn't (although academically, her report card begged to differ). She had least favourite subjects, too- Astronomy was so complicated, and History of Magic so dull. And then there was Muggle Studies, which she would hopefully begin taking next year. Aly positively adored the idea of Muggle Studies, but there was always the issue that Aly herself was a pureblood who had grown up rather sheltered, and knew very little about Muggles as it was. So perhaps she wouldn't do well in that class once the time came.

But at least she always loved to learn about them.

Can't help but wonder if Rose knows anything about Muggles, it occurred to the Ravenclaw... but she refrained from asking, in case her peer thought she was being rude or snotty about blood status and all that; instead, she simply grinned, hoping that Rose would have something to say, some decision to make.

Rose nodded in agreement, glad of her classmate's friendly tone of voice, meaning that hopefully she wasn't inconvenienced by this in any way, which Rose hoped was true. She had said it was, but some people didn't really mean it when they did, so Rose was glad Aly's answer at least seemed convincing. "That's actually a good idea. We don't want slugs all over the Study Room- we would get thrown out. Plus, I don't know any healing spells, so it probably would be unfortunate if we accidentally hit someone and had to take them to the Hospital Wing," she said, in a joking manner. Rose's sense of humor largely sarcastic, always accompanied by a smirk and a glint in her eyes. She then listened to Aly's suggestion of what they could do instead here- Go over other Herbology subjects, like the fire-related charms.

The thing was that Rose didn't struggle with any other charms, at least usually. It was just this one charm she was infuriatingly stuck on, which had been why she had commissioned help from Aly on this particular occasion. Aly probably didn't know this, but Rose hadn't done anything like this her entire life before, accepted help from people. Aly was really such a nice person for helping Rose and being so nice about it as she did. Rose hoped they could become more than study partners, because being friends with someone like Aly was something only an idiot would pass on. There was just something so trustworthy about Aly, though- Rose knew she was going to be gentle in helping her in the places she lacked talents in. And since she was being so helpful to Rose, the redhead wanted to somehow pay her back, so maybe they would have to meet again after this so Rose could give her a present of sorts as a thank you.

Inwardly, Rose immediately vetoed the idea that surfaced of telling Aly she didn't need her help with other things like the Fire-making spell. It sounded really blunt and mean in her head, and she wanted to find a way to word her next response that was appreciative of Aly's suggestion but yet wouldn't end up with her not being helped in any way in this session. So, instead of being either blunt or not being assertive, Rose suggested something else that could help her with the Slug-Vomiting spell, the spell she couldn't quite get right- "Why don't you quiz me on the incantation and the wand movement and history and stuff? Of the Slug-Vomiting spell, I mean. Then, when I try it, I could keep those in mind?" she said, not a lot of confidence in her voice. She added, "Unless you'd rather do your idea, which is cool with me too." Rose really didn't want to undermine Aly's idea, since it was a good idea, but Rose didn't think that would be as helpful as her own. Whichever Aly chose, Rose would go along with it happily.

It was strange, because Rose was usually so skilled with spellcasting. She usually could get a spell the second or third try, but even though she had tried this spell over and over and over again, it just hadn't seemed to work. She knew she was doing something wrong somewhere, which was point-blank infuriating, but Rose knew she was going to get it eventually. She would just beat herself up in the meantime. She was usually excellent at Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts and Transfiguration, and good at potions, flying, and Herbology, which were all more hands-on than some other subjects. She wasn't the best at History of Magic, but maybe that's just because she wasn't very interested in it. Astronomy she wasn't bad at, either. She was looking forward to next year, when they would be studying other subjects, like Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures, and Muggle Studies, all of which were third year subjects.

She was excited for Muggle Studies, which only started to be available next year, in her (as well as Aly's) third year, because she would be able to learn more about her father's culture and background, as he had been a muggle. But she would have to wait a good amount of time before she could actually attend it.