Valdez turned the lights on in the rarely used greenhouse 6. It was late at night, the perfect time for this particular lesson to occur. His new assistant Guinn had set up his classroom perfectly. He hoped she would consider his offer... Maybe she would watch the lesson and be instantly hooked on teaching as he was. Every station was equipped with a smallish plant that seemed to be harmless. Little did they know...

In his messy handwriting, he scrawled on the board. Beltride Plant: Crime Scene Investigation for Wizards

This plant was not well known and would require a lengthy introduction on his part... He waited for the late night lesson to begin.

Valentina walked hestily over to the greenhouse, feeling tired and a bit anxious.

She was wondering why that lesson would be tought at that time of night.

" 'Morning... sorta!" she saluted, not looking at her professor properly, just swinging her bag off her back and grabbing a seat.

She waited for some instructions, wondering how come she was first.

((OOC: sorry if it's so short, couldn't think of anything alse to say...))

She’d put a lot of effort into setting the greenhouse up earlier that day, Valdez was a busy man as headmaster and she was more than glad to help him in anyway she could. That didn’t mean however she was going to take up his offer and teach; she’d been thinking on it, thinking on it a lot but she couldn’t see herself as a teacher without some form of experience. Maybe she’d consider it. However right now she was here to observe because either way she’d turned up to the night’s lesson. She was interested to see how the class reacted, especially since she vaguely knew some of them.

She entered the room shortly after the first student, her figure attempting to hide at the back of the class to observe the lesson; she did however smile at Valdez in greeting, waving slightly also.

Valdez returned the nod. After everyone was seated, he began. He cleared his throat and spoke clearly. "Today's lesson is somewhat dangerous." he paused, waiting for the roars to subside, "Today's lesson is on the Beltride Plant." He held up one of the plants in a pot. It was about two feet tall with small sharp leaves brilliant hues of red and green. Atop the plant was a flower, which opened and closed... As if it were breathing.

"You must listen to me and follow my every instruction. This will minimize risk of death. Do not directly touch the plant." he paused, making sure everyone was still awake and paying attention. "These plants are rarely found in the wild because of their vast medicinal value as well as for their value in forensics. First I will explain their medicinal values. "

"The sap from this plant is a natural antibiotic and can be used to heal various minor injuries. " he walked around the room waiting to see if there were any questions.

Valentina's hand shot up.

"how do we do that, sir? How do we astract the medicin without touching it directly? And how are we soposted to recognise it?"

She was curious, which was a good sign. She was paying attention.

Zackery took a place next to Valentina.

"hey!" He whispered, trying to use a flirty tone, but obviously failing.
He got out his dragon skin gloves, hoping they would somehow help.
"how was your weekend?" he asked, but got shusshed by her.

"Good question," Valdez responded, "If you use a pair of forceps and a pair of sheers, you can clip the top of the plant off and use the sap. However, you still must not touch the plant." He paused for a moment, then continued with the lesson.

"In today's lesson, you all will be extracting the sap from these plants as well as doing some forensic science. These smallish plants have a difficult time fending for themselves in the wild because of their size. So, they have developed an odd defense mechanism." The headmaster unsealed a flask with a dark red liquid. "This is blood." He said, waiting for the oohs and ahhs to stop, "The Beltride Plant is only able to grow when given blood. This is the reason that it is incredibly dangerous to handle them. This plant will do anything for blood." The 'breathing' of the plant began to quicken. It was hungry and wanted to grow. The plant bent its bulb 'mouth' into the flask and began to drink the blood. As it drank, the colors of the leaves began to change into a deep purple color. "This is the reason that this plant is valuable to forensics. This plant is able to tell what kind of creature blood belongs to." Valdez lifted up the screen, which revealed a chart. Which read:

-Blood of Rabbit: purple.
-Blood of Raven: black
-Blood of Chicken: bright yellow
-Blood of Cow: pure white
-Blood of Pig: dark blue
-Blood of Dog: bright green
-Blood of Cat: dark orange
-Blood of Fish: gray

"So it seems to me that the blood I had was the blood of a rabbit..." Valdez paused, seeing shock in his class. "Chicos, you have no reason to worry. The animals were not killed, they just had blood drawn." He stopped again and redirected, "This plant can also differentiate between different blood types in humans. However, we will not be experimenting with that today. It is not safe, and is potentially damaging to self esteem. Your task today is to be able to label each of the bottles at your table. One more thing, you must wait for the plant to return to its normal color before you try to test another plant. Off you go."

Katarzyna walked in, a moment or three late and walked over in her clacking heels to a desk next to some boy with long black hair who was talking to another girl. Kat never really liked Herbology much. Sure, it was interesting at times... But plants just weren't her fancy. Transfiguration and potions on the other hand? Deffinetly. She was awake in those classes.

Kat dropped her beat up shoulder bag on the Green House floor and tried to figure out what the hell was going on with these freakish plants in front of her. She was already out of her comfort zone by attending a class at night. She was a little peeved, because it was cutting into 'wandering aimlessly around Hogwarts and harassing Hufflepuffs' time.

"Hey," she whispered to the boy whos name she didn't know. [Zackery] "Do you know what I missed? ... Slash what's going on?" she whispered, laughing softly under her breath,

Cassandra walked into the greenhouse. She saw some people with wierd looking plant in front of them. 'Great' she thought 'Late again' She rubbed her eye while she scaned the crowd. She sat next to a girl whos name she knew was Valentina.
"Hello. What did I miss?" she wispered rubbing eye again. Darn contacts!

Valdez was surprised that the students didn't get the importance of being on time. "Ms. Bloom, Ms. Warswick, detention. Do not walk into my class late. That doesn't work. Minus 15 points from each of your houses. You know better than to come in here late without a damn good excuse." He didn't like giving detention, but it seemed to be the only way for students to learn.

Valentina was shocked at the news, but it was intresting, so she recovered soon enought.

She turned to face Cassandra.
"hey, Cass! All we have to do is test out these blood bottles on the plants -without touching them- and recognise what creature's blood it belongs to by looking at the leafes' coloures!" She said with a smile.

She turned to face Zackery, who was now talking to a Slytherin girl who she did not recognise straight away.

"Zack?" she asked once he'd finished, "I went to Hogsmeade this weekend, what about you?" She asked, feeling bad that she had shusshed him before.

Cassandra groaned. Another detention. Her parent were gonna kill her when she wrote back home. She could always convetantly forget to tell them. She didn't like lying but somtimes it was nessasary. She started to work on the task at hand. She looked towards Kat. She gave her a small smile. She turned to Valentina again.
"What happens if you touch the plant?" she asked.

Katarzyna's mouth dropped. "What? Come on, Valdez! Oh! I mean, Professor.. Sorry. Detention? WHy not... uh, uh warning?" she pleaded, even though it was no use anyways.

Kat turned to look at the Gryffindor who also had to serve the lovely detention. Ah, it was the same girl from the Astronomy Tower. Great. Well, it could be worse.

Katarzyna let out a loud sigh and bit her lip. She put on the green House gloves and slowly moved ehr hand towards the plant. She wanted to see if it would jump out and bite her or something. She had no idea what the plant was, or what the hell she was even doing in a green house at this hour.

If it's dangerous, she thought, I'm sure Valdez will stop me.

Cassandra looked over to Kat again. She mouthed 'Oh My God! I hate him! 15 points. Come on! So unfair." She turned back to Valentina.
"I didn't mean to listen to your conversation but you said you went to Hogsmeade this weekend. How was it?" she asked.

Valentina grinned at Cassandra.
"If you were to touch it..."- she pretended to shiver at the thought-"...I think it will rip your arm off or somethin'." She smiled now.

She reflected on the next question.
"Well... It was pretty fun, really... I went to Zonko's Joke Shop (OOC:pretend it didn't close) and then at Honeyduke's... it was cool... What about you? What did you do?" She asked, curious.

She dropped a few blood drops and watched the plant change it's colour: black.
"That's raven blood, right?" she asked, both to Cassandra and Zackery.

Cassandra nodded.
"Yeah that's raven blood." she paused "Oh I didn't do much. Just kinda walked around. I went into Honeydukes and bought flavor beans." she groaned "Ugh I have detention!" She rubbed her eye again.

Valentina scribbled down the answer on her parchment.

"yeah, getting detentions sucks!" she replied.
She didn't have much more to say, so she got on with her work.
Zackery, who was by her right side, kept somehow disturbing her, eighter by frowning or gasping everytime his plant changed colour. (OOC: I hope I described him right!)

"Tell me, Cass, do you like Herbology?" She asked, while her plant changed yet again. It was a very random question, but it suited well.

She watched the way he taught the class intently, finding herself almost wanting to do the lesson herself; despite the fact she’d done so before. She always liked his teaching but watching it from and outside point made her entranced with it. She found it rather humorous when the late students pleaded for anything but a detention, as a student she’d gotten many herself, though she knew to keep her mouth shut and not contest after being given one.

Her attention was drawn back to the first students however when they began to task, chattering amongst themselves. She watched them like a hawk, her hand itching to grasp her wand just in case. She knew Vladez was more than adept enough to handle the situation if one were to touch the plants but it made her nervous, after all she’d been moving them about all morning.

Cassandra watched as Valentina's plant changed color again. She sighed.
"Yeah it's interesting. Valentina, " she added playfully "how many times have I told you to call me Sandy?" she smiled. She scribbled some notes as she waited for a response.

Katarzyna looked at the vials in front of her and grimaced. She really... really hated Herbology. She listened in on the conversation between Sandy and Valentina. Kat and Sandy had a rough start, but they seemed to be willing to give each other some sort of second chance. And Kat liked Valentina for what it was worth.

Her plant turned a dark blue and her frown turned even more downwards. "Ugh, mines a frigg- I mean.. mines a pig. or pig's blood, whatever," she said, saving herself from losing more house points from the professor.

Cassandra turned to Kat
"So what did you do this weekend? I thought I saw you in Hogsmeade. Did you go?" she asked watching her plant turn bright yellow. She mumbled something about chicken blood.

"Sandy?" she asked, confused by the change of subject.
"oh. Yeah, right!" she said, smiling.
"Sandy it is, then!"

Sandy turned to talk to talk to Katarzyna, so Valentina was left to talk with Zackery.

"You know, I always wondered how come you're so tall." she confessed in a conversational tone, as she lifted her head to look at him, and smiled.

She watched Professor Kibben pass her desk, so she smiled, obviously looking relaxed but aware of the danger.

Zackery beamed down at Valentina.
He couldn't help but notice her extreme beauty...

"Growth spur, I guess." he said chuckling, "but, besides, I'm too tall for my age, when you are..."-he paused, changing adjective before it was too late- "...averege! That's good!" he said, feeling a coward.

He smiled at the professor, before carrying on."

Kat looked at the professor briefly before turning to Sandy. "Oh, yeah. I was in Hogsmeade for a bit - with some friends. Mostly Slytherins," she explained lightly, crossing her legs and pulling up her black knee socks she always wore.

Katarzyna glanced at Sandy's yellow plant, then back to her own. "Yah. This s**t is weird," she said, surpressing her laughter. "You like Herbology? I don't really... I'm more of a Potions and Defense girl.

Sandy shurgged.
"Yea it's interesting. Not something I would want to do everyday thogh." she rubbed her eye."Damn these f***ing contacts!"she exclaimed queitly. She dug in her bag and found her contacts case. She removed her contacts leving her temorarily blind. She found her glasses and put them on."Ah!" she said "Much better" She continued to work.