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Post by Bryony Bishop on Mar 2, 2012 18:23:09 GMT -5
Poking the defenseless, and most likely defective, flobberworm Bryony had placed on the leaf, she sighed in defeat. She had decided to take him on for extra credit (not that she needed it for Magical Creatures) but didn't count on screwing up something so simple. Merlin wasn't growing. He hadn't gained a single centimeter since she picked him out of the box a couple of weeks ago.
She had been trying to feed him lettuce and cabbage and other greens and as a last resort had brought him out to the pumpkin patch to see if the vines were more to his liking. Doomed to fail, the little guy just sat there, not eating or moving or even looking up at her, mocking her with his starvation death plan.
"Look. You are more than just a grade to me, I swear. Didn't I hide you when the house elves were making flobberworm fritters? Don't I keep a warming charm over your box? Don't I make sure you have fresh water and a blankie? Doesn't that show I'm not gonna use you as fish bait when the term ends? EAT SOMETHING!!!"
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Post by Cleo Vanderley on Mar 4, 2012 0:13:54 GMT -5
Cleo often visited Hagrid. She liked Hagrid, who had once caught her wandering around in the Forbidden Forest and didn't turn her in. In fact, he was aware that she frequently went into the Forbidden Forest, and more than once she was sure he had followed her to make sure nothing happened to her. But so far, her excursions into the forest had proven to be rather disappointing. She hadn't met any werewolves or centaurs or unicorns. The most she'd found so far had been a large stag.
But her friendship with Hagrid was one good thing that had come out of it. She liked him a lot. Like her, he seemed to have no fear, he was warm and friendly and emotional, and he had a laugh that shook his whole body. If only his cooking had been a little better, he would have been perfect. She always got to find out about some cool new creature whenever she visited him... but she was going to break her teeth on his wretched rock cakes.
She had just finished a visit with Hagrid and was trying to find a place to hide the rock cakes she had pretended to eat when she happened to notice a girl sitting in the pumpkin patch, seemingly yelling at the plants.
Curious, Cleo moved closer to see who or what the girl was talking to.
"Are you talking to yourself, or do you have a friend in an invisibility cloak?" she asked.
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Post by Bryony Bishop on Mar 4, 2012 20:10:22 GMT -5
Bryony spun around, her hand clutching Merlin possessively. She hadn't thought about what she must look like, standing there in the open, yelling...at her hand. She must have looked insane to anyone who passed by. She wondered if anyone else had seen her before Cleo, and tried to think. She hadn't heard anyone passing by. But then she hadn't heard Cleo, either, until the other girl opened her mouth. Damn.
She held out her hand, carefully cupping Merlin so he wouldn't fall out.
"He won't eat. He's being paranoid and stubborn and I'm going to flunk this stupid extra credit assignment...because my flobberworm has a death wish. Tell me you took this on, and have some super amazing secret that will help me win him over?" she begged, hoping to get some insight that would force this stupid creature to eat, drink and be merry.
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Post by Cleo Vanderley on Mar 6, 2012 22:24:50 GMT -5
Cleo was puzzled for a minute, so she moved a little closer to the other girl to see what she was talking about. Peering into the fourth year's cupped hand, she realized that Bryony was holding a flobberworm. Cleo couldn't help herself... she began to laugh.
"A flobberworm?" she said. "Bloody useless, aren't they? They all just sit there and do nothing. Might as well feed that one to the giant squid... though I doubt he'd bother eating it."
But she did remember something Hagrid had told her about flobberworms, when he'd found one sitting harmlessly on a head of cabbage. If this girl really wanted to keep the useless thing alive, the least Cleo could do was offer her a little advice.
"Anyway, you have to shove food in its mouth. Not too much, though, or it'll die. And I'm not sure which end's the mouth. Both ends are pretty much the same, really."
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Post by Bryony Bishop on Mar 7, 2012 20:18:37 GMT -5
Bryony looked at the girl, trying not to show her annoyance, but it was difficult. She spoke quietly and calmly, keeping her gaze on the obnoxious little thing in her hand. She demonstrated silently, gently trying to shove the leaf in Merlin's mouth. He merely turned his head and looked about as disinterested as possible for a virtually featureless creature to look.
"You SEE!!! He is doing it on PURPOSE!" she yelled and flung the leaf on the ground. She would have said it was impossible before now, but she swore Merlin looked rather smug. Bree reached down into the bag at her feet, and pulled out a tiny carrier. It was a kind of cloth necklace, with a clip on the end. Attached to the clip was a small baby basket, with blue frills, in a blue and white check pattern. She put Merlin in it, and pulled the tissue thin blanket over him.
"This isn't over", she warned before pulling the cover over the basket, blocking out the sun.
"You see? He REFUSES to eat...he's going to DIE and I'll be the only person in Hogwarts History to kill a flobberworm through starvation."
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Post by Cleo Vanderley on Mar 13, 2012 23:14:25 GMT -5
Cleo tried hard not to laugh. Clearly the girl was upset by the flobberworm's apparent refusal to eat, but it was sort of funny at the same time. The flobberworm actually seemed sort of... rebellious, as crazy as it sounded. Flobberworms didn't have brains, and they certainly didn't have personalities. But somehow this one seemed to.
It was also rather amusing to Cleo that this girl actually seemed to care about the useless thing, like it was more than just an extra credit assignment to her.
"That's... weird," she managed between laughs. "I've never seen a flobberworm act like that before. In fact, I've never seen a flobberworm do anything at all. Maybe he's sick. Did you try bringing him to Hagrid?"
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