Chapter 23: Herbology
The third Thursday of late September. Morning dew condensed in fine beads on the greenhouse glass.
First-year Herbology was held in Greenhouse Three, home to relatively safe magical plants.
Relatively safe — provided one followed proper procedure.
"Today we shall learn to handle Bubotubers," said Professor Sprout, standing before a row of clay pots and wearing stout dragonhide gloves.
Her round face glowed in the warm humidity of the greenhouse. "Can anyone tell me the use of Bubotuber pus?"
A Hufflepuff boy's hand shot up at once. "It's used to treat persistent acne, Professor. But it must be highly diluted — otherwise it causes far worse ulceration."
"Quite right. Five points to Hufflepuff." Sprout nodded. "Now, pair up. Each pair will receive one Bubotuber, a set of gloves, and a glass vial.
Your task is to safely squeeze out the pus and collect it in the vial. Be careful not to splash any on your skin or your robes."
Regulus paired with Avery Cuthbert. Avery wrinkled his nose as he accepted the pot. "This thing is hideous."
The Bubotuber was indeed unattractive — a blackish-brown bulbous root covered in boils, each boil tipped with a tiny pore oozing thick, yellowish-green fluid. "Put on your gloves," Regulus reminded him. He had already slipped his dragonhide pair on in one smooth motion.
He picked up his own tuber and focused his magical perception.
Materials held magic — he already knew that.
A porcupine quill's magic concentrated at its tip. Moongrass's magic intensified under moonlight. But this Bubotuber —
Perception sank in.
The first thing he sensed was life.
All plants had a gentle, steady flow of life force — like a slow heartbeat. But within the Bubotuber's flow, something else was mixed in.
His magical perception returned a stinging sensation.
The tuber's overall magic was stable, yet around the boils, the magic was turbulent.
The pus itself radiated even more intense chaotic fluctuations — and threaded through them was something like... an emotion?
Regulus studied the plant in his hand.
Pain.
The word surfaced unbidden.
Not pain in the complex, human sense, but something more primitive — an instinctive discomfort response.
Like a stress reaction triggered when a living organism is wounded, imprinted into its magical signature.
"What are you daydreaming about?" Avery had already squeezed out half a vial of pus, the yellowish-green liquid slowly oozing inside the glass. "Hurry up — the smell is revolting."
Regulus nodded. His right thumb and forefinger pinched a larger boil and squeezed gently.
Squelch.
Viscous pus flowed out and dropped into the vial.
In that instant, Regulus caught the shift. The turbulent magic around the boil weakened, but the plant's overall pain signature spiked briefly before gradually subsiding.
Like lancing an abscess — pain flaring before relief.
He squeezed three more boils in succession, perceiving the change each time. On the fourth, he looked up at Professor Sprout as she passed on her rounds.
"Professor."
Sprout walked over. "What is it, Mister Black?"
"The Bubotuber..." Regulus asked with a slight hesitation. "When it secretes pus, is it experiencing some form of distress?
What I mean is — from a magical standpoint, the secretion seems to be accompanied by a pain response."
Regulus had a habit of asking peculiar questions.
And those questions, to most young witches and wizards, sounded like scripture — every word recognizable, but strung together, utterly incomprehensible.
Yet the students had begun to notice a pattern: Regulus's baffling questions invariably struck a professor's sweet spot, earning him glowing praise and generous house points.
It had become a fixture of Slytherin classes. By now, Regulus's reputation preceded him.
The young witches and wizards nearby turned to look at him almost in unison, hands pausing mid-squeeze on their Bubotubers.
Avery Cuthbert's expression was the most complicated.
Brow furrowed, he stared at the inscrutable roommate beside him, that familiar blend of bewilderment and vague frustration rising in him once more.
He could not fathom how many bizarre ideas were crammed inside the Black family's younger son's head.
Had he read them in some book, or simply dreamed them up from thin air?
But what needled Avery most was that every question seemed precisely targeted — never idle showing off.
Compared to Regulus, everyone else looked like parrots who only recited the textbook and never thought for themselves.
A few Hufflepuff students seated nearby, however, wore a different look — pure, unguarded curiosity.
They exchanged glances, communicating silently.
'Distress? Pain? Can plants feel things?'
Professor Sprout's eyes widened. She hurried over to Regulus, voice tinged with delight. "You sensed it?"
"Yes, Professor." Regulus gave her a polite nod from his seat.
"The magical signature in the pus is highly disordered, and the tuber's overall magic fluctuates briefly on compression — similar to..." He searched for the right phrasing. "Similar to the magical reaction of an injured animal."
Sprout studied him for a long moment before slowly nodding. "Very few recognize this at the first-year level. Most students treat the Bubotuber as nothing more than a raw-material source."
She straightened and addressed the entire class. "Mister Black has raised an interesting point. In fact, many magical plants do possess simple emotional responses.
Bubotuber pus is essentially a defense mechanism. The secretion process places a burden on the plant itself.
Therefore, when harvesting, we should be as gentle as possible — to reduce their suffering."
She demonstrated a gentler technique: pressing slowly with the pads of the fingers rather than pinching roughly.
"A compassionate harvester obtains purer material," Sprout said. "That is the first lesson of Herbology — and one too many people forget. Ten points to Slytherin, for close observation."
Avery muttered to Regulus: "How on earth did you feel that? All I felt was disgust."
"Focus, reading, and a measure of natural aptitude," Regulus answered simply, continuing to work on the remaining boils.
Meanwhile, his mind turned. 'Plants have emotions — however primitive.
What does that imply? If emotions can be imprinted in magic, can magic carry more complex emotions? Applied to offense — or to healing?'
In the latter half of the class, students began cleaning their equipment.
Regulus washed his vial, removed his gloves, and walked over to Professor Sprout, who was reorganizing the plant racks.
"Professor, I have another question."
"Go ahead, my dear."
"It's about Mandrakes," Regulus said. "I read that the cry of a mature Mandrake is lethal to humans.
I wonder — does that lethality act on the body or the mind?"
Sprout paused her work and turned, expression growing serious. "That is an advanced question. Typically we don't cover Mandrakes in detail until the upper years."
"I realize that, Professor. But I'm curious." Regulus maintained a polite yet firm stance.
"If simply covering one's ears prevents death, it suggests the danger lies in the act of hearing the sound.
So — does the sound itself carry some form of magic, or does it trigger a response within the listener's body?"
Sprout did not answer immediately. She motioned for Regulus to follow her to a rest area in the corner of the greenhouse, where several wicker chairs stood.
Once they sat down, she spoke. "First, to answer your opening question — it is both."
"The Mandrake's cry carries a potent psychic-assault magic that directly destabilizes the listener's soul, causing consciousness to collapse. That is the psychic component of the lethality.
But at the same time, severe psychic collapse triggers a cascade in the body — cardiac arrest, respiratory failure, magical disruption. So the ultimate cause of death is a dual collapse of body and mind."
Regulus nodded, absorbing the information rapidly. "Then what is the principle behind the protective earmuffs? Do they block sound entirely, or attenuate the magical transmission?"
"Good question." Sprout's look of approval deepened. "The standard earmuffs are enchanted with a Sound-Filtering Charm. They filter out a specific type of magic — the lethal factor within the Mandrake's cry.
So, strictly speaking, you can still hear the scream, but what you hear is a purified, harmless version."
Regulus's mind raced. "In other words, the Mandrake's lethality hinges on the magic carried within the sound. Then — is it possible to reverse-engineer that?"
Sprout's expression turned grave. "What are you thinking, child?"
"I'm thinking about therapeutic possibilities," Regulus said — a partial truth. "If a certain magic can destroy, then by modifying it, might it repair instead?
For example — using a similar but inverted magic to treat psychic trauma?"