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Shrivelfigs and California Girls


The greenhouses were stifling hot and Sirius was fanning himself with the trowel as he watched Peter struggling with the strong roots as he worked at replotting some Shrivelfigs in their garden box.

James was kneeling beside Peter at least, but not really helping, his eyes on the front of the class, where Professor Viridi was helping one of the Hufflepuffs with their Shrivelfigs. He glanced at Sirius and raised his eyebrows meaningfully before carefully getting up and pulling off his gloves. Peter looked up and swiped his brow, “Where’re you going?” he asked. “Aren’t either of you going to help with this?”

“I’m helping,” Sirius said, still fanning himself with the trowel.

Peter raised an eyebrow, “I’m sorry. Did I blink and miss it when you helped?”

“You must’ve done,” Sirius answered.

“Well still, where’s he going?” Peter nodded at James, who was weaving his way between the other students in the greenhouse, making his way toward the door that led to Greenhouse 3. James looked back at Viridi, saw she was still engrossed in the project at hand, and ducked out the door. Peter looked up at Sirius.

Sirius sighed and knelt down, aware that Lily was glancing over at their box with interest now, clearly wondering what Peter was so concerned about. Remus stood beside her, dirt up to his elbows as he tugged at the roots of one of their plants. “He’s gone to get the mandrake leaves,” Sirius hissed, leaning closer to Peter. “Don’t go shouting about it like a prat or he’ll get caught.”

“Ohhh,” said Peter, realizing what he’d done, “Sorry. I didn’t know.” Then, in a more despondent tone, “It isn’t as though the lot of you included me in the plan.”

“Because it was spur of the moment,” Sirius lied.

Peter turned and focused on the plant, frustrated, tugging the roots from the ground as Sirius stared out toward the door where James had gone through. “You could help, you know,” Peter snapped, “Since you’re getting graded on it, too, and everything.”

Sirius rolled his eyes, but he reached down and half heartedly started stabbing at the dirt ‘round one of the plants with his trowel, still paying far more attention to where James was than the plant he was working on.

In the next greenhouse over, James was trying to stay low so that his silhouette wouldn’t tip anybody off to his whereabouts. He crouched low and crept through the dirt, moving toward the front outer wall, where the mandrakes were potted and snoozing in their big barrels. They were in need of repotting and their mature heads stuck up out of the ground a little ways at the base of the stocks where the leaves grew. James peered over the rim of the barrel at the top of the mandrake he’d selected to get his leaves from.

A glance back told him he was still alone in the greenhouse, so he reached up onto the nearest table and felt about until he found some shears and turned back to the mandrake. Carefully, he trimmed three of the wide green leaves from the stalk and rolled them up neatly, like they were a scroll, and slipped them into his robes pocket.

When he got back to Greenhouse 4, where the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs were having class, Professor Viridi had moved on to helping a different table with their Shrivelfigs, but did not seem to have noticed one of the Gryffindors missing. He slipped back in silent as could be and quickly knelt on the other side of Sirius from Peter.

“Where did you go?” Lily asked suspiciously, looking over.

“Why? Did you miss me, Love?” James asked, grinning.

Lily narrowed her eyes. “No.”

James blew her a kiss.

“Ugh.” Lily quickly turned back to her shrivelfigs, shaking her head.

Remus glanced over with a slightly disapproving look, one eyebrow raised, and James shrugged. “Can’t help it if I have to go to the loo, can I?” James asked. Remus turned back to the shrivelfigs, too, clearly uninterested in the details of James’s supposed trip to the loo.

“Did you get them?” Sirius hissed.

“Sure did,” James answered, picking up the little hand-rake and clinking it against Sirius’s trowel in a sort of toast.

Peter looked ‘round as the two tools hit against one another. “Are either of you working on this with me?”

“Very hard,” replied Sirius, quickly returning to the soil that he had barely touched.

“It just seems like I’m the only one actually accomplishing anything,” Peter complained.

“Perhaps it’s just that you’re the only one that’s any good at Herbology?” suggested James. Sirius smirked down at the shrivelfig plant. Peter swelled up with pride in spite of himself and turned back to the repotting process while James and Sirius continued on dawdling and hardly doing any work at all.

“Well hello,” called Professor Viridi suddenly. All the heads in the class turned to the door to see who she was greeting. It was Principal Randy Temple and Dawn Gleason, just stepping through the door with their purple robes. Dawn Gleason wore a pair of glasses with black plastic frames and her hair was up in two tight buns in the back of her head with tendrils hanging in her face. “Welcome, welcome. Class - we have some visitors.” Viridi smiled to the two, “We’re very happy you’ve come by Greenhouse 4 today!”

Sirius’s voice was low, “Are we ever,” he muttered appreciatively, that hungry look returning to his eyes as he watched Dawn Gleason smile and shake Professor Viridi’s hand.

James grinned.

Lily looked ‘round at all the boys oogling at Dawn Gleason - as they’d been doing from the moment she’d stepped out of the back of that Volkswagen bus - and rolled her eyes. “Really,” she said, “So she has blonde hair and tanned skin and perfect cheekbones! So what?” But even as she said it, her voice had dripped with a bit of jealousy.

Sirius looked ‘round at Lily, “You’re a girl so you wouldn’t understand the so what, would you? But trust me, there is very much a so that goes with that what.”

“I wouldn’t mind being the so to her what, actually,” muttered James.

“Nor would I,” added Peter.

Lily looked at Remus, one eyebrow raised. “And you? I suppose you’re just as much an animal as they are?”

Remus looked apologetic. “I mean, I am human. Mostly.”

“Yeah, your furry little problem doesn’t cure you of having red blood, does it mate?” James asked, laughing.

“Sorry,” Remus said to Lily with a shrug.

Lily shook her head, and although she sounded annoyed, she was clearly amused by their antics. “Boys.”

“Like all the girls aren’t drooling over Jack Scout,” James said pointedly.

Lily shook her head, “Well I’m not. Anybody who’s anti-muggle isn’t worth drooling over, in my book.”

“Well luckily, Dawn thinks muggles are okay,” Sirius said, “So I can drool all I want.” He winked.

Lily laughed, glancing over her shoulder at Dawn Gleason as she and Principal Temple were looking over some of the Hufflepuff’s work with the shrivelfigs across the room. “Seriously, what’s so special about her that makes all the boys go crazy? What’s she got that every other Hogwarts girl hasn’t got?”

“Dunno,” Sirius said, shrugging, “There’s just something about her.”

“She’s from California,” said Remus. “My mum was from California. She said the people are just made different there. She said that everybody in California is either famous or fabulous or both.”

“Well the East Coast girls are hip, I really dig those clothes they wear…” sang Sirius, looking to James.

James grinned, “And the Southern girls with the way they talk, the knock me out when I’m down there…

Peter shook his head, used to Sirius and James bursting out in random songs, as Remus laughed and focused on his and Lily’s shrivelfigs and biting his lips tightly.

“And the Mid-West farmer’s daughters really make you feel alright…” Sirius continued on.

“And the Northern girls with the way they kiss, they keep their boyfriends warm at night…” James crooned, grabbing hold on Sirius’s little trowel to use as a microphone.

Several of the Hufflepuffs closest to them were now looking over from their potting beds, amused expressions on their faces as the boys performed and, turning red from the attention being directed at them, Lily rolled her eyes, “Oh Merlin…”

Together, they bellowed out in unison, “I wish they all could be California - I wish they all could be California… I wish they all could be California girls…!”

Their voices had successfully crossed the Greenhouse at that and Dawn Gleason giggled. Professor Viridi frowned, “I do hope, Mr. Potter and Mr. Black, that your shrivelfigs look positively marvelous by the time we get over to you with all this doddling about and singing that’s coming from your direction.”

“They positively will, Professor,” said Sirius confidently. But he and James quickly turned to help Peter with the repotting, afraid that perhaps they shouldn’t rely entirely on Peter for their grade, especially now that Viridi would be seeking nothing less than perfection.

However, it wasn’t perfection, even with James and Sirius finally paying attention. The shrivelfigs really were quite hard to repot and therefore the potting bed looked fairly messy by the time they’d finished - though admittedly Peter’s work really had been neater without their help - and Viridi assigned them in charge of caring for one of the little potted shrivelfig plants for one week in their dormitories. “Those figs better still be alive!” she said pointedly, “No brown leaves or your grades will suffer.”

“You’ll be needing to be the one taking care of it, then, Peter,” said Sirius in as solemn a voice as he could muster, “Seeing as you’re the one with the green thumb about here. I’m dreadful at plants.”

“Hopefully not as dreadful as you are at singing,” said a voice.

Sirius turned ‘round to see Dawn Gleason smirking at him from behind and he grinned widely. “I excell in deplorable singing, actually. I’ve won awards for being so terrible. The Positively Ungood Signing Award - Pus they call it.”

“And as you can tell, he’s just bang-on with grammar as well,” remarked Lily. “The Abysmal Sentence Structure Award. Any guesses what they call that one?”

Dawn laughed outloud. “You lot are hilarious!” she exclaimed, moving on.

Sirius turned ‘round to face Lily, “Did you just call me an ass?”

Lily smirked as James laughed so hard he wheezed.