He Couldn't Be That Bad? // Sebastian Sallow and You (spicy)

1. Prickly Introductions

Author's note: If you're just here for the spice, the chapter titles have it listed, and I'd advise to really enjoy chapter 28.

In the back of the Herbology Greenhouse, at the end of a particularly muggy day, I was grinding my teeth as much as I was grinding mandrake roots in the stone poultice bowl.

I had been painstakingly working at the chopping station for what now felt like hours. Seventh years having the final herbology lab at the end of the day was starting to feel more like punishment than privilege.

Lots of time to spend in the greenhouse uninterrupted, cultivating whatever was needed for Advanced Potions the following morning, but that also meant there was a sort of expectation that students should stay late if they wanted to stay on track.

I loved school, but this was torture.

Almost everyone of my classmates had filed out once dinner service started, then even the last of the stragglers headed out about an hour before curfew.

Professor Sharpe told us repeatedly that preparations for potions was half the battle of competency for mastery. We needed our ingredients for tomorrow's potions class to be as close to perfect if we stood a chance of making a Floating Escadrol potion to an adequate level.

That's why I was here. Crushing and grinding these Mandrake roots that seemed to fight being ground down at all, wiggling around the piston, nevermind that they were hard as stones.

I was practically breaking a sweat in the humid greenhouse now, so I removed my cloak and my Prefects Jacket and laid them on the stool behind me.

My wrist ached and the clock chimed on the wall again, warning that curfew was only forty five minutes away. I stretched my back and went over my checklist. All was there except... I groaned, rolling my eyes with practically my whole body. I can't believe I forgot Mangleberry.

I quickly sweep through the greenhouse and all the small bushes in professor Garlick's pots have been picked clean. I check the main plant in the back from where the propagations have been trimmed and everything in arms reach has been stripped bare. Its iron strong branches are covered in thorns and it looks as though the rest of the students have picked the plant completely clean within arms reach. Only at the top, well out of reach are just a small number of the midnight purple berries.

With a heaving sigh I grab a nearby crate to stand on but I'm still unable to reach any of them without weaving my hand through the thorny branches. I spot an area where there is a break in the twisting thorns for my boot to rest on the green filigree iron of the trellis.

After a deep breath for courage I tentatively place the toe of my boot on the thin iron ledge at about the height of my waist. Then with a firm grip at a young branch that hasn't grown thorns yet, I hoist myself taller.

The metal under my weight groans just slightly, but holds me up.

Practically holding my breath, I weave my other hand through the spiderweb of thorns and am able to pluck a few berries into my palm. Slowly I weave my hand up through the branches, pluck a few more berries and slowly pull my hand back to deposit them in the pocket of my trousers.

I don't stop till I have more than enough as I really don't want to climb up here again for the rest of term if I can help it. 

The last little bunch of berries is just within my reach but I've gotten too greedy. The plant senses that I've been here a long time, or plucked more than my fair share. Before I can retract my hand, it constricts, pressing a thorn into the back of my hand.