Unspeakable

Chapter 83: Planning for the Future

Class the next morning was mostly uneventful for Diane, but she had other plans. After her advanced herbology lessons were over, she made a B line for the back greenhouses to try something.

She'd made a goal to try using her ancient magic more, and it made sense that she would try with her strengths first, to experiment and see what happened if she used that magic instead of her 'normal' magic. So Herbology first, and today she would find what ancient magic did to plants.

She would start with something rather plain, just in case. She didn't dare try her hybrid yet, considering it was already so volatile. So marshmallow was first.

She took her wand out to help her focus her magic, looking down at the small sprig of marshmallow she'd started just for this purpose. Why did she feel nervous? Perhaps because it was something that was unknown. How ancient magic affected living things was anyone's guess, but she didn't want to make the same mistakes as Isadora. She wouldn't be influencing emotions or taking anything away. Only giving.

She took a deep breath before she took one last look at the doors to the greenhouse before getting started.

Magic flowed from her wand much like her normal magic into the plant, but the plant reacted far more to this magic. Where normally it would have taken hours of magic growing to bring it to full size, it happened within minutes and pushed her back as branches grew at breakneck pace. She was startled by how fast it was, but also by the sheer size of the plant, far larger than it normally would have been.

Okay... so plants certainly grew fast with it. What else could she do?

She focused the magic on different parts, now. Leaves... they turned massive and bushy. Roots... oh that was interesting, she could make them grow really quickly... which made sense, considering how fast they normally grew. But how far could that go?

She put her other hand above the ground as she pumped magic into the roots again, and the roots started growing above ground, slowly traveling up to start to grow around her hand. Once touching her hand the roots naturally tangled around it, as they normally did for any object in their way underground.

Oh-ho! That would work perfectly for immobilizing someone! Even trying to yank her hand back now was a bit difficult, pulling at the thick roots and forced to use a quick light Difindo to get herself out.

Now... the real test.

She looked over to the chomping cabbage. This would be fun... though she would have to be quick with an incendio if it got out of control.

She looked back to the door again, making sure the room was empty because this might get pretty wild pretty quick.

She obviously couldn't put her hand over the chomping cabbage without getting her arm chomped on, so this time she stood a short distance away. She let her magic flow into the chomping cabbage, her eyes widening as it started growing dramatically, doubling, tripling in size before it rolled off its garden bed when it became too big for its roots.

Diane yelped as it launched for her with massive teeth nearly the size of her head, dodging the initial attack but the cabbage knocked into another pot of dittany behind her, shattering the pot before it began to turn back around to lunge again.

"Incendio!" She cast, wincing as the cabbage let out loud growls of pain as it burned, but it finally went still.

She sighed, putting a hand over her chest in relief. Okay. Lesson learned. Definitely not using that on her hybrid, then. It would create a monster she may not be able to contain.

But... she had learned that she could definitely affect plants, and that made her rather thoughtful toward the places around Hogwarts that had been corrupted by the dark magic and corrupt ancient magic. Maybe she could help things regrow in those areas...