A Bouquet Of New Beginnings: Chapter 21: Field Poppy

A Bouquet of New Beginnings: Chapter 21: Field Poppy

Summary: A run-down with Professor Fig about what happened in the witch's tomb. And a little outing with Poppy to rescue a certain Hippogriff.

Floriography: Avoidance of Problems; Good & Evil

Full Chapter: [AO3] //7.0k words

Excerpt Below:

The reverie of Halloween continued into the night as the patrons of The Three Broomsticks were in relative levels of sloshed. In contrast, Artemis slinked under her disillusionment up the stairs to the private room. She’d done her best to clean up the stench of dead that clung onto her clothing, but she thought maybe it was just the permeating smell of candied alcohol and aforementioned drunkenness of the patrons that made her go unnoticed.

“Come in,” called out Professor Fig’s voice as she knocked on the door of the private room. She snuck in and got rid of her disillusionment just as the door clicked shut.

“Godric’s heart! Artemis what on earth happened?!”

How bad did she look, she wondered, for his eyes to widen so much, for him to rush to her like that and tightly grip her shoulders.

Artemis slowly shook her head. “I… I think I need to sit. May I have some tea?”

“Right, of course. I’ll be right back.”

Her mentor guided her to the nearest stool. When he left, she let out a shaky breath as she pulled out the whittled buttercup spoon out of her bag. Her body folded so her forehead touched both the spoon and wand handle in her hands. Her hands now shook almost as violently as they had when she’d killed that Loyalist.

Professor Fig returned quickly with a fresh pot of chai. The familiarity of sitting across from him with a warm cup of chai in her hands finally calmed her. She was safe.

The professor waited patiently for her to start, and once she did, she couldn’t stop. The horror of the tomb, the helm, the fight, and those poor inferi and even that poor Ashwinder. Her eyes didn’t move from her chai the entire time.

Professor Fig sighed. “Artemis… nobody. Nobody. Should see and go through what you did. What was Lodgok thinking?!”

“He tried to go in, sir,” offered Artemis weakly. “He really did. But the second he tried, the tomb clearly burned him or something. I didn’t tell him about the details; he doesn’t need to know.”

Professor Fig looked unconvinced with his furrowed eyebrows.

Artemis sighed. “I agreed to go, sir. We need a spy inside Ranrok’s Loyalists to funnel information. Admittedly, it was a lot more than I expected, but I handled –”

“– it’s not about your ability to handle situations, Artemis. I know you are more than capable. It is the fact that you have been placed in these situations in the first place that is concerning,” interrupted Professor Fig. He fiddled with his wife’s scarf. “Though, I daresay yesterday would not have been a good day for you at the castle had you stayed.”

“It wasn’t, but I couldn’t figure out why. None of my diagnostics made any sense.”

Professor Fig pulled out an ancient, slim book.

“I’m sure Nurse Blainey wouldn’t be able to pull the diagnostic either in this instance. The reason it wouldn’t make sense is because it isn’t a healing cause. It’s because you’re a clairvoyant. At least, from what I could gather from this and a nice chat with Professor Onai – she’s a renowned Seer. I did not tell her of your situation, do not worry.”

Artemis closed her mouth; Professor Fig continued.

“It seems Seers have a… similar problem on certain days of the year. There was a rather lengthy lecture attached to it, but this and combined with this tome I found, it seems clairvoyants that lean toward er, the less warm-blooded, experience troubles when the Veil is thinnest between life and death. It depends on the region, but in our case –”

“– Halloween,” finished Artemis. It made sense why Professor Fig insisted they meet here, and how she felt much better after leaving Hogwarts for the day.

“Precisely. Hogwarts is, ironically, the worst place to be on Halloween, what with all the ghosts. How did you… feel?”

“Like a bone-chilling death on legs. But when I left, and when I took care of the inferi, I felt much better.”

“I see. I haven’t found anything yet, but if there’s anything to mitigate that for next year, I shall let you know. It would be a travesty if you miss the Halloween Feast the next couple of years. Now, I suggest you still avoid the inside of the castle until after midnight, though the grounds might be fine. I could pay Sirona another night’s worth of coin.”

Artemis shook her head. “I’d like to test the grounds theory, professor. I have somewhere we could go.”

“After a nap, I think,” said Professor Fig as he yawned. “Sleep is important.”

A few hours later, when the sky was about as bright as any greyed November sky in the Scottish Highlands could be and she smelled like frankincense instead of death, the pair arrived at the Briar Greenhouse. The familiar click of the key and a few incantations unlocked one of her sanctuaries.

“Welcome to the Briar Greenhouse, Professor,” she said warmly.

Where there used to be rampant weeds and fungi, there were proper flower beds and pots for healing potions and teas. The tree had been transplanted and now in its stead grew an impressive selection of sunflowers, dahlias, and enchanted roses. The ground floor now flourished with the safer plants, while the second had plants with much deadlier consequences. Everything from cordoned off hellebore to field poppies, and even a flaming bush kept separate resided with the drying station. Hanging baskets hung filled with dwarf roses, extra herbs and hanging vines stretched along the railings. Finally, the rotten barrels and boxes were replaced with sturdy ones that could serve as seating if needed, though mostly it functioned to hide the entrance to the Witty Pear.

Artemis watched as Professor Fig passed by it without notice as he circled the ground floor – a success on the Notice-Me-Not. Or perhaps it was because the professor’s eyes were widened in awe at everything.

“Artemis… I read the reports from Professor Garlick of your progress, but this is incredible. What are these?” Professor Fig asked as he pointed toward the little corner with the dying bramble.

“Those are the witch’s briars that were originally here. I kept the three that were still salvageable; the soil is well-maintained and the dead bits were trimmed. So when the Keepers teach me how they revived Feldcroft, I have something to test it on,” explained Artemis.

Though she had no idea when that would be, considering their current agreement. Professor Fig hummed with a smile.

“I see. I presume this is where you spend much of your time on weekends?”

“I – yes. But it’s… yes,” said Artemis, not bothering to come up with an excuse. Truthfully, she split her time between here, the Room-Clinic, and the Witty Pear for her alone time on the weekends.

Professor Fig patted her gently on the shoulder.

“There is nothing wrong with some time alone, Artemis. I am not here to lecture you on that. However, I do have to caution that, when you do get busier with exams and our continued search… to not neglect your friends. I have to say, I was rather impressed by how a few of them inquired of your absence yesterday.”

Artemis averted her and gently touched the briar stems as her cheeks heated. She would have to apologise, especially to Sebastian; he wouldn’t have been fooled by Professor Fig’s ‘ruins’ research.

“They’re good people.”

“They are. Now, how about I deliver you breakfast and lunch here today, and you enjoy a Saturday outside with your friends tonight?”

Getting her hands dirty as she tended to her plants was a balm compared to last night’s events. The warmth of the greenhouse, collecting ingredients for potions and teas, and eating both breakfast and lunch with Professor Fig on the sturdy boxes was a true delight. But with another nudge to ‘perhaps go outside,’ she got the message – alone time was done for today.

But as she walked with no particular destination other than not inside, Lodgok’s parting words flitted back.

She sounds like a loose end.

The more they churned, the more they made sense. From what little understanding she had of goblins, they were thorough – the degree of Gringotts security attested to that. But more than that, why put a curse on someone instead of killing them if they found out something?

Why let Anne live? What was the purpose?

“Oh, hey Artemis.”

Artemis lifted her head as she came face to face with Andrew and Leander.

“Hello.”

“Heard you didn’t go to the feast last night; Sallow threw a fit,” said Leander.

“I was out on independent study,” lied Artemis smoothly. “Sebastian threw a fit?”

“Well, a fit is probably overexaggerated,” said Andrew with a relaxed smile, “he did ask around to see if we knew where you were. Muttered about you being a diricrawl. Ominis seemed to agree.”

“Natty commented on it too… before she was rightfully disgusted with Garreth shovelling candy,” huffed Leander.

Andrew turned to her. “By the way, did the paints help?”

“Oh, they did! Thank you for teaching me,” thanked Artemis genuinely.

If he hadn’t had the paints or the patience to teach her, Anne’s tea tin would’ve been drab.

“Always happy to help a fellow artist.”

Leander quirked up an eyebrow. “You paint?”

Artemis teetered her head. “He paints, I sketch.”

“If you want to paint more, I’m happy to accept another into the fold,” said Andrew.

Artemis offered a hand. “Trade you pencil for paint?”

Andrew laughed as they shook on it. “Deal.”

“Alright you two,” interjected Leander before he pointed his thumb toward the Summoner’s Court. “Artemis, I challenge you to a game. See if your win against Natty wasn’t just luck.”

Artemis beat Leander both rounds as Andrew served as referee.

“How? How are you so good at this? And Cro –” Leander bit his tongue as they set up for a third round.

Artemis lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t think it’s a matter of skill. I just need to concentrate more.”

“What?”

“Mm. I mean, everyone learns Accio in their first year, right?”

“Right.”

“And how to duel?”

Leander nodded slowly. “Right…?”

“So you’ve had four years to get accustomed to it; you do it automatically. I still need to think about each step. Does that make sense?”

“I suppose… so you’re saying I’m not concentrating enough?”

“No, I’m saying that’s what I am doing, because I need to.”

Leander seemed to consider her words, and opened his mouth –

“Artemis!! There you are!!”

Artemis, Leander and Andrew turned. Poppy rushed toward them, her bag bouncing harshly against her leg. She looked slightly dishevelled and wore a similar garb to their Biscuit excursion. The three exchanged a look as Artemis and Leander climbed down from the platform.

“Poppy? What’s wrong?” Artemis asked, and had to consciously stay still as Poppy snatched her wrist.

“Come with me, please.”

There was no room for discussion.

“Right, um, see you two later.”

She faintly heard the two boys bid goodbye. Poppy’s pace right now neared a jog as she pulled Artemis toward the familiar glade.

“Poppy, what’s g–”

“– Highwing’s missing!” 

I feel like I've been learning the most I have since college after entering HL fandom, this is so fascinating!

Blind people gesture (and why that’s kind of a big deal)

People who are blind from birth will gesture when they speak. I always like pointing out this fact when I teach classes on gesture, because it gives us an an interesting perspective on how we learn and use gestures. Until now I’ve mostly cited a 1998 paper from Jana Iverson and Susan Goldin-Meadow that analysed the gestures and speech of young blind people. Not only do blind people gesture, but the frequency and types of gestures they use does not appear to differ greatly from how sighted people gesture. If people learn gesture without ever seeing a gesture (and, most likely, never being shown), then there must be something about learning a language that means you get gestures as a bonus.

Blind people will even gesture when talking to other blind people, and sighted people will gesture when speaking on the phone - so we know that people don’t only gesture when they speak to someone who can see their gestures.

Earlier this year a new paper came out that adds to this story. Şeyda Özçalışkan, Ché Lucero and Susan Goldin-Meadow looked at the gestures of blind speakers of Turkish and English, to see if the *way* they gestured was different to sighted speakers of those languages. Some of the sighted speakers were blindfolded and others left able to see their conversation partner.

Turkish and English were chosen, because it has already been established that speakers of those languages consistently gesture differently when talking about videos of items moving. English speakers will be more likely to show the manner (e.g. ‘rolling’ or bouncing’) and trajectory (e.g. ‘left to right’, ‘downwards’) together in one gesture, and Turkish speakers will show these features as two separate gestures. This reflects the fact that English ‘roll down’ is one verbal clause, while in Turkish the equivalent would be yuvarlanarak iniyor, which translates as two verbs ‘rolling descending’.

Since we know that blind people do gesture, Özçalışkan’s team wanted to figure out if they gestured like other speakers of their language. Did the blind Turkish speakers separate the manner and trajectory of their gestures like their verbs? Did English speakers combine them? Of course, the standard methodology of showing videos wouldn’t work with blind participants, so the researchers built three dimensional models of events for people to feel before they discussed them.

The results showed that blind Turkish speakers gesture like their sighted counterparts, and the same for English speakers. All Turkish speakers gestured significantly differently from all English speakers, regardless of sightedness. This means that these particular gestural patterns are something that’s deeply linked to the grammatical properties of a language, and not something that we learn from looking at other speakers.

References

Jana M. Iverson & Susan Goldin-Meadow. 1998. Why people gesture when they speak. Nature, 396(6708), 228-228.

Şeyda Özçalışkan, Ché Lucero and Susan Goldin-Meadow. 2016. Is Seeing Gesture Necessary to Gesture Like a Native Speaker? Psychological Science 27(5) 737–747.

Asli Ozyurek & Sotaro Kita. 1999. Expressing manner and path in English and Turkish: Differences in speech, gesture, and conceptualization. In Twenty-first Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 507-512). Erlbaum.

Changed my brain chemistry, this work did <3

March 22, 2023 - March 22, 2024

One year ago to this day, I started writing Green is the Color. I fell in love with Hogwarts Legacy from the moment I played it, and found such a kindred spirit in Ominis that I wanted to honor the character by writing him a fic. Ofc, I didn't expect the fic to be 70 chapters long, but my I poured my entire heart and soul into the work, and I couldn't be happier that I did.

I'll also be posting GITC to Wattpad, one chapter each day.

Happy birthday to GITC. Happy birthday to my fic. Happy birthday to my MC Allegra, the creation of whom inspired me enough to get me out of a creative rut.

Thank you, too, to all the people who read my fic(s). You are always in my memory--I've never stopped thinking about the people who I share this beautiful, amazing fandom with!

The way my heart screams at how cute they are <3 <3

Gerald was the easiest to draw the most popular choice so here ya gooo

"you've already left kudos here :)". AND WHAT? LET ME LEAVE THEM AGAIN BITCH. DON'T BE A COWARD.

Because he's just such a cutie...enjoy!