..and PLEASE don't do anything remotely clumsy!

[lysander longbottom]

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Lysander’s rather extended stay at his parents’ house was rather demanding at times, since his mother found it ample opportunity to ask his eldest son to get him ingredients for the weird and bizarre experiments she did with the strangest of contraptions and ingredients. Today, Mrs. Luna Longbottom wanted to perform a couple of experiments to see if there was a way to get an energy source out of Ultima Gorbus plants (plants with huge sucking lips which would attempt to suck up anything that was relatively close to it’s mouth). She had everything she needed, apart from the plant itself – so Lysander’s agenda today was to get his mother the plant sometime that day at the Fiorenza Flower Supply although she explained that she wouldn’t need it until the next day, however – Fiorenza was closing the next day as the owner was going to go on a short holiday to visit her relatives in Egypt – so Lysander decided he would order the plant, spend the rest of the day at Hogsmeade and then go home. Although he did have to be reminded of some helpful precautions he would need to take whilst in the flower shop.

“’Sander, you have to make sure that if you have to pick it up – stun him, then grab it’s lips and then pick it up”
“Of course mum”
“And don’t touch it’s lips unstunned, otherwise it’ll try to suck your arm off and you’ll get a nasty rash there the next day”
“Alright mum”
“And please don’t trip over or do anything remotely clumsy, please”
Lysander gave a slight grin, “I’ll try”

Taking his time walking to the Flower supply, Lysander took in his surroundings as today was a particularly nice summer approaching autumn sort of day. Leaves as red as the Weasley’s heads falling in a graceful fashion (making Lysander wonder if he had ever fallen in a somewhat graceful fashion in his life, at all), the refreshing, classic English autumn breeze sweeping his already messed up dark hair all over his face (which was not exactly going to help him keep his balance, really) along with the gentle heat that irradiated from the sun that was shining through the clearest of blue skies. All in all, Lysander was really enjoying the weather, even though the atmosphere of the villagers was not nearly as friendly – everybody seemed solemn, others seemed panicked – and even frightfully optimistic Lysander could not ignore why everybody was like this, a war was most likely going to start.. so who could blame them? However, Lysander made it a point to stop upon random villagers and try to keep them positive, explaining that thinking negatively would do nothing but harm themselves – many people did not seem to be able to take the young man in – thinking he was quite crazy to be a village clown at this time and others seemed to appreciate that somebody was looking out for them but could not quite follow his advice. Nontheless it was his good deed of the day, well – apart from ordering a giant lipped plant for his mother that is.

The bell at the door rang with a quiet ’ding!’ as Lysander finally entered the Flower supplier’s. It was the first time Lysander had ever stepped inside this shop, and to be honest – it was like another world in there – there were colourful, tropical looking, assorted plants left, right and center. There were plants that looked like snakes, plants with teeth – and big plants that looked like eyes on stems. However, the oddest thing about this shop was, no matter how hard he looked – he could not spot any sign of the shopkeeper. But soon after Lysander observed that the door to the spare plant storage was open, so Lysander supposed she was in there.

Believing there would be no harm in just looking at the plants from afar, just in case he found the plant his mother requested – he started to scan each row from top to bottom, seeing as each plant was labelled, he presumed it would not be hard to find the one he was looking for.

Aha, finally, he thought to himself proudly when he finally laid eyes on the plan he was looking for, Ultima Gorbus – it was, of course, rather distinguishable from his particularly large lips. As soon as Lysander took another step forward just to get a closer view of the plant his mother wanted, he tripped over a stray vine – his arm landing right on top of the Ultima Gorbus’ lips.

Before Lysander had even managed to realise what was happening to him, the plant sucked up Lysander’s right arm, and the force Lysander was using to pull backwards was only just enough to keep the plant from swallowing him whole. With his free arm, the young man hastily reached for his wand in his pocket to stun the plant. When pointing his wand at the plant and was about the cast the stunning curse; the Ultima Gorbus was close enough to the pointed wand to swallow it too. This was when Lysander knew exactly what to do.

“HEEY! Can I get some help in here?!”, he yelped, using the last ounce of energy he had to prevent him from becoming plant chow. To his relief, a short woman ran out to see what the commotion was almost immediately, her eyes widened at the scene, but was not hesitant in taking out her own wand and casting the stunning spell on the plant, which stunned the plant and Lysander could simply slide his arm out of the plant’s mouth. However, seeing as there was another wand inside the plant, the stun spell also hit it, somehow causing the plant glow brightly from the inside and then-

SPLAT!

-explode on the spot. The green and red gooey substance that was a product of the explosion of the plant splattered all over Lysander and the storekeeper. Still in a state of shock, Lysander blinked a couple of times to try and fully comprehend what was going on, his face now adorned with a Ultima Gorbus face pack.

”I-I’m so sorry about that..”, Lysander started, his expression still that of shock, this all happened in a manner of seconds – out of all the weird happenings that have been the fault of Lysander’s clumsiness, this was most definitely the oddest of them all.

”It’s fine, don’t worry about it”, replied the storekeeper with a small laugh, ”I shouldn’t have abandoned the shop like that, but anyway – I need to get a potion for both of us before our skin starts to have ugly rashes on it”, she added hurridly as she ran into the storeroom.

As Lysander grabbed his wand from the space of where the Ultima Gorbus once was, Lysander couldn’t help but laugh at himself as well. This was obviously going to be one of his stories he’s be telling for years, and plus – he gave any window-shoppers that may have been there quite the show. [/size][/ul]