Getting Your Hands Dirty PV Detention Finished

At the last moment, Dot had decided to change her clothes. The Slytherin prefect had mentioned a 'greenhouse', which meant there will be getting dirty. And Dot wasn't fond of creasing and getting her school uniform dirty.

So to avoid consequences, she had changed into a light-blue top with full sleeves that she pulled back. Along with the T-shirt was dark fitting jeans, clean as always. She had even pulled off her usual half-ponytail hairstyle and tied her hair up in a high ponytail, tightly in place. With the hair up, it gave the fake glamour that her hair were longer than they were actually. As for the shoes, Dot went for her usual canvas sneakers.

With the outfit, Dot looked ready for detention than ever.

She met Anastasia before they left for the detention together. Dot wasn't feeling particularly talkative at the moment, but when she saw Anastasia, she managed to say in a rather glum tone, "I'm sorry for landing you in detention, but hear this: if that Lydia girl of yours bother me again, I'd smack her and hex her with spells I know. Better to keep her away from me." It might have sounded rude, and not like the usual ambivert Dot, but Dot's words depended on her mood always. To make sure she's not cross with Anastasia, she offered a small apologetic smile, that didn't totally reach her eyes.

When Dot spotted the prefect first, he stood straightened up, not wearing his school cloak. That made her feel better about her choice of changing clothes. Her outfit might not keep the hotness of the sun out, but it was way better than robes.

"Ms. Beckett, Ms. Dutt, good that you made it on time,"

Before she knew it, she huffed at the words, then quickly turned it into a (very fake) cough to hide it. "Um, Mr.Prefect?" She said, her words followed with the quick awkwardness of the situation. The prefect knew their names, but she didn't know his. "Could you please address me as Dot, rather than Ms.Dutt? I'm not particularly fond of my surname." Then quickly added in, in case he'd misunderstand her and assume she was trying to get personal, "If you wanna be all formal, you can call me Ms.Dot."

After that, Anastasia and Dot followed the prefect to the greenhouse. Just as she had expected, it was rather cramped up with potted plants and tools, and only a small amount of parchment and books from classes. The humidity and warmth struck Dot as uncomfortable, but at least she didn't complain. She'd been through stuff, and hadn't grown up being treated like a rich princess (rather a worthless orphan) and knew better than to complain.

"Professor Wright was kind enough and lend me this greenhouse for your detention. Today we will be weeding this plot."

Of course, since the greenhouse was her area, Professor Wright had to give him the permission for detention. Dot was a good student of hers, and she almost always compliment her about the informative homework she submits. She had gotten all Outstandings in the subject, except for one Exceeds Expectations when she had misunderstood the context from a textbook and wrote the potions made from wolfsbane plant slightly wrong, adding in synonyms of two potions.

She wondered if the prefect had told Professor Wright that who will be getting detention. The thought wasn't too pleasing.

"The muggle way,"

Of course. Dot hadn't assumed a detention would be so easy as casting a spell and being done with it. Even if it was like that, Dot didn't know any good spells that would work for now. Akber, her adoptive father, was fond of gardening and Dot was the only child in their family who helped him, sharing only a slight interest. She knew how to clean up the soil, pot plants, get rid of weeds and some other basic stuff. But of course, they'll need some equipment.

Dot's dark eyes showed a spark of interest as she turned to the prefect. "We will be getting the tools for it, though, right?"

Anastasia was not looking forward to detention at all, especially since it was in the greenhouse. She liked Herbology well enough, but not so well that she would choose to spend her Saturday afternoon on it. She also wasn't entirely certain about her attire. She hadn't wanted to get her uniform dirty, but she also didn't have anything that she thought would be at all suitable for this task. She'd ended up choosing a simple red dress, simple for her that was. Any other girl would have probably worn something similar to a party or church or something, but it was literally the least formal thing she owned. 

She had met with Dot to go to detention together, but neither of them had said a single word the entire walk. She wasn't mad at Dot exactly, Anastasia knew that her actions were her own and Dot hadn't made her do any she didn't want to, but if Dot would have just left Lydia alone, then maybe they would have been in this mess. 

I'm sorry for landing you in detention, but hear this: if that Lydia girl of yours bother me again, I'd smack her and hex her with spells I know. Better to keep her away from me.

"Because that went so well this time," Anastasia said shortly. She was more mad at herself and Lydia than anything else, she was just taking it out on Dot more than she meant to. She was fairly confident that her parents wouldn't hear anything about the whole situation, but until she could be absolutely certain, she was quite on edge. "Look, I would greatly appreciate it if you would just leave Lydia alone completely. My family’s already mad at me, and Lydia loves to tattle to my parents about everything I do without provocation, so anything that I or anyone else does to stand up to her only makes things worse." Anastasia bit her lip at how cold her words sounded. Dot had been trying to stand up for her and that didn't warrant Anastasia being so angry. It really wasn't Dot though, it was Anastasia. She had hoped that she could just act like nothing had happened and carry on, but her getting sorted into Gryffindor had caused a divide between her and her family that she couldn't just ignore. She didn't give Dot much of a chance to reply though, because she only said it just before they reached the greenhouse. 

She nodded at the prefect's greeting, not completely certain how to respond to it. Normally, she would have responded with a similar greeting, but that was when people were happy to see her. Despite the fact that the boy seemed nice enough, he certainly couldn't be happy to be seeing a pair of badly behaved first years who had made him have to spend his Saturday afternoon supervising detention. 

Professor Wright was kind enough and lend me this greenhouse for your detention. Today we will be weeding this plot.

Anastasia quite liked Professor Wright, and hoped fervently that he hadn't told her that Anastasia was one of the students who was in detention. She really enjoyed Herbology and would hate for the teacher to think any less of her. Anyway, weeding didn't sound too bad. After all, they'd learned Incendio, so that should work just fine. Maybe detention wouldn't be half as bad as she'd thought it would be. 

The muggle way.

Anastasia's small semblance of a decent attitude fled her. The muggle way? She honestly couldn't imagine ever choosing to do anything when magic could just do it. Magic was far more efficient, and she really didn't want to dig around in the dirt. She managed to bite back her complaints and tried to keep as much of the horror from her face as she could. Her parents always did things like this with magic or hired someone to do it for them. She had never had to do any sort of manual labor and wasn't much looking forward to this. Let's get this over with, she thought. 

"Sure. Dot it is, then," Edric agreed to the girl's request easily.

He didn't really have any experience with being overly formal. They were just a year younger then him, and to him it sounded quite wrong to call anyone in their age group 'Miss' or 'Mister'. That was for the older students or Professors, not for the lower classes. Even if this was a punishment he wanted them to feel comfortable talking to him. "You ... you can call me Edric, I guess. But that doesn't mean that I'll be lax with you, this is still a detention."

The whole scenario was awkward for him, and he had a feeling like he was doing everything wrong despite trying to do his best and make the two Gryffindors feel a bit more at ease. This was Edric's first detention, both as a Prefect and a normal student. He knew the protocol, but it seemed strange and overly formal now that he had two Firsties there looking at him like he was the Grim Reaper who was about to kill them.

"Aprons, shovels and gloves are over here," he finally said, opening a cupboard beside the door. He took out two aprons and two pairs of woolen gloves and handed them to the girls. The shovels were tiny, but since they were only weeding they would do. "Everyone will have a bucket to put the weeds into. I'll empty them on the compost when they are full."

Turning around again he pulled out a apron and shovel for himself before he closed the cabinet.

Edric was a Banes, bred and raised for working on an estate that housed a herd of Hippogriffs and various other animals, though they were mostly goats and some sheep. He'd grown up learning how to do work by hand, and no matter how different he was from his brothers in some aspects, he would never be able to deny his roots. Manual labor came easy to him - not to mention that the plot was too big for the two girls to finish weeding in one afternoon. He didn't wanna have to come back here tomorrow.

"Now we start." In an attempt to be a good example he walked up to the raised plot and started plucking at the weeds, motioning for Dot and Anastasia to do the same.

"Do you know that you have to weed some plots by hand because the magic of a spell would interfere with the growth of some magical plants?" He'd read up on weeding last night, after having come up with the idea when he'd been late to Herbology yesterday. There was much to learn about Herbology, and maybe having a little talk would loosen the tension in the air.

It didn't take long for Dot to put on the thick gloves and the white apron (which had a faint yellowish smudge to it), grabbing the shovel right after it. Dot was thinking maybe he'd offer a fishtail weeder, which is what Akber always used to root 'delicate' plants, but she was handed a shovel instead. Maybe Edric doesn't consider weeds to be delicate, Dot thought as she looked at the shovel for a second.

Dot followed right after Edric to the plots, crouching down beside the fresh soil like an expert. She used the shovel to dig out the first weed she saw and made a move to add it to the bucket, then stopped. Squinting at it, Dot inspected the plant from a little closer, blinking slowly. "Couch grass," She named the weed, remembering Akber's words as he had taught her about different weeds. The plant in her gloved hands looked like a tuft of regular, wild grass, but the roots were a dense network of wiry, sharp-ended rhizomes. Biting her lower lip, she added the plant to the basket before grabbing her shovel again. "For some reason, I was expecting knotweed, not couch grass."

Dot wondered if Edric and Anastasia even knew what she was talking about. Dot had worked with Akber in their mini-garden for long enough to understand the basic types of plants and weeds, how to prepare a gardening plot, and other stuff. She couldn't prepare a plot for gardening all by herself, of course, but she can be a great assistant and help to older people.

Shrugging yet again, Dot stole a glance at Anastasia in her red dress, a barest hint of smile on her lips. "Enjoying yourself, Anastasia?" Dot meant it, of course. For herself, the punishment wasn't exactly a punishing one, and she was rather having fun as she scraped away weeds after weeds, her bucket slowly filling up. "By the way, you shouldn't have worn that. It'll get messy." Dot looked at her own clothes, but only the blue sleeves were visible through the gardening apron. She focused back on her work.

Anastasia's nose instinctively wrinkled at the mention of aprons. She tried to maintain a faint smile, but she almost wanted to throw up. This was literally the worst thing she could imagine for detention. Alright, maybe she could imagine worse, but still. She'd never so much even had to do chores in her entire life, much less do anything like this. She daintily picked through the pile of aprons and picked the closest one to clean. As for gloves, she wished she would have brought her own. She picked up a pair that looked about her size and pulled them on. She wasn't be any means lazy or one to avoid work, but this was absolutely something she did not want to do. She grabbed a trouble and set to work, choosing to work across from Dot rather than next to her. 

Despite her attempt at distance, she could still hear Dot babbling about couch grass. Honestly, who cared? Weeds were weeds were weeds. End of story. She couldn't think of anyone, other than possibly Professor Wright who cared about what type of weed it was. She didn't think Professor Wright would really care, since it would inhibit her plants growth, she would probably just want rid of it. 

Enjoying yourself, Anastasia? By the way, you shouldn't have worn that. It'll get messy.

Anastasia rolled her eyes so far back into her head that for a moment, only the whites of her eyes were visible. What was Dot's problem? Without looking up from her work, she replied, "I really am. And are you suggesting I should have worn something closer to that?" Her voice was rather monotone, but she barely managed to keep the disdain from slipping into her words. Her parents had always told her that she needed to always look her very best since she never knew whom she might encounter. 

Dot definitely knew a lot more about weeding than he did, Edric realized immediately. Still his attempt at conversation fell flat because the girls were fast to launch into a little argument - about clothes no less.

Edric low-key looked down at himself as they were busy with each other. Dragonhide boots, chestnut brown, long pants and a cream-colored linen shirt. He doubted that he would pass the fashion standard for either of them, though he mentally had to agree that a dress maybe wasn't the best choice of clothing for working in the greenhouses. Wisely he kept silent on the matter. Anastasia seemed a lot less content with their work than Dot, maybe she was wrong a family who had no need for working with their hands.

He couldn't judge the flow of conversation well as he knew neither of the younger Gryffindors, but still Edric got the feeling that if he'd let them they'd get into a petty argument about fashion. Were they not friends? They were certainly familiar enough with each other to suggest that they didn't hate each other ... their friendship might have taken a turn for the worse, he decided when he remembered how the Slytherin had called Dot the m-word.

Watching them weed, Edric sighed soundlessly. This was so over his head.

"Don't be mean to each other, please" he ordered in what he had dubbed 'The Prefect Voice'. It still didn't sound like him, but then again it sounded like someone who had an idea what they were doing, and he definitely didn't feel like that. "Words can hurt just as much as punches... the girl from yesterday said some bad things that you shouldn't say, ever. I'm really sorry one of my housemates treated you like that."

At the end he lifted his head to look at them, first at Dot and then at Anastasia. Edric was sorry, very sorry. He hated arguments, and he hated it even more that some of his housemates gave Slytherin a bad reputation by excluding or insulting muggleborns. They hadn't picked their parents - Edric hadn't known anyone with muggle relatives before Hogwarts either, but people like Maisy had showed him that in truth there wasn't much of a difference between them.

The venom in Anastasia's voice really made Dot look up at her, who had decided it was better to sit across her and not with her. She hadn't looked up while she spoke, and Dot gave her a weird look. "Calm down there, Ana." Dot said, not sure if Anastasia would like the nickname or not. Plus, her name was too long. Like, five syllables with the first name only. Two more if you decide on using surname as well. Seven altogether. Who could pronounce that? "Not my fault you cast tarantellegra on your lovely cousin. You should've kept going like you were." Dot plucked out another weed, dusting the soil off it with her now-dirty gloved hands before adding it in the bucket, which now contained five to six weeds already. "And she called me the m-word. You don't even know how that feels."

It felt really bad. Really. Just because she was raised up in the Muggle world by muggle people doesn't make her any less talented than Lydia, or any other pureblood person. This whole pure-blood muggle-born system - the blood status system - is a downfall for the wizarding community. Some day, fighting over the silly thing, they'll end up getting extinct.

And to be honest, Dot wasn't even a muggle-born. She didn't know she was, at least. She'd been brought up in an orphanage, the only thing she had close to the memory of her parents was a note they left with her at the doorsteps of the orphanage. We're going to die, and we have no one left. Please take care of her. Huh.

Thinking about Anastasia's words, Dot looked at her own clothes again. Was a full sleeved blue tee with jeans not appropriate in Anastasia's standards? Dot hadn't spent much time picking out the outfit. She just grabbed what she thought would be okay for a detention in the greenhouse and put it on. Looking over at Edric's boots, pants and t-shirt, he didn't look all that fashionable and trendy himself, either. So maybe it's just Anastasia, Dot decided.

When Edric spoke with the tone of authority lacing his words again, Dot nodded and muttered a quiet apology, just a simple 'sorry'. Not that she was sorry, of course. Why would she be, anyway? She hadn't done anything wrong.

"Words can hurt just as much as punches... the girl from yesterday said some bad things that you shouldn't say, ever."

So you realised, Dot's thought brought a small smile on lips. Not looking up, she kept doing doing her work. Getting the shovel beneath the soil, pulling it up, taking the weed, dusting off the excess soil, adding it in the bucket. Repeating.

"I'm really sorry one of my housemates treated you like that."

Dot's hands paused working on themselves. She blinked. Was Edric apologizing? For Lydia? To her? Heck, was he even a Slytherin? Dot had heard pretty cruel things about Slytherins, but Edric didn't matched any of those. His hazel eyes had no malice in them, like Lydia, or some other Slytherins whom Dot have met. Nah, he looks and acts good enough. Even now, as Dot looked up at him, he seemed genuinely sorry.

Suddenly awkward and confused, she half-mumbled half-said, "No, it's quite alright. I mean, it's not alright. She called me the m-thing. But it's alright - like, you don't have to apologize. Though it's not alright. For her, at least." Embarrassed at her mini-outburst (I thought I think before speaking!), she hung her head low as a mixture of pink and red crept up to her cheeks - though she wasn't entirely sure that Anastasia and Edric couldn't see her blush.

Ugh, Dot groaned inwardly, pulling out more weeds with the simple tool.

Anastasia rolled her eyes again when Dot called her Ana. Her parents disapproved of any nicknames since, according to them anyway, nicknames were quite improper and Anastasia had a perfectly elegant name and it would be silly to truncate it to anything else. She had wanted to be called Ana when she was younger, but her mother had forbidden it, and as a result, she had gone by Anastasia her whole life. "Anastasia will do just fine," she said, her voice coming out colder than she had really meant it to. She knew she wasn't that angry with Dot, Dot was just the person who was there. She was angry at herself and Lydia, but seeing as she couldn't very well argue with herself and picking a fight with Lydia right now would be plain stupid, she was taking her frustration out on Dot. 

She listened to Dot's next words without interrupting but bit her bottom lip. When Dot was finished, Anastasia wanted to smack her. She had cast the spell because Lydia had been rude to Dot and had probably been about to hurt her. She could have just walked away and left Dot to deal with it. It certainly would have been easier for her anyways. "Oh, well, just because some of us have families who threaten to disown us for being in the wrong house doesn't mean we want to be like them," Anastasia snapped before realizing what she'd just said. She hadn't told Dot or anyone else for that matter about her parents' letter. She hadn't wanted to either, and even if she had, that was not at all how she would have chosen to do it. 

Words can hurt just as much as punches... the girl from yesterday said some bad things that you shouldn't say, ever.

Anastasia knew her parents would certainly say otherwise. Her father always said that if you were hurt by words, you were simply weak. As for the m word, her parents said that it was perfectly alright to say it, she just had to make sure that she didn't say in front of people who would find it offensive. She sighed. She was mad at her parents too, although she wasn't fully conscious of that. She viciously attacked her weed and didn't look at either of her companions. 

So the Slytherin girl from yesterday was Anastasia's cousin? Edric certainly didn't envy her for her family situation, he thought while listening to the two Gryffindors bicker back and forth. At least he understood better now why the had quarrelled in the first place.

Not fitting in with rest of the family was shit. Edric didn't wanna be like Adair and Harry, but for some reason peple expected him to ... because they were related. He liked being in Slytherin, far away from Harry and his bad jokes, bullying and doting on whatever girl he liked at the moment. Adair had grown up at least and didn't pester him anymore about reading fantasy books. Still they were everywhere and he couldn't wait for them to graduate from Hogwarts so he could have it to himself.

He wiped his dirty hand on his apron - he should have worn gloves, too - and moved a little further along the patch, bringing some space between him and the girls, when Dot spoke up again. She looked upset, though he couldn't say whether it was about what he'd said for about something else. Please don't cry, please don't cry, he chanted in his head. Edric hated to see people cry, it usually made him cry too ... or run away.

"No, it's not alright," he agreed softly, his gaze carefully focused on the weeds in front of him. He bit is lip, trying to stop himself from saying something that would escalate the conflict between the two Gryffindors. Anastasia's family situation was her thing. Everyone could think different, just as he didn't agree with his siblings most of the time, but...

"We should be better than this," he mumbled.

Edric loved Slytherin. He was proud to be a Slytherin. He'd made so many good friends in Slytherin. Being in Slytherin had made him a bit more confident, a bit prouder of himself. Marcia's Dad was a muggle, Khris' mother was a muggle, Maisy's parents were muggles. He still hadn't talked to a muggle himself, but he liked all of them very much. Hearing a student of his house call someone mudblood made him feel sick.