[img align=left]http://i.imgur.com/RvgF8kz.png[/img] "Thank you Professor. I look forward to your answer."

Hannah went out with the other student with a backpack on and her cat following her. She listened and once Professor Morgan's talk was over she walked over carefully and picked up a twig. She took it back to a spot next to her cat and broke it open. She put some of the sap into a vial and the rest she played with a little on her hands. Her cat meowed at her and waved his teabag on a string hanging from tail. She took out a small caldron and a vial of water she had filled up. She boiled the water using a spell on the caldron and stopped once done. She directed her cat to put his teabag into the caldrons water and she put in some of the willows sap. She mixed them together and drank some of it. Not horrible good, she thought to herself. Her cat licked the of the tea in the caldron, but then stopped. She looked to see that no one was looking and dumped it out onto the ground. Her cat meowed loudly unhappy his teabag was used up. "Okay, hold on!" said Hannah as she fished through her backpack. She placed another teabag and some string around his tail once again. He meowed happy and waved it with his tail. She put her small caldron and empty vial into her backpack and held the empty teabag to throw away soon once back in Hogwarts. She gave the vial with the willows sap to Professor Morgan and said, "Dreadful tasting stuff that."

Hannah, Ravenclaw.

Milla had listened closely to what professor Morgan had been saying, and was now ready to experiment with the twig that she had gotten from the tree. She first studied it's bark and took a few notes, before carefully breaking it in half and collecting some sap onto one of her fingertips. She gave it a small rub, before smelling and tasting it as suggested. "Yuck." Milla made a face at the not so good taste of the sap, before make a few more notes. She removed her one shoe and sock, to reveal a decent sized blister on her foot, on which she applied the sap. She observed the blister as it slowly seemed to diminish in size, and all but disappeared. "Huh, fancy that." She muttered to herself, putting back on her sock and shoe. She made some final notes on the twig and the sap before tiding up after herself.

[ Hufflepuff ]

[img align=left]http://i59.tinypic.com/wbas78.jpg[/img] “I understand, Professor.” Beth paused and glanced at her notes. “Professor, how are Whomping Willows nurtured? Are they more likely to be found solely raised by nature or can they only survive with the help of a witch or wizard? Is it common to find them together in nature? Can Whomping Willows live in harmony among each other? Are they commonly found in other countries or are they just as rare like in the UK?"

Gryffindor.

Leaving the protection of the shield charm Chook is of two minds - run or approach the piles of twigs. Her heart says run but her brain tells her she has to attempt this. She approached the Whomping Willow in trepidation and with trembling hands picked up a willow twig. It felt odd in her hand. Not like a twig at all. For it's size it was far heavier than it should be. Taking a deep breath she counted 1, 2, 3, and then snapped the twig in half. Sap gathered on the broken sides of it. Cautiously placing a finger under the twig there was not enough sap to get a drop. Returning to the pile, she took another. Breaking this one produced the needed sap. Being a chicken as Chook is her name, she had no guts to taste or smell it. To use it on any cuts or bruises she could handle. Carefully she placed a drop upon a cut she received when breaking the twig. Holy Cow!!!! The pain was extreme but the result was immediate.

"Sap, hunh?" I think. "That's not so bad." My lips twitch into a smile as she thinks of her parents, the wolves, and what they brought home at times.

I go over to the twig pile and grab a few twigs. I figure that whatever I don't need or use could be put back. Wary about what I put into my mouth, I decide to sniff the sap instead. I grab one twig and break it open. No sap. I chuck it away and grab another. Sap drips from the twig. I bend forward to sniff the sap and was quite puzzled. It had a scent combination of pine and...roast beef?!? "Roast beef?!?" I thought, "How on earth...?!? Maybe it smells different for each student?" Still puzzled, I was wondering what else I was going to do with this sap, as I didn't have any cuts or bruises, when I hear a fluttering of wings and a very distraught hoot. I look up and see my snowy coming towards me.

"Snow Star!" I call out as she flutters down onto my arm. "What's the matter?!?" I ask her concerned. Star holds out a badly cut leg towards me. Instantly I was filled with a mixture of compassion and annoyance. I look at her in the same annoyance that I was feeling,

"Did you try going after that horned hare again?!?" I sigh heavily as Snow hoots sorrowfully. I shake my head, "You know you're supposed to stay away from that thing! It's vicious towards owls! No owl in its right mind would try going after that creature unless they're asking for trouble! I know it's tasty. I know it's tempting! But you know you've gotten hurt trying before. You're going to kill yourself if you keep this up!" Snow hoots gently in apology and I stroke her feathers and give her a hug. "It's alright. Just promise me you won't keep trying. One of these days I'll ask my parents to bring you one as a treat if you behave." Snow gets excited at the thought. Her eyes open a bit and start to sparkle again and she ruffles her feathers in happiness.

I look at her leg again. Hmmm...I wonder if this stuff will work on owls? "Hold still, Snow. This shouldn't hurt...I hope." I take the sap and gently rub it on the deep cut. Snow moans a little as the cut was still very fresh. I see a bit of a shimmer and a faint glow. Moments later her leg was as good as new. Snow stretches her newly healed leg out and hoots in happiness. She gives me some owl kisses and flies off to go back out hunting again.

"Just don't go after that hare again!!!!!" I yell after her as I watch her take to the skies. I wince at the yelling as I see Professor Morgan coming towards me. I hope I didn't disrupt the class...

"Now that you're here, Professor, what's up with the roast beef scent on the sap? Is it the same for everyone the scents I smelled; that being a mixture of pine and roast beef?"

(Wolf Swiftpaw, Gryffindor House)

Ravenna listened to the professor's lecture, then, after most students had grabbed their twigs, she approached the pile and picked out a few medium sized ones.Then she retreated to a safe spot to begin experimenting. She snapped one twig in half and could see some sap collecting at the tip. She gathered a drop on her finger and licked it. "Ugh, that's terrible!" she exclaimed. She gathered another drop on her finger and dabbed it on a paper cut on her finger, which slowly disappeared before her eyes. "Oh, that's really neat!" She pocketed the other twigs, thinking how they could come in handy sometime.

{Hufflepuff}

Ceilidh stood ... well, adjacent to the other students. They were busy, she was busy staring at the big tree. 'Don't go wandering around' always seemed like pretty good advice when it came to the grounds at Hogwarts - she never even saw the Whomping Willow before today. This particular species of willow didn't exist back in the States. So she was sort of wide eyed and intent on listening to the Professor and watching the almost hypnotic sway of the tree. "It's almost as if it's dancing," she says to no one in particular.

Oop, the students were moving now, picking out their own tiny pieces of the tree to experiment with. She picks up three twigs of varying size of her own, whispering a heartfelt "Thank you," to the tree as she gets back to her feet. Moving back to a respectful distance - oh, crudmuffins! She needs a vial or two, don't mind her she's just getting them, that's better - she begins her study of the plant. The bark was tougher than she expected, why she expected it to be soft she had no idea. Maybe because the weeping willows she was used to looked so delicate. "Professor? (())" Ceil looks up from her notes. She's planning on gluing some of the bark into it later. "The bark. Can it be used for any medicinal application? And the sap. Are there a lot of allergies reported?" Aaannd the questions are coming a little faster now, now that she's found her voice. "You said that they can .. compete for growing space when they're young. How long does it take to fully mature? When does the sap start to flow? Is the sap always medicinal, or does it have to reach a certain age?"

Her twigs aren't hard to snap open, and the sticky liquid inside does bead rather quickly. She's able to fill up two vials using the three twigs. "Oh! Is all the sap the same, or can it differ by region? Like.. the willow here, will it be more potent here, since the grounds here are so magical, as compared to a place that's devoid of magic?"

She brings one of the vials to her nose, and it immediately wrinkles. Smells like stale, burnt coffee and a tiny bit of green-ness and.. was that a coppery note? Like blood? She writes that down, then returns to the vial for a taste. If the other students were anything to go by, this wasn't going to be fun. Yeah, it's bitter. Again, sharp and intense like black coffee, with that bit of copper taste, too.

She writes down her findings, and then searches herself for something that needs healing. "Any other day," she mutters, finding none.

Glancing around at her classmates, some very hesitant and some just as excited as she herself, Aderyn deposited the book bag she was holding on the ground and stepped forward. Sidestepping a fellow student, she reached out and picked up one of the twigs. Turning it over in her hands, she examined it closely in its entirety. Its bark was smooth and its texture springy, not unlike that of her wand. There was a knot in the middle of the twig that was very similar to the large, knotted joints of the whole tree a short distance away – it looked almost as though the whole tree was made up of repeating units in increasing sizes.

Bending the twig in her hands, Aderyn managed to crack just the thinnest layer of bark and a bit of the wood beneath it, bringing it closer to her face and inhaling it. It smelled fresh and clean, not unlike the sap of most other trees, and she smiled slightly; the scent brought her back to playing in the woods nearby her house as a child, running around with her mates.

Cracking the twig all the way through, Aderyn watched a drop of the sap well up in the break she’d made. She knew plenty about whomping willow sap already – her father was a healer at St. Mungo’s and so he’d told her much about the kinds of potions and medicines they made and used where he worked. She’d also learned of Skelegrow first hand the summer before when her cat, Boo, had been a kitten and had run up a tree in the yard. When she’d attempted to get him down, she’d missed a hand hold and had fallen a long ways, breaking her ankle upon landing. Her father had sat with her through the excruciating agony that the potion had brought while her arm had mended and since then she’d had a healthy respect both for her own mortality, and for the medicine that made her all better in a day where muggles had to suffer for months.

Reaching out with a fingertip, Aderyn picked up the drop of sap and sniffed it again, wrinkling her nose at the scent. The professor had said it would taste bitter, but it smelled equally potent. Shrugging, she brought it to her lips anyway, licking it off of her fingertip and sputtering at the taste - like the Skelegrow only worse in its pure form. Letting it sit on her tongue for a minute, however, she reflected inwardly and could have sworn that she felt better almost instantly. It was like she’d just awoken from a wonderful, long night’s sleep and the faint pulse of a headache that had been forming thanks to the previous night’s late-night study session faded. When she glanced down at the fingertip that had held the sap moments before, she realized that the several small paper cuts she’d had from all the perusing through books she’d done lately were all gone, too, and all that remained in their wake was a faint heat – undoubtedly a side effect of the sap.

“Professor Morgan ( ),” Aderyn called, raising her hand and waiting for the woman’s attention. “Did I imagine it, or does this sap have a positive effect on a person’s general wellness? I think it’s made me feel better overall. Is that an intrinsic property of the sap, or is it perhaps only because I had no other real injury for the sap to work on?”

Thirsty for knowledge as ever, she waited for a response, picking up another small drop of the sap and rubbing it between her fingers, healing all the other minor paper cuts she’d acquired lately.

[Aderyn, Ravenclaw]

Aderyn considered the professor’s words, acknowledging her understanding with a nod. She knew, of course, that potions for common illnesses such as the cold were brewed differently, using largely aromatic herbs that worked more to soothe symptoms and boost immunity than to actually cure the illness. She’d learned much about healing potions of the sort from her father.

“Thank you, professor,” she said politely with a smile. “I’ll add that to my notes.”

Turning away with the willow twig still in hand, Aderyn moved to where she’d set down her parchment, scribbling in a few more notes and observations for her own records and study purposes.

Emmy, who had arrived just barely on time for class, her hair messy and her face a bit sweaty, was stuck near the back of the group while the Professor was speaking. She didn't want to push her way through to the front during the lecture, lest it be seen as rude, though by the time the professor had finished speaking, she was practically bouncing up and down in her eagerness to get over to her friend and to get one of the sticks to look at. She wasn't quite as interested in Herbology as she was in Magical Creatures, but it was a close second and she was excited. Her tiny scops owl, Elfie, had come down to the lesson on her shoulder, and she stroked his belly feathers as she listened, smiling as he cooed happily on occasion.

Finally when the professor gave them permission to proceed, Emmy dashed around the group, picked up a stick and moved over to Aderyn, whom she spotted just off to the side, examining her own stick.

"Hallo," she said to her friend, steadying Elfie as he swayed on her shoulder from her quick movements. "Sorry I didn't walk to class with you, I was saving Elfie from my dormmate's over-enthusiastic barn owl who thought it was playing with him, but was actually squishing him."

Emmy turned her attention to the stick she held and weighed in her palm, then brought it up closer to her face. It was fairly heavy for a stick, though she could tell it was because it was wet and fresh inside. She bent the twig and snapped it in half, looking at the sap that almost immediately began to ooze out. It was fairly thick and had a slightly yellowish hue, though translucent. She brought it up to her face and sniffed it, wrinkling her nose slightly. It was a bit of an acrid, tart smell and she wasn't particularly looking forward to tasting it, but she did as she was told. Squeezing some of the sap onto her finger, she licked it, immediately making a small noise of protest and shaking her head.

"Yuck," she said out loud to Aderyn after her friend had finished talking to the professor. She held the stick up to show her little owl, who cautiously licked the sap, then let out a small but shrill hoot of protest. Giggling, Emelia remembered that the professor had said to try the sap on any injuries, and she had just gotten a cut the day before when trying to handle a crab she'd found down at the lake that had pinched her rather hard and broken the skin on the side of her hand.

She turned her hand to the side and spread a bit of the sap directly onto the cut, wincing at the slight sting. She watched in amazement as the cut began to heal before her very eyes.

"Professor! Professor! Look! My cut is almost gone already!" She said excitedly, bounding over to where the professor stood and presenting her hand, the side of which was covered with the sticky sap. "Will it heal it all the way?" she asked, her eyes round with eagerness.

Aderyn glanced up from where she’d been examining the two halves of her willow twig as she heard a familiar voice, smiling at Emmy as the girl ran up to her. She shook her head with a chuckle as her best friend described Elfie’s troubles with a much larger and overly affectionate owl.

As Emmy began to examine her own twig, Aderyn focused back on her work, thinking of as many ways to describe the willow sap and its effects as she could so that when she wrote down some notes for the class afterward she would have plenty of material from which to study later on. She glanced up from her work as Emmy made a noise of disgust and she gave the other girl a sympathetic, knowing look. Her expression became a bit more serious, however, as Emmy offered the twig to Elfie, letting the owl lick the sap, too, much to his discontent.

“Are you sure that’s safe for him?” She asked, unsure. “A lot of the things that affect witches and wizards one way have completely different effects on animals. Instead of curing whatever ails him, his feathers could fall out or some other equally awful fate might befall him.”

Shrugging, hoping that nothing of the sort happened, she carried on with her own work, marveling at how the sap worked on all of the little parchment cuts she had all over her fingers. She was glad to see Emmy experience the same effect moments later as the other girl whooped excitedly and ran off to share her discoveries with their professor.