He contemplated the matter for a moment before agreeing.
"It's an unorthodox but brilliant idea. Though if what Poppy has said is to be believed you should be mostly recovered in nine days if your recovery speed remains as it is. After that it would be best if you joined your year mates doing coursework." he said honestly.
"I don't mind since I'll likely breeze through it in all but the practical's that require actual time." I said confidently.
"Be careful not to let your confidence outstrip your skill. That roads been walked by many a prodigy and very few ever reach it's end with a good fate." he warned seriously.
"Oh i've already learned my lesson about overconfidence not to worry." I said with a self depreciating chuckle.
"Yes, I suppose you have. Still a reminder every now and again wouldn't be amiss." he said before setting off and leaving me alone again.
I didn't get much chance to improve my haki after that though as I got a second visit from a professor. This time it was none other than Professor Sprout who was the one that technically introduced me to the wizarding world. She was in a simple brown outfit with fresh soil still clinging to it as she entered my perception.-
"I may not know what the magic you are using is but I suggest you stop doing so when around other people. It is off putting." she chided calmly as she pulled up a seat and set a dirty brown bag on the nightstand.
"It's merely just a little trick I figured out to extend my senses is all. " I said with a chuckle.
"Be that as it may feeling as though you are being observed from every possible angle all at once is not a pleasant feeling." she said firmly.
"I'll limit my usage when around you professors but that is the best I can offer. It's too useful." I said honestly as I withdrew my haki.
"Very well, now then are you feeling up for your quiz?" she asked and I nodded. "Unlike charms or any other subject herbology can not be mastered without practical experience. So while the others may be satisfied with pure theory I am not. In that spirit I have procured an extended space bag that I have filled with a variety of magical plants at various stages of their lifecycle. Your task will be to correctly identify them and how they are grown as I pull them out." she said and I was awed.
This was true dedication to teaching right here. Even with the limitations I had at the moment she burdened herself to find a way to ensure I got almost the same practical lessons she gave everyone else. Frankly I was all for it as well since herbology was actually one of the subjects I most looked forward to due to the sheer amount of potential profit the subject held.-
To the average wizard or witch the subject would be thought of as mere magical gardening and to some extent it was. What most failed to consider however is the sheer amount of demand there was for those skilled in it. For every potion that required a plant that plant had to come from somewhere. It couldn't all come from the wild or the ingredients would long since have gone extinct from supply not meeting demand. For easy to grow ingredients the profit margin was negligible unless grown in bulk since so much of it was readily available.-
The real value in herbology however came when one grew rare or even monstrously difficult ingredients. Some plants required exacting conditions to thrive to a harvestable state and recreating those conditions required skill and precision. Take the rare plant known as blaze grass that grew only in volcanic rock and needed the seeds to be heated by a specific temperature constantly as it grew with no exposure to cooler air ever or it would wither and die within moments. This wasn't a plant one could casually grow and only a dedicated herbologist could do it.-
Naturally not all hard to grow ingredients commanded a sky high price despite the difficulty they presented since their uses weren't in high demand. But more often than not rare or hard to grow ingredients held a large profit margin if successfully grown. As a result this subject was one I fully intended to put my full effort into and thus also why I fully appreciated the length Professor Sprout went to for teaching me.-
"I am ready to start when you are." I said eagerly.
She nodded and pulled out a small planter pot from the bag with a many leaved plant with wooly gray-green leaves and showy pinkish-purple flowers on a stiff stalk and fresh aromatic fragrance, dittany. -
I didn't hesitate to identify it and how it needed to be grown for the best results. She smiled pleased and put away the pot before taking out another plant I easily identified and listed how it needed to be grown. We continued for at least an hour during which she threw out extra variables such as plants ready for harvest and thus not having further growth methods or even straight up seeds that were especially difficult to identify because of their close resemblance to the seeds of another type of plant.-
For that last one I listed all the options and then how they would need to be grown which she was quite pleased with. I earned Ravenclaw another fifteen points for getting much of this right and she even praised me further for being willing to admit when I didn't know something as she pulled out plants not covered in the textbook. Believe me I wracked my brain trying to identify the damned things stubbornly. But had to content myself with merely taking educated guesses about what kind of plants they were through the knowledge I had of other plants and context clues.-
Still Sprout was more than happy to implement the method of study I suggested to Flitwick after seeing what level of theory I already held. Madam Pomphrey showed up shortly after the good professor left to change my bandages again and force me to drink that foul potion once more. I idly noted that I hadn't had any food since I've been hospitalized and deduced from the fact I wasn't ravenously hungry that the potion likely had nutritional properties as I drifted back to unconsciousness.