"Come on, do something, already," said Oleandra coaxingly, sharply prodding her non-consenting Flobberworm with a stick. "Will you mate with that toad for me, pretty please?"
The Flobberworm bunched itself up, growing stouter and shorter, and swelling thicker around its middle rings— and, with a noise disturbingly similar to human flatulence, released an eye-watering stench from both of its orifices, which quickly sent the entirety of Oleandra's Care of Magical Creatures class running for the hills.
Unbeknownst to anyone who might have been watching, Oleandra had fed her poor Flobberworm a Dungbomb (purchased at Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes, naturally), which had detonated the moment the creature had contracted its body, thereby hiding the evidence of her crime!
"It's jus' a bit o' gas," Professor Hagrid cried after them. "Nuffin ter worry about!"
Were both of the Flobberworm's holes mouths— or were they both anuses? Flobberworms certainly accepted food at either end, and Oleandra knew for a fact they excreted from both as well…
"Sorry about this, Professor," whispered Oleandra, drawing her wand as she watched him running after a Hufflepuff girl fleeing into the Forbidden Forest to escape the noxious odour. "Accio Lethifold tissue samples!"
Holding her nose, Oleandra looked expectantly to Hagrid's Hut, but frustratingly, it remained obstinately still. Disappointingly, there was nothing flying towards her, breaking through doors or windows to get at her.
Oleandra frowned.
She knew for a fact that Hagrid had taken samples of Cloak the Lethifold when she'd loaned it to him in her fourth year. Maybe she had chanted the wrong keyword for the Summoning Charm? Or perhaps he'd already disposed of the evidence?
"Accio Lethifold eggs!"
Did Lethifold even lay eggs? Maybe a more generic term would do the trick.
"Accio Lethifold babies!"
No, that wouldn't work, the Summoning Charm couldn't Summon living beings, so she would have to get creative with her vocabulary.
(One of the only notable exceptions to this rule being the Flobberworm, as its status as a living creature is debatable due to its propensity to do nothing all day, just like an inanimate object)
"Accio jar containing Lethifold embryo! Accio Lethifold samples container! Accio, Accio, Accio!"
Frustration mounting, Oleandra began getting careless with her wand movements, making grander and sharper gestures with each failed Summoning, until unexpectedly, one of her Summoning Charms successfully locked onto its target…
With a series of loud crashes, a sealed jar that had previously housed pickled eggs and gherkins navigated its way through Hagrid's Hut— toppling coatracks and several shelves as it searched for an exit— before finally smashing through a window and hurtling straight towards Oleandra's head!
Oleandra skilfully avoided the jar, but it looped back towards the base of her skull, almost as if it were trying to take her head off. This time, Oleandra reached out to grab it— but unfortunately for her, it seemed as though the jar had ploughed its way through an entire box of raw eggs before making its way to her; it was coated in a slick film of yellow slime. It slipped through her fingers, sailed past her head, and smashed into the pumpkin patch's fence, whereupon it shattered into pieces, releasing its contents: a tattered scrap of black cloth.
"Oi, I heard tha'!" shouted Professor Hagrid angrily. "I told yeh ter stop sneakin' inter me house!"
"Reparo!"
There was no time for fancy repairs— Professor Hagrid sounded like he was coming up from behind the house! Had he already managed to wrangle the Hufflepuff girl who'd fled into the forest to escape the noxious stench?
It looked as though the other students were already heading back down from the hill that led to the castle, so Oleandra quickly ducked behind a humongous, prize-winning pumpkin. She glanced over her shoulder, searching for the scrap of Lethifold leather that had fallen out of the jar…
…only to find a dozen fat Flobberworms swarming over it. With their 'guardians' no longer looking over them, the Flobberworms had taken advantage of their newfound freedom to inch their way to the pumpkin patch, where tasty treats abounded. To her horror, Oleandra watched on as a particularly ugly Flobberworm slurped up the scrap of Lethifold…
"Let go of that, you!" Oleandra hissed.
She seized the culprit and reached down what she believed to be its throat and rummaged inside, desperately trying to retrieve the lost sample…
"Greengrass, wha' on God's green earth are yeh doin'!?"
Oleandra froze, caught in the act by the very man she was trying to rob. She supposed she could have asked him nicely for the piece of itself Cloak had donated to him, but that would have it way too obvious she was attempting to create a dangerous hybrid.
"MY PUMPKIN!!" howled Professor Hagrid, as his eyes finally fell on the Flobberworms tearing at the hole-ridden pumpkin behind Oleandra. "Quick, help me get 'em off!"
The Hallowe'en feast was just a week away, which meant there would be no time for him to grow another gigantic pumpkin, no matter how much Dragon dung fertiliser he used or how often he watered it. It was meant to be the centrepiece in the Great Hall, so it had to be salvaged at any cost!
"Vermis Exumai!"
With a few Worm Banishing Spells from his umbrella, Professor Hagrid managed to repel the remaining encroaching Flobberworms. Oleandra did her best to lend a hand— despite her right arm and wand still being firmly lodged down what she hoped was a Flobberworm gullet.
Thankfully, by the time the pumpkin was rescued and Care of Magical Creatures class resumed, Professor Hagrid had completely forgotten about the suspicious noises he'd heard coming from inside his hut. When he'd inevitably enter his home, he would surely attribute the mess to a student breaking in to hide from the stench, so Oleandra was safe from suspicion on that front.
As far as Professor Hagrid was concerned, Oleandra had singlehandedly fended off an army of Flobberworms with her bare hands to save his garden from the other students' negligence— even though she was the one who'd set off the Dung Bomb in the first place, starting the whole mess!
"Lucky yeh were there, Oleandra," said Professor Hagrid gruffly, shooting a glare at the other Slytherins, Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, who seemed totally unconcerned about the plight of his pumpkins. "Five points ter Gryf— I mean, Slytherin," he added begrudgingly.
As the bell rang, Pansy and Millicent sniggered and pointed at Oleandra's arm, which was still hopelessly lodged inside her Flobberworm's gastrointestinal tract. The laughter at her expense continued all the way to the dungeons, since for many of them, their last class for the day was Potions with Professor Slughorn.
But somewhere along the way through the dungeons, Oleandra slipped away from the group and made her way to the alchemy classroom. If she had any hope of rescuing Wanderer from his predicament in the past without harming others or getting herself killed, she would first need to reclaim the power she had lost two years ago…