Exclusive plants

It was a busy summer for Soisen. Thanks to the protection provided by Fidelius along with the fact that he didn't have or need a wand marked with "The Trace" from the Ministry, Nagini was able to teach him a few combat spells while his main research was almost at a standstill due to the lack of specialized facilities.

But despite her desire to learn, in her situation she couldn't ask for too much.

He had no training room to safely practice in, so he couldn't gain any real experience facing off in an intense simulated duel with Nagini, he had to settle for practicing casting with some transformed dummies in an empty space in the garden that acted as a target. Nagini was aware of this, so what she asked Soisen to do was to focus on increasing throwing speed, power and accuracy.

At first it was... embarrassing, yes, that would be the word she would use. He missed half the time at first because he wasn't used to it, he usually took his time exercising spells, but Nagini wanted to correct that bad habit he unknowingly developed.

When she started to get it right most of the time, she had to get used to alternating between different spells so as not to be predictable.

Expelliarmus, levicorpus, oppugno, petrificus totalus, stupefy, incarcerous, impedimenta, palalingua, suplo, tarantallegra, confundus....

Were it not for the fact that their mothers were present, he even wanted to practice some somewhat less conventional spells.

Like Snape's Sectumsempra, which can bleed the opponent!

But he didn't remember the counterspell, so better not to mess with it....

Or Lockhart's Brackium Emendi, to make bones disappear!

But dummies had no bones, and I didn't want to go through the experience of drinking Skele-Go....

Even combinations like Incendio and Engorgio would result in an attack equivalent to a dragon flare!

But Nagini made it clear to him that until he mastered the basics, don't even think of trying to combine spells in combat... and his instincts prompted him to agree with her.

He didn't want to have an accident like Luna's mother.

I mean, with the versatility of magic, only a fool would use a disarming charm in each and every situation! There were hundreds if not thousands of ideal alternatives depending on the circumstances, so why limit themselves so much?

For defense spells, they had to use the excuse of going to Diagon Alley to Apparate to a desolate place and have Soisen defend against Nagini's multiple and flexible spells. Doing it at home was not smart, because their mothers would be too worried to see their child being attacked with even the most basic spells and they would have an emergency kit by their side every time.

Soisen loved Ann and Ingta dearly, but he wasn't going to lower the intensity of the training just to put his mothers at ease, so he could only resort to benevolent deception to get around the situation.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Nagini would make sure that when they were done practicing, there wasn't a single hair out of place so they wouldn't suspect a thing. She even used a few wand movements to wipe the clothes and wipe away the sweat.

Seeing how practical that was, Soisen immediately requested to learn them. And what an experience! A simple household spell made him cleaner than taking a shower.

So he included one day a week to learn convenient household spells.

Oh, he also received a letter from Pomona asking when it would be possible to visit the garden he heard Soisen brag so much about. Apparently she was waiting for a plant with an impossible-to-pronounce name to bear fruit and had a few days off, so she remembered her statement and wrote.

They agreed to meet at a plant store in Diagon Alley, where Soisen picked her up and using the Nighthawk Bus (which he paid for both of them, as a courtesy) they quickly arrived at the entrance to the town.

They chatted briefly along the way and when they arrived near the house, Soisen whistled loudly. To Professor Sprout's complete surprise, an Occamy (which turned out to be Nagini in her animagus form) approached them and handed a note with the address to the Herbology teacher at Hogwarts. After that, it walked away and disappeared.

Fulfilled the condition of the Fidelius charm, the visitor was able to enter the Soisen house without further inconvenience. Moreover, because she became a secondary guardian by default, there was also no risk of her spreading anything she knew even if she showed her memory to someone with a pensieve in her hands.

Nagini greeted them in her human form and invited the teacher in, Soisen then introduced her to Ingta and Ann, with whom Pomona became fast friends, especially Ingta, as she was primarily responsible for tending the garden and they had several issues in common. She was a bit surprised to discover their squib status, but she didn't mind at all, she didn't discriminate against anyone as long as they weren't bad people.

Soisen was relieved, although he couldn't hide that forever, he preferred to delay it as long as possible until he found a cure or was powerful enough that no one would try to get ideas.

After a lovely chat over a cup of tea and brownies, Ingta led Pomona out into the garden.

-By Morgana's bra! -Pomona exclaimed when she saw the garden, "I've never seen plants like this before!

That got everyone's attention. Upon closer examination, the Herbology teacher confirmed that almost all the plants in the garden were totally unknown and unregistered.

When she asked the origin of the seeds, there was no choice but to explain the history of the garden.

-I see..." said Pomona after serious reflection, "If I am not mistaken, Soisen's childish magic created these plants and they are unique in the world. There have been cases of children growing roses or tulips, of course, but there has never been a known case where such a thing happened.

-Professor...

-We're not at Hogwarts, you can call me Pomona," she quickly corrected him.

-Okay, Pomona," Soisen nodded as he proposed an idea that had just occurred to him, "Would you be interested in participating in a project with these plants?

-I'm all ears," Pomona opened her eyes in interest.

Soisen's proposal was simple. Since these plants were completely new, it meant that no one knew about their properties, attributes, possible uses in potions or medicines, etc.

So Soisen asked her if she was interested in growing and seriously studying them privately. He would provide her with the seeds, bulbs and grafts needed to multiply them outside the garden so that she could use his expertise to compile their details, even help her turn her discoveries into a book. In return, he asked her not to circulate anything she grew, because he intended that once the study of these plants was finished and something useful came out, perhaps open some greenhouses with strong security measures to have a monopoly on them and sell them in the future in his store as something exclusive.

All this backed up and detailed by a magically binding contract, of course.

Pomona thought for a long time and ended up agreeing. The magical plants were mostly studied by now and with her duties she didn't have time to search for and breed new varieties. But Soisen's proposal was feasible and would make her one of the two people who discovered the plants, etching her name in the history of her field. The fact that Soisen promised that a portion of the profits would go to Hogwarts, specifically the Herbology department, was the icing on the cake.