"Mr. Smellie?”

Surprised he jumped up slightly from leaning over the mandrake with squinted eyes as his fingers pulled away layer after layer from the crosshatch of cuts he’d made pulling the pieces to the edges. Each layer he moved revealed more layers underneath which made him curious when he’d reach organs as the outer layers looked very much how he imagined trees grew. Well with a bit more blood, or did it being a plant automatically make it sap.

He wasn’t sure but he didn’t have time to consider it in the seconds it took to turn and see the Professor. He said quickly surprised to see the Professor “ Good Evening Professor Skeeter. It was already dead before I started dissecting it. I found it in that plant scrap pile over there and gave it a good cleaning and not a peep out of it. “

It didn’t even scream when he cut it. Though his need for a breath in gave him enough time to realize that his last observation would likely go better unsaid.

With a bit of a roll of his feet back and forth shifting his weight in a bit of a slow, but energetically excited motion he continued “ Do you happen to remember this mandrake? In particular was it showing any sign of disease like a cough, breathing issues, difficulty moving any of its. “ Then he paused to consider if the things that he was about to call arms should be called branches.

He decided to go with branches as he continued “Its branches.“ This was a moment he wished he studied the words part of Herbology more than the planting part of it. As he was at a loss for other things to suggest to imply as symptoms that would likely proceed a disease caused death that more evidence of would be found in an autopsy.