Professor Diggory Kirke stood in front of his Wardrobe. There were times when he couldn't quite believe Narnia was real, that the wood of the Wardrobe was from there. The tree, the Animals, Fledge, Aslan.
Aslan.
Aslan was the main reason he'd never quite forgotten Narnia. Well, Him and Polly. Having Polly around- Polly, who'd been there too, who'd seen everything he had, from walking trees to talking animals to Aslan.
The Lion who breathed life into Narnia, into all of the Trees, and the Animals and even the air itself. If not for Polly, he'd never have built the wardrobe. He'd been perfectly content to forget Narnia, when he'd started university and started memorising facts and figures and names.
When that tree, the wondrous tree that had been all he had left of Narnia had fallen down, he'd thought that was the end.
But Polly-
brilliant, wonderful Polly, had prevented him from getting rid of the dead wood that was all that was left of the tree- she hadn't needed to say anything, just given him a look when he had tried to discreetly suggest getting rid of the dead tree over dinner one night. That, coupled with the approving look she'd given him when he'd shyly shown her his sketch of an idea for the design of a wardrobe, had told him he was doing the right thing.
When the wardrobe had been completed, the two had searched for hours for any sort of entrance to Narnia- perhaps predictably, finding nothing.
When they were tired from searching, they sat in front of it, in a resigned sort of contentment.
When he found her standing in front of it in the middle of the night, tracing the figures carved into it- trees, Animals, a Lion- and crying silent tears, he sat down with her and they talked. They talked for hours, reminiscing about their time in the magical land called Narnia, laughing at the memory of the Animals, wondering how Frank and Helen and Fledge and all the others were going and, slowly, the ache in their hearts they had both tried to erase with Real Life began to lessen, until finally it was just a memory, the edges dulled through the sharing of pain, with no more power to hurt them.
Years passed, and the memories faded to something like the memory of a dream, fleeting and delicate, like morning fog on the verge of being dissolved by the sun.
That is, until he met the four Pevensie children, come from the city, who, after a game of Hide and Seek, seemed changed, somehow. Almost like Kings and Queens…