Hogwarts School (Challenges and Assignments): Assignment #8
Celtic Studies: Celtic Deities
Task #1: Blodeuwedd (Wales) - Goddess of the earth in bloom, flowers, wisdom, lunar mysteries and initiations: Write about someone maintaining an unconventional garden.
Grimmauld Place is full of rooms. Rooms with secrets and history and strange patches of misery that seep through the walls and have to be siphoned off with magic, as if the house itself protests the presence of cleanliness. There are winding corridors that dig impossibly deep into the burrows of the house, and windows that shouldn't see the sky but do. It's no wonder that Harry doesn't find all the rooms at first. It's no wonder that he doesn't really know what lurks in this house. There's far too much to comb through, and it's too easy to get lost.
But one day he stumbles across something that feels too magical to lose.
The upstairs study of Grimmauld Place has a grand, window-facing fireplace. On its own, that might not be very exciting. Harry's seen dragons and spells that crack glass and death itself. A fireplace doesn't have much to say in the face of all that.
But it's not just a fireplace.
Maybe it started out that way. Harry spies deep red brickwork and intricate iron engravings through the mess of leaves and ivy, and he reasons that it must have started out as an ordinary fireplace, but it's not just that anymore. He heads downstairs, leaving a thread of thin silver in the air behind him, and calls Neville through the ordinary fireplace.
"I found something I think you'll like," Harry says.
Neville, exhausted and wearing his oldest, softest pyjamas, dirty-haired and quiet, frowns slightly.
"What is it?"
"Come to Grimmauld Place and see." Harry hovers in the flames for a moment, before he adds, "Bring your gardening gloves."
When Neville comes through the Floo a sturdy ten minutes later, he's still dirty-haired, but he's wearing trousers. His exhaustion hasn't faded, but there's a curious light in his eyes. He endures Harry's one-armed hug with good grace.
"I was very busy moping, Harry," Neville says, with a tired smile. "This better be good."
Grieving, Harry thinks. Grieving, not moping. He never knew Augusta very well, and from the stories Neville's told over the years, he's pretty sure he wouldn't want to know her very well. But she was all Neville had in the way of family, and now she's gone.
"Not sure about good, but it's more up your street than mine," Harry says.
They follow the silver thread through the air, a slim, quivering spider web of magic that lures them back to the fireplace.
"Is that a garden?" Neville blinks rapidly, striding forward. "In a fireplace?"
Harry tucks his hands in his pockets, lingering in the doorway. "I know we've seen weirder, but it's still pretty cool."
Neville seems to agree. He sinks to his knees in front of the fireplace, examining the thick, rust-red tree trunk that devours half the fireplace, stretching up to the top of the ceiling, where needle-thin leaves dust the sky. He traces the vines and ivy blanketing the cracks in the brickwork, and runs his fingers along the waxy petals of copper flowers.
"Even magical plants need the usual environments to survive," Neville murmurs. "There must be something, some kind of spell residue or a Floo Powder mix-up that's made this happen. D'you know anything about it?"
Harry shakes his head. "Not a clue. I don't even know what the tree is."
"It's actually a shrub," Neville says immediately. "Pieris Japonica, though most people know it as 'forest flame.' It doesn't usually have this type of trunk or stem though. I suppose it almost makes sense, growing out of a fireplace, but I still don't understand how it happened." He cranes his neck to look up at the bright red leaves. "It's amazing."
His face is soft with awe.
Harry hesitates at first, but he's never gotten anywhere by not seizing an opportunity, so he presses on despite his misgivings. "You're welcome to stick around and study it, you know. Or just keep it growing. You can do whatever you like with it. I don't use this room at all, but maybe I would if it had a Neville Longbottom-worthy garden in it."
That earns him a soft huff of laughter, shy but delighted. Neville ducks his head, still trailing his hands across plants and flowers. "Not sure I'd be the best company lately," he says, with a touch of something dark and sad in his voice.
Fresh grass blooms along the bottom of the fireplace. Harry kneels too and runs his fingers through it. Thinks about Neville in that stone-cold house surrounded by stuffed hats and cool-toned memories. Meets curious eyes with his own, and smiles.
"Well, every garden needs a gardener," Harry says. "And I don't really care what kind of company you are. You're my friend, right? I was a right foul git to everyone in school when I wanted to be. Remember?"
"Hard to forget," Neville teases. He sighs, his shoulders sinking, but there's a spark in his eyes that wasn't there when he first arrived, the first tinge of warmth. "You sure?"
"I'm sure." Harry nudges him, grinning. "It's not like I don't have the room."
[Word Count: 852]