Every Sunday afternoon, Pomona Sprout walked to Hogsmeade.
This wasn't to go to the Three Broomsticks- or, Merlin forbid, the Hog's Head! Pomona was not a casual drinker, and much preferred a strong cup of tea to any sort of liquor. She drank her tea black, with sugar, and strong enough to stick a spoon up in it. But in any case, she didn't go to Hogsmeade to spend her galleons, whether it be on drink or anything else found in the village.
She went to work in her mother's garden.
Maureena Sprout had lived in Hogsmeade since 1979, when her husband passed away and she'd felt the need to be away from the house that her husband had been killed in. Even after the dark mark had dissipated the house was no longer welcoming: it was drenched in memories of Pomona's father, a muggleborn wizard who'd made enchanted trunks.
They'd worked together on the garden until 1988, when Maureena had called it a day.
"My knees just aren't up to it, anymore, love," she'd told Pomona. "If you come round every now and then, I'm sure it'll be fine. But only if you want to."
Pomona had told her that she was being silly, of course she wanted to. And it was true. Every week, at half-past two, Pomona went. She weeded and spread mulch, fertilised and planted. It was relaxing working on a garden of mostly-muggle plants, one that was designed for pleasure and colour.
Pomona had never been much for material possessions—she simply didn't see the point of collecting objects. Her view was unconventional, but it made sense in a deep, intuitive way to her. The importance in life was with growth—with change, slow, steady or tendril-quick. Plants grew—people grew—animals grew—they changed, and developed, and were wonderfully complex. Whether it was physically or mentally, growing leaves or centimetres taller or deepening in moral understanding, Pomona watched, and watered, pruned and fertilised.
What was the point of things that stayed the same, that were not ever in a continuous, shifting, tenuous relationship with themselves and others, with the very earth?
Her mother's garden was the place where she felt this the best, because Pomona never used magic in it, only elbow grease and sweat. There was no artificial acceleration of growth, no charming to prevent unwanted bugs. Pomona tended it; each week, absorbed in her work, she knew more of the deep natural pattern underlying everything. She watched plants grow, flower, fall to seed, and die; she knew her own place in the pattern. She knew what awaited her plants, what awaited her mother, what awaited her. It unfolded before her like a bud gently opening, day by day, becoming ready to display its glory to the sun.