Author's note: Enjoy!
Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling owns the canon, world, and characters portrayed below and you can tell I'm not J.K. Rowling because #transrights
Hogwarts: Assignment #3, Etymology Task #6 Write about a canon/fanon Herbology Professor
Content Warnings: Grief; canon character deaths; set in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts
Flowers Wrapped in Paper and String
Give me something, Bloomsday's coming
Open up the doors and have a goddamn beer
Ring the baker, the butcher, the charioteer
The palm readers in Salem, the engineer
And everybody's wondering where their little light is
And everybody's wondering where their little light is
-Bloomsday, Samantha Crain
Minerva knows where she'll find Pomona if she's not in bed by now, and it involves her slipping into her bathrobe and lighting a lantern to guide her way through the parts of the castle that are not quite ruined and that they have decided to stay in. This is Minerva's school now on paper, as it has unofficially been for some time now. Albus had told her to take care of it as if anyone in the damned world could stop her from doing so already; but still. The castle is not completely rebuilt yet, there have been journalists and grieving loved ones and morbid tourists on the grounds, and she still can't quite look at certain hallways without picturing the spells that flew there a week ago or the bodies of the fallen. So she brings a lantern and keeps her wand ready as she makes her way out of the castle by the Eastern door, which is still relatively sturdy. From there she can see that one of the greenhouses glowing with light, and she follows the winding path to it. Even in the dark, her feet know the way well enough not to trip on any loose stones, bumps in the ground, or stray roots. How many times, after all, has she had to gently pry Pomona away from her greenhouses so she could water and feed and care for herself?
Minerva sets her lantern down by the door and lets the greenhouse door creek as loudly as it wants to announce her arrival.
"Pomona?" she calls into the greenhouse. "Po?"
Since there's no answer, Minerva closes the door behind her and makes her way through the workbenches and shelves ladden with extra pots and watering cans and shovels for students to use. Technically, Pomona has her own greenhouse where she can tend to her own flora and pursue her own research–but she likes being here, in the place where she spends the most time with students and where they can know they can find her. So Minerva finds her standing by the workbench from which she usually teaches and demonstrates how to repot Ravenous Rhododendrons or whatever plant her lesson plans prescribe–except her work apron is thrown over her own nightgown, a ratty old thing covered in strawberry flowers and fruits that she's had for as long as Minerva has known her, and her hair is already protected by a satin scarf. And she's sniffling as she leans over the flowers that she is wrapping in twine and brown paper.
She watches her for a moment. Minerva always found flowers to be wasteful and they made her sneeze; when she had married Elphinstone what felt like a lifetime and a half ago, he had firm instructions not to buy her flowers of any sort. But when Pomona had started taking a liking to her, tiny bouquets wrapped with paper and string had appeared on her doorstep, her desk, her plate in the Great Hall… Usually she likes watching Pomona work since it brings back those fond memories of realising that she was loved, but the work is different now.
"Pomona," Minerva says quietly.
She nods before she looks up and takes a deep breath before forcing a smile.
"Did I wake you when I slipped out?" Pomona asks.
"You didn't come to bed tonight, love," Minerva told her.
Pomona nods and looks down at her floral arrangements, nodding.
"Right," she says. "Right, right. I… the Tonks-Lupin funeral is tomorrow."
"I know," Minerva says. They are, after all, both going to the same funerals–as they have since the battle. And every night before there is one, Pomona works through the night in the greenhouses to make the arrangements.
Pomona nods and adds another dahlia to a bouquet in front of her. She picks up another one and looks up to Minerva, after looking it over long and hard.
"These are dahlias," she explains. "Their colouration comes from multiple different pigments in the flower itself–they bloom in so many colours all by themselves. They… they made me think of Tonks."
"I'm sure she would like that," Minerva says softly. She remembers having her as a student, when she was young and spunky and full of energy and naturally talented–but completely lacking in focus. When they met again in the Order of the Phoenix, Minerva was shocked by how razor-focused on their work the girl could be when she cared about the work at hand. It was the same focus with which she had zeroed-in on Remus Lupin.
Thinking about Remus pinched Minerva in a very particular way. He had been her student, after all, just as Nymphadora Tonks had been Pomona's.
Minerva's breath catches in her throat as Pomona adds a sprig of fluffy, white baby's breath to the arrangement.
Pomona freezes as she reaches for a ribbon with which to secure the bouquet. Her shoulders sagged as she evaluated Minerva's face.
"I heard from Harry, when he was at the castle last, that their son is a Metamorphmagus as well," Pomona says.
"Remus mentioned that to me," Minerva replies. He had promised to show her a picture when the battle was done, since he had one in his pocket and she had taken the time to yell at him about coming to the castle. He had smiled at her like he used to smile at her when he and his friends were trying to play innocent after doing some unspeakable thing to a busy hallway in the castle, and promised her she could yell at him all she wanted later.
"If something ever happens to me, I want amaranths," she informs Minerva. "Red amaranthus, purple sweet peas, chocolate cosmos, and something yellow. You can pick the last one, but I want something warm."
"You are safe now," Minerva promises her. "I am not going to choose your funeral bouquets for quite some time, Pomona."
"But if something happens," Pomona says softly. "At least you'll know."
"I will find something very yellow for you, and I trust you to pick mine," Minerva says. "But I am not leaving you anytime soon either."
Pomona nods, as if she's just checked off a very important item from her list, but Minerva sees her hands shaking as she tries to tie a pink ribbon around the bouquet. Pomona has always flowered where she was planted and has always been resilient enough to thrive, but so much has happened recently that they are paper-thin and held together by string too. At least alone.
Minerva crosses the room to stand behind her and wrap her in her arms.
"Take a break," she says quietly. "You can finish this in the morning. I can help you."
She means it, even if she hates getting her hands dirty and always manages to prick herself on thorny stems. She will do it for the person who taught her to love flowers.
"I just need to do this for them," Pomona replies quietly. "All of them."
"I know," Minerva says. "I would never try to stop you. I just don't know that you need to hurt yourself while you do."
Pomona sighs and Minerva rests her chin on her shoulder.
"I still think of them all as the children they were when they were sorted," Pomona says. "And then I think of everything they grew up to be. Everything they did. Everything they built. Everything they won't be able to. I think that for all of them, even those on the wrong sides. I know, that's… I don't know how I feel about those feelings, they… I feel…"
"Extraordinarily kind, and patient, and generous of you," Minerva finishes–even as her temper wants to flare at the idea. But the truth is, she is too tired to be angry for now. She is too tired, and she is too busy building whatever comes next–since she is still able to. "More gracious than I am. But if you take care of yourself, I will help you do the rest and wrap your flowers."
Pomona nods.
"I just want to make one more–something to give Andromeda," Pomona says. "Then I'll come back to bed with you."
"And I will rock you to sleep," Minerva promises.
WC: 1375
