Title: Perennials
Author name: Daria
Category: Drama
Sub-Category: AngstRating: T
Spoilers: Eh, the Harry Potter series.
Summary: Swiped flowers lead to a conversation that was long overdue between two grieving Order of the Phoenix members.
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made from this, and no copyright infringements were intended

Perennials
(Part I)

Flowers had seemed like such a good idea when she made a silent and impulsive flight from the house. That is, she hadn't thought of them while she was planning her means of escape, it was only after that she realized they were useful. It wasn't a great accomplishment to leave a large place filled to the brim with people, but breaking the wards had been some feat, indeed. She, of small stature and big ambition, had slid from a basement window after breaking the meager protective spells set upon it, and somehow made it out of the lawn without much trouble. Yes, aside from slamming rather violently into the invisible barrier at least twice, it had been a very clean escape. Nymphadora Tonks was nothing if not resilient.

After walking down the narrow sidewalk, leaving the invisible house for a steady couple of minutes, Tonks realized that she had only gotten as far in her planning as breaking from Grimmauld Place. Nothing after that. Stopping abruptly, the young witch had moved a spidery little hand through her spiked black hair and grown rather flustered. Chagrined, even. She sat down, right there on the unsympathetic sidewalk, and put her pointed chin in her hand, unpolished fingernails tapping against her pale face. Tonks had managed to break out of one of, if not the most, protected wizarding household in all of London. Now what was she to do? And that was when it hit her.

Not literally, really. More like.. tapped. She had jumped. Tonks had jumped and gave a shrill cry, expecting to find Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody prodding her with his wand and menacingly glaring down. Instead she had found daffodils reaching past the posts of a low fence to touch her exposed knee. Daffodils and tulips. And wildflowers. For some strange reason, an eccentric Muggle had chosen that drab corner in the outskirts of London as the perfect place for their oddly-painted, overgrown habitat. There had been all sorts of lawn ornaments - the atrocious little bearded men Muggles thought to be representative of gnomes, she'd guessed - and flowers. Even in wizarding lawns, richly cultivated with insufferable Ever-Grow Harlows, the irritating Dizzy Daisies, any of the safer forms of Belladonna, Leopard's Bane, Snapdragons, what have you, the witch had never seen such a variety. The Muggle was talented.

And in one of the few acts of utter thievery Tonks had done, the Metamorphmagus had gingerly picked three white tulips, two lilies, and one rose. It had felt so wrong to permanently borrow the flowers that she had rummaged in her pocket, found two Sickles and a Galleon, and thrown the aforementioned coins over the darling picket fence. They had landed on the quaint front porch with a reassuring clatter, and the witch had, with a sudden onslaught of paranoia, flown from the scene and sprinted in the general direction of the damnable Grimmauld Place, mary-janes beating the cement as she exercised her short legs as best she could. Muggle passersby honked.

She had arrived back at the invisible Order of the Phoenix establishment - the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black - in a few minutes, sweat dripping down her flushed face, mascara running, and simply exhausted. Guilty, too. Unfortunately enough, the witch was still clothed in funeral regalia; a black, shin-length dress and a conservative black shawl. It was impolite to wear anything fancy, but Tonks wasn't a complicated female. Dresses were usually out of the question. The funeral! The funeral was her real purpose for leaving. And there really wasn't much to be said.

She entered the miserable Black door and exhaled. The dreary atmosphere was surprisingly familiar and comfortable, which was a truly a depressing thought, if one were to pause and consider it. Molly had done an admirable job of cleaning the place up for the Order members. The actual event had happened several hours before, in the morning. Tonks didn't arrive back at Number Twelve wishing to think about it, so there just wasn't much to be said. Below the vile, serpentine chandelier in dead center of the hallway, Molly had placed a small table for the sole purpose of housing a vase of flowers. Appropriately enough, they'd already wilted. Tonks had placed the rose there.

For some reason, she had known to save the rest. And that had made all the difference, really. The cautious Order member avoided the others - they were clustered in the kitchen, eating and conversing - and crept up the rickety old staircases. She veered through ominous, portrait-ridden hallways and ascended even more perilous stairs, all the while too preoccupied with the reason for her wanderings to realize where she was subconsciously leading herself until she reached that destination.

Tonks was usually exceedingly absent-minded, and often caught herself either wandering or wondering into dangerous territory, but this was different. She found herself in a room that had been avoided since the Ministry Battle. Even Molly had avoided cleaning it. As the door shut behind her, the youngest Order member understood why she was mistrusted at times. She didn't think things through. She was compulsive and impulsive and just didn't listen sometimes. And he had been, too. Embarrassed and upset and ready to basically fucking collapse - one of the few times she would readily admit this, too - she discovered she had entered this room in the hopes of talking with Sirius. The human mind - whether or not it has anything to do with magic - has a funny way of continuing to process while the body is busy with other things. Hence the wandering first, and then realization. She just hadn't... Dropping the flowers as her grip slackened, she stared.

The bed - a ornate and Gothic, as everything else in the place was - had been left unmade; untouched since its last wizard sought refuge there. Tonks would often sit at the edge, cross-legged, and listen to him talk. One time she had even been talked into bringing the sod breakfast in the bed. She smiled slightly. The velveteen covers were tossed about and piled so realistically that one might think the last user of the four-poster had only recently removed himself from its warmth. The other articles in the room - a disheveled desk with a matching, molting armchair, a shelf housing various items he had probably never touched, a closet overgrown with ill-fitting clothes - were distinctly those of Sirius, but really only the bedside table had any signs of use. On it sat a letter from Harry, some oft-used reading spectacles, a half-full glass of water, an empty Sugar Quill, and an empty picture frame.

Tonks, silly as it was for someone so seemingly ready to reveal emotion, rarely cried. She felt as if the room was exerting pressure on her chest, and that her heart was thumping loud enough to startle the dinner-goers downstairs, but still the tears did not come. Half-wanting to leave, she turned and was about to take the necessary three steps to wander out the door when a quiet shuffle made her stop. Oh no. There was no excusing her careless entrance to the almost sacred room. Unthinking, she skittered around to the bed and was hastily contemplating trying to match the striped wallpaper when the door opened with a slow groan.