Title: Flowers for the Dead
Author: Amalin )
Rating: R
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 and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Notes: For Catastrophe, who inspired this; for those on Armchair, who I am writing deathfic for just to spite; for Erica (dancingrain) who does not know me but whose birthday I felt I should honor anyhow. And for Penguin, because of the tulips. Enjoy.
It is spring.
With spring comes the torrid rain that leaves its heartbeat in the soil long after it has exhausted itself, the careful peeking vibrancy of green tips against crumbling soil. With spring there is a hushed saccharine breath to the breeze, the faint tingle of wind chimes in the last trembling shreds of dreams.
With spring comes memory, and it is that which I mourn.
They remind me of him, these plants. The way they struggle upwards through the earth, the way their petals gently unfurl with the early caress of dawn. It all reminds me of him and his last quiet breaths, when the horizon is dusky grey and seashell rim pink. Him, him, him. Him, and the way he left me, trembling and craving and searching so desperate, finding only the cold embrace of springtime chill.
The tulips are in full bloom, vivacious, stealing color from my cheeks and the sodden soil, robbing the sky of its brightness until it is but a shadow of blue. Their petals are crushed velvet and breath on skin beneath my fingertips; their scent brings memories I don't want to touch.
Him, him, always him.
They told me there were roses on his grave, garish roses the color of new blood. Red roses, glorious Gryffindor red, a hero's color to live by and die by. I can see them now, oversized thorns raking the pads of my thumbs, exacting the toll of loving a hero. Their sickly fragrance would be as overbearing as Mrs. Crabbe's perfume.
Such flowers are not for mourning, no; they are bouquets of tribute, of worship, of gratitude. Frankly, I would rather miss him than salute him. But I'd rather not mourn him at all.
The flowers agree, their fragile and translucent petals bruising under my grip. They let me water them with tears, let me kiss away the watery grief, watch me fall asleep curled beneath the blooming dogwood and wake with petals on my skin, soil and salt on my cheeks.
I miss him. And I know they understand, because on lonely nights where the stars chime and the wind raises gooseflesh of my skin, I whisper so much of him and the depth of his eyes and the taste of his hatred stolen from his lips and his arms and robes like dark wings around me and the echoes of his breath. In the morning, I imagine they are taller and brighter than they ever were before.
I even dream of him; the fragrance of flowers clings to his skin.
Harry.
I am not sure if I am crazy; the house elves surely think so. Here is young Master Malfoy, lord of the manor now that Father is in Azkaban and Mother is in Switzerland, and he sleeps beneath the spreading bower of branches, sings quietly in twilight to the closing heads of flowers. In any case, they are all buzzing with news on S.P.I.T. or whatever that organization might be called, and have little interest in lazing lords.
If I told them, they would not understand anyway. No one does. Except the flowers, with their nodding heads, their smooth-skinned petals of alabaster and scarlet. They know. They know because I tell them every day.
And sometimes, when the skies are that shade between ivory and charcoal, melted marble grey, I press my ear to the ground and I fancy I hear his voice.
"Do you know how I miss you?" I whisper to the earth, lips moving against damp soil, nose buried in the newborn scent of fresh decay and the pungency of rain. "Do you know how much I would give to have you back?" Not a hero's monolith of memory, a granite pillar inscribed so deeply with your name that the rain collects there hours after a storm. Not bouquets of dying roses perfect in magical preservation.
The flowers whisper to me of him, and I whisper back. They grow.
Is it all over the papers yet? Young Lord Driven To Madness By Grief For World Hero? I don't think so. He wasn't my hero; he wasn't a legend to pass on to grandchildren. He was Harry. Just Harry. Him.
They don't understand.
I heard there was a memorial service, and the amount of fireworks clouded the sky until it was a constant stream of lights. He might have liked that. I also heard they shot off no fireworks remotely close to the color green, because it reminded them so much of Avada Kedavra.
Well, so do these flower stems. Green. Green, the aftershocks of his gaze, the echoes of that darker shadowed hue. Slytherin green. The green he died by. Spring green, darkened into emerald.
I forget at times and fall asleep beside the flowers, the bite of spring air a warning on my skin. It is here that I can dream of him. And some nights, when I have washed off the dirt of several days, soaking in water scented with roses, when I fall asleep between silk sheets softer than flower petals, I awake in panic and must tiptoe from the confines of the manor and into this garden. The bowl of stars sings to me, and the flowers weave in ancient melodies too esoteric for my ears.
They are comfort, in his absence. They are a measure of allaying grief, when his memory pounds too heavily in my veins.
Harry. It is truly a clumsy name, something heavy and awkward, not like the serpentine strains of Draco or the flower names I used to recite as a child to help me fall asleep.
Hyacinth. Magnolia. Amaryllis. Alstromeria.
Narcissa.
And now I whisper his name, softly, to the flowers, and let the rhythmic syllables carry me into slumber. It sings along with my pulse, and the thrumming of the earth.
Sometimes it rains, and I will lie with the droplets spattering coldly on my cheeks, plastering my hair to my forehead, leaving me shivering when the shower has gone. Sometimes I will go inside for a change of clothes, but returning and sitting on the dampened ground only leaves me the same way. So at times I will simply stay and etch his name into the dirt, curving around flowers, my own grave inscription like the marker in the cemetery.
Harry.
I can tell when spring begins to shift to summer, because the rain that splatters on my skin and runs in rivulets like tears down my arms turns from harsh to gentle, from chilled to mild. The petals are brown at the edges, spotted with the barest hints of imperfection, losing their gentle color to the pull of summer and its own flowering glory.
Petals litter the ground from the tree above; the wind does not whisper, it murmurs sweetly like a bought lover, a breath away from heady deception.
My lips brush his name against the flowers, a last gentle benediction, the quietest homage in the humblest garden.
When the rain comes, warm and breathless, sweeping through the garden in a haze of summery air, I pull them from their earthly home and shake off the damp clods of soil. I take them from their dirt until there is no pale brush of color against the sky, until the ground is as barren as the crux of winter, and the rain washes the tears from my eyes.
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