- Rating:
- PG
- House:
- The Dark Arts
- Genres:
- Angst
- Era:
- Multiple Eras
- Spoilers:
- Philosopher's Stone Chamber of Secrets Prizoner of Azkaban Goblet of Fire
- Stats:
-
Published: 06/15/2002Updated: 06/15/2002Words: 1,544Chapters: 1Hits: 1,012
Empty Garden
Emma Moniz
- Story Summary:
- Grief is a strange creature, found growing in empty gardens covered in snow. Justin reflects on what kind of flower blooms when the gardener is gone.
- Posted:
- 06/15/2002
- Hits:
- 1,012
- Author's Note:
- For Nicky, my SAI sister, my mentor, my inspiration, my friend. You always were and still are my guiding star. I miss you:
Empty Garden
Emma Moniz
*****
"And what's it for, this little empty garden by the brownstone door?
And in the cracks along the sidewalk nothing grows no more.
Who lived here?
It must have been a gardener who cared a lot.
Who weeded out the tears to grow a good crop.
And we are so amazed, we're crippled and we're dazed.
A gardener like that one, no-one can replace.
I've been knocking, but no-one answers.
And I've been knocking most of the day.
And I've been calling,
Oh, hey hey Johnny, can't you come out to play?"
~Elton John, "Empty Garden (Hey Hey Johnny)"
*****
It's empty. It's an empty, lonesome garden to anyone who walks past it, a forgotten patch by the greenhouses Professor Sprout gave to you to tend because you were interested. It's frozen over now, the glitter of frost on the uneven surface of the once tenderly tilled soil. There's nothing here for anyone, and she's talking about maybe giving it to Neville now. He's good at Herbology, and she's proud of him, trying to get him to come out of his shell. Some of us wonder if he'd been better with us, under her wing all the time instead of having to face McGonagall when things are out of control. I wouldn't want to face her, myself. Despite liking Neville--and I do, I like him a lot, I admire his gentleness, his earnest efforts in the greenhouses--he can't have this place. He can't have it. It's yours, no matter what anyone says. It's yours. You tended it with love, you spent your time out here, and it was your sanctuary. You escaped from the world here, and made an empty, forgotten piece of earth bloom into a cacophony of fragrant life. You'd pick the flowers and take them to your ladylove, or you'd sit here, curled up with your Transfiguration book, or the small volume of Elliot that I gave you last Christmas. It was your refuge, and you filled it with such life, such hope. It wasn't just a little scrap of earth to you, it was the entirety of the earth, a collection of all things beautiful, and when she came to watch you tend it, all things bright, too. You were a match, and I envied her. I don't envy her anymore.
Scraping over the wounds, turning over the earth, burying the pain in a layer of frost and soil, my fingers bleeding in the earth as if the blood might give life to old ghosts, old memories that aren't old enough to simply ache instead of stab me in the night. Or the day. Every moment. I'm crippled with it when I let it get to me, and when I push it away, when I do what I was set here to do, it just gnaws at me like a rabid animal, threatening to consume me, to eat my soul and make me know the pain forever. I can't cry. I'm out of tears. I'm out of them. I can't cry anymore, not for anything. Ripping away, digging down deeper into flesh and earth, seeking out something...anything. Release, perhaps. Or some comfort. I don't know.
I'm supposed to be stronger than this. I'm supposed to be there to support people, not need a shoulder. I'm better than this, stronger than this, and yet I'm reduced to dust. Ashes. I'm calling for you, I'm looking for you, and there's nothing here. There's nothing but forgotten bulbs that didn't bloom, a button lost off a robe long before either of us was here. Forgotten memories in a forgotten garden, empty and lost. I'm empty, too.
Did you know how I looked at you? How I prized the moments I spend out here with you, reading poetry and talking about everything. Three years my senior, and yet how dear to me! Though no-one thought anything of it. They thought of your lady first, and rightly so. Hufflepuffs are internal in a way no other House can be. We're the healers, loyal, gentle and true. Powerful in our own right, and marked, set apart. But you...you were crowned with flames. You were the greatest among us, the best and the brightest, creating life out of nothing, coaxing smiles out of tears, genius out of mediocrity. You taught me everything I know about loyalty and goodness, about forgiveness and acceptance. You taught me so much by simply being, by leading me with your example. In whose footsteps do mine now fall? Your laugh is silent, your eyes dulled and forgotten, save in the part of my soul in which they blaze brightest in moments of exquisite anguish.
I've been calling, I've been searching, I've been aching, and yet there are no answers. There's no sign of you, no sign of hope and I'm ready to give those notions up, of a greater good. Of God, perhaps. What loving God would call you to His side when we needed you so much here? What God could do that when faith was in such short supply? Look at us! Look at us...we don't need a martyr. We need you. I need you. There are so many things I never got to say...so many things. I was afraid, and I hesitated, and I drew away. I never told you how you inspired me. I never said it. Maybe you knew, or maybe you know now, but there's no saying...
I can smell the earth, and the edge of it smells like you when you'd come back from your garden, your Eden. Paradise destroyed by the serpent once more, and instead of falling, you slipped the surly bounds of earth to touch the face of God. Wearing the martyr's crown, you launched into danger, and were gone before we knew. We never knew. And we never said goodbye.
I remember when you draped your arm about my shoulders, smelling of the soil and something else, something distinctly you. I remember the colour of your eyes. I remember your laugh. I remember sitting up nights, trying to master some skill, and you being there to show me the way. All of it is fading now. Your laugh isn't as distinct, your face blurring in my mind, and when I reach for the images, the memories of you, they slip out of my reach, as if to taunt me. You're slipping away, farther and farther into yesterday, and I don't know how to go on into tomorrow without you there. My brother in all but blood, my friend, my Housemate, my inspiration...how can I walk into tomorrow without your footprints showing me the way?
There's snow, now, coating the garden in gentle white, blotting out the pain and the dreams, the echoes of Elliot and your laughter. It's covering the memories and the regrets, blanketing the world and beckoning the whispers of Christmas. I remember sitting by the fire, and you'd gather everyone around, and we'd tell stories. Always, always the last was mine. You'd call to me, "Recite it, Justin, you always remember the Christmas story properly." And I'd smile, and speak the timeless words, not of Jesus or God, but of simple shepherds--the Hufflepuffs of their time, perhaps--and the message the angel gave.
Now in that same country, there were shepherds tending their flocks by night. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shown all around them, and they were very much afraid. The angel spoke unto them, saying, "Fear not, for behold! I bring you tidings of great joy that will be for all people! For on this day is born to you in the City of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger." And suddenly with the angel there appeared a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God and singing, "Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace to all men."
Peace and goodwill, love and kindness. A gentle hand, a healing touch. No talk of bravely defending anything, or knowing more, or planning...simply peace. You knew that as well as I did, expressed it better than I did. And while you were brave, while you were clever and brilliant, you valued the peace of your garden more than anything, the laughter of the common room over the praise in the Great Hall. You taught me to value the same things. Maybe they're your delayed Christmas present to last forever. Your legacy, perhaps. An empty garden, whispers of peace and goodwill, frozen tears and a loss I can never communicate. You're here, maybe, on the whispers of the Christmas wind, in the last few moments of daylight when the sun slips below the horizon and the grounds are golden and the sky is as gray as your eyes. There are flowers of memory, ghostly plants and the echoes of your laughter on the edge of the day when peace is supposed to reign throughout the world.
I've been calling, and this is your answer, your patch of earth and your memory.
Merry Christmas, Cedric. Merry Christmas from your empty garden.