Forbidden Flowers

Chapter 1: Forbidden Blooms

The greenhouses of Hogwarts were like something out of a dream, where glass walls stood tall against the cold, and life inside flourished no matter the season. It was a sanctuary, and for Molly Weasley, it had become something of an escape. Not that she had ever thought she'd need to escape her own life, but here she was, with nothing but silence in The Burrow and too many memories waiting to ambush her at every turn. The battle had taken so much—Arthur, most of all. Now, there were only the echoes of his laugh and the weight of a home too big for one grieving woman to handle.

She had thought that helping Pomona in the greenhouses might fill the emptiness, give her hands something to do. And perhaps, it might fill the gaping hole that losing Arthur had left inside her chest, where the heartbeats came too slowly, and the air didn't always seem to reach her lungs. That's why she was here, buried in the damp smell of soil and the earthy, heady scent of living things. Things that, unlike her, seemed to keep growing.

Molly hadn't been sure what to expect when she first offered to help. Pomona Sprout, the long-time Herbology professor, had always been something of a mystery—kind, of course, but distant. There was an almost rugged determination to her, a woman who could command a horde of unruly teenagers or a misbehaving Venomous Tentacula with the same calm authority. Yet, behind that, Molly had always seen a flicker of something else. Something more fragile.

But fragility wasn't a word anyone would associate with Pomona, not as she stood in front of the workbench in Greenhouse Three, her stout frame steady, the lines of her face drawn into a practiced concentration. Her wild, graying hair was tucked haphazardly under a wide-brimmed hat, and her fingers—knobby, calloused things—moved with delicate care as she handled the fragile stems of a vine curling out of its pot. Molly stood beside her, knees slightly bent, her own hands dirtied by the morning's work of tending the rows of seedlings and sorting through the endless collection of magical plants Pomona had accumulated over the years.

"This one's temperamental," Pomona muttered, her voice like gravel over the rustle of the vines. "Bit too much light and it'll shrivel. Not enough and it'll poison the soil."

Molly nodded, though she knew better than to think she understood the complexities of herbology. Pomona's world was one of patience and precision, of watching and waiting. Molly's world had always been more chaotic—seven children, a husband who loved his job but never seemed to earn quite enough to support them, and a house that felt like it was alive in its own right. She wasn't used to things that demanded silence or stillness. She was used to fixing things with her hands, with love and care, but the quiet here was different. It didn't demand anything from her, and that was unsettling in a way she hadn't expected.

She stood back, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear and glancing around at the sea of plants that filled every available space. Ivy and tendrils curled up the walls, strange flowers Molly had never seen bloomed in bursts of purple and gold, and odd fruit hung from low-hanging branches, their surfaces shimmering faintly in the dim light.

"Pomona," she said after a long moment, her voice softer than she meant it to be. "I don't think I ever realized how much life there is in here."

Pomona looked up, arching an eyebrow, but there was a softness in her gaze that Molly hadn't seen before. "Plants, just like people, need the right environment to thrive." She set down the vine and dusted her hands off, her gaze wandering over the rows of plants like a mother surveying her children. "But they can be fickle things too. They need someone who understands them, someone who knows how to coax them back to life when they're on the verge of withering."

Molly nodded again, though something in Pomona's words tugged at her heart. She turned her attention back to the section of plants Pomona had assigned her earlier. They were small, pale things, with delicate leaves that trembled under the slightest breath of air. But they were magical, that much was certain. She had learned quickly that nothing in these greenhouses was ordinary.