The Bug Collector | marauders

No Lilies, Nor Irises have Thorns

The studio was filled with the odour of Roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through the open door the heavy scent of lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn

An exert from
Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray"

As they entered the greenhouse Rose walked to the edge of the room to light the powdered incense inside the hanging metal holder in the corner of the room, it had become ritual to do so when she would come work on growing plants and her tree with professor Sprout.

Rose didn't actually take Herbology until her second term but would often stop by the greenhouses to assist the professor.

The tables were filled with baby mandrake plants, Rose suspected Sprout had probably been teaching about them early in the day.

"So what are you going to show me?" Rose asked, turning to look at Sirius who had magically sprouted a few roses out of some pots filled with dirt. Rose smiled and continued before he could answer.

"And- you know Rose's aren't my favorite flower. I mean I didn't name myself."

He put his wand back in his pocket.

"What is then?"

Rose thought for a moment before answering.

"I fancy lilacs, there's a lilac bush under my window back home, actually."

"Don't know of any spell to transform roses to lilacs, but what I wanted to show you...." He trailed off as he reached in his pocket then started speaking again. Gryffindor scarf hanging loosely around his neck.

"I heard my cousin Andromeda talking about it once, I know Moony's tried it, I just saw some at the party and thought, James wouldn't like that very much, or Pete, but Rose might."

He said taking what looked like of one Moony's hand-rolled cigarettes out of his pocket. It had a rather strong smell, a green, but unpleasant smell.

"Do you trust me?"

He asked and she nodded quickly.

"Of course."

"Okay."

He put the substance to his lips, whispered the fire charm and lit it while breathing in, coughing thereafter.

"It's not a cigarette, Rose."

"I've gathered. From the you know...smell."

"Do you want to try?" He said taking another drag, this time longer, and with less coughing.

"Sure, you seem to be struggling." She said, corner of her lip turning up into a smirk as she sat down, back on the cold wall.

"Hey!" He said, before handing her the joint and sitting down beside her, looking up at the stars through the glass ceiling.

Being as she was much more careful, Rose coughed a whole lot less.

They passed the smelly substance back-and-forth, taking a couple hits each time before passing it back to the other.

Rose could feel the world become more vivid around her, she felt heavy and light all at once.

When Rose first realized the substance had started to work she ventured into her own mind, eventually being pulled back to reality by the comforting feeling of Sirius' presence next to her, and the want to share some
of her thoughts with him.

That feeling reminded Rose of the effects of the truth serum in an odd sort of way.

Their conversation started as random statements that would be met with fits of giggles, then they would try to explain to the other what they were feeling but stop when they ran out of words. Sirius would make jokes, an example being shaking his hair in his face, frowning, then making some remark about looking like "snivellus".

Sirius' aura began to shift as the night went on. He settled into something more solemn and inquisitive than what Rose was use to seeing from him.

"Rose?" He got her attention and she hummed a response, prompting him to explain further.

"Where's your dad?"

Rose stiffened, taking in a sharp breath before breathing out again just as sharply.

"I don't know if he left on his own, or if something happened to him. No one seems to know, even the people whose job is to know. He's either dead, or dead to me." She said.

"So you wear his stuff in case he didn't abandon you and your sisters?" Sirius asked.

"I wear his stuff because, why let something nice go to waste because in theory it could be ruined?" She asked rhetorically while twirling her green wand between her fingers.

After a moment of silence she looked over at him, moonlight throwing a blue haze over his skin, she could see the flush on his cheeks from under the blue.

His eyes, much like his brother's, seemed to take on the color of the space he occupied and thus Sirius' eyes took on a blue hue. They, not only now, but always seemed to be full of the strongest emotions a person could muster. The emotions poets and ancient philosophers wrote about; rage, love, and an unbearable need to be free and be heard. Rose compared his eyes to Regulus'.

The younger Black's were filled with far less fire than his older counterpart's. In fact Rose wouldn't say there was any fire in Regulus' eyes at all, only the soft glowing embers left behind.

But not ash.

There was not yet ash.

"Regulus looks like you." Rose said after what felt like a silence grown too long.

"You're giving Reggie too much credit there, Thorns." He said with a chuckle, then stood up, extending his hand for her to take.

"I wanna go outside." He said determined. Already walking for the door, he'd yet to let go of her hand from helping her up so she was being tugged towards the door behind him.

"I'm about to start running. You better be able to keep up!" He said as he did in fact start running through the grass.

Rose did the same, yelling a question towards him before laughing.

"But where are we going?!" She said.

"To find a fucking unicorn!" He responded as they ran towards the forest, leaving the greenhouses and party from earlier far behind.

Despite it being too far away to be possible, Rose could swear she heard music playing in the distance, maybe it was only in her head.

Before you take a man and say I do now
Make sure he's in love with you now
My mama told me

You better shop around