#handful

“Quirinus! Yes, of course, lovely to see you again, old boy. And you're here to conduct the newspaper interview, aren't you?”

My heartbeat slowed as fast as it had picked up. The rollercoaster ride three seconds of recognition bought. And already, he was getting so good at pretending he recognised people when he didn’t.

“Not today, Gilderoy. I brought you photographs instead.”

He whipped out his peacock quill fast enough to make the feather bob.

“Photographs of me? Oh, you shouldn’t have done.”

I do love him for that, you know. Of course, he assumed it was more photographs of him. Why should anyone want to photograph something else?

But that’s the thing about this memory loss. He’s still Gilderoy, even if he doesn’t know who that is. I can see parts of him in there. He’s observant and reads people well. He needs about five seconds to reason out that I’m attracted to him. The gifts tell him that much.

“Not this time.” I shook snaps from a pouch. “These are photos of all your neighbours here on the ward. And this is your staff. I’ve labelled them all for you.”

He glanced through them, then looked up at me, eyes the same stunning blue as the fresh bunch of flowers at his elbow. His eyes moved over my face, over the scars, over my head, then back to my eyes again.

“This will be useful, certainly. I meet so many people, you know. It can be tricky keeping them all straight.”

“I understand,” I told him.

He had no idea he used to remember people’s names, the places he’d met them, special events, and special dates with ease. But he’s doing his best, and I can’t fault him for that.

Gilderoy riffled through the stack a second time and flipped over a school photo of me. He paused, fingertips gently moving over my image. He traced each letter of my name.

“Quirinus, the scars on your face,” he said, “how did you come by them?”

Voice gone, my throat gave a dry click, then the lie came through numb lips, deft as always.

“Burns. I was unbinding a curse from a book.”

“Nasty bit of work, a curse like that,” Gilderoy said. “No wonder you went into journalism instead.”

“I'm a professor,” I reminded him.

Gilderoy made a face as he brandished the quill.

“Are you really? How ghastly that must be for you. Journalism seems ever so much better. Certainly more glamorous.”

He pulled the photo closer, then wrote slowly above my name, ‘FLOWERS’. The letters came crooked, crude, childish, but they came. It was progress. Not much, perhaps. Fleeting. But progress.

I wanted to pull him close and hug him so tightly our ribs would collapse together, but I couldn’t. Though he meant everything to me, I meant nothing substantial to him, and I couldn’t bear to frighten him a second time.

Or I thought I hadn’t meant anything to him, I should say. But suddenly there were signs of hope, were there not? Freezing as if he could almost place me, writing out FLOWERS below my image and above my name. He remembered I’d brought the forget-me-nots today, and exchanged them for the old bunch.

“Quirinus, would you be a dear and hang these for me? Over the desk? I used to know a spell for it, but I’m afraid it’s slipped my mind.”

Careful to use my forename again, reading it off the photograph to make it seem as though he recalled. But he was trying.

“Of course. I’d be delighted.”

At the back of his desk was a row of books that hadn’t been there the week before. None of his titles, though I hadn’t yet asked the Healers why. These books were personal effects. Some I recognised from school.

“I’ll need to move these,” I said. “Just so they don’t fall.”

He waved me to go ahead, still looking through the deck of photographs I’d labelled, and I picked up the stack of books. On top was The Language and Sentiment of Flowers, an old Victorian volume he’d had even back in school.

“I remember this one. You had it in Seventh Year,” I said. “I can’t believe you still have it.”

Gilderoy looked up. “Oh, it’s a lovely book. Beautiful colour plates in it. I was thumbing through it right before you got here. They tell me it was packed with my other travel belongings, though I don’t recall why.”

I knew why he’d had the book in school. He’d used it in Seventh Year to develop a code for me. He’d leave a certain flower on my pillow or on my books. A secret message indicating where we should meet, without us having to say or write it down.

It slid from the stack, and its spine struck the floor, blowing open the pages rather like a bloom itself. I watched in wonder as a delicate rain of dried flowers burst into the air, as if a book on flowers might actually bleed them too.

They fluttered to the lino, and recognition struck.

Gilderoy never pressed flowers. I did.

These were all the flowers he’d left me that year. Each one, I’d faithfully pressed so that no one would suspect they were anything but my usual hobby. Dozens upon dozens of them, all of them tiny artefacts of care and friendship.

And longing, I dare to say now without shame.

At 19, when he’d packed to go away and start his shampoo endeavour, I wanted him to have something to remember me by, so I gave him all the flowers I’d pressed.

These flowers.

That he’d kept in this book.

That he’d had amongst his travel belongings. Like a keepsake, or talisman.

The truth, finally. That he’d carried them with him, a thing he treasured. A thing I’d made.

I said nothing, of course. There was nothing I could say. He wouldn’t remember even if I did tell him, and the knowledge would disappear before I even walked out the door.

“Aren’t those lovely? I must’ve enjoyed pressing flowers, at some point.”

“It’s a restful hobby,” I agreed, my voice choking only once before I marshalled it back into order. “And beautiful.”

“They’re stunning. I love flipping through the pages to look at them. It’s like being out in a meadow.”

How I didn’t weep, I don’t know. I wanted to. I started to. But then I remembered it would only distress him, so I started to pick up the flowers instead, each little memory stuck into a page like one secret kept from another.

Seeing the spray of colour still strewn across the floor, Gilderoy settled beside me and helped recover them. He turned each in his palm to inspect it before placing it in the book, as a jeweller might examine a ring. Once they were all recovered, he handed me a ribbon of brilliant blue.

“This was tied round the book when they brought it. I had it off to look through earlier and forgot to replace it,” he said. He sounded serene, almost. Meditative. A man solving an intricate puzzle.

I might’ve sat on that floor with him forever, but once the flowers were all tucked away, he stood and offered a hand to pull me up. My throat worked when he did so; I could feel it, Adam’s apple rising and falling.

Countless times he’d offered me that hand, that same way. Picking me up whenever I was down. Now those moments were all gone for him. Evaporated into the aether.

I stood, then went about the business of sticking photos to the wall where he could see them, and hopefully memorise his neighbours and helpers.

Still, overall, this was a better birthday than I anticipated.

Today, a man might almost hope.