dogs and hydrangeas
*August 1973*
Three weeks before she left to go back to Hogwarts. She woke up at the time she normally wakes up, never on the dot but shortly past 8am. She had a dream. She normally on dreams over the summer as that’s when she’s able to sleep long enough to dream.
Poppy was in the dream. She had a brown dog. Poppy doesn’t have a dog in real life. Then from behind her there came a blue dog. The brown dog was a Labrador. The blue one was similar, but slightly shorter. Minnie watched from her second/story bedroom window. Poppy just knocked at the door and then stood and waited. The blue dog was a bright blue, bordering on neon. Both of them looked soft, as though they still had their puppy fur. But they weren’t puppies. They were both probably 5-7 years old each. Neither barked. The brown one yipped a small bit, but only when someone walked past.
When Minnie didn’t answer the door, Poopy and the dogs lingered by the door, not knocking, but rather waiting. Waiting for Minnie. They waiting for awhile, never looking up to where she’d find Minnie, watching from her window. After what could’ve been five minutes or three hours, the brown dog barked once at the wind before the dream ended and Minnie woke peacefully.
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Minnie wasn’t going to ask anyone about the meaning of the dream. She didn’t want her or anyone else to know.
She knew Sybil Trewlaney wouldn’t mind. But Minnie did mind her knowing so she wasn’t going to ask.
She found herself thinking that she wanted to think less about Poppy. Not that she minded Poppy, just that she wanted to stop thinking about things surrounding her. She also thought that Sybil could help her with that, but would also rather keep it to herself. And her own days of studying what dreams meant were long gone.
She watered the flowers in the front of her yard. Purple and blue Hydrangeas. They had light brown cedar mulch around them. Had her dream switched the flowers and mulch into dogs? No, what sense would that make? She wanted to stop thinking about the dream.
She used mixtures of magical and muggle fertilizers to grow her plants. Most of the flowers were in her front years while vegetable plants were grown in her back yard. She never figured out how to perfect her grass so it was a strange sight to see beautiful flowers and perfectly green vegetables next to the grass that had some unfortunate browning patches. As she knew she’d be able to fasten the growing speed of her plants she sometimes would have to wait for the vegetables. However she never felt the need to be patient with the flowers where she’d love to watch the growing process.
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She slowly made her way back inside her cottage as the sun that would burn her became its brightest and was at the highest in the sky it could go. She made herself some lunch and looked at her face and shoulders in a mirror, hoping she didn’t get burned. She looked at the whole wheat bread that was apart of the sandwich of her plate and thought of how the shade of brown was only slightly brighter than the shade of brown as the brown dog from her dream. She sat down in her dining room at the table, ate the sandwich and thought about the dogs, and hoped they were doing well.
She continued to think about the dogs and what food Poppy would feed them, and brush their fur. She’d use a small comb on their soft fur, Minerva concluded. She’d do her best to find the healthiest food for them, with a mix of chicken, or maybe fish. It would be mixed with vegetables. She didn’t know what was healthiest for dogs, she didn’t know much about the care of dogs. She’d walk them anytime she could. She’d take hikes with them. In the woods. They’d stroll while looking up at the tallest trees while wondering how many squirrels were in each one.
The dogs would be off-leash. They’d never run from Poppy. No one would. No one could. Not from Poppy. Not when she offers people so much love. Deserving or not she’d always welcome people in, helping. If one of Voldemort’s lot got hurt Minerva doesn’t know if Poppy would be able to stop herself from helping them. She didn’t want to think about that. She wanted to think about her and the dogs that would never, could never run from Poppy.