Chapter 4: The Barren Gardens
After a few rings a woman's voice answered, identifying herself as Gladys Miller and her office as a national organization to prevent cruelty to children.
"How can we help you?" Mrs. Miller asked.
Harry leaned against the brick wall of a building so as not to impede the flow of pedestrian traffic on the pavement. "My name is Harry Potter. I saw your telephone number on a poster in downtown London," he said, "and I wanted to find out more about what you do."
"Our organization is devoted to dealing with the problems of child abuse and neglect," Mrs. Miller said. "We create and provide services to help abused and neglected children. We provide advice and support for adults who work with or are concerned about vulnerable children, and we partner with other organizations, both public and private, who have the same goals. That's it, in a nutshell. Is there a particular topic you were interested in?"
"I'm not sure what I need right now," said Harry. He had initiated this telephone call on an impulse that was not well thought out, and he felt as if he were fumbling for ideas. "It's just a field that I want to explore further."
"We can send you some printed literature by post that will give you a lot of information about what we do and about how citizens can become involved. Was there a particular child that you are concerned about?"
Yes, me, Harry thought. But he could not say that. "I would like to stop by your office to look over your literature and pick out the material that would be most useful for me. And then I could ask specific questions in person if I had any." There was no way he could receive printed literature by post. The Muggle post did not deliver mail to either Twelve Grimmauld Place or the Ministry of Magic. "Where are you located?"
Mrs. Miller gave him the address. "We're in the Shoreditch area. Your nearest tube station is Old Street, if you want to come by underground."
"Thank you very much, " Harry said. "I may well do that."
"We'll be looking forward to seeing you, Mr. Potter," Gladys Miller replied. "We're always happy to be of help, and we're glad when people want to join in our work."
"Goodbye, and thanks again," said Harry, and he rang off.
Walking back to the Ministry of Magic, he thought rapidly about whether he would be able to arrive at Mrs. Miller's office by five p.m. if he left the Aurors' Office at four p.m., and he decided that he probably could, because Shoreditch was only a couple of miles away.
Promptly at four p.m. Harry stood up from his desk, thankful that there had been no All Auror Alerts, because having decided to go to the office of the child protection organization in Shoreditch, he was eager to be on his way, and he did not want to be tied up in a crisis that impeded his plans. He said goodbye to Susan, who was bent over her desk intent on her present task, and barely glanced up as she said. "G'night. See you tomorrow."
Harry walked rapidly to the tube station a couple of blocks away. The weather, which had been pleasantly warm at noon, was now undeniably hot, and it seemed more so in contrast with the evenly controlled climate of the Ministry of Magic which Harry had just left. The trip to the Old Street station was quick, even with one transfer, but then there was a brisk walk of several blocks, during which Harry glanced at his wristwatch from time to time. It was about four forty-five when he arrived.
Upon entering the office, he saw a woman sitting at a desk.
"Excuse me, are you Gladys Miller?" he asked. "I'm Harry Potter. I telephoned your office earlier today to ask about getting some information."
Even though it was almost closing time, the woman did not show any sign of irritation at the arrival of a last-minute visitor. She stood up, smiling broadly, and reached her hand across the desk to shake Harry's hand.
"Yes, I'm Gladys Miller. It's so nice to see you, Mr. Potter. What kind of information can we provide for you?"
"You mentioned on the telephone that you had printed information I could see. I'm interested in general information about child abuse and the services you provide."
"Let me show you our printed material," Mrs. Miller said, and she came around from behind the desk and led Harry to a wall rack stocked with colorful booklets, pamphlets, and single sheets with titles like "Physical Abuse," "Sexual Abuse," "Neglect," "Looked-After Children," and so on. Harry picked up some brochures and looked through them quickly, keeping some and putting others back in the rack.
"We also provide a hotline for concerned adults to report suspected cases of child abuse or neglect, a hotline for youth, outreach programs in the schools, a speakers bureau and advocacy for legislation, and opportunities for volunteers to help with fundraising. We depend heavily on our volunteers to help us further our mission. We couldn't do it without them, and almost anyone can be a volunteer. Do you think you would be interested?"
"Uh, I'm not sure I know enough to be of any use to you," Harry answered. Volunteering was not why he had come.
"We have a monthly training session for people who are considering helping our organization," Mrs. Miller offered. "It includes a lot of information about the reality and dynamics of child abuse and neglect, as well as an overview of the possibilities of volunteering. There are experts who talk at the session -- a doctor, a social worker, a solicitor, a family therapist, so I think that the people who eventually work with us feel adequately prepared. Our next session is in about a week."
"You do it in the summer too?" Harry asked.
"Yes, we do it all year long. The need never takes a holiday. Some of our outreach programs are through the schools, but when the schools are not in session during the summer, the children can be more vulnerable because they spend more time at home."
I can relate to that, thought Harry. It was harder for me in the summer when I was at home all the time.
"And many of our fundraising events are held in the summer, especially the events held outdoors because of the better weather. And people are on holiday then, so they can devote their time to them."
"People give up their holidays to work for you?" Harry remarked, surprised.
"Yes," Mrs. Miller said, "some of them do. It's that important."
Harry stood silent, contemplating all this.
"Do you think you might want to join us as a volunteer?" Mrs. Miller looked at him expectantly, hopefully.
It would be easy to say yes, Harry thought, but that would be a lie. And oddly enough, the older he became, the harder it was for him to lie. When he was a little boy, the occasional lies had been for self-protection, and during the dangerous years at Hogwarts combatting the menace of Lord Voldemort, there had been lies of desperate necessity, such as claiming that Ron was sick with spattergroit, or all those instances of using polyjuice potion to make people believe he was someone else, or the lies that lured Dolores Umbridge out into the Forbidden Forest. Odious woman! He glanced down at his right hand, where the faint scars could still be seen, faded after nine years but readable if you knew what the words had been: I must not tell lies. And after the war was over, there were the lies that he, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny had told, directly or indirectly, to Ron's parents and Hermione's parents about where they four were, and with whom, in order to facilitate their romantic interludes. It had seemed daring and exciting at the time, but now, in retrospect, it seemed childish, like something a teenager would do, and he regretted, not the romantic interludes, but the deception. It should be possible to live as an adult, even a wizard in a predominantly Muggle world, without lying.
It occurred to Harry that if he volunteered only once, one afternoon of sitting behind a table at a street fair handing out brochures, then he could say yes without lying and could attend the information session. Ginny would understand.
"Yes," he said, "maybe I will."
"How nice," Mrs. Miller exclaimed. She went over to her desk and came back with two papers. One contained information about the schedule of training sessions and the other was a volunteer registration form.
Harry glanced at the latter paper and said, "I hope this won't be a problem, but I'd rather not write down my address or telephone number. Because of the kind of work I do, I don't generally give out my personal information freely."
Mrs. Miller appeared hesitant. "I don't know," she said. "We always have contact information for our volunteers."
"If, after attending the training session, I decide to go ahead with this, then I will of course give you some contact information," Harry went on, "but my situation is unique, and it's better for me to be cautious."
Mrs. Miller seemed to relax. "I imagine that will be okay. This training schedule shows you the location of the session. It's not held in this office; it's at our other building across town. The closest tube station is Camden Town, and we recommend that you take the tube because there's hardly any parking."
Harry leaned over the desk, filling out the volunteer registration form, except for the address and telephone number. As he wrote, he spoke over his shoulder.
"I may not be able to actually do anything for a while. My wife is expecting our first baby soon, so I imagine that things will be chaotic for a while until we get this parenthood business down pat. But when things get back to normal, I'll be in touch. Meanwhile, I'll go to the information session next week."
"Let me clue you in, Mr. Potter," Mrs. Miller said. "Things will never get back to normal."
Harry straightened up. "They won't?" he echoed.
"Not if by 'normal' you mean 'back to the way they were before'. When you become a parent, the door slams shut forever on your life as you knew it, and a door opens to an entirely new life stretching out in front of you." She smiled as she said it.
Like when I was eleven years old and found out that I was a wizard, and went to Hogwarts. A whole new life all of a sudden, and no going back.
"I think I know what you mean. But I had better go now and let you close up. Thank you for the brochures. I'll enjoy reading them."
"And thank you for stopping in. We look forward to seeing you again."
Out in the street, Harry headed rapidly for the alley that he had spotted on his walk from the Old Street tube station. When he reached it, he ducked down the alley and Disapparated.
After the heat and bright sunlight of the London streets, the interior of Twelve Grimmauld Place seemed cool and dark until Harry's eyes adjusted to the dimness. He looked around for Ginny and found her down in the kitchen conferring with Kreacher about grocery supplies. When she saw him she ended her conversation with the house elf and accompanied Harry back upstairs to the main hallway.
In the hallway Harry put his arms around Ginny and pulled her close in a warm hug, feeling the bulge of her belly against his groin. "You are so loved," he said. "Some guys have all the luck in the world."
"All the good luck in the world, you mean," she answered merrily. "You've certainly had your share of bad luck."
"Oh no," Harry retorted. "Today was a pretty good day. Interesting, at least."
"What happened?" Ginny asked, looking up at his face but not unwrapping her arms from around his waist. "Did some master criminals turn themselves in?"
"Nothing like that," Harry laughed. "Work was pretty boring. But I had two interesting encounters. You'll never guess who I had lunch with -- an American tourist. She was the chatty type, and I enjoyed hearing her impressions of England."
"She?" said Ginny. "Was she beautiful?"
"In a grandmotherly way," Harry reassured Ginny. "She was old enough to be my mum, maybe even my grandmother, or at least my grandmother's younger sister."
"What was your second interesting encounter?" asked Ginny, who did not think that the American tourist sounded all that remarkable.
"A lady who works for an organization that combats child abuse and neglect. She asked if I wanted to be a volunteer to help their organization."
Ginny let go and stepped back a step. "You didn't say yes, did you?"
"I said maybe. But not until the baby is older, at any rate."
"Oh Harry, you don't have time to do volunteer work, especially not for a Muggle organization. I can't imagine what you were thinking," Ginny said, shaking her head.
No, I bet not, Harry thought. "Don't worry. I haven't promised anything. Now I'm going upstairs to change out of these clothes." He gave her a kiss and headed up the stairs.
After dinner Harry anounced that he was going to take a walk in the neighborhood and invited Ginny to come with him.
"Why?" she asked.
"I want to look at people's gardens," Harry replied mysteriously.
Ginny looked at him quizzically. "Whatever for?"
"Because Pamela, that American tourist I told you about, said that England was famous in America for its gardens, and now I want to try to look at them as if through the eyes of a visitor." He had a merry twinkle in his eye; he was feeling atypically light-hearted as if a weight were just beginning to lift, because of what he had done this day.
"Oh, you're on first-names basis with her now?"
"Exactly. 'Hi, my name's Pamela. Lovely country you've got here.' 'Thanks, my name's Harry. So glad you like it.' " He did voice imitations as he recited this mock conversation, and they both dissolved into giggles.
Once outside and walking along the pavement in the golden evening light, they could see that Grimmauld Place did not live up to the reputation of beautiful English gardens. Not at all. The small patches of ground in front of the houses on either side of the steps leading up to the front doors were dry, barren, weedy, decorated only with rubbish bins and sacks of garbage. The pavement along which they were walking was punctuated with cracks, out of which a variety of particularly hardy weeds thrust their rough stems and footstep-worn leaves. Harry and Ginny strolled along, turning their heads to eye each patch of ground as they passed it. Occasionally Harry stopped briefly in front of a house "to see if there is any remnant of the garden that used to be here."
"Like what?" Ginny asked.
"Like that rose bush there," Harry answered, pointing with his hand to the space in front of the next house. Ginny's eyes followed where he pointed, and she saw a ragged little bush, mostly dead branches sticking out at odd angles, but with a few living twigs with green leaves and a couple of rose hips that bore witness to a few blossoms earlier in the summer. They both walked up to the bush and stopped to stare at it.
"You're right," Ginny said. "There was a garden here once. Years ago, I guess, and all that's left is this little bush, still hanging on."
"A real survivor, like us," Harry agreed. "I wonder if you pruned off all the dead bits and watered it really well, if you could make it grow big again."
"I'd like to think you could," Ginny answered. "I hate to see anything die."
Harry moved closer to Ginny and put his arm around her shoulders. They stood together silently in the evening sunlight for a few minutes.
"This street must have been beautiful at one time," Harry speculated, turning his head left and right, imagining what it might have looked like. "Or at least a lot better than it is now."
"And the houses had fresh paint, and all the little fences were intact," Ginny added.
"You know," Harry said, "when I first saw this street, it seemed like an awfully shabby place for the home of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. I can hardly imagine them deigning to live here. But it must have been elegant in the beginning."
Ginny smiled mischievously. "It could be again. We could sneak out some night and transfigure all the garden areas to be clean and beautiful again, with flowers and shrubs, even little bits of grass. Wouldn't that be funny? And the next night we could sneak out and transfigure the shabby grass area in the middle of the square."
"Oh no," Harry objected. "We would have to do it all in one night because after the first night the Muggles would put out watchmen to see if they could catch whoever is doing it." He smiled and gave Ginny a hug with the arm around her shoulders. It was fun to be silly for a few minutes.
They began walking again and soon reached the end of the cul-de-sac where Grimmauld Place opened out into the cross street. Randomly they turned right and kept walking. There were other houses along this street, a few with slightly better gardens, and Harry and Ginny commented on that as they walked. After a couple of blocks they stopped at a street corner, and Harry leaned his back against the post of a street sign, facing Ginny.
"Look around us," he said, waving his hand to take in the scene. "Stone, bricks, concrete, pavement, buildings, traffic signs, cars," (although there were not actually any cars passing at that moment). "There's not a single place here for any child to play. If children do live in these houses," and he gestured with his hand again, "what do they do? Play in the streets or on the pavement?"
Ginny looked up and down the pavement. "Maybe they draw pictures on the pavement with colored chalk or draw little pretend houses, but I don't see any pictures or houses."
"What do you mean, 'draw houses'?" asked Harry.
"It's something girls do," Ginny explained. "You draw the outlines of rooms in the dirt with a stick or on the pavement with chalk and then pretend they are your little houses. Sometimes in the autumn we would make the outlines of the rooms with heaps of fallen leaves. It's an old-fashioned game. Maybe no one plays it anymore."
"Sirius and Regulus grew up in our house," Harry continued. "Where did they play?"
"I don't know," Ginny said. "In the back garden? In that patch of grass in the square in front of the house?" She paced back and forth a few steps. "Maybe they stayed indoors a lot."
"The back garden is about as big as a postage stamp. Even going in and out of the house can be an issue." Harry said, staring straight ahead. "It's no place to raise children." He stood up straight again and looked directly at Ginny. "Think about your own childhood in Devon. You had gardens, fields, orchards. You could be outdoors all day. You could see fish and frogs and rabbits and butterflies. That's how it should be. Heck, even my neighborhood in Little Whinging was better than this."
"Yes, you're right," Ginny said, turning her gaze from side to side. "What do you think we should do?"
Harry looked down at her and smiled. "Someday," he said, "I'd like to move out into the country again. I think it would be much better for the children, and I'm not wedded to the house in Grimmauld Place. Sure, there's a mild sentimental attachment because it was an inheritance from my godfather, and I'm not ready to sell it, but the house itself is not what I want in a home. And I have a feeling that after we have two or three children, we won't be spending so much time at restaurants and art fairs, so we won't miss being in the heart of the city.
"You're right," Ginny reflected. "I wouldn't have wanted to grow up in any other place that where I did. I felt so free there. It makes me feel good just thinking about it."
They started back toward Grimmauld Place with the sun at their backs and their shadows stretching long before them.
"Did you get the baby clothes sorted and the shelves labeled today?" Harry asked as they walked along the almost empty street.
"Yes," Ginny said. "It didn't take as long as I expected. I was finished before eleven a.m."
"Is there anything left you need to do?"
"Not really, not much. I set myself the goal of getting everything ready by the end of the eighth month, just in case the baby came early, and I've pretty much achieved that."
"I'm proud of you," Harry said gently.
"I was thinking, I'd like to visit my mum again one more time. My ninth month starts in two weeks, and I don't want to be gone after then. I want to be here with you, just in case..."
"In case the baby comes early. That makes a lot of sense."
"Is that okay with you?"
"How long will you be gone?"
"Not more than a week. Maybe less."
"Yes, that would be fine."
He took her hand as if they were young teenagers on their first date, and they continued back to the house.