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It was expected by the norms of etiquette that one shouldn't arrive empty-handed to a friendly gathering. The customs of society had established, since the dawn of civilization, that a thoughtful token was the best way to show gratitude to a host. One could bring food of course, but that was impersonal and ought to be shared by all. Flowers, on the other hand, were an universal sign of appreciation if chosen correctly. And, regardless of filial misgivings, I couldn't let it be said that Blaise Zabini was an inconsiderate pinchpenny.
My steps led me to the first flower establishment I set my eyes on. It was a small stand, vintage and olive-coloured; attended by a young, lanky woman in a green apron. After a polite greeting, I surveyed the selection, putting special attention in the white roses and peonies.
"What's the occasion?" she asked.
"Casual dinner with friends. Nothing ostentatious."
The woman picked an assortment of flowers, starting with the ones I had shown interest in. I could tell she was skilled, as she quickly composed an arrangement that suited my needs perfectly.
"You're not from around here," she said, pulling from a reel of pink ribbon on top of the stand.
"Visiting my mother."
It was a mystery why I decided to explain myself. I knew better than to badmouth muggles in this new world Potter and his friends were building, but that didn't mean I normally engaged with their kind, much less enjoyed doing so. I wasn't one for smalltalk with magical shopkeepers either. Trivial conversation wasn't encouraged while attending to my own business — a modest butchery, back at Hogsmeade — so I spared the burden of it to others when I was a patron.
The florist didn't catch onto that. She acted surprised, flashing me a smile. I couldn't help but notice how bright it was, even through the sea of freckles on her face. Her striking red hair was pulled back into a ponytail, making her a muggle version of a Weasley, though I didn't dwell on it. I came to her only for business.
"It's nice you're bringing your mother flowers."
"These are not for her. I am already on my way out of town."
"Oh, I see," she replied. She held herself back a couple of times before curiosity seemingly beat her. "Hope you found your mother well."
It took me some restraint not to roll my eyes, but for some unfathomable reason, I chose to keep the conversation alive. "Better than she found me, to be honest."
"But you're not unwell, are you? You look—" she halted, giving me a scrutinising look. She then lowered her eyes in a bashful and surprisingly endearing way. "Sorry. I meddle sometimes."
I afforded myself the first smile of the day, though a discreet one. "I am unwell only by my mother's expectations."
The woman's expression relaxed. She turned up, furrowing her brow. "Our parents are sometimes slow in understanding our struggles. But they act as they do to avoid us from feeling theirs."
I stopped to contemplate that for a second, letting out a tired shrug after. The woman laughed, "It's not mine. I like quotes, you see. I've found others' points of view to be just the thing you need at times," she confessed, bringing attention to a chalkboard on the stand. She had scribbled a quote about optimism there, in flourished cursive writing. "My name is Kate, in case you were wondering. Kate Marsden."
I had no alternative but to accept her stretched hand and introduce myself. There were many things in which I disagreed with my mother lately, but a distaste for rudeness was something I was glad to share with her. "Blaise Zabini."
"Zabini? Your mother is the widow of Ravenloft cottage? I know her."
"You do?"
"I know everyone in town," she replied smugly. "She's quite… rigorous with her floral requests."
A small chuckle escapes me. "Not only the floral ones."
I wasn't about to air all my grievances with my mother — all of the teachings she'd given me, or her disappointment that I hadn't seized the opportunity to raise my standing after the war ( 'How many Slytherins can claim to not have actively supported Riddle ? If you were half as bright as you presume, you would be in this new administration, toppling the Malfoys and Averys!' ) That being said, it felt refreshing to at least acknowledge the complicated nature of the relationship with my mother.
Cordelia Zabini had always been a practical woman. Everything she did had a final goal, a raison d'être . She honoured conventions and took advantage of situations, of which I never asked about specifics — especially considering what they said about her. She wasn't fluent in leniency or acceptance. And no matter what the public thought, she didn't understand a shred about grieving, either.
"My parents and I were on uneasy terms for years. There was a point when they didn't even want to talk to me," Kate shared, handing me the finished arrangement.
I paid her and stopped to stare. I could've left right then. My business with her was done. And what good could come from pointless conversations with muggles? Even so, some ill-considered impulse drove me to ask: "Why's that?"
"They didn't agree with my choice of marrying a simple, unwashed fisherman," she confessed with a frown. "Much less with me abandoning my bright future to follow said husband to this pauper's town ."
Husband… It was a slightly bothering revelation, but one I shouldn't be fixating on.
"At any rate, they've come to terms with it. But they did throw a hissy fit when I said I was planning to stay here, even after. "
"After…?"
There was a dark cloud reflected upon her beautiful eyes. Almost as if a burden had suddenly materialised upon her being — something I thought impossible. A person with a mood as bright as hers couldn't possibly know darkness.
"Hey, Kate, who are you talking to?"
As a butcher who occasionally enjoyed cutting meat the muggle way, I had developed thick arms and a strong upper body. Even so, the man who walked to the stand was bulkier and taller than I was. His frown was as gruff as his beard, and he studied me with confused derision. I raised my head to meet his look, showing that I wasn't cowed by his intrinsic need to express stupidity through bravado. I've dealt with plenty of his kind in the past.
"Just a customer, Rory."
"Is he bothering you?"
"Of course not. But you may be, if you keep trying to scare my clients," Kate admonished.
After what seemed like very arduous thinking, the man snorted. "Very well. Go on then, I guess." He cleared his throat enough for his tone to soften. "So, Kate, about that coffee…?"
I raised my eyebrow at the brazen attempt. Hadn't Kate, the muggle florist, mentioned she had a husband?
"We'll see, Rory. Now is not the time."
"But—"
"I believe she was quite clear." I felt suddenly compelled to cut in, as if I was any other heedless Gryffindor nosing in where I'm not called.
Being honest, I wasn't above stopping egregious displays like that. I always sided with Millicent whenever Theo's humour became too much, and I had gotten in the middle of more than one argument between my mother and a brutish suitor. I wasn't one to brag, but my wand skills were more than competent, and I had it in my pocket even as I stared defiantly at that gruff fisherman, Rory. And still… This woman was practically a stranger to me, and a muggle stranger at that. I shouldn't be messing about in places where I do not belong.
This woman is not someone you should bother with , I could almost hear my mother say.
The fisherman let out an amused chuckle and stepped forward. I awaited him impassively. As a butcher, I wasn't a stranger to blood, and I wouldn't be defenceless in a head-on confrontation; but such fights were too crude and brutish for my taste. I had one hand ready to lay down my flowers on the stand, the other gripping the wand in my pocket, waiting for an excuse. However, Kate stopped things from escalating.
"Please, Rory. Can you let me continue with my job? We'll talk about that coffee later."
Rory mused over it, and ended up shrugging. "Do you need me to stay while you finish?"
"Are you buying flowers?" she asked, raising an eyebrow. "Then, no. Thank you."
Seemingly defeated, the gruff man stepped away, but not without giving me a murderous look.
I watched him leave, then turned to Kate. She sighed, rubbing her temples.
"Sorry about that. Rory is a good lad, but he's got this absurd idea of asking me out. I haven't found the right words to tell him off."
I nodded, then I answered with a tone I thought would sound uninterested enough. "And what does your husband think about Rory ?"
"My…? Oh, he's not— He passed away. Over a year ago."
That caught me off guard as few things did.
"I'm sorry."
"It's alright. It's been some time."
I stared at her for a moment. Her face had fallen, and by all means I should've excused myself and left then. Nevertheless, I found it hard to. I still remembered the yells, the flashes of green, the castle grumbling all around us, my desperate pleas…
"How?"
"Sickness of some kind. No one knows for sure. He just went fishing one day and returned broken . He didn't seem physically ill, but he just stared blankly at the distance. The doctors never found out what it was. It was like a coma , but he was awake somehow. A few years later, he suddenly stopped living, just like that," she told me. Her voice was shaky, but to her credit, it didn't break.
Winter was well underway, but even so, the cold that crept up through me felt harsher somehow. Unnatural.
"What kind of accident?"
Kate shrugged. "The other fishermen say they never saw anything attack him. There was just this darkness… this cold… this feeling of despair ? If you can believe it. Then he was like that, for the rest of his life."
I stood upright as Kate went on to narrate her experience — all she had done for the empty vessel that had been her husband, all the answers she looked for and which she would never get. I hoped my face wouldn't betray my thoughts, which was irrational — she didn't know anything about dementors . It was almost absurd to think about, but this muggle, lost in some town no one cared about, shared more with me than I could've thought possible when I first saw her. The war took too much, from too many.
"Why?" I interrupted her.
Kate looked bewildered. "Why?"
"Why didn't you give up? He wasn't the man you knew anymore. There was no point…"
The florist didn't look offended. She looked deeply into my eyes, and for once, I took half a step backwards. She was just an ordinary muggle, but, in some sense, I thought there was more magic in her than in my whole body. She could look straight inside of me, beyond the lies and pretences, straight into what had turned my life upside down that day .
"It crossed my mind," she admitted, looking ashamed. "It was the rational thing to do, or so I was told, but…I just couldn't. I couldn't do it. I remembered too much. The joy Jack brought to me while he was still… him . It was greater than any hardship I ever went through in his care. And I count myself lucky because of it. There are some who never get to experience such joy."
The words hit me hard, more than anything had hit me since the war ended. I was able to remember too. There had once been a time of laughs and stolen glances through the corridors. A time before that bleeding battle. A time of joy that I had chosen to conceal under a mantle of the horror that came after.
My breathing grew heavy, but I forced myself to keep a straight face.
"Thanks," I muttered.
The florist looked taken aback, but she smiled a second later. "You're welcome… I hope I have gained a new regular."
"You have," I told her, my smile warm and honest.
I looked at my watch, noticing I was already running late. All because my mother had given me a full account of every way in which I was disappointing her. And unfortunately, aberration for tardiness is something else I had inherited from her.
Picking up my flowers, I moved my weight from one foot to the other, then turned to look at the florist in the eyes, knowing I was out of time. Oddly, I felt robbed.
"And I hope you enjoy your coffee with… Rory ." I feigned a mocking tone.
An unamused reaction reflected on her features. "I'm not looking forward to handling that. I may have to put up a sign that warns against unsolicited invitations."
After a courteous nod, I turned away, feeling conflicted somehow.
"Er… Blaise?"
I turned at once. "Yes?"
"I'm not opposed to all invitations."
The conflict within me became more acute. I pondered for a moment, then offered a dubious smile, well aware that I may choose not to return.
"Good to know," I said.
Then, I left.
"And you didn't invite the lass over? What kind of dodgy judgement is that?" Aberforth barked with a boisterous laugh, patting my back.
I made a show of rolling my eyes. "Of course. She wouldn't bat an eye at being apparated to a magical town two hundred miles away!" My voice was dripping with irony by the end. "Besides, I told you it's not like that."
"And that's why you made such a big fuss about her?"
A loud huff escaped me. "I thought you would want to know because of the dementors. I shouldn't have brought it up."
My eyes landed on the beautiful peonies on the arrangement I had set on Aberforth's table, not wanting to meet the man's gaze. Then, I turned to the inviting basket of fresh bread by the side, which had surely come from Seamus' bakery down the road.
Aberforth snorted, walking to the kitchen to take another look at how dinner was going. He was roasting beef, a hearty meatstick that I had put on his hands earlier, after slapping it tenderly myself. 'Benefits of befriending the town's butcher,' the old man had said.
Blaise sat on an old, comfortable chair right next to where Clementine was munching one of the peonies. She bleated in understanding. The goat was Aberforth's long partner, and had always been kind to me.
Clementine looked at me tenderly, rubbing her beard against my forearm.
"It's not like that," I told her too, though it was more difficult to fool her. Clementine had always been very motherly — much more than my own mother. It was easier to fool myself than her.
Aberforth came back, sitting heavily in another of his splendid chairs. "Look kid, time is precious. You cannot let love pass by. Trust me on this. I talk from experience."
There was a tenderness in the way the old man looked at his goat as he rubbed her furred feet; Clementine bleated back lovingly.
"Who said anything about love? She's just a florist I met, just some…"
"Muggle?" Aberforth raised an eyebrow.
"I wasn't going to say that," I replied, unsure if that was the truth. Old habits die hard.
Aberforth looked unconvinced. "We're not telling you to marry the girl. Just, allow yourself to open up," he said, before his tone softened. "Listen, it's been years since the battle. Don't you think it's time?"
Was it?
I could still hear Demelza's laughter ringing in my ears as we scurried through the castle, in the waning hours of my sixth year at Hogwarts. I could still hear her shouting that she was staying back in the castle to fight, and my pleas for her to escape with me — a choice I regret like none other. I could still hear my own sobbings as I visited her grave every month since that fateful day.
Was I ready to open myself up again? I did not know. But a part of me wanted to see that florist again. At least she would understand.
It would make my mother throw a tantrum, I thought. Perhaps another reason to visit Kate again.
"Just think about it," Aberforth told me.
Clementine leaned forward, her thick smell of hay hitting me. I could see right through her large black eyes what she meant. She'd always tried to help me find my way back, ever since the day I started frequenting their home.
"Sure, Clems ," I sighed, in defeat. "I'll see her again. And, if she's not opposed to it, I'll bring her over for Christmas. You'll see."
Aberforth stood up with a massive smile. "Marvellous. Now, who's ready for dinner?"