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While many Hogwarts professors choose to live in the castle full time, Hermione simply couldn’t pass up an excuse to own a little cottage in the countryside. She opted to spend the summer months there, tending to a modest vegetable garden and reading in a hammock, which she strung up in the shade of two hawthorn trees. She rarely took visitors during these months, favoring the time to recharge and distance herself from wizarding society for a short while before the start of the next school year.
It wasn’t that she didn’t love her career—and the wizarding world at large, for that matter. She merely found she showed up better (for herself and her students) when she had time to miss it.
Plus, she had grown rather fond of the solitude.
Hermione only ventured out on Saturdays, when she’d spend the afternoon perusing the Hogsmeade summer market. She needed groceries anyway, and in her many years of teaching, she’d come to adore the annual market. In addition to the expected varieties of fresh fruit, vegetables and baked goods, the market was also home to local artisans selling their wares, and she found there was always some new treasure to discover.
And it just so happened that today was the first Saturday of summer.
Hermione set the book she’d been reading on a stack in the foyer and grabbed her beaded bag on her way out the door. It was half a mile from her cottage to town; a walk she very much enjoyed on days such as today, when the sky was blue and cloudless.
Along the way she tried to fashion something of a shopping list in her head, despite knowing it was a rather futile task—Hermione tended to follow her whims at the market, buying whatever struck her fancy that week.
She knew as well as anyone: there was a time for practicality, and then there was meandering through the summer market.
She had just started to break a sweat when she spied the multicolored tents on the horizon, arranged in haphazard rows just outside of town. Witches and wizards flocked to the stalls, carrying baskets and bags of all sizes as they took in this year’s selections.
As she strolled along the lane, Hermione breathed in the familiar sights and smells of her surroundings. There were numerous fruit stands, of course, and a selection of baked offerings (there was one booth in particular whose bread loaves she remembered to be quite heavenly—she’d need to bring one of those home, for sure). She meandered past a tent with fresh herbs and other potions ingredients, and a booth selling magical plant cuttings and self-mending gloves.
She stopped to examine a set of stain-repellant enchanted linens, thinking how nice it might be to not have to worry about laundering her dish towels, until she remembered she actually liked doing laundry, and kept walking. One booth boasted simple ward stones meant to be taken on one’s travels, and another had a selection of jewelry Hermione was surprised to realize were positively Muggle in nature—they had no magical properties whatsoever, and were just nice to look at.
She had just bent over to examine a pair of sapphire earrings—her birthstone—when she noticed him. He was standing three tents over and across the path, in front of a display absolutely bursting with bouquets of bright, colorful flowers.
“Excuse me,” she told the witch tending the jewelry stand, leaving the earrings behind in favor of investigating the absolute anomaly in front of her.
But sure enough, the closer she got, the more certain Hermione became.
Draco Malfoy had a booth at the market.
A flower booth.
“What are you doing here?” she asked pointedly, wasting no time on pleasantries.
Draco whirled around, startled, as he’d been assisting an elderly woman with a bouquet primarily made up of yellow and pink blooms. The smile on his face froze as he realized who was behind him, now pointing a finger directly into his face.
“Granger,” he nodded cordially, with all the expected manners of a spoilt pureblood. “How can I help you?”
She narrowed her eyes. “What are you doing?”
He blinked at her. “I should think that’s rather obvious.”
Hermione wasn’t buying it. “What do they do?” she pressed him.
He appeared not to understand the question. “I’m not sure what you mean?”
His politeness was infuriating. “Do they explode after an unknowable period of time, or perhaps destabilize any competing nearby spellwork? Or maybe they become volatile after extended periods of overwatering or neglect?”
Draco kept a surprisingly straight face despite her errant questioning. “They’re dahlias, Granger.”
She stared at him, trying to suss out what was going on. There were no less than thirty vibrant bouquets behind him, all wrapped in sturdy brown paper and sitting in little vases of water. To the untrained eye, one could possibly mistake them for the same sorts of bouquets her mother used to bring home from the muggle market near where she worked, but Hermione knew better.
“What’s the catch?”
“Are you going to buy something?” he asked calmly, instead of answering her.
Actually, yes. That’s what she would do. She would buy one of his stupid bouquets, and she would take it home, and she would work it out for herself. And once she figured out what he was doing, she could figure out how to put a stop to it.
“Yes,” she snapped, snatching the nearest bouquet rather roughly. “I’ll take these.”
To her utter irritation, Malfoy looked rather amused by the entire exchange.
“Keep them away from direct sunlight, and change the water daily. And I recommend not trying to prolong their life with magic. Let them fade naturally.”
This was ridiculous.
If someone had told her this morning that she’d be receiving advice from Draco Malfoy on cut flowers, she would have laughed them all the way to St. Mungo’s.
And yet.
She stood awkwardly in front of his booth, gripping the flowers with both hands, as Malfoy continued to smile at her.
“Well?” she asked finally, more then ready to leave and get as far away from his flower stand as possible. “What do I owe you?”
Something softened in his face. “No charge, Granger. Enjoy the dahlias.”
She scowled, fishing around in her beaded purse for a couple of sickles, which she promptly shoved in his direction. “Don’t be absurd.”
He looked down at the sickles in his hand, then back up at Hermione, giving her a small shrug. “Suit yourself. Have a lovely day.”
Hermione harrumphed before stomping her way down the lane and away from the market. She’d purchased nothing else, but seeing Malfoy had put her off the idea of sticking around any longer. She was too determined to take these flowers home and prove herself right.
-
Six days later, however, the flowers sat idly on her kitchen table—only now they had wilted and were browning around the edges. She was no closer to discovering their secret, as despite her best efforts, they seemed to be, rather irritatingly, just dahlias.
She wasn’t sure why the whole thing bothered her so much. Every time she passed by the table (which was often, given her cottage was quite small) she found herself glaring at the flowers.
One does not simply go from being a Death Eater to a…a florist!
But she never was one to let herself be bested by Draco Malfoy and so, the next day she pulled on her trainers and headed back in to Hogsmeade.
“Back again, I see,” Draco said pleasantly as she sidled up to his booth.
This time she’d stopped and grabbed a loaf of bread and a hasty assortment of vegetables before seeking him out, lest she find herself once more leaving in a hurry.
“Still a prat, I see,” she retorted, wincing internally at how childish the insult sounded.
He chuckled quietly to himself, which was not at all the reaction she’d been expecting—or hoping for.
“And how did the flowers fair under your care?” he asked, conversationally, readjusting a bouquet to his right.
She ignored the question, unwilling to admit how quickly they’d died. That was well beside the point.
“I’d like another one, please,” she said, all business.
“Yes ma’am,” he said in an amused tone, which raised her hackles even further.
“This is not a laughing matter,” she assured him.
“Ah yes,” he agreed. “How could I forget? Flowers are, of course, of the utmost seriousness.”
“You know what I mean,” she scowled, to which he raised both eyebrows.
“I assure you, Granger, that I do not. Regardless, what’s your fancy this week? Purple? Or these yellow ones? They do look so nice against your hair, and they’re nearly the size of dinner plates.”
She didn’t care what color the flowers were—she planned to dissect them, after all. She snatched the yellow bouquet from his hand and replaced it with another jumble of sickles.
“This time, I’ll figure it out,” she warned him.
Draco smiled lazily at her, the look of someone not at all preparing to heed her warning. “Best of luck. See you next week!”
She let out a little scream of frustration, under her breath of course—very discreet—and stomped away for the second time in two weeks.
-
This bouquet, too, gave nothing away.
She’d spent the better part of the week performing all manner of enchantment detection spells upon it. By the following Saturday, she had to admit her tests weren’t working—for all intents and purposes, the flowers seemed clean. Annoyingly so.
She shoved the yellow bouquet (which, too, was looking worse for wear) across the table, where it joined the dried out carcass of its brethren. If she wanted to run any further diagnostics, she’d likely need a fresh teat subject.
Which, irritatingly, meant she’d need to go back to the market a third time.
The walk that used to calm her now felt like a nuisance, so this time, she simply apparated into town, appearing directly in front of Malfoy’s flower stand.
“Merlin on a motorbike!” Draco jumped as she materialized in front of him, dropping a handful of greenery on the ground in his surprise. “Granger, have you gone mental? What are you doing?”
“I should think it’s rather obvious,” she mimicked his posh accent, hands on her hips. Then she held out her coin. “Flowers, please.”
Somewhat surprisingly, he withheld. “As much as I appreciate your patronage, I get the sense you’re not actually enjoying these exchanges.”
She raised an eye at him. “What gave you that idea?” she asked, sarcasm dripping from her words.
“No one’s forcing you to buy flowers from me.”
It was true. No one was forcing her to keep engaging with him. But she found she couldn’t enjoy the market in the same way while he was here, not without knowing his angle.
Why would Draco Malfoy have a flower stand in Hogsmeade? He was the lord of a whole arsed manor; surely he didn’t need the money.
“And yet, here I am. Now hand over the bouquet.”
He gave her a dubious look, but obliged.
Hermione dropped her sickles on the table, nodded, and said, “good day”.
See, she could be friendly, if she tried.
Then she apparated back home.
-
That week, Hermione found nothing.
Nor did she the week after. Or the one after that, or the even the next one. With each new bouquet, she tried removing the tops from their stems, leaving them overnight in a magically neutral space, or subjecting them to all sorts of magical stress-testing. She sent them multiple times through the Floo network, tried to substitute standard potions ingredients with a few crushed petals, even timed how long she could stare at them without blinking. The vases of flowers continued to pile up as she put them through trial after trial, determined to discover something—anything—amiss about them.
But no matter what she did, the flowers, however stubbornly, remained flowers.
“Honestly, Crooks,” she told her cat as he arched his back beneath her feet, “I know I’ve gone a bit barmy over this, but it just doesn’t make any sense. They’re clearly normal flowers—but why? Why spend his summer holiday this way? What’s in it for him?”
Crookshanks let out a bored meow that was clearly tinged with judgement, circling the chair before sidling over to his food bowl.
“Oh, you don’t care,” she chuckled, pushing her fifth dying vase of flowers over with the others. “Let’s get you fed, shall we? I could use a bit of a distraction, anyhow.”
-
When the next weekend rolled around, Hermione found she didn’t feel well.
It could have been the lack of sleep she’d gotten recently, given she’d wanted to run a few diagnostic tests under the light the the full moon and accidentally stayed up all night—but who could truly know? Whatever the reason, she didn’t feel up to a trip into Hogsmeade, and opted instead to stay home.
She spent the morning lazing in her bed, drinking herbal tea and reading a book she’d pulled from her shelf at random. Sure, it might have been titled Beneath the Soil: An Introduction to Tuberous Plants, but that was simply the luck of the draw, wasn’t it?
Never mind the fact that she’d only sent away for a copy from Flourish and Blotts last week.
That, of course, was neither here nor there.
She had just gotten to a rather thrilling chapter on the precise time of year to dig up and split your dahlia bulbs when she heard a rapping at her door.
“Come in!” she called, putting her wand to her throat to amplify the sound of her voice. She wasn’t expecting any visitors today, but very few people knew the location of her cottage, so there was quite a short list of people it might be.
“Hello?” a dreamy voice echoed inside her cottage and Hermione smiled at the sound of it.
Luna.
“I’m in here!” she croaked, reaching for a glass of water on her nightstand. “The bedroom!”
Luna Lovegood appeared in the doorway, her curly hair tied into two long plaits at the sides of her head. She wore a pair of lavender overalls, and to tie the outfit together, a smudge of dirt streaked upon her nose.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Luna?” Hermione asked, pulling her feet back in case Luna wanted to sit on the edge of the bed. “Apologies for receiving your company from bed—I’m feeling a bit under the weather today.”
Luna remained standing, however, smiling as she took in the charming simplicity of Hermione’s cottage.
“No matter, Hermione! I was in the area and realized I’d only ever been here once before, last year when I helped Neville with the moonlace vine in the Hogwarts nursery.”
Hermione nodded in remembrance. “The cursed plant, right?”
At this, Luna frowned. “It wasn’t cursed, Hermione. It was just nervous.”
Hermione seemed to remember it binding a few students to the greenhouse ceiling, but decided it was better to leave such things in the past. “What are you doing here now?”
Luna smiled. “I was visiting the Hogsmeade market, actually. Do you go, often?”
A vein in Hermione’s forehead twitched. “Sometimes.”
“It was quite lovely today. Top notch variety. And I brought you something!”
At this, Hermione perked up. She’d been so sidetracked with Malfoy’s stupid flowers, she’d hardly had a chance to truly explore the market this year. She was certain there were all sorts of things she’d missed, and despite the fact that she and Luna had fairly separate tastes in, well, most things—she was still excited to see what her friend might have picked out for her.
“I wasn’t sure what color you’d prefer, so I went with a Gryffindor motif. You did always look so lovely in crimson. Anyway, you’ll never believe who I got these from—the funniest thing—”
Luna rambled on as she disappeared momentarily from the doorway, returning a moment later with yet another bouquet of dahlias, this time in an assortment of reds and yellows.
“Malfoy,” Hermione groaned, letting herself fall back against her pillow in defeat.
If Luna noticed her shift in attitude, she didn’t let on. “Oh? You’ve run into him?”
“Unfortunately,” Hermione said.
Luna’s face fell. “You don’t like them?”
“No, no,” Hermione said hurriedly. “They’re absolutely divine, Luna, thank you. I just don’t understand what he’s on about.”
“Who, Draco?”
“Yes, Draco. Doesn’t it strike you as odd? The whole booth thing?”
Luna stopped, as if really giving the question some thought. “No, I wouldn’t say so?”
Hermione supposed Luna wasn’t really the chief expert on what was odd or not.
“Shall I put these in a vase for you?”
“It’s okay,” Hermione said, reaching for a second, empty water glass on her side table and transfiguring it into a small vase. “I’m actually running low.”
Luna removed the flowers from their brown paper, removing the ends with a slicing charm and plopping the whole thing into the vase, which she left right beside Hermione.
“I think it’s lovely that he’s donating the proceeds,” Luna mused. “I wonder if he’d consider helping the Crumple-Horned Snorkack Habitat Preservation Fund next?”
Hermione was so busy glaring at the new bouquet that she almost missed what Luna had said. “Sorry—donating the proceeds?”
Luna tapped the vase and said aguamenti, filling the glass nearly to the top before she turned back to Hermione. “Yes! Did you not read the pamphlets he has? The money he earns at the booth goes to post-war families in need. It’s quite lovely.”
Despite Luna’s unyielding smile, Hermione felt something cold and heavy in her stomach. She wanted to say it was a stomachache related to the illness she was currently fighting, but she knew that would be a lie. The feeling that had suddenly appeared was closer to something like… disbelief. Or possibly shame.
“Right,” she said, covering for her ignorance. “The pamphlet. I’d forgotten.”
“I can’t believe they were growing wild on one of the plots of land his family owns. Can you imagine? Nature is a wonder.”
“It certainly is,” Hermione said hollowly, quite distracted by the sudden feeling she might throw up. All these weeks, needling him—was it true? Was this truly an… altruistic endeavor?
“Hermione? Is everything alright? You’re looking a bit peaky.”
“I think I need to—” she cut off, not entirely sure what she needed to do.
Luna leaned over and gave her foot a small squeeze as Hermione continued to gape at her. “I just wanted to say hello. I’ll see you later, Hermione. Or perhaps earlier. One of those.”
Hermione collected herself, softening as she took in the sight of her extremely kind friend. “Thank you, Luna. For the flowers, and for stopping by.”
“I hope you sort out what you need!” she said in her usual Luna way—only this time the words rung in her ears. Luna wandered from the room, and as Hermione heard the front door click shut, she flopped back in her bed, staring at the ceiling and willing it to tell her what to do.
The flowers were just flowers.
Malfoy was selling flowers.
For a good cause.
And she hadn’t let him have a moment’s peace all summer about it.
When had she become the villain?
“Auuugh!” She let out a cry of frustrating, kicking her feet, which tangled in the sheets.
She knew what she had to do.
She just really didn’t want to do it.
Sighing, Hermione unwrapped herself from the bedclothes, swung her legs over the side of the mattress, and slipped her feet into a pair of trainers.
And then, she apparated to Hogsmeade.
In her hurry, Hermione overshot Malfoy’s stand, landing instead in front of the rickety table of a wizard selling a collection of rather dubious-looking lucky stones. The man did not seem at all surprised by her sudden appearance; instead just pleased to have a customer.
“No, thank you,” she hurriedly as he tried to offer her a concerningly lumpy purple stone, entirely uninterested in his pitch. “Sorry.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Malfoy in the next row over, helping an elderly witch decide between two different bouquets. He was laughing, eyes crinkling at the corners, as he wrapped up the bright purple blooms she decided on.
Just a flower stand.
When he finished up the transaction, Hermione marched herself right over to the booth.
“Ah, my favorite customer,” Malfoy said with a chuckle, still smiling from his last exchange. “What’ll it be today, Granger?”
She ignored him. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Ah, another Saturday afternoon cross-examination from my dear friend Hermione Granger. And what, pray tell, have I kept from you now?”
She glared at him, feeling weeks of embarrassment bubbling just beneath the surface.
“This!” she yelped, snatching one of the pamphlets—which she had truly not noticed before this moment—out of his apron pocket and waving it in his face.
“Er… my business?” He looked well and truly confused.
“That it’s… that it’s for charity!”
“Oh,” he shrugged, “that. I don’t know. I’m a cultured man, Granger. Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing you flaunt.”
“You let me accost you for,” she thought a moment, “six weeks without even thinking to mention your cause.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything, Granger. In fact, it feels a bit like you’re projecting. If you’re feeling bad, I’m ready to accept your apology.”
At this, she spluttered. “My—my apology?”
“For the aforementioned accosting.”
“I will not—that’s rich, Malfoy. And anyway, aren’t you filthy rich? Why all the production, for sickles and knots? Why not just donate money?”
He leveled her with a raise of his blonde eyebrow. “I do donate money, Granger. Quite a large sum, every month, to both Hogwarts and to St. Mungo’s Mind Healing department.”
“Then why are you out here selling flowers?”
Her voice had gone a bit shrill; a quality of hers she wasn’t proud of, and yet was known to do. But she just needed so desperately to understand—when there were so many things in this world she didn’t understand, may never understand—she simply wanted to know why this was the first place in which she was experiencing a post-war Draco Malfoy, who for all intents and purposes looked quite the same as the last time she’d seen him (save for perhaps a bit older), and yet was entirely unrecognizable to her. How was she to reconcile the two in her head?
“Perhaps the answer is truly as simple as—I like doing it?”
She considered this. And while she thought, Malfoy continued talking, unprompted.
“We have a place up in the Scottish Highlands—a small tenant plot. Unused for years. I didn’t even know it existed until Father died—but I took a bit of a sabbatical once I got my inheritance, which consisted of a tour of all the existing properties; cataloguing, upkeep, the usual.”
She didn’t even take the chance to comment on what a spoiled prat he sounded like—cataloguing his many properties—on account of how enthralled she was in his story.
“When I got to this one on my tour—a mere footnote in the will—I found the dahlias growing wild. Other blooms, as well, but the dahlias in particular were simply divine, just out there on their own, thriving. I was simply taken with them, and actually live there now, part of the year.”
“Oh a dahlia farm,” she said dumbly.
“Yes, Granger, I suppose you could say that.”
“Neville would be so proud.”
Malfoy chuckled. “Longbottom actually helped me learn to care for them. Not that they really needed me—they were doing just fine on their own—but between his knowledge of tending to flowers at scale combined with everything I learned from my mother about floriology as a child, I’ve found I have somewhat of a knack for it all.”
“Neville. Helped you.”
“It might be a shock to hear this, Granger, but some people actually like me.”
She couldn’t help herself—this, of all things, made her laugh.
But then, she realized something was still niggling at her. She still hadn’t gotten him to answer the real question she’d been pondering.
“But why a booth in Hogsmeade? With the money and resources you have, you could set up your own florist in Diagon Alley. Year round. Hire staff. Turn a real profit.”
He shook his head. “Nah.”
She waited for him to go on, but he seemed quite content with “nah” as an answer.
When she prompted him to keep going, he sighed.
“I don’t need more money, Granger. This—”he gestured around his booth, “—is about something else for me. Sharing, I suppose. Connecting. The manor is, well, quite empty these days. I want to arrange the flowers myself, and see the smiles on people’s faces when they pick their favorite ones.”
She wanted to say something—but she couldn’t place exactly what it was. She was having such a hard time reconciling this man in front of her with the boy who tormented her in school. This man in his apron with the dirt on his ear, the same man who was once a boy who hated her.
“And if that’s still not enough for you, Granger, than I suppose we’re at an impasse. But when looking through the many riches my late father left me, I found I had no real use for most of it. And then I traveled to this funny little plot in the Highlands and for the first time in perhaps my entire mostly-meaningless life, I found real beauty there. And I’m of the opinion that beautiful things aren’t meant to be hoarded. So here I am, sharing.”
She blinked once, twice, trying and failing to grapple with the very real truth that she’d been touched, quite deeply, by Malfoy’s words.
“I…I’m so sorry, Malfoy.”
He brushed her off. “It’s nothing. Your thing was probably the more likely explanation, to be sure. No one had Malfoy the flower farmer on their bingo card. Now what’ll it be, this week? And before you insist—I’ll not have you paying for anything, not this time.”
Beautiful things aren’t meant to be hoarded.
She thought of the vases, piled up on her kitchen table. Stems dried and flaking, petals long since fallen off. Dried husks of something once beautiful, now only a reminder of all the time she wasted with them. She tried to remember if she’d thought to smell them, even once.
She leaned over and breathed in the scent of the nearest bouquet, a collection of pink and white flowers that smelled fresh and botanical and sweet, all at once.
She thought of the bouquet Luna had brought her, still sitting on her nightstand in water.
What a fool she’d been.
“Nothing for me, this week, actually” she said faintly. “Though—please,” she dug around in her beaded bag, fishing up a handful of sickles and two galleons that were inside. “Take this, as a donation. For the cause.”
“Granger,” he groaned, trying to push back the coins, but she insisted.
“Good luck with everything, Malfoy,” she said then, unsure what else to do with herself. She pocketed one of his pamphlets to read up on later, and shuffled her feet in the dirt. “It was—er—nice to see you.”
Her face burned red, and though Malfoy opened his mouth as though he were about to speak, she didn’t give him the chance, disapparating back to her cottage in a blink.
-
The following Saturday, Hermione felt a tug in her chest. She’d taken excellent care of the bouquet from Luna, following the instructions just as he’s advised that first week—she’d kept them on her kitchen counter, away from direct sunlight. She’d diligently changed the water each morning. And she did not intervene with magic, despite her very real desire to.
And thus, by the weekend, the flowers had begun to die, naturally.
She wished she could pop down to Hogsmeade, or rather, walk there, to replace them—but the summer market had ended. Soon she would return to Hogwarts, to her teacher’s dorm; another summer come and gone.
When she’d returned from her final interaction with Malfoy, she’d dumped the six dead bouquets in the compost behind her home. But she hadn’t been able to bring herself to dispose of this last one, not yet. It was as though she wasn’t ready to be through with the experience, even though there was nothing to be gained from a wilted vase of flowers.
There was, however, the nagging feeling that she wasn’t entirely happy with how the exchange had ended. Now that the market was over, she wasn’t sure if—or when—she’d see Malfoy again, or whether he’d be back the next summer. There were many questions she should like to ask him, now that she’d had time to think on it, but after the way she’d treated him all summer, she hardly thought he’d delight at the idea of receiving an owl from her.
It was likely for the best. They were not friends.
And yet, as she opened the door with vase in hand, she felt the strangest sense of disappointment over the realization.
She was so distraught by this, in fact, that she scarcely noticed the potted plant on her doorstep, and nearly tripped over it in her haste to get outside.
“What’s this?” she said aloud, placing the vase on the ground as she bent to examine it. Something from Neville, perhaps?
Upon future inspection, she determined it was simply a pot of dirt.
But there, underneath, was a card.
She slid expensive looking stationary from an envelope monogrammed with D.L.M.
“Granger—
A dahlia tuber, for you, under stasis. Hopefully your gardening abilities are less barbaric than the way you treat cut flowers. In any case, if it likes you, it will keep coming back. Enjoy.
— Draco Malfoy
PS. Merlin help me if you try to pay for this, it’s a gift.”
A warm feeling spread through Hermione as she reread his note a second, and then third time. A grin broke across her face as she called out to the tawny owl that frequented her cottage. Maybe she’d been too hasty in deciding not to send an owl. Perhaps that was exactly what she should do.
How else would she send him payment for the tuber?