The Man always came in on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month, just after five in the evening. He always greeted the employees at The Budding Shrub with polite smiles and he always took the time to count out the exact amount of money in cash before quietly sliding it over the counter.
“I wonder who he gives those to.” Alana wondered aloud when the shopkeeper’s bell announced The Man’s departure.
“I don’t know,” Micah huffed, shaking his head at her while he misted the floral display they kept behind the counter. The variegated petals had begun to wilt, the humidity outside taking a toll on the blooms. “Probably just takes them back to his flat. Not everyone has someone to give flowers to.”
“Oh,” Alana sighed, pushing a stray hair back behind her hair. “I know that, but he wears a wedding ring.” She turned away from the window and tucked her hands into the pockets of the green apron everyone was given upon being hired. The sun had just started to set, and it was beginning to drizzle.
“Alright then, his wife. Maybe she has him bring them home for her.” The man’s shabby appearance made it hard to believe that he had a spouse, but Micah didn’t say that out loud.
Alana sighed again. “She must be a lovely woman.” She said wistfully, a far off look in her eyes.
Micah just ignored her. It was hard to make her see that reality wasn’t always a fairy tale. It didn’t matter though. His shift was almost over and he could go home soon.
-----
The next time The Man came in, it was pouring outside.
It was a welcomed break from the seemingly ever-persistent heat. Alana, assisted by one of her older coworkers, helped take some of the larger potted plants outside.
Breathing heavily, she pulled the door open and stepped back inside the shoppe. As she shook the damp from her hair, she caught sight of a familiar figure clad in a plastic-y raincoat with patched elbows and a large scarlet umbrella.
Most notably, however, was his cane.
She held the door open for him and he nodded at her gratefully. As he perused the shelf near the front she hurried behind the counter and waited for him.
“Is this your guy?” Her coworker, Lisa asked. She squinted across the room at the man, her crows feet crinkling the skin near her eyes. Despite her rapidly decreasing eyesight, she refused to go get glasses made up for her.
“Yeah,” Alana breathed, not letting her voice peak any higher. He was getting close to the counter now, a handful of stems in the same hand he held his now folded up umbrella with. “That’s him.”
He set the flowers on the counter in between them and began to dig in the pockets of the raincoat for his wallet. In doing so, he lost his grip on his cane and swayed harshly to one side.
He caught himself on the counter, leaning heavily on it. The coins he was holding fell to the floor and scattered with a harsh clang.
Before he could bend down to grab them, Lisa stopped the man. “No, no,” she insisted, “I’ve got it.” And she got down on the floor to collect the shrapnel.
He righted himself and rubbed at his hip sheepishly. “It’s this rain,” he explained, despite no one asking. “It always does me in.” Though, something in his eyes told Alana that he wasn’t quite telling the truth.
She nodded at him while she wrapped the small collection of lilies and gladioli. She took the money from him, along with the additional coins from Lisa and passed the small bouquet back to him.
“Have a nice day,” The man told the two women, and he limped back out of the store.
Alana watched him shamble down the sidewalk, the rain letting up more and more as if the man was commanding the atmosphere to be calm.
“He seemed nice enough,” Lisa announced, drawing Alana’s eyes away from the man. “Wonder what happened to him, though.”
Alana stepped forward to flip the sign in the window to Closed. “Nothing, I guess.” Alana said, shrugging her shoulders. “He said it was just the weather. My mum’s that way too.”
Lisa removed the broom from its hook on the wall and gestured towards Alana with the end of it. “No,” She said in a quiet, excited tone, like she was giving out the latest gossip. “The scars.”
Alana furrowed her brow at Lisa “What do you mean, scars?” The man looked worn down, but surely he didn’t have any scars?
“Yes!” Lisa urged. “It was a bit hard to see, they were pretty faint, but there were a bunch on his face!”
“Are you sure?” Alana asked her coworker as she started counting the money in the register. “He looked pretty normal to me.”
Now, Lisa had fully abandoned the broom to lean up against the countertop. “I just saw them when he turned around, the light caught them.” She brushed her grey-streaked bangs out of her eyes and tucked her hands in her pockets. “All over his face! It was like he was torn apart by some animal!”
Alana slipped the cash into a small bag, tucking it under her arm and moving to return it to the office. “Maybe he was.”
-----
Claire was tidying up the rack that held all of the seed packets when the ancient phone rang behind the counter, just to the right of the register.
She looked towards Alana, who was working in the same aisle a bit farther down.
“Take the call!” Alana encouraged her, stacking some pots on the shelf to make room for the incoming new stock. “You remember how I showed you, right?”
A timid girl of sixteen years, Claire was the newest employee of The Budding Shrub, and she would be the first to tell you that she wasn’t one for social interaction. It’s why she had applied to the shoppe in the first place, for the limited hours and slow-paced work days.
Claire mumbled a response to Alana before picking up the receiver and reciting the lines someone had printed along the wall above where the phone was plugged in at.
“Thank you for calling The Budding Shrub, how may I help you?” She asked in a cheery tone, projecting her voice so that she could be understood through the crackly system.
“Hullo,” A low gruff voice replied, “I’m terribly sorry, but I was wondering if you do pickups?” A Welsh accent poked through, only noticeable in the way the man stretched out his vowels and rolled the ‘r’s slightly.
“Yes, we do pickups,” Claire confirmed, extracting a stack of post-it notes to jot any requests down on. “Do you have anything in mind?”
The voice on the other side of the line paused momentarily. “Uhm… would I be able to get a small bunch of flowers? Just enough to put in a vase.” He said hesitantly.
Claire hummed in understanding, writing everything down in a tight, quick script. “And are there any particular flowers that you’d like in the arrangement?” She asked him.
“Yes, actually,” The man continued. “Could I get some iris’ and maybe some apple blossoms, if you still have any in stock? And could I get a few honeysuckles as well?”
Claire kept up her writing, saying little words like Okay, and Alright as she wrote to fill some of the silence.
“And could I get a name for that?” She questioned him, pen poised between her fingers.
“Uh, Remus Lupin?” He said it like a question. She hesitated momentarily, but he thankfully spelled it out for her before she could ask.
“R-E-M-U-S L-U-P-I-N,” He said, like he’d had to have done it a million times before.
“Great!” Claire said as she finished dotting the ‘i’. “Do you know what time you’ll be in to pick it up?”
“The man huffed quietly, like a laugh. “I was actually hoping I’d be able to pick it up tonight.” He said. “I know it’s getting a bit late, but my doctor’s appointment ran a bit longer than I thought and I know you guys are closed tomorrow.”
“Uhhhh…” Claire caught the eye of Alana from across the room and tried to tell her the situation, but the other woman just gave her a thumbs up and continued to restock the aisle. “I’m sure we can make that happen, but we can only hold the flowers until closing tonight.”
The voice on the other side of the line was quiet for a moment, but then he spoke again. “Okay,” he affirmed. “I’ll be on my way soon.” And then he hung up, the audible click of the receiver echoing in Claire’s ears.
“Okay.” Claire breathed, repeating the man.
“Alright?” Alana asked, popping her head out from where she was working.
“We’ve got an order.” Claire explained simply, holding up the scribble-covered paper.
But the man never showed up on time.
“It’s a shame,” Alana sighed, holding up a cheery bouquet. “It’s a pretty thing, isn’t it?”
Claire nodded absently, going into the back office and reappearing with a set of keys on a lanyard.
As she stood at the door, trying to find the right key to close up for the night, a person hurried towards them. Claire quickly stepped back from the door, not wanting to get hit when it swung open suddenly.
Alana looked up from where she inspected the petals of the blooms and her expression brightened. “Hey!” She exclaimed with a wide smile, “It’s you!”
The man, flushed and out of breath, replied. “Hullo again,” he said, “I called ahead earlier, about some flowers?”
Alana nodded at him. “Yup,” she looked closely at the paper, “For… Remus?”
He smiled politely at her, “Yes, that’s me.”
She laid out the bouquet on the counter and they started talking about the price.
The man, Remus, was very tall and lanky, Claire noticed, but he hunched over around the middle ever so slightly. She realised that he was leaning on the counter as well, not enough to be considered invasive but enough to just hardly notice it.
Even after his cheeks had gone back to a normal shade, his breathing never really slowed. His chest rose and fell shallowly, like it was difficult to take in any air.
The loud bell on the cash register snapped Claire out of her thoughts. The man folded his wallet back up and stuffed it in his back pocket and he tipped his head towards Alana in thanks.
The two girls quietly watched him leave, walking slowly with a hand resting on his ribs. It had darkened considerably outside, the clouds above coming together in an angry grey shelter.
When the door finally shut again, Claire broke the silence
“He’s hurt.” She stated. Alana nodded silently, bottom lip caught between her teeth in concentration.
“It was like that last week, too.” She replied, gaze still stuck on the view of the setting sun out the window. “Though, it was his leg that time. He was limping.” She added as an afterthought.
Claire hummed, stepping forward from where she was leaning on the wall next to the register. “He did say he was at a doctor’s appointment earlier.”
Alana sighed. She did that quite often, Claire noticed.
“I hope he gets better soon.” She said, stepping out from behind the counter to begin cleaning.
-----
The next week came and went without any sign of the man.
Alana was sorry to see his absence. His mystery was a part of the fun every week, and she had been looking forward to talking to one of their few regulars again.
On a bright Saturday morning, she was working solo in the front of the shoppe while Ben, the store’s manager, collected and sorted out the money that they had made that week.
Alana, warmed by the sunshine, rubbed the sleep from her eyes as she helped an old woman with her purchase. It was supposed to be her day off, but she had gotten a call from Ben asking her to come in after one of the other employees had called off rather suddenly.
The woman insisted that she recount the change that Alana had given her, claiming that she was £3.94 short. Alana begrudgingly did what she had asked. Alana was not a morning person.
After assuring the old bat that she was not getting overcharged for her vegetable seeds, she sent her along her way.
She had just started to doze when the loud growl of a motor shocked her awake.
A huge motorbike, glossy black and bellowing, pulled into one of the small roadside spots in front of the shoppe. After the thing was parked and turned off, the riders of the bike dismounted.
The driver, clad in tight jeans and a leather jacket tugged off the helmet he was wearing and shook out his dark mane of hair. His passenger, slightly smaller and much knobbier, did the same and pulled out a pair of round, wire rimmed glasses from his pocket to perch on his nose.
The two of them conversed a little, mouths moving with words that Alana could not hear, before the taller one of the two hauled the heavy front door open with a chime of the bell.
The pair spent a bit of time browsing the wares, looking a bit out of place with their distressed clothes and large helmets dangling from their hands.
Alana did her best to make sure it wasn’t obvious that she was paying any attention to them, reading one of the gardening magazines by the front. Though, after skimming through two pages, she realised that she wasn’t actually reading anything.
The guys spoke in low voices as they shuffled through the narrow rows of items. Most of what Alana had heard from them was meaningless chatter, but one thing that did catch her attention was something the older man had said.
“Do you think Remus would like petunias?”
Alana’s head shot up from where she had her nose buried in the pages of the article. The two men were closer to the front now, examining a bunch of slanted pots that they kept all of the flower cuttings in, fresh from the store’s very own garden.
“In a bouquet? Sirius, no. Those are for flower beds!” The younger boy pointed out. He was wearing an old-looking t-shirt, the neckline stretched out and sagging. He also had a remarkably messy head of hair, strands sticking out every which way and defying all sorts of physics with the way it stood vertically in places.
The man looked at the boy quizzically, his free hand coming up to rub at his stubble. “What’s a flower bed?”
Alana couldn’t help but gape at the man. Who walks into a flower shop without knowing what a flower bed is?
She cleared her throat and spoke up. “I’m sorry to eavesdrop on you two, but I heard you mention a Remus?” The two guys turned to her, caught off guard by the interruption. The man with the long hair, she noticed, was much older than she initially thought, with worry lines between the brows and deep bags under his eyes.
The man’s face was scrunched up with suspicion as he nodded slowly at her. “...You know Remus?” He asked Alana.
Her cheeks flushed at the man’s sudden shift in mood. “I do know him!” She claimed, a bit more defensively than she should’ve. “Or, not know him know him.” Alana explained after seeing their expressions.
“What do you mean?” The boy with the messy hair asked, cocking his head to the side like a dog hearing an odd noise.
“I mean,” Alana started, composing herself and standing up straight, shutting the magazine in front of herself. “He comes in a lot! I help him with most of his purchases, but I haven’t seen him yet this week.”
The tension in the man’s forehead loosened immediately, and his eyes brightened.
“Does that mean you can help us find something he would like?”
Alana nodded, “Of course!” She beamed at him and stepped out from behind the counter. “Though, he’s usually in here buying for someone else. His wife or mother, maybe? I’m not too sure what he would like, but he does have good taste.”
The man barked out a loud guffaw, covering his forehead and eyes with his free hand. “Oh!” His laughter cooled down, “That’s me! He buys those flowers for me.”
Alana covered her face, “Of course! I’m so sorry,” A glance at the man’s heavily tattooed hand showed her a shining silver band on his ring finger, among a few others.
He didn’t look bothered by her misunderstanding. “Actually,” he started, his eyes sparkling mischievously, “I don’t really like flowers all that much.” He spun a windswept strand of curly black hair around and around his pointer finger.
“...But I thought you just said that he buys them for you?” Alana was a bit confused. The sun outside had hidden behind the clouds and the world outside had darkened with it, unsettling her.
The man laughed again, a hoarse, wheezing laugh. It was as if he hadn’t had a proper breath of fresh air in a decade. “Remus just thinks I like flowers as much as he does. Really, I just like seeing how happy they make them. I could care less about the damn plants.”
“Oh,” Alana breathed, “So, you two are buying him something?”
The boy nodded hastily, his wild hair bobbing with the movement. “Yeah!” He confirmed with a crooked grin. “Remus is- er, ill… at the moment and is staying at the hospital for a bit. We came here to get him a get-well-soon gift.”
Alana’s eyes widened. “Well, of course I'll help you!” She stood up straight and left her spot on the cushioned mat behind the counter to assist them. I knew he wasn’t well, she thought to herself.
The man with the long hair seemed a lot less intimidating from this angle, she realised. He was much shorter than he seemed when she was hunched over her book, and the creases in his face were more endearing than anything.
The boy he was with also seemed different, with a wicked scar cutting through the left side of his face it drew attention to his eyes, which had to be the brightest, most piercing green Alana had ever seen on someone outside of a film.
She led the two over to the wall of flowers, shelves with large black buckets to hold the blooms spanning all the way from floor to ceiling. “Alright then,” Alana started, clapping her hands together. “Now, to start off, we can grab some myrtle for good luck and devotion,” She grabbed a bunch of the small white flowers from their respective bucket and handed them off to the boy.
“And then…” Alana braced herself against the wall with one hand while she bent down to the lowest shelf, low to the floor. “We’ll do some forget-me-nots as well! Can never do wrong with those.” She added as she gave them to the bewildered boy next to her.
After that she added some basil leaves for greenery and good wishes and tossed them in the pile in his arms.
Alana was on a roll and was having fun, too. It had been so long since she had gotten to put together a bouquet all on her own. But then she hit a roadblock.
“Oh, no.” Alana breathed. She was looking nearly straight up, at the highest level on the wall.
Since the shelves filled the entire wall, the employees of The Budding Shrub kept a ladder off to the side so that, if needed, they could pop it open and reach the top buckets of stems.
Unfortunately, though, the rickety old thing snapped the last time someone tried to climb the lower rungs and they hadn’t been able to get a replacement for it yet.
“What’s wrong?” Asked the older man, his gravelly voice laced with concern. He followed her gaze up and saw what she was looking at.
Alana looked over her shoulder at him. “Do you think you could reach that top one on the left there?” She pointed at the pretty white petals in the bucket and the man made a hesitant sound in the back of his throat.
“I mean,” She added quickly. “It's not a must, but he does tend to favor lilies in his bouquets a lot and I thought they would be nice!”
The man and the boy exchanged a knowing glance that made Alana feel like she was back in secondary school, when she’d get excluded from her peers’ inside jokes.
The man pushed his long hair out of his face. “Ehhhh… I don’t think I could get up there without a boost.” He waved his hand dismissively and pulled a long, thin stick out of his back pocket.
The boy next to him, arms full of flowers, gasped. “Sirius!” He scolded, mouth dropping open. “You can’t do that in front of muggles! Put that away!” He hissed at him. The other man, Sirius, just shook his head at him and grinned, his smile full of sharp canines.
“No, Harry, it’ll be fine! Just one tiny spell and they’ll be none the wiser!” Sirius held the piece of wood in his fist, holding the end with his thumb and forefinger like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Hey,” He nudged Alana gently with his elbow and motioned up to the bucket. “Check this out.” And then he flicked the stick and muttered some gibberish under his breath and unexplainably, three lilies were floating-- actually floating-- down from the top shelf of buckets.
Alana watched wide-eyed and slack-jawed as the flowers gracefully lowered themselves into Sirius’ free hand-- like magic.
“How… how did you do that?” Alana asked him, eyes darting between the stick in his hands and the bin of flowers, looking for a hidden string or something that would explain what had just happened.
Sirius said nothing and flashed her another smile.
With another flick of his hand, the flowers gathered and rolled themselves neatly in the brown paper wrapping used for bouquets. The boy grimaced and Sirius beamed, bringing his arm around in one big motion, and with it, a red and gold ribbon sprouted from the tip of his wooden stick. It looped around the paper-covered stems of the flowers and tied itself into a plump bow, looking like something straight out of a Christmas special.
When the freshly made bouquet of flowers was firmly planted back on the front counter, Alana hurried to get behind it.
After she had finished ringing them up and took the money from the boy. (The older man tried to pay for it himself, but got distracted by the “unusually-still" pictures on the front of each of the notes.)
As Alana watched the pair of them leave the shop, she didn’t have much time to reflect on the strange happenings before they turned heel and came back up to the counter.
“I almost forgot something,” Sirius said calmly, drawing the stick back out from his pocket while bracing his motorbike helmet on his side as he did so.
Swiftly, he pointed the stick between Alana’s eyes and pronounced clearly, “Obliviate!”
All of her thoughts and wonders about the man with the long dark hair and the boy with the bright green eyes and Remus Lupin, with the limp and the scars, melted away from her like water going down a drain, forgotten.
Before she could get her bearings back, the pair was gone.
She swayed on the spot slightly when Ben emerged from the office. “Alright?” He asked her.
“Yeah…” Alana replied dazedly, using the counter to steady herself as she walked around it. “I think I’m going to take my lunch break now. Reckon I need to sit down for a bit.”
The clouds outside parted once more.