The war ended, but Harry couldn’t bring himself to say they’d won. It didn’t feel like it.
He could only think about all the loses, how some of them weighed heavier on him. The guilt of that thought, of that feeling.
The Weasleys had been nice to him. They always were. Molly had offered their house for him yet again, but Harry couldn’t accept this time. Ron didn’t understand why, even though he tried to explain it to him. He would repeat one time and another how it was better to gather, to be together. Support. That’s the word he used. But Harry felt guilty filling his loneliness with grieving people.
He had not lost a son or a brother. He was lucky. He should feel lucky, but now he was walking through the corridors of Grimmauld Place, regretting all the things he could’ve asked his godfather but didn’t.
He knew he had his mother’s eyes and that they worked as poorly as his father’s. He knew Lily was the smartest witch of her age and that James was an accomplished chaser. They would use their abilities for good without hesitating even once— that made them good people, loyal, fighters. But what did they like? What did they hate? How did they fall in love? What was their favourite subject? Favourite song? Why did they name him Harry? Why didn’t he have a godmother?
The Black family-tree tapestry interrupted the list of things he didn’t know.
A rough burn where Sirius Black’s face should be scraping under his fingers. His godfather. How much did he actually know about him? The war had taken so much space in their minds that Harry was sure he didn’t know anyone outside of it.
Even his old professor, Mr Lupin. What did Harry know about him outside his abilities as a professor? He knew his mother and him were great friends, but how exactly did they get along? Did he share his study time with both his parents? With Sirius? Harry was his son’s godfather, and he would never be able to tell Teddy how he was, what he liked, what he hated. Another orphan created by war. At least he had his grandmother, and she knew Tonks.
The silence of the Black mansion felt good. He received letters from Hermione, Ginny and Molly. Neville sent one or two; even Professor McGonagall wrote once. Harry’s favourites had to be Luna’s— she didn’t write much. She would fill the envelopes with trinkets and handmade items that Harry placed on his bedside table so he would see them every day; so every day he would be reminded he was cared for.
He always made sure to write back, but as weeks went by, he ran out of words, and the parchment paper felt bigger with each response, with each ‘I’m fine’ he wasn’t sure he meant.
There wasn’t much to say. His days were all the same— in that house, listening to Sirius’ music, looking through his stuff to get a glimpse of who he was before he stopped being, before the war began to be. He didn’t want to admit it, but with every trunk and box he opened, he wished to find parts of his parents. Maybe another letter from his mother, since he had lost the one he had in battle— another regret he’d had to add to the list; or some lost quidditch equipment from his father that Sirius had carelessly forgotten to return. It would suit him. Maybe. He couldn’t be sure.
He wasn’t that lucky. The closest he got to them was an old History of Magic essay that Sirius wrote, corrected by someone. Harry pretended that handwriting belonged to his father. He would put some letters together— the ‘H’ from ‘Hello?’; the ‘a’ from ‘What the fuck, Pads?’; the ‘r’s’ from ‘Are you serious?’, and the ‘y’ from ‘For crying out loud, did you even read the theme?’. Would James write his name like that? Deep down he knew those marginal notes and careless crossing marks weren’t his’. But who was it, though? Why did Sirius keep it in the first place? That handwriting felt familiar.
The first May weeks were lonely, but Harry liked it that way. Hermione visited him once. She was horrified by the state of the house and made him tell Kreacher to take care of it. He did. She also told him to go outside. He didn’t.
It wasn’t until June that the insistence of her request made it impossible to avoid. She would finish each of her letters asking him if he went outside. The word spread, and soon Ginny’s and Molly’s letters concluded with the same question.
He started with short walks, but the goal was clear in his mind— visit his parents. That was the main reason he was living in the Black household. His parents, Sirius, and Professor Lupin and Tonks rested in a cemetery close by. James next to Lily, Mr Lupin next to Tonks, and Sirius in an empty urn next to the family that had vanished him. Harry tried to change that, unsuccessfully. Wizardly law was messy.
It was cloudy outside, but it didn’t seem like a rainy day. Harry stood yet another time in front of those opened metal gates that led to his loved one’s deathbeds. He was ready to give the last step, to go through them, or at least he was more ready than last time.
His eyes wondered around, and like destiny— or lucky chance— they fell on a tiny flower shop— Lily’s Bouquet. A clear sign to not go empty handed, and Harry took it like a breath of fresh air. After all, he just needed an excuse to keep delaying what had been tormenting him for weeks.
The inside of the tiny shop was full of life, like a jungle. Harry could feel how each flower was thriving in there, and he felt drawn to their beauty. The scent was rich, and it filled his lungs with the freshness that the summer weather outside lacked. He couldn’t see the owner, but the owner had certainly seen him.
“Good morning! Welcome to Lily’s Bouquet. Can I get anything for you?”
Her cheerful tone caught him by surprise. She was kneeling down next to some flowerpots. She was cutting pink roses.
“Mmmh… Flowers.” Yeah, definitely flowers.
The lady looked up at him, her lips soft around a giggle. “I think we have some of those,” she joked. “Did you have something in mind?”
“Ehmm…” Harry didn’t know what his parents liked, but he went for the obvious answer. “Lilies.”
The owner chuckled instantly, though Harry didn’t know what was so fun. “I don’t have of those.”
Harry arched his eyebrows. “But it’s the name of your establishment.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” She stood up, a bouquet of pink roses between her globed hands. Harry followed her to the counter, where she started to carefully take the thorns off. She was fast with her labour, but somehow Harry could feel the love that emanated from every movement she made. “Who… who are them for?” She asked. He could see how her smile flickered.
“My parents.”
A little pause on her cutting to fill it with a sigh. “I’m sorry… for your loss. I’ll see what I can do.” She cleaned her globes in the pink ruffled apron she was wearing, leaving to the backroom of the shop. Harry didn’t know how she knew his parents had deceased. Perhaps that’s what happened when you worked in a flower shop near a cemetery. Perhaps her perception skills were remarkable. Perhaps both.
A strange sound— like the shake of a sugar pourer— accompanied by a sweet and earthy scent captured his attention. It was familiar, and Harry was sure he had smelled it before.
“Lucky you!” She appeared with two big pots in her arms. She was strong. “I had some in the back.”
White lilies.
“Thanks.”
“How many do you want?” Another question Harry didn’t know how to answer.
“All of them. In two bouquets, please.”
“Such a polite boy…” She mumbled to herself as she began to cut the stems. She was wearing a warm smile, but Harry couldn’t help but wonder if the sorrow he was sensing was actually there.
The sunrays that came through the window made her dark skin glow. Her short hair was tied— a half-up, half-down. Luna used to wear hers like that from time to time.
“You know,” she started to chitchat. Flower shop talk, he assumed. “I had this friend that hated lilies. Ha-ted.” Her gaze still on the flowers. She worked slower this time, as if she wanted Harry’s bouquets to be perfect. “There was this boy that had a huge crush on her, and one of the times he asked her out he filled our dorm’s common room with a thousand of them. White lilies, just like these ones.”
“Did she say yes?” Harry asked, engaging with the owner’s story.
“Nope, but she found it funny in her wedding day when he filled her fitting room with the same white lilies.”
“So, she did say yes.”
“After the millionth try, yes.” She chuckled. It was clearly a happy memory for her, and Harry was able to feel it inside. “Each time was more extravagant than the other: flashmobs, ABBA performances, begging, giving her all his desserts… That last one was my personal favourite. She shared.”
“Did she say yes with that one?” Maybe it was her storytelling abilities, or the joy she exuded, but Harry was starting to get involved with these people.
“Oh, no, no; it was when he stopped trying, when it all stopped being public. A simple walk around the lake. He opened his chest for her, and she saw herself in his heart, and found him in hers. She had a crush on him too, you know?”
“Then why did it take her so long to say yes?” He couldn’t understand such nonsense.
“Mmmh, good question.” The lady looked at Harry. Her brown eyes were filled with love. They were similar to Molly’s in that matter, but the love they radiated were slightly different to what Harry would define as motherly. “I asked her a million times. At the beginning she was clearly in denial— you don’t want to fall for the popular guy, it’s like, too obvious. When denial was no longer an option, she was scared.”
“Of what? Didn’t he love her?”
“She was afraid of just being a show for him, a performance, a joke. When she knew for a fact his intentions with her were pure… The yes was instant.”
“But didn’t she see how much he liked her through his gestures? I wouldn’t be that dramatic if I didn’t like the girl.”
“He felt too much, too deeply. He was acting up all the time— big gestures for everything, for everyone. She didn’t feel seen with those, since those weren’t exclusive. That’s why she was scared— she wasn’t sure if the gestures were for him or her.”
“So… Simpler was better?”
“For her, yes; ‘cause simpler meant being seen.”
“I think I understand.”
“Don’t get me wrong, big gestures are okay— and God knows I like that kind of attention myself— but sometimes you just want to be understood, cared for, loved… in private. And you can feel that through big and small gestures, you can give that through big and small gestures.” She looked down. “Here are your lilies.”
Harry hadn’t realised when she had finished the bouquets. Too lost in the story and in those eyes that loved in an oddly familiar way. The flowers were beautiful. Neville would have loved to see them.
“Thank you. How much?” He reached for his pocket.
“The first one’s on the house, plus, you’re making me a favour taking those lilies away.”
“Thanks, that’s very nice.”
Harry walked out of the shop feeling renewed. Didn’t know why or how, but that lady’s energy was something he’d been seeking all that time.
Now the visit to his parents felt easier, even though he simply left the flowers and walked away. He didn’t feel like attempting to hold a conversation. He wasn’t sure of what to say without mentioning the war.
He made sure to cast a spell on them so they’d last longer. That way he wouldn’t have to come back anytime soon.
Two months had gone by, and as the end of August greeted the chills from the beginning of September, Harry found his winter clothes in his wardrove— Kreacher. He hadn’t seen the house elf around, but the food was always cooked and served, the floors always clean, and the clothes washed and folded.
A few items hanged in racks between his clothes caught his attention. He didn’t need to take them out to recognise them— Sirius’ leather jacket and two of Professor Lupin’s coats. Probably Kreacher saw how poorly prepared he was for autumn and decided to warm his wardrove.
He checked his mail. Luna had sent him an envelope full of buttons and a note that read:
In case some of your winter coats lack buttons.
Harry grabbed some parchment paper. A reply:
Thanks for the buttons. I found a nice flower shop. You would like it there, is like a jungle. Maybe I can show it to you and Neville some time.
Love,
Harry
He washed his face and chose a jumper. He’d visit Sirius today. He didn’t know what to say to him either, or what flowers did he like. He knew he liked rock music and his leather jacket, so he took those. This way, in the case he was watching, he would see something he liked, and if he was listening, he would hear something he liked. A perfect plan.
Harry picked one of Bowie’s cassettes. It was Hermione in one of her letters who told him to see which cassettes were more worn-out to know which ones he liked the most. And that was Bowie, without a doubt.
The flower shop was as green as last time, and it smelled as sweet as last time.
“Good morning, darling.” Her smile was as warm as last time too.
She was wearing her hair in a bun, held by a stick she took away as soon as she saw him, her dark curls bouncing down around her round face. She was wearing red lipstick this time, which only made her smile brighter.
“Good morning,” he replied.
“How was the visit to your parents?” Harry found the question odd, but didn’t mull over it. The lady sat behind the counter, big glasses on, reading the newspaper. It was weird seeing one of those with still pictures. He had gotten too used to the magical ones.
“Gave them the flowers and left. Didn’t know what else to do, what else to say.”
She took her glasses off and gazed him. Sweetly. “Honey, you know you’re allowed to stay silent, right? You’re allowed to talk all day too. You’re also allowed to cry or save them tears for when you’re alone.”
“I wished there were tears…”
The lady pursed her lips and stood up. “How come?” She asked, leading Harry to a small table in a corner, next to one of the windows. The store wasn’t big, but somehow Harry had missed that table the last time he was there.
“Is just…” Harry hadn’t shared this feeling with anyone, not even Hermione, not even Sirius. But for some reason he was sat and about to share it with this gentle woman, who was making some tea in the cabinet behind the table, patiently waiting for Harry to speak. “I thought I was over their death. I haven’t met them, so I had to deal more with the lack of a mother or father figure rather than the fact they’re dead.”
“I see,” she said, now sat too, pouring two cups. The crockery was delicate, white, with painted red flowers and a golden edge.
“But now that other people close to me had died it all just…”
“Resurfaced?”
“Resurfaced.”
She took a sip. Harry did the same, trying not to wince at the bitterness, adding some sugar before taking a second one.
“There’s no timeline to grieve,” she said. “There’s also not a right way to do it.”
Harry didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing— just waited for the lady to keep going.
“I have some loses too,” she confessed, warming her hands around the cup, her nails matching her lip colour. “And every time I was sure I was over them, the tiniest thing catches my attention and I’m grieving again. Sometimes it’s a song we used to play, or a flavour I’m not capable to name; the smell of leather, an owl… It’s everywhere. That’s when I learned: you don’t get over grieve, you learn to live with it.” Another sip. “Now I remember them with joy rather than the pain it used to bring me.”
Harry understood her words, her wisdom, but only one question lingered in his mind.
“How?”
She smiled. “That, my love, is something you have to figure out by yourself.”
He didn’t like that answer. “But how do I do that? How was for you?”
“For me…” She took her mug to her mouth; she needed time to think. Harry realised he was probably overstepping, asking this woman he didn’t know about her grieve, about how she suffered it. “At the beginning I would cry until my eyes wouldn’t open, and scream until I couldn’t speak. Not very attractive, if you ask me.”
The little joke lightened the mood.
“It took me time to start going out of the house, and since I had no one to lean on, it was hard.”
Harry thought of Ron’s words. Support. He believed he wasn’t taking any of it, but their mere presence, their letters— that was also support.
“I was still hurt, and I would still cry myself to sleep from time to time. I didn’t know how to manage all the things I was feeling. All I could think about was how they wouldn’t have wanted me like that. They loved me. That somehow made me sadder.” She took another sip, this time to hide how it was getting harder for her to keep the smile up, but her eyes couldn’t lie, and they hurt. “Answering your question, I guess what did it for me was the thought that they would have hated to see me lose my life like that. So, I decided to thrive in the name of all of us. Then I opened this shop.”
“That easy?”
“Oh, no, no, no.” She shook her head as if Harry had said the most insensitive thing. He probably did. “It wasn’t easy at all. It wasn’t days, it wasn’t months. We’re talking of years until I accepted my living fate.”
“Why didn’t you seek help?” Harry asked.
“Why don’t you seek help?” She returned the question, her gentle expression back on.
A silence none of them dared to fill. The click of their mugs each time they touched the little plates they rested on ringing in the air between them. One sigh from her.
“Like I said, I had no one to rely on. My family wasn’t around, only two of my friends remained alive, but I couldn’t count on any of them. And there were other people I knew, but we weren’t close enough, and I was really ashamed. At that time, therapy wasn’t a thing. Well, it existed, but it wasn’t popular or liked. Only for crazy people, and I was depressed, not crazy. Now I realise how stupid that thinking was. Luckily, we evolved.”
“Luckily,” Harry echoed. It was his turn to share. Her soft features made it easier for him; a no judgement conversation. “I… I have people. I have friends and a girlfriend that I love and love me, and I found their family as my own. They write- I mean, call every week to make sure I’m alright. I do the same for them.”
“Still, you come here alone. You’re not staying with them, are you?” She was really observant.
“How did you know?”
“It’s really easy to see.” A pained smile. “You seem lonely,” she whispered.
Harry felt startled, keeping himself from coughing his tea out. He swallowed. “They lost more than me. Real family— blood one. Long-life friends. The people I lost hadn’t been in my life as long to understand their pain. I cannot ask them to relieve mine.” He was rushing his words. His harsh tone didn’t change her soft and approachable demeanour.
“Still, you come here with grieve in your eyes and sorrow in your heart. You say you’re not in pain, but your soul says otherwise.” Her brown stare met Harry’s. He felt embraced by it, understood. How did she do that? “The thing about people is that we don’t need a whole life to connect, we just need to share an experience we value as real. And boom— linked for life. And the experience doesn’t have to be life-changing or anything; it just has to be bonding. So, you can feel like long-life friends and blood family with people you met later in life. The hard thing is when the physical bond is broken, whether through death or life, it’s always painful.”
He nodded. It all ached because it was real.
Another thought lingered his mind. Maybe he should visit the Weasleys, give Ginny some flowers; she had been really patient with him, giving him exactly what he needed— time. But was he giving her what she needed? What did she need?
“So never, ever, ever, measure your grieve to someone else’s, ‘cause maybe yours’ from different nature, with different symptoms and signs. Grieve can be measured, but only within oneself.”
“That’s why I hurt more about my godfather than my parents?”
She tightened her lips, smile still on. Her eyes speaking to his as if she knew him. As if they mourned the same loss. “You really loved him, didn’t you?”
“It’s who I’m seeing today.”
She reached for his hand across the table, and Harry let himself be held. Her hand was soft and warm, motherly, but maybe that was the age or the gentleness of her touch. It was firm, comforting, accompanied by a glance that told him that everything was going to be fine.
“So,” she said while standing up, releasing his hand. Two taps on her apron as her usual glee came back. “Which flowers?”
“I don’t know. Don’t know which ones he liked either.”
“What was he like?” She asked, her eyes falling warmly on him, but also demanding, as if she wanted to know something only Harry could give her.
“Kind, loyal, good to me. He was someone you could always rely on, you know? He’ll be there if you asked him to. He used to be very handsome.” Harry didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t know how any of this would help her pick a flower either. But she was nodding attentively, so he kept going. “This jacket was his. Oh, and he liked rock music, mainly Bowie, but he also had some T-Rex, Led Zeppelin-”
“Queen, Lou Reed, Sex Pistols… Yeah, I’m familiar with his type.”
“Exactly! And he was a… dog person.”
She chuckled. “Okay, so, to a guy like him you better give him red roses— the reddest roses you have. And don’t you dare give him less than twelve.” The laughter went on.
“Then I’ll take thirteen,” he said, and the joke made her chuckle. Red roses. Sirius would surely like them.
“You got it.”
The lady brought the deepest red roses Harry had ever seen. They were almost bloomed, so they would reach their finest point once at the grave. Harry gave them another look as the woman prepared the bouquet— it was Gryffindor red.
“They’re perfect,” he assured.
“I hope so, I made them myself.”
Her hands worked around the flowers, placing them one by one with care and attention, rearranging them once the bouquet was put together to make sure it looked perfect.
“You know,” she said, just like last time. Harry hoped for another story. “I had an exboyfriend with a jacket just like yours.”
“Really?” He asked, even though deep down he knew she would have kept going even if he didn’t ask.
“Yes,” she replied. “He would lend it to me when it was cold outside. I won’t lie to you— I always forgot my jacket so he would do so.”
“A mastermind,” Harry joked.
“Indeed,” she nodded. The beam on her lips made it clear how much she had loved. “With time I started to borrow it instead of it being lend to me. With time it stopped smelling like me. That was the moment I knew it was over, that he didn’t love me any longer.”
“That’s so sad,” Harry got himself to say. He didn’t expect the story to turn this way so swiftly.
“Oh, no. It was mutual. It just took us time to get there, to understand our relationship wasn’t romantic.”
“Just friendship,” Harry attempted to complete.
“There’s no such thing as ‘just’ in friendship,” she corrected, and Harry thought about his friends, how they weren’t just friends. The bond she talked about earlier, it had to be that. “We would understand each other perfectly, since we were so similar. We both were a bit narcissistic, but you had to be if you looked as good as we did back then.”
“You still look good, ma’am.” And Harry meant it. She was old, as old as his parents would have been if they were alive, but she seemed to have aged gracefully. Only wrinkles from smiling and laughing.
“You’re trying really hard for a discount,” she joked. He laughed. “He was one of my best friends. We would skip class together to smoke, and we had this thing where we would trash-talk in French so no one understood. But we enjoyed the drama and being heard, so we would always translate it afterwards, just so that person knew we didn’t like them.”
“Wow, you were mean.”
“No, we weren’t! Well, maybe a little bit, but it was sure fun,” she chuckled really loudly. It filled the room, matching the beams of sun that entered through the window. It warmed Harry’s heart. “Mean or not, we grew beside each other, we learned from each other— he learned more from me than me from him, obviously,— we shared so many memories… I saw him fall in love, for real. That kind of love that only happens once. It took them time— they were too afraid of what people would say. But at the end, he wore that jacket better than I’ve ever did.”
“What happened to them?”
“Headstones in a lawn.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Don’t worry… We grew apart, sadly. I’ve never stopped loving them though. Even when everything went messy, even when it wasn’t right, I loved them. And I knew they loved me back because I felt it.”
“Did they call before they…”
“No. It was the fact that they didn’t what let me know they cared. Things were going south, and they didn’t want me there.” Her explanation was too simple to be enough, but Harry knew better than to ask what ‘going south’ meant. She had already opened about her grieve; he didn’t want to make her open up about another tragedy. “I kind of wish he invited me to the wedding, though,” she said to herself.
“They got married?” Harry asked, surprised.
“What? No! They were gay and was illegal to marry— hope that changes soon, though. It’s sad to prohibit love.” Harry nodded and she returned to her introspective tone. “I wonder if they would have married if they had the chance— they weren’t into all that stuff. But they probably would have. Even if it was just to piss my ex’s parents… and to change his last name. He always said he would take mine when we dated, though we both knew we weren’t endgame. I would have given it to him if he had asked.”
“So, who was the wedding you weren’t invited to?”
“Well, my ex went to jail-”
“What?” Harry interrupted.
“Let me finish,” the lady scolded. “My ex went to jail for a few years— he wasn’t supposed to be there— and then went back to him. Always him.” She smiled, not a single speckle of jealousy in her voice. “I think they were together until he was taken away. So sad. He had suffered so much and had so much life in him… and when he was finally allowed to love and be loved, bam— death.” She was talking about it lightly, but it was clearly an attempt not to cry. Harry could see it in the way her freckled cheekbones tightened when the smile turned forced. “Then his boyfriend married a woman; they had a son and everything.”
“Wasn’t he gay?” Harry was surprised by yet another twist of the events.
“Bisexual people exist, darling,” she educated before turning back to her dark tone, the one she filled with blue love. “But I believe he was the one that hurt the most out of all of us. He lost since the beginning— as if his life was rigged— but he was such a sweetheart. A lover forced to fight, that’s what we’d say about him. He hated it, though deep down I know he felt it as true.”
“A lover forced to fight,” Harry repeated. He knew some of those.
“Can I tell you a secret?” She whispered the way older woman do.
“Of course,” he replied, unaware of what may come out of those red lips.
“But you need to promise not to tell anyone.”
Harry wasn’t aware of who he could tell that would reveal this muggle’s secret, but he nodded eagerly, getting closer to learn what she had to say.
“Sometimes I smoke a cigarette to remember how he smelled— Marlboro, his favourite. And sometimes, and only sometimes, I’m able to close my eyes and pretend for a second— just a second— that I’m with him. That we’re skipping our history class since his boyfriend explained the lesson better. That he’s smoking from my cigarette stash since he ran out of his two weeks after the semester started. That he lets me borrow his jacket ‘cause it’s cold outside. That it smells like chocolate and old books, just like his boyfriend, who wore it last. And then I would open my eyes and kill the cig. I’m proud to say I knew how happy I was before I lost it. Before I lost him. Before I lost them.”
Her eyes began to shine, but Harry knew it was from the tears she was holding. An offer crossed his mind, an offer that might make her feel better.
“Do… do you want to wear it? My jacket I mean, since they look alike.” He took it off, handing it to the flower lady.
She took it, a little undecisive, before putting it on. She closed her eyes and embraced herself, and Harry wondered if in that second, she was imagining she was there, with him, her best friend. Maybe they were speaking badly about someone in French or translating it so people would understand. Maybe she was in that study session with her friend’s boyfriend. Perhaps was something different, something so intimate Harry would never think about it, or maybe he would simply not be able to understand it. After all, if he had to remember a happy memory with Ron or Hermione, it would probably be their late nights studying or the noisy trips to Hogsmeade— the tiny things he wasn’t aware he had to enjoy.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the jacket off as a single tear dropped over the red bouquet of roses. One of the flower petals fell when touched by the drop. “Sorry, I’ll change it.” And she went to the backroom before Harry could tell her not to mind.
After that, she returned with her usual smile and a beautiful white rose to put between the red ones. “I remembered boys like him like a little chaos in their life; just to spice things up.”
Twelve red roses and a single white one. Harry also asked for another bouquet for his girlfriend, and the lady provided.
His visit to Sirius went as expected. He left the bouquet beside the urn and played that record. The lyrics of Starman echoed inside the Black family mausoleum. He would think about that man’s story. The flower shop owner’s ex. He thought about his boyfriend. They were lucky to have loved so deeply.
Days went by. Harry visited the Weasleys a few times. Their arms were as open as they had been four months ago, and the energy of the house was almost the same as it used to be. The love was still there, but the sorrow would never leave. You don’t get over grieve, you learn to live with it.
He would give Ginny a bouquet each time. Like the boy of the first story the flower lady had told, he wanted to make sure she felt seen with that gesture, maybe by accompanying with a note, or picking a flower that resembled the colour of her jumper the first time they kissed. She would cast a spell on them so they would never rot, and that’s how Harry knew he was doing something right by her.
It was nice talking to someone outside of the war, unaware of its damages but familiar with grieve.
The stories of the lady always glimmered. It wasn’t about the content; it was more about the love she emanated while telling them. Harry began to know this people. Her exboyfriend was loud and obnoxious; he would make bold decisions excusing them as bravery, but he never meant harm. He was loyal and cocky, a messer, she had said. He was fast with the ladies until he fell in love with what she defined as “his only true love.”
That only true love was sweet and quiet, head always buried in a book. Quite opposites, but they worked together pretty well. He would give a helping hand to anyone that needed it, and she swore she only passed her exams because of his study group.
The people she mostly talked about was the pair from the first day he visited. The ones that got to marry each other. The woman who disliked lilies was smart. Not gifted. She made sure Harry knew the difference. She was a hard worker, always looking after everyone, making sure they all stayed together, that they were all good. Healthy. Loved. She described her as a mother figure in that boarding school they all went to. They would make her worry all the time, and she had to hide her cigarettes from her.
“She always said they would kill me some day. But I saw her smoke one or two in the bathroom. She always did that— surprise you from where you least expected it. It would be the cigarettes, the shots she would take without even wincing, the fact she knew every single lyric to every ABBA song… She was life— a fire. Not a fire that kills; a fire that warms your heart.”
The man was a messer too. Captain of the sports team, though Harry didn’t catch what sport exactly. He was meant to go professional, but life had other plans. He was meant to be a father, but life had other plans too. The flower lady always talked about his big heart and his loyalty.
“He loved so, so deeply; it felt like it could destroy him. Every gesture, every word… He was funny, smart and brave, but love was his greatest quality. A lion’s heart.”
She talked about other people too. Like some sweet guy she used to really enjoy talking to, who always beat her at chess; but his life had twisted, and she didn’t like talking about him.
There was another person she always avoided, but it was for the opposite reasons. She always said she was her bestest friend, her soulmate on earth, and then she would change topics. Her loss seemed like one of the hardest for her.
“Why is your establishment called Lily’s Bouquet if you don’t sell lilies?” Harry had asked on one of his multiple visits.
“In high school, I had this one friend we always said we were going to open a flower shop together.”
“The one that hated lilies?”
“Yes, that one,” she said between a smile, happy to know Harry remember all her stories. “It was a silly thing— I didn’t care about herbology, and she was too talented to end up working in this…” She waved her hand, an attempt to find the perfect word. “World.” She mumbled. Harry found it an odd choice.
She took a sip from the coffee Harry had brought her. He did the same. The sun always caressed her face when she thought about her friends, and Harry knew it was their way to tell her she was living right.
“You know,” she began to say, a story that was about to come. Harry prepared himself. Was it going to be short? Long? Sad? Happy? Which memory would she gift him with this time? “Pretending to work in this world was our way of escaping a reality we didn’t want to live.”
“Escape?” Harry asked.
“Yes. Escape.” Another sip. “It began as a joke, a ‘We don’t need to pass our exams, we can open a flower shop.’ Every time a little inconvenience showed up, we would elaborate on our little fantasy. We would place it near a café or a cemetery, since the profit would be bigger; and we would plant the flowers we sold, nothing of big company suppliers or anything like that. We would sell roses, violets, hyacinth, daisies, sunflowers… but not lilies. Never lilies.”
“She really hated those.”
“You have no idea… Then, everything went south, and thinking about our flower shop was the easiest way to escape, to not think about the war.”
“The war?” Harry asked. She widened her eyes for a split second, as if she had said something she shouldn’t have. But her soft stare came back with one of her wise replies.
“We all have a war within.”
They held each other’s stares in a way that was almost routine. He would enjoy those silent seconds where he could feel that weird almost-motherly love. So different to Molly’s. Still intense.
She began to prepare a bouquet— daisies and other wildflowers Harry couldn’t name. It was beautiful.
“So, do you have any plans in your life? Any idea of what you would like to become?”
She would always end up changing the topic, changing the focus point to Harry.
“Me?” He asked back, startled by the sudden question.
“Yes, you. What do you fancy to do with your life?”
The question felt heavy on him. He didn’t want to make this woman feel less proud of him. Her round brown eyes shimmered on his, patiently waiting, like they usually did. He wasn’t going to lie to her. “I don’t know.”
“It’s okay not to know. How old are you anyways? Seventeen?”
“Eighteen,” he informed.
“Eighteen,” she echoed. “Already eighteen years,” she said to herself, but Harry didn’t know if she meant his age or another event. “I had no idea of what I wanted to become until I turned, like, what? Twenty-two? You don’t need to know just yet.”
“Right… but it feels like I should know. Everyone does. It feels like I have no interests.”
“You see everyone go on with their life as if everything was scripted, as if they were told what to do, what to become. And you feel… left behind, perchance?”
“That’s… that’s exactly it.” Harry was surprised. Understood. This lady understood him.
“Don’t worry— been there, done that. It’ll get to you. And if it doesn’t, try different things. See which one kicks the most. That’s what one of my closest friends had advised me once. That’s what she would probably advise you too.”
“That sounds like a good plan,” he replied, slowly.
“I know, she was really wise.”
That day at James and Lily’s grave, Harry was capable of sitting down, of staying more than one minute.
He was pulling out the weeds and grass around him all the time, getting dirt under his nails. He was afraid that if his hands stopped moving, so would his lips, and there was too much he needed to say.
He talked about his friends, about Sirius, about that lady, and his own future. Without noticing he started to share his grieve, to cry it. For once, he mourned the loss of his parents, and not the lack of it.
Harry left the bouquet next to the other ones, but didn’t cast a spell this time. He was coming back.
The visits to the flower shop didn’t stop, and neither did the stories. They would go from silly memories to deep, dark ones. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but Harry found a treasure in each of them, and he always learned a life lesson.
He would tell stories too, but only the happy ones, changing some of the words. That’s how he ended up sharing how he got to become captain of his school’s ‘football’ team. She seemed proud.
“You know.” Another story. “My best friend was in the football team too, though she wasn’t the captain.”
“The boy with the lion heart was,” Harry completed. She smiled at his words.
“She was the fastest striker, even faster than him.” She had her arms crossed over her chest, wearing a proud look that made Harry laugh.
“Really? And still she wasn’t the captain?”
“It wasn’t about speed, it was all about charisma, and he had tones of those. She wanted to be captain, but at the end it was better for her— too many responsibilities.”
“Did she go pro?”
She was kneeled down next to a flowerpot. She stirred the dirt with a tiny shovel a few times before answering.
“No, not her vocation. She wanted to be a healer. You know, study in med school and become a doctor. She was almost done when she died. What a tragedy.”
“How did it happen?” Harry asked. He wasn’t sure what pushed him to make that question that she would most certainly avoid.
Another stir, dirt getting on the ruffles of her apron.
“It was all too sudden. As I said, a tragedy. All her family was taken. Not even a day notice.”
“All the family?”
“All the family. I knew her parents, and I had seen one of her brothers once or twice. It was weird to think I would never get to know the other one.” She buried some seeds in the pot with a lot of care, one by one. “She was a lovely human. Talking to her was like receiving an energy boost. Everything felt possible if she was on your side. Smart, brave, funny, strong, pretty… and she was my best friend. Sometimes it blows my mind how lucky I was to have met her. I’m proud to say I loved her. My dearest soulmate.”
Harry understood instantly. She was what Hermione was to him.
“The day before… it happened, we were talking about our friend’s pregnancy. She was planning her a babyshower, and I swear to God she was the most excited out of any of us. Even the mother.” She poured some water from the yellow sprinkling-can she held between her hands. The dirt turned darker, and its smell resembled the one that was under Harry’s nails. “But no one could blame her— she had been chosen to be the godmother.”
A godmother. Harry was short of one of those too. He always wondered why he didn’t have one. Maybe if he did, he’d have someone to call family after Sirius passed. Another lack he wasn’t sure how to mourn.
“She sounds sweet.”
“She was sweet. Sweet like cherries. Or more like a cherry bomb. She didn’t want children of her own, but she always joked on how she was going to be everyone’s godmother.”
“Like a mafia.”
“That’s exactly what she said. You would have liked her.” She stood up, returning to the corner table to continue with their conversation there. “Her girlfriend was promised the same title, but for another baby. They were going to be rival mafias.” Her eyes turned sombre. “Neither of them lived enough to see the mothers give birth. Both babies stayed without godmothers.”
She looked at him the way she used to do— lovingly. Not in a romantic way. It was with sorrow, almost tenderness. Like someone who had won and lost. Harry felt like he could get lost in those eyes. But he was sure she would find him if he ever decided to do so.
“Why?” He asked. As someone who lacked a godmother, he wanted to know why someone wouldn’t give their son one. Maybe the reason matched his parents’. Maybe that’s why he had a godfather but not a godmother.
“It simply felt wrong to replace them.”
“You would have made a wonderful godmother to any of those babies.” She would have made an awesome godmother to Harry. Sirius would have loved her.
“Thank you, son, but there wasn’t a better choice than her.”
She opened her mouth to say something more, to add a bit more depth to her story, but the doorbell rang. The first time another customer walked in on them. Just that this was no customer.
“Mommy!” Screamed the little girl who rushed to cling into the woman’s apron. She had already stood up to greet her.
“Well, hello Marly,” she replied, picking her up. She was probably around six or seven years old. Her knees full of colourful plasters from falls and bruises.
“Sorry we’re early, but she wanted to see you.” A tall man walked beside her, kissing her cheek. He was wearing a dark blue suit, his hair neatly brushed, a suitcase in one hand and a tiny pink backpack in the other. An office job.
The girl’s eyes were stuck on Harry, and he didn’t know whether to do a face or smile. He chose the second one, but the girl turned her face, hiding it in her mother’s neck. The flowers around them felt dull all of a sudden, like they hadn’t been watered in a while, and the smell turned dreary. She would still peek, though, until a question left her lips.
“Who’s him?”
The flower lady smiled. “Where have I left my manners?” She said in a voice. The little girl chuckled. “Marlene, meet Harry; Harry, this is Marlene.” That name…
The little girl stretched her hand for him to shake, and when he did so, she gifted him a huge grin with missing teeth. That smile returned the brightness to all the flowers, as well as the sweet smell.
Harry felt weird after hearing his name on that woman’s tongue. It was hard to pinpoint why, until realisation dawned on him: he hadn’t given her his name.
This visit would be different. The butterbeer bottles clanked inside the paper bag he was carrying.
“Hello again, love,” she greeted him when he walked through the door, when that doorbell sang. The plants were as green as ever— thriving— and Harry finally noticed how they all shared that familiar sweet smell he was able to place now. Magic.
“I brought you something.” He took the bottles out, as well as some magical sweets.
She opened the butterbeer without saying a word. A sip. A tear that would caress her cheek.
“Hogsmeade recipe,” she whispered to herself in a smile. “I’ve been trying to find this taste for so long.” She dried her face with the hem of her jumper.
It was evident now. He handed her a chocolate frog, just to confirm. She opened the purple box, catching the frog without any struggle. A witch.
She chuckled. She knew he knew.
“Remus was capable of eating dozens of these things. He almost had the whole card collection. He only lacked… Bowman Wright.” She held the card, showing it to Harry. She chuckled again at her luck. “You know, James used to have it, but he wouldn’t give it to Remus— it was ‘too precious’ to him, and it didn’t deserve to be ‘under the ownership of someone who couldn’t even appreciate the art of quidditch.’” She was making a voice, and Harry wondered if that was really how his father talked, or if she was simply mocking.
“I know who you are… You’re Mary MacDonald. A former member of the order.”
She fidgeted with the gold ring on her finger. “It’s Wilson now.”
They locked eyes one last time before she had to take hers away. The hem of her jumper was starting to get soaked. Harry’s jumper hem suffered the same fate.
“Harry…” She called with that motherly tone that he could now attribute to an aunt. “You have your mother’s eyes.”
And that statement felt different now that he knew his mother hated lilies.