Mrs Weasley's Flowers
Harry Potter stretched out his legs lazily and called for several newspapers he had left in Mrs. Weasley's kitchen with a quick flicker of his wand. The sun was high in the almost cloudless sky. The July afternoon was so idyllic that a few years ago Harry would expect that at any moment a bunch of Death Eaters can attacks him from behind the fence to destroy his peace.
But nowadays he had no problem with relaxing. No, he didn't distance himself from the past – he was trying to understand or at least accept it. After all he couldn't change it, right? Lying on a sun lounger and thinking of those two strange encounters with Tom Riddle, it was becoming increasingly difficult to believe that they really happened. Nothing has changed in Harry's present – he didn't restore his beloved ones to life and the scars of war still reminded him about what happened. Only he himself was a bit... different. Reconciled to his fate? He was blaming himself less and less, he even lost all the enthusiasm for an Auror career – probably he was never the right person to chase after dark sorcerers. Throughout his childhood he was running away from Voldemort and after many hours of internally discussing pros and cons of a Ministry employee's life he came to a conclusion – he no longer wanted to participate in the fight, regardless of how it would look like. However, it left him with a tough question - what should he do with his life now?
Since he met Mad-Eye Moody for the first time he was practically sure one day he'll become an Auror, a hunter, in constant run after the "bad guys". Suddenly it turned out that he doesn't know what he's good at and what he wants to do. He felt a little like before the first task in the Triwizard Tournament, except this time no one had any intention of helping him.
At the beginning he decided to go on vacation. He even considered going abroad, but when he was wondering where to go to, he got a letter from Mrs. Weasley, who urgently needed his help.
The Weasleys didn't get unscathed from the war, as nearly everyone who took part in it. Losing one son, they regained another, but it took many months before Mrs. Weasley could talk about Fred without crying. Until now she hasn't threw out the last sweater, which she wanted to give him as a gift. Harry himself avoided visits in the Burrow for some time, feeling remorse. Besides, he knew that the flow of time doesn't really heals wounds – it only allow them to turn into scar.
However, even grief wasn't enough to let Mrs. Weasley stop caring about her large family - on the contrary, it seemed that she was knitting her Christmas sweaters with even greater fervor, now not only for her children but also grandchildren. And when Ron asked his parents to come to Italy immediately - he wass currently working there, doing something he called "work for the Ministry" - the Weasleys didn't think for a moment - they packed their bags and left Harry with keys to the Burrow, because all their children seemed to be exceptionally busy at that time.
Harry accepted the offer without hesitation, the more because it appeared so perfectly on time. His only concern now now watching the amount of butterbeer in the basement and watering flowers in the garden. A touch of magic helped them grow longer and more luxuriantly than Muggle species, but Mrs. Weasley left Harry an entire list of tips for cultivating plants and he was immensely grateful for that, because there was no chance he would remember even half of the recommendations, which Mrs. Weasley gave him verbally before leaving.
He looked at his watch – a gift for his seventeenth birthday - and after a moment's thought, he closed his eyes. He will have a lot of time to reflect on his life. For now he should rest.
...
Before he could open his eyes, he knew that something was wrong.
At close range he could hear some suspicious scuffling sounds and perhaps he would have thought that it were just gnomes, dedicated to interrupting his nap, but the rustling was accompanied by whistling. Someone was enjoying his time rather pleasantly interpretting the song "Bless you", which Harry probably would never recognize, if not Hermione's love for music hits from the forties.
Who could romp through Weasley's garden? They said Harry himself has to take care of it. Maybe a casual passerby decided to take a few flowers for himself without the owners' knowledge?
The boy opened his eyes a little, not giving away in any other way that he's no longer sleeping, so as not to frighten the unexpected intruder.
Through his half-closed eyes he saw someone's worn-out shoes near the purple lilac bush, of which Mrs. Weasley was particularly fond, because she planted it in the garden of the Burrow shortly after the wedding. The shoes' owner brazenly broke off lilac's twigs - Harry guessed it easily from the crackling sounds. He already wanted to quietly get up and scare the stranger, when he noticed something interesting - on the ground, next to the bush, a wand was laying. He had a vague feeling that he had seen it somewhere before, but now he was more interested in who this clearly joyfull wizard could be - the only representatives of the magical community living in the neighbourhood, Mr. and Mrs. Diggory, moved out shortly after Cedric's death. In addition, the Weasleys have notified all their children and friends that they were leaving and Harry didn't expect any visitors. After all he hasn't left London for the countryside to now be bothered by some intruders.
And when he was about to get up and chase the intruder, the tune suddenly changed, The Ink Spots were replaced by Dick Haymes and the shoes went in the direction of just blossoming white freesias. After a moment Harry once again heard the newcomer cutting some flowers, as if it was a meadow and not someone's well-tended garden.
Harry couldn't stand it - he was supposed to rest and not get upset, but how could he not get upset when someone from the street or from an even more shady place decided to disturb the peace of this garden? He stood up, trying not to make a noise, and putting out the wand from his pocket just in case, taking a few steps toward the flowers-thief, interestingly dressed pretty oddly, Harry had noticed – he has seen pants with suspenders during a performance in his Muggle primary school for the last time.
"Excuse me, sir, but what are you doing here?" he asked, trying to sound polite, although he was almost boiling with anger.
At this point, the intruder turned, but before Harry could look at his face, he saw the bouquet. And what a bouquet it was - there were twigs of purple lilacs, and tiny white periwinkles, and inconspicuous flowers of clover, and blue borage. For a moment Harry was so enchanted with contemplating this view that he almost didn't see that the flowers were now in front of his nose. Then he noticed with surprise that in addition to the well-known lilac scent he also sensed a bit of mint.
"Happy birthday, Harry," said the intruder merrily and then the boy recognized the voice and face of Tom Riddle, completely relaxed, as if they were seeing each other every day.
For a moment, Harry didn't know what to say. Just an hour ago he was thinking that the meeting with Riddle was only his imagination. But now Tom was standing in from of him, smiling brightly and happily, holding the ridiculous bouquet in his hands. There was a gold Time Turner hanging on his neck and the rolled up sleeves of his white shirt were showing the slightly tanned skin. He looked quite like coming back from some old-fashioned picnic or as if he was a fan of vintage fashion.
"My birthday is in three weeks," Harry finally said, internally amused just after speaking the words. Of all the possible things that he could tell Tom Riddle, he chose something like that?
"Three weeks?" Tom sked. "I had to miscalculate the turns. I was sure that three will do it. Well, I can drop by another time, if you prefer – one celebrates seventeenth birthday only once..."
"Seventeenth?" This time it was Harry's turn to be surprised. "I celebrated it six years ago..."
Suddenly, the whole garden fell silent. Only the bees didn't seem particularly exited about this conversation and buzzed near the pots of red geranium.
And then they started laughing - loudly, almost ridiculously. Apparently none of them had any luck with time travels. Or maybe it was the opposite – they were always getting just where they should?
"Would you like some tea?" Harry asked, when he finally stopped giggling. "I can't let a tired pilgrim leave without some refreshment."
Tom nodded, sitting down at the wooden table and when Harry walked quickly into the kitchen, looking for the last few pieces of chocolate cake, he began to read the latest edition of the Witch Weekly magazine with some interest.
...
"You've changed," Harry stated, pouring next portion of iced tea into their high glasses.
"Are you surprised?" Tom laughed, his eyes shining brightly. "It couldn't be otherwise, if the spirit of Christmas was watching over me."
But why the future hasn't changed together with you, Harry wanted to ask, but suddenly he realized that the future has changed. He has changed. Tom too. Wasn't that enough? Maybe the time wasn't a continuous line, as he used to imagine it, with a specific beginning and end, but rather a puddle in the rain, changed at the same time by many falling drops?
"So you just wanted to wish me a happy birthday?"
"I thought we haven't seen each other for a long time," Riddle said, though Harry had the impression that he wanted to put it in other words. "I'd come earlier, but you have no idea how hard it is to find a good Time Turner..."
"Imagine that I know it quite well," Harry laughed, remembering the destroyed Christmas a few years ago and Hermione's stolen treasure. "Where did you take this one from? Dervish and Banges?"
"What? Oh, no..." Tom looked oddly confused. "I got it from Professor Dumbledore. He seemed very intrigued by my interest in the future."
"Did he?" Harry was a little worried. Could Dumbledore know that they were interfering in time?
And then he recalled something - he used the Pensieve in future headmaster's office. Had he forgotten to take all his memories with him? Or maybe the teacher had found some other way to know the future? But why he decided to help them and not dissuaded Tom from the idea of jumping between years? Harry could only suspect what was Dumbledore thinking.
"He even told me something strange then," Riddle continued. "So you can understand. I'm not sure what he meant, but I guess no one can say that Albus Dumbledore is perfectly normal... In any case, he was rather amused, giving me the Time Turner, and he finally added that I should pick a lot of lilac."
"And he wasn't wrong," Harry looked at a beautiful bouquet, currently standing on the kitchen windowsill. "How do you even know how to arrange flowers?"
"During previous holidays I worked at a little florist shop, Mrs. Cole's aunt owns it..." Did it seem to him that Riddle blushed? Apparently it was still difficult for him to admit that not all Muggles were as bad as he liked to imagine it some time ago.
"During holidays? So you're still at Hogwarts?" Harry asked, wanting to change the awkward subject.
"Only for two more months," the boy answered. "It's spring at my Hogwarts now..."
...
The sun has already begun to fall toward the horizon and cool evening breeze was blowing from the nearby fields. Harry would give a lot for this day to last a little longer. It was nice to sit in Mrs. Weasley's garden, when colorful butterflies were flying between pots full of flowers, and the conversation went so smoothly. They talked about many things - about Hogwarts and its professors, about the warm summer, about their childhood. They didn't speak only about the future, so distant and unreal, it seemed like a dream.
"I have to go," Riddle said, when the first star showed on the horizon.
Harry knew of course that Tom was right, but he was so eager to keep him at the Burrow for a day or two. Maybe he could even wait for his real birthday? Common sense left him very quickly, when he was in the company of this strange visitor from the past. Who exactly was this other Riddle, so different from the vision from the diary and quite unlike the wanna-be teacher from Dumbledore's memories? And what was connecting them now? There were no Horcruxes and the pain was gone, even fear disappeared somewhere around the spring, yet Harry felt that something stronger than a coincidence connected them. That something decided that three turns always led them straight toward each other, but he hadn't yet had the courage to use the right words to call it something else than perverse destiny.
"Till the end of time..." The might-have-been Lord Voldemort hummed softly, for the last time breaking all of Mrs. Weasley's prohibitions and picking several pink flowers.
Harry could have sworn that when Tom disappears, he will considered their meeting another dream. Perhaps only the bouquet will remind him in the morning who his guest was. Now, however, he enjoyed this strange moment out of the main course of time, knowing that it won't last much longer.
"Goodbye," Tom Riddle said finally, still trying to smile. "Goodbye, my spirit of Christmas."
"See you, my hopeless case," Harry Potter responed, remembering how he ran into a Slytherin student on a school corridor fifty years earlier.
And when he thought it's time for his guest to disappear and three turns will give each of them back to their appropriate time, something extraordinary happened - Tom Riddle closed the space between them extremely quickly, embraced him gently, as if he was doing it every day and kissed him softly - and Harry felt a longing and tenderness he never knew could exist. Then Tom jumped back as suddenly as a student who's made an exeptionally good joke.
"I'll be back," he said, laughing, before time returned to its proper place, and the guest from the past disappeared.
Harry Potter was standing alone in Mrs. Weasley's beautiful garden.
In his hand he held a bunch of pink carnations.
AN: Well, it's nearly past midnight, so happy birthday to me!
Another scene from the interdimensional meetings of our beloved Harry and Tom - the previous stories are "The Winter Stand" and "Early Spring". They are not necessary to understand "Mrs. Weasley's Flowers" but they explain a lot. I know that my Tom is painfully non-canon; I wanted to make a birthday gift not only for Harry, but also for myself.
As for the songs – The Ink Spots performed "Bless you", Dick Haymes sang "It might as well be spring" and Perry Como was featured in "Till the End of Time ". I recommend listening to them, as they're not only really nice, but also give a special feel to this story :)