Title: Language of Flowers
Pairing: Teddy Lupin/Roxanne Weasley
Rating: PG13 for coarse language
Summary: Teddy Lupin enjoyed researching every type of flower that could somehow be construed to mean love.
A/N: Betaed by the wonderful astha22 and vwvampire. Written for the Flowers Challenge on HPFC.
When he was ten, I was six. I was sitting beneath the largest tree in the Burrow garden ignoring the celebration of someone's birthday. The party, torn between the inside of the house and the garden, had risen to near riot noise levels, and I, too busy with my nose in a picture book, could hardly be bothered to notice. Until Teddy Lupin walked right up to me and tapped me on the shoulder.
I looked up, taking in his Weasley orange hair and the smattering of freckles that adorned his usually freckle-less face.
"What?"
"Will you kiss me?"
Confused by his questions I turned my head up more and to the side, which he took as an invitation. He pressed his lips to mine in a quick peck of a kiss that was dry and foreign to the both of us. After a few seconds he pulled away and ran off screaming.
"I told you I could get a girl to kiss me, Fred!"
I grabbed my book, shaken and annoyed and went behind the tree so that no one could see my blushing cheeks or frown.
"You go apologize to her, now," Andromeda Tonks whispered in her low angry voice as she hauled her grandson by the arm toward the tree.
I peeked out to watch as his hair went from ginger to black and the freckles began to fade. His cheeks turned red. I went back to my book. He rounded the tree a few moments later with a flower in his hand.
The thing was attached to a long green stem that he held awkwardly in his little hand. On the top, six inches of tiny purple flowers blossomed out in every directions. They grew by the orchard in clusters.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, standing above me holding the flower out as his peace offering.
I took it. He didn't say anything as he walked away, head down in shame and a shuffle in his step. I emerged from behind the tree, holding my flower a few minutes later, the book forgotten in the shade.
"Beautiful flower," Aunt Hermione remarked, looking at the purple flower I clutched to my chest. "Do you know what it means?"
I shook my head, suddenly eager, though. Aunt Hermione never failed to know something interesting. She smiled and took me by the hand. We walked inside the house and up the stairs. By the time we reached Uncle Ron's old attic bedroom, I was so intrigued I stuck close to my aunt's side. She reached into a large box labeled books and pulled out a big leather-bound book. With the knowledge of a woman who never forgets a book she turned to the page and showed it to me.
A bright purple cluster of flowers attached to a long green stem swayed in a light breeze. Beneath the picture a single word stood out from the paragraphs of tiny text. I looked up at Aunt Hermione unable to read the fancy text.
"Sorry."
. . .
When he was eleven, I didn't want to go to see him off at the Hogwart's express. I was seven, listening to my mother and father argue at the breakfast table.
"Andromeda will kill you if you give that to him," Mum insisted looking at a box of merchandise dad had packed up from the shop.
"She'll never know," Dad insisted, taking a spoonful of oatmeal and eating it.
"I wanna go!" Fred shouted, for the second time, over the noise of our parents' discussion.
I focused on my own bowl of oatmeal, convinced if I stayed quiet no one would know that I didn't want to go to King's Cross Station today.
"No, you need to finish your school work young man. You're almost a full day behind. Your sister is—" Mum raged on, continuing long after I tuned her out, yelling at Fred, who suddenly seemed extremely interested in his bowl.
"Want to come?" Dad asked softly from behind me.
While mum yelled at Fred he had grabbed his box and snuck to the kitchen door. I shook my head, but he took my hand and pulled me out of my chair into the dining room. We were nearly to the door before I actually began to protest.
"Dad, I don't—"
"Come on, it'll be fun. The express is giant and red. Everyone'll be there, Uncle Harry, Teddy, and if we don't hurry—"
Mum's footsteps could be heard from the front door, which Dad had opened. I followed him out the door.
At the station, he held a tight hold on my hand as though at any moment I would be swept away into the crowd. There were muggles and numerous students with large trunks on trolleys. I watched as an older boy pushed his trolley with a bright orange cat on it through the barrier; another young boy looked on, his eyes wide as galleons.
"Just go through," dad encouraged the young brown haired boy and his father, both of which looked dazed.
"Through?" the father squeaked.
"Through," my own father confirmed, taking hold of my hand and leading me through the barrier as though it didn't exist.
We didn't wait to see if the young boy and his father made it. Instead, Dad pushed through the crowd until he spotted a head of turquoise hair. That was Teddy, who wore his hair in a different color every week.
"Oi," Dad shouted, releasing my hand to clap it on Teddy's shoulder, "found you. Here."
He gave Teddy the box, and then in a hushed voice added, "Now, don't tell your Grandmother about this or she'll have my skin. But I thought that every kid should go away with some pranks up their sleeve."
Teddy beamed up at my father. I watched as kids, some crying and others not, hugged their parents and boarded the train. It seemed pointless, at the time, to go away to school when your parents already knew so much. I'd always thought that my Aunt Hermione could teach me more than any Hogwart's professor could.
Dad, Uncle Harry and Andromeda began talking. Teddy and I stood there, both looking sad and neglected on the platform. His eyes turned from blue to brown to match mine. I smiled a little. His hair darkened, until it was just the right shade of brown to match my own, and he sported a few dark colored freckles over his nose and cheeks. A giggle escaped my lips.
His grandmother pulled him aside a few moments to give him a kiss on the cheek and whisper words of encouragement. She looked questioningly at the box, but he dodged her question by asking another one that I couldn't hear. Andromeda gave one of her soft motherly smiles and then pulled out her wand. With a flick she turned a button into a bright blue flower. He thanked her with a hug, and then threading his way through my uncle and father, he made his way to me.
"It's a forget-me-not," he explained, handing me the blue flower with a tiny yellow center, "Grams has had them all around the house for weeks. Says they help you to remember, stuff, like people."
I took the little blue flower in my hand and smiled up at him. Uncle Harry hurried him onto the train as the rest of us waved until the big red train pulled away from the station.
Later that night, I pulled the large book of plants down from the shelf. Aunt Hermione had given it to me, along with a few other books, after she and Uncle Ron cleaned out the attic. I turned to the index, looked up the flower and compared my little blue one to the cluster of them in the picture. The meaning, printed in elegant blue letters, simply read:
Memories.
. . .
When I was eleven, he was fifteen and sitting at the Gryffindor table with Victoire and my older brother. Teddy smiled, Victorie and Fred waved enthusiastically, as I marched in line with the other first years, all of us shaking with nerves.
Waiting in line for my name to be called, cursing the Weasley family name, I felt nervous standing in front of the entire Great Hall. As nervous as I was, I knew one thing for certain: I was a Gryffidor, brave, courageous, strong and reckless to the core.
"Ravenclaw!" the Sorting Hat shouted as it settled down upon my brown hair.
Stunned, I sat on the stool, until Professor Longbottom, removed the hat and then gave me a little push on the back. Dazed, I made my way to the table full of Ravenclaws and hardly ate at the feast. I diligently began to follow my prefect out of the hall, until someone grabbed me and pulled me into a hall. About to scream, I was stunned to see Teddy Lupin with bright yellow hair.
"You alright?" he asked.
I nodded dumbly.
"Right," he said, pulling me into a hug.
"I just thought I'd be a Gryffindor," I whined into his chest, the first few tears beginning to well up in my eyes as I lamented at the horror of not being one of Hogwart's bravest.
"Listen to me, Roxanne Weasley, you are the smartest witch to come out of the Weasley family in generations. There is nothing wrong with being a Ravenclaw."
He had resorted to the voice that his grandmother usually used on him when he misbehaved. With a half-hearted smile I looked up at him. He had bright green eyes, which sparkled in the candle light. He slid down the wall to sit on the stone floor before patting the ground next to him. I shook my head.
"I have to get back. I have no idea where the common room is."
The reality of situation dawned on me. Lost in the castle on my first night, after I'd been sorted into the wrong house and would most certainly be-
"I know where it is," Teddy told me brightly, offering me a bag of pumpkin pasties that he had produced from his robes.
I sat on the ground and took a pumpkin pasty surprised by how hungry I had gotten in the few minutes it took me to travel from the great hall to the hallway where we sat. I finished off the bag of pasties while Teddy shot sparks out of the tip of his wand. Amused I watched until he turned the empty bag into a blue flower. The thin stem seemed too small for the flower, whose petals weren't all the same size, but the petals shone in the brightest shade of navy blue I'd ever seen.
"It's a borage flower," he told me, as he held it out.
"How do you know all these?"
"Grams loves flowers. She picks a new one every few days and we'll go out and pick some or she'll transfigure them. She loves to explain their meanings. She says that flowers are like a whole other language if you take the time to learn it."
He looked a little embarrassed as he said it, but I thought the flowers were the most magical thing in the world.
"Thanks," I said, holding the flower up as a token of my appreciation for his words, the food and the flower.
"No problem, Roxy. Now, let's get you to your common room before anyone notices they're missing a genius."
He walked me up to the Ravenclaw tower. Just as the door swung open to let out an older girl, and admit me, I asked him softly,
"What does it mean?"
He cocked an eyebrow up.
"The flower."
"Look it up," he teased.
That night, I pulled Aunt Hermione's book from my trunk and looked it up.
Courage.
. . .
When I was thirteen, Fred nearly killed me. I played chaser, for my house team. Fred played beater for Gryffindor. Teddy, the seventeen year old, star chaser for the Gryffindor house team, winked at me from his broomstick high up in the air during our Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw match.
I gave him a smile, before turning my broomstick the opposite way and flying down the pitch. I managed to intercept the quaffel after Wood, the Gryffindor keeper tried to pass it to Teddy. Maneuvering my broom again, to do another one-eighty, I kept an eye out for a teammate.
Andrea rushed by me and I tossed the quaffel to her. She caught it effortlessly as she sped down the pitch. Her grace on a broom was something to be admired and hated all at once. I envied her ease and speed.
It was then, after I had gotten rid of the uaffel and had been about to fall back to help defend the posts that Fred decided to hit a bludger at me, from no more than ten feet away.
My breath left my lungs in a painful gush of air. My body went sideways off the broom and into the air, unassisted by magic or anything else. Fear made my entire body stiffen. My heart raced and I wondered for a brief second if mum would kill Fred or if dad would do it.
Just before darkness overcame me, I felt a touch on my body as though it were the hand of some god taking pity on a mere mortal about to meet her death. Or perhaps, bringing her closer to it.
I awoke in the hospital wing, my arm throbbing, but alive. Next to me, stood the entire Ravenclaw quidditch team, with smiling faces as they saw me begin to rouse.
"She's alive!" Will Cummings announced, probably to the entire school, seeing how loudly he shouted.
"Oi, Will, shut it," Andrea ordered, taking my good hand in hers and patting it sweetly, "Roxy, you broke your arm on your broomstick, but could've been worse."
The team nodded in agreement.
"Would've been a hell of a lot worse, if Lupin hadn't pulled you onto his broom," Will said gruffly, "Good thing that guy's got quick reflexes or you'd have been a—"
Andrea shot him such a sharp look that I was almost afraid she would petrify Will. He just shrugged his shoulder. I let out a bit of a smile. The team left a few minutes later, after Madame Pomfrey shooed them away.
"Your friends dropped off some things," the mediwitch told me, "You'll be free to leave in the morning, of course, but they thought you might like something to do."
On the bedside table were a few of my books and a large flat red flower in a vase. There was no note, but I didn't have a doubt that it was from my savior. It was yarrow. I recognized it from potions. Racking my brain I couldn't remember what they meant, until I remembered that we'd used them in healing potions that week.
Healing.
. . .
He was seventeen, standing on the stage with the rest of the Hogwarts graduates, while I, at thirteen, sat in the audience. In my lap sat a small bouquet of yellow and white poppies that I'd gathered the day before outside the burrow after the end-of-term party Grandma Molly threw.
Andromeda kept eyeing them with a knowing smile. Her little looks made me want to banish the entire bouquet but I knew it'd be too obvious.
When the ceremony ended the entire clan began stood as Teddy made his way toward us smiling while his hair turned from brown, as ordered by Headmistress McGonagall, to a shade of apple red.
Victoire, Dominique, Fred, Rose and I stood in a small cluster off to the side. The parents doted on Teddy for what seemed like forever while we, the children stood talking behind them.
"You brought flowers," Victoire commented wryly.
"Yeah, why not?"
"He's a boy."
She made a valid point. I looked glumly down at the little flowers whose brightly colored petals seemed to be losing their radiance.
"I think they're beautiful," Teddy said coming up behind me to look over my shoulder at the flowers.
I held them up so he could take them.
"Poppies," he murmured appreciatively in my ear, "Yellow for success and white for—"
Victorie cut him off in a hug as she began to congratulate him repeatedly on graduation. He smiled at me as the entire Weasley clan left the castle for Hogsmeade. I returned the smile with one word in my head.
Wishes.
. . .
He had been eighteen, while I packed my Hogwarts trunk for my fourth year.
"First year without me," he said from the door of my room, where he had been standing silently for who know how long.
I smirked over my shoulder and then retorted, "Who shall save me if I fall from my broom?"
He laughed, a deep chuckle. He stepped into my room and produced a flower from behind his back. A blue flower emerged on a green stem. I recognized it instantly as the same type he'd transfigured for me after I'd been sorted into Ravenclaw. A borage. I took it and smiled.
"So what'll you be doing, now that you're a fully trained wizard?'
"Auror training. I actually just came to say bye to Fred before I head off tomorrow."
My stomach sank into a deep pit of dread.
"Isn't that dangerous?'
He laughed as though my worries were as silly as my question. I sighed and pressed the flower into his palm. His head tilted in question.
"You'll need it more than I will."
I had been fifteen when I realized the strangest thing about Teddy Lupin. I actually realized the strangest thing about myself, with regards to Teddy. I loved the man who had been considered my cousin growing up.
When James announced to the entire platform that Teddy had come to see Victorie off, and was, of all things, snogging her, my heart sank down. I knew that Teddy had been spending his time off from training at the Shell Cottage, but I hadn't really put the two together. Logically, they were around the same age and of the same general social circle. They'd known each other since near birth and got along reasonably. From a logical point of view it was a suitable match. My heart didn't seem to agree with logical.
After the feast, Victorie, Rose, Molly and I were walking away from the great hall. I'd only be able to walk a few flights of stairs with them before I'd need to go off on my own. Victorie clutched a small box of candy in her hand.
"Teddy sent it," she explained holding up the box of Honeyduke's finest and a note.
"No flowers," Rose joked innocently.
Victorie shook her head, and then said in a happy voice filled with love, "He's not really a flowery type of guy."
I nearly choked. I wanted to scream. Instead I wandered back to my common room and picked up the book of flowers that Aunt Hermione had given me so many years ago. I fluttered through the pages until I became bored. There, mocking me as they swayed in a nonexistent breeze were the large clusters of purple flowers that Teddy had first given me. I shut the book and transfigured myself a vase and a single purple hyacinth just like the one in the picture. Then I waved my wand until the purple flowers were a bright shade of yellow.
Jealousy.
. . .
When I was seventeen, I sat upon the stage until my name was called, cursing the Weasley name. Lupin, twenty-one, sat in the audience with a bouquet of yellow and white poppies in his lap.
When all of the graduates, finally graduated I made my way to the sea of red-haired people and let myself be enveloped in their congratulations and praise. After all of the aunts and uncles had doted on their Ravenclaw, I made my way to the cousins.
Victorie glared daggers at the bouquet, and then just as Teddy opened his mouth to congratulate me she snapped, "I thought you hated flowers."
Teddy quickly retorted something in a harsh whisper that I couldn't hear, because Fred chose that moment to pull me into a tight hug and shout, "My little sister graduated!"
"Despite your best effort to kill me."
"That was years ago," he said wrapping an arm around my shoulders and steering me away from the fight between Teddy and Victorie that was beginning to become heated. It continued on during the graduation party that my parents held at our house. Amidst all of the noise from the party no one noticed Teddy storm out of the house and into the garden except for me.
I followed him as soon as I could. He sat on the bench in the garden looking up at the stars. I took the seat next to him.
"She left," he whispered.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm not."
He picked at the blades of grass and then began flicking his wand at them. The picked grass turned shifted into little flowers of different colors. There were reds and purples and whites, all without stems resting on the grass.
"What are they?"
"Anemones," he murmured plucking one off the ground and tucking it in my hair.
I knew what they meant without my book.
Unfading Love
. . .
I was eighteen when Victorie celebrated her twentieth birthday as the family celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the fall of Voldemort. There were banners, many made by Dad, and streamers, hung by Uncle Ron. The noise level had approached deafening and continued on. The only thing missing was Teddy, and his absence seemed to be leaving a giant hole in the party.
"I'm sure he's fine, Harry," Aunt Ginny assured him as Uncle Harry looked around the room for Teddy Lupin again.
It occurred to me as I wandered into the kitchen. That today wasn't just Victorie's birthday or the anniversary of the defeat of Voldemort. Grandma Molly had set knives to chop rosemary on the counter and as I stared at it everything fell into place.
I knicked a sprig of the herb and walked outside charming it to bloom tiny blue flowers and multiply until there was a handful of it. Andromeda Tonks gave me a soft smile as she watched me walk to the big tree where I knew I could apparate away without being seen. It was the same tree Teddy had first kissed me under. I left with a pop.
Sitting beneath a large willow tree, Teddy stared at two identical headstones. When I got closer I could read them both, but they only said the names of the bodies below them and dates. I felt like I was intruding in the silent cemetery and upon the young brown haired man. Gathering what little courage I had, I walked toward him.
"Hey Roxy," he murmured.
I smiled. He looked at the rosemary in my hand and then reached for it. He took the handful and divided into the rosemary into two small bundles and laid them on the tombstones.
"How did you know I'd be here?"
I plucked one of the stems of the rosemary from Remus Lupin's tombstone and held it up in response. He smiled weakly and leaned his head on my shoulder.
"You alright?"
"Fine, just didn't feel like going to a party today."
I nodded in understanding.
"I needed something else," he sighed.
He pulled the little green needles off the rosemary in my hand.
Remembrance.
. . .
We were put at the same table at Victorie's wedding. He was twenty-five and I was twenty-one. I hadn't seen him in over a year. Will Cummings, my old housemate, and I had been dating for two months. He had the misfortune of being stuck at the same table as Teddy and I.
Teddy picked up a large hydrangea out of the centerpiece and held it limply in his fingers, eyeing it with disgust.
f"Victorie or Grandmum will kill you if they see you destroying the flowers," I told him.
"Who picks hydrangeas for a wedding?" he asked.
Earlier I had eyed the large purple and blue centerpieces with awe. They were beautiful in color and shape. The hydrangeas were full and covered with smaller flowers with elegant and fragile petals.
"Haven't you ever chosen a flower for how it looks?" I asked, annoyed at his judgment of Victorie's wedding day.
He shook his head, letting the shaggy brown hair cover his blue eyes.
Teddy had distanced himself from the Weasley clan as the years passed. I had been hurt by it more than anyone else. I missed him and the way he could effortless change the mood in a room, especially during one of the Weasley parties. At the wedding, he seemed off as though he'd changed into a more bitter version of himself. I wondered if perhaps he still loved Victorie and seeing her get married was hard.
Will and I danced. I looked up at the hydrangea blossoms that hung from the tent. They looked cold and harsh, their fragile petals fake and waxy.
Heartlessness.
. . .
A few weeks later, Will and I drifted apart. Which is a nice way of saying we stopped owling, flooing and meeting, because neither one of us was really interested in the other. I lived in a small flat in London, which was close to St. Mungo's where I had been working for nearly two years. I enjoyed training to be a healer; it challenged me and let me do something that meant something with my life.
He was twenty-five, still an Auror, when he showed up on my doorstep. I let him in after he knocked and offered him tea. He left while I prepared the tea in the kitchen. All that remained was a single red tulip on my table.
Declaration of Love.
. . .
A day later, I forced myself to go to Teddy's flat and flat out address him about the tulip. He wasn't home. I went to his grandmother's.
"He's left the country," she explained, "An Auror mission took him to Bulgaria for six months. Didn't he tell you?"
He hadn't. On her table a vase of flowers with yellow centers nearly as large as galleons and many tiny white petals surrounding them sat in the place of honor. When I stood to leave, she took a vase of the same flowers from the kitchen and gave them to me. I raised an eyebrow.
"Feverfew," she explained, "They mean—"
"Protection," I finished for her.
. . .
Twenty-two years old, I worked dawn till dusk at St. Mungo's or I studied for my healing exams. When I couldn't wiggle my way out of them with excuses of needing to study, I attended the Weasley family functions.
In this day in particular, Mum had guilt tripped me into attending, because I hadn't gone to the last three. So I closed my books and flooed to the burrow.
Everyone in the Burrow had been thrown into the garden. Grandma Molly and Aunt Audrey nearly shoved me out the door as soon as I arrived, telling me that they needed the room in the kitchen to cook. There were trays of food under heating charms all the way out into the sitting room, so I let myself be ushered into the garden.
The Weasley family had a knack for multiplying. Victorie was pregnant, and Fred looked rather serious with his girlfriend, Monica. I could only imagine that someday the house would be too small to fit us all and I would be allowed to fade into the background, no longer required to drag myself to these events.
It was during that thought that I saw a flash of turquoise hair. I hadn't realized he'd returned from Bulgaria, but as he made his way through the crowd toward me, the truth stared me in the face.
"Hey Roxy," he greeted.
I gave him a strained smile.
"Everything alright?"
How do you say 'fuck you' in flowers, I wondered. Instead I turned and disappeared into the crowd of Weasleys, letting my lack of answer be all the answer I needed to give.
He found me in the crowd before dinner, holding a single purple hyacinth as though it would fix everything. I shook my head and took my seat between Dad and Uncle Ron. Throughout dinner Teddy changed his hair and nose on whim, much to Lily and Hugo's delight. I pretended not to notice, even when he did my favorite, brown hair, brown eyes and a few freckles on his face.
As I headed to the fireplace, the first to leave for the night, he caught me by the arm.
"Can't we talk?"
I shook my head.
"Why not?'
We'd said so much of our relationship in flowers that I wasn't sure if it even existed or if it was just a trick of my imagination and a few pretty petals. I spent days looking up every possible meaning of a red tulip. Red tulips could also mean believe me. Tulips in general stood for fame and charity. Finally, I had tucked the flower away into the small wooden box with the rest of the flowers and ignored it.
I left the Burrow without giving him an explanation.
Three days later, I returned from work and worried that my apartment building had been sold to a florist. Every surface had been covered in vases all filled with flowers. There were roses, red, white and pink. Purple hyacinths sat in a large arrangement on my dining room table surrounded by candles and red and yellow tulips. Carnations covered my sofa and the rug surrounding it. On my desk were four vases of forget-me-nots. A trail of rose petals led from the door to the bedroom.
The bedroom was empty except for a large bouquet of anemones in various colors that sat upon the bed behind a small slip of parchment that had been folded to sit up. I picked up the card and read,
I love you.
. . .
It took an hour to track him down to the burrow, and thirty minutes to escape the clutches of my grandmother to get him back to my apartment. He had the nerve to flash me a cheeky smile as he stepped out of the fireplace.
"Got an admirer?"
"Stalker," I replied bitterly.
"At least he has good taste."
I pressed my lips to his, only to stop the petty bantering from continuing.
"I think I love you," he whispered in one of the rare moments in which we broke apart.
I knew it. The flowers said it, but it felt so good to hear it.
"I think I love you, too."
At twenty-three years old, I received flowers daily. At times they sat on the kitchen table when I came home from work. Other times were on the bedside table or my desk. Some days they appeared at work, in my office a small vase perched on my desk to brighten my day.
He was twenty-seven and enjoyed researching every type of flower that could somehow be construed to mean love.
I had never told him that my favorite flowers were the little white blossoms of baby's breath that he repeatedly used as filler. I gathered a few stems from the flowers on the desk and the ones on the kitchen table and tied them together with a little ribbon. I snatched a quill and wrote a single word on a parchment before slipping the note into the ribbon and going into the bedroom.
I laid the flowers on my pillow, so that he'd see them when he woke up. Reluctantly, I flooed to work. When he awoke he'd see the flowers and my note.
Happiness.