AUTHOR'S NOTE: A reminder to my readers that I'm alive. I've just migrated (almost fully) to Wattpad, these days, and everything on this website is almost on a hiatus for now. I'm actually writing a Dramione fanfic, there, so it would be great if members of Wattpad would drop down and give the bool a read. My username's the same, and the story is called "Baritone."

STORY DETAILS: This was my entry for the Dramione Love, Mini Fest on LiveJournal.

My prompt was: Rival florists competing for the same customers (weddings, funerals, Ministry events, etc.) Would be funny if these were vignettes where we see them at various events discussing who won the bid this time and why, maybe antagonizing each other over the next event.

This is an American, Muggle AU. And the story sucks a little less than what the name suggests.

Flower Wars

Draco leant back in his chair, lazily smiling to himself, as he watched his neighbor fuss around with the ornamentation outside her shop. He chuckled, silently, when she stood back and proudly smiled at the arrangements of white roses and orange orchids that she'd displayed around the entrance to Hermione's Flora.

Silly woman, that one, Draco thought to himself. It had already been a week since the opening of her shop, and she had yet to entertain a customer with an order larger than small bouquets that lovers collected for their significant others. From what he'd observed—and he wasn't ashamed to admit that he observed her a lot—she seemed too systematic and too bossy to be in a business that revolved around love and celebrations.

Draco himself had been into it for three years, and his An Appetite for Flowers had been a champion among the Los Angeles folks, for the past two.

"What were you thinking, Miss Flora," he mumbled in amusement, glancing around his own shop and shaking his head, "opening up next to me."

He kept looking at her retreating back, eyes tracing her swiveling hips and voluptuous backside as she disappeared into her shop.

Haughtily, Draco stood up from his recliner and sauntered past the glass entrance to An Appetite for Flowers. This girl spent about an hour, every morning, spreading out all these different combinations of flowers that no one cared about. He gazed at the orange and white theme plastered over the outsides and insides of her shop, and his lips curled in mockery.

She had done a passable job, Draco had to give that to her. In fact, it seemed like a possibility to him that, had his very own florist self not been a resident of her surrounding, these arrangements would have been an eye catcher.

With his little smirk still in place, he chanced a glance through the window—which was the only means of looking into the wooden make of Hermione's Flora, by the way—to find her staring right back at him with narrowed eyes.

An unexplainable tingle danced along the back of his neck, and he immediately reached up to scratch it. Heat suffused his cheeks when he realized that he was practicing a nervous tick of his.

Okay, she was somewhat cute, he could admit that—but she wasn't cute enough to make his twenty-five years old self nervous!

Suddenly annoyed, he ran a hand across his light blue chambray covered chest, and shooting her a final challenging look, Draco went back into his shop.

"Oh, come on! Stop moaning like that, 'Mione!"

Hermione clicked her tongue stuffing a neatly chopped red rose into the arrangement she was putting together for Padma. "You don't understand, Padma," she glumly said. "That gorgeous asshole, next doors receives, like, a hundred customers a day! And I'm stuck catering to guys that are more interested in getting my number rather than my flowers. And none of them are as good looking as my neighbor…"

Padma rolled her eyes, scrunching her nose when Hermione caught her in the act. "I do kind of understand, okay?" her best friend began in a tone that Hermione well recognized.

"Don't," the brunette warned, raising her chopper towards Padma in a defensive stance. "Don't lecture me. I know it's been just over ten days, and these things take time, but… I challenged mom and dad that I was gonna sustain myself, Pad!" She shut her eyes, reliving the day she'd walked out of her parents' house. "If I fail… I fail for real."

Padma's hand touching hers made her look at the solemnly smiling girl. "What you did was brave, 'Mione. Your parents had no business dictating your life like that. It shouldn't have offended them that you didn't want to be a doctor. Don't start regretting your decision because times are tough."

Hermione smiled at Padma, but what she was about to say was cut off―

"Not bloody happening!"

Perplexed, she rounded the counter and quickly exited her shop, closely followed by Padma. A blonde woman stood outside An Appetite for Flowers, adorned with a runway dress, a Chanel handbag and shoes that were probably Louboutins, because boy did she look lavish. Accentuating her high society appeal was the beautifully trimmed Poodle with her, connected to the woman's free hand by a dainty, silver strap that Hermione was certain would break free if the dog so much as tried to stretch it to the fullest.

She was busy in a quarrel with Draco Malfoy.

"…doesn't matter, Draco, come on—"

"—is shit, Daph, because I've been here, doing—"

"—three years, yes, I'm aware! You only mention it—"

"—don't bloody care, you're not stepping into that fuc—"

"—dare you to—ah!"

Hermione's back straightened when the woman's eyes landed on her. Her gorgeous face, which was further beautified with brilliantly applied make-up, lost its earlier irritation when she flashed Hermione a smile.

Hermione smiled back.

"Miss… Her—mine?" the woman haltingly asked her, and Hermione almost shuddered with horror at the mispronunciation. She really should've used her surname in naming the shop.

"Hermione," she corrected, standing there with awkwardly stiff shoulders. An elbow being jabbed in her ribs reminded her of Padma's presence… and the fact that she wasn't supposed to behave rudely. "How may I help you?" she quickly spoke, her words slightly breathless and a little rushed.

But the woman's confused expressions melted into another smile, and Hermione's heart swelled with anticipation. "My name is Daphne," she—Daphne—began, tilting her head to a side in a contemplative posture, "and I found your white and deep red arrangements really impressive." She gestured towards the Poppy and Calla Lily decorations spread around Hermione's Flora.

Hermione's mouth fell open, ecstasy and adrenaline rushing through her veins. A cleared throat from Padma jolted her, again, and she nodded. "I'm glad! Thank you so much, Miss Daphne. Would you like to buy them?"

Daphne looked back at Malfoy, who stood a few a feet away from them with his shoulders hunched, arms crossed over his khaki Henley and a murderous expression on his face. "I'd like," she spoke, smirking at Malfoy for a reason that went beyond Hermione's understanding, "you to replicate this arrangement, this weekend, at my engagement party."

Draco glared at her heart-shaped arse, covered by a pair of fitted, deep blue trousers, waiting for her to stand up while he fumed. Well. The view was calming his anger down to some extent, he could admit, but—

He jumped back, clearing his throat when she abruptly stood up. "What are you trying to do, Malfoy?" she hissed, her curls bouncing when she twisted in place to give him a hard look.

For a moment, Draco forgot to breathe as he looked at her. Her cheeks were pink from exertion, and her chest was rising and falling with her harsh breathing. She looked beautiful.

"Malfoy!" she growled, clicking her fingers before his face, and Draco bit his tongue. He'd been looking at her heaving breasts, without meaning to. "Eyes up here!" She pointed at her own pair of gorgeous brown eyes, and Draco brokenly exhaled.

Damn. Her eyes were gorgeous, too! Incredulity and embarrassment hit him like a truck when he finally managed to catch hold of his spiraling thoughts. Fucking hell! His attraction to her was getting out of hand. "Flora," he began, grandly thankful to God that his voice didn't come out breathy, "did you take up an order for the Malfoy Associates' Annual Ball?"

She snorted in response, and turned around to walk into her shop.

Draco gaped at her retreating form for a moment before running after her. "You can't do it! That's—that's my father's company, okay? And I am supposed to organize every function that happens there, not some goddamn—"

"Don't finish that sentence," she menacingly interrupted him, dumping a roll of aluminum foil on the counter between them with unnecessarily excessive force. "Your father called me. I didn't go to him. I don't know what your family problems are, Malfoy, but I'd rather keep out of them. Go, talk to your father if you want this project. I'm not discussing this with you."

Draco kept looking at her face that was pinched in concentration as she busied herself in cutting the foil down into neat, square pieces of equal size. Like, how could he find a person attractive and yet want to strangle them, at the same time?

This was what they called the fine line between love and hate, he guessed, because his gaze was slipping down to her lips, again, and images were forming in his head. If he hadn't known how seriously annoying she was, he would've definitely offered to have hate sex with her—

"Also, get the hell out of my shop. And never return. I forgot to mention that."

—or stab her with a serrated knife. Honestly. He was good doing either of them.

Scoffing loudly, he threw a final, faux disdainful look at all the creative mix and matches of both cheap and expensive flowers—mentally appreciating the brains under her beauty and her bitchiness—for effect, he stalked out of the cutely decorated, well-kept Hermione's Flora.

"You know, if you find him attractive, there's a decent chance that he reciprocates…"

Hermione shot her a warning look, and Padma pursed her lips, looking back at her with wide eyes. Rolling her own eyes, Hermione went back to the list in her hand. Knowing Padma, she knew that the girl was still thinking about Hermione's gorgeous but arrogant neighbor. And cooking up something repulsive or embarrassing in her head. Or both, in fact, because Padma was talented enough to do that.

"His familial history is similar to yours."

Hermione groaned, smacking her notepad against her forehead. "Padma, honestly, I'm beginning to regret having asked you to drive me here," she mumbled, scratching at her forehead where the notepad had left an itchy spot.

"Well… you didn't, technically, because I forced you," Padma cheekily retorted, jumping a step ahead of her when Hermione stopped to analyze a crate of fresh Gardenias. "So. As I was saying, I think you should try and talk to him. Y'know, maybe―"

"Oh, hell, no."

She wouldn't ever admit it aloud, but Hermione had come to know his voice by heart. "Hello no, is right," she mumbled, tugging at a gaping Padma's elbow to pull her away from the stacks of Chrysanthemums that Hermione had been considering purchasing. "Let's go."

"Oh, don't run away!" Malfoy called out, again, and Hermione increased her pace.

Padma was now half stumbling and half running, next to her. "Hermione, maybe he―"

"I'm not stopping, Pad," she hissed through clenched teeth. "All he ever does is pick a fight with me. And right now, I don't want that. We already have our Lilies and Hydrangeas. Pansy Parkinson would have to see her mom off without Chrysanthemums."

"It's a funeral, Hermione," Padma returned, incredulously. "It's a big deal! And that Pansy woman is scary. She'll have your head if you don't give your best into this."

Hermione clicked her tongue and came to a stop, looking sideways at Padma. "Are you driving me back, or should I take a cab?"

Padma rolled her eyes and walked ahead. The moment Hermione herself had taken a step, though, her phone beeped with a message.

I've known Camille Parkinson since I was 5. I know we both had a rocky start, but if you pass up this order to me, I'm offering you the possibility of a business partnership.

Only one person could have sent her this, and that person was somewhere nearby. Hermione looked around.

He waved at her from behind a barrel full of white roses, a smirk on his pretty face.

"Asshole," she spat in direction, and walked out of the super busy flower market of LA.

"This is unbelievable!" Blaise declared, throwing his hands up as he stood from his seat.

Draco rolled his eyes. "I can see that, thank you." He pointed at the bunch of customers clustered outside of Hermione's Flora and then waved a hand around to emphasize his own empty shop. "Since the day Daphne Traitor Greengrass walked into her shop… that girl's been flourishing!"

Blaise pinched the bridge his nose, and Draco knew a lecture was coming. "Look, man―"

"No," Draco cut him off, standing up. "I won't look at your detailed analysis, okay? All I wanna know is how to fucking get my popularity back!"

Blaise gave him a disapproving look, and then shrugged. "I don't know if you can, Draco. She's kinda earned it, too. She has worked hard on the arrangements she displayed outside her shop, for months. That is what attracted Daph's attention, too."

Draco released a breath, and then walked out of his shop. There weren't any arrangements outside Hermione's Flora, today, but the customers were in abundance. He looked through the only window in her shop, and found her looking back with a victorious smile.

"Hey, Blaise," he began, eyes still locked on the crazily gorgeous brunette's averted face. "I think I should apologize to her."

Blaise's laugh made him look at the black guy and Draco grunted in annoyance.

"I'm serious!" he admonished. "I've been awful to her since the first day. I think… I should've exchanged smiles or something. Like. Such a beautiful woman, and all I ever get from her are scowls."

"That was a mistake," Blaise agreed, patting his shoulder. "You would've been friends, by now and this flourish of hers would've being helping you."

Draco nodded, numerous what-ifs swimming around in his head. Then he sighed, accepting defeat. "I also should've asked her out when I first realized I was attracted to her."

"Damn, right. She might have liked you back."

Draco sighed, wistfully, his eyes falling back on her. She was getting up―

―and looking directly at him. "Is she… Shit, she's coming here! Blaise, she's coming here!"

"I know, you fucking idiot," Blaise grunted under his breath, "I have eyes―hey, Hermione! How are you this morning?" he suddenly exclaimed when Hermione neared them.

Draco looked at Blaise. Had he lost his mind?

"Your usual, Blaise?" Hermione smiled at Blaise.

Draco stumbled a step back when Blaise smiled back. The fact that Blaise was her regular customer was overweighed by the obvious signs of him knowing her personally. "You're friends with her?" he asked Blaise in an embarrassingly high pitched shriek.

Blaise looked away, but Hermione responded, "My best friend's dating him."

Draco cursed, again. "Padma."

This was some seriously fucked up cross-connection.

"Now, about that apology," Hermione began, and Draco's head snapped up. "I'm a fan of frappuccinos."

Before he could register the meaning of her words, she was already walking back to her shop.

"If you're lost," Blaise said, quietly slithering away. "She asked you to a coffee date."

"I'm sure there wasn't any asking involved," Draco muttered, but a smirk tugged his lips up when he met Hermione's smiling eyes through her window, again.

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