The Florist
Hannah had opened The Watering Can the year after she finished University. She supposed there were better things to be done with her degree, but she couldn't think of anything. So she'd cashed all her graduation money and rented the shop next to a tea room in London. She woke up to a delivery man with a cartful of beautiful blooms, spent her days creating bouquets, and slept with her hair smelling of sweet peas. Life held a quiet, consistent rhythm.
Her job was hardly a routine one, yet it had consistent qualities. Roses meant proposals or performances, peonies meant weddings, orchids meant condolences. Carnations were for students strapped for cash, hydrangeas were for decorating the guest room when in-laws came to town. Bulbs were for the professor.
She'd been surprised the first time he asked for them. It wasn't that people didn't try to grow their own tulips or hyacinths every now and then, it was that they didn't try to grow over a hundred of them. But he asked in all seriousness, so she shrugged and showed him the crate that had just come in.
When he left, she shook her head and told herself to stop smiling like a teenager. Tall men with kind faces and knitted sweaters came into her shop every day. Usually to buy a surprise magnolia bouquet for their wives. A girl could dream, right?
Then he came back the next week, with the same request: as many bulbs as she could spare, in a different variety, if she had one? It took her a month to figure out her was a professor of some sort.
Once she'd pieced that together, it made sense. Not that you could tell everything from appearances, but he matched the image of exactly the sort of professor everyone liked to have. He wasn't the sort that drew attention to himself just by walking into a room, but when he did speak, it was with a patient and steady importance that made him hard to ignore. It was a kind voice, and a calming one. It fit him very well, she decided.
She quietly ordered bulbs and tumors from as far away as her budget would allow, and smiled to herself when his eyes lit up once they'd arrived.
Time passed, then one day the Professor came into her shop with a flower, rather than leaving with one. It was a beautiful calla lily, and she complimented him on it, joking that if he kept growing flowers like that he'd put her out of business. He grinned and made some quiet remark that was lost on her, when he followed it with an explanation that he'd brought it for her.
As was inevitable, his visits grew in frequency, and then in length. When he realized that his questions on the care of certain florals weren't bothersome—far from it, if she were honest—he would linger around The Watering Can. It was the simple things that fascinated him, and she appreciated the deliberate manner in which he absorbed knowledge. Once, she'd asked him exactly what kind of botany he taught, that he didn't know about planting seasonally. He shrugged, and said there were ways to get around that.
On a rainy February day, he showed up at the shop and asked if she had plans for the following weekend. She hadn't. He said that, if she was free, and really she could say no if she wanted, but if it wasn't presumptuous, then he had two tickets for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, and would really quite like it if she would go with him.
A month or so later, he asked hesitantly if she'd want to meet some of his friends from when he'd attended the school he'd taught at. She didn't know what she was expecting, but it wasn't the dinner she got. There was an incredibly protective and equally gorgeous redhead, with a quick laugh once she decided she liked Hannah. There was the redhead's pensive husband with the perceptive green eyes and a smile in his eyes at his wife's laughter. A witty and charming brunette who seemed to Hannah as though she, given enough time, could solve all of Great Britain's problems, and her witty and charming husband. A few others, just enough to show her how respected, admired, and loved her boyfriend was.
Another few months, and the couple made their way to a somber hospital that Hannah had never seen before. They had tea with a round-faced wisp of a woman who stared at the Professor the entire time. When they left, Hannah held his right hand tightly; in his left, he clutched a candy-wrapper.
It was around then that she realized that she was in love with a botany Professor, with the kind eyes and a kind face.
And on it went.
Come spring, Hannah Abbott and Neville Longbottom were married, in a quiet ceremony in the woods, with the trees dripping with flowers she hadn't known existed and the only man in the world she could imagine planting them with.
A/N: Hey y'all! I've never written anything this short/this style, but I couldn't shake this quick story of Neville falling in love with a flower-loving muggle. Neville is one of my favorites from the entire series; I think he's the sweetest and deserves only the best-plus, who doesn't love the thought of Neville being a precious professor? So please review and let me know what you think!