Author's Note: Enjoooy!

Disclaimer: The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

Warnings: NA

This week's AU: Flower Shop!AU

Flowers in the Rain

Secretly, she was a little bit relieved that it was raining. Business was always slow when it was raining—nobody liked to wander the farmer's market in awful weather, after all.

Except for soaking men in suits running into the shop, apparently.

He closed his umbrella behind him, trying to shake off the surplus droplets of rain before turning back to look inside the shop. She saw his warm brown eyes take apart and evaluate its various components; the hanging plants whose long leaves and vines dangled down, the shelves of potted plants and tiny succulents, the bouquets of flowers lining the walls, the door leading to a the cold room where she kept some of the more fragile blooms nice and fresh…

"Wotcher," she called from the desk where she'd been arranging a bouquet of roses in shades of orange and pink, for one of her regular customers. Some bloke named Vernon who seemed to constantly upset his wife for whatever reason—not her favourite, but he did sometimes make or break Tonks's rent on the little flower shop, so that was useful of him.

"Hi," he said. He looked at her, probably fixated on her hair which got folks excited all the time, and then at the bouquet before her.

"Umm, do you have any flowers that aren't orange?" he blurted.

She paused to process this for a moment, wondering if this was some kind of a slang term she hadn't heard by virtue of owning a small business and living under a rock.

"Yes, quite a few," Tonks said. "This… is a flower shop."

"Right," he said. He ran a hand through his damp hair. Ever since he'd opened the door, the air all felt damp. "Right, it's—it's really nice here. I should, umm, I should explain..."

"That would be nice," Tonks smiled. She snipped the end of some stems off with her scissors. "It's not often that men show up to my shop so well-dressed."

"Well," Remus said. "I'm dressed like this for a wedding, actually."

"Congratulations," Tonks said.

"No, no," he said quickly, eyes popping. "No, it's not mine! I'm a groomsman, it's my best friends, they're the ones getting married—we hope. It's raining pretty hard out there, as you can tell… I'm sorry for making a mess of your floor."

"Don't worry about it," Tonks said.

"See, they're excellent people and they're good for each other and they deserve this happiness, but the church they were meant to be married in flooded in last night's storm," Remus said. "And all these relatives can't get into town because it's kept raining and the roads are awful. Really, it's been one big comedy of errors and everything's gone wrong. So we've moved the whole thing to our favourite pub, and they're still quite excited about it and they're rolling with the punches on this one... but I'm scrambling to try and salvage the pieces of their dream wedding and I think flowers would really mean a lot to them. You know, they're only going to get married once—hopefully."

"So you're looking for flowers," Tonks summarized.

"Yes," the man nodded. "Because of the rain."

"Not orange, though," she said. She meant it teasingly, and he blushed.

"I hear you have options," he countered once he composed himself.

"That I do," Tonks smiled. "We got nicknamed 'the most colourful flower shop in the county' just last month, you know."

That had been Tonks' goal, when she'd opened the shop. Really, she'd just wanted a spot of colour in the village and so she made one—arranging her shop in rainbow gradients of petals and blossoms, painting vases and terracotta pots by hand, putting together corsages and bouquets for a thousand special occasions…

"Incredible," the man said.

"Your friends, do they have any favourite colours?" Tonks asked, going around the counter and picking up the basket she left there to bring it with her. She grabbed the stunned and very drippy customer by the hand and dragged him into the refrigerated room.

"Umm, well, umm, James' favourite team plays in bright green and that's Lily's eye colour—she likes yellow a lot, and looks good in blue, and their house colours were red… umm…"

"Alright, so any colour will do," Tonks concluded as she surveyed their options. She started plucking flowers into her basket. White crocuses and primroses, pale blue chionodoxa, baby's breath, slightly golden tulips…

"How many bridesmaids?"

"Umm—it's Marlene, Alice, and Mary, so three," he said. "And there's three groomsmen, but I don't think we were meant to get boutonnieres or anything, and then the bride and groom, of course."

"Right," Tonks said. "Right, that's doable."

She filled up her basket and circled back to the front counter where she started assembling the bouquets—three small ones, a bigger one for the bride, and she decided to make a small boutonniere for the groom anyways.

"Those are beautiful… this isn't even a bad plan B, your work is gorgeous. You're a lifesaver," he said.

"Don't thank me yet. I haven't given you the fee."

"It doesn't matter, it'll all be worthwhile," he said after a moment of hesitation.

"I'm kidding," Tonks said. "I'm feeling generous and really I'm a romantic at heart. I know, don't look like it, but I love a good story."

"I can definitely promise you that," he nodded. "Also, I don't technically have a plus one, so if you want some free food and a probably unspeakable quantity of beer…"

Tonks laughed.

And then wondered how bad it would look if she said yes.

"If I'm going to offer you that, I should probably tell you that my name is Remus," he said.

"Remus," she repeated. "Well, I'm Tonks. Maybe I'll tell you my full name after we crash this wedding."

"There will be cake," Remus promised. "I already got that all sorted out."

"Cake," Tonks nodded satisfyingly. "Well, if the icing's good I'll definitely tell you."

Stacked with: MC4A; Shipping Wars; Hogwarts

Challenge(s): Rainbow Focus; Gryffindor MC; Hufflepuff MC; Spring Rain; Seeds; Minerva's Migraine; Old Shoes; Stinks; Themes & Things A (Change); Themes & Things B (Surprise); Themes & Things C (Flowers); Themes & Things E (Evening Gown/Tux); Themes & Things F (Improvement); Ethnic & Present; True Colours; Rian-Russo Inversion; In a Flash; Yellow Ribbon; Yellow Ribbon Redux

Word Count: 989

Shipping Wars

Ship (Team): Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks (Technicolour Moon)

List (Prompt): Fall Medium 1 (Rain)