Author's note: Enjoy!
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.
Dedication: For Crissie
Warnings: NA
Experiments in Hybrid Flowers
Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower?
But I could never sell.
If you would like to borrow
Until the daffodil
Unties her yellow bonnet
Beneath the village door,
Until the bees, from clover rows
Their hock and sherry draw,
Why, I will lend until just then,
But not an hour more!
—"Perhaps You'd Like to Buy a Flower?" by Emily Dickinson
Luna drifted to the door when she heard the knock. She'd barely turned the knob when she heard Neville speak up from the other side.
"No!" he said. "Don't open the door, it's… it's bad luck to see the bride before the wedding."
"Alright, I won't," Luna said. She tucked a curl behind her ear before leaning against the door so that she could hear him better. "So what are you doing here?"
"I wanted to check on you," he said.
"That's sweet," Luna said. She looked down at the white chiffon bunching at her waist and gliding down to her feet. "I'm doing okay. I'm a little hungry, but I want to save room for cake later. Also I look very pretty."
"I'm sure you are," Neville said. "You usually do."
"How are you doing?" Luna asked. She was itching to open the door and catch a glimpse of him in his suit, but he seemed very preoccupied with not seeing her so she decided to bid her peace.
"I'm doing okay," Neville said. She heard the sound of his fingertips tapping on the other side of the door. It sounded nervous.
"Are you sure?" Luna asked.
"I mean, I'm a little nervous. It didn't seem that way when we were sending out invitations, but we invited a lot of people, Luna."
"We love a lot of people," Luna said. "But I love you more."
"That's promising. Have you seen the flowers, yet?" Neville asked.
"No," Luna said. "Ginny's been holding on to my bouquet for me. I wanted to be surprised. Are you pleased with how they turned out?"
"I am," Neville said. He had spent weeks in their solarium, which was more of a herbology laboratory than anything else, cross-pollinating and engineering flowers for the occasion. For all the hours he'd poured into the flowers he'd made for the occasion, he didn't sound as excited as she would expect from him.
"Don't be nervous," Luna said. "I believe in you."
"I'm not," Neville said.
"You sound nervous," Luna said.
"Well I promise, I'm not nervous because I'm marrying you. That's the only thing I'm sure about. There's just… a lot of people here and a lot of people who aren't."
"I know," Luna said. She tipped her head against the door, the oak hard and cool against her forehead. "Can you… can you explain to me all the steps you followed to hybridize flowers."
"It's not as complicated as creating new subspecies of healing herbs or magical plants," Neville said. "The most straightforward way of doing things is to start off with a bloom whose traits you want to replicate and cross-pollinate it with another flower with desirable traits—which you can do by manually pollinating the flowers or planting it alongside other plants whose features you want it to take. You create a genetically different organism when you do that, and the original plants' offspring will have a better chance of taking on the features that you were hoping to bring up. When you're on a time crunch, you can use some other basic Herbology tricks to accelerate their growth and…"
Neville paused.
"Thank you," he said. He breathed out deeply. "You always know how to calm me down."
Luna smiled on her side of the door.
"I should tell you that the only reason I asked for our bridesmaids to have pink flowers was because my mother had those colours when she got married," she said.
"I know," Neville said. "Your father showed me pictures that he had a few weeks ago. I didn't want to bring it up, this day is already harder than I thought it would be, but… I promise that the flowers are very pink; I could give you so much"
Luna smiled a little bit more.
"But… they're not too pink. They're still quite light and there's a touch of yellow to brighten things up. I wanted them to look like your mother's, but different because, well, you're different. I think the final product will look quite beautiful with your eyes."
"I'm smiling on my side of the door," Luna informed him.
"Good," Neville said.
"What was your parents' wedding like?" Luna asked him after hesitating for a moment.
"I don't know," Neville said. "I mean, I've seen pictures, but most of the guests were Order of the Phoenix members who, you know, aren't around anymore. I don't think my grandmother's stories would be quite as exciting as whatever the bride and groom and their guests went through."
Luna nodded. She cracked open the door and slipped out her hand.
"Is this allowed?" Luna inquired.
"I'm not sure," Neville said. "But I think we'll be fine."
He took her hand and squeezed.
"Your nails are painted," Neville noticed.
"Your grandmother painted them for me last night—she told me she painted your mother's on her wedding days too," Luna said.
"Hmmm," Neville said. "It looks like… it looks like we've found ways to bring the missing parts to our wedding day after all."
"Is this how cross-pollination works?" Luna asked again.
"Sure," Neville said. "We can call it our cross-pollination."
"It's good to know that we can take parts of our lives and mix them together well," Luna mused. Her spare hand drifted down to her stomach, swelling slightly but hidden by the layers of her skirt.
"I think we knew that before," Neville said.
"I… I suppose we did, yes," Luna said. She chewed her lip. They were having enough of a strange, strange day as it was. She could tell him about their own experience in hybridization and genetic offspring… later.
"I can't wait to see the flowers," Luna said.
"I can't wait to be married to you," Neville said.
Shipping Wars
Ship (Team): Luna Lovegood/Neville Longbottom (NA)
List (Prompt): NA
Word count: 1023