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Chapter 3
Peony is a large, fragrant flower that blooms in colors from white to pink to purple to red.
Rose watched him walk away and heaved a sigh of relief. How odd was it that Neville Longbottom was flirting with her? Even as she told herself it was only because he didn't realize who she really was, she still felt like it was odd. Every time he said her name she felt nervous and wondered how he would treat her when he learned the truth. She wanted to be settled into her new life before anyone figured it out, if Neville Longbottom was going to be working just across the street from her, would she be able to keep up the pretenses?
Truly, she was Rose Russo more than she was Pansy Parkinson. But Daphne still called her Pansy sometimes, and with her move back into the wizarding world other people were sure to drop by to see her if they figured out she was there to find.
She thought briefly of some of her childhood friends and wondered how they fared after the war's end. It wouldn't be long before she figured it out, she guessed. For now, she had a house to set up, a shop to get in order, and a raging heartbeat she needed to calm.
Because there was just the tiniest part of her that really liked the way Neville flirted with her. Liked the way his eyes roamed over her curves. It had been so long since such attention had been lavished on her by anyone other than her husband, she'd forgotten what it felt like.
It had taken about a year for her to take off her wedding band, and then some time still to get used to it not being there. Neville hadn't looked at her ring finger, but he had spent time looking at her overly large hips.
She just couldn't tell if it was in appreciation or disgust. But then he had flirted with her until her cheeks had turned red so maybe he liked what he saw.
… And maybe she was spending too much time thinking about it.
She left the front door open and pulled out her wand, opening all the windows in the large storage building she had converted into a home. The ground floor was two stories high, with large windows on both sides that once opened allowed the summer breeze to come in.
The walls were painted white, waiting for Penny's creative streak to color them in. On the back wall of exposed brick she set up a kitchen with extra sinks so she could brew and a wall of cabinets to hold their art supplies and kitchen items. A large island had a six-burner gas stove and more storage. The floors had been filthy, even after an intense session with Scourgify, so she had poured black concrete over them until they gleamed. Now they looked clean and shiny and ready for her to set up furniture. She dug into her pocket and pulled out the tiny cardboard box she had brought over from her old place.
During her time living in the Muggle world had humbled her to magic, she had rarely used her wand if she could help it. But it was times like this she felt like magic was in order. She waved her wand and directed and, with some time and some satisfaction, her and Penny's house unfolded before her. Art supplies went into the cupboards, dishes and pots and pans went to the island, clothes and beds and dressers shot upstairs and grew into their right size. Rugs unfolded and chairs pushed under the table. Art work went up on the walls and white and blue curtains draped the windows, fluttering in the summer breeze. An hour after she started, her house was unpacked and in order so she turned her attention to the shop while she still had the time and the energy.
She put what product she had in the storage closet and turned to the bags Neville had left on the counter. Sitting right on top was the bottle of Lemongrass Oil she had decided she didn't absolutely need and didn't purchase. She thought back and tried to remember if she had changed her mind and bought the small bottle, but no… she was sure she hadn't.
Neville though… had he been watching her?
"That man…" she wondered how on earth she was going to deal with Neville Longbottom. She didn't want to lie, but coming right out and telling him her real name would surely put him against her. She assumed he was single, since he had so blatantly flirted with her and wondered how he had fared after the war. She tried to remember if she had read anything about him in the months before she escaped and hadn't looked back but nothing came to mind.
All she knew, she knew from knowing him in school. And that had been years ago.
She popped the top of the bottle off and took a long breath, inhaling the intoxicating and fresh scent that she adored. She placed a few drops on her neck and rubbed them into the skin.
Damn… he made her smile that smile. The kind of smile Phil had no problems bringing about. She admitted it could have been the fresh scent, but the man was smooth leaving the oil for her to find like that.
She held back a sigh and tucked the bottle into her pocket, trying to think about anything other than Neville Longbottom, and spread her newly acquired plants across the counter. At the bottom of one bag she found the wind chimes she picked to place above the shop door. With delicate chiming, she moved them to the hook above the front door and the moment they stilled, she felt intensely satisfied.
And then startled when the door flew open and Penny came in in a whirl of color and feathers and chatter, followed quickly by Aunt Daphne who had about a million shopping bags in her hands.
"Penny!" Rose scooped her up in a twirl, spinning her daughter around. "What are you wearing?"
"It's a Feather Hat, Aunt Daph got it for me." her daughter told her, posing for a brief second to show off the cap with the bright purple and pink feather sticking out of the top.
"Fancy! Are you ready to see the new house?"
"Are you ready for me to paint all the walls?"
"Yes, I even have the paint supplies unpacked." she said crossing her arms.
"Then YES I AM READY!" she double fisted the air and took off out the back door in her usual energetic manner.
"Oh she knows where she's going apparently." Rose laughed then hugged Daphne. "How was your day together?"
"I get more cardio running after her than on the treadmill." Daphne said, dropping her bags onto the counter.
"Treadmill? You went Muggle?"
"I love it. Not as much as my cell phone, or as much as my laptop, but I think this relationship can work, I like when my hips stay small." Daphne lifted herself up on the counter and looked around. "I like the greenery. Where did you get it so fast?"
If there was anyone she could talk to about her encounter with Neville it would be Daphne.
"Oohh this charming little shop across the street. I went in and got caught up in the euphoria of all the herbs and flowers and oils and then I turned around and bam. Ran right into him."
"Him? Who? Ran into who?" Daphne raised a single, perfect blonde eyebrow, intrigued by her story already.
"Oh this tall roguish man, dreamy blue eyes, bulky arms and shoulders, these solid red lips…"
"So you've met the most perfect man apparently. While I was entertaining your daughter."
"You weren't entertaining, you were trying to keep up. Don't try to fool me." Rose scrunched up her face in Daphne's direction as she begun to hang her plants and flowers around the shop.
She shrugged and returned the funny face. "Back to the perfect man please. You're single now, I get to live vicariously through you or I get nothing at all."
"Excuse me, didn't you just go out on a date with Witch Weekly's Mr. March?"
Daphne sighed dramatically, prolonging the sound for as long as she could. "Rosie… he Marched away with my heart. Now don't make me ask again!"
"Ask about what?" Rose shrugged teasingly. Daphne was her best friend, but she wanted the witch to beg for it.
"Mr. Perfect?"
"Perfectly handsome, perfectly flirty, perfectly and totally... Neville Longbottom." she let the irony be heard.
Daphne's lips formed a perfect 'O'. "I need you to use small, simple words."
"Neville Longbottom owns and runs the Herb Shop across the street, and he flirted with me. And looked at my ass."
Daphne fake fainted off the counter and fell to the floor dramatically.
"Daph! You have been spending too much time with my daughter."
"He's hot."
"He doesn't even recognize me." Rose said. "I introduced myself as Rose."
"Rose, crazy idea but… you could tell him the truth. It's been so long, I work with a bunch of Hufflepuffs, they don't care that I'm a Slytherin."
"Because you stayed out of it." Rose regretted the part she played in the war, however small it was. But it had taken a long time for her to come to terms with it, to accept herself, to believe she deserved better. "It's different for me."
"How would you know, you've been gone." Daphne hopped up and started rearranging the plants Rose had put out.
"Isolated. I've been isolated not gone, not totally gone. And we better get in the house before Penny destroys it." she said, changing the subject.
"She doesn't destroy, she violently nurtures." Daphne said with a tenderness. "My niece will rule the world one day, a Pirate Queen at the wheel of her ship."
"And her mother will be running behind her cleaning up." Rose said, walking out through the back door.
"And her Aunt will be at the Helm, getting all the attention from strapping scantily clad pirates." Daphne said, walking behind her.
When Rose walked through the front door the sounds of stomping and running water could be heard directly up the spiral set of stairs. "Are you staying for dinner?" she asked Daphne.
"Of course she's staying!" Penny shouted from above them.
They just laughed.
oOoOo
Later, having ran Penny into exhaustion in the yard tilling the soil and setting up pickets and rows for them to plant in later, Rose tucked her daughter into bed and kissed both her cheeks. "Goodnight. Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite." she repeated the words Phil had said a million times.
"Mama, are bedbugs a real thing?"
"Yes, though thankfully for your mama and her magic wand, your sheets are clean and bedbug free."
"Will I learn how to get rid of bedbugs at Hogwart's?"
"You'll learn a lot of things, if you pay attention to your teachers." Rose tucked Penny into a cocoon and stood. "Window open or shut?"
"Open, it smells different here, didn't you realize?"
Rose took a second to smell the breezy night air the filled the room. "I grew up with that smell baby girl, it's the smell of magic."
"Mama, tell me again why you ran away." Penny asked, though her eyes drooped because of the late hour.
Penny had gotten the abridged version of why the girl Pansy Parkinson had run away from her magical life, but never really understood that Pansy wasn't a good person. Rose didn't want to nurture the thought that her daughter's mother wasn't the good mama she knew so she said, "If I hadn't, I never would have met your father and I never would have had you baby girl."
She leaned down pressing a kiss to Penny's forehead and smoothed back her flattened hat hair. "Goodnight mama."
"Goodnight child."
"Mama."
"Child."
Penny smiled and rolled over, promptly falling asleep. Rose took a bare second to admire the colorful images Penny had painted on the walls in her room, knowing the girl would surpass any artistic talent she had. Rose could sketch and her favorite was using charcoal. But Penny could do it all. She dimmed the fairy night light Aunt Daphne had gotten and closed the door, feeling exhaustion from her day catching up. The house was set up, and most of the plants she had bought earlier had been set up in the shop. The shelves were just waiting for her product. She planned on simple everyday potions, and her specialty lotions and shampoos. Nothing terribly fancy, but enough to get a wide range of customers in.
She could just imagine the full shelves and the chimes over the door going off and hoped not for the first time that she hadn't made a mistake in bringing Penny into this world. But Penny was a witch, her bright purple eyes were a mirror image of her mother's and a trait inherited from a long line of pureblood women. She needed to be here, even as Rose had told her all about her family history and magical background, it was still different growing up in a Muggle life than a magical one.
She just didn't want Penny to inherit any of Rose's past prejudices, and growing up Muggle had done just that. Thankfully, Penny took after her father in most aspects. Her dark hair wasn't as dark as Rose's, and her face was longer and softer. And she was kind. Smart and kind.
Clutching her chest for the swell of love she felt, Rose made her way down the spiral stairs to make sure the shop and house were all locked up. Tomorrow she would plant the purple peonies underneath the shop windows since it would get the best sun there. When she saw them, she couldn't resist. The fragrant petals reminded Rose of her mother and of a time when the girl Pansy enjoyed playing in the garden while her mother planted for the spring and summer time. It felt appropriate to pick the joyful flower to plant as a welcome to her shop.
The night air was warm and lively, summer almost in full bloom. She couldn't wait to see how the months played out and thought briefly of the man across the street, leaving the bottle of Lemongrass Oil for her to find. Her heart skipped a small beat and she sighed.