a grave for flowers | drarry

chapter 3

"Daisies are my favorite," she once said. When Harry asked why, she had laughed. "They're dainty and unassuming." 

Harry came to learn that Ginny liked things that were unlike her. And maybe that's why they didn't work, didn't click and fit together the way Ron and Hermione did. Harry was far too similar to Ginny—he saw himself in her, sometimes, and to be around each other felt like dousing flames with flames.

So when he saw the daisies in the florist window, dainty and white and energetic, something in his chest tugged him toward it, a pain catching his breath in his throat. He stood outside the door for a second, knowing he should just go straight to Malfoy's address, but then entered the shop.

An old woman sat behind the counter, withered and frail, but in the way weeds were frail. She had a brightness to her eyes, a brightness that said she had lived a life with little regret and laugh lines that said she was easily amused. 

"Hello, dear," she said, and Harry was suddenly reminded of Molly Weasley. "Here for something in particular or just looking?"

"Er—" Harry looked around uncertainly. "I wanted daisies, but... I'll look around for a bit, if that's okay."

"Daisies, how lovely!" She clapped her hands. "Innocence, purity. For a child, perhaps?"

Harry's chest constricted again. He and Ginny never talked about children. He knew Ginny was too scared, though she never admitted it. To lose a brother, to watch part of her mother die a little bit, showed her far too well how treacherous motherhood really was. How could she put someone in danger like that? Better to not have children at all than to endanger them and deal with the heartbreak.

Harry, for one, liked the idea of children running around in a big yard. To give them the childhood he never had.

"Just... for decoration," Harry managed, and he tore himself away from the counter.

He wandered through the narrow shelves, stocked tightly with all sorts of plants. The air was moist and damp, and although it was still not quite warm enough outside to leave your jacket at home, it felt like spring in here. It smelled like earth and nectar. Harry involuntarily closed his eyes as he took a deep breath, something he wasn't sure he had done for weeks.

And then he bumped into someone. 

"Oh, shit—" he heard someone say, and suddenly there was soil spilled on Harry's shoes and on the floor, and a voice that sounded vaguely familiar kept apologizing over and over. 

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry about that," the man said, bending down to pick up the plastic pot he had dropped. "I wasn't looking where I was going, at least it wasn't one of the terracotta pots, now that would have been a mess—"

And then the man disappeared round the corner, calling, "I'll clean that up, sorry again," and Harry finally realized where he knew that voice from.

He was unable to move, unable to even shake the dirt off his shoes. He felt like a tree, rooted to the spot, not able to do much more than shake a little. He knew that voice, and the back of that blonde head. He knew who that man was. 

"Got the broom. Did you need help with some...." The man trailed off when he returned, looking Harry in the face for the first time.

This wasn't the Malfoy that Harry last saw almost two years ago. That Malfoy was thin and pale, and his eyes were shifty with paranoia, and his hands shook. This Malfoy... well, he was still thin and pale, and his hands still shook a little as he clutched the broom, but his eyes looked lighter. Like flighty clouds, instead of heavy silver.

And the way he held the broom. The way he held the broom wasn't like that of a trained Quidditch player, all technical form and firm, precise grip. He held it like he was a Muggle, loose and casual, with a dustpan in the other hand, as though he didn't know there was more to a broom than sweeping. As though he had never played Quidditch in his life.

When was the last time Harry saw Malfoy with a broom? When was the last time they had spat insults at each other, eyes tearing up in the wind, spinning around each other as though dancing a strange waltz in the air?

(And then he remembered the burning Room of Requirement, Malfoy screaming Vincent Crabbe's name as he clutched Harry's waist, both of them choking in the smoke...)

He looked frightened, now. He almost shrank back, like a flower closing its petals around itself, furling into a tight coil. What was he so afraid of? He couldn't be so afraid of Harry. Where was his arrogance? His snappy wit? 

In the end, Malfoy spoke first, in a voice that quavered only a little bit. "Am I in trouble?" he asked. 

Harry blinked. That voice was the same. Smooth, low. "In trouble?" Harry asked.

Malfoy almost flinched at the sound of Harry's voice. He turned away, seemingly determined not to look at him, and started sweeping the spilled dirt into a manageable pile. "I mean... I don't think they send Harry Potter out to visit suspected Death Eaters just for fun." 

"You're not a Death Eater," Harry blurted out, surprising himself.

Malfoy glanced at him briefly before returning to his task. "Thanks for noticing," he said. 

Harry hadn't gone to Malfoy's hearing. It had happened far too soon after the Battle at Hogwarts, when the screams still rang in his ears and grief over Remus and Tonks and Fred still fresh wounds. He had retreated to Grimmauld Place, locked himself away and refused to talk to anyone except Ron and Hermione, obsessed over warding the house to trip any Death Eater that dared to break in. By the time he had cared enough to pick up a newspaper, it was too late.

Harry wasn't sure what to say anymore. His wand was carefully stowed up his sleeve for easy access, not quite sure what to expect. But Malfoy stood in front of him, wandless, witless, wordless for the first time in a decade. 

How fast a decade could run, and how fast it could change its gown. 

Malfoy carefully balanced the broom against a shelf. "So?" he asked. "Why are you here?"

"I'm here to replace Rhonda Fladbury," Harry said, finally reaching down to brush the dirt off his shoes. Funny how he didn't feel the need to watch Malfoy as he did it, how he didn't have to be on his guard in case a hex came his way the second he took his eyes away. "She resigned from the Ministry."

"Oh," Malfoy said in a small voice.

Harry straightened up. 

"Well," Malfoy said, "I didn't much like Rhonda anyway."

Harry tried to recall whether Rhonda was a Muggleborn or a half-blood.

"She didn't like me much either," Malfoy continued. "But tell her congrats on the baby for me, will you?" And with that, he picked up the dustpan and the broom.

"Alright," Harry said, but he was speaking to the flowers for Malfoy had already disappeared into the shelves. 

"Did you find what you were looking for?" the old woman from the counter asked from behind Harry, hobbling over as she watered some curious looking flowers shaped like hearts.

Harry smiled at her. "Yes," he said, "I think I did."