Summary: In which Harry is a florist, has a crush on the baker next door, and dreads his birthday. Trope: Florist!H WC:3.2k
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Feb 1, a year earlier
The chime of the bell alerted Harry of a visitor, prompting him to spare a glance and shift his focus from the Lavender Bouquet he was preparing. Its odor was enough to wake 'Tom', the street's lazy orange cat, and stand at the front of the shop inspecting the source of the smell, delicately detecting it with his nose.
The foreign tourist moved around admiring all the displayed plants from orchids to sunflowers, Jasmines, and cactus, gypsophilia in all their mighty colors standing tall and proud itching for a bride to hold them. Small pots of Rubber figs, Snake plants, and Succulent lay side by side near the sun in an order almost fit for a theater play, he placed them this way on purpose to give them love from the yellow shiny star and the buyers who are only ever interested in flowers.
He finished wrapping up the Bouquet with a pink bowtie and admired his work for a minute before snapping a picture of it with his Polaroid camera and hanging it on the wall next to the other beauties.
The tourist got distracted by 'Tom' and their child who threw a rampage upon seeing the floof ball, eventually they both left as the cat strolled toward Harry rubbing up against his leg, sniffing the oh wonderful smell of Lavender he caught earlier.
" It's okay maybe they've had a bad experience with cats." He told the cute pet who seemed to not care as he yawned and stretched his paws before sliding into an empty pot to resume his nap.
Harry puckered his lips feeling like an idiot for conversing with a cat. Who spends their birthday selling flowers and comforting an animal? Is that miserable? It has to be the dream life in someone's world.
What are Birthdays for anyway? He thought as he swept the floor from the fallen leaves and petals.
He ages every day and every hour, with the marks of adulthood lingering around every corner, whether it be the loneliness he experiences or watching little kids pick flowers for each other as he gets hit by a whiff of nostalgia.
Every waking day is a reminder that he's not the little boy from Holmes Chapel anymore, he can't for the love of god remember his hometown. It resides somewhere in his mind deep down, perhaps he can recall its plants, and that would be much easier.
He never realized how far and lost he was in the adult world until he remembered his old life and, the mundane hobbies he maintained that were his entire focus. Now he wouldn't even recall doing them.
His memory drifts away to his 10th birthday, his mom organized a small party in their apartment, where he only invited 3 friends (more like his only friends). That day is his favorite memory, the taste of the chocolate vanilla cake on his tongue as he goofed and danced around, then chased his friends with the Spiderman toy his mom got him.
