#dudley.1

It was nearing dusk now, and Neville was weary to the bone. He was always busy around HJP Day, with flower orders pouring in the whole of July and last-minute wreath and bouquet walk-ins coming along to dwindle the rest of his stock. Of course it felt absolutely evil to profit from Harry’s remembrance, but he couldn’t just refuse to do business. 

Still, with the pace of the day frenetic, Neville scurrying from the greenhouse in the back to the register, spelling wreaths into rounds and perking up drooping roses and failing to conjure handkerchiefs for weeping wix he was pretty sure had never met Harry in their entire lives, so what did they know about the grief--he hardly had time to mourn. At the end of the day, it wore him thin with the exhaustion of suppressed emotion. 

He turned the sign on Frank & Alice’s Fine Flora to closed with a shaking hand, then stepped outside the door. He had hung a wreath there of his most lovingly-tended lilies, pure soft white. His expression fell when he saw they had been buffeted by the rush of foot traffic today, their petals crushed brown. Somehow that more than anything else today had made him want to cry. His palm trembled as he flattened it against the shop door. Harry. Harry would have hated the shameless commercialism of the day that was supposed to be for him. Harry would have had something bitingly funny to say, Harry would have--

A noise from behind made him turn suddenly. He was baffled and unhappy to see not a friend standing there, but someone who was still a stranger by everything but hinted reputation, one who awoke in him mixed feelings a lot less welcome than warmth. And he didn’t like the look on his face.

“What is it you’ve got a problem with?” Neville demanded of him, drawing himself upright. He didn’t have the bulk that Dudley Dursley did, but he was happy to hold his own against any bully. “Is it the flowers or the crying?”