This is for the Flower Symbolism Challenge. It was supposed to be a one-shot with just the one flower as inspiration and it grew to be something much more. The story is almost finished so I will try and upload a chapter every few days. I have the first three already back from the beta ( sneakyslytherin . severus - who is awesome, btw).

Disclaimer: If I owned the Harry Potter universe, I'd be very happy. Right now, I'm only happy. So there you go.

Hermione thought today was going to be a normal day. She had woken up at 5.30 and had a cuppa on the balcony above her shop, greeting the sun as it came up in the sky. Was ready to go by 6. For the next hour, she shopped for fresh flowers at the Columbia Road Flower Market. By 7, she had stopped by The Leaky Cauldron to trade the papers she graded the day before for new magical flowers with Neville.

All in all, the morning was busy, but normal.

When she was returning to her shop via Diagon Alley at half past, the day veered to the not so normal.

Waiting on the steps of Sherwood Florist was a very good looking man, causing Hermione to stop suddenly to admire him. He was tall, blonde, a swimmer's body. Yummy, and all its other connotations, were the only words floating around her head. She decided that the normal morning was getting better and trotted forward to open the shop.

When he slowly turned upon hearing her footsteps, she realised he was not only good-looking, but ferret-y and her mouth dropped as she just realised she had thought Draco Malfoy was yummy. The ferret was yummy. She didn't like ferrets, nor did she eat ferrets! He wasn't supposed to be yummy! Her last thought before officially hating her once-normal day was, "Why was Draco Malfoy at her shop?"

Draco's day had been everything but normal. He was awoken by his mother just after dawn; he never got out of bed until at least ten in the morning, but today he was up and getting ready just after six. There was no cup of tea waiting on his desk after he did his morning ablutions. There were no scones at the breakfast table for him to munch on. There wasn't even a place setting at his usual seat.

What was waiting for him in the breakfast room was his evil mother, with strict instructions that he needed to ensure that everything was ready for an important date tonight. There was a heavy emphasis on the important, he could tell by her voice and the look she gave. The importance was emphasised in such a way that he knew if he messed things up, his mother would find a way to make his life miserable, even more so than she had that morning.

He rolled his eyes in remembrance of the whole conversation. He was sent out with a list of errands: make reservations at Bon Appetit, have himself fitted for new dress robes at Madam Malkin's, pick up wine, get flowers, stop by Gringott's.

He was finally at the second-to-last item, and he was excited at the idea of crawling back into bed when he had completed everything. But his bed was getting further and further away because Sherwood's Florist wasn't opened yet. Weren't florists supposed to be open early? To ensure they had the freshest flowers?

His bed was calling for him, and the longer he waited on the steps of the shop, the louder its call was. It was begging for his return, and everything in him wanted to ease its torture. However, his mind kept repeating his mother's words from that morning, and he kept seeing her face. Emphasis on the important, his brain would repeat. It was the mantra of the morning. The mantra was slowly taking over the bed's begging.

He wasn't in the most pleasant of moods, needless to say.

He was just about to leave for Gringott's and try the flower shop again afterwards when he heard heavy footsteps approaching. He turned to their direction and found Hermione Granger eyeing him up, and then scowling once she realised who he was.

Great. His morning had just gone from bad to horrible.

Hermione opened the door to the shop, trying to ignore the irate man who barely took a step out of the way to let her through. She casted the charms needed to turn on the lights and put her new purchases away and walked around the counter to mind the till.

Draco followed her into the store and eyed some of the purple flowers flying across the room in their display case, thinking they would do for whatever the important date his mother had planned that evening, emphasis on the importance. Ugh, the mantra was causing a headache.

When Hermione finally gave him a passing glance, he scoffed, "So you work the till at a flower shop?"

She visibly cringed. She hated the tone in his voice. The tone that said "I expected something better out of you." She owned the flower shop, thank you very much. So what if she would have preferred to own a bookshop, but Flourish & Blott's was unlikely to close, ever. She was a practical girl, and she knew that there were no flower shops in Diagon Alley, and it was an untapped market, and she was bloody smart, and found herself with quite a business after only a few short years. The tone meant nothing to her, nope, it meant absolutely nothing. Her own mantra didn't cause the cringe to go away fast enough, though.

Draco was happy to see a reaction out of her so early in the conversation. Generally, it would have taken a few barbs at her friends and house affiliation before she became really red. It made his horrible morning a little more bearable. "I need a simple bouquet. Those purple flowers that I saw you put away, those should do." He said, looking down at his stretched fingers, clean nail beds, in a very bored manner. He was rather bored, actually. He really wanted to get back to bed. He could still hear its pleas under the heavy scowl, if scowls could make sound that is, coming from Granger.

Hermione, whose morning started out normal and swiftly stumbled into awful, wanted to get rid of him immediately. Killing him wasn't an option, she did just finally pay off the mortgage on the shop; she'd like to enjoy not having that expense. Getting him out of the shop right away was a good won't get you sent to Azkaban goal.

She cast Accio on the flowers she had just put away, Hydrangeas and Lobelias, made a decent arrangement out of them, casted an everlast spell, handed them to him, and pointed to the door, all in the span of three minutes. She wanted him gone, she could do things quickly with enough incentive.

He was in shock. If it wasn't Granger, he'd have complimented her on the quick delivery, and then quickly complained about her customer service skills. Who gave up the goods without giving a price and directed the customer to the exit like that? His bed was calling, however, so he simply dropped a galleon, and made note to complain to the shop owner in the future.

He hoped, really hoped, he would never need to come back again.

She hoped, really hoped, she would never have to see him again.

And just like that, their day continued as planned.

Draco went to Gringott's and promptly returned home to go to bed and proceed with the important date, emphasis on the important.

Hermione continued to mind her shop, did the books, completed the crossword in The Daily Prophet and then moved on to The Quibbler, which was much more difficult since half the answers weren't real.