Floriography

"She hates lillies," Remus says with a laugh in his voice. "Hates them. Lily." His tone is fond, that's all, fond and indulgent. He shakes his head, takes one of the heavy smooth blossoms between his fingers. It's cool, fleshy.

"Remus-"

"I bought her a bouquet for Saint Valentine's, once. Well, I had no one else to buy anything for. James thought it was...how did he put it? Ah, yes, 'trite.' I think that's the most obscure word I've heard him use in his life. Trite, yes. But Peter and I, we thought it was sweet, and Sirius was all for it, anything to make Prongs edgy..." He is babbling. He can hear himself doing it. He gets like this, sometimes, most often when Sirius is around and being insufferable, but there are exceptions, obviously, times without his Padfoot when he just wants to speak, just wants to be heard, and now even his thoughts are rambling and so he lets the story continue even though he can see that the smile on Dumbledore's craggy face isn't exactly indulgent. "So we bought his girlfriend a bouquet of lilies, and made up an elaborate card. Singing cupids and lace. I even wrote some very consumptive poetry. We made a show of giving it to her before James could unveil his necklace. I think it was the necklace that year. Next Valentines was the ring, of course, very romantic, James is, even if he scorned the lilies. I expect he was upset that he didn't think of them first."

"Remus, dear lad-" Dumbledore's voice is gentle. Kind. When is it ever anything but kind? He has, come to think of it, never heard the Headmaster's voice raised in anger. He has heard Dumbledore jovial, and serious, and even saddened, but never once has that voice echoed with anything but utmost kindness. Remus cuts him off again.

"A production, we made of it. Sirius grinning ear to ear, like a Chesire cat. Don't tell him I said that, please Professor. He's not fond of cats. A Chesire dog, then. Peter blushing fit to burn his ears off. And she looked me right in the eyes, looking exactly like an Aphrodite, and said 'Remus, you know I hate these things.'"

He lapses into silence with the abruptness of a needle bumping off of a record. Dumbledore has given off interrupting, is simply nodding at him slowly in a way that Remus chooses to interpret as encouraging. He bends to sniff the lily, the same lily that he has been fingering throughout his story.

With his nose in it, "I can't believe you got her these."

He straightens again, and it seems to him that the scent of the bloom has taken him somewhere. Dumbledore, ageless and aged as he is, seems younger somehow. Just a smidge. Just a year or two. One less laugh line carved into his cheek. And behind him, Sirius is grinning like the devil that he has always been, and Peter is again blushing like a plum tomato. James has his arm slung around Lily's waist, lazily and with absolute comfort, just as he did that Valentine's day after she rejected the lilies and kissed him in front of his friends. Lily herself is blushing, faintly, not Peter's scarlet but her own bright rose color. Her eyes are laughing at him.

His own laugh right back. "'Remus,' she said, 'You know I hate these things. They mean death.'"

He doesn't realize that he's still holding the flower between his pointer and thumb until it's too late. The bloom tears from the plant. Tears in his eyes. He lets it drop as he turns and leaves the funeral, hands in his pockets.