#Also developing his first crush that his parents were low key scheming would happen

[hpdabbles]

Oooo I really like your new story! How will Harry and Voldemorts first meeting go? Will Harry meet Neville soon? I’m hooked already!

Neville Longbottom heard of the florist weeks before he met him due to his parents. The family business had always been trading; his parents kept this alive by joining the village traveling merchants. Their village is small, but it is a two-day trip to the capital, so the village would make their wares and send it off with the merchants to sell bi-monthly.

A small fee would cover the traveling merchants' pay for selling other villagers' wares. There were only two ways to join on the trip, one could prove their worth in combat and be a well enough merchant that impressed the guild, or one had to be part of a legacy like Neville.

His ancestors were one of the original twelve families that settled in the village, so they had special privileges. Alice, his mother, is in the first category- earning her place through her swordsmanship and hair accessories. His father, Frank, is in the second category learning how to be a traveling merchant on his mother's knee.

The Longbottoms have always been wood carvers, and so Neville learned how to cut a bird out of wood before he learned how to ride a horse. His parents always beamed in pride whenever Neville showed them his latest carving after their return.

Whenever they left on one of their trips, Neville stayed behind in the village with his grandmother to man the shop. He took lessons in everything from sales to navigation using the stars, just as his father did.

Neville counted down to his eleventh birthday when he would finally be old enough to go on a trip, as per tradition.

About a month ago, his parents return with bewildered expressions and flowers so vibrantly breathtaking Neville had made them the subject for a few of his practice blocks of wood.

"A new merchant in the capital market," Frank said that night as every settled for dinner. "A florist." Been going for a month now, and he has almost everything in grandfather's flower book."

"Where in the world did he find so many flowers?" His grandmother asked in surprise. "The last time the empire's soil could support floras like that was when I was a child!"

"Was that before the curse Gran?" Neville asks, gently tracing his fingers over the petals of a pale pink flower. It's one of the prettiest things he's ever seen.

"Yes, child. When I was about your age, the surrounding hills bloomed with flowers. Different colors, as far as the eye could see, danced in the wind. The air always smelled so sweet, like candy." Gran replies, tone wishful, staring out the window to the mentioned hills.

Neville turns to look, trying to image the green grassy hills he knew looking like the flowers on the dinner table. He couldn't.

"That was before the Curse stop them from growing. Thankfully it didn't harm the trees or the grass, but any flower would wilt and die." Alice sighs. "My mother's family were florists once, but now only a few nobles can have flowers. They need magic to make them grow."

"Does that mean the florist is a nobleman?" Neville asks and his father scoffs at his bread.

"Like a noble would stoop so low as to work for their money. No, he's probably a spirit."

"Frank," His mother cuts in with a sigh "The boy is not a spirit."

"You don't know that."

"Yes! I do! He's clearly human."

"That's what he wants you to think." He leans towards Neville, wagging his eyebrows. He lowers his voice as if he is sharing a great secret. "The pubs were all saying the same thing. No one knows who is is, where he goes or where he came from. They say he disappears as soon as he walks back into the forest. Like a ghost."

"Frank."

Neville snickers, as his mother wacks her husband on the back of his head. "Enough. The only thing otherworldly about the boy is his beauty."

"Is he handsome?" Neville asks and his mother's eyes sparkle.

"More pretty than handsome. He gives the flowers a run for their money."

Neville tries to picture a boy that is that pretty. He can't.

Then his grandmother mentions how the shop has seen an increase in bridal hair accessories with winter approaching, and the conversation moves on. He doesn't think much about the florist until two months later when his parents return from another trip, this time with more than one type of flower bouquet.

They were so colorful and new that he spent hours just watering them. It drove him to seek his great-grandfather's old books. Before the curse, the Longbottoms had a flower farm, and the secrets of growing them were kept for future heads of the house to study.

Never before had he cared about those old books- what point was there in studying something he could not use?- but the rush of learning of flora was like nothing he had ever felt.

He loved it. He loved the way they looked, loved the way they were described, and what they could do. Remedies, cures, food, and more.

Accident potions that anyone could make, no magic required. Herbology- his great grandfather's book said- is an entire field of plant study that used to save so many lives.

All were lost due to the curse.

For once, he wanted something more than being a traveling merchant.

He wanted to be a herbologist. He wanted to see plants and learn everything about them. He wanted to grow his own.

The day he finally went on a traveling trip, a week after he turned eleven, Neville was more excited to see the florist than he was about leaving his small village.

When he finally saw Bloom- the name the florist gave out he felt his heart shudder to a halt before jumping around like a spooked rabbit.

His mother has lied. Bloom was not as pretty as a flower; Bloom was much more beautiful.

He was also Neville's age, which was unfair. How was Neville supposed to have a conversation with someone so beautiful that was his age? His knees were shaking just being around him.

"Hello," Bloom said when he spotted him staring, shooting the stun new merchant a crooked smile. It shoots liquid fire through Neville's veins. "Would you like to buy some flowers?"

. He held up a pot of the very first flowers his parents bought. Now that he had read his great-grandfather's book of flower languages, he knew they were camellias- the flower of destiny.

Neville would later learn that camellias were a perfect flower for Bloom. The florist would always be in battle with destiny.

Currently, he could only babble his way through the purchase and run back to his carriage to hide his burning face. His father teased him mercilessly about fancying the florist.

#Hpdabbles #Reborn as the villain's fiance #Part 4 #Neville's Pov #Neville/Harry #In which the worldbuilding for a novel is far greater then Harry knows #Neville finds his true calling #Also developing his first crush that his parents were low key scheming would happen #Rare flower merchant son in law? Frank said yes please