for Shiv, a belated birthday bouquet

"For Merlin's sake, why not let me get the elves to cut a hundred red roses, and then we can have a brandy and a game of chess?"

"Because I'm not looking for a one-night stand with one of your vapid wenches. I—"

"Don't tell me you're finally—"

"Close your mouth and give me the greenhouse keys."

---

Hermione examined the nosegay, if such it could be called, with some consternation. There was no signature on the card, just a date, but then no one would admit to sending nettles: nettles, aconite and some flowers on a stick. Some women received red roses on their birthday, she got nettles and wolfsbane. That was pretty much the story of her life, or according to someone the story of the sixth of September, 1991.

Hermione gave the owl a treat and then picked up the entire basket, dropping it into her waste paper bin with a resounding clang.

---

"Many happy returns," Neville wished Hermione, leaning around the headmaster to pass her a gift-wrapped box.

Snape gave a derisive snort. "One would think that getting older would have lost its novelty value by the time you reached thirty-five."

"Does that mean you didn't get me a card, Severus?"

"Of course I didn't."

Hermione tore the gift wrap from her present, revealing a box of Honeyduke's most decadent chocolates. "Well, in that case you don't get the dark chocolate espressos. I'll save them for Harry when he comes to visit."

Severus feigned indifference as he sipped his tarry black coffee. "And you can buy your own wine for our next DVD evening."

Hermione grimaced and narrowed her eyes. Spinners End wasn't the most salubrious of venues, but a plasma television and a DVD player could make up for a lot, and Severus's well-stocked wine cellar generally made up for even more. As far as she knew, she was the only person he allowed to visit when he wasn't there, though he claimed that was only in self-defence, since he refused to watch her 'overly sentimental confections'. She was about to tell him where he could stick his sinfully delicious elf-made wine, when something crashed into her bacon and eggs.

It was that same basket, still with the nettle bouquet, but resting on top of it there was another posy, this one dated the sixth of November, 1991. There was one iris, velvety and inky black, but the rest were weeds, well, weeds and heather, but heather grows wild so maybe it's a weed as well she thought. This was getting beyond a joke.

Hermione brought her wand to her hand, ignoring the other owls, which carried birthday greetings, in order to perform an 'Evanesco!' on the offending basket. The basket and its contents continued to sit in the middle of her breakfast completely unaffected, neither did it respond to an 'Incendio!'

"Don't you like your bouquet, Professor Granger?" Snape asked in a smugly sly tone.

"This hardly qualifies as a bouquet. If it wasn't for the dates, I would say it was one of your Slytherins hinting in a less than subtle way that a weed like me isn't welcome in their precious garden."

"Can I have a look?" Neville enquired, and Severus lifted his brows in response, waiting until Hermione nodded to pass the basket over to the Herbology professor.

"Aconitum napellus or monkshood, not actually the same as aconitum vulparia (lycoctonum) or wolfsbane, though both belong to the aconite family," Neville muttered to himself and then blanched when he felt the headmaster's cool gaze upon him. "They're both equally poisonous, though, and should only be touched wearing gloves. Stinging nettles or urtica dioica and daphne mezereum or mezereon. You don't think someone is trying to poison you, do you?"

"Don't be ridiculous! Even if Professor Granger didn't have the modicum of wit necessary to recognise monkshood, she would hardly have handled a bouquet of stinging nettles!" Severus protested.

"You asked Harry about aconite in our first Potions lesson, didn't you, Severus?" Hermione probed. "That wouldn't have been the sixth of September?"

"Do you honestly expect me to remember dates from quarter of a century ago?"

"Yes, you already made your point. I'm an old maid and it's only twenty-three years. There's no need to exaggerate and make it even worse."

"It's not as if the days of the week rearranged themselves so that the first of September was always a Sunday, is it? It could have been. I always had first-years on a Friday, so it's possible."

"But that must be the date. I don't remember you mentioning nettles or daphne, though."

"Probably because I didn't."

"What are the others?" Hermione asked Neville. "I know the iris and the heather, but..."

"Madder, and I think the other is—"

"Betony," interrupted Severus. "As you would know if you had bothered to pay attention in Potions."

"We only used dried betony," Hermione argued. "It looks different when it's fresh."

"I think someone is trying to send you a message," Neville suggested. "You know like red roses for love, yellow for friendship, white for innocence, only I have no idea what these ones mean."

"I'm guessing nothing half as friendly," Hermione muttered as Severus rose to his feet. She and Neville both looked at their watches and Hermione grabbed a last half slice of buttered toast to eat on her way to class before she gulped down her remaining coffee and followed suit.

"Don't forget your basket, Professor," Severus drawled.

---

When she reached the staffroom halfway through fourth period, following an abortive search of the library for references on the language of flowers, the basket was waiting for her. This time the new offerings were both prettier and sweetly scented. Hermione thought she recognised lilac, but she knew she would have to seek someone's help identifying the others. These were labelled 25th December 1994.

Hermione picked up the basket and took it with her as she climbed to the third floor and spoke the password to the gargoyle on guard. Somehow she wasn't surprised to find three more posies resting in a bowl of water on Severus's desk.

"So you wouldn't know the date of my first Potions lesson, Severus?"

"Not without looking it up in my diaries," the headmaster answered in a surprisingly self-conscious tone, his eyes staying firmly on his blotter.

"Severus?" She waited for him to look up, to meet her eyes with his own, finding herself stunned by the vulnerability she found there. "We are friends, aren't we? This—" She set her basket down next to the bowl. "...Isn't some cruel joke?"

"If it is, then the joke is not aimed at you."

"Then I believe you better explain, since your aunt tells me that every book that refers to the language of flowers has already been taken out of the library." She smiled gently as she indicated a stack of books next to Severus's desk. "Tell me."

"Perhaps I should have taken Lucius's advice," Severus admitted as he stood up and poured two glasses of port. "I intended to add to the bouquet throughout the day to show how my feelings toward you have changed and finally to present you with the book from which I took the meanings. I hoped to let you know of my feelings in such a way that it would spare us both any embarrassment if you preferred to continue on as we are."

Hermione let her fingers rest over his as she took the glass from him, her eyes straying to the bowl where the remaining flowers were, hoping for confirmation. "What was Lucius's advice?" she asked.

"That I should give you red roses," Severus admitted, pulling his hand away and becoming fascinated by the play of sunlight on the dark amber of his drink.

Hermione took a delicate sip from her own glass before setting it onto Severus's desk and taking his from him. "Far too gaudy and over-used, for either of us." She reached up and slid her hands under the fall of his hair, pushing her fingers between the strands until she could see his face clearly. His thick soot-black eyelashes fell as his eyes drifted closed in a way that reminded her of Crookshanks when he was just about to purr. She stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his, tilting her head to the side to take full advantage when his lips parted under hers. Long moments passed before they drew apart.

"I would invite you into my private chambers, but the wards don't allow it... yet," Severus remarked.

Hermione laughed inwardly. The wards didn't allow members of the opposite sex into staff private quarters unless they were married, and to each other. This man was such a cocktail of self-doubt and arrogance it was hard to believe. "And I have another class in twenty minutes, which leaves us just long enough for you to tell me about these weeds."

"If I must," Severus agreed, resuming his seat and then pulling her into his lap. "As you correctly surmised the date on the first few refers to your first lesson: nettles for cruelty, aconite for misanthropy, both for how I treated you, and mezereon for your desire to impress. I do not know if you have ascertained to which incident the second bouquet refers?"

Hermione's gaze fixed on his lips as he waited to see if she would respond, unable to resist the temptation to take a lingering kiss before she admitted ignorance. "It was about a week after the troll incident."

"Very true, one short week and you had already been corrupted, but still Dumbledore wouldn't believe Potter was a bad influence: betony for my surprise, madder for your calumny, lavender heather for admiration and, if you are still in any doubt to what I refer, a German iris to mean I burn for you."

"Oh!"

"You owe me a cloak by the way," he added.

"I'm sure that there must be a statute of limitations on that."

"It is your birthday. I might be persuaded towards clemency," Severus conceded.

"And the Yule ball?"

"White lilac, mayflower and white camellia for innocence and youthfulness, budding beauty and perfected loveliness."

"And these?" Hermione waved a hand to the remaining bouquets.

"Alstroemeria for strength, gentian for intrinsic worth and integrity and wallflower for fidelity in adversity. Those were for the year you spent with Potter and Weasley." He added the posy to her basket, and then picked up another. "Hepatica for confidence, pomegranate flower for mature elegance, and blue periwinkle for early affection and friendship for last year when you returned to Hogwarts."

"And the last one?" Hermione asked, as he placed it atop the others. "For now?"

"Spanish jasmine for sensuality, blue violets for modest love, for faithfulness, for always, and shepherd's purse, which I'm sure you will think another weed, I shall let you look up."

Hermione reached for the nearest book, but his hand pinned hers to the cover before she could open it. "Later, Professor," he whispered against her ear, pulling open his desk drawer and removing a parcel wrapped in silver film and a crimson ribbon. "This book is yours to keep."

"And the nettles?"

"Those too. They're under a permanent preservation charm."

"In case I forget what you were like?" Hermione asked, her voice husky.

"Perhaps in case I forget."

The bells in the clock tower began to peal, and Severus's grip around her waist tightened. "I planned to spend the evening at Spinner's End. If you have no other plans..."

"I have dinner plans." Hermione grinned at the darkness that immediately clouded his features. "With my parents. If you would join us, I think they would like that, and now I must go and teach my Ravenclaw third years or there will be hell to pay."

"Your employer is surely not such a tyrant?"

"The very worst. Shall we say six o'clock in the entrance hall?"

"I'm at your disposal."

"Really?" Hermione asked archly, rising to her feet and then extending a hand to her suitor. "Then I demand a kiss before I go."

Severus looked down into her sparkling eyes, knowing that the real test of her feelings would come after she had read the last flower's meaning, but for the first time daring to really hope. "And how would madam like to be kissed?" he whispered, leaning close enough that she could feel his breath against her skin, so close that she grasped his arms to remain steady on her feet. "A brotherly peck on the cheek?" he suggested, letting his lips buss the hollow beneath her cheekbone. "The soft touch of lips like a well-bred suitor?"

Hermione breath and wits fled as he took his time about the task.

"Or perhaps..." His hands slid down her back, one wrapping itself around her waist and drawing her body flush against his, the second dipping lower still to curve around the back of her thigh and lift her leg so that it curled around his hip. "...You would prefer me to—"

Hermione stopped his question with her mouth.

"And about time, too," remarked the portrait of Dilys Derwent.

"Don't know what Slytherin house is coming to!" sneered Phineas Nigellus. "But I suppose if he must choose a Mud—"

Severus's head lifted instantly.

"...A Muggle-born, this one is better than most," Phineas carefully amended.

Hermione tilted her head back, examining Severus's face with a rather dazed expression. "Ravenclaws!" she suddenly ejaculated. She snatched the gift-wrapped book and the flower basket from Severus's desk and then scurried from the room, pausing just long enough to flash him a brief smile before she closed the door.

---

Hermione ran down the marble staircase, her cheeks still flushed from her shower and tendrils of hair already escaping from the pins that held it up. She wore a trench coat over the little black dress she had chosen for the evening and kept it firmly buttoned to avoid attracting attention from the pupils. She was pleased to find that in lieu of his normal robes, Severus had deferred to their engagement with her parents by wearing a black suit and tie, with a shirt of sapphire silk.

When she reached him, she fingered his lapel gently before adding a small white blossom with blue veining to his buttonhole.

"And what may I ask is that for?" Severus asked in a softly silky tone, as he took her hand and led her towards the castle's main doors.

Hermione smiled. "It's a white violet, Professor. Look it up."

Notes: Most of the flowers and their meanings can be found here: http://www.joellessacredgrove.com/language.html though I used the meaning for mayflower or trailing arbutus listed under the Latin name, epigaea repens, and I did take madder from http://www.earthlypursuits.com/FlwrsPer/FlwrSent.htm