Flowers That are Looked At

Hermione had once been told that she was driven by curiosity, and she found it easy to believe. When something intrigued her, she would take hold of it and wrap her mind around it until she'd learned everything there was to know about the subject at hand. Once, during her sixth year at Hogwarts, she'd read a wizard's report on the infamous Jack the Ripper case and decided to learn everything there was about it from both the magical and non-magical angles. It was simply the way she functioned, and she supposed it was why she tended to be good in school. Consequently, she'd had every intention to find out exactly where Lizzie had been the night of the party and why she had been so spacey when she returned.

But life has a funny way of confusing and distracting even the most curious of people, and for the entire week after the party, Hermione found herself heavily involved in a Potions project with Padma, both of them determined to make a perfect Wolfsbane potion, though the assignment had never mentioned anything so complicated. Their professor had laughed when they'd mentioned making Wolfsbane, but had not told them not to attempt the project. And so, they started working on it as soon as they could, and managed to have almost the entire thing finished by the end of the week. They were putting the finishing touches on their brew that Friday when Hermione was finally reminded of her quest for the missing roommate.

She and Padma were sitting at the kitchen table, revising their notes on the potion, when Draco came through the door. He nodded at the girls in greeting as he grabbed a butterbeer from the fridge. "Did you ever figure out what was going on with Nalani, Granger?" he asked after cracking open the bottle.

"What's he mean?" Padma looked lost. "What do you mean, Malfoy?"

"Last week, at the party. Nalani never showed up until at the end of the night when Granger got back. She was a mess when she got home, too." Draco turned to Hermione again. "Did you ever ask her about it?"

Hermione was busy finishing a sentence on the notes, but looked up once it was complete. "I haven't spoken to her since then; we've been kind of busy with this potion."

"That's right; you're doing Wolfsbane, aren't you?" Draco leaned over and looked at her notes briefly before turning and heading back towards his bedroom. "You should probably talk to her soon, Granger," he called over his shoulder. "You know, before you forget again." Before Hermione had a chance to retort, his door had closed with a thud.

"Damn," Padma commented, staring at the door. "Is he always that bitchy?"

Now Hermione laughed. "That was not bitchy. For Draco, that's downright sweet," she quipped, turning back to her notes. "I suppose I should talk to Lizzie sometime soon, but I really want to focus on getting this potion done."

"And before the full moon, too." Padma looked up, seemingly counting days in her head. "That's less than a week from now. We have five days. The potion should be done simmering tomorrow afternoon, then we just have to add the last of the aconite, let it simmer for another two days, and we should be all set."

"Right," Hermione answered, counting the days in her head. "If I stay home tonight and tomorrow night, I should be able to catch Lizzie on her way in." She smiled wryly at Padma. "My darling roommate told me when she first moved in here that the legal drinking age in the United States is 21 while here, it's only 18. She likes to spend the nights taking full advantage of that difference."

Padma gave a short, derisive laugh. "You really got the picks of the litter, didn't you, Hermione? A drunkard roommate, a Greek who's never there and Draco Malfoy--this year's winning combination." She grinned widely like a game show host showing off a prize and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"If by 'winning' you mean 'absolutely horrid', then yes, I agree with you," she stated with a laugh. "Normally, I don't believe in fate or fortune or karma of any sort, but there's got to be something of the sort working against me in this case."

"I've never agreed with you more." Padma looked back down at her notes. "I think I spelled 'asphodel' wrong here." Her quill scratched across the page and the girls went back to their work.

Hermione had expected Padma to stay late into the night so that they could do their final revisions on the notes, but at around five, Padma said she had to go, since she was "meeting someone" for dinner. She wished Hermione luck and hurried out, leaving Hermione to sit and wait for Lizzie to return from whatever it was she was doing. At around seven, she treated herself to a supper of canned soup. At around nine, she had a dessert of leftover cookies from the Covered Market in Oxford. An hour later, she decided to reread her concealment text for the eighth time. Somehow, she was still awake at 1:30 a.m. when her less-than-graceful roommate stumbled through the doorway, apparently having had more than her fair share of firewhiskey at her favorite pub, the Troll and Wand. Lizzie seemed on a collision course with the toilet, but Hermione spoke up before she could reach it. "Lizzie."

The other girl turned glassy, annoyed eyes at Hermione. "Whaddya want?" she slurred.

Hermione was taken aback by Lizzie's tone of voice. "I wanted to ask where you were the night of my birthday party, if you don't mind," she stated, a bit more cautiously.

"Oh." For a moment, Lizzie seemed completely lost, but then her eyes widened in comprehension. "Oh. That. I'll tell you in a minute. Lemme just get changed for bed and do a sobering charm."

Lizzie disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Hermione to amuse herself while she waited by counting the flowers on the opposite side of the room. Once she hit 712, she began to wonder where Lizzie was. At an even 1200, she was genuinely worried, and by the time she reached 2000, she'd made up her mind to go check on her roommate. Fortunately, however, Lizzie saved her the trouble by exiting the bathroom just then, looking a good deal more sober. She sat down on her bed and gave Hermione a congenial smile.

"I guess I'm kind of a lightweight," she admitted sheepishly. Hermione tried to keep smiling politely.

"So what happened the night of the party?" she asked after a quiet moment. Lizzie didn't answer right away. She'd lain down on her back and was staring at the ceiling as if seeing something there. When she finally spoke up, it was in a very soft voice; so soft that Hermione had to lean forward to hear her properly.

"Nani was my best friend growing up," she began, and Hermione wasn't certain where the story was going. "We were friends because we found out in the first grade that we had the same birthday--May 5. And, I mean, we had a lot in common, too. Like we both loved to surf and we were both in the school's environmental society in the fourth grade." Lizzie sighed heavily. "Every summer, we'd spend every other night over each others' houses, staying up until all hours talking and whispering and giggling. And when it was sunny out, which was pretty much every day, we'd go surfing together on the beach near my house." She laughed fondly. "They were great times."

Hermione forced a smile. "It sounds like they were."

Lizzie nodded, still looking at the ceiling. "We had a huge party for our eleventh birthday, with thousands of balloons, courtesy of my Mom--she's a witch--and this great cake that Nani's older sister made. Everyone from our fifth grade class was there, and we had the best time," she explained, and Hermione could hear that she was smiling. "It was a couple of months later that I got my letter from Bali Hai Pacific. Mom and Dad were so proud, and then I found out that Nani had gotten a letter, too. We both went shopping for our stuff together in Honolulu and we had all these plans for how we'd work in the Department of Magic and one of us would be elected to Congress or the Senate one day. And we'd go to college together, at California State College for the Magic Arts."

Hermione was now curious despite herself. "What happened? Did you two change your minds and come here instead?" she asked, assuming that Nani was one of the girls who joined Lizzie in her nightly ventures to pubs and such, but Lizzie was shaking her head.

"Nani never even made it to the first day at Bali Hai," she admitted quietly. "You take a ferry to get there, and since Nani was Muggle-born, her parents drove her to the ferry, rather than taking floo powder or flying or something like that. I mean, my family, we all took floo powder to the dock. And we waited there for Nani, at least for a little while. I had to get on the boat, but my mother told me that I could wait for Nani there. I saved her a seat next to me and everything. When the boat pulled away, I...I started to wonder why she was so late and why the boat was leaving without her." Hermione heard Lizzie swallow hard, as if she was fighting back tears. "When the boat got to Bali Hai's island, the principal met us there and told us that there had been a car accident on the way to the ferry station. Nani and her family were killed instantly."

Neither girl spoke for a moment; Hermione felt terrible about forcing the next words out of her mouth. "I really am sorry about that, Lizzie...it must have been a terrible loss," she said, very sincerely. "But what does it have to do with where you were the other night?"

Lizzie stood up and for a moment, Hermione worried that she'd infuriated her roommate and reached for her wand. But Lizzie simply walked over to her desk and, after rummaging through a tall stack of papers, pulled out a familiar, bright pink flier. "Did you get one of these?" she asked.

Hermione didn't need to read past the first line. " 'WISH GIVER,'" she stated flatly. "I got at least one. I was curious about it, but I've been too busy to see what it was about." She looked at Lizzie suspiciously. "Was that where you were?"

Lizzie nodded, but held up a hand as Hermione began to protest. "It's a longer story than just that." She seemed very calm and almost cold. Hermione pressed her lips together firmly as Lizzie sat back on the bed and crossed her legs in front of her. "I'd only intended to go for a little while and then go straight to your party. I told Padma, and she told me to wait to show up until after 8, because that's when you two were going to get there. I even dressed up when I went." This was true; Hermione remembered Lizzie's dress and crinolines. "Things were really boring, and I was even going to leave at 8:30. I mean, if the Wish Giver doesn't choose you right away, it can seem like the whole thing is kind of pointless, but he always gets to everyone by the end of the night."

The statement made no sense. Hermione frowned and spoke up against her better judgment. "So why didn't you leave when he didn't get to you?" she asked, trying not to let the bitterness show in her voice.

"I'm getting there," Lizzie snapped, almost sounding impatient. Hermione was shocked into silence. The other girl's tone softened mildly as she continued. "I was getting ready to leave, like I said, and I had one foot out the door, when he spoke my name. The Wish Giver, that is. I didn't realize he knew who I was, so I turned around and went to where he was standing with a few other people...some stringy guy with red hair and a girl with really long nails. He was making this really long speech about realizing your dreams and stuff like that--commencement speaker fodder. I just wanted him to stop talking so I could go already; I figured your party would be better."

She paused. Hermione wanted to ask "And then?" but kept her mouth shut rather than provoke the wrath of her apparently testy roommate. Lizzie sighed and leaned back again. "I didn't know what to expect when he pointed his wand at me, and I didn't even hear what he said. For a moment, it was like someone was flipping through files in my brain...really uncomfortable, I don't recommend it. I closed my eyes because it was starting to get pretty awful, but he told me to open them, and I saw..."

"What?" Hermione couldn't help herself. Though messy, klutzy and a general pain, Lizzie had a way of telling a story that made a person eager for more.

"I saw Nani."

They were both silent for a moment, and Hermione finally said (in a rather annoyed voice), "That's impossible. There's no magic on the planet that can bring back the dead."

"I know that," Lizzie said, in a surprisingly calm voice. "But she wasn't back from the dead. All I've wanted since she died was to make sure she was alright and that she knew I'd saved the seat for her. And there she was, and I could tell her and she could talk back to me. It sounds impossible, but Hermione, I know it was real."

Hermione didn't feel like arguing the point. "So that's where you were, then?"

Lizzie nodded. "If you don't mind, I'd like to go to bed now."

***

"And that was that."

Hermione was in the kitchen the next morning, recounting her experiences with Lizzie the night before to Padma over coffee. Draco was, conveniently, sitting nearby and supposedly doing something for Charms, but he hadn't turned the page since Hermione started her story.

"That was that? She was at that bloody Wish Giver thing the entire time?" Padma asked incredulously, putting her coffee mug down with such force that Hermione was surprised it didn't break.

"Apparently." Hermione pulled something chocolate-covered from the box of pastries Padma had brought along with her. "It sounded to me a lot like legilimency mixed with some sort of illusory hex."

"Well, whatever it is, I don't trust it," Padma decided firmly. "Hermione, I think we should check it out, just to make sure Lizzie isn't getting herself into any trouble."

Hermione thought she saw Draco stiffen out of the corner of her eye, but decided later that she'd been imagining things. "I think that's a good idea. But let's wait until Harry and Ron come visit again. Harry's a pretty good occlumens, so if this 'Wish Giver' turns out to be someone dangerous, we've got that on our side at least."

"Right." Padma stood and drained her coffee mug. "I'm going to go and check on the potion, Hermione. If you want, I can owl Harry and Ron this afternoon, let them know what's going on."

"That would be fantastic, thanks," Hermione answered, waving as Padma swept out the doorway. Only when the door had clicked shut behind her did Draco look up from his notes, an astonishingly concerned look on his face.

"If you feel you must go to this Wish Giver, it's wise that you're taking Potter and Weasley with you," he stated, sounding terribly bored with the situation, but his eyes betrayed him--Draco was worried. Hermione pretended that she hadn't noticed.

"Why do you say that?" she asked, bringing her and Padma's coffee mugs to the sink and turning on the hot water.

"I can't think of it being anything but legilimency, and to my knowledge, when it's outside of Ministry control, legilimency is only ever used for evil." He closed his Charms text with a thud and watched Hermione turn around with a confused frown on her face.

"What exactly do you know about it?" she questioned him suspiciously. Draco shrugged and leaned back in his chair.

"Seventh year. Some other Slytherins and I were invited to witness a meeting. It was quite an event. Several other guests had legilimency performed on them, while we all watched." He seemed to be carefully avoiding speaking about Voldemort in specific terms. "I read somewhere that legilimency is very closely related to the Imperius curse, and that a powerful witch or wizard could combine them into something terrible and virtually irresistible."

Hermione was still frowning. "Forgive me if I'm a little skeptical, Malfoy. I read up on legilimency during fifth year, when Harry..." she paused, not certain how much she wanted to reveal. "Well, when Harry was having some strange visions that turned out to be from Voldemort." Here, Draco winced slightly, but Hermione ignored it. "I never read anything about combining the two spells."

"You weren't reading the right books," Draco told her in a low voice, and stood to bring his texts back to his bedroom. "It's a very wise move to bring Potter and Weasley with you. Very wise." And he left without another word. Hermione stared after him for a moment before turning back to her dishes.

"Don't worry about me, Malfoy; I took care of myself against you for seven years, and I can most certainly take care of myself against any Wish Giver...or anyone else for that matter. I can take care of myself."