Flitterblooms and Firewhiskey

Part 3: Who Let These Two Meet In Secret?

Two things could be deduced, as Hermione marched through the snow on the way to Greenhouse Three. One, she was late. Two, Luna either didn't know how to perform an Obliteration Charm, or didn't bother with them. The former would be understandable; Luna was a fourth-year, and Hermione hadn't learned the charm until earlier that winter, and she'd only learned it from reading about Advanced Charms that weren't taught until 6th year. Still, Hermione Obliterated both her own and Luna's footprints on the way to the greenhouse. Most of the school was heading towards the Great Hall right now, but she didn't want anyone to get curious and follow them to their meeting.

Either she was late, or Luna had arrived early because she just loved to prune Flitterblooms. Well, at least the greenhouses were charmed to stay warm inside. The last thing she needed right now was to shiver.

"Hello, Luna. I'm glad you could make it."

The young Ravenclaw looked up. Her hair was pinned up, albeit very loosely, enabling a good many long, stray strands to escape their binding.

"Hello," she said vaguely, pulling up from her crouched position before the Flitterblooms and putting her shears on the workbench. She brushed off a bit of dirt from her robes and came to stand before Hermione, staring at the Gryffindor expectantly with those huge, slightly disconcerting, unblinking silver eyes.

Hermione clasped her hands in front of her and straightened up, as though preparing herself to make a speech. At the sight of her reflection in Luna's eyes, she untensed and let out a sudden breath. "Listen, about this meeting. It's about my friend Harry. You know, Harry Potter."

Luna smiled slightly, twisting one long stray lock absentmindedly through her fingers.

"Yes, I know Harry," she said dreamily. "He's rather sweet, actually. He's not at all how the Prophet portrays him, is he?"

Hermione's face opened up into a smile of her own, clearly pleased at Luna's assessment. "Exactly," she said, nodding involuntarily. "The Prophet's got him all wrong; he really is a good person, and perfectly lucid, and he needs a chance to tell his story. So I'm arranging for him to have an interview, to explain how he saw Voldemort come back." She drew back into her tense, steely posture. Slowly and carefully, she said, "And I was hoping it could be published in The Quibbler."

For one of the very few times Hermione had ever witnessed, Luna blinked. The pale hand twisting her lock of hair suddenly froze as though Stupefied. Hermione stiffened, expecting the worst.

Instead, Luna tilted her head slightly to one side, her luminous eyes giving her a decidedly pixieish appearance. Whether she was contemplating Hermione's words or not was difficult to tell. The prolonged silence was becoming rather awkward, at least for one Gryffindor Prefect.

"Well?" she asked, in a slightly higher voice than she intended. "What do you say to that?"

"I'm sorry," said Luna serenely, her hand resuming its distracted twirling of her hair, "I was trying to see if you were fibbing. People seem to do that a lot with me, I've noticed. But I do think you're sincere..."

She straightened up and looked Hermione straight in the eyes, a dreamy smile forming on her face. "You know, I think that's a wonderful idea."

"You do?" responded Hermione, her face positively glowing with happiness and relief. "Oh, I'm so glad! I've already written to a reporter who can conduct the interview with Harry. Will you write to your father and ask him if he'd be willing to run it?"

Luna's smile abruptly vanished as her eyes widened precipitously. "It's not someone from The Daily Prophet, is it?" she asked cautiously. "Because Daddy would never run it - "

Hermione's eyes widened almost as wide as Luna's, and her lower lip once again became a chew toy, before her face relaxed partway. "You know what? She used to work for the Daily Prophet, but she's...between work right now. She's had to take a year off, and she owes me a favour. In fact, she owes me several favours if I say she does, but the point is, she'll work on our terms. She hasn't been on writing terms with the Prophet since June."

Luna appeared to take these words into consideration. "Well, I suppose it's all right, then," she said thoughtfully. "Daddy doesn't like the Prophet very much. He says they try to influence public opinion instead of just reporting the news. He says they're just a puppet of the Ministry."

"And he's absolutely right. They don't care about the truth anymore; take the article about the Azkaban breakout, for instance. Their coverage is grossly inadequate, and it's not hard to see there's a lot of information missing from their story. That's why I respect your father's work; he's honest about what he prints."

At that, Luna took a sudden step back, looking at Hermione with an unfathomable expression as her pale cheeks suddenly flushed visibly.

"You don't have to pretend, you know," she said softly, her voice suddenly losing its dreamy quality. "I know you don't think very highly of Daddy's paper. You called it rubbish, as I recall. I do want to help, but please don't be spurious; I can tell rather well."

Hermione's erect posture crumpled slightly and she looked off to the side. "When I said that, I was speaking more from reputation than experience. From what I'd heard about your father's paper, it really sounded like rubbish. But, since we met on the train, I've tried reading The Quibbler, and I've found that it's really quite interesting. That was an inappropriate thing of me to say, that remark about it being rubbish. I really should have seen it for myself before making an assessment like that."

Luna stared at her, wide-eyed and with an even greater look of surprise than usual.

"Oh..." she said softly, "...well...that's different, then..."

Luna suddenly walked right up to Hermione and pressed a small length of Flitterbloom vine into the Gryffindor's palm. "All right," she said, a dreamy smile returning to her features, "I'll owl Daddy tonight. I'm sure he'll say yes, though. He knows the Prophet has been painting Harry as being quite unhinged over the last few months. But Harry's no more unhinged than I am, really."

Galleons were not made to be as big as Hermione's eyes at that particular moment; a striking contrast to her oddly pinched mouth. It took some seconds before she spoke, during which time Luna simply gazed serenely back at her. "Thank you," she finally said. "I really appreciate your help."

Luna smiled and drifted off to the greenhouse's door, pausing a moment to look back at Hermione.

"Well, I'm going for a walk around the lake," she offered. "It's the perfect time to go scouting for Humdinger tracks, you know, with the snow and all. Would you like to come?"

"That sounds fascinating," said Hermione, her eyebrows knitted so far together her forehead resembled a sideways washboard. "But I need to get dinner, Harry and Ron are wondering where I am by now, and then I have Transfiguration homework. But enjoy yourself, and keep warm, alright?"

Though Luna looked briefly disappointed, it lasted for only a moment as the prospects of looking for one of her mythical creatures evidently greatly enthused her. With one airy wave of a hand she opened the door and drifted out into the landscape of freshly fallen snow.