20 Questions
June 13th, 1995
Sixth Year
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Leilani and Fred sat in the Three Broomsticks laughing at something he'd said. They'd gotten over first date awkwardness by playing a version of 20 questions, they each got to ask a question and they each had to answer it, it could be one word or a paragraph but it had to be an answer. Exceptions were made if the answer was already known, then they could skip to the next question. It was her turn.
"Who is your best friend?" she asked.
"Lee Jordan. Why is Montgomery yours?"
"I met Jo when I was nine, and it seems that there is something about a friendship where screaming and nearly having a heart attack is involved that seems to cement it. She once described us as two halves of one brain. We finish each others sentences, laugh till we cry—over something completely ridiculous, by the way—it's little wonder people think I've got a thing for her." Leilani grinned. "Basically, a shy little girl was met by an uncontrollable force who offered her an instant friendship, and we've been joined at the hip ever since." She groaned after a moment, "and now I'm just sappy." She took a drink to cover her embarrassment. "Why is Lee your best friend?"
"Because he's just as crazy as me and George," Fred said simply. "Who are you closest to in your family?"
"My dad, he's a mediwizard at St. Mungo's in the research department of the spell damage wing. His job is to help find cures and treatments for things like Dark curse damage. But, since my sister and I were little he's brought home stories about people who've splinched half their faces off or tried to become Animagi without the proper training, among other things. These are just patients he sees on his way to work, he doesn't actually get to treat any of them."
Fred grimaced and Leili grinned wickedly, "I haven't even told you the worst part, he liked to tell these stories over dinner." Fred's grimace deepened and Leilani laughed, "It's kind of his way of teaching caution. If he had gone to Hogwarts I think he'd have been in Ravenclaw, he's one of those 'knowledge for curiosity's sake' types."
"Homeschooled?" Fred inquired. Some parents opted to teach their own children.
"Mm-mm, Ilvermorny. He was born in Hawaii so he went to school in Massachusetts. Both Horned Serpent and Pukwudgie wanted him, he chose Pukwudgie in the end. Anyway, what is your most vivid childhood memory or, your favorite childhood prank?"
Fred grinned, "George and I set off a dung bomb under our Great-Aunt Muriel's chair during dinner one Christmas. She never came back after that."
Leilani laughed at the glittering triumph in Fred's grin, at the same time, she took a sip out of her gilly water—she didn't much care for butterbeer. She wound up choking and spluttering as she laughed.
"What about you?" he asked after she had finished coughing.
"Um," she said when she recovered, "My most vivid childhood memory is probably from when I was about 8 and I fell into a river while on vacation. My sister and I were out wading, I was in up to about my knees and I took a step too far, didn't see that there was a steep slope right there and I got dunked up to my eyeballs in fresh spring melt ice water. It was so cold that I couldn't breathe, let alone remember how to swim out of a current. The current pulled me out too far and my sister had to come rescue me. Kanani lost a favorite pair of shoes that day. She still won't talk to me about it," Leilani grinned.
"And your favorite childhood prank?"
"I don't actually have any. I never really had the mind for pranks; I could appreciate them just fine, as long as they were being done to other people. As a kid, I did not take kindly to people trying to prank me, since my birthday is so close to April fool's, so most people just left me alone. Plus, when you're poised to whack them upside the head with a really heavy book, people tend to be a little nicer to you. I do have some fantastic ideas I borrowed from a TV show I watch over summer."
"When's your birthday?"
"April 2nd. My mom refused to have an April fool's baby."
"George and I are April fool's babies," he grinned.
"Well that explains a lot!" they laughed.
"You're half-blood, right?"
Leili nodded, "You're wondering how mum took the news that she was dating a wizard?"
It was his turn to nod.
"She laughed for like a week straight. Or at least, that's how dad tells it. She thought he was kidding. It didn't help that he chose Halloween to tell her, he showed up in full robes, she was Raggedy-Annie that year—"
"Raggedy who?"
"Annie, she's a doll. Here, I've got this picture…" Leili dug in her purse for the photo, it was small, only a couple inches tall. In it, her dad stood next to her mom who was wearing a red dress, white apron, tall red and white striped socks and a pair of black shoes. He on the other hand, was wearing robes. Full wizarding robes, complete with pointy hat and Ilvermorny pin.
"Anyway, he did a few simple spells to convince her, she tried to deny it for about a week, but he managed to convince her he wasn't crazy."
"Do you like Quidditch?"
"I do—hang on, I thought it was my turn? Cheater," she mock-glared.
"You can have two after this."
"I don't actually have a question for you right now. Anyway, yes, I like Quidditch."
"Do you play?"
"Not where people can see. I'm not very good."
"You said your dad is American."
"Yeah."
"Can you do the accent?"
Leili blinked slowly and tried not to smile—she couldn't do it if she was smiling, something about the way her lips were positioned made it hard—and when she opened her mouth again was pure American. "I can do a couple of accents. Including my own, I've got American and Scottish down pretty pat, Irish—ehh, not so well. That one's more of a fluke."
"Wicked," Fred enthused. "How long can you keep it?"
"Depends," Leili grinned, people didn't normally get so excited over her talent with accents.
"On?"
"Little things. Like who it is I'm talking to, if I'm actively trying to keep it or shake it, if I can avoid smiling on certain words. I used to get stuck. Had to stop talking to people for a bit, had to relax, get the sounds out of my head."
Now for the question he'd been waiting all night to ask, "Tell me something no-one else knows about you."
She tilted her head at him, struck by the question and how sweet she thought it was. "Do you want me to keep the accent?"
A challenging gleam twinkled in his brown eyes, "If you can."
She sat and thought a while; so long in fact that he didn't think she was going to answer. Finally she found the answer, "I like frozen Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. They're probably my favorite candy."
"I don't know them."
"Not surprised, Muggles hand them out on Halloween. I throw mine in the freezer when I get home from Trick-or-Treating. They never fully freeze so when you bite into them they're just perfectly chilled."
"Tell me something else?"
"Ok, um… Does it have to be something no-one else knows? 'Cause I think I'm fresh out of those."
"It doesn't have to be."
"Ok. Well…" Once again she thought a while, trying to come up with something little known and obscure, she could come up with just one more. "Ok, ok, ok. When I was four years-old, my grandmother declared that all I ever talked about were fictional princesses, Cinderella this, Sleeping Beauty that, Snow White, Maid Marion… anyway, she decided that I was unhealthily obsessed with story book princesses so she bought me a new book with Real-life Princesses. She thought this was clever and maybe I'd learn something real instead of jabbering on about glass slippers and foxes playing badminton. She was right, I learned a lot from that book—haven't seen it in a while, come to think of it. Anyway, her scheme had the unintended consequence of hooking my imagination on the most tragic story in the whole book. The one where the princess and her family were gathered into the cellar and summarily shot slash stabbed to death, taken out into the woods, doused with acid, burned and buried. They still haven't found them all."
Fred choked on his butterbeer, "Blimey Leilani!"
She winced, "Sorry, was that too much?" She hadn't thought about the story's end when she'd started it.
"You were how old?"
She held up four fingers. Somewhere in the midst of this, the borrowed accent dropped and her own returned, neither had noticed when it happened, only that it had.
"Merlin!"
"Needless to say, she was rather horrified when my topic of choice veered from talking animals to the horrific death of seven people and their dogs. So! I've given you two obscure facts about me, it's your turn."
He told her about growing up a twin, turning Ron's teddy bear into a spider, feeding Ron an acid pop and almost getting him to swear an unbreakable vow—and the spanking that followed.