As You Wish - Chapter 17

Neville Longbottom looked up to see who had Apparated into his office.

"H-Harry?" He was expecting Luna as scheduled, but he was surprised to see Harry in tow. "I'm sorry, Luna. I'm just surprised to see you bring Harry along."

"That's alright, Neville," she replied, placing her bag in one of his chairs. "How are things with Hannah?"

The Herbology professor beamed at the mention of his wife. "We haven't made a full announcement yet, but we just got the confirmation that she's pregnant."

"That's wonderful, mate!" Harry smiled right back, walking over to give his former classmate a hug.

Neville looked over his friend's shoulder to see his research partner smiling, her hands pressed together in excitement. "Y-yeah, well, I just want to make sure everything is as comfortable for her as possible. I want to be there for her every step of the way."

"And you will, Professor," Luna stated, taking out her notebook.

"So, what brings you here, Harry?" the former Gryffindor asked, moving to sit at his desk.

"Luna thought it would be good to see what you both have been working on. Something about me being her patron and all." He sat in one of the seats in front of his friend's desk.

Neville looked at their friend and she nodded. "Well, your funding has been a huge help, but to be honest, we ended up asking for funding from someone else."

Harry furrowed his brows. "Why didn't you just ask me for more money?"

"We wanted to hedge our bets financially since this project may need more money than initially anticipated due to the nature of our work."

"Alright, then who's the other source?"

Neville looked at Luna again, knowing that his answer might not go the way she planned. Her small nods confirmed that she had a reason for this. "It's Narcissa and Draco Malfoy."

"What?" their friend asked, raising his voice. "Why would you accept money from them? Don't you remember what his aunt did to your parents?"

"That's exactly why we accepted their offer, Harry. Luna and I have been working on a way to help my parents. And in addition to money, Narcissa has one of the largest private gardens in all of wizarding England, so she can grow things for me that may not be allowed here at Hogwarts. And Draco runs the largest trading firm for wizarding Europe. He's been able to get us supplies with little interference."

Harry leaned back in his seat. This was why Luna brought him here. This was what Crystal meant about living in a new world. How could he have gone so long without noticing any of this? Was he really that blinded by what he thought to be true of the world around him?

Luna took over for Neville. "Draco was rather hesitant at first to help us, but his mother convinced him. She knew what her sister did truly was unforgivable and felt that this was the best way for her to show us that not all of the families under Voldemort's control wished to continue along his path." She paused and placed a hand onto one of Harry's. "Believe it or not, we think we're getting close."

The professor perked up, his confidence growing with each word. "Yes! The last time we went to St. Mungo's to see them, the staff said that our last treatment showed significant improvement. Their cognition with regards to recognizing people from their long term memory is not quite there yet, but their short term memory is coming back. They recognize the staff that treats them and are able to put faces to names."

"How did you both make this happen?" Harry was experiencing a healthy mix of shock and awe. Shock, still, at who had also decided to help his friends, but also in awe of what the two in front of him were able to accomplish.

"To be honest, I couldn't have thought to even work on this if it wasn't for Luna's existing research."

Harry looked to Luna and noticed that her cheeks had gone pink. It was rare to see her so flustered, but he remembered that she was still getting used to receiving genuine compliments. The one time he complimented her on the work of a past experiment, was the only time he saw her at a loss for words.

The blonde witch fidgeted in her seat, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear after Neville's compliment. "I only noticed something in my mother's work that I thought was worth expanding upon."

"We were surprised to see that Luna's mum also looked at Muggle experiments to see if there was anything of value to be brought into the wizarding world. Muggles tend to research more on how the human body functions than wizards seem to, and she found something that Muggles sometimes use things to help regenerate injured parts of the body. What were they called again?"

"Stem cells!" Luna piped up, getting over her mild embarrassment. "Muggles have different methods of obtaining them, but we also realized that there's plenty of things in our world that have similar properties: Skele-Grow, phoenix tears, and the like. It gave us a starting point."

"From there," Neville chiming back in, "we thought to look more at different Muggle conditions to see if there was anything similar to what my parents' symptoms were. And there was. It's a degenerative disease that only affects the brain called Alzheimer's. Once we found that, things picked up from there."

"Does Hermione know about your work? You know she could always point you in the right direction for Muggle resources." Harry was surprised at how much his friends were able to accomplish without input from someone like Hermione. He didn't get much of an education before Hogwarts, but he knew Hermione did.

The fervor between the pair of researchers faded at their benefactor's question. The two shared a knowing look and he realized why they didn't want to get one of his best friends involved.

"W-well, the thing is —" Neville began.

Harry held up a hand to stop him from continuing. "I understand. But do you think that she would be of any help?"

The pair looked at each other again. "Yes, she would," Neville replied, his tone firm.

"I'll speak with her and see what I can do. But you know she'll expect some kind of talk with Malfoy before agreeing to anything." Harry leaned back in his chair and tilted his head back. He sighed. He knew Hermione would do it because it's Hermione. Knowing her, she was probably driving Ron mad as she itched for another project to work on. It was just the whole Malfoy funding thing that would take more convincing. He felt a hand placed on his again and turned his head to see Luna looking at him.

"We appreciate your help, Harry. You leave Draco Malfoy to us."

Ginny stood at the front door to what she hoped was Daphne's home. She had rung the doorbell and waited for what seemed like longer than she was expecting before the door finally swung open.

"Crystal, babes!" Astoria shouted, wrapping the genie up in a hug. She pouted as she pulled back, still holding on to Ginny. "You never answer my owls anymore."

"She's been busy, Astoria. Not everything revolves around you." That was from Daphne, coming up from behind her sister. She pulled Astoria away and grabbed her guest by the arm, leading her inside. "Welcome, darling." Daphne gave Crystal the once over. "Look at you, all dressed for the occasion."

Ginny finally took a look at the sisters and noticed that they, too, had actually dressed down for their meeting. Astoria had on one of her long, flowing silk robes in an emerald green over a silk pajama top and bottoms in the same color. Daphne seemed to be more aligned with Ginny, with a similar pair of leggings. However, instead of a jacket, the elder sister wore a burgundy-colored crop top under an oversized cashmere cardigan in the same color. The strangest thing for Ginny was seeing that not only did Daphne have her hair up in a messy bun, but she was also wearing glasses.

Daphne noticed Crystal staring at her glasses and smiled. "I don't really need to wear these that often, but they help if I think I'm going to be reading or looking at something for a long time."

"They suit you," Ginny mumbled, feeling loathe to acknowledge that even in loungewear, she understood why people liked Daphne's kind of beauty.

Astoria hovered just behind the pair in front of her, trying not to let her sister see how annoyed she was by the sight of them arm in arm. She felt like a child again. The youngest Greengrass had still stuck with her tried and true plans of doing almost, if not the exact, same things as Daphne to show how much better she was. But it was rare for Astoria to have something of her own that Daphne didn't already show an interest in. So outside of her interesting love life, Astoria was excited to have a friend that wasn't someone Daphne already knew.

The trio had made their way into Daphne's dining room, where she had already set out her mood boards and catalogues of potential items for the winter gala.

"So, um, Daph, how did you meet Crystal?" Astoria asked as she sat down across from her friend.

"I had mentioned to Draco during one of our dates," she paused, glancing at the raven-haired woman to see if the genie would react to the word date. It seemed that she was either pretending to not hear her, or that she was genuinely preoccupied with the catalogue in front of her. "That I needed some assistance with planning the winter gala for New Year's. And he said that Crystal was working as a party planner before she decided to come back to London, so I figured I would enlist her help."

"Crystal!" Astoria cried out, almost whining at the end of the other woman's name. "Why didn't you tell me about your job? Do you have any idea how much fun we could have had at your parties?"

It took all of Ginny to not roll her eyes at the younger Greengrass's outburst. She was nice enough, but good lord; Daphne may have been right about her sister believing the world revolved around her. "I mean, it never came up in conversation between us. I think since we first met, and considering my family's background, it was just assumed that I lived like you and Daphne."

Astoria waved her hands around as she rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine; that one's on me, but now that I know what you do, seeing the lack of parties planned by you is distressing."

"Well, you did get me blackout drunk the first time we met, so I'd say not telling you my job has been better for my health," Ginny said, rising up to look at one of the mood boards, ignoring Astoria's irritated scoff. "Daphne," the genie continued, "looking at all of this, what did you have in mind as the overall theme?"

The mood board consisted of fabric swatches in luxurious jeweled tones, plush velvet, and shimmering silks. There were gold and silver headdresses, flowing gowns with embroidery in the same colors as the headdresses. Photos of runway models and Muggle red carpet gowns, all in the same kind of jewel tones as the fabric swatches. The mood board next to the first had photos of various depictions of outer space and galaxies — famous paintings like Starry Night alongside Muggle photos of the Milky Way and the aurora borealis.

Ginny walked back over to the table and flipped through the catalogues again, realizing that all of them had items with similar color schemes to what she saw on the mood boards. As she sat down, Daphne stood up and planted herself in front of the boards. She picked up a notebook in front of her, filled with all of her main talking points. Like many things as of late, she was treating this like a business meeting. Crystal was the president of the company and Daphne was presenting her most important proposal to date.

She glanced down at her notes, adjusted her glasses, and locked eyes with Crystal. "Ladies, may I present to you the theme of this year's New Year's gala: Heavenly Bodies. Since Crystal seems to have enough knowledge of Muggle styles and art, I wanted to use that to my advantage as a way to really make this event bring in a new era to how wizarding England celebrates the new year."

Daphne stepped to the side of one of the boards and took out her wand, using it to draw attention to various items on her mood boards. "While we have always studied astronomy and runes throughout our history, I feel like we don't always explore the aesthetics of these things the way Muggles do. They use the universe to provide inspiration for art and fashion. They seek to explore it in a way that we don't have an interest in, and so, they have more visual items to work with than we do."

Ginny was definitely intrigued by the idea. Daphne was right about Muggles doing more to explore space, and the theme did lend itself to high drama if done correctly. She raised her hand.

"Yes, Crystal?" Daphne asked.

"Okay, so, loving all of this so far, I guess my main question right now is, what physical things are you thinking of in terms of how a ballroom would look?"

"Thank you for your question, since it is an important one." Daphne paused and flipped a couple of pages ahead in her notebook. "In my mind, I'm imagining something immersive. I've read about forms of Muggle art where you can interact with the art itself and I think this theme would be perfect to try that out. I really like the idea of making parts of the ballroom look like we're among the stars and the dress code would be the same kind of theme."

Ginny looked up at the ceiling, pursing her lips together as she thought about Daphne's request. One of her masters had show her photos and videos from an art installation they went to that had elements of space mixed in. One area that had caught her attention was a room filled with lights that hung from the ceiling, where the walls, floor, and ceiling were covered in mirrors. From the photos, it made everything in the room look like it could go on forever. With her powers, it could be easily duplicated.

"I think I have a starting point as my inspiration," the genie stated, looking back at Daphne. "But I'll have to think about how and where in the ballroom it would make the most sense. I might just have it be almost a lounge area, or have there be stages to the evening, similar to how a wedding has a ceremony and then a reception."

"I like that last idea," Astoria chimed in. "Also loving the theme, Daph, and I like Crystal's idea of having there be separate stages to the evening. It kind of keeps everyone going at the same pace for most of the night and you could even make decor changes as the night progresses."

Ginny put her hands out, palms up, and shook her head. "That would be perfect, actually."

Astoria looked at her sister and raised an eyebrow. "And you thought you I wasn't going to be useful here."

Daphne rolled her eyes as Ginny continued. "We could have everyone leave the space each time we needed to change something and re-immerse them with the new theme. Or at least, have them leave after eating so the most grand immersion happens when we change the ballroom for dancing. If we have to change things too often, it might get tedious."

The eldest Greengrass breathed a sigh of relief once she realized that her vision was probably going to become a reality. "Oh, thank Merlin." She sat back down at the head of the table. "Crystal, darling, would you be opposed to a working brunch? We can eat while we look through the catalogues and when we're done we'll have our spa day."

Ginny smiled and nodded in response. Planning out this event was turning out to be more fun than she was expecting. She finally felt like she was actually doing something as Draco's genie instead of sitting by the sidelines, wasting away the true extent of her powers. If this wasn't the perfect time to know the limits of abilities, then what was?

Draco sat at his desk Monday morning, engrossed in his work after getting Blaise out of his office. He knew that his friend would never tell Ginny (or his mother) about their chat from last week, but he couldn't help but think more on Blaise's final question.

It seemed like there was never a right time for him to have that discussion with Ginny, especially with her getting closer to Daphne. His "girlfriend" said that she would need 6 months to complete her work, so maybe he could finally tell Ginny how he felt then.

He leaned back in his chair. It was an interesting thought, being enamored of Ginny Weasley. He remembered what Blaise said about getting to know her sooner and Draco realized he felt the same way. But on the other hand, would she be the person she is now if she hadn't become a genie? Draco remembered Hogwarts-era Ginny being very sure of herself, with a quick wit, but he also remembered her almost looking like a third wheel. She may have had her own group of friends, but it felt like she always hung around her brothers because it meant closer proximity to Harry. He wondered if her becoming a genie was the reason why she felt more like her own person.

Draco looked up when he heard a knock on the door. "Come in."

Margaret poked her head in. "Mr. Malfoy, you just received an urgent owl from Professor Longbottom and Miss Lovegood. They're asking to meet with you to discuss bringing in another research partner to help their efforts."

He furrowed his brows. "Why would they need my permission? Did they say who they wanted to bring in?"

Margaret entered his office and gave him the letter. He skimmed over the updates, knowing that his mother was more involved in the whole process than he was. About half way through, he saw the reason why he was being contacted about this. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He thought this day would only happen after he wished for Ginny's freedom, but it seems like his hand was being forced.

His secretary looked at him with concern, knowing that the contents of the letter could potentially set her boss back if things didn't go well.

Draco looked up at Margaret, placing the letter down on his desk. "Well, this was bound to happen eventually," he said with a tight-lipped smile. "Margaret, I need you to send two owls. The first one is a reply to the research team, letting them know that I would be more than happy to approve the new addition to their team and I understand their request. The second will need to be sent to Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. They live together, but the contents should be mostly addressed to Miss Granger. Please ask them to meet me here, tomorrow morning, if possible, as I don't want to slow down the research team's progress."

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy. I'll start working on that right away and re-arrange your schedule accordingly."

Great, he thought, letting his head thump down on his desk. Here was yet another thing he was hoping to not get Ginny involved in. But he needed to tell her, otherwise he would never hear the end of it from his mother.

A/N - Thank you for reading or commenting! I appreciate you all!