Gloria hadn’t looked at the flowers carefully enough to recognize them, but the moment Lisette mentioned Herbology, she noticed it immediately.  Those were the flowers they’d been tending in the greenhouse, and he’d gone and picked a handful of them.  Gloria couldn’t even process all of this.  It was the height of uncomfortable to be standing there with this awful glaring spotlight on her, as though everybody were waiting on her to make an important move when all she wanted was the ability to disapparate on the spot.  

"They aren't hexed," he assured her. "And, even if they are from the greenhouses, I still had to pick them, didn't I?" [i]

Gloria frowned deeply and took a step back.  “If I get caught with those I’ll get in trouble,” she said.  “I’m not that stupid.”  Gloria got into enough trouble with professors as it was.  The last thing she needed was help.  He was likely trying to trick her into taking the blame for some damage he did out there.  

[i]"Just take the flowers. I got them for you."

“I don’t want them.  You probably did something to them,” she said.  “Why else would you say they weren’t hexed unless you did something to them?”  There was no possibility that Connor was just trying to be nice to her.  None.  Zero.  This was the boy who pulled her hair and threw spitballs at her in class.  This as the boy who’d given her a double black eye and never even pretended to be sorry for it.  This was the boy who’d laughed at her with his friends when they called her weird.  This was not a boy who was trying to be nice.  

“Come on, Lisette,” Gloria said curtly, as she turned on her heel.  “Let’s get out of here.”



Gloria Watkins