By the time that Valentine’s Day winged its way into the castle, both Ginny and Dean had been allowed to leave the hospital wing. Ginny was fully recovered but Dean still moved quite gingerly. She had filled them in on the events that had lead to her capture. She had been on her way back to the tower after a day’s lessons when she heard the sound of a commotion down one of the corridors, as a prefect she was compelled to investigate, and came across Crabbe and Goyle wrestling with Dean. She had tried asking them to stop and when they didn’t she had attempted to hex them; she wasn’t quick enough to stop Crabbe from kicking her wand out of her hand and slamming her against a wall. Dean had attempted to aid her but, having already expended a lot of his energy in struggling with the two massive Slytherins, he wasn’t able to do much. Not long after that, Ginny had blacked out and didn’t remember anything up until she heard Harry’s voice. The good news was that although Crabbe and Goyle weren’t being castigated in the same way as Malfoy -- rumours had spread that Draco had used the Imperious Curse on them, but Harry and his friends didn’t believe that -- they were being punished sufficiently. Ellie told them happily that Dumbledore had removed the pair from the Slytherin Quidditch team and that they were now effectively in permanent detention. They weren’t even being allowed to the toilet unsupervised. They went to classes, meals and long detentions with whichever member of staff was free that day, and then they were confined to their dormitory room at all other times.
When everyone woke on the Saturday morning that was the fourteenth of February they were shocked to discover the walls of the castle had been painted pink. Little hearts and kisses were zooming around the newly redecorated surfaces. On the way down to breakfast Ginny nearly jumped out of her skin when one wall spoke to her, she turned her head to see a plump little cherub, complete with a bow and arrow smiling at her jovially. “Is that your young man?” the little figure asked.
“Certainly is,” Ginny replied.
“Would you like me to get him with a Smooch Arrow; it’ll make him want to kiss you permanently!” The cherub gave her a cheeky wink.
“That’s not necessary, I want to kiss her permanently anyway,” Harry said happily, he swept Ginny into a low bow and kissed her passionately. When he pulled her back up, she blushed crimson.
“Do you have to?” Ron pleaded; he didn’t need to see Harry kissing his little sister like that. There was a crowd of other students around them and several of the girls amongst it were giggling dangerously and pointing at Harry. The boys in the group had gone frighteningly white and were watching the girls with consummate fear in their eyes, it was quite obvious that they were afraid that they might be asked to re-enact the scene they had just witnessed.
“I can’t help it if I’m madly in love with your sister, blame her, it’s all her fault. If she didn’t go around looking so breathtakingly beautiful, then I wouldn’t feel the need to kiss her all the time,” Harry shrugged. Ginny’s colour deepened.
“Harry, please don’t tell me things like that!” Ron moaned as he put his hands over his ears.
“What have you done with, Harry?” Ginny asked him now that she’d composed herself a little.
“Nothing, it’s Valentine’s Day, what’s wrong with showing a little affection on the most romantic day of the year?” he inquired as he wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed the top of her head.
“Did you bang your head this morning?” Ginny immediately began searching though the hair on the back of his head for any signs of a blunt trauma.
“Nope, just learning to properly appreciate what I have,” he told her, this time he pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed the spot where a ring would have been, he gave her a special little wink.
“Yeah, well could you stop, mate, you’re putting the rest of us to shame,” Ron waggled his head at the group of nervous boys on the other side of the corridor.
“Not for all the gold in Gringotts,” Harry replied.
“If you don’t mind, dear, I’ll save my arrow for someone who really needs it,” the cherub beamed at Harry and Ginny.
The usual decorations that adorned the Great Hall had also undergone some alteration; the house banners now bore pictures of a smiling and waving cupid who was cheekily aiming his arrow at the people that were spilling into the hall. The most surprising thing was that Professor Dumbledore was dressed from head to toe in pastel pink and toned in very well with Ellie, who was wearing robes that were bright cerise. Ellie looked quite ill and Harry wondered if this was because she matched in so well with her grandfather or if something terrible had happened, but a glance down at his newspaper told him that nobody that they knew had died. He watched her carefully as she played with he food instead of eating it; he was so worried that he went to check that she was all right. “Is something wrong, Professor?” Harry remembered to use the correct term since they were in front of other people.
“I don’t feel very well,” she replied as she gave her bacon a sickened look.
“Has something happened?”
“No, I just feel really sick. Charlie bought me back an enormous box of miniature chocolate frogs last night, and I ate the whole lot. If I was my stomach, I’d rebel against that kind of treatment as well,” she smiled.
“Just as long as you’re sure you’re all right?”
“Definitely, I somehow think I’ll live through a sore stomach.”
“Tell me, Harry, what do you think of the changes I’ve made through the castle?” Dumbledore leaned across to address Harry.
“They’re…nice…pink isn’t really my colour but still. I met a cherub that wanted to shoot me with an arrow on the way down here, it was quite funny actually.” Harry smiled as he thought about the look the tiny angel had given him for kissing Ginny.
“May I ask what arrow it wished to use?” Dumbledore inquired.
“A Smooch Arrow, but it wasn’t necessary,” Harry said proudly. Dumbledore flashed him a satisfied smile while Ellie turned to her grandfather in what Harry correctly spotted as mocking disbelief.
“Would you believe that, Granddad? A Potter male didn’t need a Smooch Arrow!” she snorted into her goblet of pumpkin juice, which had been dyed red for the occasion.
“I recall a Valentine’s Day many years ago where I began to think that I was going to have to use an Anti-Smooch Arrow on your mother and father,” the headmaster smiled at Harry.
“Wouldn’t have done any good, Grandad, Uncle James would have found a way to counteract it,” Ellie smiled at Harry but he could tell it wasn’t him she was seeing. For a very brief second she saw him as his father.
“So what are we going to do today?” Harry asked Ginny as he leaned back to lounge on the couch by the Gryffindor common room fire. They had come back to the tower after breakfast while Ron and Hermione had gone for a walk on the grounds.
“I thought that we could go exploring or something,” Ginny said with a suggestive wiggle of her eyebrows.
“You’re up to exploring?” he asked with a fiendish smile.
“I think a more important question is, are you?” She lay down on top of him so that her face was barely a centimetre from his own.
“I’m sure that I’d enjoy a good day of exploring, there are always lots of new things to learn and do.” He could see his desire reflected in Ginny’s eyes.
“What are we waiting for then?” She flashed him a wide grin and pulled him off the couch and out of the common room.
Meanwhile Ron and Hermione were strolling down by the lake.
“It’s a nice day, isn’t it?” Hermione made a desperate attempt at small talk. She and Ron had been wandering a round the lake for over half an hour now and an awkward silence filled the air between them. Ron took a look at the weather around him, it was anything but nice, and after all this was the middle of February in Scotland. The country was more renowned for its terrible weather than just about anything else. The tail end of the winter chill still hung in the air but it was in the process of being chased away by downpours that surged down from the sky at regular intervals. Right now it wasn’t raining but it was neither long since the last monsoon, nor long before the next. The lake had expanded significantly and the water in it had made an impulsive bid for freedom up the bank that surrounded it. Everything looked dull and grey, and rather worn out. A nice day it certainly wasn’t.
“Not really,” he answered honestly. “Hermione, I really think that we need to talk. We can’t go on like this.” They hadn’t officially gotten back together yet; there was just this sort of implied agreement to spending time together. Things were still so tongue-tied and clumsy between them, they didn’t really know where either of them stood.
“We really do,” she acknowledged. Neither of them knew what was going on between them, were they back together? Or were they just trying to be friends again? Did they want to get back together? Had things gone too far for that? There were so many questions that needed to be answered, but both of them were too afraid to ask for fear of what the answer might be.
“I don’t want the Malfoy thing hanging over our heads forever,” Ron began.
“Neither do I!” Hermione quickly jumped in.
“But at the same time, I need you to understand why I was angry. It wasn’t that I hated you, it was because I hated him,” he explained. “The thought of you kissing Malfoy was like getting kicked in the…well, you know where.” He decided at the last minute to keep things clean between them, she hated it when he was crude. “I think what worried me more than anything else was that you might like kissing him better than kissing me.” He stared out across the lake, he didn’t want to look at her; he might die of embarrassment.
“God, no!” Hermione burst into his monologue. He decided to look up at her and found that her face was twisted in disgust. “Ron, there is no way that I would enjoy anything with Malfoy more than I enjoy it with you.”
“If you didn’t enjoy it then why did you keep your snogging session going so long?” Ron asked in confusion.
“Because I thought he was you.”
“So you’re saying that I’m a crap kisser?” he just wanted to get his facts right before he started getting indignant.
“No! I’m saying that when I kiss you I don’t think about whether it’s good or not because I’m too busy thinking about how much I love you.” Her eyes were filling with tears and she was holding on to his hand with a death grip. She would keep clinging to him, keep him rooted to this spot until he understood what she was saying.
“Oh,” was all that he could manage. Relief swept through his body, he might not be a crap kisser after all. “It’s just, you…you’re the only girl I’ve ever kissed and I wasn’t sure if I was doing everything…right? He once again looked away and carefully examined a large lump of mud on his shoe.
“Ron, I’d tell you if you were doing things that wrong,” she smiled; she could sense that the mood between them was comfortable enough for a joke.
“I just don’t want you to feel like you’re settling for second best,” he told her.
“Second best? Why would I be settling for that?”
“I know that you really liked Viktor, maybe if he lived closer then you’d be with him instead,” Ron shrugged.
“I don’t think so. Don’t get me wrong, Viktor is a lovely man and I enjoyed spending time with him but… I don’t feel the same about him as I do about you, there’s something more substantial than loveliness between us. You’re the one thing that I would happily close any book for.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him gently on the cheek.
“I’d drop Quidditch for you too,” he said eagerly.
“Come on, we both know that there’s no way you’d give up Quiddtich for me,” she snorted.
“Okay, I admit it, I probably wouldn’t, but I’d think about it!” he insisted.
“And that, Ronald Weasley, is why I’m not settling for second best.”
“Why don’t we go back to the castle, I’ve got something to show you,” he pulled her in to his side they way he used to and they marched back up to the castle more like their old selves than ever.
Harry and Ginny were in a broom cupboard on the fifth floor that could have passed for a small palace. It was very spacious and had hardly any brooms at all. Despite all the space Harry and Ginny felt the need to squeeze themselves into an impossibly tight corner. Showing the surest sign that she was fully recovered, Ginny had pushed Harry into that corner to guarantee that he couldn’t run away from her. They were kissing very vigorously and hadn’t come up for breath in several minutes; when she pulled away from him to catch a mouthful of air he gazed down at her with his objection conveyed silently by his eyes.
“A girl’s got to breathe, Harry,” she grinned. It was so adorable; he was actually pouting.
“Well, if you’re having trouble breathing then maybe I should give you the kiss of life?” He leant forward with his lips puckered but she swerved her head back at the last minute and flaunted her trademark mischievous smile. It was the one that reminded him that she was Fred and George’s sister.
“Now, you wouldn’t want to do that, the last time you tried to give me the kiss of life I wasn’t actually dead and you got into a lot of hot water,” she reminded him playfully. She started to pull herself away from him properly now, she took a few steps back and smiled at him; heaven wasn’t worth it if you didn’t have to work for it a little.
“Yes, but I’d plunge into the boiling ocean if it meant that I could get a kiss from you.” Harry started edging his way towards her.
“I know I love you and all that, but I’m not kissing you when you climb out of the water all boiled and yucky.” She made a disgusted face but knew that her statement wasn’t true there was nothing in the world capable of stopping her from loving him. She pulled a pile of boxes labelled Mrs. Scower’s Magical Mess Remover between them. A frown flashed across Harry’s face before he pushed the boxes out of the way and he continued his advance on her.
“That’s a shame because I’d love you even if you were covered in slime,” he grinned, he was getting closer to her but she was already walking through her escape plan. There was a small gap between a stack of boxes that were full of dusters and a large collection of mops that were propped against the wall.
“Slime is one thing, Harry, but poached like an egg is another,” she smiled at him innocently. He made one final lunge to close the two-foot gap between them and she jumped sideways through the gap she had eyed up. As she did so the group of mops made a loud rumbling noise and they all clattered to the floor. Harry’s feet slipped and slid over them and he fell, face first, on to the floor. “Oh Godric! Are you okay, Harry?” she panicked. She had wanted to be playful and seductive; she didn’t want to injure him. A small moan escaped his lips as he rolled on to his back and revealed that his glasses were broken. “I never meant that to happen,” she cried and took a couple of tentative steps towards him, horrified by what she had caused. “Argh!” she screamed. When she had gotten close enough Harry had reached up and tugged the front of her robes so that she started a speedy descent towards his chest.
“Ouff!” Harry wheezed as she collapsed on top of him.
“Ouch!” she groaned as she started to massage the spot where Harry’s elbow had collided with her stomach. Harry wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in to his chest as it began to vibrate with laughter.
“You think that’s funny do you?” she asked him indignantly.
“Nope, what I think is funny is that I’ve made you go from seductive, to horrified, to annoyed in the space of about thirty seconds and I did it all by tripping over some mops. You’ve got to admit that that is talent!” Harry kissed the side of her neck; he knew that would melt the upset away.
“I’m going to talent you right between the eyes in a minute, Potter,” she mumbled and smacked her small hand on the bit of his forehead that was right above his nose. Although she looked like she was glowering at him, he could see the smile that had broken out in the back of her eyes. A great sense of humour was just one of the things they shared. Harry could imagine sitting in a comfy armchair by a fire many years in the future regaling this tale to his grandchildren. He would call it ‘The day your gran nearly killed me with mops.’ He had managed to work his way into a sitting position and was about to pick himself up off the floor when she pulled him back down and positioned herself on his stomach. “Where exactly do you think you’re going?” she asked, she was back to enticing already.
“As if I would go anywhere with you here sprawled on the floor,” he smiled. He needed to get her off him and now. He couldn’t bear the thought of what he might start doing if she didn’t move.
“Oh really?” she pressed herself down against his chest. “Tell me, Harry, are you hungry?” She asked with a very wide smile that only served to make him think more about the images that were running through his mind.
“Hungry for what?” He asked nervously.
“For food, what did you have in mind?” A little fire suddenly flared in her eyes. She knew EXACTLY what he was thinking.
“Food, of course,” he spluttered.
“If you say so,” she smiled at him knowingly. If only she knew he couldn’t take much more of this. “I don’t know about you but I’ve worked up quite an appetite.”
“For what?” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
“Food, naturally,” she winked.
“Where are we going?” Hermione asked Ron as they strolled through the castle. They had been wandering aimlessly around the corridors for hours now and had even taken the opportunity to stop by a fourth floor cupboard that Ginny had recommended. He had led her up the main staircases that took you back to Gryffindor Tower but when they had reached the portrait of the fat lady they had walked straight past it.
“You’ll see,” was all that he would say. He was leading her down the seventh floor corridor and came to a grinding halt in front of the Barnabas the Barmy tapestry. He let go of her for a brief second. He started pacing back and forth in front of the blank stretch of wall that was opposite it. When he stopped moving a shiny Mahogany door squeezed itself through the bricks, it had a shiny brass handle and a little plaque that read ‘Private Party’. Ron politely held the door open for her and her breath caught in her chest as her eyes feasted upon the sight that was before her.
The room had disguised itself as the inside of a luxurious tent made from the softest ocean blue velvet that she had ever touched. The folds of material were gathered in to the centre of the room where a small silver chandelier hung down, it only had six candles that cast a haunting light over the room. Underneath the chandelier was a little round table for two, which was draped in a long periwinkle blue tablecloth. It had a gorgeous collection of roses as a centrepiece, crystal goblets to drink from and silver plates to eat from. On the back wall the material was parted over a burning fire, every now and then little embers would spark off, and burn furious orange before dying away. Next to the fire was a loveseat in sapphire silk, it had a scattering of oversized cushions and looked so comfortable that she had to fight the urge to just run and lay down on it. The whole scene was beautiful.
“Do you like it?” he whispered in her ear.
“Ron, it’s…perfect,” she breathed.
“Not as perfect as you,” he smiled in a slightly embarrassed way. “I thought we could eat here instead of up in the Great Hall with everybody else. It’ll give us more of an opportunity to chat.” He gently guided her forward and pulled a chair out for her to sit in.
“But won’t all the elves be busy sending food up to the hall?” Hermione’s strong desire to free the overburdened elves could manifest itself, even in the most tranquil of settings.
“All the school elves will, but we’re not going to be served by them. I wrote a letter to Dobby asking for help tonight and ended up getting a visit from Winky who said she would only be too happy to help. I think that all the time she spent with you at Christmas has made her take a shine to you, and who could blame her,” he smiled at her across the crimson flowers.
“She was very good, we had quite a nice chat and she’s much better now than she used to be. She really likes working for us.” Although she was campaigning to free house elves, there was no denying the fit of depression that being sacked had sent Winky into. Even Hermione had to admit that Winky was better off working than being free, if that was what freedom was going to do to her.
“Winky?” Ron called in to the warm air. Winky appeared at his side with a covered platter in each hand, she popped these on the table and turned to Hermione.
“What would, Ms. Hermione, be liking to drink?” the small female house elf asked.
“Just Butterbeer for me, thank you, Winky,” Hermione replied.
“And, Mr. Wheezy?”
“I’ll have some Mulled Mead, thanks.” The elf then left them alone to eat.
Over dinner they had some general chit chatter about the things they had missed in each other’s lives over the past months. Ron squirmed uncomfortably when she questioned him about his rather rampant new reputation as quite the Lothario. He dismissed any suggestions that he was thinking of taking up with Lavender Brown permanently.
“She called me Won-Won,” he admitted to the napkin in his lap.
“She what?” Hermione nearly choked on a piece of chicken that she was chewing. “Won-Won? Is she insane?”
“I think so,” he nodded.
“Well, I don’t care if you get down on your hands and knees and beg, I’m not calling you ‘Won-Won,’” she said adamantly.
“Thank Merlin, I don’t think I could cope if you did,” he smiled. Once they had worked their way through the food, they shifted over to the loveseat where they continued their discussion. It wandered into the dangerous territory that was the deaths of Jane and Colin Granger. Ron could feel the tears building up long before he saw them and when she started to cry he simply held her and let her do what she needed to, he should have been there to do this at the time and it was his own fault that he hadn’t been.
“I’m so sorry, Hermione,” he apologized.
“What for?” She looked up at him with her red and puffy eyes.
“For being such an idiot, and for not being there when you needed me. I’m never going to do that again. These last few months without you have been hell, I’ve just felt completely lost, and I don’t know what I’d do it I lost you again.”
“You won’t lose me, I promise you,” she snuggled in to his shoulder in a thoroughly comforting way.
“And you won’t lose me either, I promise,” he whispered before he kissed her passionately. They spent the rest of the evening curled up together in a loving silence.
A/N: There we go, you can all stop sending me death threats now, it’s all good. The next chapter is the interestingly titled….Bad Dreams.