I Still Miss My Valentine (But My Aim is Getting Better)

Ginny Weasley had many pre-conceived ideas of what would make for a truly great Valentine's Day. For example, flying cherubs might deliver an enormous box of Honeyduke's Chocolates to her in the crowded hallway after Charms Class, complete with a singing heart-shaped valentine that proclaimed them to be from Harry Potter. Or, a glass coach drawn by prancing white horses might pull up to her as she was walking around the lake in order to disgorge a fairy godmother. Said magical creature (who would bear a remarkable resemblance to Orlando Bloom in drag) would then transform her into a radiant princess in a sparkly gown sewn all over with rhinestones, and transport her to an elegant soiree, where Harry (who, in addition to being The Boy Who Lived, was also the prince of some nebulous European country, such as Luxembourg) would fall madly in love with her after one glance across the crowded ballroom floor. (This particular fantasy also lent her the ability to dance, and took away her tendency to step continually on the feet of her partner.) Or something simple might be nice, too. One senario involved Harry taking her on a stroll of the rose gardens and whipping out a guitar, followed by an impassioned love serenade he'd written himself. This rather tended to overlook the undoubtable fact that he had a voice like a dying crow, but then all of Ginny's fantasies did tend to take long flights from reality.

To a certainty, none of them included being trapped in the supply closet in Professor Snape's office while he snarled and glared at some very innocuous-looking potions ingredients on the table in front of him. Yet there she was, and on Valentine's Day, too. It had all begun so innocently--well, maybe it hadn't, she thought, squirming uncomfortably as she remembered her plans for the evening--but she'd only come for some bryony. And Hermione had firmly told her that if Ginny wanted her help, she'd have to be the one to sneak into Snape's office and steal the last, elusive ingredient. Ginny sighed, and tried to ignore the fact that her feet were going to sleep, tucked under her as she peered out the crack in the door.

"So it's come to this," the potions master snarled as he extracted a wriggling black thing from a jar with a pair of tweezers. "I never dreamed I'd live to see the day. If I had given myself over in my youth to the performance of magic tricks on the street for pennies--" and he began chopping the hapless item into slivers with an extremely ill-tempered expression, dropping them into a cauldron "--I should now suffer less."

He seemed preoccupied. She had the bryony; she'd already grabbed it when she heard him coming down the hall. His back was turned to her. Maybe now would be the best time to slip out. Ginny eased the door open, just a crack. But then the outer door to Snape's office opened, and she slid quickly back down to the floor. The professor's next words filled her with an intense desire to be elsewhere. The Himalayas might be a good choice.

"Ah, Mr. Malfoy. One more moment, and this concoction will be ready to take to the kitchens. A bit more fresh homunculus; it's very temperamental today."

Ginny couldn't see a thing from her position on the floor, but she surmised from the sound that something was being poured into a beaker. She twisted her head around into a very uncomfortable position and managed to catch a glimpse of Draco Malfoy taking something dark green and bubbly from Professor Snape. Maybe--maybe there was still hope.If they both finished whatever it was they were doing quickly and left, possibly she could sneak out unnoticed, if all the gods were merciful today....

They weren't.

Snape peered at the beaker critically and made a tsk-tsk sound. "Needs more saltpeter. It's in the supply closet, if you would be so good, Mr. Malfoy...?"

Ginny shrank back into the closet as far as she could, knowing even as she did so that it would do her no good at all. There simply wasn't anywhere to hide. She could hear Snape moving to the other side of the room, so he wouldn't see or hear her immediately. Wonderful. That postponed discovery by perhaps, oh, a millisecond or two. She wondered dimly what her punishment might be for getting caught in Snape's private supply closet. Detention was much too light; expulsion hardly seemed sufficient; being fed to the giant squid would be far too kind--

The door swung open. Ginny braced herself to meet the sight of Draco Malfoy's pale face, wearing its inevitable smirk. She wasn't disappointed, although the smirk in question was so high, wide, and handsome that it fairly begged to be slapped silly. Her fingers started to itch. She sat on them.

"Well, well, well!" Draco said in a stage whisper. "What have we here?"

"Shhh!" she hissed in the lowest voice she could manage.

"Does someone want me to be quiet? Whyever would that be?"

She bit her tongue and widened her eyes, making frantic gestures with her hands.

"I don't know sign language, Weasley. What's the magic word?"

"Please," she said through gritted teeth.

He rested his chin in one hand, propping a foot up on a shelf and peering down at her with exaggerated puzzlement. "Ooh, sorry, I don't know any spells that begin with that word. Would you like to try again?"

"The sooner this vile potion is completed," called Snape from the adjoining room, "and the more quickly it is distributed to the punch intended for consumption by the teenaged glandular wretches that will be attending the incredibly ill-advised St. Valentine's Day Dance this evening, the sooner I can begin to put this entire nightmarish ordeal behind me. The saltpeter's on the second shelf, Mr. Malfoy."

"Sorry, Professor," drawled Draco, turning his head. "I was admiring your-er- extensive stock of supplies." His eyes raked Ginny in a leisurely fashion, and the smirk, incredibly, widened further. Part of it was surely about to go off the left edge of his face, she thought.

"I suppose that's a judicious enough use of one's time," said Snape, sounding slightly mollified. "A use of time that decidedly fails that test--and I strongly warn against it, should the situation ever arise--is gambling."

"Gambling?" echoed Draco, sounding faintly surprised.

"Yes, gambling." Snape strode into the room, holding out one hand for the beaker Draco was holding. Ginny held her breath. Well, this was it. He'd expose her any second now. She wondered faintly what she'd do after she'd disgraced the Weasley name by being kicked out of school and thrown penniless onto the street. Maybe she could start a 1-900 psychic hotline; all those dreary hours spent in Professor Trelawney's overheated tower room could at least be put to some use--

But Draco only plucked the saltpeter from the shelf just over her head and turned, handing it to Snape without opening the door more than a crack. "And, er, why do you say that, sir?" he asked.

"It isn't necessary to go into details, Mr. Malfoy. Suffice it to say that if you're ever invited to sit in on a game of Texas Hold 'Em with Professor McGonagall, I strongly advise you to decline with all the grace you can muster. She plays for very high stakes, that woman." He swirled the beaker, which sent up jet-colored sparks. "I never imagined I'd end up being forced to brew a love-potion antidote for the entire student body. Not that it isn't a good idea, I suppose, as at least one of the hormonally deranged is bound to slip something into the punch-- " Snape paused. "Is there anything of unusual interest in that closet, Mr. Malfoy?"

"The Aurora Borealis," Draco said smoothly.

"At this time of year? Localized to my supply closet?" Snape stopped and stared at the blond boy.

"Yes."

"Very well. I'll leave you to them. But again, a word to the wise, which is sufficient--I really would avoid poker of any sort with any Hogwarts professor, including but not limited to seven-card stud. The odds are far better in Reno."

Now it was Draco's turn to stare. "Reno, sir?"

"Well, Mr. Malfoy," said Snape over his shoulder as he hurried up the stairs, "I do have a life outside this school, you know. Lock up when you leave."

Ginny's knees went weak under her from the release of tension, but she didn't dare to feel relief. Draco Malfoy could have exposed her, and he hadn't. Therefore, he was, by the simple extension of logic, hatching some incredibly complex and undoubtedly evil plan that involved her being in his debt. She looked at him through narrowed eyes as he extended a hand to help her up. It was a very warm, strong, and firm hand, and it seemed to her that it lingered in hers a little longer than necessary. Fred and George had gone through six solid months of that same behavior last year when their every handshake had a magical joy buzzer in it. But she didn't leap nine feet in the air, or grow tentacles. That must mean that Malfoy really had something elaborate in store for her. She scowled at him.

His silvery eyes twinkled at her innocently."Now what do we say?" he chided her gently, sounding for all the world like Mrs. Hassenpffefer, her kindergarten teacher, handing out frosted cupcakes at lunch.

"Thanks, Malfoy," she snapped, in a tone that could possibly have been more gracious.

He sighed dramatically. "I sense a touch of something less than sincerity in your words, Weasley. How manners have fallen by the wayside in this modern world." The change in tone to that of a demented Emily Post did not reassure Ginny in the slightest.

"I have places to go," she said, heading for the door and tucking the bryony in her pocket as unobtrusively as she could. "People to see. Preparations to make--"

"For the Valentine's Day Dance?" he asked, strolling after her, hands thrust into his pockets.

"Well--yes! Since you must know."

"You're not going to wear that pink dress I saw you carrying in a garment bag earlier, are you?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, my dress is pink," said Ginny. "Not that it's any of your business."

"A redhead in pink?" Draco asked with mock incredulity. "Surely you're joking. You can't wear pink. You're about to commit the seventh deadly fashion sin, right behind wearing white robes after Labor Day and attempting to used a leprechaun as a fashion accessory."

"It's--peach pink," said Ginny, blushing a color that, in fact, matched the anathemized dress to a T. "Some people think that's a very flattering color for redheads--"

"I'm sure they do, if the question is asked rather late in the evening, after all the Ogden's Old Firewhiskey has been consumed." Draco closed the door behind them, waving his wand carelessly at it in a Locking spell. "So what will you be doing at the dance, Weasley? Besides mooning hopelessly after Potter, of course--"

"I do not do any such thing and anyway it's not your affair, how many times do I have to tell you--"

"While that criminally deranged brother of yours hurls death glares at anyone with a forty-third Y chromosome who comes within a twenty-metre radius of you," continued Draco. "I always think he's going to bite. Has he had his rabies shots?"

"Ooh!" Ginny stamped her foot on the stone flags, impotently. They were nearly down the dungeon corridor. Then she pulled her temper under some sort of control. Malfoy wouldn't expect that. "As a matter of fact," she said sweetly, "I'm in charge of circulating the Valentine refreshments. The house-elves are planning some lovely things this year--if your cronies Crabbe and Goyle don't eat all ninety-seven dozen of the cookies before anyone else gets to them." It was a weak jibe and she knew it, but he was walking very close to her, and she couldn't stop watching the way the torches glinted off his silvery-blond hair. In fact, she felt almost... dizzy. It's because you haven't eaten all day, you twit, she scolded herself. She'd been much too nervous about tonight.

He leaned closer. "Promise to save a cookie for me, Weasley?" His voice was very teasing and low.

"No," she breathed, unable, for the moment, to look away from him.

"Not even one... little... cookie?"

"Well, maybe one. With all the frosting scraped off. If I try to feed it to Hermione's Niffler and he doesn't want it." She watched, mesmerized, as his face came closer and closer to hers; surely he wasn't going to-- or was he?

"It's a deal," Draco murmured, his lips millimetres from her own. At that moment, the tower clock rang its bell. "Five o'clock," he said. "Hate to run, Weasley, but I must. And don't think it hasn't been a little slice of heaven. Because it hasn't." Then he was gone, and surely, Ginny thought, he had to be the only person in the world who was actually capable of bounding up a flight of stairs with what could only be called elegance. Her lips were curved into a small, secret, rueful smile as she started up the stone steps leading out of the dungeons. Draco Malfoy, her guilty pleasure.

It had begun at the start of the previous autumn, when she'd slipped out of the castle for a strictly forbidden moonlight swim in the lake. He'd surprised her in the middle of a dive by wondering aloud if all Gryffindors were utterly insane, or was it just the Weasley contingent--did the numerous posted signs warning about the giant squid all somehow fail to catch her attention? She'd first been shocked, then a little guilty. All she'd been thinking of was how much she missed the waters of the pond in Ottery St-Catchpole; these reckless things she was sometimes driven to do always seemed like such a good idea at the time, until later, when she frequently regretted them. Draco Malfoy had brought large bath towels which he wrapped around her; she'd shivered, realizing only then that September in Scotland was neither the time nor the place for an outdoor swim. She'd asked him point-blank what he was doing out there, and why he'd felt compelled to stop her. He hadn't answered her question directly, but had studied the top half of her bathing suit intently, and then noted that he now understood why she didn't feel the need for personal flotation devices. She'd smacked him. He'd laughed at her. He'd left her at the secret back door to Gryffindor Tower, the one that Ginny had thought only she knew about. "Go to bed, Weasley," he'd said. And then he was gone. That had been the beginning.

At Halloween, an pumpkin with an intricate carving of a witch boiling a giant squid's tentacle in a cauldron had appeared on the doorstep of her room. It cackled realistically, too, which was what had woken all her roommates up at three in the morning. There was no note, but Ginny knew who it was from. She vowed revenge. Somehow, she never got around to it.

On Christmas morning, an ill-tempered house-elf in green and gold livery had delivered a very large Christmas cracker to Ginny's plate at the breakfast table at the Burrow, sniffing disdainfully in response to all questions and taking its leave as soon as possible. When Ginny opened it, a cloud of fuschia fairy dust had billowed out, coating her face and hands with sparkly hot pink color that lasted for the remainder of the holidays. A tiny note had fallen to the table, and she had been the only one who'd seen that. "Like the color? It's so lovely with your hair," was all it said. Then it had self-destructed with a tiny puff of smoke. Fred and George had disavowed all knowledge of it, and, since they usually had all the subtlety of sledgehammers, Ginny knew they were telling the truth. I'll get that Draco Malfoy... one of these days, she thought. The day never came.

After New Year's, Ginny found herself the far-from-proud and thankfully short-term owner of a Resolutions Elf. Long for sale in the wizarding world, these elves had proven unpopular due to their habit of screeching out the entire list of the owner's New Year Resolutions at the top of their considerable lungs, however secret the person in question may have thought these avowals to be. They were expensive, however, and nobody else was ever able to figure out how or why she'd gotten one. But Ginny knew. She was particularly irritated by Item #293, Get Back At That Slimy Git, Draco Malfoy, Once and For All. I really need to move that to the top of my list of things to do, she thought. But she never did.

He appeared in the halls between classrooms. He popped up mysteriously in the corridor on the way back from Potions. He always seemed to materialize in her path as she left the Great Hall after meals. He jibed at her, sneered at her, insulted her, and mocked her. She responded with all the fiery temper that was in her, and she particularly grew to hate the way his dark ash-blond left eyebrow would always arch just so over one amused grey eye, as it meant that he'd gotten to her again. He was nearly as nasty as he'd always been to her and every other Weasley... and yet not quite, although she could never have said what the difference was. And there was no denying that sparring with Draco Malfoy made her feel gloriously, furiously alive, as if every nerve and vein and muscle in her sparkled with energy.

Ginny never told Hermione, or Harry, and most certainly not Ron. She knew what would have happened if she did. "Let me make sure I've got this straight. Draco's been bothering you? And sending you presents? And he saw you in that bathing suit Hermione helped you to buy so you could hide it from Mum?" Ron would enquire, as if he were an Auror conducting an investigation into goblin bank fraud. When his questions were answered in the affirmative, he would nod. And then he'd hunt down Draco Malfoy and calmly pound his head into the ground as he sorted the blond boy's pretty face into a somewhat less attractive arrangement. For some reason, the thought did not please Ginny nearly as much as it should have done.

She shook herself. This was no time to remember the past; she had to concentrate on the present, now. Ginny started up a shifting set of stairs towards Gryffindor Tower, jumping to another that was moving across her path in mid-air rather absently, without thinking. All her energies needed to go towards meeting Hermione, stealing down to the kitchens to get those all-important cookies, the Valentine's Day dance, and the plan. The plan that was finally going to make Harry Potter fall hopelessly in love with her. After all, that was what she'd wanted for so long...

Wasn't it?

Of course it was.

To Be Continued....