Valentines

Their third year, Peter made a valentine for some girl in Hufflepuff, a hideous pink monstrosity with lace and several different colors of glitter that he'd meant to charm to sing love songs, but since Peter had never had any talent for charms, the thing just sort of squawked caustically at anyone who came near it.

He never lived it down. The girl was understandably horrified, and Sirius cast a charm on the valentine to permanently affix it to the headboard of Peter's bed. It squawked whenever anyone came near, and Peter was forced to sleep on the couch in the common room for two and a half weeks until Remus took pity on him and told him the counter-charm.

"It's for your own good," James had told Peter solemnly, the first night of the Reign of the Squawking Valentine (as Valentine's Day '74 was thereafter known). "You've got to remember, Marauders and girls just don't mix. Girls are silly, sneaky creatures who would tell tales on us to professors as soon as look at us."

"He's right," Sirius agreed. "Remember Evans, just last week? The incident with the dungbombs?"

James shuddered. "Evans is the worst, but none of her fair sex is to be trusted."

"And anyway, a Hufflepuff?" Sirius said. "Really, Peter, you can do better than that." At which James nudged him sharply in the ribs and said he might be missing the point.

At any rate, Peter was duly chastened, and all such future Valentine's Day activities were foresworn by the Marauders, except (as Sirius pointed out) in the case of deliberate pranks.

In honor of said deliberate pranks, Remus (who had been listening quietly throughout and probably rather pitied Peter already, although not quite enough to uncharm the valentine yet) promptly hexed Sirius's hair bright pink.

*

Their fourth year, all the Slytherins received valentines which flitted joyfully around the heads of their recipients, twittering like nightingales and emitting a noxious aroma not unlike that of several tons of dungbombs left out in the heat for several weeks and then compressed into small heart-shaped pieces of paper.

Sirius took one for the team and spent a week in detention for it, but it was well worth it because the valentines lasted nearly a month, and every attempt to annihilate them only made them grow larger and more foul-smelling. In the end, they only fell because the brilliancy and daring of four young Gryffindors was not quite sufficient to stand against the combined magics of seventy-odd Slytherins.

All the same, it was quite a good Valentine's Day for the Marauders, particularly once Remus borrowed James's invisibility cloak and managed to sneak a few butterbeers into Sirius's detention. Which was only fair, as the putrid Slytherin valentines had been Remus's idea in the first place.

*

Their fifth year, James tried to sneak off a painfully gooey and completely unpranked valentine to Evans. Fortunately, Peter (as Wormtail) intercepted it and gnawed it to death, leaving a rather pathetic pile of shredded red paper and glitter in the middle of Evans's bed.

She somehow managed to blame it on James anyway, but, as Peter pointed out later, it probably would have been much worse if she'd seen the thing in its original state.

That night, James returned from the bathroom to find a hideous pink monstrosity stuck to his bed, squawking. Sirius was nowhere to be found.

Oddly enough, neither was Remus, and since he was the only one who knew how to get rid of the thing (even Sirius, creator of the Perma-stick Charm, didn't really know how to undo it), it stayed up all night.

*

Their sixth year, there were no valentines or valentine-related pranks, because the Marauder's Map was nearly finished and they were spending every spare second getting it there. Besides which, Peter had developed a paranoia about pink, squawking things, and was therefore quite uncomfortable with the whole holiday, and James was bitterly opposed to all things female (especially Evans) or red (especially valentines or Evans's hair). And Sirius and Remus, well, they'd never fancied valentines in the first place, because why bother with bits of paper and lace when you could use tongues and hands and silencing charms instead?

A week later, on the night of the full moon, the Map would be finished, and Sirius, overflowing with pride and excitement that he couldn't tell anyone about, would unintentionally tell a certain Slytherin a different secret instead. But there was no reason to think about Whomping Willows or Snapes or werewolves on Valentine's Day, not when the Map was so close to being completed, and all the little finishing spells were falling into place, and it was so tense and exciting and they all kept looking at each other with shining eyes and secret smiles, so close, so close...

And that night, with no squawking to be heard and the silencing charm solidly in place around Remus's bed, Sirius traced his wordless excitement along Remus's skin, a pattern of hope and the glittering, prank-filled future ahead of them, with perhaps the faintest outline of a paper heart.

It's so easy to believe in forever when you're sixteen.