Second chances *ੈ✩‧₊˚ (harry potter x reader)

Ron's Vendetta

hello everyone😭 i'm sure you're all pretty pissed abt the delay and i really am sorry😭 i started exams this week and the papers i wrote were all my hardest subjects. i had nooo time. this long of a delay won't happen again, i promise! i'll never update a less than once week. enjoy!

(and it's a long chapter to make up🤞)

The snow melted around the school as February arrived, to be replaced by cold, dreary wetness.

And with February, obviously came,

"Happy Valentine's Day, I love you," I read off the note in my locker, accompanied by a single rose.

"Didn't take Harry to be a romantic," Hermione comments, forcefully shoving something into her own filled-to-the-brim locker directly beside mine.

I purse my lips, "It's not Harry's handwriting."

Plus, Harry would never buy roses.

Hermione groans loudly, shutting her locker closed. "Still?"

I slouch, "Looks like it."

This anonymous flower sender had been anonymous for no less than 4 months by this point.

"Wonder when they're gonna grow a pair," she mumbles, peering into my locker, clearly looking for if this faceless person had perhaps left some chocolate too.

Jokingly rolling my eyes, I move her head away, take the rose and shut my locker, turning around to meet a first year standing before Hermione and I.

We admittedly jump, startled, then gain composure.

Hermione was so used to the protocol at this point that the words just fell out of her mouth.

"Bathrooms are that way, Great Hall the other. I'd give the back corridor a miss though, Peeves has been particularly busy there the whole morning. Gryffindor tower is —"

There were multiple sniggers and Hermione stops speaking, racking her brain for answers as usual. There was a group of first year boys purposely standing a distance from us.

Unable to find much answers, Hermione resumes, though keeping a vigilant eye, "Where was I... Oh, yes. Tutoring is usually done with—"

"Y/n?" the first year boy says, interjecting Hermione and looking up at me.

He pulls out a full bouquet of the same rose I'd found in my locker from his bag, nervously shifting from foot to foot as he holds it out to me.

He mumbles something.

"Huh?" Hermione says blankly, not bothering to accommodate the boy's poor nerves.

"This is for you," he tempests, his voice just above a whisper.

I glance at Hermione, who looks just as confused as I feel, before turning my attention back to the boy. "For me?... Who's it from?"

A pit feeling in my stomach was begging for it to be from anyone but Mattheo.

He shrugs, a blush creeping up his cheeks. "I don't know. It was just left in the common room with your name on it."

Hermione wasn't buying. She simply raised a questioning eyebrow and the boy caved.

"Fine," he mumbles, staring at his shoes, "they're from me."

There were sniggers from the group of boys still a distance away, but subtly creeping forward to eavesdrop.

My mind races as I try to place the boy's face. He's clearly a first year, probably around eleven or twelve, with a mop of unruly hair and very faint freckles scattered across his button nose. I've seen him around Gryffindor Tower before, but never spoken to him.