All day long, the dwarfs kept barging into their classes to deliver Valentines, to the annoyance of the teachers, but the students would laugh whenever they saw them, as it was a jolly reminder of the anonymous prank set on Lockhart, and Fred and George were determined to meet the culprit of such a marvelous display. Late that afternoon, as the Gryffindors were walking upstairs for Charms, one of the dwarfs caught up with Harry.
"Oy, you! 'Arry Potter!" shouted a particularly grim-looking dwarf, elbowing people out of the way to get to Harry.
No doubt embarrassed at the thought of being given a Valentine in front of a queue of first years, which happened to include Ginny Weasley, Harry tried to escape. The dwarf, however, cut his way through the crowd by kicking people's shins, and reached him before he'd gone two paces.
Y/N, who was having mixed feelings about the whole thing, stood in the sidelines, wondering whether he should step in because he found the dwarf annoying, or whether he should watch because he wanted to tease Harry about it.
"I've got a musical message to deliver to 'Arry Potter on person," the dwarf said, twanging his harp in a threatening sort of way.
"Not here," Harry hissed, trying to escape.
"Stay still!" grunted the dwarf, grabbing hold of Harry's bag, and pulling him back.
"Let me go!" Harry snarled, tugging.
With a loud ripping noise, his bag split in two. His books, wand, parchment and quill spilled onto the floor and his ink bottle smashed over the lot.
Harry scrambled around, trying to pick it all up before the dwarf could start singing, causing something of a hold-up in the corridor.
"What's going on here?" came the cold, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy. Harry started stuffing everything feverishly into his ripped bag, desperate to get away before Malfoy could hear his musical Valentine.
Y/N figured it was time to step in. As much as he wanted to tease Harry, letting Malfoy hear the song would be torture for him, he wasn't going to let his friend become the laughing stock of the entire school, which he would be if Malfoy went around blabbing.
Before he could step out of the crowd, another familiar voice called out, "What's all this commotion?" Percy Weasley had arrived.
This was a problem. If Y/N stepped in now it would be the perfect excuse for Percy to punish Gryffindor and make Y/N look bad. Under normal circumstances Y/N wouldn't really care and intervine anyway, but Ginny Weasley was with the queue of first years, and he felt like he had already scared her enough this year. If he ever wanted her to be the next Weasley on his list to accept him, getting into a spat with her brother was not something recommended.
Harry, looking shamelessly pathetic, tried to make a run for it, but the dwarf seized him around the knees and brought him crashing to the floor.
"Right," he said, sitting on Harry's ankles, "Here's your singing Valentine:
"His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard.
I wish he was mine, he's really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark -"
The dwarf was interrupted, when Y/N had pulled out his wand and said, "Glacius!", causing a jet of blue light to hit the dwarf before he could finish, entrapping him in a thin sheet of ice.
"Damn, that dwarf is terrible at singing." Y/N muttered as he helped Harry up.
Percy did his best to disperse the crowd as they laughed, some of whom were crying with mirth but not before eagerly taking ten points off Gryffindor for Y/N using a spell in the corridors.
"Off you go, off you go, the bell rang five minutes ago, off to class, now," Percy said, shooing some of the younger students away. "And you, Malfoy."
Y/N, glancing over, saw Malfoy stoop and snatch up something. Leering, he showed it to Crabbe and Goyle, and Y/N recognised it to be Riddle's diary.
"Give that back," said Harry quietly.
"Wonder what Potter's written in this?" said Malfoy, who obviously hadn't noticed the year on the cover, and thought he had Harry's own diary. A hush fell over the onlookers, Ginny was staring from the diary to Harry, looking terrified, this did not go unnoticed by Y/N, who stared at her suspiciously.
"Hand it over, Malfoy," said Percy sternly.
"When I've had a look," said Malfoy, waving the diary tauntingly at Harry.
Percy said, "As a school Prefect-", but Harry had lost his temper. He pulled out his wand and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" and just as Y/N had disarmed Lockhart, so Malfoy found the diary shooting out of his hand into the air. Ron, grinning broadly, caught it.
"Harry!" said Percy loudly. "No magic in the corridors. I'll have to report this, you know!"
Harry looked like he honestly couldn't care less. Percy glared at him.
"You know, L/N is starting to rub off on you. We can't have that. You should sever ties with him before you become as just as insufferable."
"Oh shut it, Perce." said Ron.
Malfoy was looking furious, and as Ginny passed him to enter her classroom, he yelled spitefully at her, "I don't think Potter liked your Valentine much!"
Ginny covered her face with her hands, and instead of entering her class, she turned the other way and fled.
Y/N looked over at Percy and Ron, expecting them to comfort their sister, but Ron was busy snarling and attempting to pull his wand out so he could curse Malfoy while being held back by Harry, and Percy looked like he didn't care, walking away as though he had better things to do.
Sighing, Y/N ran after Ginny, not caring that he would be late for Charms.
He found her in a deserted corridor, sitting on the floor curled up into the fetal position, sobbing.
She hadn't noticed him yet, and he knew approaching her would freak her out, so he stayed at one end of the corridor, pondering in what to do.
"Hey." he called out eventually.
Startled, Ginny looked up, and upon seeing him, flinched slightly in fear and shuffled further away.
There was a silence.
"Y'know, I don't think using Lockhart's Valentine system was the best way to get Harry to notice you," Y/N said after a while. "Especially with a singing Valentine, who wouldn't hate to be sung to about someone's feelings by a dwarf dressed as a cupid?"
Ginny stopped trembling, and her sobbing slowed down a little.
"Look," continued Y/N, "If you want Harry to notice you, you need to start doing things differently. Drop the shy-girl act. That's not you. I've heed a lot about you from Fred and George, and from what I've heard, you're strong, brave, and freakishly overconfident. Harry might take a bit more notice of you're a bit more... yourself, I promise."
Ginny had stopped trembling completely, and Y/N couldn't hear any sobbing. Taking this a good sign, he took a step forward. This was a wrong move, as she squeaked and backed away once more.
Y/N sighed. "Look, I'm not gonna hurt you. You should get back to class. You're late already."
She didn't move.
"Alright then, suit yourself. I'm going now, I'm late too."
On his way back to the Charms class, Y/N wondered if he made any progress. Ginny didn't exactly freak out at his presence and seemed to listen to him when he spoke. It was definitely a start.
* * *
That night Harry went to bed early. Y/N suspected it was because he couldn't stand to hear the Weasley twins singing, "His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad", one more time.
As he and Ron were still in the common room, and it was still fairly early, Y/N went to look for Hermione, who he assumed was in the library. Bringing his textbooks with him, he left the common room.
As suspected, he found Hermione in the Library, what wasn't expected however was that she was talking to none other than Ginny Weasley. At the sight of him, both girls yelped in surprise, Ginny fled from the Library and Hermione hastily hid something pink under her school books.
"What was that about?" asked Y/N, sitting down opposite Hermione.
She seemed oddly flustered. "O-oh nothing! We were just talking about her Valentine to Harry."
"Fair enough." Y/N said. Opening his textbook and giving it a read.
The two of them did this often, studied in the Library together, not really talking that much but they never really needed to. This time however, Hermione looked like she and something to say.
After about twenty minutes of reading, Y/N looked up and said, "Alright, spit it out, what's on your mind?"
"N-nothing really!" Hermione said.
"I'm not stupid Hermione, I saw you hide something under your books." he said, smirking slightly, "And judging from the fact that it's Valentine's day, I'm guessing that it's a card for someone?"
Hermione turned red, but sheepishly nodded.
"The day's pretty much over. Why haven't you delivered it yet?" he asked.
"W-well, I was talking to Ginny just now," she stammered. "And she - er - told me what you told her, and I think the person I was going to give t-this to wouldn't like it because it was given by a dwarf, just like Harry."
"That's good, at least you understand that that fool's system is creepy and gross. But why don't you just give it to him in person?"
Hermione became a stuttering mess.
"W-well, I-I - L-let's go back to the common room!"
She hastily packed up her books and left without another word.
Hermione's behaviour was pretty strange as they walked back to the common room together. Y/N understood that she might be feeling embarrassed that Y/N knew about her little Valentine, but she was completely red pretty much the entire time.
When they reached Gryffindor Tower, Hermione had quickly said the password and scurried in before Y/N could even realise it, and by the time he had crawled through the portrait hole she had already retreated to the girl's dormitories.
Ron was playing Chess with Dean, and looked at Y/N dumbfounded as he noticed him.
"What's wrong with Hermione?" he asked.
"I have no clue." Y/N replied.
Thinking it was best if he hit the sack too, he made his way up to the boys dormitories.
When he opened the door however, he found an odd sight, Harry was sitting up in bed, Riddle's diary on his lap. He was sweating and shaking.
"What's up?" Y/N said, looking at him with concern.
"It was Hagrid, Y/N. Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago."