This was written for the Un Happy Valentines Day Challenge, and also the 'FML' Competition on the Harry Potter Fanfiction Challenges Forum. Happy reading, and happy Valentine's day!
It was a cold February, dreary and frostbitten, yet Harry sat alone by the fire, pleasantly bundled with his scarf about his neck, exactly where he had been since he awoke nearly two hours ago. He had a Defense Against the Dark Arts book draped across his lap, and an indistinguishable expression set upon his face. Ron and Hermione were on a Hogsmeade trip, and Harry almost pitied them; for the first time he wasn't disappointed he couldn't go with them – yet, alone in the common room he had time to brood over his most pressing dilemma.
"All right, Harry?" he heard and looked over his shoulder. Fred and George were just coming in through the portrait hole.
Surprised, Harry placed his book on the table and asked sarcastically, "What are you guys doing here on such a lovely afternoon?"
"We sensed a soul in distress," said Fred, occupying one of the other two chairs beside the fire. "What's with you?" he asked.
"Well…" Harry began, but it was all rather embarrassing. "You see…" he tried again, but couldn't frame the words.
"Out with it!" Fred said leaning forward.
"Valentine's Day, erm …" Harry blushed. "I don't really…"
Fred and George laughed loudly. Harry stared at the floor intently. "Don't worry, mate! We'll help you out!" George said, still laughing. Harry couldn't imagine how they could help him, but also couldn't see how it could hurt. He literally had no ideas.
"You see," Fred began, "we're really the best people you can go to for advice."
"It's true," said George. "The very best." He walked up behind Harry and leaned on his chair. "When impressing the ladies, it's got to be casual. So, who's the lucky lady that gets to be chatted up by The Boy Who Lived?"
Your sister, Harry thought. "I'm not sure yet," he said. "Have any general methods?" Harry asked, feeling a tad bit more than a tad bit uncomfortable.
"Have we got methods! Fred, have we got methods?"
"Sure do, George," he said, grinning widely. "First off, like I said, you've got to be aloof. Girls like that. Oh, and they like flowers."
"But I haven't got any," Harry said. "And it's winter. And I can't go to Hogsmeade to buy any, either."
"Well, aren't you in luck, Harry. It just so happens we foresaw that very same predicament, and why don't you tell him what we did, Fred?"
"With pleasure, George," he said, grinning brilliantly. "We bought heap tons of flowers to sell to poor unprepared chaps like yourself; and since you're our mate and all, we'll give some to you free of charge." Harry grinned happily. Things were starting to look up.
The next day, Harry went to the only person he could think of to help him deliver the flowers, though all too soon he lamented it. "Hermione, I can't just give them to her. It'll be embarrassing and awkward."
"Well, if you refuse to tell me who they're for, I can't very well help you!" she said crossly. Harry debated telling her, and finally decided to relent. She was his last hope, since he really didn't think Fred and George could help in this situation, and he'd sooner ask an irate hippogriff before he went to Ron.
Harry looked pointedly across the common room at Ginny, who was laughing happily with several of her friends. Hermione took this for embarrassment and pressed on. "Harry, stop being silly and just tell me who it is. Maybe I know them." Harry looked at Hermione, then back at Ginny and raised his eyebrows.
"What on earth are you doing?" Hermione asked incredulously.
"Bloody hell, Hermione, just look where I'm looking." Hermione swiveled around behind her then gasped.
"Ginny!" she exclaimed loudly looking back at Harry. Seeing the exasperated look on his face, she quieted down and took a seat closer to him. "Harry, you know you don't have to do anything special to get Ginny's attention, she adores you."
"She used to," Harry corrected. "You're a girl, Hermione," he observed. "Help me out."
"Well," she thought briefly, "I suppose you should catch her alone. Say something charming and witty, oh, and smile. Then you should probably walk away before it gets awkward." Harry suddenly wondered why he was coming to Hermione. She may be a girl, but she doesn't exactly show success in the romantic field, and he could have gotten thus far by himself.
"Thanks Hermione," Harry said simply.
Harry did decide to take Hermione's advice the next day, a week before Valentine's day. Hiding the flowers in his jacket, he waited outside in the biting cold along a path Ginny usually takes alone after Herbology. Sighting her at a distance, large white snowflakes coating her red hair, Harry began to slowly walk in the same direction slowly, so that she would eventually catch up with him.
"Harry!" he heard behind him a couple steps. He stopped and turned around. Ginny stood behind him shivering in the cold. "All right, Harry?" she said quietly, the sound muffled under her scarf.
"Oh, hi Ginny," Harry said, feigning surprise. "Where are you off to?"
"That was my last class of the day," she said as they began toward the castle together. "I'm heading back to the common room, hopefully somewhere in close proximity to the fire," she said, trying to warm herself by rubbing her arms.
"Good luck with that," Harry said shyly, "I was just up there and it's pretty crowded." He was surprised he was making conversation so easily. This wasn't awkward at all. Maybe he'd just ask her out.
Ginny looked crestfallen at the missed opportunity of warmth. "What are you doing out here anyway?" she asked. "You don't have any classes out here…" she looked at him curiously. Harry felt sick, and it had nothing to do with standing out in the freezing cold for a half-hour waiting for Ginny to happen by.
"Oh, erm…" Harry grasped around in his brain for something to say. "I…" he felt so stupid! Why hadn't he come up with something charming and witty to say like Hermione had said, instead of muttering like a git? They were very close to the castle now.
Meanwhile, Ginny started to laugh. Harry blushed furiously. This was so embarrassing. He decided to come clean. "I came out here to talk to you…" Harry muttered quietly into his scarf.
"What did you say?" she asked, as if indicating she couldn't hear him.
Sensing his chance and finally thinking of something he could say, Harry said loudly, "Just getting into trouble, you know me. Always breaking some rule or another."
"Oh, that's odd," Ginny said seriously. "I could have sworn you said you came out to talk to me." She cocked her head to the side and smiled in catching him in a bluff. Harry stopped in his tracks, his cheeks burning.
"Okay…" Harry said quietly. "I suppose…the reason I came out here…was to give you these," Harry said, looking at the blithely white ground as he pulled two thornless red roses out of his pocket. Ginny's face glowed.
"They're for me?" she asked as she took them from Harry. "You shouldn't have," she said quietly, her voice and expression reflecting her joyful bliss. Harry's embarrassment wavered swiftly, and he smiled openly in relief. But this happy moment didn't last very long.
Ginny screamed and threw the flowers on the ground when a large spurt of dark blue ink squirted over her robes. She tried desperately to blot it out but it only got worse. Some of the ink squirted onto her face and she tried to wipe it off, but the ink on her hands smeared across her cheek so that her milky white skin was stained navy under the waning light. Sensing it futile, Ginny shot an incredulous look at Harry as her eyes welled with tears. "How could you?" she asked pathetically, turned on her heels, and ran as fast as she could in the overwhelming troughs of snow back to the castle.
Harry watched her form retreat then fell to his knees, buried in inky blue snow. In all the mixed emotions he felt at the moment, he entirely forgot the two kind souls that had given him such mischievous flowers. And framing the ink-stained roses in the crystalline white snow, was a Rorschach inkblot test of dark ink curved in jagged lines around the two miserable, abandoned roses.
It was his own broken heart.