Disclaimer: As always we'll own nothing but the original characters and the situations all characters find themselves in.
My Valentine
After hanging up his coat and putting away his boots five year old Louis Weasley put on his indoor shoes and then walked into his classroom, eager to show off the red length of cord his mother had braided into his hair in honor of the holiday. All but skipping as he headed for his assigned seat the blonde couldn't wait to hand out his Valentine cards and get his own from the rest of his classmates. Plus there would be cupcakes and stuff at snack time! He loved holidays involving chocolate, Louis thought, the little boy coming to a grinding halt when he caught sight of what awaited him on his table.
Blue eyes going wide Louis set his backpack down and picked up the large paper flower that had been left there, carefully touching the petals with awe. He'd never seen a flower made out of paper before but he decided right then and there that it was the most beautiful one ever made. It was even purple, which was his favoritest color ever.
But who'd put it on his desk?
Looking around Louis's eyes got even bigger when he spotted the only other person in the room, the dark haired boy sitting off by himself with the building blocks.
Some kids called the boy Giant, but his actual name was Rory. Rory was so big that even some of the older kids were scared of him, but he wasn't. Once, when some second graders had taken his picture book from him during recess, Rory had come over and gotten it back for him. Had Rory been the one to make the flower for him? He did do really nice drawings and stuff when they did art projects.
Walking over Louis sat down in front of the other boy. "Did you make me that flower?"
Obviously startled, the building Rory had been constructing fell apart as he bumped it. The boy's eyes were hard to see through his shaggy bangs, but his voice was surprised. "How…how did you…how'd you know it was me?"
"You're the only one here sides me and the teacher."
"Oh." He hadn't thought of that.
"It's really pretty, thank you."
The other boy's cheeks flushed. "You're welcome."
"How come you didn't just give it to me?"
Embarrassed and trying not to show it Rory went back to reconstructing his building. "Just cause."
Seeing that the boy was embarrassed Louis tried to figure out why. "Did you think I wouldn't like it cause you're a boy? Cause if that's it I don't mind. I like you too. You don't let the big kids pick on us, and you draw really pretty pictures. I've got a valentine for you in my bag. It's got a Hippogriff on it. I'll give it to you when we hand them out later."
"Thanks. And I do like you. You stand up to the big kids too, even though you're littler than they are." The dark haired boy shyly admitted. Though the blonde was a little scary when he got his clothes dirty of got hurt, Rory thought but didn't say. But that was okay, he came from a Slytherin family. He was used to scary things.
"I'm very tough." Louis proudly agreed. "Hey, do you wanna play with me and my friends at recess? We're gonna build a snow fort. A really, really big one."
"Okay."
Pleased, Louis asked if he could play with the blocks too, the boys happily building a small city with the pieces of wood until their teacher told them to take their seats so that they could start class.
)
Twenty minutes before the end of school that day Mrs. Swift prayed for strength as she called the first table to the front. It was time for the children to hand out their valentines and she wanted to get the biggest possible disaster out of the way first. Watching the current bane of her existence get up from his seat the teacher of forty three years thought for the millionth time that it just wasn't fair that the fates had made the little demon from hell look like the most angelic of angels. With his curly blonde hair and pretty face the boy could have been mistaken for Cupid if he were wearing a toga and had a bow and quiver full of arrows.
Paling a little as she imagined the possible damage the child could do with a bow and arrow Mrs. Swift forced herself to smile at the boy. "Did you remember your valentines, Gellert?" She was hoping he'd refuse to participate so that she could send him back to his seat.
The boy lifted the bag he carried with him. "My mother said I had to participate in this antiqued holiday even though it perpetuates materialistic behavior and expects others to prove their so called love and devotion with the exchange of meaningless, mass produced products."
She couldn't help but sigh. "You're never going to talk like a normal five year old, are you?"
Gellert raised a pointed eyebrow. "As my teacher one would think you'd approve and encourage the development of my vocabulary. Or did you become a kindergarten teacher so that you'd be surrounded by people who make you seem extremely intelligent in comparison?"
Repeating over and over again in her head that she couldn't kill one of her students no matter how tempting it was, Mrs. Swift informed the first group of students to start making their way around the room to deliver their valentines to the others.
Ignoring the fact that he'd obviously upset his teacher again Gellert started working his way around each table, tossing the envelopes down in front of whoever his mother had addressed that particular valentine to. Though he had supervised who got which valentine since he didn't want anything really embarrassing going to any of the classmates whose opinion of him somewhat mattered, and then only because he saw them as future underlings or because they were friends with his favorite redhead.
As he approached his redhead's table after the others had moved onto the next Gellert kept his face blank as he took the time to hand a letter to the two Weasleys, lone Potter, and then worked up a small, genuine smile for Albus, who was the only person in their class who was as smart as he was. He actually liked Albus, which was why he'd worked hard on making the other boy a really good Valentine that would be better than everyone else's.
"Thank you, Gellert." Albus said softly as he took his envelope, cheeks flushed a little with pleasure.
"You're welcome."
Everyone else opening their envelopes as soon as Gellert walked away Albus watched him walk away, loving the other boy's curls and how grown up he acted. He never felt like he was weird when Gellert was around.
Forcing himself to turn his attention back to the envelope he still held, he didn't want anyone to notice him staring at Gellert after all, Albus opened it up and withdrew a single piece of parchment. He knew the other boy must have written it because the letters were each carefully formed and it didn't look like the feminine handwriting on the envelope.
"He didn't give you a card, Albus?" Rosie asked, holding up the generic, found in any stationary store come Valentines' Day card she'd gotten.
"He…he wrote me a poem."
"What's it say? Read it outloud." From what Louis could see there were way too many letters in the words for him to read it himself.
"Your hair is red, your eyes are blue, if I ever conquer the world, I'll give it to you."
Louis sighed. "How romantic. What's conquer mean?"
"He means like if he controlled the world." Albus explained, cheeks flushed with pleasure.
Al gave his friend a wary look, not sure what to make of the other boy's reaction to the poem, much less the poem itself. "Gellert should not control the world. Very bad things would happen."
"But he said he'd give it to Albus so it would be okay." Rosie argued, seeing how happy the poem had made Albus who had a crush on Gellert for reasons that no one else understood. Obviously the blonde felt the same way, which was what was important.
"I'll write him a note on the envelope for his card." Albus assured Al, who still looked more than a little worried at the possibility that Gellert might someday attempted to take over the world. "I'll tell him that I'd rather he be my valentine then have the world." The redhead was bright red by the time he'd finished his sentence, embarrassed by his own words.
"Awwwwwwwwwww." Louis and Rosie said in unison.
)
Sitting at his desk as he waited for the valentines to be handed up Sev thought how incredibly stupid and unfair it was that their teacher was making them hand out the stupid valentines to everyone in the class. Yes it was probably the fair thing to do, but even the majority of his classmates were smart enough to know who actually wanted to give them a valentine and who was only doing it because the teacher had made it clear that you couldn't hand ANY out if you didn't have one for everyone. But what could one expect from someone who'd become a kindergarten teacher by choice?
Personally he'd liked his idea of not giving anyone a valentine and then slipping Rosie Weasley one when the teacher wasn't looking. Not hard to do after all, especially since he could have easily recruited some of his fellow classmates to cause a disturbance without any real trouble. Wave a few chocolates under their noses and they would have bowed at his request.
Unfortunately he liked chocolate too much to share and so he'd had to give up on that idea.
And since his mother had bought the cards for him and addressed them to all his classmates he'd come to the conclusion that it wasn't too much of an annoyance to deliver them, especially since the other kids or their parents would throw the wastes of paper into the trash by the end of the week.
Sev's attention was drawn immediately to the front when Rosie's table was called to come to the front to start distributing their valentines to their classmates. Watching her get up from her seat and walk up the aisle with her three best friends Sev had eyes only for her, loving the way her red hair shone when light hit it. There was a lot of it, and some of the other boys teased her about it, but he really liked it. It smelled good.
The majority of the boys in their class were stupid, which was just fine with him. Rosie was HIS.
"Do you all have your valentines?" Their teacher asked them, probably referring to Al Potter's habit of forgetting things.
"I brought special cookies instead." Rosie announced, pulling one from the bag she carried to show the teacher. "I made them and Gran helped me write people's initials on them. This way I don't kill trees for a commercial holiday."
"We brought normal valentines." Al Potter assured his teacher since she tended to get frazzled by Rosie's tendency to repeat things her mum said to her.
"Well go and hand them out then." Was the teacher's weak request, still recovering from her run in with Gellert.
Curiosity piqued now Sev watched closely as Rosie delivered her cookies to a table near his, eyes narrowing when he caught a good look at one of them. Horror entered his eyes at the realization that they were shortbread cookies. He HATED shortbread cookies.
Heart breaking the little boy's shoulders slumped, sure that she knew that he hated those cookies and had chosen them deliberately to be mean to him. Not only was he not going to get a valentine from the girl that he could keep forever and ever, but she was going to give him a disgusting cookie she knew he wouldn't eat.
What was wrong with her? Hadn't he shown her by now how much he liked her? He teased her all the time, tugged on her pigtails whenever she was wearing them, and he'd actually broken a chocolate chip cookie in half once and given it to her. What more did she want from him?
Depressed and frustrated Sev crossed his arms and scowled, his seat mates giving him slightly wary looks which became really wary looks when Rosie arrived at their table with her friends and started giving them cookies. And then she was standing at his side and Sev couldn't help but look up and think how pretty she was, even if she was an evil, heart breaking witch.
Not quite sure what to make of his expression Rosie hesitated and then reaching into her bag and felt around for the special treat inside. Pulling it out her cheeks flamed as red as her hair as she held it out to him, deliberately making sure no one could see what she held but him. "I know you don't like shortbread." She whispered, hurrying off quickly as soon as he'd taken it from her.
Looking at the chocolate chip cookies, there were TWO of them in the wrapping, Sev smiled and clutched the treats to his chest.
SHE DID LOVE HIM!
)
Al tugged on the scarf his mother had made him wear, wanting nothing more than to take it off and give it to her to wear seeing how she liked it so much. But that wasn't going to happen and so he was stuck in more ways than one. Looking up as he watched his mother talk with some lady she worked with Al couldn't help but fidget and scan the area for something to do. Not an easy thing to do since they were standing around in front of a shop, he mentally grumbled, the area so well shoveled that there wasn't even any snow around for him to make into a mini snowman or throw at something when his mum wasn't looking.
Shoving his mittened hands into his pockets, it was pretty cold out, Al pouted and hunched his shoulders. He wanted to go home and show James all the valentines he'd gotten at school. There were more kids in his class than his brother's, which meant he had more to brag about.
Hearing the sound of a bell chime behind him Al turned around, a smile breaking out when he saw a small person come walking out of a store with a rather harassed look on his little face. "Grey!"
The blonde's head turning Scorpius smiled in equal delight as he watched his friend come hurrying over towards him. "Hello, Al."
Pleased to see the little boy he hadn't managed to see since Halloween, they went to different schools, Al grinned as he tugged down his scarf so that he could speak better. "Happy Valentines' Day."
"Happy Valentines' Day." Scorpius returned, though it wasn't exactly happy for him. He'd been stuck with his grandparents for the day so that his parents could go off somewhere on a little holiday. Hence the fact that he was outside even though it was so cold, having made a break for it since his grandmother had taken this opportunity to take him clothes shopping.
He still hadn't quite forgiven her for dressing him as a kitten for Halloween.
"So what are you doing out here by yourself? I thought your mum didn't like it when you wandered off?"
Quickly Scorpius explained his current circumstances, pleased when his friend gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. It was nice to have someone who understood just how horrible and embarrassing it was to go clothes shopping with your grandmother, especially when those clothes were picked for their cuteness level.
They were boys, they weren't supposed to be cute!
Shoving his hands into his pockets in response to the cold wind that had him shivering, Scorpius face twisted into a thoughtful expression when his hands closed around the bag his fingers brushed against. A smile lighting up his features the blonde pulled the bag out, holding it out to his friend. "Here. I got this when I was in the candy store. They were giving them away for free and my grandmother said I had to take it to be polite."
"Bottie Beans!" Face lighting up with joy Al took the bag. "Thanks, Grey."
Flushing with pleasure Scorpius looked down at his boots and shuffled his feet.
Shoving the bag into his own pocket Al frowned as a thought occurred to him. "But I don't have anything for you. I ate all my candy at school." If he'd brought any of his treats home his siblings would have snitched.
"That's okay."
Feeling bad that he had nothing to give his friend Al turned his head when he heard his name being called, seeing his mother motion for him to come to her. Sighing in annoyance the little boy turned back to his friend who looked just as disappointed as he was now. Wasn't that always the way, Al thought as he said good bye to Scorpius. His mum always had to talk when there were better things to do and then she wanted his attention when he'd found something he'd rather be doing.
"Well have a good day. I should probably get back inside anyway before my grandmother gets really mad." Sad that their visit had been so short, Scorpius gave his friend a halfhearted wave.
"Yeah. Bye." And since it was the only thing he had to give Al gave the surprised boy a hug. "Thanks again for the candy."
Blushing like mad Scorpius watched as his friend ran off to rejoin his mother.
He couldn't wait until they both went to Hogwarts.
THE END
Happy Belated Valentines' Day!