A/N- Hey! This turned out to be longer than I thought. I don't think I had anything planned for this chapter in particular but it went along an interesting direction. Not proof-read so forgive the typos, etc.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything.

"Valentine's Day."

The groan that followed, one would assume, would be coming from single teenagers cursing their lack of SOs. One would assume wrong then. Most of the seventh years who had been groaning were all in long term relationships or had started dating recently. The groan was simply because NEWTs and St. Valentine didn't go well together.

Breakfast was on the table and people were wolfing it down hungrily. A week after the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw match and most things were back to normal. Which meant that there were a bunch of nasty hexes being thrown about the corridors and classrooms, scarlet and green trying to somehow disadvantage the other.

This was pretty normal before a Gryffindor-Slytherin match but there was still more than two months to go before the match. And Slytherin had to play Hufflepuff once before that. That seemed like a minor technicality at this point though because people were actually building up the final match of the season even before the other matches were over.

The teams had to be extra careful, especially since Harry had gotten his Firebolt back for good. Oliver had made sure that someone from the team was always with him in between classes and he urged everyone to learn new defensive spells.

There had been a few casualties already though they were just inexperienced first years. McGonagall appeared to be aging rapidly as she registered the towering mountain of complaints that were pouring in every day. Snape was predictably nonchalant and dealt with every Slytherin offence in an offhand way but reacted like he had been personally attacked every time it was a Gryffindor in question.

The unfair treatment was also seeping into the classes and students in red and gold ties found themselves being docked points for the most ridiculous reasons.

"Bell, how is one supposed to hear if you don't speak up? Five points from Gryffindor."

"Johnson, unless you manage to tame that wild mane of yours before my class, I will have you in detention. Ten points from Gryffindor."

"Spinnet, waltzing around my class with your shoelace untied and being a potential hazard will not be tolerated. Ten points from Gryffindor."

"Weasley, wipe that ridiculous smirk off your face. Five points from Gryffindor."

"Weasley, you look too much like your brother. Five more points from Gryffindor."

"Wood, if I see you accompany Potter to any more of my classes, you will end up in detention. Five points form Gryffindor."

"Potter, seeing as you seem to be hoarding a vast amount of my students' time, five points from Gryffindor."

Point docking wasn't restricted to the team though.

"Ms. Granger, you appear to be carrying far too many books. I do not need an increase in your insufferably know-it-all attitude. Five points from Gryffindor."

"Weasley, if I see you whispering to Ms. Granger one more time, that will be ten more points on top of the ten I am deducting right now."

"UGH. If I see another Slytherin today, I swear someone's going to land up in the Hospital Wing!" shouted Alicia, gulping down her pumpkin juice.

"Merlin, it's never been this bad before," said Katie worriedly.

"I hope they don't get to Harry. He's already being targeted by Black. We don't need a hoard of Slytherins helping that guy's cause," murmured Angelina, nibbling at her toast.

"Harry? I'm worried about Flint!"

"Yeah. Have you seen Wood? I'm surprised he hasn't been given detention for the rest of the year."

Everyone looked at the twins curiously.

"His temper's been so rocky recently. He's literally jumped at that git every time they've crossed paths."

"The Slytherins play dirty but we're concerned about Flint. So you can imagine what a right state Wood's in."

"But Oliver never does anything rash!"

"He's always nagging about being careful."

"What's gotten into him?"

"Probably threatened to clip his broom or something. How should we know?!"

…

Today was her third week of training with Lupin and Tori hadn't managed to progress much. She was getting frustrated and felt tempted to flop down onto the floor and kick and scream like a three year old. Feeling that, perhaps, Lupin might not appreciate that, she restricted herself to loud huffs and mental images of flogging the entire Slytherin team senseless.

"I think that will be enough for today. I think you need a break. It's a Hogsmeade weekend tomorrow, right? I insist that you go for it. And perhaps even observe the snow. Who knows where inspiration will strike?" said Lupin with a twinkle in his eye.

Tori managed a weak smile and left the class. She was definitely not going to Hogsmeade. She'd stay in her room and practice the spell until she got it right. To hell with everything else.

Back in the Heads' Tower, she sank into the sofa and tucked her feet inside, trying to make herself as miniscule as possible. It didn't take her very long to pick up new things and these lessons with Lupin were greatly annoying her. Why was it so difficult? She'd never had trouble learning something before.

This is different. You're trying to change the dynamics of a spell which has been around for Merlin knows how long.

Not really. It's still learning something new. I'm good at that stuff.

Perhaps you should stop linking self worth with one particular ability of yours.

Perhaps you should shut up.

"Vic? Are you talking to yourself?"

She glanced moodily at Adam and sank deeper into the sofa. He took that as an affirmative and went over to the table. After a while, Tori heard him swear very colorfully and glanced up from her cocoon of childish self pity.

"Fucking adrenaline-driven Quidditch Captains."

This didn't sound promising.

"What's up?"

"Just spent the past two hours trying to prevent Wood and Flint from being chucked into detention. I don't get why I try so hard to keep Wood out of trouble. And it was with Snape!"

"What happened?"

"Fucking morons had another tussle regarding Quidditch and Weasley got there before me. Started telling off both of them and Flint got annoyed and chucked a hex at him. Wood really didn't need anything to provoke him but Snape walked by just as Wood hurled himself on Flint. Took me ages to convince him not to strip him of his Captaincy. Had to make him see that if he took away Wood's Captaincy, he'd have to do the same for Flint because they both committed the same offence. Flint probably thinks I'm a blood-traitor now."

"That sucks. Thanks, by the way. For helping out Wood. I don't know what's gotten into him. It's like he needs someone to be around him so that he doesn't maim Flint and shatter our chances at the Cup."

"Hmm. Hanging out with you has made me go soft. Anyway, I have bigger problems to deal with. Overheard Flint planning some kind of ambush on Wood tomorrow. Problem is, it's Valentine's Day and we have a Hogsmeade trip lined up tomorrow. There's no way we can get someone to hang about Wood or Flint and make sure there's no loss of limb."

"Pity."

"Hang on."

Tori didn't like his tone. It spelt trouble and she made to make herself scarce but he was too quick.

"You can keep an eye on Wood tomorrow!"

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"Why not? As far as I know you don't even have a date for tomorrow, let alone have any grand plans involving someone of the opposite sex. Almost all the Prefects either have dates for tomorrow and they wouldn't be too excited about the prospect of hanging out with Wood tomorrow. You're the only one who can manage it."

"Sorry. I have other things to do."

"Come one, Vic! This is important!"

"No way, Adam. You couldn't have picked a worse day. Not only do I not want to spend my day babysitting Wood, I sure as hell won't be doing it on Valentine's Day."

"Really now?"

His tone had changed slightly and Tori looked at him warily.

"I think you should. Especially after your shenanigans at the Gryffindor victory party last week."

Tori's eyes popped out of her head.

"HOW do you know about that?"

"Other than the fact that you came in at 3 in the morning, swearing like a sailor and wreaking of Firewhiskey? Well, I got quite a few complaints from some very disgruntled boys in your House. Something about the Head Girl going berserk."

Tori frowned. Great, this was just what she needed. Ammunition against her.

"But, I haven't reported you to any of the professors yet because I know this was a one-time thing. And I expect you to have my back if a similar situation arises. However, you can't go off scot free. That was a lot of rule-breaking and very un-Head-Girl-like behavior. So consider this your punishment, Vic. It could've been a lot worse."

"Fine." Tori knew that he was right. She was getting off very lightly.

"Look on the bright side, I managed to get you a date," he said, grinning cheekily.

"Yeah. Best punishment ever," she groaned, stuffing her head into a cushion.

…

"You're going out with Wood?"

"No. I'm keeping an eye on him so that he doesn't get into a fight with Flint. I just figured it would be easier to do that openly and not follow him like some stalker."

"So, a date then?"

"Alex! It's not a date! It's my punishment for whipping about my wand without hesitation."

"If only people got punished for whipping out their dicks without hesitation."

"Yeah. But this sort of punishment wouldn't be ideal."

"So when's he picking you up?"

"Merlin! Alex, stop making this sound like a date!"

"Why're you being so defensive?"

"You know why."

"No. I have absolutely no idea why my best friend has turned into a shirty cow."

Tori sighed and wished she could punch something, preferably Alex.

"It was fine while it was a crush. But it's becoming more than that. And I can see that he starts avoiding me whenever any physical tension creeps up between us. So I've tried to keep our contact to a minimum. I can't help how I feel. But I can help keep the interaction to a minimum so that this doesn't progress any further. However, babysitting him on Valentine's Day will not help my cause."

"When you say that you don't want 'this' to progress any further, are you talking about your side only?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I thought he was attracted to me as well but I'm not so sure anymore. And it's abundantly clear that he doesn't want anything more than casual friendship."

"So, self preservation, yeah?"

"Pretty much."

"Speaking of which, there's your date."

Tori sent a glare towards her best friend and ran off to intercept Wood.

"Oi! Oliver! Wait up!"

He turned around with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Got any plans for today?" she asked casually.

"Not really. I was going to revise some of the plays for the last match but I don't know a quiet enough place to go to."

"Brilliant! I'll help," she said with a bright smile.

"Why…?"

"Why not? I did manage to help you out a great deal last time. Or have you forgotten?"

"Nah. How can I forget? I don't know where we'd be without our eleventh hour strategist," he grinned.

"Great! I know a place where it'll be relatively quiet. You can work on your plays and I'll help out whenever required."

"You're a strange one, McCaul," he said, shaking his head and grinning.

Tori felt a pang of sadness at the use of her last name. Guess only alcohol could make him use a more personal directive.

…

The Hog's Head was definitely a good choice on Valentine's Day. It was practically unoccupied and the few people sitting about were too grumpy to care about over-anxious Quidditch Captains and secretly sulking Head Girls.

They settled down at a corner table which looked extremely seedy. But it didn't really matter as long as Tori got her work done.

"So, Quidditch plays, huh? What've you got, Cap'n?" she asked, grinning at him.

He chortled and sifted through his precious book of plays. They were meticulously drawn and sketched out. Tori was quite amazed at the precision of his writing. He was very talented off the pitch as well.

"Quite something eh?" he asked with a smirk.

She rolled her eyes and took the particular play he had kept aside for her. It took her a while to adjust to his miniscule writing. It was not a very intricate play and she thought she had seen it being used the previous year.

"You used this against Slytherin last year, yeah?"

"Yeah. Didn't work out too well, mind you. Lot of cheats," he grumbled.

"So what are you planning? Basically, you've got a top team. But how're you going to tackle Flint's dirty tricks?"

She could swear she saw his jaw tense at the mention of the Slytherin captain's name.

"Weasleys will be using backbeats throughout. Unless something untoward happens and ruins the play."

"Seems likely to happen. What'll they do then?"

"All out attack."

"Brilliant."

He frowned and took out another piece of paper.

"Chasers will be performing the Flying Circus. Until thinks get particularly rocky. I still haven't figured out how I can keep them form getting too bloodied up."

The Flying Circus was a complex tactic involving the two Chasers weaving around the pitch, passing the Quaffle between them every second, as well as maintaining a crisscrossing trajectory. At the last moment, one of them would fake a pass towards the other and instead throw it to the third Chaser who would be above the highest hoop. It was then up to the third Chaser to get it past the Keeper. Gryffindor were spectacular at it.

"I think I might be able to help there. Did you read about The Serpent and The Snitch? It's a new play that the Irish developed recently."

He shook his head and his eyes lit up with interest.

"It's a man-to-man marking technique. One Chaser has to be The Serpent and maintain an S shaped trajectory throughout. I'd suggest you let Angelina do that, she's the steadiest with the Quaffle. Now, the Chasers who are The Snitch have to distract two other Chasers from the opposing team with short, unpredictable moves. Much like a Snitch. Now you can modify this slightly. Alicia's turns are fantastic. Make her fly about Montague and Warrington and basically block their paths. Use Katie as a decoy. Let her help Alicia for a bit and then as she goes towards the hoop to presumably catch the pass from Angelina, the other two will have shaken off Alicia and will be heading towards her to intercept the Quaffle and possibly cause some bodily harm. Now, Fred and George have to aim their Bludgers at Flint and the Slytherin Beaters, so that they can't interfere with the last bit of the play. Just as Angelina is about to pass to Katie, she needs to use her speed and dive down and take Montague and Warrington with her. Finally, Alicia takes the Quaffle from Angelina and goes for goal."

Oliver looked confused and then uncertain. Tori quickly drew out the play for him and used one of the many spells she had come across during her readings for Lupin's training and made the figures zoom across the paper. Slowly, Oliver understood the play and they spent the next hour or so getting rid of glitches and adding little touches here and there.

By the end of the discussion, they had finished four bottles of butterbeer each. Tori was feeling warm and slightly disoriented. She leaned her head on the table and tried to stop herself from drifting off into a peaceful slumber. She felt someone shake her shoulder lightly and she looked up with tired eyes to see Oliver's concerned face.

"You alright there, love?"

Tori felt her cheeks turn very red even though she had heard him use that word to address a lot of people. It conjured a lot of mental images which involved them being in very compromising positions. She quickly stood up and picked up half a dozen empty bottles and hurried over to deposit them. In her rush to create distance between them, the flimsy hairclip holding her untrimmed hair, came undone. She groaned and tried to remove some of the stray hair from her face so that she could see in front of her.

"Hold on."

She went stiff as a board as she felt his hands gather up her hair and clip it up adequately. He moved in front of her and slowly pushed back the strands of hair on her face, behind her ears and Tori shuddered involuntarily as his fingers made contact with her skin.

His hand lingered on her cheek for a moment longer than necessary and she let out a shaky breath.

"Right, er… Thanks, Oliver."

The walk back to Hogwarts was filled with an awkward silence. Tori wondered how she was going to get a hold of her wayward thoughts and reactions. He would definitely figure something was wrong at this rate.

Fuck you, Hormones.

They were passing Honeydukes when Tori thought of getting some chocolate for her midnight hoard. She asked Oliver to wait and went inside a very packed sweets shop.

She had just paid for a few bars of caramel chocolate with sea salt when she heard a load bang outside.

Flint and two other Slytherins had cornered Wood and were aiming their wands at him, while he tried his best to cover himself from all sides.

Anger coursed through her at the unfair scene playing out in front of her. She whipped out her wand and screamed at them.

"Oi! How many times do you lot have to get a warning before you actually understand that attacking a fellow student is against the rules?"

"Oh look, it's our pious Head Girl. Stand aside, McCaul. We don't want to hurt a girl. That is, if you actually are one," said Flint, the ever misogynistic arse.

"Irrespective. Expelliarmus!" She shouted and caught the one of the two backing Flint. Oliver used this distraction to start dueling with the other one.

Flint turned on her and started firing some of the most nasty hexes she had ever encountered. Thank Merlin for Lupin's training, otherwise who knew what might have happened to her.

A Slashing Hex caught her right arm and ripped apart the chocolates she had been carrying. A mass of golden brown littered the snow as Flint kept shooting spells at her mercilessly. Tori needed something to slow him down and an idea came to her suddenly.

She aimed her wand at the patch of ground below Flint and muttered, "Aguamenti-" still keeping her wand pointed at that exact spot. As soon as the last bit of water had shot out of her wand, she gave it a corkscrew turn to the right and closed her eyes, "- Glacius!"

Flint felt the ground below him become uncharacteristically slippery and he fumbled about, trying to regain his footing.

Tori took this opportunity to finish him off.

"Expelliarmus! Incarcerous!"

She caught Flint's wand as invisible ropes leapt out of her wand and tied him up. She aimed another Disarming Spell at the person dueling Oliver and nodded her head to tell him that it was over.

"Next time you try and pull something like this, I'll make sure you don't get your wands back," she finished with a hard expression. Her voice was steely and she flicked the wands on the ground, a little away from the owners' reach.

"Oliver, let's go. Oliver?"

The brown haired boy was nowhere to be seen. Tori huffed in frustration and made to turn back towards the village in order to look for him but he came bounding up to her at that moment.

His hair was windswept and his cheeks had red patches from the cold wind that had started blowing.

"Sorry about that. Let's go."

She didn't question him further and they commenced their walk back to the castle.

Nearing the castle grounds, he suddenly grabbed her arm and made her stop in surprise.

"What's wrong?"

"Here. This is for saving my arse back there. Thanks a lot, Tori," he said with a wary grin.

She looked down and saw two bars of caramel chocolate with sea salt from Honeydukes. She bit her lip and grinned at him, eyes swimming with happiness.

"I'll be glad to do it again if it means I get chocolate," she finished with a wink.

Hearing her light tone, he laughed loudly, a rich sound that rang in Tori's ears and made her heart race.

…

After dinner, Alex caught up with Tori to ask how her day had gone.

"He gave you chocolate?"

"After hearing everything I had to say, that's what you focus on?" Tori said, rolling her eyes.

"Obviously. Your crush gave you chocolate on Valentine's Day."

"Say that a bit louder. I don't think people heard you down in the dungeons!" hissed Tori.

"Whatever. I wish you'd do something about this impasse. He's clearly not going to do anything. I don't much gets through that thick skull of his."

"Hey! I'll have you know that he's really smart. And not just about Quidditch."

"See. Now you're defending him!"

"Yeah. So? I told you, I just have to wait for it to pass. Nothing's going to happen because it isn't mutual!"

"Says the girl who got chocolates from him on Valentine's Day."

Tori groaned and walked off.

Fuck you, St. Valentine!

…

As always, please review and let me know if you have any suggestions of feedback of any kind. I look forward to reading about your thoughts and ideas.

Cheers!