A/N: This was originally written and posted on LiveJournal on February 15th. The significance of this? Read on and find out.

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#19 - red

Morning After

- in which we learn who wasn't kissed on Valentine's Day -

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"Pansy, what happened to your hair?"

Draco stared in shock at his friend as she sat down in the seat next to him. She grinned at him and fluffed her hair. "Like it?"

"It's red!

"So it is." She shrugged. "The Valentine's Day curse and all, you know it only takes affect the day after."

"Valentine's was yesterday. What did you do, decided, you wanted to match it or something? A little late for that."

"You didn't hear about the curse, then?"

"What curse?"

Pansy was about to explain when they were interrupted by the arrival of Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, who sat down in the seats behind them.

Vincent's hair, just as Pansy's, had apparently magically changed colours since yesterday as well, and was now blond. Draco stared in disgust at his friend, but Pansy grinned and gave him a thumbs up. Vincent flushed and shrunk back in his seat, looking rather sheepish.

Draco decided it was best not to ask, and turned back to Pansy.

"Can't you do anything about that hair? It annoys me like that. Reminds me of Weasley's."

He could hear something like coughs from Vincent and Gregory, which he duteously ignored, and Pansy gave him an angelic look - well, as much of one as she could manage, at least.

"Won't be a problem today," a voice said behind him, and he turned to see Ron Weasley standing behind him, hair dark brown today. In fact, Draco pondered, it looked almost like he and Pansy had switched hair colours since yesterday.

"Weasley. Speak of the devil. Now go away," he sneered.

Ron shrugged, and turned to go sit next to Potter. Who had apparently also been hit by the hair-dying craze and now had a head full of dirty blond hair.

Draco turned back to Pansy.

"Ok, what's going on here?"

"Well, as I said, there was this curse yesterday" she began, but was interrupted.

"I bet it was Voldemort."

Draco turned to look at Potter. "You think it's You Know Who's fault when it rains."

Potter just gave him a superior look that obviously meant 'You Wouldn't Understand Anyway'.

"Well, I personally wouldn't put it beyond Dumbledore," Pansy said on his other side.

"Nah," came a voice from behind them. Gregory handed Pansy a copy of the Daily Prophet. "I think this has to be it."

"Ah, I see," she said, having scanned the little article he had pointed out to her. Annoyed at not having a clue of what was going on, Draco snatched the paper from her, and she pointed out the notice to him as well.

"Gilderoy Lockhart escapes from St Mungo's," he read out loud. "'Not dangerous but capable of many rather annoying Valentine's spells', says expert."

"Aha! I knew it was Voldemort!" Potter again.

Draco snorted. "What would You Know Who want with that idiot?"

Potter gave him yet another superior and long-suffering look. "Annoy me, of course."

Even Potter's trusted best friend and defender Weasley rolled his eyes at that.

Draco stared in disgust at the boy who lived. "I see you managed to get hit by that curse yesterday as well." He looked around the classroom, suddenly noticing more heads of a different colour than they usually were, and felt oddly satisfied. "Shame you don't all have my ability of avoiding curses," he added smugly.

"You know, in this case, you really would be the best at avoiding it, wouldn't you? I really can't say I'm surprised," a prim voice from behind Potter declared, and Draco turned to look at Granger. She was sitting behind Potter, next to Longbottom, and looking at him with an odd expression of amusement on her face. In fact, there were suddenly a lot of amused grins all around the classroom, he noticed. He was just about to give her a witty reply (!Shut up, mudblood!" - he was rather proud of that one), when the door flew open and Snape swept in.

"I want you all to shut up and stop polluting the air with your voices," the Potions master declared as he made his way to the front of the classroom.

Draco turned his attention to his favourite teacher. At least his hair was the right colour.