February
The month of love dawned for Hogwarts in a blaze of glory.
For some bizarre reason, known only to the House involved, the Hufflepuffs decided that their fellow students needed more affection. Collecting a rather large sum of money, the House had managed to purchase hundreds of pygmy puffs; red, pink, and white pygmy puffs – all from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes.
Now, pygmy puffs weren't bad creatures, Ginny was actually thrilled at first to have a friend for Arnold.
Hundreds of pygmy puffs with levitation charms and kissing charms that flew, slid, hopped, and chased students in order to nuzzle them?
Well, that put a little damper on learning.
Everyone then wanted to get in on the pygmy puff craze.
Giving someone a white pygmy puff was a sign of friendship and loyalty.
A pink pygmy puff was from someone who liked you.
Red pygmy puffs came from those who were in love.
Hufflepuffs weren't an original bunch. But at least they were thorough.
Harry and Ginny had exchanged red ones, although they both ended up living with Ginny and Arnold in the Girls Sixth Year dorm room.
Ron had given white puffs to Hermione and Ginny, and a lovely pink one to Lavender Brown.
Hermione caught Neville and Luna exchanging red ones behind the greenhouse, and turned a blind eye with a smile.
During breakfast one morning, a few charmed black ones assaulted the Potion's Master, much to his annoyance.
Draco had, finally, presented Pansy with a red one, her happy squeals could be heard all over the castle.
It was late one evening when Ginny was laying on the floor of Hermione's common room with Ron and Harry on the couch, that Harry began to get an inkling of what was really going on. Hermione had just finished color-coding their weekly NEWTS revision chart, when a loud thump came out of her bedroom.
The four surprised students watched as two blue pygmy puffs shot through the door of her bedroom, a hungry Crookshanks leaping after them.
"GINNY! Help me save them!" Hermione cried, jumping up out of the chair at her desk, where the chart lay.
Harry leapt up onto the couch, and with a dual-handed maneuver, similar to the one he used to win his last Quidditch game – they really should name that move after him – the Potter Catch, caught the puffs in mid-flight.
"Oh Harry, thank you!" said the Head Girl, carefully stroking the two furry creatures.
"Uh, 'Mione? Where did the blue ones come from?" asked Ron.
"A friend."
Ron looked at her with a puzzled look – actually Ron looked at everyone with puzzled looks and you could never really tell if he was puzzled or just pretending to be puzzled in order to lay low. He was good at both.
"Yes, a friend, Ron, don't get your knickers in a twist!" defended Ginny.
"I wasn't!" he answered, indignantly.
"Blue?" questioned Harry.
"Blue means loyalty, wisdom, and trust. Seems appropriate for Hermione," said Ginny, poking her boyfriend in the ribs.
"True," he replied, wrinkling his forehead and thinking.
Loyalty, wisdom, trust – that could be either Ginny or Ron, but which one wouldn't want him to know? Ginny would have told him straight out if she had gotten a special pygmy puff from Fred and George for Hermione – but Ron like Lavender, so maybe he was trying to be careful and cover his tracks to not make her jealous! OH – he was SO brilliant!
At the look that crossed Harry's face, Ginny and Hermione locked eyes.
"Do you want to do damage control?" whispered Ginny.
"Nah, just let him be, he's not going to tell anyone," whispered Hermione right back.
"Well, at least you get to go out for our Hogsmeade weekend this month."
"Yes, yes I do," grinned Hermione, a content look coming over her features.
"Now, boys, back to NEWTS revision!" The happy look only grew larger as the resident bookworm, know-it-all began explaining the new color-coded schedule that still allowed time for Quidditch.