The Great Hall was busier than usual on Valentine's Day. It had only been about twenty minutes, but it was already much better than the Lockhart awfulness from several years before. Some of the students that remembered those events were thankful of the upgrade in expectations and others who didn't wondered why the others seemed so relieved. In any event, it didn't look like anything out of the ordinary was going to happen, except for the usual teenaged drama.

There were several clumps of people either partaking in something to eat or reading various cards. Those came in handmade varieties that could be described as anything ranging from 'sweet' all the way down to 'atrocious.' The worse ones were misspelled and had others wonder if colorblindness was part of the reason for the appearances. The better ones looked like they had indeed had at least some care taken in their formation and were appreciated a lot better.

At the Gryffindor tables, there was a young wizard that decided some time ago that he wanted to do something nice and it had taken him a good bit of sneaking around and planning to put into operation. The sneaking around he was rather good at, but the planning required some help. Harry Potter was all too aware that he might have unexpected things happen whenever he put a plan into motion, so he did the best he could. 'Might' was a better way to put it than 'would,' but he was trying to look on the bright side. The absolute best would have been to involve Hermione, but as she was part of the 'doing something nice for' part that meant that he had to sneak around her inquisitive nature.

As previously mentioned, he was good at sneaking around.

It had taken some doing – and some quick talking when he thought that Hermione had caught on – but he was ready to see the plan Mister Ollivander had come up with. The idea of asking the wandmaker to help was inspired genius, he thought. It was either that or rather rousing insanity. Mister Ollivander had surprised Harry by agreeing quickly to help out and when asked by a suddenly suspicious Harry, had this to say:

"I haven't had the opportunity to help out with something like this in years! I've done this exact thing before and it had quite an effect. People were congratulating me for it for years and it drummed up business, too. It's something different than selling wands all day. Let's get started."

The old man seemed revitalized, in a way. He was actually singing as he gathered this item and that box. It wasn't that bad, either.

If Harry had thought to ask about who the old wizard had helped before, he would have had second and third thoughts. As it were, the wandmaker had forgotten that the last person he helped didn't have the effect he remembered. It was the person before that. That person ended up living a long and happy life thanks to the results of an Ollivander-inspired plan. The other person, not so much.

Still, Harry decided that what Mister Ollivander came up with was a good thing. It had style, pizzazz, and a good dollop of derring-do, so he ran with it. A good bit of it he had to leave in the old wandmaker's hands since he didn't have free run of Hogmeade and was subject to curfew every night. Everything fell into place quite easily, and Harry had gone to bed the night before with a light heart.

He ignored the little suspicious voice that wondered why it was so easily done and slept the sleep of the just.

As a result of all this, that morning he was seated in his regular seat in the Great Hall with Hermione on one side and Ron on the other. It had been a good morning, since Ron hadn't put his foot into his mouth yet and Hermione hadn't called him out on his actions. Harry felt safe enough to be seated in between them and had no worries that there would be any imaginative punishments sailing in from Hermione's side or less-than-thoughtful faux pas coming from Ron's side.

Breakfast had been nice and even Malfoy was behaving, or at least hadn't woken up enough to build up enough steam to spout off. He was occupied with spooning up porridge and looked like he'd been up late. The bloodshot eyes told the tale, but the blond hair didn't move a millimeter from the last time Harry had seen it, and not for the first time he wondered if Malfoy had something that stayed in his hair permanently.

In fact, he was starting to debate with himself whether that was really hair and not some kind of magical creature that even Hagrid would be wary around.

Cards and small packages had been exchanged with varying frequency as the morning meal had gone on, and depending on who happened to be the giver and who happened to be the recipient one of two or three things happened.

One, there was a squeal of pleasure. Sometimes it was a muted coo, more of a subdued awwwwww that expressed the sincerity just as strongly as the louder ejaculations. This was the most heartening and happy of results.

Two, there were sounds of dismissive disbelief and subsequent tears. In one case, it was the sight of a truly spectacular on-the-fly animate-to-inanimate transfiguration of a seventh-year Hufflepuff's 'personal self' when the Slytherin girl was much less than impressed with the phrasing and pictorial layout of the included card.

From the way the hapless hexed horny helpless Hufflepuff hustled (or tried to, anyway) to the tender clutches of Madam Pomfrey, he wasn't going to be worrying about anything Valentine's Day related for a good while. Especially when Madam Pomfrey told him that she was going to have to resort to other methods and perform a biopsy of the area. Just to be sure, she assured him.

And third, there was simply… nothing. A glance at whatever was offered, a raised eyebrow (or not,) then some of the best ignoring done to date. Sad to say, there was a good bit of that going on, and Harry wondered how much Honeydukes was going to waste. It was probably a good thing Remus Lupin wasn't in the castle today or he'd be upset at all the subsequently unused chocolate. On the other hand, he probably would have cleaned up and stocked up his chocolate cellar for the next year or so just from the discarded and unopened candies.

Off in the distance, Harry saw something that told him that his plan was about to unfold. He sat up quickly, getting the attention of the two on either side of him.

"Harry?"

Hermione's voice was confused, as Harry hadn't really said much this morning and she was wondering what was wrong. The expectant grin on his face told her that he was about to spring something on somebody.

She looked at him again and noted the way his eyes were sparkling in an unhallowed glee. This prompted her to pluralize the word 'somebody.'

"Just watch, Hermione."

Her eyebrow went up. She didn't get a chance to ask him what he was up to as a veritable squadron of owls flew into the Great Hall in a tight, silent formation. Hedwig was at the apex of the formation, the only snowy owl in a group of great horned owls. The red rose and pink envelope that she carried stood out against her plumage, and Hermione could see that the other owls carried yellow roses and cream envelopes. The owls banked at Hedwig's command, weaving through the rafters and making the candles gutter as they passed. The flight circled the Hall twice, gaining the attention of everyone there and giving some that had left time to come back in to witness the event.

The trailing pair of owls smoothly detached from the formation and headed toward Susan Bones and Daphne Greengrass, who took the roses and cards but waited to open them in order to see what the owls would do next. They remained where they landed.

The next pair did the same maneuver after a half lap, delivering their burden to the Patil Twins. They also waited with their roses and cards. It was harder for Parvati to do as she was burning with curiosity, but managed. They noticed that these owls remained at their posts, too.

The last pair of horned owls completed the lap and went to Ginny Weasley and Luna Lovegood. Luna looked at Harry with distinct speculation and nodded to herself but Harry didn't see this. He did see that their owls took up a position on the edge of the table and stood still like the others. What were they waiting for?

For his part, Harry had also seen the magical eddies of the owl squadron every time they passed a floating candle, since the smoke would burst into a quick riot of color. He wondered what Ollivander had done and realized that Hedwig must have had a word with the old man since her color bursts were stronger.

For such a gentle and loving bird, Hedwig could be a bit vain. Harry knew much better than to vocalize that thought.

"Hedwig's a bit vain, isn't she?"

Of course, Ron was behind on his daily foot-in-mouth quota. To be safe from any owlish correction of perceived faults, Harry scooted a bit away from him. This put him closer to Hermione, who didn't move and neither Gryffindor complained about it. In fact, after he settled, she scooted closer too.

Hedwig was the only owl in the air now, and was flying another circuit around the room. All eyes tracked her flight, wondering where and when she would land. Speculations were rife and there wasn't enough time for the Weasley Twins to open a book about her target.

However, the staff at the Head Table had a few 'discussions' along that line along with some hurried handshakes. The highest odds went to a bet Dumbledore did at twenty to one on Tracey Davis.

Hedwig slowed her flight, watching her human get more and more impatient. She had almost reached stall speed and dropped right in front of Hermione without needing to flare out. It was almost as if she gracefully stepped into the landing from powered flight as a matter of course.

Hermione's eyes went to Harry and he grinned at her, his green eyes and encouraging nod prompting her to take the precious burdens Hedwig had brought her. Her shaking hands took the card, ignoring the groans from the staff table and the odd sound of glee from Professor Snape. There was a repetitive sound of clinking coins in the background as she read the card.

Everyone watched as the owls started gleaming the moment she bowled him over and planted a huge kiss on him. Chimes rang out in the air as their robes shimmered for a moment and a section on the left breasts of their robes coalesced into the Potter family crest.

"Wh-what was that?" Harry mumbled.

"I don't know," Hermione said and kissed him again.

There wasn't time to figure out what had happened before the girls with the yellow roses also had a section of their robes show a Potter crest and more chimes rang. They looked at each other, perplexed, although Luna had a small smile on her face. That didn't help the others with their questions.

Confused, Harry finally was able to get up from where Hermione had dumped him and found a large wax-sealed parchment on his place setting.

"What's this?"

He broke the seal. Hermione could see that it bore the imprint of the Ministry of Magic and she wondered what it was. She was questioning even more when she saw that Harry was reading the parchment with ever-widening eyes. It was getting to the point where she was starting to ask herself if his eyes were actually going to fall out of his head when those same eyes rolled back and he fainted.

The parchment fluttered to the table as Hermione dashed down to check on him. The last word was left to Ron as he snatched up the missive and read it.

"Bloody hell! The Ministry is congratulating Harry for his new magical marriage to Hermione, Luna, Ginny, Parvati, Padma, Daphne, and Susan!"

It would take all day for Harry to wake up.

It would take all week for the whispers to start dying down and even then it didn't completely stop.

It would take all month for Garrick Ollivander to feel safe enough to leave his wand shop for the prank he pulled and went just a little overboard on.