Valentine's Day fell on a Saturday, so after dosing the chocolates with love potion, Ginny then had to decide when best to give the gift to Harry. She'd already erred on the side of caution and had chosen a twenty four hour dose of the love potion to add to the chocolates to give her a decent opportunity to win Harry's heart. Now she just needed to decide when to give them to him.
Logically speaking, he would eat chocolates on an afternoon or evening, so she needed to give her herself plenty of time after he'd eaten to the chocolates to seduce him. She also quite liked the idea of their romance being formed on Valentine's Day itself, so there was that to take into consideration. So after much careful deliberation, Ginny decided to give Harry the chocolates on the Friday evening before Valentine's Day. That should allow her plenty of time to steal his heart once the potion was in his system.
The second her final lesson of the day let out on Friday, Ginny bolted back to Gryffindor Tower to retrieve the chocolates. As such, she was waiting for Harry in the common room when he entered alongside Ron, the two boys deep in conversation.
"Happy Valentines, Harry," she cried, pouncing on her brother's best friend, and offering the chocolates to him.
"It's not Valentine's Day until tomorrow," Ron scoffed at his sister. "Isn't it?" he hissed to Harry, suddenly wondering if he'd screwed up badly with his girlfriend.
"Yes, Valentine's Day is tomorrow," Harry confirmed to a relieved Ron. "And I really can't take these Ginny, they must have cost you a fortune," he demurred, horrified by the size and shape of the chocolates Ron's sister was holding out to him.
"They weren't that expensive," Ginny lied. "But please take them, I want you to have them."
Knowing there was no way he could refuse without coming off as rude, Harry accepted the chocolates and thanked Ginny. He even managed to flash her an appreciative smile, before she headed off to meet some friends, while he and Ron made their way up to the boys dorms. Although as Harry departed from the common room, he failed to see the thrilled grin on Ginny's face as she celebrated the fact she'd completed the first part of her task in getting him to accept the chocolates.
Arriving in the boys dorms, Harry threw the chocolates onto his bed with a sigh, and turned to face Ron, who was looking at him sympathetically. Not wanting Ron to get the wrong idea, Harry had confided in his best friend that he had no romantic feelings for his sister. Fortunately Ron had been understanding and had made it clear that Harry was in no way obligated to reciprocate Ginny's feelings.
"I wish I could get her to see I'm not interested," Harry sighed. "I don't want to hurt her feelings, Ron, but maybe I've been too subtle."
"Ginny is a bit thick skinned," Ron conceded. "Do you want me to have a word with her?"
"It might just come to that," Harry muttered. "But to honest I'm still hoping that if I don't respond and make it clear I just view her as a friend that she might get the message. I had hoped she'd moved on when she'd started dating other boys."
"The problem is, she's never given any of these other lads a chance," Ron remarked. "She just moves from one to another in the space of a few weeks. At this rate, she'll be earning herself a reputation around the school."
Harry turned away, not wanting to admit to Ron that it was too late and Ginny already had a reputation with the male population of Hogwarts. The word was out that if you were looking for a bit of fun and didn't want a girl who would get attached to you, Ginny was your witch. According to the rumours Harry had heard, Ginny was up for almost anything, but because she'd seemingly set her heart on being with him, she wasn't interested in a proper relationship with any of the wizards she dallied with. Although it would seem that Ron hadn't heard the rumours, but Harry suspected it was only a matter of time before he did so and the two youngest Weasleys clashed over Ginny's promiscuity.
"Do you want the chocolates Ron?" Harry offered. "Maybe you could give them to Lavender."
"And risk her finding out they were second hand, I don't think so," Ron snorted. "I rather like my head attached to my body. I know, why don't you bring them along tonight."
That evening Harry, Ron and the other Gryffindor seventh years were off to the head dorms to play some cards with Malfoy and his Slytherin friends. It wasn't the first time such an event had taken place, as the first one had occurred way back in October when Hermione had announced she would like her friends and boyfriend to learn to get along. Involving their friends had been a way of providing a buffer between the three of them, but it had been a big success and they'd repeated the evening every month since then.
Harry was more than happy with the idea as that way the chocolates wouldn't go to waste as while he didn't mind a bit of chocolate, there was no way he could get through such a large box on his own. Besides, if Ginny discovered he'd shared the chocolates with others it might hit home that he wasn't really interested in her gifts.
With plans for that evening set, Harry and Ron changed out of their uniforms and headed down to The Great Hall for a light dinner. Neither of them wanted to eat too much as if other game nights were anything to go by there would be plenty of snacks on offer in the head dorms. And of course, Harry would be providing the chocolates.
After dinner Harry made sure he had the chocolates with him as he, Ron, Neville Longbottom, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan set off for the head dorms. Hermione answered the door when they knocked and when the Gryffindors entered, they found the Slytherins had already arrived and were setting up in the common room.
"There was really no need Potter, I already have a date for Valentine's Day," Draco quipped when Harry produced the romantic box of chocolates.
"They're from Ginny," Harry admitted.
"An unwanted gift I take it," Blaise Zabini remarked.
"Yeah," Harry confessed with a sigh. "Ron suggested we could share them this evening."
"I'm sure they won't go to waste," Draco said with a chuckle, nodding his head to where his two oldest friends, Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, were checking out the chocolates, earmarking their favourites for later.
As the Gryffindors settled down with the Slytherins and Draco produced a bottle of firewhisky, Harry was surprised to see Hermione was sitting at the table at the back of the room, with her books spread out in front of her. Apart from the first evening, when she'd been around to make sure things remained civil, she usually made herself scarce on game nights.
"Are you joining us Hermione?" Harry asked his best friend.
"No, I've got an assignment for Ancient Runes to finish, and then I've got the prefects rotas to alter," Hermione answered. "But don't mind me, you boys enjoy yourself. Oh yes, and no getting drunk or else I'll have to dock points from you all for drinking on school grounds."
"Can you really dock us points when it was the Head Boy who provided the drink?" Theo Nott questioned.
"I can do whatever I want," Hermione replied with a sweet smile.
"Aside from dock me points," Draco retorted smugly. "As your fellow head, I'm untouchable."
"I may not be able to dock points from you, but I can make you suffer in other ways," Hermione shot back at her smirking boyfriend. "I'll be the one whose untouchable, at least by your hands."
"What if I don't use my hands?" Draco asked teasingly, giving Hermione a searing look.
"You're incorrigible," Hermione laughed. "Get back to your games night, and as long as you all behave, you won't have to worry about being punished."
"Whoever said it would be a punishment," Draco purred, his grey eyes still fixed on Hermione. "It sounds more like a challenge to me. You just want to see how inventive I can get."
"Oh, I'm well aware of how inventive you can get," Hermione returned with a low laugh.
"Get a room you two," Seamus called. "We've came to play cards, not to witness you two flirting with each other."
"Yeah, I could do without it," Ron remarked as Harry nodded his agreement. Despite the pair initially being wary of Hermione's romance with the Slytherin they had come to accept it when they'd seen that Draco genuinely cared for their friend, but that didn't mean they wanted to witness the pair of them exchanging amorous barbs.
Laughing, Draco turned his attention back to the boys and the first of their games began. Since the Slytherins all had more money than the Gryffindors, aside from Harry, it had been decided that they wouldn't play for money. They just kept a record of who won each game and come the end of the evening the loser would have to buy a round of drinks next time they were down in Hogsmeade. It still gave the evening a competitive edge, but it also kept it harmonious, but most of all fun.
After several hands of poker, the boys took a break as the house elves arrived with platters of sandwiches and some snacks. Taking a few sandwiches for herself, Hermione said her goodbyes to the boys and headed upstairs, where she planned on taking a nice long bubble bath.
"Will you stop looking towards the stairs and pay attention," Blaise scolded Draco as his attention wandered yet again.
"Sorry, but I was just thinking of a much better way to spend my time," Draco replied with a grin.
"You've got all day tomorrow for that, tonight is about the boys," Theo said. "I do hope this isn't what you're going to be like in the summer while we're away."
"Where are you going?" Harry asked.
"Since it's our last year, we decided to have a bit of a celebration in the summer," Blaise explained. "We were just going to pick somewhere nice and head off for a few weeks."
"Funnily enough, Ron and I are thinking of doing something similar," Harry said. "Sirius is encouraging me to take a few weeks, possibly even a month or two, and go travelling around Europe. In fact he's so keen on the idea, he offered to pay for both Ron and me. All we need is some spending money."
"Which I will be making by working for my brothers over the Easter holidays and the first few weeks of the summer holidays," Ron explained quickly, not wanting anyone to think he was taking advantage of the fact his best friend was rich.
"Sounds like fun, do you want some company?" Dean asked. "Seamus and I could tag along."
"I wouldn't mind something like that myself," Neville said.
"Well if we're all doing it, why not all do it together," Theo suggested. "We can all join us, Gryffindors and Slytherins together."
"I think we might have very different holidays planned," Harry cautioned. "Sirius might be paying, but I don't want to take advantage of him. We won't be staying in five star hotels."
"Four and a half star then?" Blaise joked.
"Not even that," Harry laughed. "We'll probably be roughing it a bit actually."
"I am certainly not roughing it," Draco snorted. "Malfoys do not rough it. I do however, have an idea to make the holidays much cheaper for you lot. Skip the hotels all together."
"You mean camp?" Ron questioned with a frown. He'd only ever been camping once, when they'd went to the World Cup before their fourth year, and he couldn't say it was an experience he was eager to repeat.
"No, I do not mean camping," Draco laughed. "As Theo said, let's combine forces and do this together. And rather than going to one place, as we had planned, we do Potter and Weasley's idea and hop around Europe."
"How does joining forces save us money though?" Ron asked.
"Because, we are going to visit the countries where my family have properties, and stay in them rather than hotels," Draco announced. "I suppose that way, people can jump in and out of the holiday as they wish. If we devise an itinerary, so we all know where we will be at any given time, no-one should get lost."
"Oh, that might be good," Neville said. "I'm not sure I could convince my gran about me going away for a few months, but a few weeks here and there should be fine."
"Yeah, I quite like the hopping in and out," Seamus agreed.
"And best of all, if we get a bit lonely on a night, our girls can come and visit," Blaise suggested with a wicked grin, clearly making plans for his girlfriend, Daphne Greengrass to keep him company for part of the holiday.
"Not all of us have girlfriends," Theo reminded Blaise. "In fact, aside from you and Draco, the only one here with a serious girlfriend is Weasley."
"Then the rest of you need to pull your finger out and get yourselves a girlfriend," Draco remarked. "Although Potter doesn't need to look far, we all know he's got an admirer in Weasley's sister."
"Her affections are not reciprocated, I can assure you," Harry insisted firmly.
"Maybe not, but at least she's good for something," Theo remarked as Harry cracked open the expensive Valentine's chocolate's. "Those look bloody lovely."
Harry was just about to tell everyone to dig in where there was a knock on the door. Looking towards the door, the boys jumped into action as a group and hid the evidence of their drinking. Draco placed the nearly empty bottle behind a book on the bookshelf, while people hid glasses under the sofa, behind cushions and wherever else they could find to keep their secret from prying eyes. Only once Draco was sure there was no evidence of their illicit drinking did he open the door.
"Severus," he sighed in relief at the sight of his godfather. There had been no need to hide the alcohol after all as he knew the Head of Slytherin wouldn't have turned him into Dumbledore.
"Professor Snape, I think you mean," Severus replied firmly, looking pointedly at the other students in the room.
"I think that ship has long since sailed," Draco chuckled, closing the door behind his godfather. "Everyone here knows you're an old family friend and my godfather."
"I didn't," Neville blurted, his eyes still wide from the shock of hearing a student address the formidable Potions Master by his given name.
"Me either," Seamus said.
"Nor me," Dean added.
"Ah well, you know now," Draco retorted with a nonchalant shrug as Severus gave him an icy glare. "Is there a reason for your visit, or did you just miss me since you haven't had the pleasure of teaching me today."
"I would call not having you in my class the pleasure," Severus drawled. "I actually came to see your partner. There's been a few issues with one of the Slytherin prefects and Miss Granger said she would resort the patrol rotas for me."
"I think she was working on that earlier," Draco said, wandering over to the table Hermione had been using earlier that evening.
While Draco was searching for the updates patrol schedule, Severus wandered over to where the other boys were sitting, eyeing up the cards and snacks.
"Are you boys not thirsty, none of you have drinks?" he asked casually.
"No, we're not thirsty," Blaise answered smoothly as he leant over and picked up the box of chocolates Harry had just opened. "Here sir," he said offering the box to his head of house with a dazzling smile. "Have a chocolate or two."
"I don't mind if I do," Severus said, picking up two chocolates and popping one into his mouth as Draco announced he'd found the new patrol rota. "Thank you, Draco," he said as he made his way towards the door. "Oh, and you can get your drinks back out now," he casually called as he opened the door. "I might not be able to see the firewhisky, but I can smell it on the lot of you."
As Severus closed the door behind him, the boys looked at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter. They were still laughing as they brought their drinks back out and settled back down to play cards, each of them helping themselves to a chocolate from the valentine's box. All aside from Harry, who was still munching on a sandwich and wasn't quite ready for some chocolate. However, before the sweet craving would get a chance to hit him, the evening was about to take a rather interesting turn.