Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Twilight.

List of POVs:

Bella – BPOV

Edward – EPOV

Renesmee – NPOV

Jacob – JPOV

Alice – APOV

Jasper – JasPOV

Emmet – EmPOV

Rosalie – RPOV

Harry – HPOV

Ron – RonPOV

Hermione – HerPOV

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21. Valentine's Day

BPOV

The next morning at breakfast, our attention was caught by Hermione's shocked gasp at the headline of the Daily Prophet. Edward and I leaned over her shoulder to read the large bold text: MASS BREAKOUT FROM AZKABAN, MINISTRY FEARS BLACK IS 'RALLYING POINT' FOR OLD DEATH EATERS. Beneath the headline were ten individual photographs of the convicts, all labelled with their names and crimes.

It took us about ten seconds to read the entire article, both of us scowling, before we looked at each other.

"This is not good," I said, and Edward looked just as worried as I felt.

"At least now we know why he was so happy last night," he muttered.

We let Harry, Ron and Hermione finish reading the newspaper, and listened to their panicked conversations without contributing. Hermione suddenly jumped up from the table, muttering something about sending a letter, and fled the hall.

"Do you mind if we borrow this?" asked Edward, reaching out his hand for the paper. Harry nodded mutely and handed it over. "Come on, Bella."

We took the Daily Prophet up to the staff table, where most of the teachers were murmuring urgently amongst themselves. Edward put the paper on the table in front of Carlisle and Esme, and stabbed his finger at the headline.

"Have you seen this?" he asked, and Carlisle nodded grimly.

"Albus has been expecting something like this to happen for some time now," he told us.

"What can we do?" I asked, staring at the photographs intently, memorising the Death Eaters' faces.

"We do nothing, I'm afraid, Bella," said Carlisle, "Our job is to protect the school."

"But with these ten escaped, every human in London would be in danger," I protested.

"Bella," began Esme gently, "I know how horrible it is, but they would most likely be targeting Hogwarts students, trying to get to Harry. He needs your protection now more than ever, sweetheart."

"It makes sense to stay here," agreed Edward, touching my shoulder lightly.

I wanted to argue, but I couldn't deny the logic in their reasoning. "I know," I sighed, "I just don't like that we have to sit around while the Death Eaters are out there hurting and killing people."

"What do the others think?" Carlisle asked Edward.

"I'm not sure," he replied, "They know something's up, but they haven't seen the paper yet."

"We should go show them," I suggested, picking up the newspaper.

Edward nodded, and we walked at a brisk human pace over to the Ravenclaw table to show Alice and Jasper.

Alice frowned as she read the story. "How could I not have seen this?" she asked herself, shaking her head.

"It's not your fault," said Jasper, quick to reassure her. "We don't expect you to see everything."

"What's going on?" asked Rosalie, she and Emmett having wandered over to see what was happening. We showed her the headlines, and she hissed under her breath. "How could this happen?"

I was a little surprised by her anger, until I saw she was staring at a picture labelled, Henrietta Goldberg, convicted for the murder of the five Jones children, aged 18mths to 10yrs. Of course this would upset Rose. I could barely hold back my vicious snarl myself.

"Mum?" asked Renesmee, joining us with Jacob in tow, "What's wrong?"

I shook my head. "Just something in the news, sweetheart."

Edward handed her the paper for her and Jacob to read, and she looked worried.

"It's okay, Renesmee," said Edward, "No one's going to hurt you or any of us."

She looked up at him, with wide eyes. "You promise?" she asked, for a moment sounding like a little kid again.

I watched Edward, looking for any hint of hesitation, but there was none I could see when he said, "I promise."

***

The rest of the month gradually became worse and worse.

We found out that Hagrid was on probation, something that only we seemed upset about. Professor Umbridge lurked at the side of his lessons, making him nervous and flustered. We tried to help as much as we could, but Umbridge had pretty much already made up her mind on the matter. It didn't help that Alice couldn't see Hagrid in her visions, so we couldn't prepare for whatever was to come.

After the Azkaban breakout, Umbridge also passed another Educational Decree, stating that no teachers were to give students any information that didn't have relevance to their subject topic. Harry, Ron and Hermione were disgruntled about this at first, until Edward grinned and tapped his chin thoughtfully.

"Well, it's a good thing we aren't technically students, isn't it?" he asked rhetorically.

The worst thing happened one Monday afternoon, when we were waiting outside our Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. I was voicing my concerns that I was beginning to have more and more trouble shielding Harry from his dreams each night, and it was making me anxious. Without thinking, Edward wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head just as Umbridge rounded the corner. She stopped as soon as she saw us, and a smug smile appeared on her toad-like face.

"Masen! Swan! What do you think you're doing?" she demanded victoriously, "As you well know, any form of physical affection is against the rules!"

We sprang apart at once, quickly yet reluctantly, and looked at her sheepishly.

"That is a month of detentions," she told us, "Starting tonight, five o'clock, my office."

She strolled past us and into the classroom, and the class followed her. Emmett snickered at us, and we glared at him.

"Shut up, Emmett!" I hissed.

We took our usual seats, and I immediately pulled out a piece of parchment.

What do we do? I wrote. If she makes us use that quill, she's sure to notice we don't bleed!

Edward shook his head, and wrote his own message.

I'll talk to Carlisle. We'll figure something out.

I took the parchment back.

I really hope so.

We went to speak with Carlisle just before dinner, and he promised he would talk to Professor Dumbledore right away, so when we apprehensively knocked on her office door at exactly five o'clock, she let us in with a scowl.

"Is something the matter, Professor?" Edward asked innocently.

"No, no, nothing at all," she replied in that horrible falsely sweet voice of hers, "Come in and take a seat."

We obliged, and she set a large box of files in front of us. "I want you to sort through these. The Minister gave them to me to go through, but I simply do not have the time. You are to copy them out on a separate sheet of parchment, and then put them in alphabetical order, based on topic. You understand?"

I smiled up at her sweetly. "Of course."

It was frustrating work, writing out the files at an impossibly slow human pace, sighing and glancing at the clock every now and then to keep up appearances.

After a couple of hours, she stopped us. "I want you two back here tomorrow night, same time. You will continue working then."

We nodded and quietly said goodnight, before being dismissed. We immediately headed for the Room of Requirement, where we knew we would manage to spend the night alone, uninterrupted and unpunished.

***

February the fourteenth arrived, and the whole family was eager to get out of the castle and away from Professor Umbridge's watchful eye for Valentine's Day. We dressed in casual, but nice clothes for our trip into Hogsmeade, and went down to breakfast as usual with our human friends.

Hermione's meal was interrupted by an owl carrying a letter which she pulled from its beak eagerly and read it with a grim smile.

"Listen, Harry," she said urgently, looking up at her friend, "this is really important. Do you think you could meet me in the Three Broomsticks around midday?"

Harry looked surprised, and curious. "Well…I dunno," he replied slowly, "Cho might be expecting me to spend the whole day with her. We never said what we were going to do."

"Well, bring her along, if you must! But will you come?"

"Well…all right, but why?"

Hermione didn't answer him, rushing off instead to answer her letter. Harry looked at the rest of us.

"Are you coming?" he asked Ron, who shook his head glumly, muttering about Quidditch practice. "What about you two?" he directed at us.

We nodded enthusiastically. "We have a date set up," said Edward, beaming down at me.

We walked out to the Entrance hall with Harry, where he spotted Cho waiting for him. She was wearing a subtle amount of make-up, and was dressed in designer clothes, looking slightly awkward. I imagined that a certain pixie-like vampire had caught up with her. Harry's heartbeat sped up when he saw her, and his breath caught.

"Alice," I sighed in explanation, shaking my head, "We'll leave you guys to it. Bye, Harry."

We wished him luck on his date, before parting ways. Edward and I went to be signed out by Mr Filch, eager to get out of the castle. The second we passed through the front gates, Edward took my hand and squeezed it tightly. I grinned and squeezed his hand back.

"You look particularly lovely today, my Bella," he told me casually, as though commenting on the weather.

"Thankyou. You don't look too bad yourself," I replied, swinging our linked hands back and forth as we made our way down the dirt road to the village. We stopped at the edge of the crowded street. "Where shall we go?" I asked.

Edward looked around as though for inspiration. "How about we just walk?" he suggested, leading me forward through the crowd of Hogwarts students. We walked slowly, until the crowd started thinning out, and Edward looked down at me with a smile.

"I miss this," he told me, lifting my hand up to kiss it, "It feels nice to be able to touch you whenever I want again."

"Mm," I murmured in agreement, "Are we heading anywhere in particular?"

"Not really," he admitted, "Unless you can think of something you'd like to go?"

I smiled and shook my head. "Walking's fine with me."

A few minutes later, the rain that had been falling on us turned to snow. I caught a flake in my hand where it sat without melting. It reminded me of the first time I saw it snow in Forks, and I sighed from sudden homesickness.

"What are you thinking about?" asked Edward typically.

"Home," I replied honestly, "I miss Forks. All my happiest memories are there."

He grinned and swept a lock of hair out of my face. "I know what you mean." He took my other hand with a thoughtful expression on his face and pulled me closer to his chest. I watched him curiously, wondering what he was doing, until he twirled me around, and I realised we were dancing.

I giggled. "Really, in the snow?" I asked, although I had to admit there was something rather romantic about it.

Edward grinned and spun both of us around, keeping a firm hold on my waist. "Does that bother you?" he murmured in my ear, and it felt like one of those times where if I could've blushed, I would've.

"No," I answered, smiling, "I'm just wondering where all this came from."

He looked affronted. "Do I need an excuse to dance with my beautiful wife?"

I felt my smile widen. "Never."

We continued dancing for about five minutes, until the snow started getting heavy. It didn't bother us at all, but we didn't look human the way we were going, so we looked for shelter in the doorway of a small coffee shop.

"Should we go inside?" I asked.

Edward grimaced. "If we do, we would probably be expected to order something. Drinking dirt is not my idea of a romantic Valentine's Day."

I wrinkled my nose up, imagining the taste of coffee to us, and agreed we should stay just outside. We sat down against the wall, still sheltered from the weather. Edward put his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into him. To anyone passing by we probably looked like we were huddled up against the cold, and I was content with that alibi. I leaned my head against his chest and in response he held me tighter.

We sat like this for a while, until the door to the coffee shop swung open and Cho Chang stormed out, tears dripping from her face. I jumped to my feet and tried calling after her, all the while wondering what on earth had happened, but she ignored me and rushed out into the snow. Barely a second later, the door opened a second time, and Harry exited the shop, watching after her with a stunned expression on his face. He didn't even seem to notice me and Edward standing there.

"Harry?" asked Edward.

Harry blinked slowly and focused on us. "Hey," he mumbled, sounding confused.

"What just happened?" I demanded, "What did you do to her?"

He frowned and shook his head. "I have no idea," he confessed, "She just got really upset and stormed out."

I sighed in exasperation. "Well, what did you say?"

"First I told her that Hermione asked me to meet her at lunch," he began, and I shook my head disapprovingly.

"Oh, Harry, you didn't!" I groaned.

He looked at me defensively. "What?"

"You don't tell someone you're going to meet another woman in the middle of your date!" I explained, "What's that supposed to make her think?"

He stared at me with his mouth hanging open. "Yeah, I just figured that out for myself. But what was I supposed to tell her? I promised Hermione I'd meet her; she sounded really urgent!"

I rolled my eyes. "Boys!" I growled quietly so he couldn't hear me. "Okay, so what happened next?"

"Um, she started talking about Cedric," he said, "Then I told her I didn't really want to talk about that, obviously, and she turned on the waterworks. I mean, what was that about?"

"You brought up another girl first; she was obviously trying to make you jealous!"

Harry stared at me in disbelief. "Well it worked, but still, you didn't see me running out of there crying my eyes out!"

Edward chuckled to himself softly. "She's a female teenager. She isn't meant to be uncomplicated! Her emotions are all over the place at the moment!"

"Clearly," Harry grumbled to himself.

I rolled my eyes again. "You'd better go. Don't want to be late for your lunch date with Hermione," I teased, and he glared at me.

"Thanks a lot," he muttered, and left.

I scowled at Edward in frustration. "Really!" I growled, "Why are all boys hopeless at first dates?"

Edward raised an eyebrow. "I resent that."

My frustration vanished (mostly) and I cracked a smile. "Oh yeah? On our first date I seem to recall you demonstrating all the ways you could kill me."

He flinched, but quickly composed himself enough to chuckle quietly. "Touché."

I laughed, and he put his arms around me, embracing me tightly. "Have I mentioned just how beautiful you look today?"

I smiled into his shoulder. "Maybe once or twice, but it's still nice to hear."

He lifted my face up with a finger under my chin, and kissed me deeply. I sighed happily, and relaxed into his embrace, the last remnants of my anger disappearing as I breathed in his scent. He moved away from my lips, only to trail small kisses along my jaw and down my neck hungrily. He stopped at my collarbone and buried his nose into my shoulder, inhaling deeply.

"Happy Valentine's Day, my beauty," he whispered, "I love you, forever."

I smiled. "I love you, too," I replied, "Happy Valentine's Day."