Hogwarts was a very different place after the Winter Holidays were over. Firstly, as students had returned to the school, extensive bag checks were conducted on each new arrival. The students who stayed behind were quick to complain about the room and dormitory checks conducted over the holidays - whether students were present at Hogwarts or not, teachers and house elves had arrived in every house, every room, every bed and investigated every nook and cranny. Drawers were cleared out, pillow cases and mattresses were stripped down and trunks were emptied. The students were not privy to what they were being searched for - all they knew was a student had been attacked and now they were facing tight restrictions. Talk about the Heir of Slytherin once again rose up. No-one knew who it could be, the fear around Hogwarts was becoming palpable.

As lessons began for the semester, a curfew was introduced and students were not allowed to be in the hallways unless travelling to a lesson.

"At least they're actually trying to protect the students this time, rather than just sticking their heads in the sand and hoping no-one else gets petrified," Hermione sighed one day. The tighter grip on student movements had meant she and Harry could no longer find a way to get to the Room of Requirement without being questioned about their intentions. House-elves were now situated in every corridor of Hogwarts, ready to shoo students away and report any suspicious activity. Upon seeing them Hermione had noted the Professors must have had a 'better them than us' approach to the whole situation; she wasn't about to relaunch a SPEW campaign but her heart couldn't help but ache for these creatures being used as basilisk-bait so the teachers didn't have to take meaningful action. As of now, she and Harry were spending a lot of time in the Gryffindor common room.

"I don't think so," Harry frowned. "Ginny clearly doesn't have the notebook anymore, you saw that letter she was writing, she probably got scared and threw the diary away too quickly for Tom's liking. He decided to punish her, likely using someone else and Dumbledore doesn't know what to do."

"Right," Hermione paused. "Whoever has the diary now, Dumbledore can't control them or he just doesn't even know who it is, that's why they've been investigating the students so thoroughly."

It can't be anyone in our house, Hermione thought to herself that night. No-one in the Gryffindor house had been behaving like Ginny once was - closed off, mood swings, sickly; everyone seemed.. normal? The Weasley boys had been more downcast, but that was understandable given the circumstances. Hermione didn't know anyone in the other houses well enough to start throwing accusations around. Whoever it was needed to make a mistake, get overly confident, over zealous, and make a mistake. Then, they could catch them and hopefully destroy the diary without Dumbledore finding out.


February rolled around quicker than expected and Dumbledore was panicking. Sure, no-one else was attacked and the students were safe so far, whatever. He couldn't find this damn diary. He'd searched the castle top to bottom several times. If he had to hear McGonagall praise him for his vigilance and dedication he was going to fire her. Not a single student was found with any kind of contraband which was even more concerning - the students were too aware of the checks, if they had anything on them, they'd had a chance to throw it away.

His pet Snape was being useless too, if anyone was going to have the diary, he expected it to be one of the Slytherins but not a single one had confided as such in their Head of House or at least bragged about it enough for it to get back to him. He needed to deal with this.

If he could, he would've stormed straight into the chamber and dealt with the basilisk himself - unfortunately, he knew neither where it was, nor how to access it and he was sure parseltongue would be involved somehow. He needed Harry Potter.

He had lost track of the boy during the course of the year, his plans simply falling a part around him, from Ginny's petrification to his glasses going missing, he'd had greater things to deal with than Harry Potter. He knew the boy was a parselmouth of course, he'd kept an eye on the boy periodically over the years he'd spent in the muggle world with the Dursley's and had found him occasionally interacting with snakes. At first, he had been concerned that Harry was the next Tom Riddle, but those fears were quickly put away. Harry was mistreated by his muggle family, but did not hate all muggles, he was a Gryffindor and seemingly proud of it. The boy was perfectly groomed for Dumbledore to take control of - no, carefully guide - when the time was right. It seemed that time needed to be now.

He was brought out of his musings by a knock on the door. As Professor Sprout continued to babble on about mandrakes and the Weasley girl, Albus zoned out, apathetic. He could do this, his plans needed realigning but he could still win. He had to.


It was fair to say the atmosphere at Hogwarts was becoming dismal. As soon as it had felt like the restrictions were easing up a little more, random spot checks had begun as opposed to the organised house investigations at the start of the new year. Now, students were being stopped at random, or would come back to their rooms after a long day of lessons and find their belongings overturned and emptied out on their beds. It wasn't uncommon to see many Howlers from complaining parents landing on the staff tables during meal times. Word was getting out to parents that their children were being treated like criminals because one student had gotten hurt. The fear of the chamber being opened and the frustration at Hogwarts' new rules had led to students being particularly easy to upset.

On the morning of February 14th, it appeared Professor Lockhart had found the answer to all the misery. As Hermione arrived for breakfast, she found herself nearly blinded by the sickly pink decor that now filled every inch of the Great Hall; for a moment, she thought she'd walked into the wrong room. The house-elves that had previously lined the corridors…continued to do so it was just that… now they were… dressed as cupids? Adorned with harps and and togas made of old duvet sheets, gold wings affixed to the backs of their sheets, they carried around little baskets of pink hearts that they occasionally scattered around the tables. They looked just as uncomfortable as the students about this. As she sat down with a very giggly Lavender and Parvati, Lockhart stood up and began announcing to the Hall of students, "Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Before we begin with the day's festivities, can I just thank the 52 students who have so far sent me cards, I look forward to receiving the rest." He flashed a large smile at the mostly confused students below, though some tittering and giggling could be heard as his gaze scanned the room. "Now then," he clapped his hands together excitedly, "our gold winged friends here will be delivering all your valentines gifts and cards to your respective special someones." Hermione looked over at Harry, who looked just as mortified as she felt. This had to be the worst task the house-elves had ever been assigned during their tenure at the school.

"The fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my fellow professors would love to participate in the festivities too," his fellow professors were very much keeping their heads down and avoiding all eye contact with him as he smiled down at them obliviously. "Why not ask Professor Snape to teach you how to brew a love potion? Or why not gift your special somebody a wonderful bouquet as made by Professor Sprout?" Hermione took a glance over at the professors in question; Snape looked as though he might force-feed poison to any student who even thought of asking him for a love potion. Professor Sprout looked incredibly disgruntled, muttering that she was very busy with much more important matters - muttering was the wrong word, her discontent could be heard across the Hall.

All day, the house elves were interrupting every lesson to deliver valentine's gifts and cards. Harry was very surprised to have received numerous cards and chocolates from students he didn't even know the names of throughout the day. As he received another gift during lunch, he voiced his confusion to Hermione. He certainly hadn't received this much admiration last time. "Well, last time people thought you were the heir of Slytherin," Hermione laughed as yet another elf popped in, "This time, you're just the Boy-Who-Lived, Quidditch extraordinaire, The Harry Potter." Harry sighed as he tried to take yet another gift from the elf.

"No," the elf snatched it back, looking disgustedly at Harry for trying to take it, "for her." It was holding the basket up to Hermione. She looked down in confusion as she took the card and gift from the elf. "Thank you," she muttered, unsure if it had even heard, popping away as quickly as possible.

"Who's it from?" Harry sounded very intrigued. It was a small set of chocolates, as expected on a student's pocket money and a pretty red card.

To Hermione,

Happy Valentine's Day, I've really liked partnering up with you in Herbology. If you want to have lunch together sometime, come over to the Hufflepuff table.

Ernie

"Um.. Ernie Macmillan, Hufflepuff, he's in our Herbology class," Hermione smiled. It was cute. She couldn't really get flustered over a card from a kid over 20 years younger than her but she was happy for the sake of her younger self. She wasn't so self-conscious about her looks anymore, but she knew in her original second year, this would've meant the world to her.

"Yeah I remember him," Harry scowled a little. Ernie had spear-headed a lot of the rumours about Harry being the heir of Slytherin in the previous timeline. Sure, they were on good terms now but maybe he still found the boy somewhat irritating.

"Who would ever send anything to that mu-" Draco stopped himself. As he'd walked past the Gryffindor table and caught sight of the duo, he'd been ready to throw insults their way, until a sickly feeling in his stomach warned him of the consequences of using that word.

"Jealous, are we Malfoy?" Harry turned with a smirk towards the young Slytherin, "Don't you worry, I'm sure you'll have a special gift from a special somebody by the end of the day." Draco stammered and stuttered, unsure of what to say or do, wanting to snipe at Harry, not wanting to get hexed by Granger. Eventually, red in the face, he simply walked away, Crabbe and Goyle in tow.

"Mr Potter, if I didn't know any better, I'd say that was a very thinly veiled threat," Hermione laughed. "Maybe," he shrugged, smiling mischievously.

Further down the table was a much more depressed atmosphere. Since Ginny's hospitalisation, the Weasley brothers sat together for every meal. During most of their spare moments they were seen in a small sad herd. Despite the teachers best efforts to lift their moods, the twins hadn't taken to pranking anyone and Percy's grades were even starting to suffer. Ron was actually faring better in his classes than before, finally putting his head down and getting to work. Most teachers took it as a sign that he was trying to distract himself with work, they weren't sure if it was a good or a bad thing, but they weren't about to tell him to try to start failing again. Ronald himself had many motivations for working harder, he needed to beat Hermione, he needed to prove himself to Dumbledore, he wanted Harry to admire him. If he could get Dumbledore and Harry, it wouldn't matter how unimportant his parents regarded him. He could be famous, he could be rich, he could have anything and everything, and he'd shove it in all of their faces. Right now though, he was just as miserable as his brothers. Not about Ginny, again he knew she'd be fine, but he was the only person he knew who hadn't received a single valentine.

When they'd visited Ginny this morning, like they had to every single day (which was ridiculously boring) she had an abundance of valentine's cards; sure, it was mainly get well cards and flowers from a variety of students - even some who didn't know her, but it was still more than he'd received. The twins had both received cards from girls in their year and even Percy had received a valentine. He'd waited expectantly for a secret admirer to send him an array of gifts but nothing. Not even a measly note. He now glared down the table, even Granger had received one. His ears burned red and he slammed his plate down and left the table. He was going to show everyone what they were missing out on.

He hadn't given up on trying to make Harry his friend, it was just difficult to corner him without that girl being around him constantly. If he was with the other Gryffindor boys, then Ron would try to worm his way in, but he couldn't help but feel the… jealousy - yeah that was what they were feeling, jealousy radiating from the other boys. And they were infuriatingly boring, he couldn't get anything out of being friends with Longbottom or the other two. He just wanted some time alone with his best friend, he needed to figure out how to get him alone. He stood outside of the Charms classroom, their next class for the day. He stared up at the ceiling willing time to go faster when an elf popped up in front of him, a card in hand. Ron couldn't hide his glee; other students were slowly making their way to their classes and Ron grew happier, they'd see that he'd gotten a Valentine. Harry Potter and the girl also turned the corner. This was fantastic, they'd all see it! The elf pushed the card into Ron's hand, "This is for your sister, Madame Pomfrey says we're disturbing her patients."

Students had gotten more and more used to the pops of the elves through the day, they were pretty much able to ignore them. So as Hermione and Harry stood outside the Charms classroom, they had no idea why Ron had gone bright red - though that was also a fairly common, easy to ignore, thing to see in the halls of Hogwarts. The Slytherin students also began to file past the Charms classroom, heading to whatever lesson they had scheduled next, when an elf popped in front of the group. "Mr Draco Malfoy?" The elf squeaked. Draco strutted forward, ready to see what he'd received.

"That's me." He held a hand out the elf, ready for his gift.

"No no, it is a singing gift," the elf cleared its throat as it unfolded a piece of paper and began to sing to the tune of Hey Diddle Diddle,

The king of the snakes, he makes my heart ache

His breath smells of vomit its true,

He's bad on a broom, but he will be my groom

Oh Draco, I will marry you

Malfoy's face went bright red in embarrassment as the elf handed the note over to him and popped away. The students around him burst into laughter, especially his own classmates who didn't take too kindly to Draco being labelled their 'king'. This was mortifying, even bushy haired, metal-mouthed Granger was laughing and she was a mud-

"A secret admirer, Malfoy? Hope I get an invite to the wedding," Harry called, interrupting Malfoy's thoughts. He'd have retorted back but the laughter of everyone around him was far too much. He couldn't sit in a classroom with all this. He stormed past everyone, back through the crowd, towards his room.

"I only sent out two valentines today, glad the first one went well," Harry laughed.

"That was from you!" Hermione exclaimed, "I had no idea you felt so strongly about Malfoy, who knew he could elicit such poetry out of you."

"Hey!" He shoved her playfully.

As they filed into class Hermione realised something, "Two?" Harry just smiled in response. As if on cue, another cupid-esque elf popped into the room handing Hermione a small gift box with a small note.

Happy Valentine's Day to my best friend ~ H

Hermione sat down in her usual spot in Charms class, between Lavender and Neville.

"Oooh, did Harry finally tell you he likes you?" Lavender giggled as she noticed Hermione's gift.

"What? No! It's just a gift from a friend, Lav," Hermione blushed. She did not need to be this defensive.

"Ok, sure," Lavender rolled her eyes, with a smile, "Open the box, open the box!" Her squealing could normally be fairly annoying, but Hermione found herself getting a little giddy. Before she could open it up though, Professor Flitwick entered the classroom, a toy cupid's arrow stuck to the back of his head. He pulled it off, muttering angrily about a "ridiculous, foppish fool". She tucked it into her bag. Most of her class she spent struggling to focus wondering what he could've gotten her.


Finally, the diary was back in his hands. He'd had to let go of it for too long. Thankfully, that idiot Headmaster Dumbledore had been so obviously panicked after the Weasley girl was attacked that he'd been ready when the bag checks and room inspections began. He'd placed the diary away from Dumbledore's eyes but now it felt like Hogwarts was finally calming down. He quickly began scribbling down in the book. Weirdly, he'd missed talking to Tom. Maybe not so weirdly, Tom was everything he wanted to be, and he knew Tom would help him get there.


I hope you guys enjoyed that chapter! As always leave a review letting me know what you think :) Thank you for reading!