Given Easter wasn't for weeks, smuggling Sirius out became the next obstacle. Hermione was annoyed at needing to, but Draco had a point – if she was caught harboring Sirius Black, her life was effectively over, and she wasn't going risk herself for that.
Still. She didn't like the idea of Sirius being in the Shrieking Shack, either. If he was there, not only could he get back to the school grounds easily, but there was the potential that Professor Lupin might run into him by chance.
Sirius had not been happy to be sneaked out back to the cave near Hogsmeade, regardless of the blankets and food Hermione left with him.
"Never thought I'd want to be a prisoner over being free," Sirius said wryly. "At least with you as my jailer, I got fed and clothed."
"Too bad," Hermione said, folding up Harry's invisibility cloak. "Deal with it."
Sirius was less upset after she reassured him that she'd still have elves take him food, but he still seemed annoyed about the whole thing. Hermione suspected that it was because he had wanted to stay close to Hogwarts grounds – probably so he could steal Scabbers away and deal with him himself – which reinforced her confidence in her decision.
Valentine's Day came quickly, arriving on Monday morning with little fanfare, as most people seemed to have celebrated it over the weekend. The Great Hall was decorated, but not nearly as lavishly as the previous year, and Hermione was amused to see Professor Lockhart openly sulking at the Head Table as she sat down between Tracey and Blaise for breakfast.
"Apparently Dumbledore shut him down on decorations and poem-dwarfs again," Tracey told Hermione, giggling. "Some kind of excuse about security, I think. But just look at him!"
It was hilarious to watch, this performance of a grown man sulking so much. Teeth and hair gleaming, in clad luxurious lilac silk robes embroidered with violet hearts and pink roses, Lockhart's bottom lip was jutting out as he sulked down at his plate. Hermione stifled her laughter into her toast.
"Pity there's not History today," she said wistfully. "I'd have liked to hear about the wizarding history of Valentine's Day."
"I told you," Draco cut in, eyes gleaming. "It's all a marketing ploy by Honeydukes."
Hermione laughed. "You really think so?"
"I wouldn't be surprised." He smirked.
Hermione rolled her eyes but smirked back, and Draco looked pleased. Tracey and Blaise watched all this with observant eyes.
"Date on Saturday go well?" Tracey asked quietly, keeping her voice an undertone as Draco went back to talking with Theo. Hermione watched him as she considered.
"Well enough," she said. "I got what I wanted from him."
Tracey's eyebrows rose very high.
"Ooh là là…" she said. "I didn't realize you were—"
"Not like that," Hermione hissed, her face flushing. "I needed his help for something else."
"You needed help," Blaise said carefully, "or you needed his help?"
Hermione glanced over at him. Blaise was looking at her with one eyebrow arched.
"I needed his help," she emphasized.
Blaise nodded once, satisfied.
"Fair enough," he said.
The owls arrived with the morning post, and soon the Slytherin table was awash in chocolate frogs and hearts being delivered. Hermione was prepared this time; she had brought a small velvet bag with her that she'd duplicated from her Gobstones set to put all her chocolates in, while most people just swept theirs into their bag, where some were undoubtedly doomed to escape their notice and be ground to messy chocolate dust underneath heavy school books and inkwells. There were exclamations up and down the table with unexpected deliveries as well as chatter as people compared treats.
"What's this?" Blaise said, holding up an oddly-wrapped chocolate. He looked at Hermione. "Is this chocolate?"
"Why are you looking at me?" Hermione teased. "Who knows who sent it to you?"
Blaise smirked.
"All the other girls our year sent me frogs or hearts. You're the only one left," he said. His eyes gleamed. "And you're the most creative."
Hermione grinned. "Guilty as charged."
"I got a dragon," Draco announced. He held up the unwrapped chocolate dragon proudly, silver eyes bright. "It even has wings!"
Hermione privately wondered what sort of dragon wouldn't have wings.
"You transfigured chocolates?" Tracey said, astonished. "I've never gotten that to work!"
"Not quite," Hermione admitted. "I transfigured molds in the kitchens with the elves."
"Theo and Greg and Vince all got chocolate snakes," Draco was telling Blaise. His chin tilted up in a challenge. "But I got a dragon."
Blaise looked at him coolly. "Goody-goody for you, then."
Just then, more owls descended – this time, bearing more than obligation chocolates. A massive bouquet of roses, lilacs, and camellias fell onto Daphne's plate, and she gasped.
"Oh!" Her finger lifted the card. "It's from—"
"Cassius Warrington," Tracey and Hermione both muttered under their breath.
"—Cassius Warrington," Daphne finished, eyes shining. "How lovely!"
Tracey and Hermione shared a look, both rolling their eyes.
Pansy got an enormous heart-shaped box of chocolates that she made a bit of a scene over, sent anonymously as it was. Hermione was amused to see Pansy react with genuine surprise a moment later as another parcel showed up – this one wrapped in brown paper. Pansy unwrapped the gift and held it up wordlessly.
"Is that a bracelet?" Tracey asked. "It looks like cord and enamel – does that even count as jewelry?"
"Decidedly not," Pansy said, examining it.
"What's the charm on it?" Daphne asked, puzzled. "That's the symbol for Venus, isn't it? Is it supposed to be your astrological sign?"
"No idea," Pansy said breezily, even as she fastened it around her wrist. "It didn't come with a note, did it?"
Curious, Hermione subtly glanced down the table, able to catch Jade sitting back in her seat with a smirk, her eyes returning back to whomever was across her as she looked away from Pansy.
That was nice, she decided. She wasn't sure on all the secret signals and rules around that sort of thing, but it seemed like Jade was trying to help Pansy out.
Tracey got a pendant necklace from Adrian Pucey a moment later – a small rose quartz heart. Hermione and Millie were teasing her over it when a raven, head gleaming blue-black, dropped a small bouquet on Hermione's plate with little fanfare, catching her entirely off-guard.
"You got flowers!" Tracey exclaimed, immediately turning attention away from herself. "Who sent them?"
"There's not a card," Hermione said, picking up the bouquet and straightening it out. It was a small but vibrant grouping of pink and red lilies, all of them brilliant and rich in color and fragrance. They were bound together with an ice blue ribbon, which was sealed shut with a bronze wax seal.
"Really?" Tracey plucked the bouquet from her. "Lilies aren't a usual pick for flowers…"
"At least not around here," Daphne said, entering the conversation. "They're more common on the Continent."
"The ribbon's seal has a fleur-de-lis!" Tracey exclaimed. She looked to Hermione, smirking. "A gift from your French paramour?"
"How would I know?" Hermione said, snatching back the bouquet. "It's not signed. It could be from anybody."
Tracey and Daphne exchanged a smug, triumphant look, while Hermione glared at them and sulked at her plate.
Conversation eventually returned, mostly gossip about what some of the older students had gotten, and Hermione laid the flowers across her lap, out of sight, while she ate her breakfast and ignored everyone around her. It wasn't their business who had sent her the flowers or not.
After breakfast, as they headed to class, Blaise walked next to Hermione.
"So," he said. "Flowers from France."
"That's what Tracey thinks," Hermione deflected.
"Tracey also said your 'paramour'," Blaise said. He looked sideways at her, raising an eyebrow. Hermione did her best to not react, but she could feel her face flaming as a blush bloomed across her cheeks. Blaise whistled, his eyebrows going higher.
"Wow," he said. "I mean, I know I teased you back then about the hair clip over the summer, but I don't think I actually expected…"
"What?" Hermione snapped. "Expected what?"
Blaise smirked, holding up his hands innocently.
"Nothing," he said. "I didn't expect anything. And what I think doesn't matter."
Hermione shot him a dark look before looking back down the corridor. Blaise walked next to her in silence, but he seemed amused.
"Thank you, by the way," Blaise said a few moments later. His voice was soft, warm. "I love your Valentine's Day gift to me, even though it's not as flashy as a dragon would be."
Hermione's shoulders relaxed as she looked up at Blaise, who was smiling. He'd pulled his chocolate from his pocket, and Hermione looked down at it as it sniffed at his thumb and curled up in his palm.
"The charm work turned out really well," Hermione said, pleased. Her eyes met Blaise's. "So… you…?"
"It's a fox," Blaise said simply. His eyes sparkled. "I remember what foxes mean to you, now."
Hermione smiled, relieved. "Good."
They continued walking in silence, neither one of them wanting to actually say anything of emotional import, to Hermione's relief. She didn't want to talk about just what giving him a fox could possibly symbolize; it had been an impulse decision, one she wrote off at the time with the fact he'd helped her pick an animal for her House anyway. Now, it felt more intense than just that in the light of day, and Hermione kept wondering if she shouldn't have done so until after she'd finally let him swear fealty.
Blaise wasn't making a big deal out of it, though, to her relief. He just seemed pleased to get something from her.
Though, on that note...
"I must admit, I was surprised," Hermione said lightly as they approached the classroom door. "I didn't get anything from you. Honestly, I kind of expected to."
Blaise's eyes gleamed.
"Ah, but that was my gift," he said. "You not getting anything."
Hermione looked at him, puzzled.
"How is you not giving me something a gift?" she asked.
Blaise glanced around, before leading her past the classroom and around the corner, tugging her into a small alcove out of the way in a rarely used hallway. Hermione looked up at him, simultaneously curious and mildly exasperated.
"I gave you the gift of not getting something else," Blaise told her, a mysterious smile on his lips.
"I don't know what that means," Hermione said, frustrated. "Was I supposed to expect something else?"
"I don't know, were you?" Blaise asked. He hummed. "Did you get anything different this year than you did last Valentine's Day?"
Hermione wracked her brain.
Last year had been the debacle with the dwarfs. She'd sent Draco that ridiculous poem, and she'd gotten sheets in the middle of class from Anthony Goldstein. They'd since come to an arrangement, so she hadn't expected anything from him. She'd also gotten a chrysalization-detecting butterfly from Draco, though (the nosy bastard). And then there had been something else too, hadn't there?
The memory of a dwarf reciting poetry to her floated through her mind, the feeling of a thornless rose pushed into her hand…
"Any other flowers you might have been expecting?" Blaise was saying. "Besides the lilies?"
Hermione turned to look at him, her eyes wide, comprehension slowly dawning.
"Did you—" she paused, wetting her lips and starting again "Did you—"
His dark eyes held hers, steady.
"Did I what?" he murmured. "Did I what, Hermione?"
But her mind was whirling around, pieces fitting together. Memories of talking to him after Christmas slotted together, with memories of that fateful night in January—
Confiding in him about the courting gift—
Venting about Cedric trivializing her ambition—
Him asking questions, wanting to know when they would do their next ritual—
Asking who she would be okay with knowing about the coven—
Him asking about duels— if she intended on defending her own honor—
Her thoughts settled, leaving Hermione still in the hallway, looking up at him in awe.
"You," she murmured, astonished. "You, with Draco – you walked up at just the right moment. And Ron—he was with Harry—"
Blaise's eyes were dark, his lips a mysterious smile.
"Surely, you don't think I would ever speak to Weasley?" he said lightly.
"No," Hermione said immediately. "But you would remind Harry to get the last ritual components in front of Ron. You might even remark on where he could find me for help."
Blaise's eyes gleamed, but he said nothing.
"So you—you decided to break my courtship," Hermione said in tones of astonishment, slowly putting it all together. "In order to save me from having to do it, you—you arranged for Cedric to find out about the coven, knowing he would say something ignorant, and you made sure Draco was right there, and with his penchant for melodrama—"
"That sounds remarkably complicated," Blaise remarked, raising a lazy eyebrow. "If I wanted you out of your courtship, why wouldn't I have just challenged Cedric myself?"
"Because that's not you," Hermione shot back immediately. "You don't act directly – you prefer to be subtle behind the scenes. And you knew I'd be exasperated with the whole thing, so you offered up Draco as a target for my annoyance with the entire antiquated tradition, freeing yourself of any of the blame…"
Her voice trailed off, looking at him, somewhat breathless.
"…and freeing me in the process," she said softly. "From the courtship you knew I didn't want."
A slow smile spread over his lips, and his eyes gleamed. There was something else in his eyes, too – something dark and possessive, only not quite, and Hermione hadn't the slightest idea what the look was, but it left her a bit breathless. Slowly, Blaise took her hand, looking to her for any objections, before very formally kissing the back of it, his eyes holding hers.
"Happy Valentine's Day, Hermione," he murmured. "May you enjoy it as your own woman once more."
