February 14, 1993.
Valentine's Day arrived at Hogwarts not as a celebration, but as a magical catastrophe of the highest order.
The morning began with a deceptive, low-frequency quiet. Curfew had lifted, and the castle was still draped in the grey, pre-dawn mist of the Highlands. A few sleepy-eyed students wandered through the corridors toward breakfast, their footsteps muffled by the lingering dampness of winter. I was among them, walking with my usual rhythmic pace, my mind already cataloging the day's potential variables.
Then, we turned the corner toward the entrance of the Great Hall.
Tobias, who had been mid-sentence about a tactical improvement to his Quidditch strategy, stopped so abruptly that Elliot nearly performed a full-body collision into his back.
"…What in the name of Merlin's saggy left—" Tobias started, his voice trailing off into a strangled whisper.
I stepped around him and felt my heterochromatic eyes narrow. The corridor had been transformed. It didn't look like Hogwarts anymore; it looked like a biological infection of the color pink. Garish, satin ribbons hung from the stone walls like weeping willow branches. Heart-shaped confetti, enchanted to pulse with a faint, irritating light, drifted lazily through the air like a localized weather system. The torches, usually a comforting amber, had been charmed to burn with rose-colored flames, casting a sickly, saccharine glow over the ancient masonry.
Even the suits of armor hadn't escaped the carnage. A magnificent seventeenth-century plate-mail set was currently draped in a garland of wilting lilies and baby's breath.
Elliot stared, his face a mask of mounting horror. "…Did the castle catch a fever? It looks... swollen."
Cassian Rowle arrived behind us, his pureblood composure fracturing instantly. "Oh, no. Please tell me this is a hallucination brought on by a bad batch of Dreamless Sleep."
Adrian Shah approached with a clinical calm, though he was already pulling out a notebook to record the chromatic violation. He took one look at the decorations and let out a long, weary sigh. "Professor Lockhart."
I tilted my head, sensing the "Current" of the magic. It was shallow, gaudy, and lacked any structural integrity. "That would explain the lack of aesthetic restraint," I noted.
We entered the Great Hall, and the visual assault intensified by a factor of ten. The enchanted ceiling, which usually mirrored the brooding Scottish sky, had been overridden. It now displayed a vivid, unblinking blue sky filled with floating, pulsating pink hearts that drifted like bloated clouds. The banners of the four houses—the lion, the snake, the badger, and the eagle—had been wrapped in glittering ribbons that looked like they had been dipped in liquid sugar.
Enormous bouquets of roses, their scent so overwhelming it made my nostrils sting with the phantom smell of an apothecary's waste bin, decorated the staff table. And sitting proudly at the center was the architect of this madness: Gilderoy Lockhart. He was wearing robes of a pink so aggressive it felt like a physical assault on the retinas.
He stood as the tide of students entered, his teeth gleaming with a brightness that suggested a localized Lumos charm.
"Happy Valentine's Day!" he announced grandly, his voice booming through the hall.
The collective groan from the four house tables was the most unified sound I had heard since the Sorting.
"I have taken the liberty," Lockhart continued, oblivious to the atmosphere, "of decorating the castle to celebrate the greatest magic of all—Love! But that is not all! Throughout the day, my twelve specially-trained Cupids will be delivering your Valentine's messages!"
At that exact moment, the doors burst open. Twelve small, surly-looking figures with golden wings glued to their backs and tiny harps clutched in their hands fluttered—or rather, hopped—into the hall. They were dressed in frilly pink tunics that looked three sizes too small.
Tobias leaned toward me, his voice a low hiss. "Orion, I feel fundamentally unsafe. If one of those things comes near me, I'm jumping into the lake."
I sat down at the Ravenclaw table, my mind retreating into the void of my Occlumency to filter out the sensory overload. Celeste perched on the table beside my plate, her silver-blue feathers ruffled in a display of profound avian suspicion. She pecked at a piece of confetti and then hissed—a sound that carried the weight of her Thunderbird lineage.
At the staff table, Severus Snape looked like a man who was actively calculating the most efficient way to commit mass murder. His robes were the only dark thing in the hall, a black hole of sanity in a galaxy of pink. He was staring at a floating heart with such concentrated disgust I expected it to spontaneously combust.
The first incident of the morning occurred before the porridge was even cold. One of the cupids—a particularly grumpy-looking dwarf with a lopsided wing—swooped down toward the Gryffindor table. It landed directly in front of Harry Potter with a heavy thud.
"Oh, no," Ron Weasley whispered, his fork frozen halfway to his mouth.
The cupid dramatically unrolled a scroll, cleared its throat with a sound like grinding gravel, and began to sing at a volume that shook the crystal goblets.
"His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,"
The Great Hall went silent. Harry turned a shade of crimson that actually rivaled the Gryffindor banners.
"His hair is as dark as a blackboard! I wish he was mine, he's really divine, The hero who conquered the Dark Lord!"
The cupid finished with a violent, discordant strum of its harp.
For a heartbeat, the silence held. Then, the hall erupted into a symphony of laughter that threatened to bring down the enchanted ceiling. Ron choked violently on his pumpkin juice, spraying it across the table.
Tobias collapsed forward, his forehead hitting the wood as he howled with laughter. "This is it! This is the greatest morning of my life! 'A fresh pickled toad'! It's a masterpiece!"
Cassian was grinning, his dark eyes sparkling. Even I allowed a small, genuine smirk to touch my lips. It was a tactical disaster for the "Boy Who Lived."
At the staff table, Snape pinched the bridge of his nose, his voice carrying a dangerous, low-frequency hum. "Lockhart," he said, and the name sounded like a curse.
Lockhart beamed, leaning over a bouquet of lilies. "Yes, Severus? Feeling the spirit, are we?"
"If another one of those creatures begins singing in my classroom," Snape said, his voice as smooth and lethal as a poisoned blade, "I will personally test the efficacy of a permanent Silencing Charm on you. And I will not use a wand."
Lockhart laughed nervously, his teeth losing a bit of their luster. "Ha! Charming joke, Severus! Truly!"
Snape did not smile.
For a few hours, the chaos subsided into a dull, pink background radiation. We moved between classes in a phalanx, eyeing the cupids like they were unexploded ordnance. By midday, the illusion of safety was shattered.
The Alliance was walking through the third-floor corridor when we heard the dreaded fluttering. Tobias looked up, his eyes widening. "…Uh oh. Incoming. Target acquired."
A cupid swooped down from a stone archway and landed directly in front of Adrian Shah.
Adrian froze. His posture went rigid, his hand tightening on the strap of his book-laden bag. The corridor went quiet as students slowed down, sensing a fresh kill.
The cupid opened a scroll and began to bellow with enthusiastic, tone-deaf vigor.
"Oh radiant mind so clever and bright— Your calm, quiet grace is a dazzling sight! With eyes sharp as stars and poise so refined— Be mine, dear scholar, my brilliant mind!"
The cupid finished with a proud, flourishing harp chord that sounded like a cat being stepped on.
Tobias slammed his hand over his mouth, his shoulders shaking so hard he looked like he was having a seizure. Cassian immediately looked away, staring at a nearby brick with a suspicious intensity to hide his grin. Elliot whispered, "Oh no..." through his fingers.
Adrian stood perfectly still. His expression was a masterpiece of "Aporia," but the tips of his ears were a brilliant, incandescent red.
The crowd of students burst into laughter. Adrian didn't move. He waited until the cupid had hopped away, then he slowly lowered his face into his hands.
Tobias leaned against the wall, wheezing for air. " 'My brilliant mind'! Adrian, I'm never going to let you live this down. I'm having it engraved on your tombstone."
Cassian wiped tears from his eyes. "The poise... so refined. It's almost poetic."
I snickered quietly—a rare, sharp sound. Adrian looked up, his expression returning to its cold, logical baseline, but his voice was flat and dangerous. "I despise this holiday. I despise the moon. I despise everything about this current reality."
By dinner, Hogwarts had descended into a fever dream of romantic ambushes. Students were being cornered in staircases, ambushed in the library, and even chased through the owlery. Snape entered the Great Hall for the evening feast looking like a walking thundercloud. A stray pink ribbon had somehow snagged on his sleeve; he removed it with a flick of his wand that suggested he was imagining the ribbon was Lockhart's neck.
We had just sat down when Tobias leaned in, his voice low. "You know... everyone in the Alliance has been hit today. Except Orion."
Cassian nodded, his eyes scanning the rafters. "It's statistically suspicious. Our 'Star-blessed' leader hasn't received a single singing toad poem."
I rolled my eyes, pouring a glass of water. "I doubt anyone in this castle is foolish enough—"
A frantic fluttering sound cut me off.
Tobias's face lit up with a look of pure, unadulterated joy. "Oh, this is going to be perfect."
A cupid landed directly on the Ravenclaw table, inches from my plate. The entire section leaned forward, the silence spreading outward like a ripple. The cupid opened its scroll with a flourish that nearly hit Celeste in the eye.
"Oh mysterious boy with wings in the night— Your quiet charm gives hearts a fright! Though shadows may follow wherever you roam— May love guide your heart and someday lead you home!"
The cupid finished with a triumphant trill.
Silence. Absolute, crushing silence.
Elliot slammed both hands onto the table, his eyes wide. "No way. Someone actually wrote that."
I sat frozen, the water goblet halfway to my lips. My mind was racing—Wings in the night? Was it a lucky rhyme? Or had one of the students seen me on the tower? Was it a warning? Or a genuine admirer?
Tobias was nearly falling out of his chair, his laughter silent because he couldn't find the air to make a sound. Elliot was covering his face in secondhand embarrassment.
Celeste chirped loudly, hopping onto the table and pecking the cupid's harp. She seemed to find the whole thing highly entertaining.
I rubbed my temples, the heat finally reaching my own cheeks. "…I dislike today. I dislike it with the intensity of a thousand collapsing suns."
Adrian nodded solemnly, his dignity finally restored by my shared suffering. "Now you understand, Orion. No one is safe from the pink madness."
At the staff table, Snape stood up abruptly. Another cupid had just landed on his shoulder, opening its mouth to sing. Snape didn't wait for the first note. His wand flicked—a sharp, surgical movement.
"Evanesco!"
The cupid vanished mid-breath with a sharp pop, leaving behind only a few stray pink feathers and a very confused-looking Lockhart. The hall went silent as Snape sat back down, his expression one of absolute, terrifying calm.
"I warned him," Snape said, his voice echoing in the quiet.
Tobias whispered, "He just banished a cupid to the void. Snape is my new hero."
Cassian nodded. "Honestly, it's the only logical response."
Celeste chirped happily, ruffling her feathers as I buried my face in my hands. Somewhere in the castle, the pink confetti continued to fall, but for the first time that day, the "Deers of Death" were all in agreement.
Valentine's Day was over. And if Gilderoy Lockhart survived the night, it would be the greatest miracle Hogwarts had ever seen.