Couples

Professor Binns, being a ghost, did not so much as change his expression when the knockoff Cupids barged into his classroom. Aya failed to fall asleep again before the lesson ended.

"This is definitely the most active the students have ever been in History of Magic." Aya scowled at every dwarf messenger who hurried past, itching to go over and scratch them a few times. She had been so tired after roaming around last night, and she had been counting on History of Magic to catch up on sleep!

Aya barely had a chance to make up for her lost sleep all day.

During lessons, the dwarves would knock on classroom doors; between lessons, she could hear people shouting and jeering everywhere. She even considered getting the earmuffs Professor Sprout had given her for class-after the first Mandrake lesson, Professor Sprout had commissioned a special hat for her. Aya was the only person at school with four ears, so it was basically her own exclusive hat-all to block out the noise.

She heard they had even dared to barge into the Potions classroom. Even Ron admired them for it—and admired Lockhart while he was at it.

Before Charms Class that afternoon, Hermione pulled Aya along toward the classroom. Aya's mood had nearly hit rock bottom.

"Hey—you! Harry Potter!" a dwarf with a face like thunder shouted, rudely elbowing his way through the crowd toward Harry.

Aya's mood instantly shot up. Her eyes widened as she stared at the dwarf.

They had just run into the first-year Gryffindors, and with the two years gathered together, there was quite a crowd. Everyone was staring at Harry in the middle, but Harry himself only wanted to run away.

"Ginny! Come to the front and watch! You can't see anything from back there!" Sharp-eyed Aya spotted Ginny two rows of people away and hurriedly pulled her in to stand beside her, right at the center of the storm. "There!"

Ginny said nothing, and Aya didn't find it particularly strange. Whenever Harry was around, Ginny was always as silent as a mouse.

"I didn't expect it to be afternoon before Harry got a letter. I thought they'd start pouring in this morning," Aya said. She figured that a popular figure like Harry was bound to have plenty of people paying attention to him. On top of that, he had joined the Quidditch team as Seeker in his first year, a spectacular achievement, so someone was sure to like him.

"Oh, hello, Ginny," Hermione greeted her, looking around. "How long is this little dwarf going to take? I'm sure some people like Harry, but there can't be many with the courage to take the first step. I bet a Gryffindor student wrote this letter."

Ginny's body went stiff for a moment, and her ears, hidden beneath her hair, turned almost as red as it was.

"I have a musical message to deliver to Harry Potter in person," the dwarf said. Harry tried to escape, but the dwarf held him so tightly he couldn't move. The dwarf's grip was so strong that he even tore Harry's bag.

"Wow," Aya said, looking at the dwarf in surprise. "Strong as an ox!"

"Just like you," Ron said.

"Thanks for the compliment~" Aya looked at the ink bottle Harry had broken, then turned to Hermione. "If I sold Harry a bottle of ink at a high price, would he take it?"

"Can we spare a thought for Harry? He looks like he's dying of embarrassment." Hermione covered her face.

"I think he gets embarrassed in public pretty often," Aya muttered. The dwarf on the other side had already taken up his harp and was preparing to sing. Beyond the crowd, the voices of people from other houses and years could already be heard.

"This is your singing Valentine: His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad, his hair is as dark and dashing as a blackboard, I wish he was mine, he's really divine, the Champion who conquered the Dark Lord."

"...I think my writing would be better." Aya stroked her chin as she savored this unparalleled masterpiece, feeling unprecedented confidence in her own emotional intelligence and writing. "Besides, aren't toads a muddy sort of gray?"

Ginny kept her head down and continued to say nothing.

A snicker came from behind them. Two large students cleared a path through the crowd, and Draco swaggered into the middle. "Oh, Potter, was that a confession right here in public? Going to have yourself another little girlfriend?"

Harry was so angry he wanted to draw his wand. Ron stood beside him, glaring at Draco in anger, while Ginny buried her head against her chest. Aya looked from side to side. "Malfoy, did you come here for a close look because nobody's confessed to you?"

"Hawthorne!!" Draco's composure fell apart at once. Parkinson, a Slytherin girl who was always following him around, immediately jumped out at those words and spoke to Aya in a shrill voice. "Who says nobody's confessed to Draco? I'll go right now and-"

Aya blinked, looking ready to listen.

"Shut up, Parkinson!" Draco turned and snapped at her, then faced Aya and the others again. "Who'd want a dwarf confessing to them? Especially with descriptions like that. Ha! Apart from the last line, I really have to praise the first two-like a toad, as dirty as a blackboard."

"You should comment on the second-to-last line too. That's the key part, and you're dodging it again." Aya shook her head, looking as though she had seen right through him.

"...Disgusting!" Draco shouted at Aya. He had originally come looking for trouble, only to find Aya instead. He chose to turn and sneer at Harry, who was stuffing his stationery into his torn bag. "Well, that was really nice, but I don't think Potter liked the poem very much."

"That's none of your business, Malfoy! If nobody's confessed to you, go figure out why instead of coming here looking for attention!" Ron snapped back angrily, helping Harry pick up two books.

"Pfft, who cares?" Draco decided to pretend Aya wasn't there. "I wouldn't want someone praising me like that."

"You'd be 'the eyes of an anemic slug' and 'the hair of withered gillyweed'!" Aya confidently described what she saw. A few snickers came from the onlookers.

"Even so, he wouldn't deserve the last line," Hermione added.

Draco took several deep breaths and glanced at the damned cat crouching at Aya's feet. He took another deep breath, remembering the bite he had received at the Duelling Club last time, then chose to walk over to Harry and shove him hard with his shoulder. Holding himself with an air of importance, he left with his lackeys and Parkinson, without looking back.

"Was my description wrong?" Aya scratched her head. "I thought it was pretty close-right, Ginny?"

Ginny's eyes darted around, but she didn't dare look at any of them. She had finally worked up the courage to send her confession, only for it to be revealed like this in front of everyone. Luckily, nobody knew she had written it... After hearing Aya's version, she realized that perhaps her own descriptions really had been a little awful.

"Anyway, we'd better get to class," Hermione said with a sigh.

Lockhart's Valentine's Day special event had drawn Aya's attention back to him. To avenge her good friend-Harry had been scowling all day after the confession—she snuck into Lockhart's office in the middle of the night.

The last time she had come here, she had been looking for a signed photo for Hermione!

Aya swept her gaze over Lockhart's desk and found that the stack of signed photos had been replenished. It sat in the most conspicuous spot on the desk, with glowing heart decorations plastered all around it, making it especially eye-catching at night.

But that wasn't Aya's target today.

She had simply come to deliver a few Dungbombs, which she had gotten from Fred and George. This was her first time standing up for a friend, and she was really sparing no expense!

Aya sneaked behind the desk and placed two Dungbombs beneath the cushion on the office chair. Thankfully, February was still fairly cold, and Lockhart's delicate backside still had a splendid, thick cushion beneath it, enough to hide the Dungbombs perfectly.

Aya praised it inwardly, then turned and spotted a glint beneath Lockhart's desk. She reached for it and pulled out a stack of newspapers. Without even looking at them, she stuffed them straight into her backpack, planning to shove them under her bed after her nighttime outing.

When she left Lockhart's office, she saw a female Prefect just passing the end of the corridor. Aya still held to the principle that the safest place was with the people on night patrol, so she followed her at once.

But when she turned at the end of the corridor, she saw Percy and the female Prefect embracing.

"Oh!" Aya's mouth formed a circle.

"Who's there?" Percy and the female Prefect turned around at once in fright, only to see Aya staring straight at them.

"...Should we deduct points, Percy?" The female Prefect's face could be seen turning red even in the dim light, and she asked somewhat hesitantly.

"So that's what Hermes was busy with over the summer~" Aya said, suddenly enlightened.

Hermes was the owl Mrs. Weasley had bought Percy after he became a Prefect. When Aya visited the Weasley family over the summer, she would often see Hermes fly to the window of Percy's room on the second floor, then fly away again shortly afterward.

Percy's face turned red too. He hurried over and made several gestures for Aya to be quiet. "Let's let each other off. I won't deduct points, and you pretend you didn't see anything!"

"You're from Ravenclaw House, senior?" Aya tilted her head and peered around Percy, trying to get a good look at his girlfriend.

"Ahem, ahem. Penelope Clearwater, Ravenclaw Prefect. Hello, Hawthorne." Blushing, Penelope came closer and introduced herself.

"Just call her Aya. If you call her Hawthorne, even she needs a moment to realize you mean her," Percy said, taking his girlfriend's hand.

"Ooh, abusing your position for personal gain, using your authority for private benefit, serving your own interests under the guise of official business-" Aya drawled.

"Stop!" Percy hurriedly interrupted. "A bag of the latest sweets from Honeydukes. Keep your mouth firmly shut. It's Valentine's Day, so give us some privacy!"

Aya shook her head, picked up the art of blackmail without being taught, and left satisfied.

"So second-years are still young enough to be won over with sweets?" The blush had yet to fade from Penelope's face as she laughed.

"Just her," Percy said with a helpless smile. "I really don't want to say anything about her, but if you'd ever tutored her, you'd understand why I'd pay to make trouble go away."

"Surely it can't be that bad."

Aya paid no attention to what the lovey-dovey couple behind her were saying amid their pink bubbles. She made a successful circuit of the castle and planned to visit the Forbidden Forest again on Saturday tomorrow. Hardworking Aya would eventually get everything she wanted!

After returning to her dormitory, the first thing Aya did was sort the junk she had picked up: materials in one category, books in another, and pure rubbish in another. The money went straight into her bag. Then she washed up and slowly fell asleep hugging her sleeping doll, with Xiaohua curled up beside her pillow.

Before consciousness faded, Aya was still wondering how Ron could sleep so well with a rat whose name was yellow beside his head.

The next day, Aya watched the excitement involving Lockhart, then ate and drank her fill before running off to the Forbidden Forest. As soon as she arrived, she found that there seemed to be far fewer Acromantulas.

Puzzled, she rode Xiaohua around searching for a long time before finding a small group deeper in the Forbidden Forest. There were only a dozen or so of them.

Had Hagrid already contacted a magical creature protection organization and begun moving the spiders? She hadn't heard anything about it.

Aya crouched in a tree and watched Xiaohua fight the spiders. She hadn't come to the Forbidden Forest before the snow melted, and afterward, since it wasn't the end of the month, she hadn't been in a hurry to stockpile materials. So she hadn't visited the Forbidden Forest for at least two months.

Perhaps the weather was too cold, and the spiders had returned to their nest.

Aya collected a dozen or so spider corpses and planned to take them straight to Snape later.

Before the Easter holidays, Ron's birthday came first.

"Thanks for your present." Ron's expression twitched as he took the cage from Aya. Inside was a little mouse, white all over.

"You're welcome. I think even if you like rats, one like this is still prettier." Aya waved a hand. She had spent a long time searching the castle's secret passages before finding the little white mouse.

Harry covered his mouth and snickered. Ron was expressionless. Scabbers was a pet Percy had passed down to him; it wasn't as though he had been given a choice!

"You've got it pretty good already," Hermione said, patting Ron on the shoulder to comfort him. "At the start of the school year, Aya gave me an old Transfiguration textbook for my birthday."

"That wasn't just any old textbook! It had notes in it!" Aya added.

"At least you got presents. I've never gotten one," Harry said with a smile, handing Ron the present he had prepared for him.

"That's because you didn't answer your letters. I thought you wanted to stop being friends," Aya said matter-of-factly. "It's already passed, so you'll get one next time!"

"What about your birthday?" Hermione asked. "I don't think you've ever said when it is?"

Honestly, Aya had never taken the initiative to celebrate her birthday. After all, she wasn't even sure when it was. She only knew that the game system used to send a birthday email on June twenty-first, the day the player created her.

The player had told a friend that her own birthday wasn't that day, so that day was Aya's birthday.

And on June twenty-first last year, Aya had also received a birthday email from the system, so she naturally thought she had already celebrated her birthday.

It was only later, when Ginny celebrated her birthday at The Burrow, that Aya learned you could receive presents on your birthday.

She felt as though she had missed out on a hundred million.

"June twenty-first," Aya answered.

"Huh? That close to the holidays?" Ron held up the mouse cage and poked the little white mouse inside, worrying a little about where he should keep it.

"Why didn't you tell us last year?" Hermione found it a little strange. Although everyone kept birthdays simple at school, quite a few students would go to the kitchens and get a cake for a small celebration.

"I didn't know you could actually get presents on your birthday!" Aya said regretfully.

She had thought birthdays just meant treating other people to a meal.