Nothing could cheer Zia up quite like a holiday based around love, pink, flowers, and chocolate. Those were some of Zia’s favorite things, several of which she over-indulged in on a daily basis. This year she had been more than happy to help out with Hogwarts’ Valentine’s Day event, trying hard now to rediscover her happy place.

And if Zia’s happy place were to ever become real, this would be it.

The hall was decked out with old-fashioned carnival booths and rides; pink glitter adorned nearly everything that wasn’t covered in chocolate. The room was a sea of hearts and cutesiness; every goth’s absolute nightmare. It was like the inside of Zia’s brain had been sick inside the Great Hall.

Zia was delighted.

She bounced from booth to booth, just before the event started, checking to make sure everything was in working order. It was. There was a chocolate buffet, with every sort of sweet imaginable -- and with Zia as the brain of the operation, that covered a lot of sweets. There were games of every adorable variety, a Tunnel of Love, and of course a kissing booth. Zia found her place amongst the staffers of this particular booth, a place she felt was rightfully hers. It was possible that Zia was not appropriately dressed in terms of school dress code, but that was a traditional look for the pink-haired seventeen-year-old. It felt like the right choice of an outfit for the opening day of the long-awaited Valentine's carnival.

In the back corner of the room she’d put a place for those who didn’t have the same kind of Zia thinking about the mushy-gushy holiday. Most things were black and wicked-looking; games like ‘Dunk your Ex’ with a dummy made to magically turn into people’s former lovers, would splash into a vat of an ominous-looking boiling potion.


This being the first night, everything was sparkling and romantic, candle-lit with music made for dancing. Zia felt it was important that the first night be classy, with fairy lights and floating candles. Roses and heart-shaped plates.

In yet another area one could buy temporary love potions, sweets for their sweet, secret admirer gifts. Students could have their go trying to pierce a heart with Cupid’s arrow. It was sure to be a night that, if nothing else, would result in a school full of gossip.

Juni thought that this weekend-long Valentiene's event was a bit overkill, but she intended to enjoy every moment of it. By the last day, it was likely that she would actually hate Valentine's Day, but that was a problem for future-Juni. After all, this was the first Valentine's day in which she actually had a boyfriend. A real, live, breathing, completely-not-imaginary boyfriend. Although Ambrose wasn't very school-smart, he made up for it in his sweet nature. After all, a person's value did not lie in whether or not they could get good grades.

"Look, there's a kissing booth!" Juni exclaimed, giving Zia a small wave. Eli Amherst seemed to be at that booth as well. At least he was fully dressed.  For now.

The witch pitched her voice so that only Ambrose could hear, "This can't go wrong. Not at all." Her voice dripped with amused sarcasm. There were definitely a few students she could imagine making a scene at the kissing booth. The devious side of her hoped that there would be hexes involved.

Something that disturbed her, however, was the display of love potions. That, that was creepy. She eyed them with suspicion, hoping that none of her friends would become an unwilling victim of artificial love.

"Look, there's a kissing booth!" Juni exclaimed beside Ambrose, and he looked round in the direction she was waving to Zia Piselli.
"A kissing booth?" He echoed, confused as to whether one went in the booth to kiss alone or it involved something else. "Who wants to kiss Eli Amherst?" He scrunched up his nose. He didn't, that was for sure.

"If it is half an hour alone with you I'd pay my term's pocket money." Ambrose assured Juni, and then his face changed as if something in his head was telling him that didn't sound quite right. "Hang on. I mean. Er…" He blushed, cheeks turning a rosy red and clasped her hand gently.

"I'm glad I get to come along with you though, Juni." Ambrose spoke honestly. He was having a great deal of fun with Juni - he always had but there was that additional fun that came with kissing and making her smile by not only saying nice things to her but also touching her.

Juni was lovely to touch, she was so soft and she chose lovely material for clothes and her hair was so complicated and dark. Only the other night had spent a very long time gently teasing the knots out of it at the end of a particularly windy day, marvelling at it. He could never have long hair like she did, but it suited her, and though he didn't realise, he'd told her almost half a dozen times that night.

"Shall we wander round, see what there is?" He asked optimistically.

"Well, I'm sure that Eli--" Juni was going to say that she thought Eli could probably kiss Zia and get away with it. She heard some sort of story about them and cheesecakes once. However, Ambrose interrupted her train of thought with, "If it is half an hour alone with you I'd pay my term's pocket money." She let him stumble around awkwardly before saying sweet things that were borderline corny.

"I'm glad I'm with you, too, Ambrose." Juni replied, "Even if you're not paying me for my time." She let out a cackle, playfully bumping her shoulder against his arm. "Merlin, Ambrose. I'm not a prostitute." It was clear that she was more amused than offended. This, this was a story she'd probably tell her friends. Or her cousin. Or her dad, if she wanted to watch him cringe.

Ambrose was... Kind. Kinder than she thought she deserved with her teasing and off-color jokes. As a bonus, he had grown from being cute to incredibly good looking, regardless of whether he actually thought so or not. Her favorite feature of his were his large, blue eyes. He made her laugh easily, whether he meant to or not-- and had an easygoing nature.

They wandered around, looking at the different games and booths. Juni stopped when she saw the Tunnel of Love, eyeing it suspiciously. "That looks like a creepy snogfest." She remarked, "Should we interrupt passionate couples?" Perhaps that wasn't the point of the tunnel, but it seemed like a good idea.

"Tunnel of love." Ambrose read in a drawn out tone. "It sounds rude too." He laughed, putting a hand to his mouth to cover his grin a moment. He curled his fingers down to move them from his lips and looked to his girlfriend. "It depends what they're doing in there, Juni." The grin indicated he wasn't doubting the suggestion though. "Why not…"

Hand in hand they headed towards the lurid pink arch that indicated the start of the carnival feature. Ambrose spied the other end, red-faced students reappearing arm in arm. Perhaps it'd be fine. It was all meant to be fun, right? As long as they weren't mugged by Connor Todd.

Elysia Hughes had never been a fan of such holidays like these. Love, at least true love, should be cherished year round, not given one tiny day on the calendar. Like what, you love someone more on this day, and then tomorrow you love them less? That made no sense. And as for gifts, why not just give someone a gift when you think of them, rather than wait for a day that other people tell you that you should think of them? Every day should be Valentine's day.

Perhaps, if the badger really took the time to reflect, she might understand that her trepidation to this particular holiday was because she felt so alone. Elysia was a talented witch, a popular friend, a good student, and one hell of a quidditch player... but when it came to romance, Elysia's life was sadly lacking. Not that there weren't suitors, but there were none that Ely thought were serious. Most men's eyes glossed over not long after starting to stare at her, and though they would wax and wane most eloquently about their affections toward her, they never felt truly genuine.

A nagging suspicion had started gathering in the back of the Hufflepuff's mind lately: maybe the veela curse hadn't skipped over Elysia after all. Maybe, like her sister, she was doomed to a life of questioning the motives of every man she may ever love. Maybe the only reason people liked her was because she forced them to, no matter how subconsciously. And the worst part was that there was no one to talk to about it. Though she would love to talk to Audrey about it, Elysia had a sinking suspicion that she'd tell Professister Donovan, and the last thing Ely wanted was for one of her favorite professors to pay more attention to her than she needed to. Flynn, also no help - though he'd be supportive, as a male, he'd never had to deal with the charming part of the family gene pool. The part-veela shook her head, trying to clear away such dark thoughts - they would only exacerbate her depression, and she certainly didn't want that.

With a slight frown on her face, the quidditch captain listed aimlessly through the booths, sneering slightly as she passed the love potions. How those things even got into Hogwarts, Elysia wasn't sure. Certainly the staff wouldn't have approved of that, would they? She paused by the more dark-themed booths, though scurried past the 'dunk your ex' booth pretty quickly. She didn't really want the rest of the crowd to know which ones of her exes she would love to see drowned in an acidic potion... not that there were any many of those.

Another such staffer of the kissing booth, Gracie lounged in one of the few chairs set up behind it, legs crossed, flipping through the latest issue of Witch Weekly… delicately sipping from an old butterbeer bottle that definitely didn’t contain butterbeer. Although Zia was the one manning the booth at the moment, Gracie was the ‘equal opportunities’ witch currently on shift; given the results of what was probably Hogwarts’ first sexuality poll (brought to you by yours truly, of course), it had been a post deemed necessary. Of course the seventh year Slytherin had been more than happy to take one for the team.

And now that Elysia was making her way towards them (a progress marked by a number of vacant expressions turned in a single direction), the captain of the Slytherin quidditch team perked up with interest, then shot up from her seat, chucking the magazine and joining Zia at the counter. “Elysia!” she called, grinning and waving wildly. “Elysiaaaaaaaaaa.”

She posed against one of the booth’s supporting beams. Brows waggled in invitation.

With a bit of a guilty start, Elysia looked around at the sound of her name being called. She knew that voice well, and no good could come from Gracie Slant’s tones. Though half-tempted to pretend she hadn’t even heard the Slytherin’s voice, a smile perked up the witch’s features instantly as she caught her striking schoolmate’s figure. Of course Gracie was manning the kissing booth – if she hadn’t been, Elysia’s life might have been too easy.

Though not particularly interested in other women, Elysia saw little harm in giving the school exactly what they wanted – a little show. She saw little harm, and quite a bit of fun. After all, if she couldn’t have love on Valentine’s Day, at least she’d have a good laugh and a good time with friends.

With a sexy whistle directed at Gracie’s waggling brows, Elysia sauntered over – flipping her hair and smiling sweetly in the process. If she was doing this, she was going to do it right. “Well, well, well… what do we have here?” She asked, batting her lashes at the witch in front of her and sliding a galleon on the surface between them. The intention was clear, and the amount was more than generous – hopefully Gracie might even be swayed to share a bit of her butterbeer with Elysia.