beautiful - harry potter

chapter 10

Valentine's Day. To Thalia, it was almost as good as Christmas or her birthday. She received tons of chocolates and flowers and stuffed animals. The worst part was that she had to sort through the ones with love potions, but other than that, she loved Valentine's Day. 

"Hello, love."

Thalia ignored the voice and the nickname, still pissed about his stupid snogging offers. Ever since the second task, he hasn't talked about snogging at all but he still hasn't apologized either. 

It made Thalia feel... angry. She didn't used to get so angry when he offered but it was completely sexist and misogynistic and she hated it. She never hated him, she hated it.

"Come on, you still can't be made about that," Harry pleaded with puppy eyes. His adorable face was no use though, because Thalia wouldn't even look in his direction. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I'll stop offering to snog you and I'll stop implying that you want to snog me."

Thalia bit her lip hesitantly and looked over at him with an blank expression. "What do you want, Potter?"

It stung Harry's chest when Thalia called him by his last name instead of his first name, but he tried his best not to show his disappointment. He supposed that he would expect it, since he was in fact being a total jerk.

"I wanted to know if you wanted to be my Valentine," Harry said hopefully.

"No."

"Why not?" 

"Because I don't want to," Thalia huffed. "If I say yes, then no one else will give me presents throughout the day and my entire day would go to waste. This is the one of the few times a year when I get presents for doing absolutely nothing and I would like to keep it that way."

"Well, what if I got you a present that tops all the other presents?" Harry questioned. He hated being rejected and it made him feel useless and stupid. It made him feel like there was something wrong with him. 

Why didn't Thalia like him? What was so bad about him that made him so repulsive? He didn't understand and he hated it. He just wanted Thalia to look at him the way other girls look at him. He didn't care about the other girls, he wanted her.

Thalia thought about his offer for a moment. "Fine. Something that tops the rest of the presents and I'll be your Valentine," Thalia said finally. It was okay in her mind because being someone's Valentine didn't mean anything.

"Great!" Harry exclaimed. That little agreement was enough for him to leave the classroom before class even started. He needed to get to work.

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Thalia was perfectly happy when lunch time came around. She only had one period left in her day, which was a free, and she'd received many gifts from boys who were more like lovestruck puppies. 

She was picking at her salad when something invisible exploded above her head and pink glitter fell down, covering her hair, her school robes, and her food.

Thalia's mouth opened in horror as she was being covered with glitter. "What the- ugh!" Thalia fumed, her face turning red.

Harry watched her intently from the Gryffindor table, hoping for a positive reaction. He thought that girls liked glitter, so he didn't understand why Thalia was so upset. 

Thalia's breathing became unsteady and she gritted her teeth as she tried to brush the glitter off of her. Instead, it just started to spread to the parts that weren't glitter doused and Thalia ran out of the hall. 

Theo grabbed both of their bags as he left the hall after her, causing Harry to leave the hall as well. There was no way that Theo would be taking credit for his awesome gift.