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Glimmer had never been a pretty dwarf, nor a cheery one, nor a hard-working one. But what he did do well was spite.
Never mind that he’d been ensnared by someone as moronic as Gilderoy Lockheart, lured by the song and then trapped by the gold, pressed now into service for an hour or a day until the magic wore down and he was free to go again. Never mind that that was how their cousins, the brownies, had been enslaved all those centuries ago, pressed into service by the same family again and again until they forgot to leave.
Maybe Lockheart was a stupid man, maybe he assumed he’d get the same devotion and loyalty out of his freshly caught slaves as he would out of any old house elf, maybe he didn’t see the danger in what he’d opened himself up to, with no less than 20 of his clan here, seething, counting down the minutes, the seconds until the binding loosened and they would be free to strike their revenge. Maybe he had a plan for that moment. Or maybe he didn’t.
Regardless, Glimmer found himself dressed in a hideous toga, complete with fake wings and a harp that he didn’t know how to play, and didn’t care to learn. He and his family had been ordered to deliver Valentines to the students throughout the day, but that didn’t mean they had to do so well. No, dwarves had a knack for a certain kind of divination: the same way a house elf knew how you took your tea before you ordered it, or a goblin could tell your present and future net worth down to the knut, a dwarf knew your feelings, and exactly how to manipulate them in any way he saw fit.
And so, when the order came to deliver a Valentine to a boy who shrank into himself at every opportunity, shrinking into the shadows, shying away from attention, Glimmer knew just what to do. He glanced around to make sure enough students were around to witness, then began:
“His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad…”