The Sunrise of My Heart

One day, I awoke to find a present waiting for me. Curious, I opened the package to find a very familiar black dress with spaghetti straps and a low neckline. I read the note that came with it and smiled.
Riley
I was digging through some old trunks and found this. Amazingly, it's still in pristine condition. How is it everyone's clothes always ended up in my trunk at the end of each year? Anyway, I thought you might like it back. Please wait to wear it until the weather is warmer.
Sincerely,
M
Remus was right. Somehow, random articles of clothing belonging to James, Sirius, and me would end up in his trunk, to be recovered at the start of the next year. I remembered this dress very well. It was what I had worn when I was telling Sirius why I'd said the wrong name. I knew he would listen to me, but I figured a little visual persuasion didn't hurt.
At breakfast a little bit later, I received another surprise. I had been quietly munching on my food, not paying much attention to anything. I was certain I heard my name, so I turned around to see who had said it, but no one was there. When I turned back around, there was a white rose sitting on the table in front of me, its tips soft yellow. Confused, I looked around, but no one was paying any attention to me.
"Hey, did anyone see who put this here?" I asked.
Pansy deigned to cast me a single snobby look before raising her eyebrows in surprise. "Who would give you a rose?" she asked, sneering.
"I'm not sure. I turned away for a minute, and when I turned back, it was just sitting here. So I'm guessing you didn't see anything?"
She didn't answer because she was no longer looking at me. She was once again facing Draco, giggling and batting her eyelashes like that would make him suddenly like her.
"I'll take that as a "no," then," I muttered. I frowned, a vague memory of a similar rose flitting through my mind. Before I could hold onto it, it was gone. I sighed and chose to ignore it. I would remember in time.
That rose was not the only one I got. All throughout the day, something would catch my attention, and when I turned back, a white rose with yellow tips would be laying in front of me. Sometimes, there was even more than one. I would have to take detours to run the roses up to my room, where I had a vase of water waiting for them.
"So you have no idea who's sending you roses?" Ginny asked when I told her what was going on. We were sitting in the library, speaking in hushed voices.
"No! I'm completely in the dark here."
"How weird. I guess you have a secret admirer. Maybe they'll reveal themselves sometime tonight. How many have you gotten?"
"Tons! I haven't bothered to count them yet because there are so many. And I'm not sure if I'll get more later tonight."
"I can't decide if that's romantic or creepy."
"Yeah, neither can I. I'm sort of leaning toward creepy since whoever it is has been doing this all day without coming forward. I was thinking maybe the specific color meant something, so I did some research, but that didn't help me much either."
"What did you find out?"
"Well, white cane mean either purity, innocence, being worthy of someone, reverence, humility, youthfulness, or secrets. Yellow can mean either joy, friendship, delight, "remember me," jealousy, or promise of a new beginning. None of those definitions means much to me."
"Maybe it's someone who likes you trying to tell you that they're worthy of you, and that they want to start a new beginning with you...." She shrugged, not putting much faith in her own words.
"Or someone has a secret to tell me, and the secret is that they're jealous of me. I don't know why they would be, though."
"Maybe you bring them joy and make them feel humbled by your presence."
"That's just creepy!"
"Yeah, I know."
"All right, let's stop talking about the roses, it's starting to freak me out."
"Um... Riley? Has that been there the whole time?" She was pointing to the small that was holding our books. With a groan, I picked up the rose.
"No, it definitely wasn't. I'll see you later. I'm gonna go put this in my vase."
"Why not just throw them out?"
"Because if it's a stalker, I don't want to anger him or her by throwing out their gift." With a shrug and a smile, I left, going all the way down to the Slytherin common room so I could store this rose.
"So did you figure out who your admirer is?" Draco asked, sitting in an arm chair hidden in shadows.
"Jeez! Draco, you nearly gave me a heart attack! Why are you sitting in the dark like a total creep?"
"Forgive me for not turning on the light so you wouldn't jump like a startled rabbit," he said sarcastically.
"You're mean today," I said calmly, leaving him alone for a moment to go get my vase stuffed full of roses. "And no, I haven't figured out who it is. Is it you? Please say it is. Obsessed ex-boyfriend is less creepy than random person with no identity."
"I assure you, it's most definitely not me." He looked at my roses in disdain.
"They remind me of Roxi for some reason," I murmured, more to myself than to him. "I just can't remember why...."
"Whoever it is must really like you to be sending you so many roses."
"For some reason, I don't think they're meant as a romantic gesture. They're more of a... a warning, or a sign, or... something."
He raised an eyebrow. "Someone sent you roses to warn you? Of what? That they're going to stab you to death with thorns?"
I frowned lightly. "I wonder if this is connected to the rose garden. But who knows about that? And what would it mean? Why white and yellow? The roses were red. Maybe it's just a coincidence?"
"What the bloody hell are you talking about, Riley?"
"The rose garden." When he continued to stare at me blankly, I shook my head and backtracked. "Roxanne lost her virginity to Sirius in a rose garden. But the only people who know that are me, Sirius, Regulus, and Remus. And probably James. But three of those people are dead, and Remus wouldn't send me roses, especially without sending a note. Plus, those roses were red. I guess it's just a really big coincidence."
"You lost your virginity outside? Like, on the ground?" He sounded horrified by the very thought.
"Wow, out of everything I just said, all you heard was "sex". Men," I said, shaking my head. "And yeah, it was outside. We were drunk, and it was secluded. We couldn't very well do it inside. There were too many people in there. It was actually pretty nice."
"Stop talking."
"Why? Does the subject make you squeamish?"
"No, I'd just rather not hear about you and Sirius Black have sex on the ground. It's not an appealing thought."
"Could the roses be connected to that?"
"Doubtful." He looked more closely at my roses. "There are a ton of them. How many have you gotten?"
"Um..." I counted them quickly. "I just got my thirty-seventh right before I came down here. Why? Do you think the number is important?"
He shrugged. "Twenty-seven seems pretty random. But maybe the point isn't a specific number. Particularly if they're a warning, like you think." The expression on his face let me know he thought I was crazy for thinking so.
"I wish I could remember why they're so familiar," I muttered, staring at them intently as if I expected them to start speaking and tell me the answer.
"Are you sure the roses in the garden were red? You said you were drunk, your judgement was probably pretty off."
"No, they were red. I grew up running though that rose garden whenever I could. The roses were always red."
"You had sex in your own yard?"
"You say that like I did it in my dining room while my family was eating dinner or something. Yes, it was in my yard. We were at my seventeenth birthday party, but we weren't enjoying it very much. So we grabbed some alcohol and headed outside. We didn't know it was going to end like that."
"Your stupidity never ceases to amaze me."
"Your bitchiness never ceases to annoy me."
"Your childishness never--"
"All right, stop. If we continue this, we'll be here for hours. And I have no intention of missing dinner. Prejudices aside, can you think of anyone who would send me roses?"
"Your blood-traitor ex-boyfriend."
"No, he would've sent a note. Besides, the whole point of 'ex' means he wouldn't send me flowers."
"I can't think of anyone that wouldn't send a note. I can't even think of anyone who would send a bouquet with a note. You annoy a lot of people. You might want to consider changing your entire attitude."
"Hey, last time I checked, my attitude is a large part of why you liked me last year and fourth year. Or did you just like me for my body?"
"I can't fathom why I liked you. You annoy the hell out of me now."
"Well aren't you a charmer," I said sarcastically.
"I'm honest."
"Right. You might have been honest then, but you're still a total liar. No one believes anything you say. Except Pansy, but she doesn't count since she's brainless."
"What makes you think I'm a total liar?" he challenged. If you can't prove someone's a liar after calling them one, you just look like a jerk.
"What happened to your arm?" I asked, nodding to his left arm.
"What do you mean?" he asked harshly.
"At the beginning of the year, you acted like it was sore, and you always wear long sleeves. Even when the weather was warmer, you wore long shirts."
"I cut it," he snapped.
"And that's why I'm calling you a liar," I said. "Because if you were telling the truth, you wouldn't be so defensive about it. Don't worry, I'm not going to inquire further. I honestly don't want to know." My voice was softer now. I stared at his arm for a moment before looking back at his face.
"They're from a Slytherin," he said quietly.
"What?"
"The roses. They're from a Slytherin. I'm not sure who. I heard some guy talking in the common room last night. He seemed to be gloating to himself about it. I couldn't see him because it was dark, and I didn't recognize his voice because he was whispering, but it's definitely a guy. You'll get forty of them. The number signifies something. I'm not sure what. But you're right. They're a sort of warning."