"What are you talking about," demanded Draco. "Of course it was, there was only one like it, Dung said-"

"Dung said," Harry interrupted. "That we'd know him when we saw him. That he was unique. There was only one giant bear, yeah, but there often is only one big prize at these sort of things. Aside from being big, it was pretty similar to the other bears."

Draco shook his head tiredly. "So," he said distractedly. "How does that help us?"

The bears slamming against the glass were drawing more near, and Harry figured he would rather high-tail it before he and Draco were any more outnumbered. "Come on," he said, opening the door and darting out. "I'll explain on the way."

"The way to where?"

Harry shook his head. "Just – away for now," he said.

He gently eased the handle on the door down, and caught Draco's eye with a nod. He had his wand up, ready to fire, so without any further delay Harry once again threw his weight into the door and shoved away the bears clinging to the frame. Draco then made short work of them as he fired his lightning charm several times, immobilising them enough so he and Harry could make a dash for it.

They ran as fast as they could under the Ferris wheel into a darker part of the park, where hardly any of the attractions had been turned on. They soon got lost in the shadows under the iconic image of Battersea Power Station looming in the distance, the buzz of the London traffic drifting through the night air now they were far enough away from the din of the funfair songs.

Harry stopped them near one of the narrow canals that bordered the edge of the funfair, where the organisers had set up a Tunnel of Love ride. The lights may not have been on, but the small boats kept drifting by at regular intervals, and Harry wondered if perhaps they were on a motorised track, rather than electric seeing as they were on the water.

"I think we've lost them for now," he said, rubbing his hand over where his arm had been cut before. It was still stinging and aching, and he wondered briefly how Draco was feeling after being attacked both in the funhouse and on the dodgem rink.

"That won't matter if we can't turn the bears back," Draco said, spinning his wand between his fingers as he usually did when he was stressed and thinking. "We'll be here forever if we can't make them just be teddies again."

"Right," Harry agreed. Something in the darkness caught his attention, but after staring in the direction he thought he'd seen it, he decided it was probably just the wind. "I think Dung's Alpha theory might still hold, and I reckon I might know which bear to target next."

Draco's eyebrows raised hopefully. "Okay," he said. "I'm listening. It's not like we have any other plan right now."

Harry grinned back at him. "Did you notice that bear with the knife?" he asked.

Draco looked at him shrewdly. "I might have noticed it when it was trying its best to stab through my ankles," he said, his sarcasm strong even by his waspish standards.

"Well," Harry carried on, ignoring the barb. "We know these things are reasonably clever, right? That they can learn. But I'm pretty certain that's the only bear that's learned new speech."

"He sounded like all the others," Draco dismissed, but Harry shook his head.

"Its voice sounded the same, but he was using different words – that was the one saying it didn't like us anymore and didn't want to play. And," he added. "I'm pretty certain it was the first bear we saw, the one that lead all the others to us. I reckon that could be the Alpha."

Draco chewed the theory over. "It's worth investigating," he said with a nod. "Even if it doesn't deactivate the others like we would hope, it'll still fry another batch of them, and quite frankly, the less of them running around the better."

"Maybe we should have stayed at the bumper cars," Harry said, rubbing the back of his head and wandering a few steps as he rolled and cracked his neck. He was going to need a long, hot bath after this. "It was burnt out but it might have carried on conducting the lightning if we-"

"Harry!" Draco hissed, grabbing his shoulder and pointing towards the canal. "I think we may have a problem."

Harry quickly looked to where Draco was indicating, but for a moment all he could see was the series of boats bobbing along the water, about twenty feet apart. Then he realised what was wrong with the one just about to enter the Tunnel of Love: it was not, in fact, unoccupied.

"Salazar!" he cried as the several teddy bears disappeared from view into the dark entrance. The covered waterway stretched outwards from the park, heading towards the defunct power station, but more importantly away from the warded space. "Do you think Dung put up anything to stop the bears getting out?" he asked, trying not to panic.

Draco was shaking his head and already racing towards the next boat. "Probably, but water has a funny way of reacting with magic, it might not work here."

Harry cursed again as he followed, snapping his head back and forth to check they weren't being followed into the boat by any of their furry friends. He'd been so caught up in trying to stop the bears, he hadn't stopped to think whether they could escape. Dung's magic had been so strong to keep everyone out, he'd just foolishly assumed the reverse to be true. "If they get free into Battersea," he began.

"I know," Draco interrupted tersely, helping Harry into the boat by grabbing his hand. It was on a chain that fed into the inky shallows, so it still rocked as the two men settled themselves. "We can't have them getting loose on the public."

Harry felt sick at the thought of anyone coming across the possessed teddies unawares, Muggle or wizard, especially considering the most likely to be drawn to a walking, talking teddy bear would be children. He shuddered as the boat slipped into the blackness of the tunnel. "We have to stop this Draco," he rasped, his eyes adjusting to the near pitch darkness.

"We will," his partner promised back. Harry knew there was no way Draco could actually guarantee their success, but hearing the confidence in his voice was enough to calm Harry's flustered nerves just a fraction. "We'll get them on the other side, I just wish we could make the boat go faster without drawing atten-"

There was a splash somewhere behind them, and Harry felt himself being yanked down. "Wha-?"

"Shh!" Draco whispered as they squirmed into the belly of the boat. "We should stay out of sight," he explained, but suddenly Harry found himself lying down and pressed up against Draco, face to face, their shallow breaths ghosting against each other's skin.

He was pretty certain his brain shut down there and then. "This isn't quite how I envisaged us spending Valentine's Day," he said, before he could quite comprehend the words coming out of his mouth.

His eyes widened in horror, and he hoped the shadows were hiding the blush blossoming across his cheeks. But Draco didn't seem that fazed. "Yeah?" he asked. "How did you see us spending it?"

Harry's throat clamped. He didn't mean together obviously, Draco was asking because of that date Harry knew he had. Right?

Except Harry could only think about how they were practically in an embrace, forced against each other at the bottom of a small boat in a Tunnel of Love, only the faintest moonlight shining from the retreating entrance to remind them that in the real world they were just partners, just friends. Because right now, there wasn't much stopping Harry from reaching over and running his fingertips through Draco's hair if he wanted, or wrapping his arm around his back to draw them tighter together, or even, if he had really lost his mind, from leaning in so their lips were so close, so close...

The lights and music came on with such aggressive force Harry couldn't help but jerk in shock, canal water sloshing violently over the side of the boat and drenching him and Draco with as cold a dose of reality as he could hope for. "Argh!" yelled Draco involuntarily. A scratchy accordion started blaring over the speakers, causing Harry's heart jump from his chest, and the voice crooned so loudly it made his ears throb.

"When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amoooore!" an overly enthusiastic Italian man wailed. Harry realised he was sitting in Draco's lap.

"Sorry!" he blurted, scrambling away despite not having much room to escape, and tipping the boat again so they took on even more water and added to the substantial puddle they had accumulated.

"It – it's okay," Draco said, more thrown than Harry had ever seen him before. He cringed. What the hell had he been thinking?

It wasn't just the sound system that had come to life; there were animatronic cupids suddenly waving from deep, romantic shadows cast by strategically placed pink spotlights, and beside those cracked and peeling figures now ran a stream of teddy bears, so light on their feet they couldn't be heard over the rush of the flowing water. Until they started jabbering again of course.

"Let's play a game, ya-huk!"

"Shit!" Harry cried, grabbing at his wand. Draco had the same plan, but Harry could guess the spell on his lips before he even spoke it, lucky for the both of them. "NO!" he shouted, smacking Draco's hand down before he had a chance to cast. Unfortunately, it also gave a few of the bears the chance to jump onto their boat and start thumping them with their little paws.

"Harry," he snarled angrily. "Why did you-?"

"You can't use the lightning spell in here!" Harry yelled back, flinging the bear pulling at his hair out of the boat. "There's too much water, you'll electrocute us too!"

Draco swore vehemently. "Sorry, yes," he conceded. "Then we just have to try and keep them off the boat."

It was easier said than done though, as there weren't just teddies running along the bank and leaping over to them, they soon realised there were ones coming up the narrow waters behind them, riding the current on their light bodies, apparently having learned how to swim as well as their many other accomplishments. "Get off!" Harry yelled, as one of the child sized ones tried to haul itself up into the boat, but Harry shoved it and sent it pin-wheeling backwards. "Bells will ring ting-a-ling-a-ling, ting-a-ling-a-ling," the music continued to blare out.

The waters weren't all that deep though, and the taller bear was hoping along the canal floor, propelling itself even faster as it caught up with the boat again and threw several of its littler brethren in between where Harry and Draco had stationed themselves to blast away their attackers with spells that wouldn't backfire on them.

"Be my friend, ya-huk!"

One of the bears ricocheted from one side of the little boat to the other, building momentum until it jumped up and smacked into Harry's face with such force his head slammed back and smashed into the wood. He cried out as his vision whitened, stars spiralling in front of his closed eyes, his breath catching in the back of his throat and making him cough and splutter. "Harry!" he heard Draco yell, but it sounded so far away. In any case, he was too busy concentrating on the sensation of many soft, wet paws pushing against him.

He grunted and flopped around as he tried to sit up. He could hear the zing of magic through the air as Draco cast spell after spell, but he was faltering; he needed Harry, they needed each other, Harry couldn't let him down now.

He was being pressed up against the side of the boat though, bears hopping all over him chirping "We'll be friends FOREVER, ya-huk!" and "You're my special buddy, ya-huk!"

"Harry!" Draco yelled again as he felt himself being pushed. "Harry snap out of it!"

But the bigger bear was back. It may not have been as massive as the mega-one they had fried on the dodgems, but it was enough that when it latched onto Harry with its sopping wet paws, it was able to drag him out of the boat and into the freezing cold water.

The shock was enough to snap Harry out of his concussion, and he just managed to tighten his hand around his wand in time so as not to lose it again. But he was still in the iron clad grip of the bear as it dragged him under to the cry of "I love hugs, ha-yuk!"

Harry heard his name being screamed once before he was submerged under the current, the boat carrying Draco trundled away whilst the bear held Harry in place as he thrashed against his captor. He could hold his breath for an impressive amount of time, he'd trained for many hours to do so. But that didn't really matter when he had inhaled half a lungful of water before being forced under, and he was already getting black spots in front of his eyes.

He wriggled and fought, trying to get free as he half heartedly focused on attempting some non-verbal spell to help him. That kind of magic required extreme effort though, and Harry wasn't able to give it whilst he was being drowned by an over enthusiastic child's toy. He was trying to squeeze his shoulders down from where the bear was crushing him against his body, and his glasses were pressing painfully into his face. At least they hadn't floated away.

He managed to turn at just the right angle, and suddenly he was yanking himself free, shooting up to the surface and gasping and choking at the air. "Come play with me, ya-huk!" the bear protested, but Harry had had quite enough.

"Stupify!" he spluttered, which only stopped the bear advancing for a moment, but it gave him the chance to swim after Draco's boat as fast as his shaking limbs would take him.

Within less than a minute he had burst out into the night air where the tunnel came to an end, and a dock had been set up so riders could disembark safely. Harry hauled himself up out of the water and cast hasty drying and warming spells so his teeth would stop chattering long enough to let him think, his watery coughs slowly subsiding. He was at the foot of the hulking structure of Battersea power station, and he quickly cast a Lumos Maxima, flooding the dock with bright, white light.

"Draco?" he hissed, not seeing his partner anywhere, but acutely aware of the encroaching legion of bears from the tunnel. It was like the pied piper of Wandsworth was calling them all through, or, Harry realised was more likely, that little bastard with the kitchen knife was telling them all where to go. "You are going down," he growled, following the slight sounds of a kerfuffle coming to his right.

It was worrying him that Draco and the bears he'd been under siege from had vanished so quickly, so he broke into a run as he stuck close to the brick wall of the power station's exterior wall. It seemed even bigger than Harry had seen it in pictures – he had numerous Muggle rock albums he'd inherited from Sirius, and Pink Floyd's Animals was one of the many records he had stacked back at his home. He'd always thought the power station had looked beautiful in that painting, but now, with the building very real and ominous to his right, blocking out the stars, it felt nothing but threatening.

He turned right towards the narrow end of the deserted structure with the towering chimney stacks – it could have been the front or the back, he had no way to tell, but what he did know was that the rusty double doors quickly approaching on his right were swinging open in the increasingly ferocious wind, and he had a feeling that's where he needed to go.

But just as he was about to go charging in, a voice carried over the breeze that made his stomach drop into his boots. "Draco!"

He knew that voice.

"No, no, no," he breathed to himself as he ran through the doors and a badly wrecked lobby until he was outside again, only to be faced with a chain link fence and a series of other mesh-metal doors before he could gain access to the vast and derelict courtyard that made up the centre of Battersea power station. He tried to apparate but they were still obviously within the disapparation field, so instead set to work cutting through the chain-link fences.

"Draco!" the voice cried again, but this time it was met with an answering cry.

"Harry! Hold on I'm coming!"

The interior walls of the open yard were covered almost entirely in decade old scaffolding, weeds and creepers growing up the creaking metal pipes. Those pipes though were also crawling with bears hopping nimbly from level to level, despite the wind that was starting to batter against the building and no doubt making the scaffolding treacherous. And in the middle of it all, at least ten feet up, was Draco, hauling himself up another level as Harry continued slashing his way through the metal chicken wire in his way.

"Draco I'm here!" he yelled, but it was swallowed up by the increasingly worse weather. Besides, Draco had no reason to turn around and look at him, as he had Harry already in his sights.

He was being fooled by his own expert handiwork, it was the only explanation Harry could think of. Because there on the roof stood Harry, or what he guessed was the doppelganger they had let lose in the mirror maze. He was reaching down desperately to Draco, and with the limited night visibly Harry couldn't blame him for getting confused.

But if the bears had got clever enough to work out how to get the echo to follow them, he dreaded to think what they had waiting for Draco once he got to the top.

"DRACO!" he screamed, but the wind was really starting to howl now and his words weren't carrying. He was still slashing his way through the last gate into the complex, so he stopped wasting time and fired his wand through the air. "Expecto Patronum!" he cast with such ferocity his happy memory almost didn't stick (Draco, pressed against him, their lips close enough to touch). But such was his familiarity with the incantation that his stag burst to life regardless, making a beeline for Draco as he swung to scramble up another layer of scaffolding.

"Draco!" the ghostly Patronus cried at him, stopping him dead in his tracks to swing his head around. The stag blew away into nothing but wisps of smoke, but it had been enough so that he would look in Harry's direction, finally seeing the real him as he threw his arms up. "It's a trap!" he yelled. "The bears, don't go-"

But he should have realised, by paying attention to Harry, Draco was not paying attention to the teddies anymore. They launched at him, catching him of balance, knocking his wand from his hand as he tipped over the edge of the bars and plummeted to the ground.

"NO!" Harry bellowed, tearing through the last of the metal gates. "Mobilicorp-"

He never saw the Alpha bear coming, but it was a little harder to ignore the kitchen knife as it drove through his shoe and his foot, cutting off one of the most important spells of his life with a scream, causing Draco to slam from the fifteen foot drop onto the cold, hard ground.

***

AN: I'm sorry!!! But don't worry, this is Valentine's Day after all! Just keep reading! Also, in case you didn't know, the song in the Tunnel of Love was "That's Amore", originally sung by Dean Martin.