"Ma'am, your flight has been delayed."

Roxanne Weasley was completely clueless when it came to muggles and their complex contraptions. Yes, her Aunt Hermione was muggleborn, and yes, her Uncle Harry had been raised by muggles, but that didn't mean that she was surrounded by their telefusions or their phone calls, whatever those were. What she did know about, however, was aeroplanes because she was supposed to be sitting in one and it was supposed to be taking her across the ocean.

Instead, a lovely lady with a regretful look on her face, was telling her that her flight had been delayed. Roxanne would be the first to admit that she didn't know how these airports worked, but she knew the word "delayed" and she knew that she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

She was also very aware of the fact that if she didn't get on flight to England some time soon, her mum was going to kill her. She had missed the Christmas before that and the Christmas before that one, if she missed yet another Christmas, Roxanne was afraid that her mum was going to set a Venomous Tentacula on her. Her grandma Weasley had had to actually mail her jumper to her by owl.

"I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that, could you repeat it for me?" Roxanne asked, leaning forwards.

"Ma'am, your flight has been delayed until the 26th of December," the lady repeated.

"That can't be possible," Roxanne said, shaking her head in denial. She could not be stuck in Toronto for two whole days. It had been difficult enough following the goddamn signs to her gate, and now she couldn't leave?!

"I'm afraid it is, the weather has made it impossible for any planes to take off and for the sake of everyone's safety, all flights have been cancelled until the 26th."

This was why Roxanne had never flown before. Aside from the fact that aeroplanes rumbled like they were about to explode any minute, the waiting time to actually get on the plane was an absolute nightmare, and then there was the problem of her ears popping because of the changing pressure as the plane went higher and higher.

Whenever she traveled via Floo Network or Portkey, there was never hours of waiting for a death trap to leave the ground. There were no delays because of weather conditions. And most importantly, Portkeys and the Floo never kept her stranded in Toronto for Christmas.

"What's wrong with the weather?"

"Ma'am, there is a blizzard going on outside," the woman replied.

"Nonsense, it's just some light flurries," Roxanne said dismissively.

"Ma'am," the woman said with a raised eyebrow. Roxanne took a good look out of the window behind the woman and sighed. Okay, so maybe it was a little bit more than just some slight flurries. If she were being honest, Roxanne could barely see anything that was five feet away from the window. It was all hidden behind the large white cloud that was lashing large snowflakes at the airport.

"Alright, is it possible for me to get a room in a hotel?" Roxanne asked with a sigh.

"I will let everyone know what is available as soon as I have helped everyone else waiting in line," the woman said. Roxanne sighed yet again and moved out of the way. She would ask about her suitcase later, Roxanne was pretty sure that everyone else behind her had grown frustrated with her. They didn't really care about how dead Roxanne would be when she showed up a day late to Christmas.

Roxanne looked around the crowded gate area and was only seconds away from bursting into tears. The place was filled to the brim with people sitting down in seats, or standing around with their carry on bags at their feet and playing on a small device that responded to their touch. Children ran around everyone's legs as they played tag or some other game, while mothers attempted to lull their babies to sleep. Instead of being surrounded by family, Roxanne was surrounded by complete strangers with looks on their faces that were just daring her to force them out of their seats.

Whenever she took a Portkey, there were no crowded rooms with angry people in them. Why? Well weather didn't affect Portkey's, they just took you directly where you needed to go.

Roxanne wandered around a bit before she finally managed to snag a small piece of wall next to the loo. She dumped her jacket on the ground to make herself comfortable, and then slid down the wall and joined the rest of the people that were sitting around and waiting for something to happen.

She watched the lady who had tried to help her go through customer after customer. The long line up slowly began to shorten until there was finally no one there. The lady then disappeared for about fifteen minutes. During that fifteen minutes, Roxanne checked her carry on bag to make sure that she hadn't forgotten anything throughout her traveling at any point. During that fifteen minutes, several people entered and exited the washroom, and Roxanne got a whiff of a particularly foul odour.

She was beginning to seriously regret the spot that she had chosen to sit in.

When the lady came back, Roxanne perked up, she just knew that the woman was going to announce plans on hotel arrangements. The woman picked up a small black piece of plastic that she held next to her ear—Roxanne assumed it was one of those tellyphones or whatever they were—and called for everyone's attention.

"As many of you know, all flights have been cancelled until December 26th due to weather conditions. I have looked into available hotel rooms, there are unfortunately not enough available for everyone, some of you will be spending your time at the airport. Please line up in an orderly line and I will attempt to help you in any way that I can," and then the lady put down her magic amplifier thing and waited for the chaos that would ensue as soon as her announcement was over.

Roxanne had never been more terrified before in her entire life. Never before had she seen people move so quickly to get into a line. It was as if a wave of humans suddenly rose to their feet and began to push around each other as they got as close to the front of the line that they possibly could. It was absolute madness, Roxanne was afraid to get up for fear of being pushed down by the mass of people and accidentally getting shoved into the men's toilet.

The noise level grew to the point where Roxanne couldn't even hear herself think anymore, and quite frankly, it was beginning to hurt her ears. Chairs were deserted as people moved about, many of them had bags placed on the seat to show that it was taken by someone. In the end, Roxanne finally got with the program and stood in line, near the very back.

She had a feeling that she would be one of the unlucky few stuck sleeping on airport chairs.

It had never been like this with magical transportation. It was quick and painless, Apparition being exempt from that list—but who really enjoyed Apparition in the first place anyway?—there was none of this painful waiting in line for one goddamn hour.

"I'm sorry, but unfortunately, all nearby hotel rooms have been completely filled," the lady told her with a polite smile.

This was some kind of joke, right?

Things could not have possibly been going this bad for Roxanne. There was just no way that what was happening to her was real, this isn't what she had paid hundreds of dollars for. This isn't the experience that she had in mind when she chose flying over Portkeys.

Roxanne looked around as people began emptying out of the place, many of them relieved to be able to get a room while others groaned and wandered back over to the belongings that they had abandoned. Roxanne went back over to her sad little spot on the wall next to the toilet and sat down. There was nothing that she could do until everyone left and things calmed down as those left behind picked an area for themselves.

There was always the option of Apparating to the embassy and setting up a Portkey instead of sitting around for two days, but that would require Roxanne to actually Apparate and she wasn't really in the mood to hurl all over ministry floors as soon as she arrived. Besides, she had spent a lot of money on her ticket and there was no way that she was just going to let it go to waste just because she couldn't handle sleeping in an airport.

Roxanne had planned on asking if she could at least have her suitcase but many employees filed out with the rest of the people and Roxanne was only left with what little she had in her carry on bag.

Roxanne may not have felt at home in a room crowded full of strangers, but now that she looked around at a deserted gate area, she would've preferred the crowd over the emptiness. Everything around her just screamed loneliness and sadness, not to mention it gave her the creeps how quiet it had gotten all of a sudden, and the raging storm outside wasn't helping matters either.

Roxanne thought about moving to a spot that was more comfortable, like a chair for example, but she spent almost an hour simply entertaining the idea instead of actually moving.

"Excuse me," someone said, tapping Roxanne on the shoulder. She came out of whatever daydream she had been in and turned her head to the left where the words were coming from. Roxanne came nose to nose with someone that had lovely, big brown eyes, full lips, and skin that was as dark as Roxanne's, but looked ten times softer. She was almost tempted to apologise for looking at someone that must've been a queen.

She tried to put some space between her and the new person but all that that resulted in was Roxanne slamming her back into the wall painfully. Her shoulder immediately began to ache as tingles went up her arm from where her elbow had made contact with the wall.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you!" the stranger exclaimed, and stood up. She stood with her hands on her hips and a grin on her face. Roxanne wasn't entirely sure whether she was being laughed at or not but she didn't really care, the throbbing in her shoulder was more important at the moment. She tried to massage it in order to make the pain go away but all that succeeded was in making her shoulder ache even more.

"S'alright," Roxanne said and climbed to her feet. She stretched her arms above her and sighed in relief as her muscles loosened up.

"Sorry, I just thought that I would remind you that the area is now empty so there's plenty of room for you to sit on a chair," the girl said. Roxanne could've sworn that she looked hopeful when she asked the question but she wasn't entirely sure. Whatever the girl was feeling, Roxanne would accept the offer of friendship, it was either that or entertain herself for the next two days, having someone to talk to would make her time a lot less painful.

"Thanks," Roxanne said as she lifted her bag and carried her jacket after the girl, who led the way back to her own things that she had abandoned in her spot.

Roxanne set down her things and took a seat next to the stranger.

"I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Alyssa," the girl said and held out a hand for Roxanne to shake.

"Roxanne, pleasure to meet you," Roxanne said, grasping the hand in her own and giving it a firm shake.