The Christmas holidays were merry times as usual for the Weasley family, including those who were not blood relatives to the gingers. The continuously falling snow outside only made it better, and it had tempted everyone to join in on a huge snow ball fight. The only exception was Hermione Granger, who sat on a bench nearby reading a book. Every once in a while she would look up, a disapproving look in her eyes but a faint smile on her lips.
And Charlie Weasley had noticed. What he was about to do, was either going to be the death of him or victory for 'his' team. He bent down, quickly forming a ball of the sticky snow and threw it right at Hermione. With a thud it landed in her hair and seconds later she was covered in white. He saw her eyes searching for who had done it, naturally throwing a suspicious look at Fred and George but they were quite busy bothering themselves with making snow angels. Her eyes moved on, past all the other Weasleys, past Harry, then landed on Charlie who shot her a smile.
"This is a library book, Charles Weasley!" She snapped, brushing the snow of the book as she slammed it on the bench and walked to him with firm steps. It was quite amusing, really, and Charlie couldn't help but laugh. "At least I'll know what to get you for Boxing Day." He backfired, though he sounded a bit insecure. As his younger brothers had emphasised more than once, she did resemble his mother if she was angry like this: her hair seemed on fire even though it was not flaming red like his and her eyes... Her eyes shot fire too. She was on fire. Dragons he was used to deal with, but he didn't know her all that well. Now he thought of it, maybe it hadn't been a good idea to get her involved in their snowball fight.
Charlie backed away from the girl walking towards him, even though Hermione wasn't of age yet and therefore could not hex him. She reminded him quite of the dragons he worked with, with her firm stride and fiery eyes. "You will pay for this, you know." Hermione commented with a hint of a smile, bending down and grabbing a handful of snow, throwing it in his direction. A chuckle escaped the ginger's lips as he backfired another snowball immediately. "Oh, it's on now!" He exclaimed, laughing. Hermione laughed as well: although she hadn't been looking forward to get covered in snow, now she was quite amusing herself.
She scooped up more snow, hurrying after Charlie who had quickly dashed off to avoid more showers of the cold. "I will take revenge!" She yelled, running faster than he did and throwing all the snow she had in her hands over his head. Charlie coughed, turning around and grinning brightly. Within seconds, Hermione was being peppered with it as well. "Well then, I think we're square." The dragonologist stated, hesitating before he brushed some snow of her shoulder – not that it helped much, but he had always considered manners to be of quite an importance.
Hermione looked up, brown eyes meeting blue, and even though the cold snow was melting on her skin and slipping behind her clothing, she felt oddly warm. It seemed like this was the first time she really understood the definition of fun, though she had never expected that Charlie Weasley of all people would show it to her.