Kay, so in honor of Christmas I am making a Harry Potter story! My first! I was REALLY tempted to do a Percy Jackson one but, almost all of my stories are Percy Jackson so... Yeah it's time for a change.
"Come on, Ron!" Hermione yelled, gesturing with one gloved hand and holding a sleigh (yes, a regular old boring muggle sleigh with no magic added whatsoever) in the other. "Put those lanky legs of yours to use!"
Ron grumbled as he climbed over dead branches and snow piles. What he wouldn't give to be at the Burrow right now with a mug of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies. However, he was stuck outside with his brother, sister, Hermione, and Harry, being forced into celebrating a muggle custom. Sleigh ridding. After he had caught up with the rest of the group, Ron asked breathlessly, "Why can't we just use magic to Apparate to the top of the hill?"
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Because 1) It's good exercise 2) walking up and sliding down is part of the fun and 3) we're in a muggle area and under Section 3 of the Muggle Awareness Laws you cannot Apparate in a designated muggle area without approval of the Ministry of Magic. Now, come on!"
"Ugh." He groaned. He supposed he should've been happy. The past year had been brilliant. The fear of you-know-who was gone, the Ministry was cleaning itself up, he, Hermione, and Harry were proclaimed heroes and, of course, there was the fact that he and Hermione were officially together. He loved being able to hold her hand, hug her, and kiss her whenever he wanted to. Hermione was his, but that meant he had to go along with what she wanted to do, too.
Once they reached the top of the hill, gasping and smiling, Harry was the first to speak. "I've never sledded before", he confessed. Ron was glad he had said it first, because Ron didn't know how to muggle sled either.
"It's easy", said Hermione. She held out her sled in front of her. " You just sit down, push off the ground, and then hold on tight."
"I'll go first!", George yelled. So, he sat on the ground with his rubbish bin lid, pushed off the snowy ground, and shot down the hill at speeds that wouldn't even beat Apparating. Apparently, he had used some super slick potion to make his sleigh insanely fast. He zoomed through the forest at the bottom of the hill, and out of sight.
"Oh, I do hope he's alright", said Ginny worriedly.
Ron laughed. "Yeah, I'm sure that after every other dangerous thing he's ever done, like jumping from the top of the Burrow and Apparating back to the ground, this tops them all off." He said, rolling his eyes. Ginny stuck her tongue out at him and then she sat down.
"Here I go", she announced. As she pushed off, her hands automatically grabbed the handles and she didn't even make it off the edge.
"Oh yes", said Ron. He clapped his hands. "Very impressive."
"Oi!" yelled Harry as he helped push her off the edge and watched her scream and laugh as she flew down. "What's gotten into you? You're acting unusually snarky."
"Sorry", muttered Ron. "It's just-"
"He'd much rather be stuffing his face with food than participate in family activities." Hermione joked as she twined her hand into his. "The poor baby."
Harry grinned. "See you at the bottom." With that, he pushed off the hill and hollered all the way down.
Hermione turned to Ron. "You first."
"What?!" exclaimed Ron. "I don't want to go first. I should see how the professional does it. Why do you want me to go first?"
"Because", she said push Ron onto his sled. "If I go first, you will probably bail. Also, I want to see you scream on the way down."
"That's encouraging", Ron murmured. Hermione laughed and kissed his cheek.
"See you in a few", she whispered.
'A few what?', Ron wanted to reply but she had already pushed him over the hill and the only sound he was capable of was screaming.
As he hung on for dear life, the cold wind ripped through his hair and parched his face. His breath was already taken from his lungs so he couldn't breathe. All he could hear was the sound of icy wind swirling around him. All he could see that was not already clouded by his watery eyes were the trees zipping by like they were all combined as one, gigantic, layered tree. The sensation was exhilarating.
However, seeing as this was muggle sledding and not wizard slow-motion-or-flying-in-the-air sledding, it came to an end. A sudden end at that. When the hill leveled out, the sleigh skidded to a halt and unexpectedly flipped Ron into the harsh, unforgiving snow. He was trying to spit out some of the snow or at least wipe it of his face when he heard Hermione come towards him at an alarmingly fast rate.
"Look out!", she yelled as Ron just had time to think, Oh no. She plowed into him and he fell in the snow once again. There was a lot of struggling and cursing as they tried to untangle their limbs and get the snow out of their eyes. When Ron was finally free, he saw Hermione, pink-faced yet grinning like an idiot, looking at him with a suppressed laugh.
"What in the name of Merlin were you thinking, running into me like that? I could've been killed!" Ron said standing up.
"I'm sorry", huffed Hermione. "But I can't very well control where the sled goes, now can I?"
"For Merlin's sake, Hermione, you're a witch! Of course you can!" Ron said.
Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but must have thought better of it or she couldn't think of a good comeback, Ron thought smugly. So instead, she stood up and offered Ron her hand. Ron took it and was using the support to stand up when he slid in an unexpected ice patch and he fell back down, taking Hermione with him.
"Ron!" Hermione whined. She was lying on top of him and she was using her hands to get her upper body off of Ron. Her curly hair fell in front of her and it tickled his face. He didn't mind, though, because he loved her hair.
He started to laugh, until he noticed she was glaring at him, probably waiting for some sort of apology. "Sorry!" he said in a light and cheerful tone that clearly indicated he as not at all sorry.
She used one hand to tuck some of her hair behind her ear. "I don't think that was sincere", she said sarcastically serious.
He smiled, put his right hand up to caress her face, pushing himself up with the other hand, and kissed her. He felt her melt into the kiss, her firm, McGonagall-like attitude fading. He sat up, still not breaking the kiss, and put both of his hands gently on her face. She jerked back and Ron panicked for a moment. What had he done wrong?
She put her gloved hands into his. "Your hands are freezing."
~line break~
Harry, George, and Ginny all waited crouching behind the same tree. It was easily one of the biggest trees in the small forest and it was surrounded by shrubbery so it provided cover and a safe place to spy.
"Why are they taking so long?" Ginny whispered as she made yet another snow ball to add to the pile.
"They're probably... preoccupied." George said. Then he proceeded to make little kissing noises while the others tried to contain their laughter. Then they heard the steady crunch of footsteps on snow.
"Get ready for the ambush", whispered Harry. They all started grabbing snowballs and preparing for launch. George silently darted across the path to the other side as Ginny ran further down the path, then they waited. The sound of laughing and talking started increasing in volume. Suddenly, the couple seemed to stop. Harry peeked out behind the tree and he saw his two friends snogging. It was revolting. Then he noticed that not only were they 'preoccupied' as George would say but they were also in held up three fingers. Haryr saw Ginny and George nod. Three... Two... Harry checked one final time to make sure that Ron and Hermione were still oblivious. They were. One.
"Oi!" yelled Ron as a snowball hit him square in the ear.
"Hey!" screamed Hermione as a snowball hit her nose.
Soon, the mass power of snowballs coming from all directions was too much for the couple. They made a run for the house but Harry, Ginny, and George followed them and pelted their backsides with snow. Suddenly, Hermione whirled around, wand in hand. "Nives fugiunta!" she cried and 50 pounds of snow lifted from the ground around her and flew toward the attackers. Harry had just enough time to think, well that backfired, before he was buried in snow.