Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter…I'm just borrowing the characters for a while. But I do own any characters you don't recognize.

Not Exactly Invisible
Chapter One: Bruised Egos can't be healed

Hogsmeade was a beautiful place in the winter time; even with my absolute hatred of the cold weather that winter brought, I couldn't deny it. The snow delicately dusted each roof of every shop causing an eerie but romantic gingerbread-house look and just looking at my surroundings made my chest feel like it was going to melt with warmth. Leave it to me to see beauty in negative 20 degree weather.

"Lexi?" Ginny said from beside me, jerking me out of my thoughts. "Can we go inside the Three Broomsticks or something? It's freezing cold out here."

"What?" I replied. "Oh yeah sure" I said, hugging my coat closer to my body.

"You're quieter than usual today...What's going on?" she asked me as we walked down the blinding white street.

"Nothing really, I've just been thinking a lot today I guess" I responded with a shrug. Ginny knew me enough to know that when I was quiet there wasn't anything wrong; I just had nothing to say. We walked the rest of the way in silence, before arriving at the small but cozy looking pub and opening the doors.

It was warm and brightly lit inside, which was a welcome change from the swirling white cold outside.

As Ginny and I went to sit down at a table I took off my purple mittens and proceeded to shake out some of the snowflakes that had drifted into my wavier than usual hair.

"Oh Merlin Ginny, my hair is going to frizz out like a poodle" I said as we sat down, lowering my hands from my now slightly damp auburn hair.

"I'm sure it won't look that bad. Honestly it's looking more along the lines of Troll doll than poodle" she said with a smile.

"Thanks for the encouragement" I said rolling my eyes. Behind me the door of the pub opened and Ginny took in a short breath of air. I didn't need to turn around to know who had just entered the room.

"Hey Harry come sit with us" she motioned. I raised an eyebrow at her and she gave me her sweetest grin.

"Hey Ginny" Harry said sitting beside her. "And Alexa" he added quickly, looking in my direction.

"Hey" I said, although I doubt he noticed as he began animatedly chatting with Ginny. In this circumstance I had two choices: sit here and be a third wheel to Ginny and Harry or head back to the castle and spend hours alone in my room until everyone else got home from this Hogsmeade visit. As I glanced at Harry and Ginny's obvious flirting, I decided to go with the second choice.

"Well I'm going to go back to the castle, you two have fun" I announced to the pair. I barely got a wave from the duo, let alone a goodbye as I stood up and put my coat and mittens back on before departing out into the cold.

The weather had gotten worse in the past few minutes and I could barely see three feet in front of me with the terrible white out conditions. The snow crunched under my black boots as I walked as quickly as I could back in the direction of the Hogwarts castle.

The streets were virtually empty from what I could see, between the white mess in front of me and the fact that I had left my glasses in my room; I was in a bad situation for sight. Then again, even if there were a lot of people around, they wouldn't notice me; I was in my fifth year at Hogwarts and I still felt like I was invisible at the school, not that I had any problems with blending in, I quite liked being known as "that shy girl in Gryffindor" I felt like it made me kind of mysterious. Ginny was my best friend and naturally I had become pretty good friends with Ron and Hermione and Harry, but other than that I liked to keep to myself.

I must have been walking faster than I thought, because before I realized what had happened I tripped on a piece of uneven pavement and face-planted into a pile of snow on the side of the street.

"Shit" I said as I sat up and attempted to look like I had casually fallen and not completely and utterly flown face first into the snow, causing my poodle hair to become even wetter than it already was.

"Fuck" I said a little more loudly as I tried to stand up and realized that not only had I lost my dignity, but apparently I had broken my ankle as well. I grabbed onto the side of a nearby building and slowly pulled myself onto my one good ankle.

I looked around and realized that I was about halfway to Hogwarts. I was going to have to limp my way back to the castle and somehow make it to the hospital wing in this snowstorm. "Fan-fucking-tastic" I muttered to myself.

I gripped the side of the building tighter and attempted to half-walk-half-hop, but my dignity had not yet suffered enough and I slipped on a piece of black ice, landing directly on my butt. "Owww!" I cried out to the emptiness around me. I heard a chuckle a few feet in front of me and saw someone step closer to me in my best position, red faced and on my butt. I recognized the figure of Blaise Zabini from Slytherin.

"It's nice to see that someone is enjoying my pain, but it you're just going to stand there and laugh at me, then I would please appreciate it if you...er...didn't." I said.

"I'm sorry, you're just very entertaining to watch" he replied with a smirk. "I don't believe we've met before" he continued "I'm Blaise" he said extending his hand.

"Is that for me to shake, or are you going to help me up" I said, "I would really appreciate if it was the latter." He nodded at me slowly and I grabbed his hand firmly as he pulled me onto one foot. "Thanks" I said simply as I let go of his hand and steadied myself by leaning on the building.

"And you are?" he questioned me.

"Accident prone" I replied.

"I can see that, but what's your name? I don't think I've seen you around before" he said with a smirk.

"I'm Alexa" I answered. There was a moment of silence before I remembered the throbbing pain in my foot. "Um I know we just met or whatever, but would you mind helping me get back to the castle? If you don't want to then...you know that's fine too...I'll just...crawl" I rambled. I gave him a pleading look.

He heaved a sigh before scooping me up wedding style into his arms and began walking toward the castle.

"Oh um wow. I just meant helping me walk and making sure I didn't lose any more of my dignity along the way" I said, surprised at the kindness of this Slytherin. "But thank you" I added quickly. I really was grateful; if he hadn't come along Ginny would have found me hours later as a poodle-haired popsicle.

"What year are you in?" he asked me as we trudged along.

"Fifth" I said.

"You're in Gryffindor right?" he queried.

"Yeah" I began, "aren't your friends going to kill you for helping me out?"

"Maybe" he said looking down at me. "But I couldn't just leave you there; look at how much trouble you got into in the three minutes I saw you. I can't even imagine what would happen in a few hours."

I looked at him with a slightly offended, but part smiling look.

We walked (well he walked and I was carried) the rest of the way to the castle in silence and he dropped me off at a bed in the hospital wing.

"Thank you so much" I said to my hero for the day. "I owe you."

"I think you suffered enough to be honest" he replied as he turned around and began walking out of the room as I was greeted with Madame Pomfrey's voice asking me "what in the world happened to you?"

She quickly fixed the bruise on my butt and began looking at my ankle. I asked her if there was any magical cure for the bruise on my ego, but she just laughed.

"Well it looks like your ankle isn't broken which is the good news..." she said.

"Is there bad news?" I asked her with a raised eyebrow.

"Because it's not broken, only sprained, there would be no point in using any magical remedy on it as it will just cause you more pain. So the best thing we can do is to heal it the old fashion muggle way" she said as she conjured up a pair of muggle crutches. "We can wrap it up with some ice and you'll have to walk with crutches for about a week so it has the time to heal."

"I can barely walk with two feet, how am I going to walk with one?" I enquired sarcastically.

"I'm sure you'll be fine dear" she assured me. "If you would like, you can stay here overnight?"

"No that's okay, I'll figure it out. If I don't go back to my dorm my roommates will wonder where I am" I said turning down her offer.

She handed me the wooden crutches and I miraculously was able to stand up from the bed without falling over. "Thank you Madame Pomfrey" I said as I began slowly and shakily making my way out of the hospital wing and down the hall.

It was still pretty early, so the halls were relatively empty making them easy to navigate. I only saw one or two people on my slow "walk" back to the Gryffindor common room, but each of the people I had seen gave me very oddly concerned looks. I guess poodle hair and crutches aren't very becoming on me.

When I made it to the portrait hole, the Fat Lady didn't even ask questions; I guess it was apparent that I was having a bad day. Once in the empty common room I finally took off my mittens and coat and threw them on one of the plush chairs near the fireplace before sitting down in the chair myself and tying up my chaotic hair into a very messy bun.

I had a bad feeling that having to walk around on crutches for the next week might not help with my whole "blending in" thing. This was going to be a very interesting winter.

(A/N: Reviews make my day! so tell me what you think about this one.)