A/N: For the Duct Tape competition.

Prompt: Snowman.

When winter comes, she's always out in the middle of it, her feet bare and slightly blue with cold, her scarf flying in the wind as her hair collects the snowflakes. Her roommates delegate themselves to drag her back in, certain that if she catches pneumonia or something, Professor Flitwick will come down on them like an odd-shaped pile of bricks (especially after the disaster last year with the Forbidden Forest), but when they try, she simply smiles at them and says that she can't, not just yet.

"But why, Luna?" Morag MacDougal asks in exasperation, flinging up her mittened hands as she glares at the fey-eyed snow nymph that seems to float before her, the edges of her skirt damp with melted snow.

"Just because," Luna replies airily, and drifts away in an eddy of swirling snow, until she seems to blend in with it. Morag blinks, shakes her head, and hurries back to the comforting warmth of the castle. Leave Loony to her "fun," she thinks with an internal eye-roll and a hasty shudder. She'll learn soon enough when she comes back in with a stuffy nose and frostbitten toes.

And meanwhile, Luna holds out her arms, slowly pinwheeling her way across the snowy grounds. She nearly slips on a patch of ice, but catches herself just in time, a delighted giggle pealing out of her throat and echoing across the lake. The snow coats her hair and shoulders, giving her a more-ethereal-than-usual appearance.

Finally, she gives up and sits down in the shadow of a skeletal-like tree, stretching denuded branches into the grey winter sky. It is freezing, but she can't seem to feel it as she curls up, resting her head on her knees. It is perfect, more perfect than she could have dreamed, and Luna appreciates it far more than words can say.

She knows what the others say behind her back. She's not stupid. Loony Lovegood. A straggle-haired, big-eyed waif with a propensity for discarding her shoes and a tendency to read things upside down. Despite this, she has her own whimsical charm, and she's been asked out more than once by several boys...and girls. She always says no.

They don't understand, but how can they? They aren't made of the snow and ice like she is, deep inside. Her father always told her that this would happen some day, that she'd be unable to resist the pull of the snowflakes, the lure of the icicles forming on the eaves and the branches of the trees.

You got it from your mother, he told her, his eyes wistful as he stroked back her hair. It's in your blood.

But no one understands the pull of winter anymore, what to do when your heart is ice and your eyes reflect the snowflakes that dance through the sky. Luna sighs, lifting her head as the snowstorm dies away. Perhaps it doesn't matter, really. As long as she's here, she can be content. That's all anyone can ask.