A/N: Day 9 of the 12 Days of Shipmas! Today's prompt was "ice skating" and I had fun writing this one. Enjoy!


The Saturday of the last Hogsmeade weekend of term means that Ginny is almost alone at the Great Lake; there are only a few other students Transfiguring their boots into ice skates. Ginny waves at a few Slytherin girls as they skate past her, and then she pulls her scarf more tightly around her neck. The wind is quite brisk this morning, but Ginny could not stand to be cooped up in the castle any longer. Hogsmeade, however, feels too busy, too bustling. Today, Ginny wants to have some time to think.

She knows that this is going to be a hard Christmas, and frankly, she doesn't feel ready. Which is good, she thinks, since it doesn't quite feel like Christmas yet, despite the decorations around the castle and the end-of-term exams looming. But the feeling of Christmas has not yet reached Ginny, and she wants to let herself adjust.

She ducks around a low-hanging tree branch and jumps: there is a figure standing between the trees about 15 feet away. Ginny blinks, then grins and sprints forward. "Harry!" she exclaims, leaping for him.

Harry catches her, laughing. His arms are tight around her waist, his hat falls off, and Ginny buries her face in his neck. After a moment, he sets her down, but he keeps his hands at her waist; Ginny lets her hands slide down from his neck to his chest.

"What in the name of Merlin are you doing here, Harry?" she asks, feeling a bit breathless from both his embrace and his appearance. "I thought you couldn't get leave until next week."

Harry brushes snow from her hair and grins. "I finished my paperwork earlier than expected, and I had my Invisibility Cloak on me, so I thought…" he trails off and takes one of her hands off his chest, linking their fingers. Despite the cold, neither are wearing gloves, and it takes a moment to sort their cold fingers.

Ginny laughs at their clumsiness, then leans up on tiptoe to kiss him. "You and that Invisibility Cloak," she murmurs, "still getting you into trouble even out of school."

Harry pulls her closer and kisses her again. "What can I say, I like trouble," he whispers against her lips.

Ginny gets lost for a while in his kisses, savoring the sensations of his stubble against her cheeks and chin, inhaling the smell of him, clinging to his hand and his shoulder. The wind blows harshly, whistling through the tree branches, but Ginny doesn't notice. She has missed him so, so much; they haven't seen each other since Halloween, and although this separation has been easier by far than last year's, it is still difficult to be so far away.

After several minutes, she pulls back, panting a bit. Harry blinks a few times dazedly, and Ginny laughs. "Did I snog you senseless?" she teases, stepping back just a bit and swinging their joined hands back and forth.

Harry raises an eyebrow at her. "Don't you always," he returns, squeezing her hand. He starts walking towards the lake, in the direction Ginny had come from. "Want to go ice skating?"

Ginny falls into step next to him, dropping his hand and linking her arm through his. "With you? Of course," and when he smiles at her, Ginny thinks that perhaps Christmas will be alright.