Disclaimer: I wish I was as famous as Rowling, but I'm not, so I don't own anything.
Chapter ten: Snow and hot chocolate.
If I'm not waken up properly, I can get quite angry and touchy. Well, the twins didn't exactly know that…
I was initially awakened by two masses jumping on my bed. Their yelling didn't soothe my growing irritation either.
"Echo!" Jump.
"Echo!" Jump.
"Echo!" Jump.
"Wake up Echo!" Jump. I groaned loudly and flipped onto my stomach.
"Go away!" I moaned. I could practically feel their grins. They sat down on either side of me and put a hand on my back.
"Aw, come on Love!"
"It's a bright, happy, new day, and we have a gorgeous girl in our house!"
"No!" I groaned, pulling the blanket over my head. Silence ensued.
"Well George."
"Yes Fred?"
"It looks like our little snake will simply not get up."
"So it seems."
"I believe it's time for plan B."
"Why Fred, I do believe you are right. Shall I grab her feet or hands?" I peeked out and glared at the two red-heads.
"You wouldn't dare," I hissed. They smirked evilly at me.
"Oh, wouldn't we love?" I sighed.
"Fine! I'll be down in a minute."
"Good! We're having pancakes for breakfast." They both hopped up and made their way to the door.
"Hey guys!" I called before they left. They turned around.
"Yea?" They responded at the same time.
"What time is it?" They glanced at each other and grinned mischievously.
"Six a.m." I paled. Glaring, I chucked a pillow at their snickering, fastly retreating forms. Merlin, I hated them sometimes!
I trudged my way downstairs in my short plaid boxers and black tank top. mumbling the whole time about evil twins and shoving pancakes up their-
"Good morning Echo dear! Have a good sleep?" Mrs. Weasley's voice called, snapping me out of my thoughts. I looked at her and smiled. She was sitting at the table with her family, all clad in their pyjamas. The only empty seat was placed right between the twins. How convenient.
"Yes ma'am, but the waking up part could have been much more… pleasant," I said, taking a seat and pointedly glaring at the twins who were stuffing pancakes into their mouths. Once they swallowed, they smiled innocently.
"Oh Echo love," George started.
"You know we-"
"-absolutely-"
"-adore you." They finished off by kissing both sides of my face. I blushed as a camera went off.
I was curled up on a sofa when George came in and held a mug of hot chocolate out towards me.
"Viola! Hot chocolate a la Weasley!" He said, faking a bad French accent. I smiled at him and took it. I sipped the warm liquid down and grinned.
"Mm. This is definitely the best hot chocolate I've ever had," I told him. He smiled and sat down next to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulder. I smiled sadly at the cup and stirred it slightly with my finger. He looked at me, his eyes shining with concern.
"What's the matter Love?" I looked at him and smiled.
"Oh nothing. Just thinking. You know, Draco and I didn't get to drink hot chocolate a lot as children. Father said he didn't want to hyperactive kids running around, disturbing his work." He leaned over and kissed the top of my head.
"Well, you can have as much as you want here." I smiled and leaned into him.
About an hour later, Fred and Ron came rushing in.
"Echo! George! A new batch of snow just fell! There has to be at least five inches!" Yelled Ron.
"Yeah! We're all about to start a huge snowball war!" Fred continued. "So hurry up you two! We're picking teams in five minutes!" They left just as quickly as they came. George smiled as a twinkling excitement filled his eyes. He looked at my pale, wide-eyed face and grinned, clearly amused
"Let me guess, your 'wonderful' father never let you have a crazy day in the snow?" I shook my head and me chuckled.
"Well, there's a first for everything." He grabbed my hand and pulled me off of the sofa.
Percy and Fred were captains. Ginny, Ron, George, and I were standing in a horizontal line in front of them as they inspected each of us. I was actually surprised that Percy was even participating in this, given he was simply visiting shortly for Christmas. Probably just to get to boss us around.
"Okay!" Percy clapped his hands together. "I'm letting Fred pick first since his team is going to automatically get crushed." I rolled my eyes. Fred was glancing between George and I mischievously.
"Okay. I pick Echo. Get over here Malfoy!" He barked jokingly. I rolled my eyes and went to stand behind Fred. Percy had obviously picked up on Fred's brainwaves because an evil smile etched itself onto his lips. That was a weird sight...
"Okay. George, over here. Let's see how well your girlfriend does having to fight you," Percy mocked calmly. I glared at him as George went and stood behind his older brother. I hated Percy. Fred smiled at me. While I'm at it, I hate Fred too.
"Ginny. You're fiery. I call you."
"That leaves us with Ron," Percy said dejectedly. I smirked.
"Good luck with that Perce!" He glared.
"Don't call me that," he mumbled. I grinned cheekily.
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean!?" Ron demanded, finally picking up on my insult.
"Oh nothing ickle Ronniekins, nothing," I replied, patting his shoulder.
"Now, let the games begin," Fred grinned, rubbing his hands together. I smirked at George and gave him a thumbs down sign, indicating that he was going down.
Fred, Ginny, and I had built a fort of ice and snow on the North side of the small woods near the Burrow. Percy, George, and Ron's fort was on the opposite side.
"Okay, Echo, this is pretty much just an extreme game of capture the flag. Each team has one. Ours is blue, theirs is green. We just have to get to theirs and bring it back before they get ours. Of course, they'll try to stop us. Only with snowballs though, we can't use magic. Just brute, muggle force. If they catch you, they get to keep you unless you manage to escape. If they have anything to tie you up with, they can, and will, use it. There's pretty much no rules except for no magic. Get it?" Fred explained. I smirked and nodded.
"Got it." He smiled as did Ginny.
"Good. Now here's the plan. Ginny will stay here and guard the flag, brutally attacking anyone that tries to get it. Echo, you're going to go through the West side of the forest and attack from the back. I'm going to do the same, just from the East. That way, if either of us is caught, there's still the other. You both got it?"
"Yeah," Ginny nodded. They looked at me.
"Well… what if we're both caught?" He smirked.
"Then we better escape, huh?" I grinned and nodded. He smirked. "Let's do this."
Things were pretty easy to start out with. Everything was quiet and my progress was pretty good. I had to be at least half way there by then. Just as I was thinking that I would get there with no problems, a bush rustled. I quickly stepped behind a tree and watched the bush, body tense, ready to attack if I needed to.
The bush kept rustling for a moment. Just as I was about to throw a snowball at the bush, a squirrel jumped out of it and scampered away. I sighed and relaxed, dropping the snowball.
"What're you looking at Love?" a voice asked from right behind me. My heart pounded against my ribcage, the baby hairs on the back of my neck stood directly up, and a cold feeling spread against every inch of my skin. I spun around frantically and pressed my back against the tree.
My eyes met with the ocean blue ones of George Weasley. He smirked cockily as I glared intensely at him.
"Merlin George. Don't do that! I thought I was about to have a heart attack!" He chuckled.
"Haha. Sorry Love. Couldn't resist."
"I swear I should kill you for that," I mumbled. He grinned and took a step closer to me.
"Well, I don't think you're in the position to do that."
"And why not?" In one movement, he had my arms pinned against the tree and his body pressing against mine made it so I was unable to move. I blushed as a sense of De-ja-vu came over me.
"This is why not. So why don't you tell me what exactly Fred's plan is." I looked up at him and smirked.
"No," I said defiantly.
"Really now? Are you sure you don't want to tell me?"
"And why would I?" He seemed to ponder this for a moment before looking back down at me.
"Because, if you do, I won't hold you captive. I'll let you go." I laughed.
"No you won't." He raised an eyebrow in question. "You won't because you know that whatever I tell you is most likely a lie and that I'll try to continue on with the original plan if you let me go. Knowing this, you'll keep me captive so you will win, and try to stop Fred since he'd be by himself." He blinked for a moment.
"That's actually a really good plan, but I really hadn't been thinking it." My eyes grew wide and I paled. He smiled widely. "Thanks Love. Now I think I'm going to use that." I groaned. He smiled again.
Hm… maybe I can distract him long enough for Fred to get there. I grinned wickedly as the thought crossed my mind. Let's try this.
I looked up at him through my eyelashes and pouted. He looked down at me and his smile fell.
"You don't really want to tie me up, do you George?" I asked sweetly. I noticed he gulped from the slight bob of his Adam's-apple. I mentally smiled. "If you did, I wouldn't be able to run my fingers through that gorgeous hair of yours, and that would make me sad. You don't want to make me sad, do you George?" He shook his head as a slight blush appeared on his cheeks.
I noticed a significant slack in his grip on my wrists and used it to my advantage. Pulling my hands free of his, I ran them up his chest and stroked his cheek before letting them drape around his neck. I smiled brightly up at him.
"Know what would make me happy right about now George?" I asked him, dropping my voice to sound innocent but seductive. He shook his head once again and I noticed his ears were scarlet. I smirked and leaned in to where his ear was next to my lips. "I'd love to snog you senseless right about now George." I leaned back to see that his face had gone completely red. I never knew George could be so shy. It was cute really.
I leaned my back against the tree and brought my hand up to touch George's face again. I then lowered it to the collar of his shirt and gave it a gentle tug to edge him towards me. I smiled up at him encouragingly, and the colour of his face lowered to a pinkish tone. He place his hands on the tree on either side of me and lowered his face down to mine. His soft warm lips brushed against mine, making me smile. I liked my plan.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and tangled his hair through my fingers, deepening the kiss. He pressed his body against mine, re-pinning me to the tree, with a newly found passion.
He nipped at my bottom lip softly, asking for entrance. I opened my mouth, happily giving in to him. His tongue shyly, but certainly, made contact with mine and a burst of electricity spiralled through my body. Our tongues traced patterns against one another and I felt a strange new frenzied feeling well up inside me, unlike anything I ever felt before. I eagerly pressed my hips against his, wanting, needing, to be closer to him.
I pulled back for air and his lips travelled down my jaw line and onto my neck. I gasped as he gently nipped at a soft spot. This must have encouraged him because he brought his hands down to my waist, and bit down with a bit more force on the same spot. I squirmed slightly as he sucked on the spot. I tangled my fingers through his hair again and brought him back up to my face to reconnect our lips.
After about two more minutes of snogging, we heard Fred and Ginny's victory cry. I smiled against his lips, and he pulled away. He looked down at my smile and smirked at me.
"You are an evil little person Echora Malfoy," he purred, obviously still turned on a bit. I smirked right back up at him.
"I know, but I enjoyed my plan all the while."
"I'm gonna have to get you back for that you know." I looked up at him with half lidded eyes.
"Really? Well," I leaned up to his ear, "You're going to have to catch me first," I whispered before stepping around him and taking off. I heard him growl after a moment and giggled softly as I heard his shoes crunching against the snow. I swerved in and out of the trees before I saw a light where our fort was. Just as I burst through the trees, George tackled me into the soft white powder. I gasped as he flipped me over and straddled my waist. He brought his hands downs and began tickling up and down my sides. I gasped again before erupting into laughter.
"G-George… no. Haha. P-Please st-st-stop!" I managed to choke out between laughter. He was grinning down at my writhing form; trying to escape. Someone cleared their throat loudly behind us, and I was never so happy to hear Percy's voice as I was at that moment.
"Uhm, could you guys just, you know, stop?" He asked, clearly disgusted. George looked up to see his three brothers and sister staring at us. I tilted my head back to gaze at them upside down and smiled. I mouthed 'thank you' to Percy and he merely nodded. George got off of me and held a hand out to me. I balled up some snow and threw it at his face before taking his hand. He pulled me up while wiping the snow away.
"May I ask what that was all about anyways?" Fred chimed in, obviously holding back laughter. George pointed at me.
"She's pure evil!" I smiled as four sets of eyes settled on me. I nodded to them.
"It's true," I replied shrugging.
After dark had settled in, I grabbed a quilt and tiptoed outside. I sat down in the snow, wrapped the quilt around my shoulders, and gazed up at the stars.
There were so many of them! I wasn't able to see them like this at home. My parents kept the grounds lit at night. I couldn't really do much at home as it was anyways. I couldn't sit up on the roof, couldn't have too many sweets, couldn't have any muggle devices, even those made for entertainment purposes, and I couldn't even go into the kitchen! Mother insisted that I make the house elves do everything! My house was pretty much a giant prison…
But then I came here, and it's so small and full and they don't have a lot of money, but everyone's so happy! They talk and have fun! They can do what they want to so long as it make them happy. And the parents! They're so nice and accepting! Not judging anybody from their background or family history. They gave me a change where so many people hadn't. They saw my name as merely that: a name! They decided to get to know the girl behind the name, realizing that, despite her family history, she might be different!
They also showed me what a real family is like. They showed me love and caring and true happiness. And I knew, that no matter what, it was something I was going to remember for the rest of my life.
I smiled as I heard the crunching of snow beneath shoes behind me. I turned around to see George carrying two mugs of hot chocolate. He smiled at me softly.
"Hey, sorry for interrupting you, but I saw you out here and thought you might like some company." I smiled back at him.
"I'd love that George. I really would." He took a seat next to me and handed me one of the mugs. I offered him some of my blanket, which he took happily, and sipped the hot chocolate, smiling. We sat in a content, comfortable silence for a while before I knew there was something that I needed to say.
"George?" I said quietly. He looked over at me.
"Yea?"
"Thank you." He tilted his head in confusion.
"For what Love?"
"For asking me to come here. This has been the best holiday of my life." He smiled and put a hand on mine.
"Glad to hear it Love, glad to hear it."
A/N: Really fluffy, but I absolutely loved writing this chapter. I don't know why, but I am particularly proud of this one.