A/N: All characters and places belong to J.K. Rowling and affiliates. Only the plot line and OC's belong to me. We get back to Hogwarts this chapter, spend a little time with Poppy, and have some fun in the snow. Next chapter we get back to the whole Tom/Minerva drama. Thanks for all the continual support and feedback. Let me know what you think of the chapter! Enjoy and please review!

January 1954

The rest of the holidays quickly passed without Tom or Minerva bringing up their dance together. They knew better than to mention it in front of the others who wouldn't understand in the same way they did themselves.

When they apparated with a loud pop, all five appeared right outside the gates of Hogwarts, holding hands. Minerva opened her eyes to see a beautiful blanket of snow covering Hogwarts' grounds.

"Welcome home, Min, Tom," Alastor said, squeezing her hand. Minerva smiled and followed her friends up through the snowy path.

"So I heard that we get to practice dueling, this semester in Defense," Kelsie said as they trudged through the snow. Minerva felt Tom's eyes on her and she turned to meet their darkness.

"Sounds like fun," he said, with a small smile, before tearing his eyes away from her and sliding his hands into his jacket pocket.

"Fun for you and Minerva maybe," Moody grumbled, "sucky for the rest of us who don't happen to be our resident spell geniuses."

Minerva and Tom rolled their eyes simultaneously. "Hey, guys," Arabella said, stopping short in front of them. Ryan, not paying attention to Arabella in front of him, crashed into each other and landed in a blanket of snow.

Both sat up, freckled with snow, and glared at each other. "Oh it is so on," Ryan growled, shooting to his feet. "All right, two teams. Minerva, Alastor and I are one team. Arabella, Tom, Kelsie, the other. Positions everyone. Last team standing claims the victory."

"Hold up, how come you get Minerva and Alastor!" protested Tom as the rest of his team scampered away, taking their base behind a band of trees.

"This is war! Roll with the punches, Riddle," called Alastor as he and Minerva retreated behind a rock near the lake. Everyone pulled out their wands and snowballs began to pile up around them.

"On three!"

Tom glared and took up the leader position in front of Ryan. "One," he said, testily, wand curling defensibly around his wand.

"Two."

"THREE!"

Red sparks shot up into the sky and Ryan and Tom sprinted back to their bases. Only seconds later the first snowball attack was an attack wave from Minerva and Alastor's rock base.

"Get out of range!" Arabella shouted and the three scattered. Snowballs from the other team came from all three directions, but they didn't seem to affect the other group.

"What's the plan, Min?" Alastor said as he ducked one of Tom's more well placed shots.

"We're going to move and pick Kelsie and Arabella off first. Ryan, Alastor, you guys have left, I'll move right. Ready? NOW!"

The actions were almost too fast for Kelsie to see. She was knocked back with such a force of snowballs that all she could see was white.

"One down, Min!" Alastor shouted as they made a tactical retreat to regroup. Tom growled in frustration and ducked down near the edge of the lake. He had to eliminate Minerva.

He flourished his wand and flicked once. A hundred snowballs in a perfect line shot towards her. Ryan tipped her off at the last second and she cast a red rebounding curse. Tom hit the ground just in time to refrain from being hit. Arabella scream and shot once well aimed medium sized snowball at Ryan which caught him on the side of his face and sent him sprawling.

Tom hooted and Alastor grabbed Minerva, allowing her to narrowly miss Tom's giant snowball. They disappeared into the tall grasses near the lake.

"Ari, get over here!" called Tom and she moved out to crouch next to him.

"What's the plan, T? Minerva and Alastor could cream us," she whispered. Tom's dark eyes peered out, looking for signs of movement.

"I have it all under control, here's the plan…"

*Hogwarts 1954*

"Armando, come look at this," Catherine Naye said from the window in the staff room. The Headmaster looked up from the Daily Prophet and moved to the window with Jason Rose, the Charms Master.

Outside in the courtyard near the Black Lake was Minerva McGonagall. She and rest of her group were playing the strangest game of snowballs that the teachers had ever seen.

The use of magic was startling. Minerva and Tom sent waves of snowballs at each other and the opponent would melt them or even reverse them.

"Ouch!" Professor Rose said as Ryan Garrett was taken out by a large snowball from Arabella's wand.

Naye shook her head. "McGonagall's launching a strategic military attack," she said with a slight tone of admiration in her voice.

They watched the snowballs cease for a moment and Minerva and Alastor disappeared into the tall grasses near the Black Lake.

There was a bang and Tom and Arabella burst forth in attack, launching a huge ten foot snowball at the rock. Minerva was able to divert it away from her path and jump out of the way, but Alastor was too slow and was thrown backwards.

Arabella shouted something, probably in triumph, until Minerva conjured a wall of snow in front of her, smacking her right in the face and knocking her into the ground.

Tom jumped out of the way as Minerva launched another wave towards him and then both moved back out of range. Dippet was positively beaming and was watching with excitement.

"Think Riddle's going to win?" Rose asked, watching him mutter spells under his breath at a medium sized snowball.

"Nah, McGonagall's going to surprise him," Naye said with confidence.

Dippet raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips to keep from smiling. "There he goes…oh, he can't find her…where is she?"

"Up in the tree," answered Naye, nodding to the thin form maneuvering her way up the tree. "He's going to be in for a nasty shock."

Tom crept forward, looking every which way until his snowball began to smoke. All three teachers began to chuckle and the chuckling turned to laughter as the snowball exploded, knocking Tom over in the snow with a head full of snow.

Minerva seemed to be rather amused with herself and hung down in the tree to smirk at Tom. Tom scowled and shot a red stream of light into the tall tree.

The limbs shook violently and Minerva was knocked off. Naye gasped as the dark headed girl dropped from the tree and fell down into the snow.

To their surprise, Minerva's broken form was not what they found in the snow, but an upright dark and silver tabby cat. The Charms Professor swore under his breath. "Well bloody hell," he said, running a hand through his hair. "She's really an animagus."

The cat athletically shook the snow out of its fur and made a jump towards the frozen top of the Black Lake. Tom was grinning wildly and quickly followed her.

"What? Did you assume Dumbledore would just make something like that up?" snapped Naye.

"I know enough about Dumbledore not to assume anything," Jason Rose said quickly.

"I think I'll go ahead and take that as a compliment, Jason."

The three turned around to see a smiling Dumbledore walking into the room. "What are we all watching?"

"Riddle and McGonagall having a snowball fight with their posse."

Dumbledore chuckled and turned to cradle his cup of hot chocolate and watch as Riddle ran after Minerva who had slid around carefully on the ice in cat form.

Meanwhile, neither witch nor wizard noticed their Potions professor, Horace Slughorn, making his way slowly up the grounds with a briefcase in his hand.

"Oh! Look, Horace is going to get a lovely surprise." The group cackled with laughter as the snowball meant to hit Minerva struck Horace right across the face, knocking the man over into the snow, his briefcase flying.

There were identical looks of horror on Minerva and Tom's faces. They sprinted over to the Professor, their game forgotten, and Minerva popped into human form. They helped the Potions' back onto his feet and their friends had moved over towards them. Though, the teacher's noticed that they stayed a good three feet away from the others.

Slughorn seemed to be laughing it off and Tom smiled charmingly and spoke for a moment. Minerva summoned his briefcase towards them and handed it to Slughorn, her pale cheeks opaque with embarrassment.

Slughorn just laughed again and nodded to Garrett, Figg, and Appanatis. He put a hand on Minerva's shoulder and moved quickly towards the door.

Tom took a step towards Minerva and both turned, watching the Professor make his way up towards the castle. The teachers quieted for a moment and watched as Arabella slowly sank to the ground and levitated a snowball, hurling it right at Minerva.

The Seeker quickly ducked out of the way, allowing the snowball to strike Tom Riddle right in the face. He looked positively furious and the sight of him glaring from his snow kissed face made Minerva crack up in hysterics.

The teachers chuckled and moved away from the window. "Welcome to the second term, Professors. I have a feeling it's going to be an exciting one."

*Hogwarts 1954*

"What about this one?"

Minerva sighed and leaned back on the chair she was sitting on. They had been at this for the last four hours. Hogsmeade was beautiful over the Christmas break with a fluffy layer of snow atop the streets and houses.

Poppy shook her head and rubbed her eyes. Her short bronze hair was sticking out from every direction with little red slashes on her cheeks indicating her frustration and fading excitement.

Shopping for bridesmaid dresses shouldn't be that hard. Minerva could conjure something priceless in the time this was taking.

"No, no not this one," Poppy was saying, "It has to match the place settings."

She couldn't hear the reply from Michael Bennent's sister, Lucy, not that she cared to. Michael had expressed interest in Minerva before leaving Hogwarts, still very young at the time, Minerva brushed him off. There was something about him that she didn't like.

He was on the shorter end, almost as tall as Poppy herself with rather plain brown eyes and short cut dirty blonde hair. There was nothing extraordinary about him really other than his obnoxious interest in healing. But seeing her friend so happy, Minerva wisely bit her tongue and went along with the procession.

"What do you think about this one, Mina?"

It was two and half hours later that they left the Gladrags and made it back to Hogwarts. It was only three days until term started. One thing was for sure.

When and if she ever decided to marry she wasn't having a big wedding or perhaps a wedding at all. She was sure her husband would understand.