Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter franchise, nor anything affiliated with it.
Draco's POV
I laugh and duck behind a pile of snow before I can get hit by another snowball. Hermione managed to convince me to come outside with the rest of our friends for a snowball fight, but I think I might be regretting it now. I just got pelted by about 3 snowballs, all coming from Blaise. Just before they hit me, I caught a glimpse of his smirk from the corner of my eye. I carefully take my gloves off and mold a medium sized ball and make sure to use the heat of my hands to create a thin layer of ice around it. I compact a little harder and make sure it's almost completely solid. Then using my peripheral vision, I turn, stand up and whip it at Blaise's chest. By the 'oomph' I hear from his direction, I assume it hit its target. I smirk quietly to myself but then realize that I'm still exposed to all of the rest of the people we're playing with. I sit down as quickly as I can to prevent myself from getting hit, but I'm pretty sure Luna landed a hit on my shoulder before I could.
It's around midday right now and the sky is a bright blue to complement the stark white of the snow. It's supposed to snow more later, but I don't see how that's going to happen with no clouds in sight. I stick my head out a bit to take a peek at where everyone else is and narrowly miss a snowball aimed right at my head. I frown to myself since we had explicitly said at the beginning that no 'headshots' were allowed.
Being outside is really nice at this time of year because if you dress right, the frigidness of the air can be very refreshing. I stretch my legs out and massage my knees absentmindedly. One of the other nice things about the cold is that my legs feel more numb and it relieves a lot of the aches and pains in them.
I start packing more snowballs and make sure to compact them really tight so they're firmer and have a better weight to them. I make enough snowballs to make into a small pyramid of 18. I quickly make a thin layer of ice on all of them, using my hands to melt them a bit, before planning my next attack. I pick up 2 of them and listen out for movement around me. I have fairly sensitive ears so it isn't hard for me to pick out the noise of someone sneaking past my little hideout. I quickly stick my head out and throw it at what I believe is Hannah's back before ducking again. I'm mostly hidden by my shelter since it's elevated above the main path, but I'm entirely covered.
I turn back to grab another snowball when I hear some rustling behind me. As I turn to see what or who it is, I get a faceful of snow and some of it gets down the back of my cloak. I wipe the snow off as try to blink and see who it is. The snow is very cold and my face gets very numb and it kind of hurts. When I clear my face I see that it was Hermione. I glare at her and she just smirks back.
"I'm surprised you didn't hear me coming up behind you. I was certain you picked that snowball up to hit me, so I kind of panicked and just threw the snow at you."
"I didn't actually hear you till just after I picked up the ball. Great job." As I say this I very slowly move my hand and reach behind me to grab a snowball since I left the one I had previously on the ground when she hit me.
"Yeah, well we're thinking about going to Hogsmeade at lunch for some hot chocolate and pies. Are you okay to join us or…?"
"Yeah that'll be fine."
"Okay, that's-" I cut her off by throwing the snowball at her. She gets a facefull of snow and looks extremely shocked and annoyed. I smirk at her reaction and she turns a bit red.
"You sneaky little ferret! How did you even get the snowball while I was talking to you?"
"Careful about who you call a ferret, I can always refer to you as a beaver for the rest of the afternoon."
"True, but not as many people will get the beaver reference, whereas almost everyone will get the ferret reference." I pout a little, but quickly grab another snowball and throw it at her.
"Hey! Stop being so trigger happy!" I look at her with a very confused expression and she realizes her mistake fairly quickly.
"Oh, it's a muggle reference. It means that you're very eager to attack me right now, though it's usually in the context of guns. Can I sit down? It's kind of tiring standing here talking to you and I keep having to look around to make sure no one throws a snowball at me."
"Sure. Do you want to throw snowballs with me?"
"Okay, though we should probably make some more." We spend another couple minutes making more snowballs, but they're a little sloppy.
We then take turns throwing them at everyone who passes by. We manage to get Blaise in the back of the neck, but quickly duck when he turns around. As we reach to get more snowballs we see a shadow cast itself over us. We look up to see Blaise looking at us with a mischievous and almost 'knowing' smile.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the two love birds. I was wondering where you'd gotten to Hermione. We're probably going to head to Hogsmeade soon, so if you could come down and join us that would be great." I'm surprised to see him here seeing as how I didn't hear him approach, I guess I was too involved with what we were doing to notice.
"We'll get down in about a minute or two. Go on ahead." replies Hermione.
"Okay, but no hitting me as I walk down. I want a free walk back."
"Fine." I reply in a very annoyed tone. I was hoping to wipe the smirk right off of his face. He knew what I was planning to do. That's the only problem with hanging around sneaky people, they think of the same sneaky plans that you do and anticipate them very well.
He walks back and I dig my bag out of the small hole I made earlier to keep it safe. I cast a spell on the bag to prevent it from getting wet and it meant that I wouldn't have to worry about what happened to it while I was doing the snowball fight with them. I brush off a little bit of snow before slinging it on. I stand up while leaning on the little mound of snow and unshrink my crutches. Since I knew we'd be coming out today and doing more physical activity, I chose to use my crutches since they're more mobile and I've been getting a bit better.
I walk with Hermione down the slope to join the others. As we walk down, the wind blows and we get showered in some snow that gets blown off of the trees. By the time we get down, everyone else has already gathered and are about to leave. We walk down to Hogsmeade and go to the Hog's Head. Since the Battle of Hogwarts, we've all become pretty close to Aberforth and like to visit him at his pub every now and then. He's quite cranky still, but I think he has more of a soft spot for us.
We walk in and find a large table at the back of the pub. Blaise goes up and orders enough butterbeers for all of us and some pot pies to share. There are about 20 of us altogether from mostly the eighth year, though there are a couple seventh years like Ginny and Luna. We sit there for awhile just chatting and eating our food since the pies are really hot.
Around mid-afternoon, Hermione and I walk back up to the castle since we don't want to be stuck outside when it snows this afternoon, or lose track of time and walk back after dark. When we get inside I ask if I can go do something by myself.
"Sure, just make sure you get to dinner on time. I don't want to eat by myself."
"Will do. See you then."
I then walk up to the astronomy tower. When I get up to the top, the sun is already setting because we're in winter now. It's a little chilly, but I still have my cloak from earlier. I sit on the edge like I usually do and just look out at the snow covered landscape around me. I'd love to be out there and just fly over all of it, but I didn't bring a broom this year. I didn't really think much of it till now. I've alway loved flying. Being on the Quidditch team was great, but just flying with no goal or guidelines is fun. I love feeling the wind whip in my faces and the rush of flying so fast in the air.
I almost wish that I had looked into joining the Quidditch team just so I could have an excuse to fly more often. Having said that, we need to make more space for the younger kids to join and create memories and legacies of their own. I realize that I could fly right now if I had a broomstick. It doesn't really require me to be able to support weight on my legs, they just dangle there and allow you to keep your balance. I pull out a pen and make a quick note about maybe picking up my old broom from the manor on the inside of my hand so no one will see it.
I lean my head against the wall as I sit there on the edge and just stare into space for awhile. I 'awake' from my stupor around 4:30 so I head downstairs again to see if Hermione is in our room. I open the portrait and see that she's sleeping on the couch with her laptop on the coffee table still open, but off. I check the time and see that it's only 4:38, so I grab a blanket off the couch and drape it over her sleeping form. I then sit down on the opposite couch and pull out my computer to do a little bit of creative writing.
When it's around 5 pm, I out my laptop back and walk over to wake up Hermione. I tap her shoulder at first then gently rub her should till she wakes up.
"Hey there sleepy head, it's about time for dinner. Do you need a couple minutes to get ready?" I ask her.
She groans then sits up. Her hair is a bit messy, but she looks really cute like that. "I just need to go to the bathroom, but then I should be ready to go. Oh, and thanks for waking me up and giving me the blanket."
"No problem." She then gets up after folding the blanket up. I wait for her and then when she comes back we leave to go to the great hall for dinner on this quiet winter day.
Author's Note: Again, I know this is a shorter chapter, but I don't want you guys spending too much time on your computers during this season, and I didn't have a lit of time to write either. Updates should be about 4-5 days apart because my family keeps pulling me away to do stuff over this Christmas break, but we're almost to the next big plot point. Thanks for all the support guys, I love reading your reviews. Please send feedback or suggestions, I'm always looking to improve my work, but it's easier with a different pair of eyes. Have a great week, till next time!