Prologue
She had never particularly liked the cold, but there were two things that she loved: rain and snow. Yes, of course she knew that snow is frozen rain, but she didn't necessarily care. She always separated the two. They both meant something special to her.
Ever since she could remember, she had always loved the rain. Even now, at age sixteen, she loved being in the rain. Especially on rough days.
While the rain made everyone feel gloomy and drowsy, it made her feel at peace with herself; made her feel happy. The soft pit-patter of it soothed her; assured her. She could recall running and splashing gleefully through the mud, the rain falling freely on her face. She remembered how happy and careĀ-free she felt. She would always smile at the heart-warming memories; they would make her day a little better every time she thought of them.
On the other hand, she hadn't discovered her zeal for snow until the Christmas after her tenth birthday. It was her brother, actually, who had helped her figure it out. She could remember the both of them, who were always pushed aside by their older siblings since they were the youngest, screaming merrily, hitting each other with snowballs, and hiding behind their "forts." She loved making snow angels the best, though, and every year her mother would get collect snow in a bucket that would sit on top of the picnic table to make "snow ice-cream," her favorite treat.
She didn't love it nearly as much back then, though, as she does now. The first snowfall after she turned fifteen is what really ignited her fire for it. Although they hadn't known about it, she had watched her brother and his long-time crush share their first kiss in the snow. She sat beside the window in her common room, watching them below. It was the most romantic thing she had ever witnessed.
He wasn't a big fan of being cold, but he had learned to tolerate it. The only two reasons he ever did tolerate it, though, for himself was for the rain and the snow. He's never really been able to enjoy either the former or latter, for both coincided with horrible and painful memories.
How could you find something interesting if that certain something reminded you of awful things? He wasn't weak; he could handle it. He was used to it.
Whenever he was young and it would rain, he would just sit there... Let the rain soak him head to toe. He loved getting drenched. When he was young, that is. Memories flooded his brain as he tried to shove them to the back of his mind, but no use. He couldn't help it; he had to face it. He would get so muddy, rolling around in the puddles that collected the raindrops, and both of his parents and his nanny would yell at him. He grew out of that, though. He respected his parents wishes, so he stopped that when he was about seven and a half.
He used to love playing in the snow, also. When he was five, he remembered a time that he and his head nanny played in it, laughing. Laughing... He never gave off a real laugh, anymore. Many memories were connected with the snow, too. One winter, he and the head nanny at the time went into the back yard and built "forts." They threw snowballs back and forth at each other, laughing until their sides hurt. She was sent away, though. His parents didn't approve of having a "childish nanny."
Yes, he tolerated both the rain and the snow, now, but he didn't love either of them. Not anymore. He would give anyone fifty galleons if they could make his passion burn again for either of the two.
