A few days before Christmas, Sam gathered up the gang and invited them to Malfoy Manor to take over the grounds and build the biggest snow forts he had seen in 7 years.
Living in India, suffice to say snow forts were not really on the agenda around Christmas-time. Sam had always missed snowball fights and rough-housing in the snow and now that he was back he was ready for the final showdown.
In a (unsurprising) flash of pride, the ex-Gryffindor girls decided to form their own team and prove their fort-building and snowball fighting prowess.
Bee, Annie, Jen and Rose had recruited Alice Longbottom to even out the teams, seeing as she was no stranger to athletic competition - Alice was currently playing for the reserve team on the Wimbourne Wasps and had successfully beat out the Appleby Arrows Seeker in her latest game when she'd been called into the game after the Wimbourne Wasps' regular Seeker had been knocked out cold by a bludger.
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Everyone arrived at Malfoy Manor raring to go, with offers of tea and pleasantries rejected.
Astoria was rather confused as to why everyone was indulging Sam's snowball fight fantasy, little did she know as they'd gotten older everyone had greatly missed epic snowball fights along with their Christmas celebrations.
Besides, they were still young and sprightly, they may as well do it while they still could!
After flipping a Knut and winning, Al, Sam, Corey, Greg and Adam had a short discussion as to which side of the back garden they would claim as their territory. They opted for the far side and immediately set about conjuring and sculpting their fort at the far end.
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"This fort is going to be epic," Corey crowed, eyes bright with glee.
He and Adam were making quick wandwork of the structure, forming battlements and trenches, his breath puffing fog into the air around them as he shivered from both anticipation and the cold.
Al was busy building a trophy out of ice and snow, to sit in the centre of the fort - the first team to capture the other's trophy won of course.
Meanwhile, outside Greg and Sam were spinning their wands into a frenzy stocking up on snowballs.
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While they worked, as this was one of the more tedious tasks of any snowball fight, Sam asked how he and Bee's co-operative potion and apothecary shop was going.
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"It's going really well actually," Greg smiled proudly, "We're supplying enough to a few hospital departments plus regular customers - and we keep it fresh by continuing to devise new potions and trying to improve the industry. It's a lot for just the two of us but we make a great team, always have."
Sam nodded, impressed, "That's awesome mate, although I know Rose said Bee is going through an extra rough patch with her muggle family at the moment. At least it's not impacting her work."
Sighing loudly and swapping arms as his right hand got tired from spinning, Greg shrugged his shoulders. "I've tried to get her to let me help, but she's just completely shut me down. Her parents want her to get married, but she obviously doesn't want to marry a muggle they've picked out for her, so it's just constant fighting. Bee won't put her foot down to her parents about exactly who she'll marry - for reasons that I obviously don't understand either."
"Yeah what a mess. I don't think Rose has even thought of a solution."
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Greg got a familiar look in his eye, an idea that had been there for a while but never managed to catch on.
"Well that's the thing, I have! I offered to find someone for her. I know her inside and out, I'm sure I could find someone that would fit in with the magical community, they just need to be a wizard and be willing to move to Britain - I know I could do it."
Sam laughed raucously, not even trying to hold back. "I bet Bee was ecstatic about that idea. Greg, I think you've just got to let her battle this one on her own-"
"But her family life impacts my business, sure Bee's working well now but I know the more stressed she gets the sooner she's going to need an unplanned leave of absence to have a full-on breakdown. Besides, she's one of my best friends and I'm bloody worried about her."
After Sam's Welcome Home party word had quickly spread about who Aaliyah was and what their situation was (Adam and the girls had not kept their mouths shut), so Sam felt comfortable talking about what had happened with his mother just a few days ago.
"Look, I just had a huge fight with my mother about Rose… and Aaliyah, and I can understand why Bee is struggling to articulate what she wants from her love life to her parents. It's just not how things were meant to be."
They both laughed awkwardly.
"Having an unconventional relationship that your parents don't approve of is hard, I can understand Bee wanting to put off that fight, especially because her parents are muggles and quite religious, and she's neither of those things."
"I know, it's just, I really think that I could fix this entire problem if I found the right guy for her," Greg focused back on the snowballs, knowing that the time to start launching them was nigh.
"Well how are thinking of doing that?"
"Simple. Corey could scope out the Bangladeshi Ministry, maybe Neville has some contacts in the academic sphere, Al from the sports field, we background check all the guys, hold some interviews and find someone who's perfect for her."
"Wow you've really thought this through…" He didn't have time to voice how strange he found it before a hard-packed snowball thwacked the front battlement of their territory.
He yelled back, "Get ready boys, they've started launching!"
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What ensued was an extremely vigorous and competitive snowball fight to rival even the one they had had at Hogwarts.
Rose and Alice immediately started with offence, hurling snowballs at the front battlements, distracting Sam and Greg from continuing to stockpile snowballs.
Al climbed onto the roof of their fort and started launching long distance snowballs to try and scope out the defence of the other fort across the yard.
Adam climbed up behind him, leaving Corey to defend the trophy. "What do you make of their structure?"
"It's a beauty, they've dug out the garden and made their fort below ground-level. Makes it way easier for us to lob snowballs down into their complex but harder for us to get in, because they'll just knock out our feet from beneath us without having to pop up much."
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They both grinned in exhilaration, feeling the cold air rushing past their ears as a few snowballs came too close for comfort.
"Well we better get launching then," Adam proposed.
He raised his wand and used a slingshot motion to launch snowballs all the way across the yard and down into the girls' fort, with Al following suit.
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"So how's it going at International Magical Co-operation? You still enjoying jetting all around the world?" Al queried as he levitated some more snowballs up from the pile Sam and Greg had made below.
Adam shrugged, "Yeah I mean, I get to travel, I get to meet all the important people in ministries across the world, it's fine."
"You used to sound a lot more excited about it," Al offered.
"I guess I didn't realise how boring it was to just schmooze around with all these rich people - it's all about rubbing shoulders with the right people, making the best 'deals', honestly it's probably something Corey would do way better than me. Having him in the office and being able to hang out with him is probably the only thing keeping me sane at the Ministry, for all my complaining about him."
"What did you think International Magical Co-operation was? I gotta admit I don't know much about it myself."
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"I thought I'd be tackling actually important problems, like environmental protection across borders or muggle migration patterns or international anti-pureblood supremacy policies - you know how bad it still is in parts of Europe. We should be canvassing and taking action, I mean Durmstrang still doesn't accept muggle borns, it's an international disgrace."
Al dodged a snowball and quickly fired one as far as he could, grinning as he saw it land squarely on Alice's chest, he waved at her and chuckled as she gave him the finger from down below.
He sobered again, thinking on what Adam had just said, "Have you considered talking to Hermione? You know we could hook you up - maybe you're not a bureaucrat and paper-pusher, maybe you should join her team of staff or something."
Adam stumbled backwards as a snowball smacked into his head. Groaning he ran a hand through his afro, dusting off the spattering of snow, "Yeah that would actually be pretty sweet-"
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"Oi you bally snot-rags! Yeah that's right, Albus Potter, Adam Vaisey!"
Rose yelled out their names as though they were insults in an extremely goading fashion, her lungs were burning from all the running around she was doing as offence and she still wasn't anywhere near getting inside their fort, so she changed tactics to some trash-talk to get them out of their protective placement.
"Get down here and fight us already, standing up there's making for a boring game."
Rose gestured to her levitating stack of snowballs, poised for launching, "Or are you scared?"
She and Alice had made it only halfway down the yard, before being successfully beaten back from above and ground level.
"You might be defending well but if you just keep sitting up there, you'll never get into our fort!" Rose dodged more snowballs from Sam and Greg's defence behind the first battlement of their fort and then gave as good as she got.
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Al and Adam looked at each other gleeful.
"You ready to do this?"
"Hell yes!"
They both jumped down and entered the thick of the game, one that would be contentiously debated for many years to come.
Some would complain about the amount of snowballs to the face, others would claim adding a melting charm to the snowballs to disintegrate the structural integrity of the forts (Jen's idea, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes had got her creative juices flowing) was a clear violation of the rules, but in the end it was Bee who claimed the boy's icy trophy from within their fort after blasting Corey through the wall, and 'won' the game.
As she ran out of the icy snow dome trophy lifted above her head in victory and breathless with laughter, Greg watched affectionately from behind his battlement.
He smiled, almost wistfully, at her joy, wishing he could bottle it for her - breathless laughter and triumphant victory and the happiness of being surrounded by friends - it would be the most perfect potion he could ever brew.