Snow on a Saturday

Chapter Nine

"Come on! Come on! Wake-up already!" Emma shouted at Angelina. "It's snowing."

Angelina lifted one sleep laden eyelid to glare up at Emma. She tried to look threatening, but it came off looking like she was just having a hard time going to the bathroom.

"What do you want," She grunted, rolling over on her side, away from the chilly air pouring in from her open curtain. Just because she was friends with the girl didn't mean she wanted to be woken up early on a Saturday morning.

"It's snowing!" Emma squealed again, in an even higher octave than earlier – if that was possible.

"Yes, I believe you mentioned that before," Angelina retorted. "I still fail to see what it has to do with me being woken up, at . . ." Here Angelina glanced through the dim grey light of the room to the grandfather-clock. "Five-thirty!" She hissed menacingly at Emma, sitting up groggily and reaching for where her wand lay on her nightstand.

However, it wasn't there. Angelina looked confusedly around at Emma, to see her grinning cheekily back.

"Give it back," Angelina snapped, thrusting her downy covers off her and standing up.

"I don't have it - not on me. Come on, we're going sledding!" Emma shouted exuberantly, unfazed by Angelina's glare.

Without warning, Angelina launched herself at Emma, sending the two girls toppling to the ground. There they thrashed, as Angelina tried to pin down Emma to search her for her wand.

"Will you two keep it down! Some of us are trying to sleep," came the snappish reply from behind one of the curtains.

"You see – I'm not the only one that doesn't care about the snow . . . now where did you put my wand," Angelina hissed, from on top of Emma, who was pinned to the ground.

"Get dressed. I'll show you," Emma whispered back resignedly.

It was only once Angelina was fully bundled up in full outdoor attire that Emma led the way out of the room and down to the common room. Here she handed Angelina her wand, which had been lying on the fireplace mantle.

"Alright, now let's go sledding – if we hurry we'll have the grounds all to ourselves."

"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. I am not going anywhere. You can go run around in the cold or whatever you want to do, but I'm going back up to bed." With that Angelina turned on her heels and headed upstairs. However, when she reached her room it was locked. Her roommates had decided they wanted a little piece and quiet.

"Alhohamora," she whispered at the lock. Nothing happened. She thought for a second before realizing she didn't know any other spells to unlock a door. Angelina frowned Alhohamora had never failed her before, and now she couldn't get back to her bed. Or back to her books to research other opening spells.

Upset, Angelina stormed down stairs to glare at Emma, who was still standing by the couch.

"I'll just have you know I was planning on researching invisibility today, but thanks to you and your noisiness at ungodly hours of the morning, my books and bed are locked away from me."

"Oh, come on Angelina. It's Saturday – "

"Exactly, I should get to sleep in and read in the library. Not freeze to death in a blizzard."

"You can't do homework today! It's snowing. Anyway, we don't do invisibility 'til much later. That's not even homework."

"Your point being?"

"Come on. Let's have some fun. Later, we can even bewitch some snowballs to follow Edgecombe and her gang around," Emma cajoled, referring to the other Ravenclaw first year girls that had locked the door.

"Alright, but it's only because I don't trust you to do the charm properly," Angelina relented grudgingly.

"Whatever. Let's go."

With that Emma, giggling annoyingly with glee, pranced happily over to the portrait hole.

"It rarely snows in Forest Row," Emma commented, referring to the small town in East Sussex where she and her mother and step-father live. "But I love it. And when it does . . ." Here she paused dreamily, sighing contentedly as she hugged herself. "Chip takes me sledding. Mum makes us hot chocolate – she doesn't like the cold. It never snows in California. That's where she's from. It's in America."

"I know that. How long has she lived in England?"

"Oh, a while. She came over to do a film."

"A what?"

"Oh, it's a muggle thing that – "

"Really, Emma why would I want to know about muggles."

"Anyway, Chip's English. So she stayed."

Chip was Emma's stepfather. She never talked about her father, but Angelina didn't pry. Emma never asked about Angelina's mother, and Angelina repaid the courtesy by doing the same with Emma's father.

Trying to steer the conversation to more comfortable topics as they walked down the stairs to the great hall Angelina asked, "Are you English then?"

"I was born here."

Angelina turned to enter the Great Hall, but Emma stopped her. "Come on I have something to show you."

"We're not eating?" Angelina questioned.

"No of course we are. It's the most important meal of the day!" But she refused to say any more, not that Angelina would beg.

They made their way downward until they reached a corridor lined with picture of fruit. Here Emma paused, inspecting the paintings.

"Now, when we get in you have to distract them. Ask for food or something. I don't know. We might need something more dramatic. Do you think you could pretend to faint?"

Angelina looked in confusion at Emma. "Distract who? It's just us."

"Well, when I turn this pear, we are going to be standing in the kitchens."

"Why are we going there instead of the Great Hall?"

"We need sleds, of course."

"And the kitchen has sleds?"

Angelina was getting more confused by the minute.

"Baking sheets."

"What?"

But before Angelina could ask anymore questions Emma was leaning forward, tickling a pear from the painting in front of them. Even more surprisingly the pear turned into a handle that Emma deafly turned to reveal the kitchen and hundreds of elves staring up at them.

It didn't take much acting for Angelina to collapse on the floor.