Here's the first chapter! Alright, after writing this, I realised that at this rate, it might just go beyond three chapters. It still wouldn't reach the 10k length, though, at least, I don't think it would. Let me know what you think!

Chapter 1

"Bugger it all," Tonks muttered, as she trudged slowly across the stretch of snow and ice in search of somewhere inhabitable, a shelter of sorts that she could stay for one night at. This wasteland was cold and freezing and absolutely not where she had envisioned she would be spending Christmas eve at.

She had hoped to wrap up the case before Christmas so she could go home, but some complications had delayed them by a day and now… Now she would be lucky to get home before New Year. At this rate, she would probably still be stuck in the middle of the arctic desert even after New Year. North Pole, South Pole, Antarctic, Arctic… She had no idea which one she was in.

Almost absentmindedly, she found herself glancing up at the sky and wishing to the twilight star that she could get home in time. Then she forced herself to look back down and around her. Wishes made to the star never came true. But...

She had almost given hopes of finding a shelter for the night and was resigned to sleeping on the snow when she spotted a towering structure in the distance, half sheltered by some mountains. Seeing a little hope, she picked up her pace and started running towards the strange building. She did not question why, she was just grateful that there was likely going to be someone there, and people were always good news.

Right?

North had had enough of Jack Frost. It was Christmas Eve, and Jack Frost was putting bumps all over the place in his road, and he was running out of patience to deal with it.

First it was the frozen stairways and pulleys. Then it was the disappearing toys. Then the elves decided to get involved and destroyed one whole section of toys. Then the elves decide to help make up for their troubles. They had good intentions, but they were getting underfoot and in the way of everyone. Then North had to rescue them from the fairy lights they get themselves tangled in.

On top of that, Jack's was everywhere. Even after Phil threw him out again, and locked him out so they could restore some state of semblance, it was still a cacophony of, well, everything. Makes sense that even when he was gone, he would still leave the trail of chaos in his wake.

Of course, that was around the time that Bunnymund showed up. On normal days, North would have welcomed him, the moon knows that they needed more bonding time, but right now? Right now, he was sorely tempted to kick him out of his factory. Jack had already made a mess of everything, he cannot afford any distractions at all. He needed to focus completely on his work in restoring the order and make Christmas magical for children all around the world.

Then someone knocked on his back door. The one Phil threw Jack out of. North was trying to untangle the fairy lights tangled on the doorknob when he heard the knocks, and ignored them. It helps that even though Bunnymund was helping him, he was also giving him a nonstop running commentary as to why this proves that Easter was better than Christmas. The commentary was annoying, but at least he could tune it out easily.

Both of them got a rather nasty shock when the door was literally blasted off its hinges. They got an even bigger shock when they discovered that Jack was not the one responsible for the destroyed door - the woman with bubblegum pink hair standing at the door, holding a stick, with Jack was hovering warily behind was proof enough.

A sharp gust of wind blew Tonks off her feet as she tried to decide whether she should use a spell to speed up her journey, causing her to land a few feet back. Instinctively, she drew her wand.

There was no one around, though. Even if Tonks would swear that she could almost hear someone laughing. "It's just a particularly strong gust of wind," she told herself. "There's no one else here. Not in the middle of a godforsaken place like this."

She had just taken a few steps forward when the gust of wind bowled her over again, this time from the back. Scrambling to get up, she pointed her wand at the mound of snow standing at where she was before. There, there was the laughter again. It faded when she tried to listen for it.

It occurred to her then that whoever it was seemed to like laughing, so if she startled a laugh out of him or her, she could try to locate the person and pin them down. Especially since she could hear them, but not see them. 'Invisibility cloak?' she wondered. Except that there was no footprints. And she did not know what entertains the mysterious viewer there. She was not going to make a fool of herself for the sake of this.

Out of frustration, she turned her hair bubblegum pink, as she was prone to do when she wanted to think. To her surprise, the laughter sounded again. It was somewhere to her left. She leapt for it, shouting, "Got you!"

And tripped on her foot. She closed her eyes, waiting for the impact. It never came. Opening her eyes, she realised that she was suspended there, as if someone had caught her. The gust of wind passed under her, sweeping her up and forward, startling her.

"Woah, if you want to give me a ride, at least let me know that you were going to do so!" she yelled, trying to hold on and failing to find a handhold as the...air she was riding on picked up speed. "Slow down!" she practically screamed. The wind ignored her.

After a while, as the initial shock wore down, adrenaline pumped through her veins and she started enjoying the feeling of going a few hundred miles an hour on thin air, without even a broomstick. The cold, brittle wind against her cheeks bit into her, but they rushed by so quickly that they barely registered. Everything seemed to blur together.

She was dumped on the snow rather unceremoniously, landing in a heap as the wind came to an abrupt stop in front of a factory. After staring at the door for a while, she realised that this was the structure she had tried to get to. She got up looked around. There still was no one around. Tonks cleared her throat, then paused awkwardly, facing nothing. "So… um… whoever you are, wherever you are, thanks for the ride… and… uh… I wouldn't mind knowing who you are…" she trailed off. There was no reply, except for a breeze across her cheeks. There was a sudden chill on her nose.

She turned to look at the door. There was no doorbell, or knocker. There was not even a doorknob. Truthfully, the only reason she could tell that it was a door was because there was an outline and the snow in front of it was swept aside, as if someone had opened the door. There was also a few footprints, although she could not tell what they belonged to. They were too big to be another human being's.

Gathering up her courage, she walked up to the door and knocked on it. No one answered. She knocked again, louder, and there was still no reply. She kept trying, but no one ever answered the door, and the sun has set. She sat down in front of the door and stared at it. Then she slowly got angry. It was dark and cold out here, and she was hungry, damnit, so why wouldn't this person open the door? There was definitely someone living in there, someone had to have opened the door and walked around, even if that someone was a something. It was Christmas Eve, she wanted to go home and spend the time with her family, not here in the middle of a wasteland starving and freezing! Getting up, she marched up to the door once more and knocked loudly. No one answered, as she was expecting.

Exhaling, she took a few steps backwards, drew her wand and muttered, "Reducto!"

The door was blasted off its hinges, leaving her with a grim sense of satisfaction. 'At least I would have somewhere to stay,' she thought, 'if not something to eat.'

Then she realised that someone was actually standing there. The surprise had her blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

The first thing the bubblegum hair woman said was, "Why would someone willingly live in the middle of this freezing wasteland?"

North could practically see the headache building up even before Bunnymund joined the conversation with an enthusiastic "That's exactly the point I've been trying to make for the past few centuries! I don't know her name and I already like her!"

Closing his eyes, he pinched his nose. "Focus, we are here on an important meeting to discuss strat-" he was cut off by the woman, who was staring at Bunnymund as if she had never seen the likes of him before.

"Why is there a talking kangaroo in the middle of what I suspect is the Antarctic?"