A Saturday dawn with a fresh blanket of snow and Harrie woke up Hermione with cold finger tips against her bed warmed side.
"OH you horrible, horrible bitch Harelayna!" Hermione screamed as she tried and failed to get away from Harries icy fingers
"Wakey wakey" Harrie giggled as she followed her friend across the bed until Hermione made it clear of the covers and stood glaring at her. Harrie threw a pile of clothes from the end of Hermione's bed at her.
"Why do you even have this tradition? It's barbaric and childish!" Hermione huffed as she started getting dressed for the day. Harrie smiled broadly as she copied her friends' actions. Ever since their first year as friends Harrie had always woken Hermione up with icy cold fingers on the first heavy snow fall of the year.
"Hurry up, we have to get Ron before he gets up too!" Harrie said flinging her blue coat on and shoving her feet into her trainers.
"My hands are warming up, cast a cooling charm on them for me" Harrie shoved her fingers in Hermione's face, and was happy to feel the cold radiating from her hands at the wave of Hermione's wand.
The two girls quietly opened the door and tip toed over to the bed that the knew to be Ron's. Dean was already up and shook his head at the goofy smile Harrie gave him, Deep Fall had struck again.
Harrie gave Hermione the signal and the both pounced on the sleeping red head.
"FUCKKKKKK! Get off me! You evil fucking harpies" Ron bellowed as he was attacked on both sides
Ron suddenly lunged forwards and grabbed hold of Hermione, successfully causing her to lose balance and get pulled under the covers with the him. Harrie laughed and backed away from the bed, turning her eyes on the figure peering through the heavy hangings around his bed
"No Harrie! Get away from me!" Neville cried pulling his blanket up over his head when he caught sight of her twinkling green eyes and trying to hide from her, having none of that Harrie pulled the covers out at the foot of the bed and started tickling Neville's warm feet and lower legs. She jumped on her knees onto the bed, following the wriggling body and tickling it imperiously.
Neville was laughing and struggling to get away at the same time "Stop please! I give up!" He cried between laughs then Harrie felt something hard and BIG brush against her in the struggle and she froze, her mouth dropped open just as Neville's face went beet red and he moved to the edge of the bed facing away from everyone his head in his hands. Harrie didn't know what to say as she fell back onto her arse and sat awkwardly not knowing whether to apologize or not but being very grateful for the volume of Hermione's and Ron's playing fighting so that Neville didn't have an additional audience.
"Harrie…sorry…It's the morning and you were…I've…You…sorry"
"No don't be, its my fault. I'm sorry. You're really big!" She added then put her hand over her mouth in horror, why the fuck did she say that?
Neville looked at her aghast then they both started laughing
"Um thanks I guess?" He said. Harrie shook her head and gave him a nudge with her sneakered foot. "Think of Professor McGonagall naked" She said wriggling her eyebrows
"I'd rather think of you naked" Neville blurted and then seemed to become aware of what he had just said and stood abruptly and promptly disappeared into the bathroom, the heavy door all but slamming shut behind him.
"Harrie what did you say to upset him?" Hermione said looking up from the bed clothes towards the noise.
"He umm… no I didn't say anything" Harrie didn't really know what she could say but she certainly didn't want to confess to what happened.
"He's got the hots for you" Ron's voice called out from somewhere underneath Hermione
"What? No, he doesn't!" Harrie said her face a wash with shock and denial.
"Yeah he has, for years chick" Dean added, having obviously decided to add fuel to this fire.
"Face it Harrie, you have always been the coolest chick Neville has ever been up close to" Seamus muttered turning over in his bed to add his two cents.
"Whatever" Harrie mumbled darkly even as she cast a worried glance towards the still shut bathroom door. If that was true why hadn't he ever said anything to her? Shame really, he was quite hot, and she certainly wouldn't mind seeing his…basilisk. God Harrie you are such a whore, she said to herself as she climbed of the bed, being insane grateful no one hear could read minds. She narrowed her eyes at the look on Seamus's face but relaxed when he threw his hands up in obvious surrender.
"Breakfast is calling us children" Hermione said with as much dignity as one could have when they were trying to exit a bed whilst being held prisoner by an amorous boyfriend.
After a fun filled, awkward arse breakfast, with Neville refusing to look up and Dean mouthing "He has it bad" at Harrie, she was beyond relieved when Hermione, Ron and her were just making a detour to the library (Hermione's idea) before heading into Hogsmeade when they were approached by a Slytherin boy Harrie didn't think she had ever spoken to despite being in his year since their sorting. Tall, painfully thin, dark and brooding Theodore Nott stood awkwardly in front of them. "Potter may I have a word?"
Recovering from her shock Harrie replied hurriedly to make up for her mind blank "Yeah of course"
"Alone" Nott said pointedly looking between the other members of Harries group. Now, some would say it was foolish, but others would say an act of trust that spoke volumes and by the looks on her friends faces she knew what one was thinking what, Harrie nodded and stepped away from her friends towards the Slytherin.
Nott waited till her friends and slowly walked away before saying, rather quickly and without seeming to breathe "You a no doubt aware that my Father was a death eater and because of his…behavior, all his assets were stripped and confiscated."
Harrie let out a resigned breath and rubbed her forehead, trying to keep from making eye contact. Why did people always think she could fix everything? She focused back on what Nott was saying.
"I now find myself with nowhere to go, hence me being here as I am now alone in the world. I am asking if you would be willing to speak on behalf of myself to have some of what was taken returned to me" He finished with all the poise he had breed into him, even if his eyes were glassy with unshed tears at having to ask for help of someone he had never particularly liked and had at times hoped would fail.
"You would have to speak to someone at the Ministry" Harrie finally said and felt horrible at the look of panic filled dread that flashed across Notts face.
"I have tired multiple times and as soon as they hear my name. The conversation ends. Please? I am truly destitute" He pleaded in desperation.
"Look Nott, I am the wrong person to be asking" This was too much for Harrie to deal with, she was just a teenager for goodness sake, one that just wanted to be normal for once.
"You are Harrie fucking Potter!" He all but snarled in her face, breaking his veneer of calm he had been trying to maintain "You got the Malfoys cleared, they lost nothing at all! Why can't you help me?"
"It didn't work like that. I could just vouch for some stuff they did before the end, they had already changed sides" Harrie said trying to stay calm, this was not the first time someone had asked for the 'chosen one' to solve a problem that wasn't in her power to solve. Dying for everyone she could do, getting the ministry to release funds was something else "It's a Wizengamot decision"
"I was never on his side" He hissed, he was starting to look like he was going to cry or maybe curse her. Harrie didn't know what else she could say and she was desperately wishing that Ron and Hermione would come back and help her, she was never good with emotional displays and she couldn't see how she could help in this situation. She knew nothing about this man or his family or what they had done in the past, sure she was the figure head and all but that didn't mean she actually read the court transcripts or anything. Where was Hermione when she needed her!
"I can try but I honestly don't think it will work" She finally replied, trying and failing to come up with an argument that could get her out of this. Problem solving was not her thing.
"Try is all I am asking you to do" He said with relief, he straightened up, and ran a hand down the side of his head, smoothing his hair down and giving her a nod "Thank you Potter" he bowed he head politely before walking with his head held high down the corridor.
Harrie sighed and walked on towards the library. Once there she filled her friends on what Nott had wanted.
"I sympathize of course, but honestly what does he think you can do?" Hermione said barely looking up from the gigantic reference book she was looking through,
Ron nodded "Yeah, apart from feeling sorry for the bloke, does he think the ministry just do whatever you say?"
"I said I would ask about it," Harrie groaned and thumped her head against a book shelf "I didn't die for this shit!" Ron snorted and Hermione just shook her head.
"Well I can help you pen a letter if you want. Kingsley is a decent man and he likes you. Though honestly knowing what his father did…" Hermione trailed off giving Harrie a commiserating pat on the shoulder as she budged past lugging the book back to its correct shelf.
"It's not a minister decision, they have that new committee. The one they 'purged'" Ron said with a dramatic eyebrow wriggle in Harries direction.
Harrie laughed thinking about it "Fucking eh! Wish I had seen that toad get sentenced, would have made my year" Shortly after war, as in the same week, Kingsley as the new minister had had all employees and wizengamot members questioned under truth potions and anyone who failed was removed or in Umbridge's case sentenced for crimes against children, creatures and muggle borns had her wand snapped and placed in indefinite imprisonment. She wasn't going to write that letter today anyway, Nott can wait till Harrie (more like Hermione) had written something suitable to send to Kingsley. Did that make her a horrible person? Harrie wondered to herself, to not want to drop everything and help someone?
Ron distracted her by throwing a quill nib at her that he had found in his pocket, her seeker skills had her catching it before it hit her in the forehead and she threw it back and it hit Ron's forehead and she had to bite her lip from laughing, Hermione just tutted at their antics when Ron hastily picked the nib off the floor and threw it back at Harrie, missing when she dodged
"Yay, you're finished!" Harrie looking hopeful cried when she saw Hermione with empty arms
"Not yet I still need to check…" But Hermione never finished because Ron interrupted "No! no more bloody books Hermione, put that down and let's go" and bending down, he picked Hermione up into a fireman's carry and ignoring her yells jogged with his prize out of the library with Harrie following laughing and dodging the death glare that Madam Pince was sending their way.