"Hermione!"
Hermione was greeted upon her return to King's Cross by Neville hurrying towards her, beaming. Hermione returned his smile.
"Neville. Did you have a happy Christmas?" she asked.
"Look!"
He thrust a small box toward her, which held three small plants. He looked at her for approval, grinning.
"I'm growing them," he told her proudly. "They're doing well, even in the winter, and I'm excited to see what will happen to them, being around so much magic now! I read some about them – the aloe one is supposed to be what Muggles use to cure burns. I wonder if it'll be even better with magic infused in it, but we'll have to see."
She followed him onto the train as he told her more about his plants. To her surprise, they were joined by Daphne and Blaise, just as the train started to lurch away. Neville's eyes went wide, and Hermione hid her laugh. Daphne was all done up, hair curled and pinned with makeup and all, and she looked very pretty. Daphne was looking directly at Neville, a smile growing on her face.
"Hermione," Daphne purred. "You've never introduced me to your friend."
Hermione's eyes went wide. Daphne presuming that Hermione had the status to introduce a peer to another peer was quite the compliment, in pureblood society. Though caught off-guard, Hermione smoothly stood, mentally thanking the snooty etiquette guide she had read.
"Neville, may I present my dear friend Miss Daphne Greengrass?" Hermione said, gesturing. "Daphne, this is Neville Longbottom."
"A pleasure," Daphne said, fluttering her eyelashes at Neville.
Neville, to his credit, managed to kiss the back of Daphne's hand, though he went red.
"The pleasure is mine, Miss Greengrass," he managed to get out, and Daphne beamed at him.
"Just Daphne is fine. What are you working on?"
Neville relaxed in the face of a new audience and began talking to Daphne animatedly about Herbology. Daphne seemed to be keeping up, and she kept asking questions, though she fluttered her eyelashes every time she did so. Rolling her eyes and smiling, Hermione sat down and turned to Blaise, who looked just as amused as she.
"He's Heir to a Noble House," Blaise said quietly, smirking. "I suspect Daphne got a lecture about doing her duties to her House over the break, and how she needs to start attracting favorable matches."
Hermione stifled a laugh. "I'm glad I avoided that one, then. I had a good Christmas, free of pressures like that. How was your holiday?"
"It was excellent." Blaise grinned at her. "Did you like your gift?"
"I… didn't understand it, to be honest," Hermione admitted. Blaise laughed.
"I suspected as much." His eyes gleamed. "Do you have it still?"
Obligingly, Hermione opened her trunk, making the compartment quite cramped for a moment while she searched through her things and withdrew it, quickly putting everything else away. She sat down with it on her lap.
"You go first," he told her.
Hermione rolled her eyes and moved a while pawn forward.
To her astonishment, a long moment later, one of the black pawns moved forward as well. Her eyes dashed up to meet his, and he grinned, withdrawing another chess board of his own.
"They're linked," he told her. "When you make a move on your board, it shows up on mine, and when I move on mine, it shows up on yours."
Hermione stared. She moved another pawn forward, and it moved on Blaise's. Blaise's returning capture was echoed on her own board, and Hermione couldn't suppress a noise of excitement.
"I got a shrinking charm applied to them," Blaise told her, "so you can keep this one small on your lap and play Weasley. If you echo the moves I make against you against him, it'll look like you're playing him, but I'll actually be playing him."
Hermione was grinning so hard her face hurt.
"I could hug you right now, Blaise," she told him, and he laughed.
"Save that for when we're in private," he told her, winking, and Hermione laughed. He put his chessboard away. "Now, anyway – explain to me the rules with this game with all the rocks?"
The evening of the return from Christmas break was before term officially started. Everyone had spent the afternoon settling back into their dorms and chatting about their Christmas gifts. The few people who had stayed at the school over the break were in their uniforms, but most of the students were out of uniform in casual robes, mostly black.
When a second-year boy ran inside, announcing that there was a snowball fight outside, and that the Slytherins needed help, the first years all ran from their common room to their dorms, hurrying to put on their cloaks and gloves. Hermione paused at her wardrobe, immediately seeing the opportunity, and as a smile spread across her face, she wondered just who had started this intra-house snowball fight.
She was only a moment after the rest of the Slytherins out the door, and they immediately dove behind the scanty cover that a few third years had managed. It seemed like Gryffindor and Ravenclaw had been already fighting for a while, judging from their battlements, and that Hufflepuff and Slytherin had unexpectedly been drawn into the fight.
The Slytherin snow fort was awful – just a giant lump of snow attached to a tree trunk to duck behind. Did wizards not know how to have a proper snowball fight?
Hermione stood from her place, looking around, and began snapping out orders.
"Pansy, Goyle, start rolling a giant snowball like you're making a snowman. Daphne, Crabbe, do the same on the other side. And Tracey, Millie, make a third. Get them back here as quick as you can. Theo, can you make snowballs?
Theo grinned and set about making a stockpile of snowballs. Tracey, Millie, Daphne, Crabbe, and Goyle immediately obeyed her orders, starting to push snow around, and, with a scowl shot her way, even Pansy joined in, helping to keep Goyle's snow pile from getting too messy or not round. Hermione was surprised to see Pansy outside participating at all, actually. She supposed Pansy might have just been swept up in the excitement by the others.
Some of the third years caught on, seeing the idea behind Hermione's commands. One of the third years echoed her orders, and soon, there were several large snowballs around the original fortification. At Hermione's instruction, they were ordered next to each other, loose snow packed between them. Hermione took the next set and levitated them on top of the original set, stacking them fairly high, before giving the order to secure them with more snow and carve out merlons atop the snow, telling others to bring back yet more giant snowballs to make the sides of the fort.
Having done that, Hermione slumped down against the snow embankment, dizzy. A third year came over, looking down at her, but he looked impressed.
"That was a lot of snow you levitated," he said, crouching down. "Snow isn't light."
"I'm well aware," Hermione panted. "Hence, the exhaustion."
She gestured to herself, and the boy laughed.
"You're… what, a 2nd year?" Hermione shook her head, and the boy's eyes widened. "You're a 1st year? Nice. That's impressive magic."
"Do you know a spell to carve a brick pattern into the wall?" Hermione asked him, changing the topic. "The more intimidating our snow fort looks, the better."
The boy grinned and hauled her to her feet. Hermione slipped a little, before stabilizing.
"I don't, but I know who will," he told her. "I'm Adrian Pucey, by the way."
"Hermione Granger," she told him, and he nodded and ran away.
Hermione took a few deep breaths and analyzed the situation. The Slytherin fort was directly across from the Gryffindor fort, which seemed to be a very large heap of snow that they ducked behind. To their right was the Ravenclaw fort, which was a large wall of snow built between two trees. It left them vulnerable to attacks from the side but provided a fairly good defense from the front. The Hufflepuffs were a distance away on their left, and they didn't have much of a fort yet – they seemed to try to be expanding off a snowman that they were currently ducking behind. Most of them didn't seem to care and were laughing and hurling snowballs willy-nilly, which made Hermione grin.
Turning inward, Hermione tried to feel her power reserves to see if she'd exhausted herself. To her surprise, she hadn't used nearly as much power as she thought she had – either that, or it was regenerating quickly. She'd never checked to see if power came back quickly – she'd always just gone to sleep after draining herself.
The air elemental that was part of her was there too, dancing. Hermione could feel it playing in the power inside of her. She looked at the Gryffindors, who were launching a direct assault against the Slytherins, taking advantage of their preoccupation with defense, and an idea occurred. She hadn't had much luck with this spell yet (it was a 3rd year spell), but maybe this time…
She whipped her wand towards the snow in the middle of the field before them, between her and the Gryffindors. "Ventus!"
Immediately, the spell was different. Instead of a weak gust of wind, there was a sense of glee running through her and escaping through her wand, and a gale of wind blew up, blowing the loose snow up in front of the Gryffindors' faces in a localized blizzard. The Gryffindors yelled and ran back, hiding behind their embankment or fleeing in the face of the snow, and Hermione laughed aloud, the thrill of the spell coursing through her.
Gradually she ended the spell, feeling for her magic as she did. The air elemental inside her was dancing with joy, and she could almost feel it spinning her magic out of her into the charm. As she consciously pulled back her energy, as if lowering something she was levitating, the air elemental sent out less and less.
When the spell was finished, Hermione looked upon her work and burst out laughing. The Gryffindors were all snow-encrusted and looked like abominable snowmen. The Weasley twins let out a roar and immediately unleashed a torrent of snowballs at her, and she shrieked and ducked down behind the Slytherin snow castle, still laughing.
Blaise was laughing next to her, grinning as he quickly made more snowballs. It seemed that the Slytherin Chasers were the ones throwing them – they had the best aim of the group.
"That was incredible!" he told her. "I've never seen someone do that before!"
"That was impressive magic," Pucey told her, emerging from the side of the rapidly-growing fort. "I didn't think Ventus could do that."
He grinned at her, and she grinned back, pleased, before remembering herself and standing up again, taking evaluation of the fort.
"We need taller walls on the sides," she directed Crabbe and Goyle, who were returning with more snowballs. "Stack them on top of each other and join them to the rest of the fort. Who's been shaving the sides?"
"Me." Draco Malfoy emerged from seemingly nowhere, catching Hermione off-guard.
"Ah – good. Let's get these side walls done as quick as we can. I've got an idea for solidifying it, but it'd be better if we have a solid three walls before we try it."
"Got it." Draco nodded at her and turned to do just that.
"Oi, Granger!"
Distracted, Hermione looked to the side. She ducked to dodge a snowball and stood again, only to see Anthony Goldstein standing at the side of the Ravenclaw encampment, grinning. Even from this distance, she could see the mischievous spark in his eyes.
Hermione smirked.
She knew what he was about.
"Goldstein," Hermione returned. She smirked widely. "Nice fort."
It was a lie. The Ravenclaws' wall was thicker now, with slits to throw through, but it was still just a wall.
Anthony grinned at the barb.
"Nice cape," he tossed back. "Give us a twirl?"
Laughing, Hermione twirled, her cape spinning out from her slightly.
"It's very warm," she said, smiling.
"I'd say wearing that's almost cheating," Anthony accused playfully, his voice loud enough to carry. "It's got an Impervius Charm woven into it. Can the snow even touch you?"
Hermione laughed. "If it can't, it's your fault!"
She threw a snowball at him, and Anthony laughed and ducked, and the fight was back on.
Hermione quickly ducked back behind the wall of snow that was quickly becoming a solid fortification as the Ravenclaws turned their assault toward the Slytherins. Her eyes scanned around for the oldest boys she could find. She settled for Adrian and his friend, who were carving out the top of the left side of the fort.
"I have an idea," she said. "We need to go outside the fort for it to work, but it'll be great if we can do it."
She quickly explained her thought. Adrian's smile grew, while his friend looked thoughtful.
"We'll need a guard to protect us while we do it," he said.
"Not a problem," Adrian said promptly. He turned. "Flint!"
A large boy bounded over, panting. He looked much older than most of the students playing.
"What?" he demanded.
"We need you to do a single-man assault with the snow outside the fort as we slowly go across the front and freeze it to solid ice," Adrian told him. "Do you think you can do that?"
Marcus gave him a look, before grinning. It was a frightening grin, with pointed teeth and a malicious-looking snaggletooth – a grin her parents would have had conniptions at.
"Let's do it," he said. "It's only snow."
It was with great delicacy that they began their mission, starting on the Hufflepuff side of the fort, where the smallest threat was present. The boy Hermione didn't know would cast a water spell, followed nearly immediately by Adrian casting a freezing spell, and the snow on the outside of the fort would freeze to ice. Hermione stood behind them, holding her cape up as a shield, while Marcus roared in front of them, loosing snowballs at anyone that targeted them.
They fell into a rhythm quickly, cast-freeze, cast-freeze. Hermione was pleased to see that the brick pattern Draco had set into the fort froze into it as well, making the fort even more impressive. It looked like an actual fort.
The Gryffindor side was challenging, and Marcus never stopped hurling snowballs the entire time, calling for backup from the fort several times. They made it across, though, and finished up on the Ravenclaw side, where the Ravenclaws immediately realized what they were doing.
"Why bother?" Terry Boot yelled out to her, as Hermione was dusting herself off. "If you keep it made of snow, it only gets stronger as more snowballs hit it."
Hermione tossed her hair, though it was admittedly very damp at this point.
"Slytherins take pride in appearance," she told them with a smirk. "Did you think we'd be satisfied with anything less than a castle?"
With the fort complete, all the Slytherins were able to focus on making snowballs and throwing them. Some of the older students began jinxing theirs to turn to ice and hurled them at the others' forts, deliberately trying to crack and weaken them.
Hermione stood in the back, trying to catch her breath from all the excitement. She patted her flushed cheeks with her cold gloved hands, marveling that it was an odd experience to feel so cold and yet so hot at the very same time.
As she turned to return to the battle, she paused, her gaze catching Draco's.
He was staring at her, his face a mask of stone.
Hermione blinked, before turning, only to meet Blaise's considering gaze and Theo's intense one. As she glanced around, Pansy, Tracey, and Daphne were all casting her looks as well.
Hermione bit her lip and hid her discomfort, quickly returning to helping the others demolish the Gryffindor fort.