Chapter 11 – Snowman

I want you to know that I'm never leaving
You are my home—my home for all seasons

Let's go below zero and hide from the sun
I'll love you forever so let's have some fun

Melinda had not seen Ebony appear so genuinely happy in such an incredibly long time. Even though she had kept a respectful distance the entire day, she had observed her from afar, and it had truly warmed her heart—to see the light in her daughter's eyes again. To see the undeniable look of pure happiness adorn her young face.

Bobbin only wished Ebony would look like that for being in anybody's company other than James. Not because of James, but because she wanted her to be that happy all the time. What was it about him, and only him, that could coax out that side of her?

She had observed, with great amusement, the students (both current and former) engaged in a huge snowball fight outside The Three Broomsticks, and felt incredibly reassured that she had been able to pull off the last-minute Hogsmeade visit. It had not been only for Ebony's benefit, but for them all—or so she assured herself. And even if it had been motivated by her willingness to appease Ebony, Bobbin could see how much it had meant to and benefited all the students who had visited.

But now, the time had come for them to return to the castle, dinner time rapidly approaching, and she felt immense anticipation at breaking the news. She had been careful to avoid Ebony for the visit, allowing her the time she so craved with James, and Bobbin was unsure about how she would react when her mother approached her. Would she be in high spirits because of James, and be a lot kinder and warmer to her mother? Or would Bobbin only be abruptly halting that sense of joy and upset her even more so?

James spotted Bobbin approaching before Ebony did, and his face positively lit up with glee. Bobbin was instantly suspicious. And then she realised why.

"Do not even think about it," she told him with playful authority, eyeing the huge snowball he held in his hand, ready for its next target.

James tossed it into the air and caught it in the same hand with ease. Ebony, who was by James' side, naturally, had looked up at the sound of her mother's voice, and Bobbin couldn't be sure whether she looked pleased or annoyed to see her. Her expressions had always been unreadable to the Headmistress.

"What would be the repercussions if I did?" James asked in that mischievous voice he often adopted when taunting the woman.

"Do you really want to find out?" Bobbin asked, eyebrows raised.

James was now using his wand to levitate the snowball in the air, twirling it around with graceful skill, taunting her further. "You're not my headmistress anymore," he reminded her, delighted with himself.

"No," Bobbin agreed. "But I am your mother-in-law—and that should scare you a lot more."

James was so surprised that he almost dropped the snowball, but he recovered it quickly before it touched the ground. "Wow," he said. "I think that's the first time you've ever actually admitted it."

Bobbin frowned—was that really true? Had she never actually acknowledged the validity of James and Ebony's marriage in such a way that she'd openly referred to James as her son-in-law?

"Not without sarcasm anyway," James teased.

She supposed she hadn't. But it was probably time. No matter how much she'd hoped they'd realised they'd made an impulsive, hasty decision and undo the legality of their commitment, it was clear the teenagers had no such desire to do so. Like it or not, Bobbin had to accept that they really were married—just as seriously as she and Cepheus were.

It was then that Bobbin noticed the look on Ebony's face. She looked so genuinely happy, shyly smiling as she looked between both her mother and her husband. With Cepheus by her side, Bobbin felt like maybe, for the first time, it was like they were a real family.

But now the hard part came.

"It's, ah, it's time to return to the castle," she told Ebony, hoping the girl could sense how truly apologetic she felt.

Ebony's smile instantly dropped, and Bobbin braced herself. But Ebony didn't protest. Instead, she looked sadly at James. "Okay," she said in a small voice.

Bobbin cleared her throat. "I'll leave you to say your goodbyes."

As she and Roberts excused themselves to leave the teens to say goodbye to each other, Bobbin rested her head on her husband's shoulder and released a long-held sigh.

"It'll be okay," he assured her. "They'll be okay."

"I just want Ebony to be happy," Bobbin said quietly.

"She's being mature about it," Roberts said kindly. "They both are."

The snowball James had been levitating was suddenly sent hurtling over Bobbin's shoulder and straight into Albus Potter's face.

Bobbin just sighed again.

Once five minutes had passed and Ebony had still not approached her, Bobbin was worried she would have to physically extract the girl from James' side. But when she turned back to where the teenagers had been, Bobbin saw nothing but fallen snow. Oh, Merlin, they had run away. She should have known they'd do something stupid—she never should have trusted Ebony. Of course it had all been a ruse—just a manipulative plan to escape the school!

Bobbin looked around in a panic amongst the crowds of students and Weasleys—so many Weasleys—but she couldn't see Ebony anywhere.

"Ebony?" Bobbin called out weakly, walking away from Roberts to crane her neck around various people in search of a glimpse of long, black hair amidst the now-falling snow.

Taking Bobbin by surprise, it was Ginny Potter who offered the woman a reassuring smile, her long red hair just as vivid as her own daughter's. Bobbin had no doubt that she'd be granting Lily Potter the esteemed Head Girl position one day too.

"They're over there," Ginny assured the Head, noticing her evident distress.

Bobbin followed Ginny's eyeline and relaxed. And then immediately began blushing, averting her eyes once more.

James and Ebony had not run away, as she had initially worried, but had merely excused themselves to a more secluded part of the village to say goodbye to each other by way of their tongues.

"I really need to get the students back to the castle before the feast tonight," Bobbin mumbled awkwardly.

Ginny just grinned. "Well, I'm not going in there to pull them apart."

Bobbin smiled in response. "It would be nice if you could be the villainous mother for once."

"Oh, I very much am," Ginny sighed. "I wouldn't let James live in Hogsmeade," she confessed.

Bobbin's unspoken gratitude extended towards her fellow mother. She couldn't imagine how much worse it would be for the situation if James had relocated to just outside of the parameters of the school grounds.

Ginny turned her head towards Bobbin and offered a reassuring smile. Melinda had been in Ginny's year when they had both attended Hogwarts, but they had never really overlapped given the houses they were in and the company they'd separately kept. Bobbin had done all she could to separate herself from the likes of the Darkbrows, and the Greengrasses, and the Malfoys when she had been at the school. Her family had been a proud, pureblooded Slytherin family for generations, but they had never been tantalised by the dark arts in the way so many similar to them had.

The two women, now in their forties, had certainly both experienced fraught times at the school. Melinda had always been aware of the Weasleys, of course—everybody had been—and Ginny in particular, as the sole girl in their very noticeable family, a player on the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, and, of course, as the apple of Harry Potter's eye. But she doubted she had ever flashed up much on Ginny's radar. Though they had both briefly attended Professor Slughorn's elite 'Slug Club' when he had been the Potions Master in their fifth year, Bobbin recalled.

They had spent a lot of time overlapping over the summer since their children had decided to unite their families, and Bobbin wondered how she'd have felt if someone had told her that would be the case when she had been a teenager at school. That she would be forever inextricably linked to the Weasley family due to her daughter's marriage to a Potter seemed all kinds of laughable delusion. But, of course, it was now her reality.

"You're doing the right thing," Ginny assured Bobbin, perhaps sensing the woman was grappling with some kind of inner turmoil. "And it was really nice of you to arrange this for them."

"It was for all the students," Bobbin said quickly, aware she shouldn't show signs of favouritism to any student—even towards her own daughter.

The corner of Ginny's mouth quirked up. "Right."

Bobbin said nothing, hoping her face wouldn't betray her. "It, err, it was nice that you all came to the village too," she eventually said.

"Oh, it was Hermione's idea," Ginny said. "She took it the hardest that Rose wasn't coming home for Christmas, even though she knows why she chose not to and thinks it's a good idea—what they're doing."

"And how was James?" Bobbin dared to ask.

Ginny looked thoughtful, casting his mind back. "Remarkably mature," she said after a while. "Not at first," she recalled. "He got incredibly sulky—feeling very sorry for himself. But I think he eventually realised that it was a good idea, and that he would have done the same if he had still been at the school. He just… He struggles with being away from her," Ginny admitted almost apologetically.

Bobbin didn't doubt it—she saw exactly the same from Ebony every day too.

"I can't let him stay in the castle," Bobbin said weakly.

"Oh, no, I know," Ginny said quickly. "And you absolutely shouldn't. He needs to figure out who he is away from Hogwarts," she asserted. "At the moment, he just feels a bit lost, but it will be good for him ultimately. For both of them."

If Ginny could be this rational then why couldn't James, Bobbin thought sadly. It was comforting to know that she wasn't alone though. She was not the villain Ebony so often tried to paint her to be. She and Ginny—they were in the same boat. They were both mothers who wanted the best for their children, and, hopefully, one day said children would recognise and appreciate that.

"I was the same in my seventh year," Ginny admitted, her voice slightly hesitant, as though she wasn't sure she and Bobbin were close enough for her to confess what she might be about to. "After the war," she said delicately. "When Harry didn't come back to Hogwarts. It felt like we finally had all the time in the world to be together—after I hadn't seen or heard from him for almost the whole year. And we finally had that freedom to be happy and free of any external threat or pressure, but he didn't want to come back."

She looked sad as she recalled it, and Bobbin's curiosity was piqued. That had been a weird year for Bobbin too. Being a Slytherin at Hogwarts the year after the Battle was not a fun time, given the school's biased distrust for anyone from the house of the Snakes. Many of them had refused to fight in the battle and had fled, or else supported the side their families had—mainly that of the Death Eaters. Bobbin and her sisters had been pulled out of school by their parents months before the Battle had even taken place, but that hadn't mattered. In a way, a lot of them viewed this as the cowards's way out—they hadn't stayed to fight for the school, for the side of good.

Bobbin's parents had not been political. Her father had been a businessman, owning and operating their family apothecary, and her mother had been somewhat superficial. They had extracted their children from the school out of fear for their safety, and the family had gone into hiding, fearful the Death Eaters would be trying to round up and recruit as many pureblooded Slytherin families as possible. So in spite of the fact that the Bobbins had pledged allegiance to neither side, the students had not accepted their return to the castle with much warmth.

But Bobbin was intrigued to hear about what it had been like for Ginny. She knew Hermione, one third of the so-called Golden Trio had returned to the school, unaccompanied by her male counterparts. But, once again, Melinda Bobbin absolutely had not run in the same circles.

"That's why I can't really blame them," Ginny admitted sheepishly. "I think it's still insane that they got married when they were still both at school, but I can hardly condemn them when I married the guy I'd been with since I was fifteen."

Bobbin smiled warmly. She had never thought of it like that.

"I mean—we all did," Ginny laughed gently. "All my brothers married and had kids young. Well, besides Charlie, I suppose. But Teddy and Victoire have done the same. James hasn't really seen the alternative."

"It was different though," Bobbin countered. "Our generation—we felt like we had everything to lose. We were taught to cherish those we held close, to make impulses and commitments we feared we might not get a chance to if we waited."

Bobbin suddenly wondered if that had been part of why she herself had gotten married so young the first time around. She had felt a lot of her pressure from her mother and her sisters—all surrounding some dumb prophecy about how she would marry a Muggle man—but perhaps a part of her had always feared that she would not have the luxury of waiting until she was older to settle down. Well, she thought warmly, she had in the end, and she was better for it. Now in her forties, she finally had everything she'd ever truly wanted.

"Mhmm," Ginny agreed. "I did try to break the pattern set out by my brothers," she said with playful reminiscence. "It was Harry who always wanted to get married straight away—I wasn't as keen. I didn't see the need to rush."

Bobbin was intrigued once more. She didn't know the details of Ginny Potter's marriage, but she felt like they had gotten married around the same time as she'd been appointed Head of Hogwarts—their early twenties. "Really?" she asked, surprised.

"Oh, yeah," Ginny enthused. "Harry very much gave into that way of thinking. The idea that we could lose everything at any given moment, and there was no point delaying anything for fear it would get taken away—and I can't blame him. His parents were married practically straight out of Hogwarts for the same reasons, and I think he thought it was devastatingly romantic, but I wanted to actually live in the real world for a bit—I was trying to make a name for myself in Quidditch."

Ginny had played for the Holyhead Harpies, Bobbin recalled. But she had retired from the role young when she had, indeed, gotten married and started a family, instead starting a career as the Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet. Given everything she had just revealed about her attitudes towards marrying young, Bobbin was surprised by the decision.

"Ron and Hermione got married quickly," Ginny recalled fondly. "You'd have thought, given how long it took them to actually get together in the first place, it'd be another agonising string of years before Ron worked up the courage to propose."

Bobbin smiled along politely, even though she didn't really know them as well as Ginny clearly did. Everybody had known all about Harry, Ron, and Hermione at school, obviously, but Bobbin had only watched from afar.

"But he did," Ginny continued proudly. "And they didn't wait long—and then that pissed Harry off even more."

"So what changed?" Bobbin couldn't help but ask, absorbed in the tale.

Ginny's mouth curled into a smile. "James," she said simply.

"Ah," Bobbin snorted.

"Ah," Ginny agreed.

The two women laughed easily together, stood in the falling snow, and Bobbin almost forgot what they were doing there. She hadn't even thought about how, by adopting James into her family as her son-in-law, she was also gaining all of his family as her own too. Maybe, she thought excitedly, if Ebony still wanted her around, Bobbin and Roberts could actually spend Christmases together with the Potter-Weasley family too in the future.

"James!" Ginny suddenly barked, bringing Bobbin back to her current reality.

She turned her head to see what had caused the redheaded woman to react in such a way, and then rather wished she hadn't. James had now pressed Ebony up against the wall of the alley they were loitering in as they continued to kiss with urgent desire, his hands creeping far lower and in a way that no mother wanted to see her daughter be handled with.

It looked like it took James a great deal of effort to break away, but when he did, he threw an accusatory, deeply frustrated glare in his mother's direction.

Ginny held her own fiercely condemning stare. "Ebony needs to go back to school," she said, and Bobbin felt for sure she had opted to choose those specific words to remind James exactly where and who they were.

Throwing his head back in frustration, glancing down at Ebony with one, last apologetic look, and then finally James removed himself from the alley to stand face-to-face with his mother. Ebony trailed behind him looking flustered and refusing to look anybody in the eye. Probably for the best, Bobbin thought.

"Hogwarts Head Girl," James said with a sarcastic grin, indicating to Ebony. "Safely returned."

"Thank you," Ginny said sweetly.

As Bobbin relayed to the other students that it was time to return to the castle, they all began saying their goodbyes to the family too, many of them throwing eager arms around James. Sweetest of all, perhaps, was the way James swung Serephina Malfoy around in much a similar way he did to his own sister. Bobbin couldn't really be sure how it was that this specific group of students had all come to be friends, but the adoption of the Slytherin girl warmed Bobbin's heart in particular. Having lost their mother over the summer, it endeared Bobbin to know the Malfoy children were being well looked after.

"You ready?" Roberts asked, reappearing by his wife's side.

"Actually," Bobbin said, "would you mind overseeing the students going back to the castle? I, ah, I need to do something."

If Roberts was suspicious, he didn't show it. He likely expected she just wanted to do some shopping of her own. "Of course," he said with his usual kind smile.

Bobbin purposefully hung back as Roberts gathered the students and began leading them back up the winding path which led to the castle amidst the gently falling snow, noticing, too, that so was Ebony.

Oh, Merlin, was she going to refuse to go?—Bobbin suddenly worried. But, of course, Ebony was just trying to drag out as much possible time as she could get with James before they parted ways for the final time that year.

James waved to his friends and remaining family members who still attended the school, like he was a proud parent waving them off from the train platform.

"Do not give birth in the snow, Victoire!" Rose called back to her heavily pregnant cousin as a teasing afterthought, disappearing up the winding path with her hand clutched in Scorpius Malfoy's grip.

"Ebony," Bobbin said, noticing the girl hadn't taken a single step since the procession had started.

"I'm going," she sighed, not needing her mother to say the words she really didn't want to hear. She looked at James with a look so heavily meaningful that Bobbin almost felt like she should avert her eyes. And then she really wished she had as James suddenly gripped either side of Ebony's face and brought his mouth to hers in one, final, intense kiss.

If they were about to pick up from where they'd left off, Bobbin wasn't entirely sure what the protocol would be for peeling them apart, but she needn't have worried, as it was over in seconds.

As James pulled his lips away, now looking as sad as Ebony already had, he left his hands in place on either side of his wife's head, staring intensely into her eyes, both of them seemingly saying so much more than words could possibly convey.

"Remember what I told you," he said in a gentle, sincere voice.

Ebony just gave a small nod of her head.

They held each other's stare for only a few more lingering seconds before James released her and Ebony hurried away into the snow to catch up with Rose and Scorpius. Bobbin eyed her as she went past, proud of the remarkably mature way she seemed to have handled the situation. She noticed that she never once looked back. Perhaps it would have been too hard for her.

James, on the other hand, was happily indulging in watching his wife's retreating figure. Although, perhaps happy was completely the wrong word for it, for the boy rather looked like he'd just seen everything he held dear snatched away from him without warning. He had truly never looked more lost.

Ginny wrapped her arms around him as best as she could given that he also towered over her. James absentmindedly rested his head against his mum's shoulder, and Bobbin thought it was rather sweet.

"I miss her already," he said quietly.

"I know," Ginny said with compassion.

Merlin, Bobbin felt like a monster.

James released a heavy sigh, then, noticing Bobbin's remaining presence, lit up with curiosity. "You're not seriously ensuring I'm actually leaving, right?" he asked, amused by the prospect. Possibly because it had been Bobbin who had caught him in the act of trying to sneak into the castle after the first Hogsmeade visit of the year and furiously sent him back to his parents.

"Oh, believe me, there's no way he's trying anything," Ginny assured Bobbin.

"Merlin," James scoffed, "it's like I'm on day-release from Azkaban or something. I'm not even doing anything!"

"It's not that," Bobbin said with a small smile, just grateful he had already picked up again. A desolate Ebony was one thing, but a sorrowful James Potter? It was unnerving. "I actually wanted to ask your advice about something."

James looked thoroughly intrigued, and why shouldn't he? The Headmistress seeking him out for some kind of guidance—it was unheard of.

"We'll be going in a second," Ginny told James, excusing herself to give them some privacy. Bobbin was grateful—she really didn't need Ginny to be privy to what a terrible mother Bobbin was about to reveal herself to be.

"And what wisdom might I be able to impart upon the esteemed Melinda Bobbin?" James asked, folding his arms across his chest and grinning widely.

Bobbin wondered if she should lead up to it, but there was no point beating around the bush. And besides, they were on a time limit. "I don't know what to get Ebony for Christmas," she confessed. In the past week, she had not gotten any closer to solving the conundrum, and it tormented her every waking thought.

"Me," James said without skipping a beat.

Bobbin rolled her eyes. "James, please, I'm desperate."

"Alright, okay." The boy's eyes softened. "Ebony isn't materialistic—she's sentimental."

"Not when it comes to me," Bobbin couldn't help but say, feeling glum.

"You'd be surprised."

Bobbin regarded James with curiosity. What did he know that she didn't? Well, when it came to Ebony, a lot. She'd no doubt poured her heart out to him over the years, forging a far closer relationship than the one she shared with the mother she'd only known to be so for half a year.

"It meant a lot to her—finding out who her family was," James said. "It was always something that was important to her—knowing where she came from."

"She just didn't like what she found," Bobbin said just as glumly.

This time it was James who rolled his eyes. "Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself," he chastised, and Bobbin would have been taken aback had it been anybody other than James speaking to her like that. "Ebony just wants to feel like she belongs," he assured her, softening his tone once more. "And you are important to her—more than she'd care to admit."

Bobbin had so many questions, but she held her tongue. Did Ebony ever talk about her to James? Likely, yes, but she knew James would never tell.

"Family means a lot to her," James said. "More so than any material thing. Although you could also get her a broom maintenance kit—hers is shabby as all hell but she won't do a damn thing about it."

Bobbin smiled. "That sounds more like something you want."

"She has a good broom and she totally neglects it!" James protested, like he was personally pained by said neglect.

But Bobbin was intrigued by what James had said and thought back to how curious Ebony had been about her birth and her full name. She had always felt lost, never really knowing who she was, and that's perhaps why she leaned so heavily on James. Because she knew exactly what to expect from him—she knew exactly who she was when she was with him—but she was still trying to navigate that with Bobbin.

She was no closer to figuring out how this could possibly translate to a physical gift, but Bobbin had much to think about. "Thank you, James," she said, offering him a sincere smile, which he hesitantly returned. "Have a good Christmas."

She almost wondered if she should hug him, but she thought better of it.

"Happy Christmas," James replied, still beaming in that idiotically, gleeful way that he always did. "Try not to miss me too much."

Melinda Bobbin did not expect a single thing of her forty-third birthday. She never really made a big deal out of her birthday given how close it fell to Christmas. And besides, she always spent it at Hogwarts—exactly where she was supposed to be.

She certainly expected nothing of the day when Wednesday the thirteenth of December rolled around. And, in fact, as she walked towards the Great Hall for breakfast with her husband by her side, she found she already had everything she'd ever want from the day anyway.

"You're acting strange," Bobbin said suspiciously, noticing the way Roberts was bouncing on the balls of his feet as he walked, like the excitement he clearly felt over something was almost bursting from within.

"I'm just happy," he said dismissively, trying to calm his stride, but Bobbin had been noticing the eager glances he kept stealing at her as though he were expecting something to happen and wanted to catch her expression when it did so.

Bobbin could not be reassured, knowing he was blatantly up to something, but she found her curiosity overrode any reluctance she might have felt about it Every birthday she had spent with her first husband had been miserable. They had always found a way for her to spend it in his company when she'd much rather have spent it in the castle. John Snow's idea of a good way to celebrate his wife's birthday had very much just translated to whatever his idea of what a good time was, and there had never been anything sentimental to her about the day.

But this was her first birthday with her second husband—her first with her and Cepheus being together at all—and she already felt endeared by the sheer prospect of him having planned something for the day.

As they approached the doors to the Great Hall, Bobbin was surprised to find they were closed. She went to fling them open without much thought, but Roberts stepped in front of her.

"Woah, woah, woah, let's, ah, savour the moment," he insisted when Bobbin quirked an eyebrow in reponse to his movement.

"Yeah?" she asked.

"Yeah," Roberts said, taking hold of her hands in his own. "It's your birthday—you should savour every moment."

"Alright," Bobbin agreed, playing along. She took a step towards Roberts, who was still protectively guarding the large doors. When he didn't budge, Bobbin placed her lips against his, as delicately as a butterfly fluttering its wings.

He naturally went to close his eyes, and Bobbin did the same, pressing her lips to his own with more force. She very much hoped there were no students around.

Electricity seemed to pass through their conjoined mouths, and truly there was nothing Bobbin could want more for her birthday. She felt him smiling as she pulled away.

"Was I savouring the moment okay?" she asked flirtatiously.

"Mhmm," was all Roberts seemed capable of saying in response.

"So can I go to breakfast now?"

Roberts let out a contented sigh and took a step to the side to allow her entry. "Just remember," he said wisely. "Everything beyond these doors was entirely my own doing, and Ebony had no input whatsoever."

He offered her a very meaningful look and Bobbin raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Ebony?" she echoed.

"Ebony had nothing to do with it," Roberts said with a wink.

Bobbin wasn't entirely sure what she expected, but as she pushed open the heavy oak doors to the Great Hall, her heart was already thumping deep within her chest, and it continued to do so even after the room full of students broke into raucous cheers as they noticed her arrival.

The hall erupted as it often did during the Sorting Ceremony, or the announcement of which house had won the House Cup that year, but never for the Headmistress' mere arrival in the room. Bobbin felt more elated than she even had walking down the aisle in that very room three months prior.

Someone had hung a huge banner above the High Table which read 'Happy Birthday, Professor Bobbin,' and Bobbin felt her heart surge with warmth for her students, for her husband. Her eyes drifted to the Slytherin table where they settled on a pale-faced, dark-haired girl who looked rather pleased with herself. For her daughter.

Ebony locked eyes with her mother, and, for once, she didn't look away. Instead, her shy smile deepened.

Bobbin dragged her eyes away to settle them back onto Cepheus Roberts. "You did all this?" she asked in a breathy voice, both of them knowing what she was really asking.

"There's cake too," Roberts replied.

If possible, Bobbin's heart felt even warmer. James had been right about sentimentality meaning so much more than anything material.

And suddenly, she knew. She knew what she needed to get Ebony for Christmas.

Author's Note: Title and epigraph inspired by Sia's 'Snowman', and yes, I gave Bobbin the same birthday as Taylor Swift on purpose!