Just a Snowball

Just a Snowball

"IF YOU THROW ANYMORE SNOW AT ME, I'M GOING TO BLOODY BEAT YOU!" Ginny Weasley shouted furiously at the boys who were throwing snowballs and chunks of ice at each other.

It was Christmas Eve day and all of the Weasley children, Harry, and Hermione were staying at the Burrow. It had been snowing ever since they had been there, but the night before, there had been a particularly heavy snowfall and the boys thought that a snowfight would be a grand idea.

"Come on, Gin -- it's just a snowball!" Harry called back, trying to reason with her.

"I don't care! My face is wet, my neck is wet, my back is wet, my clothes are soaked and I've got snow in places that I didn't even know existed -- don't throw any more!" Her face was bright red, though everyone else's was as well. It was absolutely freezing outside and they had been out there for a good two hours.

SPLAT!

A very wet and extraordinarily slushy snowball collided with the side of her head and Ginny froze.

The laughing and chattering came to a dead stop and everyone was silent.

Ginny turned her head very slowly to glare at the boys, her eyes very narrow slits.

Ron stood stone-still, a shocked expression on his face -- just his face was a dead give away that he was the one who had thrown the snowball. It was turning red, along with his ears, and he looked scared to death.

If Ginny hadn't already known that it had been Ron, the other thing that would've given him away was the fact that Harry, Fred, George, Bill, Charlie, and Hermione were staring at him, with expressions of 'you're in for it now' etched on their faces.

"Ron," she said slowly, but solidly.

"Y-yeah?"

"You are SO DEAD!" she screamed before taking a leap at him and pinning him to the ground.

He managed to gather enough strength to squirm away, and push her over when she tried to climb up.

Ginny was never one to give up this easily. She jumped on his back and they both fell backward and rolled down the hill that was behind them, loud screams and groans echoing around.

Everyone else had run to the top of the hill to watch the youngest and only Weasley daughter take on the youngest Weasley boy. And she appeared to be winning.

They had now landed at the bottom of the hill, both absolutely covered in white, taking whacks at one another.

Their yells could be heard echoing: "Ginny, that was my eye!" "Well, Ron, that was my stomach!" Along with the screaming and squealing.

"I've got three Galleons on Ginny," Bill said.

"No one's gonna take that bet," Fred answered, shaking his head.

"Damn."

Finally, they heard a, "Hah! Take THAT! And don't mess with me again!"

They looked back down the hill to see Ron sprawled out in the snow and Ginny marching back up the slippery wet slope.

Her siblings, Harry, and Hermione all burst out laughing and cheering.

"You, shut up," she snapped at them before stomping past them and to the house. She heard one of the twins call, "Hey, Ron? Are you dead?" before she slammed the door behind her.

She continued her way into the living room, leaving a path of wet behind her.

"Ginny, dear, is that you?" Molly called.

She didn't answer, but kept walking toward the stairs.

"Ginny?" Molly poked her head out of the kitchen, "Ginny, you're making a mess!"

Her youngest child stopped to scowl at her.

"I see. Snowball fight?"

Ginny didn't say a word, but continued stamping up the stairs and into the bathroom.

She pulled of her boots first, then her completely sopping socks. Then off came her hat, her scarf, her mittens, and her jumper. She groaned as she lifted her shirt above her head, it was soaked all the way through.

"Snow. Bloody snow. Bloody fucking snow ... " she mumbled as she pulled her pants off.

Now down to her bra and underwear (which were also soaked), she leaned over the bathtub and turned on the hot water.

Her cheeks were throbbing from the quick temperature change from cold to warm. "Ruddy weather ... " she muttered, placing her hands on her face, which didn't really help -- her hands were even more freezing than her face.

She sat down on the closed toilet seat and waited for the bathtub to fill up.

After about five minutes of sitting and beginning to shiver, the tub was filled almost all the way up.

After stripping out of her underwear, she slowly climbed into the hot water, and settled herself down, the tepid water washing over her.

Even though the water was pleasantly toasty, she would always hate the feeling of getting into hot water from being cold -- it felt like pins and needles going into your skin.

Once she got settled and accustomed to the water, she began to feel all the muscles in her body relax and she sighed.

That was it. No more snowball fights this year.

She was in her sixth year at Hogwarts and as far as she knew, she was doing well. She was enjoying it, at any rate. Being home was a blessing, though. She missed the Burrow more than she could say.

"Ginny?"

"Mmph?"

"You in there, Gin?"

"Yes," she muttered, not feeling the need to be any louder.

"It's Harry. You okay?"

"Mmhm."

"Hey, we're all inside now, so when you get out, your mum made us hot cocoa. You should come have some with us."

"Yeah, maybe."

There was a pause on the other end. "Okay ... "

She could hear him walking away.

Harry Potter.

No words could possibly describe Harry Potter.

That kid was more trouble than anyone she'd ever known, that was for sure. Except for maybe Fred and George.

A different kind of trouble, though. He was in trouble, something that he couldn't do anything about. His life began with the worst possible start, and from then on, it only got worse.

She'd done everything she could think of to try and make it better.

Apparently, it wasn't enough.

And she couldn't help but think that it was never enough, and that it was never going to be enough.

Normally, this wouldn't stop her from trying, but this sort of stopping to think was doing her in.

She should give up.

She couldn't help him.

She had never helped him.

* * *

The water was turning cold.

She'd been in there for nearly an hour, not willing enough to gather the energy to climb out of the tub.

The hot water was gone.

Taking in a deep breath, Ginny managed to hoist herself out of the bathtub and lean over to grab a towel.

After drying off, she wrapped the towel around herself, and slowly opened the bathroom door.

She peeked her head around the door, making sure that the coast was clear. One thing that she definitely didn't need was to be walking around the freezing house in a towel only to run into Harry.

She saw that the halls were empty and she quickly dashed from the bathroom to her room.

Home free.

She grabbed some underwear, pajama bottoms, and a t-shirt, putting them on in that order.

Quite frankly, she was exhausted. But, it was only five in the afternoon, and definitely not a satisfactory time to go to sleep.

She lazily made her way down the now wet stairs. All the snow that she had tracked in had melted.

The kitchen was empty. They were probably all in the living room.

She walked across the kitchen and into the living room.

Yeah. She was right.

Her mum and dad were both sitting on the small loveseat, while Harry was sitting in the opposite loveseat alone. Ron, Hermione, Charlie, and Bill were on the couch, and the twins were sitting on the floor.

"Ginny, dear!" Her mother had looked over and smiled, "Good to see you. We thought that you might've drowned."

"Good to see that you haven't," George said, grinning at her.

"Thanks," she murmured, sitting cross-legged next to the couch.

"Are you okay, Ginny?" Hermione looked over the arm of the couch to see her.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Tired, is all."

"Aah, I see. Well, that's perfectly understandable, what with you completely killing Ron in that snowball fight."

Ron scowled at Hermione. "That's right. Bring it up over and over."

Hermione laughed. "I will!"

Ginny looked up and smiled, looking at first Hermione and Ron, then at Bill and Charlie, who were stifling laughs. Her gaze then turned to Harry, who was already looking at her, head tilted slightly.

She looked back into her lap.

'Harry Potter is more trouble that he's worth,' she told herself. 'And besides that, he's older and couldn't be less interested in you. Resist.'

Staring at her lap seemed to help, but she swore that she could feel his gaze on her.

After nearly twenty minutes of uncomfortable silence, punctuated by a smartass comment from one of the twins, Charlie cleared his throat, "Hey, Gin. Harry looks a bit lonely over there by himself, wouldn't you say?"

'You fucker. I'm gonna get you for this later.' She forced herself to look up at Harry, who now had a smile on his face.

"Go on, Ginny. It would be okay to sit by Harry. In fact, I think he wants you to!"

'You. Are. So. Dead.'

"Don't you, Harry?" Bill asked.

"Sure," he answered nonchalantly.

'No.'

Ginny didn't move. She just raised an eyebrow at Harry.

'I think I hate you too.'

"You rejecting me, Gin?" Harry asked, cocking an eyebrow as well.

She swallowed, before answering, "Yes." 'Ha. Take that.'

She could swear that his face fell a bit, before he recovered with a chuckle. "Alright, alright. I get the hint, Ginny."

After a few seconds pause, she stood up and walked out of the room without saying a word.

Brothers were the worst invention ever.

She wandered around upstairs, she knew that if she went into her room, that she would lay down and fall asleep. She didn't really feel like going into the twins' room, she didn't even want to think about what she might find in there.

Ron's room was where Harry stayed, and she really didn't want to go in there.

Her room was the only place to go.

She closed the door behind her and sat cross-legged on her bed, staring at the floor. Sleep sounding good in two ways. A.) she was bloody exhausted and B.) sleeping was a good way to get away from her brothers and Harry.

She laid back on her bed, now staring at the ceiling. Just a nap.

* * *

"GINNYYYY!"

She shot straight up, heart pounding, "What? What is it?!"

Fred and George were hopping around her room, dancing.

"It's Christmas Eeeeve," George sang.

"It was Christmas Eve when I fell asleep," she answered groggily.

"Yes, we know," Fred answered, "But, we couldn't just let you sleep away the evening!"

"Why not?" she asked, getting a bit angry now.

"Because. Now, get up, please."

She glared at them. But, after she thought about it for a minute, she realized that they weren't going anywhere. And that they were going to continue dancing and singing until she got up.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood up.

"Get out of my room," she said.

"After you," George pointed to the door.

She groaned and stalked out of the room, the twins trailing behind her.

She walked into the living room and collapsed on the couch.

"Good morning," Ron joked, grinning at her.

"Mmph."

Harry sat down next to her, "Have a nice nap?"

She nodded.

"Did you open your one present early?" he asked.

"No, I didn't. I just woke up."

"Are you going to open one?" he pressed.

"Would you like me to?" she retaliated.

He nodded eagerly.

"And I suppose that you have a certain one in mind?"

He nodded even more furiously, smiling.

"Let me guess. It's yours?"

"Yeah!" He laughed happily, "It's nothing big ... But, I put thought into it and I suppose that that counts, right?"

She nodded, "Yeah, it does."

"You want to go upstairs?"

"Sure."

They both stood and traveled up the stairs together. They stopped in the hallway, and he laughed, pointing to her bedroom door.

She raised an eyebrow and he laughed harder, then shook his head.

She opened the door to her room, and he followed her in, closing it behind him. She sat in the middle of her floor and he sat down across from her.

"Okay," he said slowly, "Now, like I said, it's nothing big, alright?"

"Harry, I don't care," she answered in the same slow voice, "I'm sure that I'm going to like it, so don't worry."

He smiled, before digging into his pocket and producing a small package, wrapped in shiny green paper with gold ribbon.

He handed it to her and she gingerly took it, unwrapping it carefully. Once all of the wrapping was off, she disposited it next to her and looked at the object in her hand.

There was an onyx chain, and at the end of it was a small antique key. It was a beautiful thing, about half the size of her pinkie finger and a rusted silver.

"A key?" she looked up at him.

"Now, wouldn't it just be completely terrible if I said something corny like 'it's the key to my heart'?" he said and chuckled, "But, it's almost as bad, I promise you." He reached into his shirt and produced a small silver lock on an identical onyx chain.

"That key," he said, pointing at it, "goes to this lock."

"Harry, I -- "

"Ginny," he said, and it cut her off gently. "Is this getting through to you? I know that this is a little less than subtle, and I've got to be honest, I got a bit of help from Charlie ... "

"Yeah, I've got it, I just ... are you serious? I mean ... I mean, what exactly does this entail?"

"Well ... " he trailed off and stopped. He took the necklace from her hands and took the hook apart, then leaned forward, hooking the barrel clasp around her neck.

There was a strange jingling noise and they both jumped.

"What's -- " both Ginny and Harry looked around, and their jaws dropped when they looked at the ceiling.

The entire thing was completely covered in thousands of sprigs of mistletoe.

"Fred and George," the murmured in unison.

Ginny looked down at her key, then at Harry's lock. She reached out and took the lock in her hands, before inserting her key inside of it, linking the two of them together.

"Ginny Weasley." He grinned at her, "I do believe that you just made a small move on me."

She rolled her eyes, "Harry Potter, I do believe that it's taken you long enough without me doing it for you."

His smile widened, "Fair enough." He wiped what must've been his sweaty palms on his jeans and leaned forward a bit awkwardly.

Her face was suddenly hot as she moved forward a bit as well, their noses nearly touching.

Harry slightly tilted his head and pressed his lips softly against hers, taking both of her shaking hands in his own.

The loud grandfather clock in the hall began to chime. One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve.

Harry pulled back from Ginny, staring at her now flushed and blushing face. They were restricted from moving too far from each other, as their necklaces were caught.

"Merry Christmas, Ginny," he said, trying and failing to stop the grin from spreading across his face.

She started laughing, and smiled as well. "Merry Christmas, Harry."