The Snowman Who Didn't Quite Save The Day

It was a chilled day, frozen, really, and Severus Snape, much to his chagrin, was forced into supervising the children as they played and frolicked in the new-fallen snow. He had just gotten out of the front doors, and started walking about, keeping an eye out for trouble (two, if he could spare them).

There was Susan Bones and Blaise Zabini building a snow fort.

The Weasley Twins were making an arsenal of snowballs. Fred was shaping the snow, while George was busy enchanting them.

Snape got out of there mighty quick.

Oh, and over there, The Dream Team (also known as Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley) were building a snowman.

Urgh, Snape thought to himself. What an atrocious abomination. Look at that ugly green hat. It's even got a little pom-pom on it... just like mine used to when I was a wee lad... And those earmuffs! They look like Professor Sprout's! I think I'll go and tell those little prats off... Now... I wonder how many points I should take off of Gryffindor for this...

Snape put on his best snarl, and walked over to the three teens.

"Hello, Potter," he sneered as he came up behind Harry. Harry flinched a little bit from being startled. "Well, well, well, what do we have here?"

"Please, professor, we were just making a snowman... That is allowed, isn't it?" Hermione squeaked in that impossibly high, girly voice. Snape cringed from the irking sound.

"Well, Granger, maybe so, but NOT with the use of other people's clothing!"

"WHAT?" Ron yelled, being rather scandalized at the accusation.

"Temper, Weasley," taunted Snape. "Five points off Gryffindor for sass." Snape whirled around to face Hermione again. "You think yourself to be rather clever. Tell, me, Granger, if you think you can, whose earmuffs are those?"

Hermione hesitated. She didn't really want to let slip that Dobby had nicked them out of the laundry for them. "Erm... well, Professor, what happened was..."

"Hmm. I see." Snape finished for her. "Another twenty points off for each of you for stealing. And detention."

They all groaned. Snape smiled at their misery.

"Potter, you are up today. Four thirty, my office. Weasley, tomorrow, four thirty, my office. Granger, you will have yours on Thursday, four thirty, my office. Good day." He whipped around and walked back around the grounds, still avoiding the Weasley twins who were currently terrorizing a group of third year Hufflepuff girls with their 'Ever-Smashing Snowballs', or so they liked to call them.

"Sixty points..." Ron grumbled. "Well, I guess we've set a new daily high for points lost."

"Could've been worse," moaned Harry, utterly disgusted at having to spend more time with Snape today than was absolutely necessary. "It could've been one-hundred and sixty."

"God forbid," sighed Hermione, as she put the finishing touches on the snowman, which was rather ugly. "I think I'll name it Billy," she said with a flourish, as she put on the last of the red buttons.

"Hey, wait; hold on a second, 'Mione. There's a gaping hole over here in the back."

"That's nice," she said, not at all very interested (how excited can you get over a snowman, anyway?)

"I'll go fix it," announced Ron. "Oi! Fred! George! Toss me a snowball!"

George looked up. "One snowball, on the rocks, coming' up!" and he launched the little white ball into the air. Ron caught it admirably and stuck it in the hole. It fit perfectly.

"There. Much better," he said, quite pleased with himself. The three of them, rather cold and slightly wet from the snow, turned to go back into the castle.

The snowman, completely unnoticed, started to move.

~*~*~

"I still think that we should get Harry out of there! Who knows what that-" Ron said a not-very nice word, "-is doing to him!" Ron panted, being quite breathless. Both he and Hermione were running back up to the Gryffindor common-room from Snape's office. Not being able to run anymore, they just flopped down in the Entrance Hall.

Harry had been serving his detention, and Ron thought it would be the noble thing to do to just 'go down there and have a listen'. When they had gotten down there, they heard terrible muffled screams, which sounded sort of like they had been masked with a poorly executed Voicelessness charm. Ron had been outraged, and had slammed the wall with his fist. Mrs. Norris had seen them, and so they started to run for their dear lives, hoping to escape the wrath of the caretaker, Argus Filch.

"Well... what is... your... big... plan?" Hermione gasped, as she clutched a stitch in her side.

"I don't - oh, bloody he-" Ron staggered back. He was facing the Great Doors, and they had started to open.

"What are you on about?" Hermione asked in a very exasperated tone. She turned around, and thought that she must have been hallucinating. She briefly remembered that tart that George had innocently given her, and suddenly feared what might have been put in it.

There was the snowman from that afternoon.

"AAHHHHHHHH!" Hermione and Ron yelled together, but before they could run anywhere, the snowman leaped upon them and sat there, soaking the two teens, preventing their escape, and frightening them to death. The snowman blinked nonchalantly, and smiled cockily.

"Hallo, then, mates!" he exploded in a jolly Australian accent.

Ron fainted dead away from being sat on by a talking Australian snowman.

"Wh-who are y-you?" stammered Hermione, being rather startled herself.

"Well, I guess you could call me... Billy. Billy's m'name. I've come to help you blokes, seeing as how you did make me an' all."

Ron, who had come to, fainted again.

"Why are you sitting on us?" Hermione asked, overcoming her initial shock.

"Well, if a snowman came into my school, I think I'd be runnin' away pretty quick-like, wouldn't you? So we couldn't have you scurrying away like a pack of wallabies 'fore I could get to know all 'o ye, now could we? "

"No, I suppose not, but all the same-"

"There, then, that's settled. Now, do you chaps need me to help you with anything? Anything at all? I mean, I do owe yeh a wee bit, seeing as how you put all your effort into creatin' me..."

"Actually, we could use your help, Billy."

"Really? That's great!"

"Now, if you could please get off of us... urgh, you've melted all over my clean robes... RON! GET UP!" she yelled. Ron was still out cold.

"We could jus' leave 'im here," suggested Billy.

"Good idea," agreed Hermione, as she got up and started walking back to the cold, damp, moldy chasm that was Snape's office. "Now, the problem is, our friend Harry is trapped somewhere down there, in a dark, cold, room."

"Alright, gotcha so far."

"And, he's being held there - guarded, really, by this man in black. His hair is so greasy, you could fry an egg with it."

"Okey-dokey, black man, eggs for hair," repeated Billy, thinking himself to be rather clever.

"NO, No, no. Man in black, greasy hair."

"Greasy black... man-egg?"

Hermione threw up her hands. "Close enough!"

Billy smiled smugly to himself. Not really the roundest snowball in the batch, he was.

"What you've got to do, Billy, is distract the... erm... egg-man until I can rescue Harry, okay? Do you understand that clearly?"

"Yup. Eat the egg-man"

Hermione groaned. "Beggars can't be choosers, I suppose."

So, the dastardly duo went back down to Snape's office, going in that slow-mo 'hero' style that you always see in movies, like that one where the astronauts were walking down that one hallway, and they were just about to go onto the- sorry, got a wee bit carried away. Back to the unfolding plot at hand...

The dastardly duo went back down to Snape's office. Billy walked through the door without opening it, burst into the room, and promptly ate Snape.

"Mmmmmm... greasy..." he drooled. Apparently, Snape tasted a lot better than he looked.

"Ick." Hermione groaned. She spotted a lump in the corner, covered with black robes. She picked it up and leaped out of the room with it. "Come on, Billy!" she bellowed as she tore down the hallway.

"I think not, Granger!" roared Snape, coming through the now-dilapidated door.

"Ahhh!" screamed Hermione, frightened by the image of Snape in sodden, clingy robes running after her. She ran even faster.

Suddenly, she heard the rustles of robe hems on the floor and the crackling of numerous spells being flung about. She heard one coming after her, and it singed her hair, missing her ear by mere centimeters.

"MUAHAHA! ALL FEAR ME!" hollered someone that sounded suspiciously like Ron as Hermione finally reached the Entrance Hall and chucked her load onto the floor. Then she remembered that the bundle was Harry, and he probably wasn't too pleased at having been thrown onto the floor.

Hermione bent down to help the lump onto his feet.

"BOO!" the lump also known as Harry shouted as he extricated himself from the large black cloak.

Hermione screamed.

"BOO!" shouted Ron as he bounded from the dark hallway.

Hermione screamed again.

"YOU STUPID BLOKES! YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I DON'T LIKE BEING SCARED LIKE THAT!"

"Whoops..."

"Sorry, forgot all about that." Ron sneered, knowing full well how much Hermione didn't like being scared like that.

"What happened to Billy?" asked Hermione.

"Who's Billy? That ugly snowman?"

"Yes, now shut up, Harry," snapped Hermione, for no particular reason at all.

Harry hung his head and shut his mouth. Poor Harry.

"Well," sighed Ron pompously, "I suppose if someone hadn't just left me there on the ground, I suppose I would know. But oh no, someone just left poor me, all alone on the ground by my lonesome..."

"Oh, shut up, Ron." Hermione growled. "Do you know, or don't you?"

"But I thought you told me to shut up-"

Hermione glared daggers at him. Ron cowered.

"Well, it looks like Snape lit a fire or something, because when I got there, Snape was all wet and there was a HUGE puddle on the floor. I swear, if any of those dratted first-years get a hold of that with their rubber boots, Filch'll have a field day!"

"Aww... poor Billy... oh well, ç'est la vie, I guess," sighed Hermione as Ron ranted about rubber boots and first-year puddle-ducks.

The three of them started back up to Gryffindor Tower for a rest from the adventures of the day and for a game of Exploding Arsehole.

Harry was still puzzled.

"If any of you blokes feel like explaining any of this to me-" he said as Ron dealt the cards out.

"I thought I told you to shut up."

"Yes ma'am."

There was a resounding of laughter as the deck of cards spontaneously combusted in Ron's face.

Fin