Scarlett Destiny

Disclaimer- I don't own Harry Potter. Duh. If I did, the movie would have been SO much better.

Scarlett Destiny

~*Chapter 1, Prefect Down*~

"I, Ronald Weasley, challenge you, Harry Potter, to a snowball death match!" Ron announced in a mock-heroic voice as he brandished a slender three-and-a-half-foot-long branch in Harry's ruddy, wind-sliced face.

Harry, grinning, tore a twig from the tree nearest him of about the same size and whipped it around playfully as if it were a sword. "Aha! I accept your challenge, Ronald McDonald! Prepare to meet your doom as you are bombed repeatedly with snowballs!"

Ron abruptly stopped swinging his stick around. "Who's Ronald McDonald?"

Harry chuckled. "Never mind."

"No, seriously, who's Ronald McDonald?"

"No one. Just some guy."

Ron eyed him warily and then, with a defeated shrug, raised his stick- sword and swung it at Harry, who blocked it awkwardly. Laughing jovially, they parried around in the knee-deep snow.

"Why are they in such a freakishly good mood?" Ginny asked Hermione as they surveyed the boys from a reasonably safe distance.

"Because it's Christmas, therefore there are no classes until January, Ron is playing Beater now, in which he is doing a much better job than he did as a Keeper, and they managed to actually pass both their Transfiguration and Potions tests with generally high scores," Hermione replied tonelessly as Harry tackled Ron, who had moments before managed to hit him with his branch.

"It still shocks me that those idiots made both Snape and McGonagall's N.E.W.T classes," Ginny admitted.

"Welcome to my world. I've been trying to figure out when they snogged the head of the Wizard Examination Authority- Griselda Marchbanks, I believe- to do so," Hermione confided.

"My guess would be between July and August, if you ask me," a familiar voice piped up from behind the girls.

Hermione and Ginny, surprised, jerked around to see Fred and George Weasley wending their way through the snow in their direction.

"W-what are you doing here?" Ginny asked in a thoroughly shocked tone.

"Mum forced us to come here to finish school because no one at the Order has time to tutor us. We're here 'til March," Fred replied brightly.

George, meanwhile, stopped a few paces in front of Ginny and overlooked what was now, instead of a snowball death match, a wrestling match that Ron was steadily winning thanks to his new Quidditch training. His face cracking into that all-too-familiar evil grin that everyone knew and sometimes feared, he scooped up a clump of snow and molded it into a fist-sized snowball. Then he whipped out his wand and, pointing the tip directly at it, muttered, "Traculus," and lobbed it at Ron.

All of them, except Hermione, who frowned reproachfully, stifled giggles as the snowball, pulsing with a faint yellow glow, flew and landed with a smack in the middle of Ron's freckly face.

"ARGH! Fred! George! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" Ron roared as he wiped slush from his cheeks and nose, his ears growing dangerously red. He glared daggers at the twins, Ginny and then Harry, all of whom were rolling in the snow, tears dripping down their faces they were laughing so hard. Even Hermione let slip a few giggle audible enough for Ron to hear without too much trouble.

Why don't you two get a room?" Fred called as Ron got, trembling, to his feet.

"Oh, I'll get you a room. A hospital room," Ron muttered furiously as he constructed his own snowball and threw it as hard as he could at George.

George, upon seeing the snowball hurtling at him, ducked as fast as he could. It raked cleanly over his head and found a place on Ginny's neck. She let out a strangled scream as slush slid down both her cloak and the violet sweater that she had received from Mrs. Weasley for Christmas.

"Ron. you git!" Ginny sputtered incoherently, scooping up her own snowball and hurling it at her brother.

"I didn't- Expelliarmus!" Ron shouted, waving his wand at the snowball. Red light blasted from his wand and hit it, causing it to land right on Hermione's head.

"Ron!" Hermione raged loudly as she extracted bits of snow from her bushy brown hair. Fuming, she created her own snowball and made to throw it at Ron, but was bumped into by Ginny, who was hopping around like mad trying to get the melting snow out of her sweater. The snowball flew off course, wobbling slightly, and hit Harry, whose back was turned, right at the back of his head.

"Hermione- Ow! That's cold! - What was that for?" Harry complained noisily, arching his back as ice slid down the back of the faded-green baggy shirt that he had been forced to don from Dudley several years ago. Just as everyone else had done, he picked up a handful of snow and, after molding it into a snowball, threw it at Hermione. It hit its mark: Hermione's face.

Hermione, so beside herself with anger at the prospect of being hit twice, whipped out her wand and, with the flick of a wrist, conjured a dozen snowballs to rise up and fly speedily at the boys across from her.

"SNOWBALL FIGHT!" the twins announced gleefully and threw snowballs at the four furious Gryffindors.

Even Fred and George were willing to admit later in their senior years that this was by far the most fiercest, intense, and emotionally driven snowball fight they had ever witnessed and taken part in, which was, for them, saying something. Snowballs whizzed back and forth so fast it seemed they were on the verge of breaking the sound barrier. George was nearly buried with snowballs when he transferred himself to Harry and Ron's side, which proved to be a bad move as the girls' fury, plus Fred, gave them a huge advantage over the boys, who were in too much of a good mood to hold a grudge for more than five minutes.

After about twenty minutes of extreme furious snowball combat, Ron was just swinging back in order to throw the snowball he held in his maroon gloved hands when Hermione, who had in the nick of time spotted him aiming at Ginny, held her wand up high, incanted "Expelliarmus!" and directed it at him. He flew back and the snowball he had been clutching landed with a smush on Harry's head.

"Oh, sorry mate! Herm-" Ron began, picking himself up, but was both interrupted and knocked back down as Harry and George, who had not seen Hermione's attack, bombarded him with snowballs originally meant for Fred and the girls.

Meanwhile, Fred and the girls took advantage of the scuffle and bombed Ron with what felt to him like a never-ending supply of icebergs. Once they had all finished, Ron was nothing more than a gigantic, quivering pile of snow.

"What I was trying to say, Harry," Ron said irately once he was emerged from the pile. "Before you two turned on me, was Hermione Disarmed me and the snowball accidentally landed on your head."

Harry grinned sheepishly and helped Ron up. "Heh, sorry Ron. My mistake."

"You'd better be or else your digging your own grave," Ron muttered, but Harry was out of earshot.

He picked up a handful of snow, molded it into a ball, and was about to throw it when a brilliant idea in order to get back at Hermione popped into his head. Grinning evilly, a trait he had apparently inherited along with Fred and George, he pulled his wand out of his snow enveloped pocket and, pointing the tip at his snowball, incanted, "Scourgify."

"Ooh, excellent idea! You may have yet redeemed yourself," George said brightly. Ron rolled his eyes and pelted the snowball at Hermione.

The shriek that emitted from Hermione's mouth was muffled as pink bubbles frothed from her lips. Furiously, she wiped them away with the back of her red gloved hand and practically jabbed her wand through the snowball Fred handed her hurriedly before she stabbed Ginny instead.

"STUPEFY!" Hermione screamed at the snowball-on-a-stick, a.k.a her wand. After tearing the snowball off her wand so fast she nearly ripped it in half, she threw it with all her might at Ron.

Upon seeing the cursed snowball (though he did not know it at the time), Ron dove headfirst into the snow. The snowball flew over his head and landed somewhere in the Forbidden Forest.

"Argh!" grunted a voice, followed by a muffled thump.

Harry, George, and Ron looked at each other, thinking that one of them had made the noise, but after realizing that it couldn't have been them, they peered into the Forbidden Forest. Silently, they crept into the area. In no time at all, Harry spotted the hem of a black cloak poking out of the waist-deep snow.

"Hey you guys, I found someone!" Harry shouted at Ron and George.

Together they ran as fast as they could, which was not very fast considering the depth of the snow, to where Harry was pointing. Once they reached it and saw the person that Hermione had incidentally knocked into lethargy, they let out a gasp. Laying in the snow, wand in hand and Slytherin prefect badge glinting under the clouded sun, was Draco Malfoy.

"What's going on? Why-" Fred began, but what his question was, they would never truly know, as he gazed, shocked and momentarily speechless, at Malfoy.

Ron and the twins slapped the mute Hermione, who had just arrived with Ginny, on the back as if she had won the Quidditch cup single- handedly. "Welcome to the dark side, Hermione. There may still be hope in you after all! Excellent idea, by the way, Stunning a snowball," Fred said in a cheery and somewhat awed voice.

"Yeah, but I- I didn't mean to-"

"So what? You've done what we've all wanted to do for ages: Hit Malfoy with a cursed snowball," Ron said brightly, grinning so much he could have recreated the meaning of the expression of 'grinning from ear to ear'.

"And now what are we going to do? We can't just leave him here," Ginny piped up callously, folding her arms over her chest.

"Why not?" the boys chorused, their delighted expressions fading.

"Because if no one finds him, he could die. That was a pretty strong Stunning Spell she put on that snowball."

Ron raised his eyebrows at his youngest, and only, sister. "And your point is.?"

"Do you really think you could live with something like that on your conscience?" Hermione said skeptically.

"I'm sure I could."
"But you could lose your prefects badge. Is leaving Malfoy to die really worth that?"

"Yeah."

"Ron, Hermione's right. As much as I'd love to, we can't just leave him," Harry said reluctantly, staring disgustedly at Malfoy.

"I wonder what he was doing, spying on us," Ginny wondered, her own voice ringing with deep aversion.

"Probably waiting for us to break a rule so he'd be able to give us all detention," Ron answered darkly. "Which is probably what he's gonna do when he wakes up."

Hermione squatted, with some difficulty, next to the unconscious Slytherin's head and, holding her wand to his temple, said, "Enervate."

Nothing happened.

Ron whistled. "Wow Hermione, I never thought I'd see the day when you messed up a spell. Harry, we have witnessed a miracle!"

Harry laughed, and then added. "Are you sure you used a Stunning Spell?"

"Yeah, she did. I heard her scream the incantation quite clearly at the snowball Fred handed her. Good thing too, or I'd have her wand sticking out of my shoulder." Ginny said, rubbing her right shoulder as if Hermione really had stabbed her with her wand.

Hermione, ignoring Ginny's remark, continued her attempt to revive Malfoy, but after several minutes of repeating the same word over and over again, she sighed and gave up.

"I guess that really was a strong Stunning Spell. I can't even get a twitch out of him! It's almost like he's dead," Hermione declared, letting herself fall back into the snow.

"Maybe he is," Harry and Ron suggested hopefully in unison.

"No, he's breathing."

Harry struggled to keep the stream of swear words that hung dangerously on the tip of his tongue inside his head. Ron appeared to be having the same internal battle.

"Well, now what do we do? Take him to the hospital wing?" Ginny alluded wearily as if it had been she who had been trying to reawaken him.

"Ah, yes, that would be a pleasant visit. 'Excuse me, Madam Pomfrey, but we had here a disgusting Slytherin by the name of Draco Malfoy, who has been accidentally been knocked into a coma with a snowball that my good friend Hermione Granger, a Gryffindor prefect, cursed with a Stunning Spell. By the way, lovely weather we're having, eh?" Fred said in a rather bad impression of a high-pitched, girlish voice.

George snorted. "You sound like that Umbridge woman."
"That was the point."

"Would you two quit fooling around?" Ginny scolded irritably, glaring at them

"Awww, Gin, you sound just like mum! I'm surprised you didn't get prefect," Fred declared in a surly tone.

"Now you sound like Viktor Krum."

"Shut up, George."

Hermione rolled her eyes and turned to Harry. "Harry, I've got an idea. We could use you Inv-" she stopped abruptly, glancing at Ginny and the twins hesitantly.

Harry nodded shortly, wondering what to do. Should he tell them? It wasn't like they had anything against him, but the less people who knew, the better. He'd tell them when he had to, he decided as he set his jaw firmly. "Er. Hermione, could you...er...get my-"

"Marauder's Map? Right, of course," Hermione finished for him and, giving him a diminutive wink, stalked off through the snow towards the castle.

"Good idea, Harry! I completely forgot about that old map. I trust you've been taking good care of it?" George said optimistically.

Harry nodded, grinning somewhat forcefully, and was about to comment when Ginny interrupted curiously. "What's the Marder's Map, or whatever?"

"It's the Marauder's Map, and it's a map of the school that shows the location of everyone on the premises. And it also has several shortcuts to Hogsmeade," George corrected exasperatedly.

"Where'd you get it?" Ginny grilled suspiciously.

"That's for us to know and you to find out, little sister," Fred replied mysteriously, wiggling his fingers under her nose in a mockingly sinister manner.

"It was a confiscated item we found in Filch's office."

"George!" Fred whined indignantly, dropping his sarcastic manner and glaring at his twin brother. "Your not supposed to give away one of the secrets of our troublemaking career! That's like sending an owl informing Snape that we are going to Dungbomb the dungeons!"

"Oh, so that's how you got those butterbeers when Ron made Keeper for the Quidditch team," Ginny said slowly, her face forming into an evil little smile of her own.

"Well, actually, we gave it to young Harry over here about three years ago because we memorized all the shortcuts to Hogsmeade," Fred corrected lightly.

George gave Harry and Ron a weird look. "Speaking of that, Hermione went in your dormitory?"

"Oh she does it all the time," Ron said in somewhat of a grumpy tone.

Fred and George exchanged looks of complete and utter interest. "She does, does she? All the time? Harry, did you know about this?" Fred said in a delighted voice, turning to Harry and blinking innocently. Harry tightened his lips to keep from bursting into laughter, as did Ginny.

Ron glanced, bewildered, at each in turn and then, comprehension dawning unpleasantly over him, and both ears and cheeks, glowed crimson. "Oh, sod off! You know perfectly well I did not mean it that way!"

"Oh, then why does she come into your room?" George asked, his eyes twinkling evilly.

"Because they stay up so late doing the homework that they neglected to do when it was most convenient for them that if I don't wake them up, they'll sleep until noon, since their room mates don't even bother to do so," said a voice frostily.

The boys and Ginny, startled, turned to see Hermione standing; arms crossed and left pocket bulging, next to Malfoy's snow-splotched head. All, except for Harry and Ginny, grinned sheepishly, their cheeks (And for Ron, his ears) turning pink. Harry and Ginny turned away in attempt to keep their laughter to themselves, though they, for the most part, failed terribly.

"Oh. Hi Hermione Weas- I mean Hermione. Lovely-- ouch!" Fred said brightly, but was abruptly interrupted as Ron stomped violently on his right foot.

"Lovely ouch? I've heard of many odd things ever since I discovered I was accepted to Hogwarts, but believe it or not, 'lovely ouch' just might take the cake. That, or perhaps Crumple-Horned Snorkacks." Hermione said, a smirk playing across her lips.

"But don't tell Loony Lovegood that or else she'll go crazy," Ginny warned.

"You mean crazier than usual? I didn't realize that was possible," Ron piped up scornfully. About a month ago, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had informed him that Parvati's sister, Padma, had insisted that Luna recently had taken an interest in him. Harry, who was just as shocked, wasn't altogether sure that Ron had, or ever would, fully recover--

"What the hell is that?" Fred asked loudly, breaking Harry's train of thought as Hermione pulled the Invisibility Cloak, followed by the Marauder's Map, out of her pocket.

"Well, this, as I'm sure you know, is the Marauder's Map," she said, holding up a sheaf of paper.

"Looks like a piece of parchment to me," Ginny said, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

"And this," Hermione continued, unfazed by Ginny's cynical remark, "is an Invisibility Cloak."

"Whoa, where did you get that?" George queried incredulously, his eyes widening.

"That's not the point. This point is we have to get Malfoy to the Room of Requirement. I have an idea," Hermione said earnestly, handing Harry the Marauder's Map.