Nicholas was standing at the top of the stairs, he wasn't hiding really, but he was keeping his wand out of easy view.  He didn't really want someone to connect the snow falling over the door into the Great Hall with him.  If he walked out of the Great Hall only to find himself with a layer of snow and cold water running down the back of his neck, he would assume it was Peeves.

He had finished dinner before anyone else, not because he was in a hurry but he had ended up surrounded by some third years and he had wanted to get away from their mindless chatter as quickly as he could.  He had been halfway up the marble staircase on his way back to Gryffindor tower when he thought about this being the perfect place to practice a snow conjuring spell he had been wanting to try.  He would have attempted the spell for rain, but running water right outside the door would have brought professors, and drenching one of them was never a particularly smart move.  Unless you could make it look like an accident of course, but standing at the top of the stairs with wand pointed above the Great Hall doorway...not exactly an accident, and he wasn't sure he could spin it that it was either.

So he had ended up at the top of the staircase, wand pointed at the air above the doorway and using his other arm to block the view of his wand.  It took him a few tries to get the spell right, especially since he was trying to do the correct motion without being too obvious about it.  On his fifth try he got it right and a slow but steady snow fall started in the entrance hall, which the first few people to walk through completely ignored.  He tried the spell again, this time trying for a slightly larger snowflake, and after achieving it, watched with amusement as some second year Hufflepuffs jumped when the frozen snow flakes hit skin.  He looked to his side after hearing a small cough to see a stern little witch in a painting looking at him, no glaring at him while a portly wizard in the frame next to it was enjoying either the snow or that Nicholas was being given the evil eye by his neighbor. 

Heliotrope licked the last of dinner off of her webbed fingers. Napkin and silverware had been untouched as usual. Passing through the scattered students in and out she didn't notice what drew their attention until the moisture hit her skin. She looked up, unblinkingly, at the large white flakes that drifted over her. One was tracked by her vision as it landed and melted in her outstretched hand.

First snowfall. It was the time of The Chilling.

An indecipherable sound came from her mouth, although it could be identified as a low moan of irritating Mermish shriek. She appeared to have been petrified by the snowflakes until she collapsed, legs and arms tucked into a ball. Her eyes wavered about the Enterance Hall until she found a route.

Then Heliotrope was crawling across the floor. Not really crawling but dragging herself with her arms as her legs were snapped together, unmoving.

The little witch in the portrait was lecturing him.  Nicholas wasn't sure what to make of this so he just kept nodding his head with an amused smirk on his face.  She was threatening to take away all the points he had ever earned, seemingly mistaking him for someone who would let himself get pushed around by six inch tall painted witch, or who cared about points, or especially someone who had been awarded that many points in the first place.  He was about to tell her all this when he heard some kind of shriek from down in the entrance hall.  He leaned over the railing to get a better look at what or who was making the noise only to see the weird half-mermaid girl from Hufflepuff dragging herself across the floor.

"What the f-" He saw the witch in the painting bristle at the word he hadn't even said yet.  Must be a Hufflepuff too, he thought.  "Oi, what happened?"

Katy reached out and speared a couple of thick slices of ham from one of the platters near the end of the Hufflepuff table by the door.  She didn't look around, just put the ham onto a roll quietly and quickly.  After Halloween, Katy had done her absolute best to avoid anyone and everyone.  She wrapped the roll in a napkin and shoved it into her bag with her books.  She would find a quiet, out of the way place, to study and eat.  Not the Library though: too many people in the library, someone would see her or even try to talk to her.

When she left the Great Hall, she stuck to the wall and tried to walk as quickly as possible.  It wasn't until she heard the shriek that she looked up and around and realized that it was snowing in the Entrance Hall.  Her head snapped around and she saw Helio on the ground, writhing in a peculiar way.  She ran across the floor, leaving dark, melted footprints in the light dusting of snow on the floor.  "Helio!" she called out breathlessly.  She fell into a kneel by the younger girl's side and turned her over so Katy could see her face.  All of her own concerns were pushed away as she looked down on the mer-girl from Hufflepuff.  "Are you ok?  What's wrong?"

Heliotrope was turned over to look at the slightly older reddish brown haired Bevans. The half mer kept her legs together and her arms tight so that her fists were at her shoulder.

"The Chilling is coming," she explained. "Must keep energy and get under ice."

Helio further contorted into the smallest fetal ball she could muster as the snow continued to fall on her. Her eyes looked up at the weather showing ceiling although she was confusing it for the enchanted sky in the Great Hall.

Nicholas came running down the stairs when he saw Katy kneel next to her housemate, as quick as he dared since they were a tiny bit slick from the melted snow, which still floated in the air, the spell forgotten and slowly dissipating.   

"The Chilling is coming, Must keep energy and get under ice." He heard the younger girl explain to his cousin. 

He slid to a stop, which he thought was kind of impressive, though it was definitely not the right moment to say so.  "What the hell is she talking about?  The chilling?  Is she okay?  Do I need to get someone?" As soon as he said it he wished he hadn't.  He hated having to deal with professors.  The healer would be okay.  But given that both the girls in front of him were Hufflepuff, he really didn't want to end up dealing with their head of house.

Katy glared at her cousin with her hand still resting on Helio's shoulder.  "The Chilling," she repeated, as though that made it any clearer.  "She must be talking about winter.  Maybe the merfolk have to hibernate if the lake freezes over."

Katy looked down at the other girl and frowned.  She chewed on her lip a little bit and wondered what she ought to say.  Had Helio ever gone through a winter in Scotland before?  Would she really have to hibernate in a month or so?  Regardless, it hadn't started snowing outside for real, there was just some sort of haywire spell happening or a prank.  She shot her cousin another pointed look.  "Did you do this?" she accused. 

She shook her head with a dismissive sort and then patted Helio's shoulder awkwardly. "It's just a spell, Helio.  It's not really snowing.  Not outside at least.  We still have a few weeks before that starts.

Heliotrope was paralyzed in intent, whether to crawl back to the Great Hall or down to her bed in the house of Hufflepuff, as the flakes of ice gathered on her skin.

In her prone state other students were crouched over her, one the familiar Katy Bevans face from the common room and the taller the Gryffindor boy she had stabbed with the miniature trident piece of cutlery on their plate settings during the fight that had broken out at dinner in October.

"Still a few weeks. Good. Must not get trapped in the surface when The Chilling starts."