Head Boy. Wow. It had come as a total shock when he'd been appointed the position just a couple of days ago. Walton had never been a prefect before. He had no idea what had happened to Church- and hadn't really asked. You didn't ask questions when Hogwarts told you that you were going to be Head Boy. You just nodded sagely and pretended you had it all under control. But he didn't have it under control. It was far from under control. He was planning a meeting with the prefects in a few days. He needed to give Zel Trumble time to recover from his monthly transformation, and with it being Hogsmeade weekend they needed to be free to keep an eye on the students visiting the town. Walt was hoping to get together with everyone Sunday or Monday.

But in the mean time, he was doing a lot of thinking. About why they had appointed him, and what he could do with the position. Granted, he was only going to be head boy the last half of the school year- but that was long enough. More time than he had expected.

For now, though, Walton was trying to stop stressing out. So after his last class on Thursday, Walton had bundled up and headed outside. He knew it would be dark soon, but he intended to take advantage of the last bit of daylight that was available by making a snow man. Sometimes you had to have a little bit of fun- and making a snowman was just the kind of fun he needed. He rolled the giant ball of snow he'd been making for the base down a hill on the grounds, scooping up snow to help round it out.

Once he reached the bottom of the hill he let it rest and trudged back up to the top, ready to start a ball for the snow man's torso. Walton turned when he heard shoes crunching behind him. He gave a large wave and a bright smile. "Want to help?" he called out. "About to make the best snowman Hogwarts ever saw."

School was starting to get very stressful. With exams just around the corner, Ryan was spending every waking moment with his nose in a thick tome and today was no exception. Escaping the endless cycle of study in the Ravenclaw common room was priority number one to assist in calming his nerves, and outside in the cold winter air seemed just the right place to go. It’s not every day that someone reads in the snow, especially someone like the Ravenclaw, who loathed the cold. Ryan, perched atop a branch in a large tree, snuggled up in his thick winter coat and blue Ravenclaw scarf as he tried to focus on the book in his cold hands.

He wasn’t sure how long had passed, but before he knew it, the time had flown by and Ryan found himself becoming colder as the sun lowered in the sky. Great, he thought to himself, lost track of time again. Stretching his arms in front of him, Ryan shut the book and promptly  jumped down from the low branch, landing softly in the once pristine snow. With his book tucked under his arm, Ryan stuffed his hands in his pockets before making his way back to the castle. He was frozen to the bone and wouldn’t mind just getting straight into bed, but as he began down a sloping hill, he saw someone in the snow, and they seemed to be building something.

Ryan stopped in his tracks as they called out and he instantly recognised him. Walton Dodd, Gryffindor seventh year and newly appointed head boy. What was he doing out in the snow apparently building the ’best snowman Hogwarts ever saw.’ For a moment, Ryan didn’t realise the Gryffindor was addressing him, he looked around for anyone else and then shrugged his shoulders. He hadn’t really talked to the boy before, he hardly knew him besides the basic information, and the request to join him took him by surprise. Build a snowman in the freezing cold when they could be studying for upcoming exams? The young boy inside jumped for joy and a small smile graced Ryan’s lips. Heck yeah!

Shrugging at the invitation, Ryan tossed the book to the ground and made his way towards the older boy. “Sure, why not? It’s been ages since I’ve played around in the snow.” He admitted, kicking at the snow, “Do you have a carrot?” He mumbled, trying his best not to chuckle at the situation. He felt incredibly stupid doing this, it wasn’t the actual snowman building, but rather that he was dismissing study for this... and also because he felt the snowman wouldn’t be complete without a carrot for a nose.

Walton was a little surprised- though pleasantly so- when Ryan agreed to help out. Older students didn't have much time for frivolous activities, and Ryan was a Ravenclaw. He had a book with him- he'd probably been studying. "I play in the snow every year," he said. "Might as well enjoy being young while you can, yeah? Once you graduate they're going to look at you funny if you build a snowman for the hell of it."

Walton patted his pockets when Ryan asked if he had a carrot. "I do, actually." He pulled out a small bag, and dumped it out on the snow. Walton had a carrot, a few chocolate frogs, and a bag of Bertie Botts. "I figured could do the mouth with the jelly beans, eyes with the frogs, carrot," Walton picked it up and shook it at Ryan, "for a nose, of course." The house elves had been more than happy to give him a single carrot. He'd had to argue with them not to send along an entire basket of vegetables.

"Working on the middle one now. Could use some help getting it big enough before I roll it down the hill." Walton said. Doing the bottom by himself had been hard enough. And Walt had made it really big. He wanted the snow man to be tall- and if he had gotten the bottom the right size, it should end up about six feet tall. "I got some clothes for him, too. Old stuff of mine. It's a Gryffindor sweater- but we can enchant it to change between house colors." Ought to have a Ravenclaw stamp on it, too, if Ryan was going to help out.

"What is that?" the slightly raspy voice of the silver-haired Slytherin popped up behind the two boys.

The days before winter break were always exhausting. Amara knew that these were the times when she'd actually have to put some effort in her academical pursuits. Today, however Amara felt she needed a break. So she beckoned Freija to follow her and decided on a stroll on the grounds. Her long, heavy dark purple coat stood out from the pure white of the scenery, yet her billowing silver hair shined in nuances of blue and purple behind her. The castle was most beautiful in winter, and she often found herself admiring it in awe.

She was awaken from her reverie when she heard the voice of a male boasting on about a... snowman? Amara rummaged through her mind, the concept sounded familiar, and she was sure it was rather self-explanatory, but still her curiosity got the best of her. She started walking towards the source of the voice, when another one joined the conversation and, for a moment, she rethought her actions. Still, her curiosity won and she went straight for the two boys.

She fought with the hair attacking her own person as the shift in trajectory had caused her hair to be right in the wind's path. She pulled the hood of the coat over her head, in hopes of keeping her meter long hair in place then made a few more steps towards the boys and looked at the snow construction. She analyzed it from all sides, circling it and then lowered herself, bending her knees to get a closer look at it. "I think I've seen some muggle children do those before. What are they? What are their purpose?" she then asked, brows furrowed, without awaiting an answer to her previous question.

Peyton was walking back from the Quidditch pitch, his robes tight around him, a woolen toque over his dark hair and his thick gloved hands holding Phoenix (his broom) over his shoulder. Quidditch was actually done for the year and would start back up when they came back from Christmas holidays so he had let the team have a break, which many were thankful for considering how hard he had been pushing them, but it didn't stop him from getting as much air time as he could. Now that the sun was starting to go down though he would lose light quick and there was nothing more dangerous than flying in the dark, especially since the pitch wasn't lit when there wasn't a game or official practice.

As he trudged back up to the castle he heard a familiar voice. As he got closer he realized Ryan, one of his dorm mates, was talking to another boy and even closer he noticed the older boy was none other than Walton Dodd, new Head Boy. Peyton wasn't a Prefect or anything but when one of your own house mates got replaced on a title like Head Boy you tended to take notice. Peyton didn't mind really, Church had always been a bit of a prat in social gatherings even if he had been a good beater and Peyton had to admit Walt was much much better looking. He was glad the cold wind on his cheeks was enough to hide any blush that may have come up.

Just as Peyton opened his mouth to say something a younger girl, the same age as his sister, had asked a question so mind blowing he was momentarily taken aback, "Since when have Snowmen had a purpose?" Having been raised primarily as a muggle Peyton found the question incredibly strange.

Ryan smiled as Walton showed him the items that would make up the snowman’s facial features, crossing his arms across his chest to shield himself from the cold. Walton’s attitude towards building the snowman was amusing and somewhat inspiring. For a moment, Ryan forgot all about the stresses about upcoming exams and felt like a kid again, and that was quite a tough feat.

“How long do you think it would take for some kid or anything really to eat him,” He smirked, “I mean, besides the clothes, he’s fully edible.” Ryan had a weird way of thinking of things, he usually thought of the strangest things to say and they were out of his mouth before he could process how silly they sounded.  Ryan was moved towards Walton to help with the middle when a young silver haired girl seemed to appear out of nowhere, seemingly fascinated with what they were doing.

Ryan grew up learning both magic and muggle ways, but this girl seemed to not know a thing about the muggle world, if she didn’t even know what a snowman was. Shaking his head at the girl’s questions, Ryan heard Peyton answer her. “It’s not much now,” Ryan said, gesturing towards the one large snowball, “But it’s a snowman. Ever made one before?”

"I can charm the stuff on the face to be unstickable, so that nobody can eat him," Walton said. He was about to push the mid section down the hill when another couple of students appeared. Walton blinked at the Slytherin girl when she asked what the purpose of a snowman was. He offered Peyton a friendly wave when he appeared.

"It's just for fun," Walton said to Amara. "I don't suppose it has much purpose other than that." He shrugged a little, then moved to gather more snow on his middle section. "We can make two snowmen," he said. "Since there's four of us. We can just make this another bottom piece instead of a middle piece."

Walton motioned Amara over. "Come on, you can help me with this. You just make a big ball of snow then roll it down thehill to help round it out. Then we'll make some snowman torsos." He looked at Peyton. "Assuming you want to help us out, of course?" If someone was going to roll up on his snowman creation, Walt assumed they were just going to help him out with it.

"You have any gloves?" he said to Amara. "If not, I can put a charm on your hands so they don't get cold. If you wanted to help, that is. It's fun, I promise."

The small group gathered around two large mounds of snow attracted the young Gabriella’s attention as she stepped out of the castle entrance and started to wander towards the lake. The cold instantly hit her but Gabby just pulled her robes tighter and continued to walk. Living in the Alps your whole life made you fairly immune to the bitter winds of Scotland in December.

“Dodd!” Gabby yelled against the wind as she quickened her pace to reach the gathering. He was cute was there head bead and Gabby certainly didn’t deny it.  But considering her completely lack of experience with boys, she didn’t know how to flirt with him or be completely normal. Since they’d come back from the summer and he’d turned into a legit hotty Gabby had barely spoken to him. She’d admired him from afar, drolled about him when alone and imagined being Mrs Dodd when staring at him in class but that was about it. A perfectly normal teenage girl reacting to a perfectly handsome teenage boy.

“You…” She finally stepped up to him, giving him a grin and poking his arm “still haven’t given me an interview.” The young witch glanced away from him at the snow and her eyebrows rose. “Playing with snow? You’re all that bored?” She questioned, her mongrel accent emphasising her confusion at the activities. Snow was there to be a pain and make working over Christmas even harder. Not to be played in. Not when you were 17 years old.

"Assuming you want to help us out, of course?"

"Huh, aguh!" Peyton nodded, flushing and bending his head over the new snowball to hide the embarrassment in his eyes. He could already hear Bella or Alex laughing at him. He was seriously going to have to learn how to talk to guys. At least he didn't feel like throwing up anymore when he was around someone he found attractive, that had to be some kind of improvement right?

He rested his broom on the ground out of everyone's way and started to help roll the second ball, "Do we have to make a second one? I mean with five of us," He motioned to Gabriella - whose appearance had hopefully distracted them from Peyton's mess of articulation, "we could probably manage making just one gigantic snowman." He made sure to direct his suggestion to Ryan and the girls, he didn't want to get himself all tongue tied when he was actually trying to make a decent suggestion.

He chanced a look at Walt with his best smile, "Of course I'm all for making two, if that's what everyone else wants."

She eyed the three boys with suspicion and then shook her head in response at the head boy's offer, she wasn't about to use her hands directly for anything of the sort. They hadn't really answered her questions and that irritated her. She watched the snow construction before her and raised an eyebrow, perhaps involving herself in the activity might hold some answers. And just why was the boy using her given name without her permission? It was rather rude and she mentally scoffed. She extracted her wand from the holster on her thigh and set about magically creating a sphere of snow. She was a witch and the concept of doing anything that could be done with the aid of a wand, without it, was not part of Amara's perceptions.

"Yes, but... does it hold any meaning? Does it have a folkloric history? Is it a tradition? Why would you do something for the sake of doing it? Something without a use? Everything should hold purpose" she said as she raised a chunk of snow from the ground. "I once read a book about muggle holidays and celebrations, the Christmas wreath is used to prepare for the Advent season. So, despite not having an actual practical use, the wreath holds a meaning, it has a reason for existing" she said slightly exasperated as the snow started to shape up into a ball.

She turned suddenly as she felt yet another presence walking towards them. This was a bit too much for Amara and she contemplated dropping everything and making a run for the castle. Even more so when she saw the older girl interacting. Her actions and speech made Amara twitch her nose in slight disgust, something about the other witch screamed frivolous. It was considered rude to not acknowledge the presence of other persons present in a group, and the girl seemed to only have eyes for the head boy, which amused the Slytherin slightly.

She listened to the other boy, and thought for a brief moment that she really had no idea what was going on around her and what exactly she was doing. She, really, just wanted some answers, because once she got interested in something she had to see it to some sort of conclusion. So she simply shrugged mindlessly and hoped somebody would just give her the information so she could scurry away.

“It’s just a snowman, I guess people make them with their families and friends in celebration of the winter season. Also, it’s fun to see them melt when the weather gets warmer.” Ryan chuckled, scraping up a handful of fresh snow from the ground and patting it into a ball, “But there are plenty of other things to do to celebrate winter that don’t really have any meaning.” Passing the snowball absentmindedly in his hands, he thought of perhaps lobbing it at the girl, but he wasn’t sure how she would react so he just continued to shape it into a perfect sphere.

Ryan shook his head at Amara as she used magic to create a snowball. “It’s no fun like that,” He said, holding up his own snowball, “You have to use your own hands, what’s the fun in just letting your wand do all the work?”

Smiling at the fourth year, Ryan patted the snowball in his hands for the last time before tossing it at Peyton.  “Snowball fights are also loads of fun,” He said, rubbing his cold hands together, “Another exciting winter activity.”

"Hullo!" he greeted when Dagon approached. She was known around the school for being a relentless reporter. Regular Rita Skeeter that girl was. "Haven't asked me for one yet, have you?" he said, tossing her a grin. "But you find me in the common room and I'll answer your questions. Right now, though, I'm trying to have a bit of fun." Walton gave her a friendly wink and turned back to the snow.

Wentworth suggested making a giant snowman. "I think we'd get into each others way, making one big snowman. Besides, if we make two we can enchant them to talk to each other or something fun. Make a snowlady, too, even. Give her a pointy hat." Walton hadn't noticed the way Peyton stuttered a bit, or read into the smile that was tossed his way. Walt could be a bit clueless sometimes.

Walton frowned when Amara went on a little rant about history and tradition. "Hell if I know what a Snowman is or whether it's got a purpose. S'just fun. My mum and dad used to help me make them. Sometimes you just gotta do things for the sake of doing it. Not everything has a meaning. It's just fun." Dodd gave her a skeptical look. "Don't you know what fun is? You're still a kid. You should be into this."

He watched Ryan throw a snowball at Peyton, and laughed a bit. "Snowball fights are fun. But I'd rather you not toss those around when we get the snowmen together. I don't want it to fall apart from battle wounds." Goodness. He hadn't expected to give a seminar.

Walton looked back to group at hand. "You can help or you can watch. It's up to you. But I'm tired of talking." He flicked his wand to make the base of the second snow man the right size, then rolled it the rest of the way down the hill. Walton scooted it diagonal to the first ball. "Right then! Make some middles!" he yelled up the hill at the other four students.

"Oi!" Peyton called out with a smirk as Ryan hit him with a snowball. He was about to toss one of his own back and had even gotten as far as rolling one up until Walton asked them not to rough house around the snowmen. There'd be plenty of time to have a snowball fight later, for now Peyton just wanted to help with the snowman project. He nodded in response to Walt's reasoning on making two snowmen and he did think it'd be rather funny if they could enchant them to talk to each other, that was definitely a part of snowmen making he hadn't done before.

He started to work on the base for a middle, padding it up before he could start rolling it around. He needed to make sure it was big enough to support a head ball but not so big as to be disproportionate to the bottoms Walton had already made. It wasn't long before it was big enough to roll down the hill to the Head Boy at the bottom.

"So if you've never made a snowman before, what do you usually do during winter?" Peyton asked Amara with a curious smile. Even after spending six years amoungst other witches and wizards he was still fascinated by their magical upbringing. With his mother being muggle and his father's wand having been snapped the only magic in his house growing up was whatever Helena and he had done accidentally.

Her opinion on the head boy went from neutral to bad in about 2 minutes after his little speech. Firstly the boy proved that ignorance was his approach to life, and Amara, by no means, thought ignorance is bliss, secondly he had called her a kid, proving not only complete ignorance but also mindless rudeness and a lack of all knowledge for society rules. You did not refer to age to make an argument, especially not when a representative of the fair sex was concerned. She decided it was best to hold her tongue, because otherwise she might just hex the boy and promptly ignored him, turning instead to Mister Wentworth, whom she had recognized as being the Ravenclaw quidditch captain.

"The Báthorys are an old pureblood family. We come from Eastern Europe where Christianity had been adopted very early on, and don't have much pre-Christian pagan religion to refer to. However, this area of Europe was heavily influenced by religion and folklore in their daily lives, so anything occult, pagan or remotely disagreed by the Orthodox religion was highly frowned upon; our family was decimated and shunned in the Middle Ages. We have never been religious people before, but after the witch hunts we have completely denounced our religious affiliations, and fully retreated from muggle society" she said while magically creating another snowball. "We do not celebrate muggle or Christian traditions and I come from the sort of family that raises children with an affiliation towards the name and clan rather than the parents, so my only family activities include high-profile visits, soirees and events that require the presence of the entire family. There is only me, my sister and my father, and my father much prefers the comfort of his lavish house in Mayfair, while me and my sister mostly reside with our governess in Kensington. However, during most school holidays I am sent away for grooming -as my father calls it- in Romania, where everything not pertaining to my magical heritage is immediately dismissed, and the only time spent not studying or training is when I sleep or eat, or otherwise tend to my physiological needs" she continued while looking with her brows furrowed at the ball of snow that kept growing in diameter.

"So no, I suppose I do not know what fun is. Or rather I choose not to engage in the activities as they do not seem to have any impact on my goals and purpose, on the other hand, my concept of relaxation usually involves animals, books and furthering my magical abilities, Mr. Dodd" she finished calmly at the same time as her ball of snow had reached the perfect size.

Walton listened as Amara prattled on about her old pureblood family. Going on about muggle and Christian traditions and breeding schools and so on. Sounded like a perfectly boring existence, really. He wasn't sure he would be able to handle something like that. Finally she was done, and was addressing him as Mr. Dodd. Walt couldn't help but laugh as her snowball hung midair.

"Wow, Bathroy, that must really suck for you," he said. "I had a pretty exciting time growing up. Can't wait to get home for holidays most of the time. My da- he's an archaeologist. I've been all over the world with him on digs. I don't get to do much, but it's fascinating. And my mum is pretty brilliant too. Guess I should be more thankful for having had a proper childhood- full of fun."

Walton shook his head sadly at Amara. He couldn't imagine not being allowed fun! "Even so, you're at Hogwarts now, aren't you? Which means you can have all the fun you want- and mummy and daddy don't have to know."

The head boy levitated the middle seciton Petyon had created onto one of the snow men. He thought about adding some snowballs to the front of it- to make it a proper snow woman, but after glancing up at the young girl decided against it. It wouldn't do to go around making snow-boobs in the company of a fourth year girl who was- quite obviously- a bit of a prude. Better not to risk it. He'd hate to get into trouble. Instead he set about breaking some sticks off of the nearby tree to stuff into the side of the torso as arms.