Wednesday, December 24th
Around 2:00pm

Alex’s Outfit

In an open field not far and still within eyesight of Hogsmeade Village, where the cold icy winds whipped about freely, a warrior knelt behind a small wall made of snow.  Beside him were around forty-nine snowballs, some small and some larger.  He completed the fiftieth snowball, setting it down to rest with the others.  Noble weapons for what was (hopefully) going to be the best snowball fight of the season.  The warrior, clad in warm, flexible gear was anxious to start kicking ass to fight alongside his comrades in a fair (yeah, right!) fight.

Though a snowball fight hadn’t been officially organized as one of the events of the Winter Festival, Alex had decided and taken it upon himself to make sure there was one.  What was a Winter Festival without a good old snowball fight, right?  Relying on the dependable social network in Hogwarts, Alex had made sure to spread the word to all of the known chatterers with all confidence that they would pass the news on.  It seemed to have been an effective method.  He had had students coming up to him and asking him whether or not he was serious blah blah blah.  No, he was going to fake a snowball fight!  Stupid prats... 

Alex had headed down to the scouted location earlier in the day to have a chance to prepare and warm-up.  If he took his schoolwork half as seriously as this fight then he would have much better marks.  However, Alex had already decided his future would have nothing to do with sitting in an office in the Ministry or crunching numbers.... or whatever.  In fact, he didn’t much care where he ended up at the moment, all he did care about was this snowball fight and winning.

It was then that Alex spotted a figure walking his way.  He dropped down on his hands, making sure he was hidden behind his snow wall.  As he heard the footsteps grow closer, Alex dared a peak around the corner.  Well, if it wasn’t the one and only Dracon Towler!  Alex grinned.  Of course if he was going to have a snowball fight he wouldn’t exclude one of his good buddies!  Alex reached out and grabbed one of his pre-made snowballs, one of the small ones that was good for longer distances, and carefully sat up on his feet in a crouching position.

3,2,1

Alex jumped up into the air, throwing his cold weapon towards its target. “SNARK ATTACK!”

Dracon was warm.

He always dressed appropriately for the weather and today had been a sunny and mild day, despite the three feet of snow on the ground. The air still had a chill in it and when the wind swept through the village, it bit him on the tips of his ears and reddened his nose. But, it was pleasant enough to be outside. It was a typical Scottish winter day in Hogsmeade. Tomorrow was Christmas and today was to be his last day in the village before returning to Wales for the remainder of the break. It wasn’t easy transporting himself between two countries and had done so much of it the past week that it was a little overwhelming and even if he would never admit it, the action was wearing him out. Between being in Wales and working in the shop and coming to Hogsmeade so often, he was exhausted. He didn’t regret his stays in the village or his appearance at so many of the festival days in the slightest, Dracon had had a very good time, especially when Liviana had joined him. They were supposed to meet today before he left for Wales. Liviana was still at her home in London and wouldn’t be joining him until a little later, so he walked around the village for a while and talked with some friends. Waiting on someone made time always go much slower and it wasn’t long after he was wandering outside of the village center, near the Shrieking Shack and an open field with random clumps of trees. Perhaps he could blame it on his exhaustion that he reacted so slowly to what happened next, and truth be told, Dracon probably would. It could also have been he wasn’t fast enough to have a positive reaction.

Either way, Dracon found himself suddenly very cold.

At first there was a shout of something from his right, from behind a camouflaged snow wall (which obviously blended in with the snow background) and a figure popped up. Then, Dracon was cold. When he looked down at his chest, there were chunks of snow stuck against his wool coat. His first reaction was to pummel who ever just attacked him with a snowball. The words that had been shouted before the attack became clearer as Dracon stomped towards the snow wall, with every intention to drag the bloke from behind it and make him eat snow, and he stopped as the words struck him as hard as the snowball did. Snark – it was Alex.

He couldn’t help but laugh.

Dracon ducked down behind a nearby tree and started packing snow into a ball, constantly craning his head around the trunk to watch the enemy’s movements. He didn’t want t surprise snowball in the face. “Oi, Alex,” he shouted, his hands working fast. “Yee better stop, yur mum is coming. She looks pretty pissed.”

Dracon held his snowball in his quaffle arm, his breath held in his chest. He hoped Alex would poke his little head up from the other side of that wall to check and see if the Headmistress was coming. Dracon thought his lie was pretty believable, and it did sound like something his mother would be doing. Dracon turned his head and looked at the wall, and thought he saw two beady eyes poking curiously around the wall and without being positive if it was him or not, Dracon hurled the snow ball as accurately as he could at the smaller than a sickle target.

( I didn’t know if Alex would look or not, so I left it open to if he looked, he could pull his head back or get hit. Or if he didn’t, that works too, : D )

Target hit!  First shot was a success!  Alex beamed to himself as he crouched back down behind his ‘fortress’ to await the Dracon’s response.  When he heard the other laugh, he took it as a good sign that things were about to start warming up.... well, technically they were going to cool down  but to heck with the technical mumbo-jumbo.  It was Alex’s hope that if people saw him and Dracon having a one-on-one fight then that would draw them in.  Then they could actually split up into teams, or, just do it old-fashioned ‘everyone man for himself’-type thing.  In Alex’s experience it was typically the houses against each other, but sometimes exceptions had to be made due to lack of players.  But, no matter how this fight ended up being played, Alex did not care.  As long as it happened and he got to pummel some people (without getting detention) then he would go home happy.

So far, he didn’t hear anything from Dracon.  This was a good opportunity to stock up on some more weapons.  Alex grabbed two fist fulls of snow and pounded them together, creating a medium-sized snowball. 

“Oi, Alex....Yee better stop, yur mum is coming. She looks pretty pissed.”

Alex stopped what he was doing and turned to face the direction of Dracon’s voice.  His mum... coming here?  Yeah right, like she would have a pair of heels that would be fit for walking in this snow.  And why would she care about Alex being involved in a snowball fight?  This was absolutely nothing compared to some of the stuff he’d done in the past, and had gotten away with.  No, it couldn’t be true.  The bloke had to be lying....  Yet, there was still that twinge of doubt that started voicing itself inside his head.  His mum could be a rather unpredictable person, like himself.  Maybe she was coming and Dracon was trying to warn him so he could have some time to make a getaway.  Not that his mum yelled at him much, but he’d still rather not have her go off on him in public.  He had a reputation, afterall.... and it was iffy enough for her to be the Headmistress.... while he was still there..... 

Oh, to heck with it!  Alex set aside the snowball in his hand and slowly peaked his head over his wall.  All he saw was a white snow field and...... snow, in his face.

“BLOODY HELL!  THA’S COLD!” Alex fell backwards onto his bum as he hurriedly tried to swat the cold snow from his forehead and eyes.  Though, if he were smart, he would have taken off his snowy gloves to do it.  He was only adding to the mess.  Taking his hands from his face, he shook his head a few times and then got back on his knees.

“TOWLER!  If I didn’t value you as a Quidditch teammate I’d come over there and break your arms!” He shouted, “You’ll be joining my team, then, right?”  Because heaven help him if he had to have Dracon on an opposing team. 

He had launched it and in the same instant there was a loud smack and Alex’s mouth opening to yell but filling with snow. Dracon looked around the trunk again because he couldn’t resist the sight of seeing Alex desperately wiping the burning cold off his face and diving back behind his snow wall for protection. Dracon howled with laughter, resting his back against the tree he almost fell sideways when Alexander started threatening to break his arms, “you’d have tuh come over ‘eere and get tuh me first, mate.”

Dracon’s hands were already working on a fourth snowball, a little perfect triangle ammunition pile sitting next to his thigh.  “You’ll be joining my team, then, right?” said the shout from the other side of the tree. He really hadn’t planned on having a snowball fight today. Dracon had only come back to the festival to meet Liviana before he had to return to Wales for the rest of break. But, it was a hard choice to resist. It did sound like a lot of fun, and this would probably be his only chance to do it.

“Yeah, all right,” Dracon shouted loud enough so the other Slytherin could hear him. Alex and Dracon had been friends for a long time. Sometimes he could be a little much but he was good, in small doses. On the quidditch pitch, they worked as a team should work. They were a vicious pair of chasers, both fast and extremely competitive. Alex was a known fouler and Dracon had the reputation of playing loose with the code of conduct rules.

It was a Slytherin thing, he believed, the need to win and compete. He worked hard and did play by the rules, he wouldn’t have felt like he succeeded if he had cheated, but sometimes a Gryffindor would get a little too close to him, shove him a little too hard, and he’d have to teach him to back the hell off. If he was going to win, he was going to be an undisputed winner. Alex was a bit less controlling. He didn’t seem to really care how they won as long as they won, and sometimes he did get a bit carried away. But Alex was a good bloke, and a good player. Besides, a small part of Dracon felt the same way.

Dragon’s laughter caused Alex to roll his eyes. Yeah, glad you enjoyed making my face feel like the North Pole, ya arse!  But despite his annoyance at having fell for something so blatantly a trick, Alex couldn’t help but grin.  He hated being made a fool of, but there were certain people he wouldn’t hex the living crap out of if they did make a fool of him.  Those were the people Alex held in high regard.  Besides, though he wouldn’t admit it, Alex wasn’t perfect.... not all the time.  And, in the end, this was all good fun.  There would be a nice bonfire at the end of the day to warm him up.

But Dragon’s trick had brought something to Alex’s attention.  To make sure he wouldn’t fall for something like that again and so he could keep an eye out on the opposing team(s), it would be wise for him to make a little eye hole in his wall.  This would allow him to keep an eye on things without putting the rest of his face in danger.  Also, the eye hole would be small enough to not let  in any snowballs.  Proud of his ‘intelligence’, Alex carefully stuck a finger through his snow wall and hollowed out a big enough hole for him to see out of.  Though it didn’t provide a wide range of vision, it was good enough to at least see what or who was coming at him.

“you’d have tuh come over ‘eere and get tuh me first, mate.”

“And let you have a chance to hit my perfect face again?!  What do you take me for, Towler?”  Alex snorted and peeked out of his eye hole towards the direction of the trees.  He couldn’t quite make out where Dracon was, but he thought he saw some movement behind one of the bigger trees near the front.

“Yeah, all right,”

Alex smiled, “Knew you wouldn’t let me down, mate!” He picked up two snowballs and sat up on his feet.  From the sound of Dracon’s voice, he had pinpointed his relative location.... Not that he planned to rush him.  That would be stupid.  Dracon had the better advantage being behind the trees.  “What say you come on over and we can, uh, draw up some battle plans?”