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 Imogen was so excited to be seen at the winter fest on the arm of the most handsome gentleman of her acquaintance - her cousin Jasper, of course! The petite red head was positively beaming with pride, and absolutely certain that all the other young ladies walking the streets of Hogsmeade were eaten up by jealousy because they did not have such a tall dark handsome beau to walk the streets with. And, all right, he wasn't her beau, but they didn't know that, did they?

 "Thank you so much for taking me skating, Cousin Jasper," she told him cheerfully, sitting on a bench as she finished lacing up her expensive figure skates and feeling like an absolute princess. Jasper was so nice, he always managed to make her feel like royalty. Why couldn't he be her brother, instead of Geoff? Life was unfair.

 The Slytherin girl awkwardly clambored to her feet and made her way onto the ice, her movements turning into a graceful glide once she did so. The third year loved skating. If one had to do anything remotely athletic, she thought this would be what she chose. When done well, skating was just so pretty! And, she liked to think, Imogen did it well.

 "I can't believe Christmas is only five days away!" She chattered on, moving through a simple spin. "Do you have my present yet?" She asked, flashing her cousin a bright, innocent grin. "I promise I've been good this year."

Precocious had once been a term Jasper had used to describe his younger cousin.  He had always had a bit of a soft spot for the petite redhead.  Her brother and younger sister were good kids, but he always felt a bit more like the protective old brother sort to Imogen.  It seemed the Winter Festival had been a perfect excuse to spend a bit of time with her before the craziness of Christmas and find out how she had been doing with school.  Of course she was usually more then willing to talk in great detail about nearly any topic.

He followed her out on to the ice once his skates were laced, gliding along.  Skating hadn’t been one of his natural talents, but he had done it enough to actually be fairly decent at it.  He chuckled a little at her question about a present, returning the grin with one of his own.

“Well, I do have a few ideas,” he told her.  “However, I wanted to be absolutely sure you’d like it.  Did you have anything specific in mind this year since I don’t doubt for an instant you’ve been good?”

Imogen wasn’t a bad kid.  Perhaps a bit naïve in the ways of the world, and he knew it had a lot to do with the fact that she was a bit sheltered.  He knew how their family could be too, all of the pretenses that were expected.