Mischief - Book Two of the RP Saga

17. Walls and Falls

"Hogsmede, Hogsmede, Hogsmede." Rachel cheered merrily down the halls as they made their way to the gathering of students to allow them to the small town.

There had been some snow, enough to cover the ground in about an inch worth, the sky looked as though more would fall soon as it stayed in the greyish colour of a snowy solitude. The trees and roofs were dotted with the white powder but the pathways had been made clear (probably by the grumbling old caretaker Mr Filch and his shovel).

Everyone had their scarves wrapped around them and gloves pulled onto their hands, hats upon their heads and costs zipped up entirely. It was very cold, especially with the nippy wind. But not for Rachel of course.

She could care less about the cold as she stood merrily discussing what they were going to do in Hogsmede. She had traded in her regular bomber jacket for instead a longer thicker coat. Remus had sent it in the post for her, it was a beautiful army green colour and went to her mid thigh with a hood that had fur on it. She loved it a lot.

Her Gryffindor scarf was not on properly, the one side longer than the other and her gloves were no where to be seen. Instead she shoved her hands into her pockets and had the hood thrown over her cold ears.

"Now question is, do we go to the three broom sticks and get a drink first and then shop or the other way around?" Rachel asked.

"Well I want to go to Zonkos at some point." Harry said seeing as he had never actually been inside.

"Yeah and Honeydukes!" Ron quickly inputted and looked to Rachel for some sort of approval.

Rachel nodded frantically before the group suddenly took off towards the town of Hogsmede. Along the way, Rachel ran her hand along the walls and collected as much snow as she could. Without letting Harry notice, she packed it into a small ball with her frozen red fingers and held it up to throw.

Ron noticed her and with a cheeky smile he slowly stepped away from Harry.

"Oi Harry!" Rachel shouted making him turn around, as soon as be done so she threw the snowball.

Being a chaser had its positives, she could easily aim quickly and her arm was pretty strong - some other people, the keepers especially, often found this as a negative when a quaffle would come soaring into their stomachs. The snowball glided towards Harry and at the last second, he jumped out the way and instead let the snowball hit someone else.

"Shit... sorry!" Rachel yelled over everyone's laughter as she held her hand over her mouth to stop her from laughing.

When Professor McGonagall  turned around, snow slowly falling down her back, Rachel's face turned as white as the snow. Ron had to walk away, his laughter came out in chocked splutters.

"Professor I am so sor-"

Rachel was interrupted by McGonagall's hand simply held up in a gesture meaning stop. Instead, McGonagall turned away and walked on, with the faintest of faint smiles on her lips.

"Well... that was awkward." Harry laughed.

"Yeah tell me about it bro." Rachel sighed a sigh of relief and kicked the ground with her boot, side glancing at Hermione who looked the guiltiest of them all even though she had done nothing.

"Howler got in trouble!" Ron laughed as he bounded back over to the group.

"She didn't actually." Harry rose an eyebrow. "Bloody lucky to be honest, if it had been either of us, we'd have gotten into so much trouble.

"What can I say, it was me." Rachel winked sticking her hand out in a very sassy manner.

The familiar view of Hogsmede came into view, the sloping roofs of the buildings with it's chimneys poking upwards to the clouded sky. The cobblestone pathways had not been swept and so snow lay all around.