Bella's Hogwarts Adventures

A Frozen Near-Death Experience

Danny and I were on our brooms just above the edge of the lake, Jack was freezing it as I'd requested of him, Ron and Draco were arguing, Harry was trying to stop the argument before hexes were thrown, and Hermione was standing by, rolling her eyes and shaking her head at Ron and Draco's petty argument. Jack flew up next to me and Danny and nodded silently. We nodded back and flew silently over the lake. Danny called out, "Hey!" Ron, Draco, Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Fred, and George looked over at us immediately. Any louder and thunder would have rumbled across the sky. I said, "Now that we've got your attention, we will reveal to you why we are here. Danny and I have planned a special stunt show that will knock your socks off." With that being said, Danny and I angled our brooms upwards and rose in a double helix pattern.

Once we were high enough, we leveled out and then did a loop so we were going in opposite directions. I turned around to see that Danny had done the same. We kicked our brooms into gear and headed for each other at a fairly rapid pace. He veered to the left just before we would have crashed. He then telepathically asked me, +Now?+ I nodded and replied, +Now.+ After we'd made our brooms hover above the center of the frozen lake, we stood on top of them, our wings invisibly helping us keep our balance. I could hear everyone down below gasp in anticipation as we made our brooms rise a few more feet in the air before going back to a still hover. We turned and stood sideways on our brooms. We fell forward, our arms out to our sides as if we were preparing to embrace the frozen lake that we were plummeting towards.

Just before impact with the icy surface, we angled our bodies upwards so our feet were touching the frozen lake. Wherever our still-invisible wings touched, the ice vanished. Soon, we'd cleared a fair amount of ice from the lake, and only the center was still frozen and getting smaller with each minute as Danny and I continued skating in circles. Before we knew it, there were two small ice floes left, and Danny and I were each on one of them. We turned and smirked at everyone's bewildered and dumfounded expressions. Then we stepped off the ice, our wings melting the remaining ice as we did so. Our feet touched the water, yet we didn't fall in. Channeling our ice powers, we walked across the water's surface, leaving behind frost patterns of spirals and ferns. We spiraled outwards towards the edge of the lake, leaving a massive frosted spiral in our wake.

We continued until most of lake had been covered by a nice thick layer of frost, except in the center, where there was a circle of thin ice with a diameter of 4 ft. Halting the use of our ice powers, we now stood entirely on the ice, which was mostly a good 6 inches thick. I glanced over at Jack to see that he was trying to hide his worry as we headed for the thin ice. I knew why he acted like that: when he was still Jackson Overland instead of Jack Frost, he had drowned in a frozen lake saving his sister -Pippa, I think was her name- when the ice began to crack under her feet. Jack had saved her, but at the cost of his own life. That boy could be so dense at times, such as now, as he kept trying to move towards us when we had reached the edge of the thin ice. Danny and I stepped onto the 4-foot circle at the same exact moment. A glance down showed that the ice couldn't support our combined weight, and that's WITHOUT adding in our yet-to-be-seen wings, which each weighed about 2lbs.

The ice under my feet had started breaking apart faster than the ice under Danny, yet we both looked fairly calm, as if we did this sort of thing every day, which we didn't, mind you. We only did this sort of thing every now and then. Even so, they were never quite this crazy.

As the ice under my feet began to crack even more and water slowly made it's way on top of the ice, my calm façade had dropped ever so slightly, panic flashing in my eyes. Since Danny knew this was part of the stunt, he just stayed put and didn't do anything except look surprised. I looked down to see that the bigger cracks had almost connected. I looked up, looked at my boyfriend, who was now on solid ice, and said, "Danny..." I knew that if this moment were a cartoon, sad dramatic music would be playing in the background. As it was, that was all I said before the ice broke with a loud CRACK! Just before my head went under, I heard Danny call out my name. I could hear that he was fighting back tears. Then, I could hear no more of the surface world. I could only hear the beating of my own heart. I continued to sink, not even fighting. When I was nearly halfway to the bottom, I looked up to see that Danny had fallen to his knees.

I decided that I'd been under long enough and started trying to get back to the surface, but my movements were slow. I dropped the intangibility of my wings so I could use them to help propel myself to the surface, but even as fast as I was, trying to move with half-frozen limbs was like trying to swim through half-dried syrup. I moved my right hand toward the surface, but came up a few inches short of freedom. That was when my entire body froze up. I tried to move my arms, my legs, my wings, or even blink, but failed miserably. I was frozen stiff just below the surface and no one knew what was going on. Then, I realized something: this WASN'T part of the stunt! I telepathically told Danny as much, and then and there, I knew his tears weren't fake any more. He was truly afraid he would really lose me. I was close enough to the surface that I could hear Danny crying his heart out. I could see that someone else had joined him - Jack, I assumed. Danny was leaning on Jack's shoulder, still crying his eyes out.

A bit of my hair -my bangs- floated in front of my eyes. I could see a few areas of brown lighten up as though I were getting new streaks, which I quickly realized I was. For me, new streaks would occasionally show up in my hair. It kinda came with the whole 'me having ghost powers' thing. When my chest bean to hurt a bit, I telepathically told both boys, +I've only got around 6 minutes before it's too late.+ I could hear Jack telling Danny frantically, "Danny, you need to do something before it's too late!" When I had 3 minutes left, Danny still hadn't done anything. I figured he was still trying to force back the tears. I was down to less than a minute before I faintly felt Danny wrap his hand around my wrist and pull me out of the freezing water. Air flooded into my lungs. I filled my lungs with as much air as I could as I lay on the shore, dripping wet and shivering.

Danny helped me sit up as he tried to help me warm up by holding me close to him. Hermione had come prepared with a blanket, which she got out and tossed to Jack, who caught it with ease. Jack then draped the blanket across my wet, paler-than-before shoulders. That's right. My skin was paler when I got out than when I went in, and I now had white streaks in my hair. I looked at Jack and Hermione. What I said next shocked everyone, including myself. "Arigatō." I had just thanked Jack and Hermione...in Japanese. I didn't even know I could SPEAK Japanese! Only later did I remember all the anime shows I'd watched before my owl, Snowy, came with my Hogwarts letter strapped to her leg. I must have picked up some Japanese words, such as arigatō (thank you) and baka (idiot, stupid, or moron). "How could I have been such a baka to forget that I knew a few words of Japanese?" I said under my breath. I then face-palmed repeatedly, calling myself a baka each time my hand made contact with my forehead.