Hurriedly making her way down the winding steps into the common room, Evie slid on her red, puffy coat. She pulled the fur covered hood up against her neck as she had not picked up a scarf on her way out of her room. Nor had she picked up a hat either, so this coat was the only thing that was going to keep her warm in the bitter, wintery conditions that where raging outside.
After receiving the letter from Grandma Hope, Evie became over run with both sadness and anger. This wasn't direct at anyone, but at the situation she now found herself in. Though Hope had tried to tell Evie to remain positive, she wasn't feeling very positive right now. The only thing Evie felt like doing right now, was crying. She loved Christmas, everything about it: the food, the Christmas songs, the joyous feeling of watching Muggle Christmas movies, snuggled underneath a hand knitted blanket as the snow fell outside. But the one thing she enjoyed above all else was spending time with her loved ones, to be told she couldn't do that this year was like a dagger to her heart.
She didn't blame Remus, nor did she blame Hope for asking her to stay at Hogwarts. Usually, Evie would be sent to aunt Andromeda and uncle Ted's house on a Full moon. Only when they couldn't afford the ingredients for Remus' Wolfsbane potion, but this had never happened at Christmas before, or not that she could remember.
Evie made her way down the long corridors of the castle, past the great hall, through the passage way under the bell tower and down the stone steps into the snow covered court yard. As she crunched her way through the crisp snow, Evie saw Hallie and Addie building the snow fortress on the left side of the courtyard. They were being helped by Leo, Reggie, Cedric, Rodney Botlebard (a fourth year Hufflepuff) and Susan. While on the right side of the courtyard, Gryffindor seem to have set up camp, building their own fortress. Evie could see Ginny, Fred and George Weasley diligently building the impressive snow fortress, helped by Lee Jordan (a third year), Dean Wood and Seamus Finnegan (second years) and Delilah Pendergast (a first year).
Evie couldn't help but smile, seeing everyone working together like they were it was heart warming. Even more so, Ginny was brighter than she had been in weeks! Evie continued to walk over to the Hufflepuff fortress when Ginny saw her and came bounding over like an excitable puppy.
"Evie! Guess what? We are all staying at Hogwarts this Christmas," Ginny motioned to her brothers who were busy finishing off the fortress behind her. "Please tell me you are staying too?" Ginny squealed.
Caught off guard, Evie hadn't expected to have to talk about Christmas right now. It brought a swell of tears to her eyes, which she was fiercely trying to keep from falling. "Oh, hey Gin! Erm well actually as it happens," She paused, sniffling slightly as she continued. "Yes, I am staying at the castle this Christmas,".
"YES! Oh that's brilliant news," she hugged Evie then turned to run back to her side of the courtyard. "Hey Fred, George Evie is staying at Hogwarts for Christmas too!" she shouted towards her brothers as she ran.
"Excellent!" The boys said in unison.
Evie eventually made it to Hallie and Addie without slipping in the snow. They informed her that Hufflepuff and Gryffindor had decided to have a snowball fight. As both houses wanted to build a snow fortress in the courtyard, they would see who's fortress was better by how long it was able to stand against an attack.
It wasn't long before both sides had finished and the snowballs were being prepared for launch. Evie hadn't even picked up any gloves, so she knew she would be freezing soon but she didn't mind. This was the perfect remedy for how she was feeling, in fact she was beginning to feel better already. Spending time with her friends in the snow, was taking her mind off the fact she wouldn't be going home this Christmas. She balled up her first bit of snow and waited for the signal to start launching.
Rodney and the others were all crouched down behind their wall of snow as he was giving them tactical strategies on how to bring down the Gryffindor fortress. "Right, on my signal Evie, Hallie, Leo and Susan you will fire your snowballs over the top of our fortress. Then Reggie, Addie, Digs and I will throw ours once yours have hit their side, a staggered attack! What do we think?" he whispered.
"Sounds good man," Reggie agreed and they all nodded.
"Ok on my signal..." he continued to whisper as he fingers counted down 3...2...1...
With that, the first round of ammunition was unleashed on the Gryffindor frontline. Shortly after, the next wave was sent hurtling their way. Gryffindor seemed to have a similar strategy although their snowballs were bigger and creating more damage to the Hufflepuff fortress.
A short while later, both fortresses had sustained damages but their soldiers were still fighting strong. Even though Evie could barely feel her fingers she continued. A part of the fortress which had been successfully shielding her and Hallie from any incoming snowballs, had now been beaten away and the girls were pelted with snowballs. Snow dripping through the gap between the zip of her coat, and her neck, Evie crouched down behind a larger part of their fortress. She turned to see Hallie was scooping snow out of her now wet, blonde hair.
"I have an idea!" Evie said with a smile creeping across her face.
"Does it involved me getting payback on Finnegan for covering me in snow?" Hallie grumbled as she flicked the last remaining pieces of snow out of her hair.
"Yes! Trust me, those boys will pay. I say we leave the fortress and attack them on their ground. They wont ever think we would leave the safety of our snow wall." Evie plotted. "You go that side, Seamus has moved along to that end now. I'll go this side, those Weasley twins had better watch themselves. I'm a pretty good shot when I'm focussed enough!" Evie said, squinting in the direction of Fred and George as if she could see them right through the walls.
"Excellent idea, sergeant!" Hallie joked as she mimicked saluting Evie, making both girls giggle.
They both made as many snowballs as they could carry and positioned themselves ready to sneak over to the 'enemy territory'. "Cover us!" Hallie said to Addie, Leo and Reggie.
"Gotcha!" Leo replied.
"No problem!" said Reggie with a smile, looking at Evie.
"You're mad, both of you!" Addie laughed.
"Ready when you are sarg!" Hallie called, winking at Evie.
Evie nodded in Hallie's direction to signal they were on the move. Evie crept along the left side of the Gryffindor wall, not yet being seen by any member of the opposing side. She could feel the snow almost burning her hands she was so cold, but she couldn't let the twins off so easily. They had thrown multiple snowballs in her direction, many of which had found the gap between her neck and coat.
Slowly, she crept around the corner of the fortress and saw George, crouching down making a snowball ready to launch. As quickly as she could, Evie unloaded as many snowballs as she could, on to George. When she was down to her last one, she realised that Fred was missing. As George spun around, he gave her a devilish smile. She felt a tall, presence suddenly appear behind her, she knew then that the twins had known exactly what her plan was. She quickly turned, dodging the snowball that Fred had just thrown towards her. Evie threw her final snowball which landed right on Fred's chest. Pretending he had been seriously injured, Fred dropped dramatically to the floor with one hand to his chest and the other hand to his head. This act made Evie burst out laughing, the twins mirroring her reaction started to laugh as well.
George and Fred were now standing, leaning against the brick wall behind their fortress with their arms folded. Evie stood just in front, facing both of them. "You knew I was coming didn't you?" she said with the hmm of a giggle in her tone.
Looking at each other and then to Evie, the twins said in unison "We did!" they smiled.
"But how?" Evie questioned. Suddenly realising how cold she was she rubbed her hands together quickly and a shiver slid right down her spine making her whole body shake.
"Extendable ears," Fred said casually.
George looked at Evie shivering and wondered how she had lasted so long outside without a hat, scarf or gloves. "You must be freezing," he stated.
"Oh, yeah I am a little cold," Evie replied.
"Here!" Fred pulled Evie to stand in between him and George, wrapping his scarf around her neck. "Mum knits us all kinds of things, you can keep this until you've warmed up," Fred said, Evie could see the scarf had a big F on the end to show that it was indeed Fred's scarf.
Pulling off his woolly bobble hat, George placed it scruffily on Evie's head. "Keep this too, we lose a lot of heat from out heads you know. You really should make sure you are wearing a hat when you go out in weather like this!" George declared.
Evie was going to refuse and give them back to the boys but in all honesty, she was freezing and thought hypothermia might set in at any moment. She was grateful the twins had loaned her their woolly items, they were in fact some of the warmest things she had worn.
As she warmed up, Evie decided to stay on the Gryffindor side until everyone had decided it was too cold and they had enough. When the truce was called, Evie took the hat and scarf off and gave them back to the twins. "Thank you, they really are some of the warmest things I've ever worn!" Evie said.
"No problem kid, can't have you freezing to death, can we?" Fred joked.
Evie gave them both a warm smile and hopped back to the other Hufflepuffs as they all made their way back inside the castle.