"So, Alexa, tell us about Cedric."
Did I hear him right?
"Wha- what?"
"Your new boyfriend, Cedric," Pietro repeated, a truly shit-eating grin on his face. "Tell us about him."
"I- how the hell do you know about that? I was trying to think of a way to bring him up and break the news tonight, but you already knew?"
"Jackson told us at Friendsgiving when you were out of the room!" Wanda burst out, looking insanely excited. "And can I just say: finally! I've been hoping Aledric would happen since this time last year."
"Ha, Aledric," Pietro snorted. "It sounds like an allergy medication."
For one of a truly small number of times in my life, I was completely speechless. I mean seriously, what do you say after all that!
"Uh... well, he's a Hufflepuff?" I finally managed. Everyone around the table snorted or shook their heads or rolled their eyes, or even all three.
"We mean, what's he like," said Uncle Rhodey.
"And how did you meet, and all that sweet stuff," added Pepper with a kind smile.
"And when can you set up a video call so I can have a nice, long talk with him." My dad, the intensity in his eyes making me a little nervous.
"Okay... well, he's really sweet. He's such a kind person, and just... warm. I feel warm when I'm around him, like he's giving off sunshine just by being in the room." My family melted at that, even the most hardened and sarcastic members. "We met after a Quidditch match, actually, after his team won under... abnormal circumstances, and he was arguing with the ref for a rematch. And Dad, I love you, but I'm not setting up a video call just for you to intimidate my boyfriend."
My dad raised an eyebrow, but Peter jumped in before he could say much else, bless him. I knew that conversation wasn't over, and that if Cedric and I kept dating he would definitely meet my dad someday, but I wasn't about to help that day come any sooner, especially when we'd barely been dating two months!
Finally, after a lot of awkward questions, sappier answers than I meant to give when I started speaking, politician avoidance of 'when do we get to meet him' questions, and glares at Strange to threaten him against helping my family show up uninvited, we managed to change the subject.
"So yeah, I'm glad we get to be partners for this whole thing. There's nobody I can think of that I'd rather face a dragon with."
"FACE A DRAGON?"
"Cool!"
"You better not mean that literally!"
Sorry, did I say managed to change the subject? I meant dropped a distracting bombshell.
A lot of dinner was dominated by questions about the dragons, and even though I'd brought it up I still tried to duck some of the questions that would make the whole thing sound more dangerous. I really didn't want them worrying about me, and telling them how close I'd come to being flame broiled wouldn't exactly help them sleep at night.
After assuring everyone that I was perfectly fine, they were all incredibly excited to hear that dragons were real. They asked me a million questions, and since I'd asked Charlie pretty much the exact same questions over the summer, I had all the answers.
I could honestly talk about dragons for days and not get bored.
Eventually, the conversation rolled around to other things, like how Harley was doing at MIT and some of my dad's latest projects. We stayed up talking even later than Jackson and I had for Friendsgiving last night, and even as I started drifting off mid-sentence and still sitting up around two in the morning, I didn't want the night to end.
"Alright, Alexa, you clearly need to go to bed," my dad said as I started falling over, then startled myself back awake from the movement.
"Man, how many times have I had to tell you that same thing?" I mused, unable to hide a massive yawn. My family was right. "I'll see you guys soon for Christmas though, right?"
"Of course. And Jimmy's already on his way back with another Howler." I smiled.
"Hey, don't forget," said Strange. "As soon as you're back here, we're having a showdown."
"We figured out how we're going to do it, too," said Wanda. "We're going to do a tournament. We'll draw randomly to see who fights who first, and from there we'll do a bracket to determine the ultimate winner."
"Which, obviously, will be me," Loki added.
"Pft. You wish. I'm gonna cream you all," I said. My statement was softened a little by the exhaustion in my voice. Oh well. I'd just have to show them up later.
We exchanged all our goodbyes and goodnights, and then Ana ended the call. I barely had the energy to concentrate enough to make a sling portal back to my dorm, and I was passed out asleep as soon as I got to my bed.
It had been a good holiday full of lots of Turkey, and now I was going to sleep until I had to go to class.
I woke up the next morning much more aware of the magic duel with Strange, Wanda, and Loki on the horizon as I raced to Potions and barely made it into my seat in time. I'd gotten a lot better at magic in the past year, but I also used my muggle, Stark, and Mystic Arts skills to get myself out of a lot of situations in this world. If I wanted to be prepared for Strange, Wanda, and Loki, I needed to focus on Hogwarts wizard magic, and nothing else.
I decided the best course of action was regular magic duels. The best way to prepare for anything was to duel a bunch of different people as regularly as possible, so that's exactly what I did. I threw out the next few weeks of regular nightly Mystic Arts and combat training in favor of dueling, facing a different friend every night. Sure, everybody was usually really confused when I started our conversations by walking up to them and saying "duel me", but after I explained everything they were more than willing to help.
Unlike sparring against Jackson, I didn't win every match. But I got better with every match, which was the whole point, and all that mattered. If I kept this routine up until Christmas, I'd probably stand a pretty good chance.
As November turned into December and the snow started falling, I was happy for the first time all year that Quidditch had been cancelled. Some people in the world enjoyed snow workouts, but I was definitely not one of them.
Since Quidditch wasn't happening this year, Cedric and I had almost endless free time (note the sarcasm). Instead of hours spent practicing plays and flying around in the freezing air, we spent hours cooped up in the Astronomy Tower trying not to go deaf while dealing with the golden egg. We tried a bunch of different tactics, but there didn't seem to be any hidden message or secret meaning. No words at the end of the screaming if you listened long enough, no English, French, or Bulgarian if you recorded the screaming and played it backwards, nothing.
There was only so much you could do with a clue when it yelled at you, and nothing else.
We kept trying, but we were both getting incredibly fed up. We spent less and less time working on it as the holidays approached, and I couldn't help thinking what we really needed was a break.
Fortunately for me, the twins and I knew each other well enough now that they read my mind every once in a while.
"Alexa, did you see all the snow on the grounds?" asked George, he and Fred bouncing up to me at lunch. It was the first Friday of December, and there was at least two feet of snow on the ground this morning. It was pretty hard to miss.
"Of course I saw it, I had to go exercise in it this morning. Why?"
"You remember the massive snowball fight we had last year?" asked Fred, and I got it immediatley.
"Oh hell yes. This weekend's a Hogsmeade weekend too. It's the perfect time."
"We were thinking tomorrow morning? And we ambush anyone that comes past and drag them into the war?"
"Perfect plan. If you guys can stand it, let's try to go out early and build up some fun fortifications for everyone to use."
"Common Room at dawn?"
"Absolutely."
****************
I woke up Saturday morning at sunrise as planned, and I was a little surprised to find the twins actually downstairs at all, let alone before me. Half of me thought they'd never be able to wake up this early.
I guess a massive snowball fight we were planning to drag the entire school into was worth a little less sleep.
"Lee's gonna meet us down there right after breakfast with Kenneth and Jake," said George as we headed for the castle's front doors. I nodded as I passed them both energy bars.
"Angelina and Alicia are bringing Emily and Amelia around that time, and that's when Cedric, Adrian, Myrah, and Jackson should be showing up too. We have the next few hours to set up the battlefield, and then I think we should make a detour to go... recruit... the visiting schools."
"I like the sound of that," Fred agreed.
"Good. Then let's get started. We need to make sure nobody can walk around our snowball fight, so first let's start by building up some big drifts by the front doors to funnel people onto our field."
The twins and I worked like crazy to get everything set up. After the snowdrifts, we carved a path from the door of the castle and down the grounds towards Hogsmeade. Then we spent the next few hours using magic to build up snow drifts, big fort-like walls with windows for hiding and snowball sniping, and random piles of snowballs scattered in a few random places to make things interesting. Once we finished, we took a minute to survey our handiwork. Most of the castle was just heading to breakfast, and the grounds already looked amazing.
"Nice work boys," I said happily, fist bumping each of them.
"Back at you Lex," said Fred, while George just grinned.
"Welp, since it's kind of a tossup on whether the other schools are going to eat in the castle or not, why don't we go make up their minds for them and invite them to our snowball fight?"
"Sounds like the perfect plan," said Fred.
"You know, I think Percy would be proud of us," George mused as we packed a few snowballs and started heading for the Beauxbaton carriage. "He's the one that's been repeating Crouch's words over and over again about magical cooperation and all that. We're just doing what he'd be doing, if he were here."
Fred and I grinned. I tried to imagine what Percy would say if he were here to see what we were doing, and it just made me even happier. He would lose his mind, and then we'd drag him into the middle of our snowball fight. It'd be fun!
Percy wasn't here though, and I realized that might be for the better right now. Fred, George, and I were heading for the Beauxbatons carriage with a bunch of snowballs in our hands, and if Percy were here right this second he would probably either kill us or have a heart attack. Which one would just depend on how close we were when he first caught sight of us.
I went up and knocked on the house-sized door of the Beauxbatons carriage before backing up a little and praying literally anyone but Madame Maxime answered. The twins and I got insanely lucky. Not only did Madame Maxime not open the door, but the person to answer us was Marc! Fleur peeked over his shoulder as the twins and I let loose our volley of snowballs, nailing Marc with all nine and even getting Fleur a little bit.
"We hereby challenge Beauxbatons to a duel!" I announced. Marc and Fleur couldn't do more than stare at us in shock. "Massive snowball fight outside the castle as soon as you're done with breakfast. Full-school, no teams, no rules, and no holds barred. Don't make us come find you! Come regain your honor after getting destroyed just now!"
I called the last part over my shoulder as the twins and I took off running. I half expected to get hexed as we were booking it out of there, but I think Marc and Fleur were just too shocked to really do more than try to process what happened.
The three of us kept running until we were out of sight of the Beauxbatons carriage, finally coming to a stop behind a snowbank.
"That was hilarious!" George yelled, literally cackling.
"Did you see Marc's face? Ha! Not speaking French now, is he?" Fred agreed.
The three of us high-fived and took another second to laugh, then slumped back against the snow bank once we were done.
I sighed happily, leaning against the twins and feeling the cool snow bank behind me.
"Alright, next school?" I asked after another minute, sitting up straight quickly and rubbing my hands together.
"Of course!"
"If we're lucky we might be about to hit Viktor Krum with a snowball!"
I grinned, and the twins and I gathered our snowballs before heading towards the Durmstrang ship. The plank to shore was down, thankfully, or else I would've had to make a sling portal to get us on and off.
As much as I didn't want to run into Madame Maxime when we knocked on their door, I really didn't want to run into Karkaroff knocking on this door. So, to avoid anything going horribly wrong, I decided to take steps to avoid getting anyone other than who we wanted.
"VIKTOR! MILENA! COME HERE!" I yelled once we got to the top deck of the ship. Even if we'd wanted to take our chances knocking, there was nowhere to do it.
There was no response at first, so the twins and I just stood there in the freezing morning air, listening. Then, we heard footsteps coming from below.
"Alright, Viktor's a professional athlete, so get ready to run fast," I muttered. Just as I finished my sentence, Viktor and Milena appeared on deck. We thought they'd probably have faster reaction times than the French kids, so we were going to save our snowballs until the end.
"Good morning!" Fred said brightly. Viktor and Milena just stared, looking a little confused.
"Alexa? Vat is going on?"
"The twins and I are doing another big event kind of like Friendsgiving, and we wanted to come by and invite you guys, along with the rest of your school!" I said cheerily. Milena and Viktor were staring suspiciously at the snowballs the twins and I were holding, and I knew we needed to finish this up quickly.
"Bring everybody, we'd love to have you!" Fred chimed in.
"And you're gonna need them all to stand a chance!" George agreed. While Viktor and Milena were processing his ominous words, we took our shot. The three of us launched our snowballs and took off running before the last one had even hit its target.
I could hear footsteps behind us, and as the twins and I were racing down the gang plank an enchanted wave of snow rose up from the shore to meet us. I glanced back to see Viktor and Milena waving their wands and looking like a pair of Elsas from Frozen, but it was going to take a little more than that to stop me.
Wand magic wasn't the only trick up my sleeve.
The twins faltered at the sight of the snow ahead of us, but I kept running and they followed. I lifted my arms and conjured a sling portal, and the twins and I slipped through just before the snow came crashing down on top of us. We were safe on the battle field we'd made earlier, but I didn't close the sling portal yet. I still had something to say.
"No magic at the snowball fight!" I yelled at Viktor and Milena, who I could still see standing at the top of the ship. The two normally-stoic people were grinning like maniacs, and I suddenly worried the twins and I had made a mistake.
I closed the sling portal and turned back to Fred and George.
"You know, something just occurred to me, seeing those two like that," I mused.
"What?"
"Maybe we shouldn't have included the people who live in snow, like, all the time. And at the very least, maybe we shouldn't have pissed them off."
The twins and I shared grave looks, neither of us saying anything. After a minute though, I just shrugged.
"Oh well. Guess we'll just have to duck and cover when they come."
"You're right," said George. "Besides, we're dragging the whole school into this. They'll have plenty of targets to go for other than us."
"Maybe we can set them on Warrington!" Fred said excitedly. I just laughed.
"Sounds like a plan to me!" Before we could say anything else, we were distracted by a noise from the front doors of the school. They were slowly swinging open, meaning the first students of the day were about to come outside. "TAKE COVER!"
The twins and I ducked behind one of the walls we'd built and grabbed snowballs as the doors pushed forward. I took my wand out one last time to shape a mountain of snow into the words NO MAGIC ALLOWED, then ducked down with the twins again to see who came outside first.
Whether it was one of our friends or a poor, unsuspecting first year, the snowball fight was about to begin.