(A/N I just realized how badly I described Pip ;-;. Here's an Occamy [The species that Pip is] so you can know what she looks like ^^^)
I stomped through the thick snow, sheltering Lafayette from the worst of the blizzard with my body. We had walked away from the rest of the group, aware the train was about to leave, because we wanted a bit of romantic alone time. We spent about two hours doing... romantic alone time things before the snow picked up.
We where making our way towards the train station, knowing the sky was almost pitch black and the snow would get worse. We had planned on just summoning our broomsticks once we got the the train station, although, sadly I have to admit, we are lost.
"Mon Amourrrrrrr," Lafayette complained. "It's cold."
"Shh, I know, I know," I sighed, trying to see through the snow.
Suddenly Lafayette let go of my hand and I felt him stumble away from me. I looked around but wherever he went, I already had lost him.
"LAF?!" I yelled, my hands at the sides of my mouth so my voice would reach further.
I didn't get a reply.
"LAFAYETTE!" I shouted, the ferocity of the blizzard made it hard to hear my own voice.
I couldn't even see the tree in front of me as I ran into it. I rubbed my head, then started to run in the direction I thought Lafayette had gone.
"LAFAYETTE!" I hollered.
"Herc?" I heard a quiet voice say.
I turned around quickly. Where was he?
"LAF!" I said loudly, looking for him, although my vision had gone all white.
I guess it was a whiteout. Great. Luckily my Irish self has dealt with many whiteouts, and I know what to do. Well, I know what my parents taught me to do.
"STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" I yelled.
"Okay," I heard a voice shout, although it sounded like it was shouted from a mile away.
"WAIT UNTIL IT BLOWS OVER!" I said, then sat at the base of what I guessed was a tree.
I instantly began to shiver, snow catching in the small mustache that I had forgotten to shave off yesterday. I forced myself not to curl into a ball and freeze to death. I reached down with my hands, I only had thin wool gloves on, and began digging in the snow. There was about a foot and a half of snow, and it was climbing.
I dug a hole that was long enough for me to lay down in. I then stretched out my legs, put them in the hole along with the rest of my body, and covered them in the snow. At first I felt like my legs where going to freeze off, but then, slowly, the snow began to reflect my body heat back at my legs. It was called a snow blanket.
(A/N Snow blankets really work. Just bury yourself in the snow and wait. I've done it before and its surprisingly warm. [Of course it worked better for me because I had at least three feet of snow to work with] It works the best with bigger bodies because they have more heat)
"Herc?" I heard a quiet shout.
"YES?" I yelled, still patting down the snow around myself. I felt like a burrito.
"Help," Lafayette responded a minute later, his shouts quiet and distant.
I stood up quickly, forcing myself out of my snow blanket, sending snow everywhere.
"KEEP TALKING, I'LL FOLLOW YOUR VOICE!" I shouted.
"Je m'appelle Lafayette," I heard a shout.
I followed the noise, he kept talking about random things, most of it in french. I ran into at least five different objects on my way to him.
"JE T'AIME HERCULES," Lafayette's voice suddenly sounded closer, and hope flickered in my chest.
"LOVE, I'M COMING! HOLD ON!" I yelled.
"HERCULES!" He shouted, I heard his voice loud and clear now, and it sounded like he had been crying. "I'M OVER HERE!"
I kept following his voice, and after hitting a rock and tripping into the thick blanket of snow, I finally found him. I trudged through the snow, my feet barely able to lift up out of the snow and place in front of me. That's when suddenly I ran into something soft and warm.
I felt arms wrap around me, and I wrapped my arms around him. He was freezing cold. All I could see through the snow was his shape, which I couldn't even make out features on. Just a dark lump standing out from the storm. I moved my hand down his arm, and found where his fingers where. I realized he had no gloves on.
"You idiot," I said, taking my gloves off and putting them on his hands.
My hands instantly got freezing cold, and I hid them in my scarf so they would keep warm.
"I don't need your gloves. You need them more then me. Keep your gloves, I just need you to be warm," Lafayette said, and I felt his hand on mine.
"Not the time to be cheesy, keep the gloves, you probably have frostbite already. I don't wan't you to loose a finger," I said.
We huddled closer together, snow was piling around us so quickly that we where in our own little hole now. That's when I heard the slithering noise, and a hiss. No its not Nagini, shut up.
*~*
I ran my fingers through my hair, sitting on a dark blue couch in front of the fireplace.
"Calm down," John said, rubbing my shoulders.
"THERE STILL OUT THERE!" I panicked.
"Yes, but they are okay. They are safe at Hogsmeade, staying the night in a hotel or something," John reassured me.
"Alex, listen," Aaron said, sitting on the floor in front of me and staring into my eyes. "They. Are. Fine. Stop. Having. A. Panic. Attack."
"I'm not having a PANIC ATTACK!" I shouted, my eyes flicking from one thing in the room to another.
I was worried about my friends. While everyone was completely calm, I felt something was wrong. John did too, but he convinced himself they where okay. I was in the Ravenclaw common room with John, Aaron, Eliza and James.
"I'm going after them," I said, standing up, unbalancing John so that he fell with a thump on the ground.
"No you're not," James said, forcing me back onto the couch.
"What if they are dying?" I questioned.
"They aren't," John said, sitting back on the couch with me. "You don't need to risk your life for nothing!"
"Fine. If you won't let me go after them, then I will get someone else too," I said, and before they could react, I sprinted up the spiral staircase to the boys dorms.
I skidded to a half in front of a small pile of blankets in the corner. I reached inside and felt the feathers of a snake-like beast.
"Hey Pip," I said, lifting the tired Occamy up slowly into the air. "Can you do something for me?"
Pip blinked a couple times, yawned, and then stared intently at my face.
"I need you to sniff this, and follow the scent trail, okay?" I instructed Pip, showing her Lafayette's favorite pen that said 'Who is ze best? C'est moi' in gold lettering along the side.
Pip sniffed the pen, her beak opened slightly as if she where taking in more scents. I wasn't sure how this would work, due to her being a Occamy, not a tracker dog. But suddenly Pip slithered out of my hand, became the smallest size she could go, and flew out the window.
"What did you do?" John asked, just entering the room.
"Nothing, just talking to myself," I lied.
"Oh," John smiled.
"Sooo I think I calmed myself down. Wan't to do something?" I asked.
"SORRY I'M LATE!" James said, pushing his way into the room. "I was doing... things. So, lets get this party started."
"He pushed me down the stairs!" Aaron said, bursting into the room behind James.
"I'd say it was more of a nudge," James suggested.
"I'LL SHOW YOU A NUDGE WHEN I STUFF MY SHOE UP YO BUTT!" Aaron said.
"HEY!" James protested. "Watch your language in front of the children," He said, gesturing to me and John.
Then we all started laughing, obviously annoying all the other Ravenclaw boys who where trying to study, and a couple who where trying to sleep.
"Did I hear PARTY!?" Ben asked, jumping out of his bed and tossing a notebook full of words a the wall.
"No, there's no party. Go back to your dorms Slytherins, stop causing chaos," I said, pushing James away.
"Honestly I'm more of a Gryffindor sorted into the wrong house," James said.
"You are still a Slytherin, so go away," I grunted.
"That's mean! You can't judge me for what house I'm in!" James said.
I shot him a death glare, which caused him to quickly turn around, grab Aaron's hand, and drag him outside.
"Brothers," I rolled my eyes.
"You two are cute," John said, patting my head as I came over.
"He's just annoying," I yawned.
"You are lucky to have a brother who you can spend time with and make memories with at Hogwarts," John informed me.
"Sure," I rolled my eyes again.
I sat down on Johns lap, who was sitting on my bed. I leaned back against his chest, and looked forward at the stone wall. That's when I heard a loud purr from outside the window.
I jumped to my feet and saw Pip, a very large size, her tail wrapped around the unconscious bodies of Hercules and Lafayette. I ran to the biggest window in the room and opened it up, letting snow flurry inside and causing many annoyed protests from Ravenclaws.
Pip flew in, dropped the boys on the ground, then shrank down to the size of a scarf. I closed the window, and then ran over to the boys while John checked on Pip quickly.
"Do that somewhere else," I heard an annoyed person mumble.
I ignored them and checked for pulses. Both their bodies where cold, and when I took Lafayette's gloves off I realized some of his fingers on his left hand where black on the tips, the most severe frostbite. It meant that part of his finger was dead. John ran over to help me after putting Pip to sleep around her eggs and giving her a roasted cricket as a treat.
Together we dragged the boys out of the dorm and into the small hallway outside. I set Lafayette/dad on the floor and knocked on the door to the girls dorms. I heard that if I walked inside, I would be terribly cursed or something, because I was a boy.
That made me question what happened with Aaron. Maybe the magic can detect who you are on the inside. Then where to the non-binary people sleep if there is only boy and girl dorms? This school is kind of messed up.
Quickly the girls door opened and I caught a glimpse inside of a whole lot of girls joking around while doing work on their beds, before a person stepped in front of me.
"What?" They asked.
"Can you get me Elizabeth Schuyler?" I asked.
The person yawned, and then turned around, shutting the door in my face.
"Eliza, some idiots wan't to talk to you," I heard the person say, their voice muffled through the door.
I waited for a moment before the door opened again, Eliza standing before me. She saw the boys and immediately walked past me, closing the door behind her and taking out her wand.
"Windgardium Leviosa," She said, waving her wand in a certain way.
Both the boys floated up in the air.
"Smart," John commented.
"Common sense," Eliza retorted, grabbing onto Lafayette's foot and pushing him down the stairs with little effort as he just floated away.
We eventually got them both down to the hospital wing, which by now it was abut midnight. Madam Pomfrey, after using some healing magic, said that one of Lafayette's fingers on his left hand would need to be removed, and that he might loose a toe, while Hercules was pretty much fine after all the magical healing.
Poor Ladadette, and he was left handed so that would mean he would never write correctly again. Life really seems to hate me and my friends.