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Daphne and Hermione couched behind the half wall and waited trying to keep quiet, the waiting was pure agony for both of them, Nevil had informed them that Harry had finished tending to his herbology project and would be coming this way soon.
The minutes ticked by and each one seemed to be hours in the making. Daphne reached down to the small pile of snowballs that were in front of her and smoothed the top one for what must have been the 30th time
“Why is it when you’re anticipating something time really seems to slow down? “ Daphne complained.
“I know, where is he? he should have been past here minutes ago?” Answered Hermione.
“Who are we waiting for?” Asked Harry as he settled in behind his girls.
“Harry, Nev told us he was finished in the greenhouse and should be past soon!” Daphne replied absently.
“Last night he told us we would never catch him off guard. Ha… this will show….”
Daphne slowly started to look around to see who had joined them coming face to face with Harry’s huge grin.
“Um, Hi Harry” and she started to edge away from him.
Hermione was slightly quicker on the uptake and dived away from harry as a barrage of animated snowballs landed where she had just been waiting, Daphne however was not as lucky and was hit in the side of the head with two cold projectiles and then
in the chest and arms by the ones that had just missed Hermione.
During her desperate dive away from the ambush position Hermione reached out and scooped up a snowball and as she landed threw it at Harry only to see it impact against a translucent blue barrier that sprung up between them.
“Ohhhh, you cheating, cheater who CHEATS,” she laughed, “that’s not fair, there is no magic in snowball fights… it’s a rule!”
Daphne seized her chance as Hermione had Harry distracted and scoping up a handful of light fluffy snow, she leapt on Harry wrapping her arms around his neck and trying to push her snow covered hands down the back of his robes, colliding with him their combined weight overbalanced him and took them both to the ground.
The initial onslaught of snowballs was the signal that others were waiting for, and the courtyard tranquillity was further shattered by a pair of redheads who bellowed.
“SNOWBALL”
“WARRRRR!!!!”
In their trademark twinspeak, and several Gryffindor’s popped out from behind door, wall and hedges to start targeting friends.
Harry lay in the snow with Daphne on top of him for a moment before he motioned Hermione over.
“Ok then what’s our plan now that this is started?” Harry asked.
Daphne pondered for a moment as snowballs flew over their heads, “Stick together, see who gets involved and pick on Ravenclaws”
“Why Ravens?“ Harry queried.
Hermione took one look at Daphne and nodded, “Su Li beat us both for top of class in Runes, Ravens need to go down!”
Harry snickered. “Right so petty revenge then?”
The two girls nodded.
~*~
The Fight had been ongoing for about 20 minutes, Hufflepuff had banded together and were alternating between shielding incoming fire and engaging targets of opportunity with strikes of pinpoint accuracy. The Snakes under Draco’s command had decided to get smart and taken to the sky on brooms making devastating strafing runs across the yard, only coming close to the ground to be rearmed by Snape who would levitate snowballs to them. The Ravens were a sorry lot indeed, they hadn’t managed to form a cohesive group and the targeting they received from Daphne and Hermione had made them the target of others, Except Luna who strangely was the only person not hit at all.
Snapes involvement had prompted the other professors to act, and Flitwick was making a menace of himself on the ground, the short professor darted between cover to pick off older students in in the way only a Dueling champion could. Minerva was prowling through the combat zone focusing on not being hit while attempting quite successfully to foil any attack on her lions. And Madam sprout was right in the middle of her house group providing direction and threat information to the group who used it well.
After another 10 minutes the was a loud crunching sound from beyond the green houses that was getting louder. Football size balls of snow started to land in the courtyard and all the students had to angle their shields to avoid the incoming projectiles. As the fifth and sixth large snowball landed Daphne spotted a large snowball rising above the green house and pointed it out to Harry and Hermione.
Harry noted large lumps of black pressed into the still growing snowballs over the greenhouse and quickly made a decision, Quickly casting a Sonorous on himself he called out , “Truce, Truce we have bigger issues on the way!”
Harry directed the attention of the main combatant force and pointed at the greenhouses where they could see what were clearly the heads of two giant snowmen.
Frantically looking about, he saw Tracey Davis still on her broom. “Davis, get some hight and let me know what you see!”
Tracy nodded and rocketed straight up as the participants pulled in around Harry. Tracy reached the same height as astronomy deck took one turn about the castle and then hurtled back toward the courtyard dodging even more football size snowballs.
Landing with a bit of a thump and pausing to quickly catch her breath she gave a report,
“Looks like about 7 Giant snowmen and what looks to be a snow mammoth that the headmaster is riding!”
Her brief was met with a moment of silence and not a few sharp inhalations of breath.
“Well Potter,“ Snape rasped, “how do you propose we deal with this eventuality,”
Harry tool a look at the professor, saw the challenging smirk and shook his head, “well I say if the old man wants to escalate things, who are we to deny his pleasure.”
Harry thought for a moment, “Ok those on the brooms, take to the sky harass from a distance, don’t worry about accuracy just do what you can to divide his attention and not get hit.
Ravens, see what you can do about getting us some solid defences.
Puffs you guys have the shields working well keep it up, this all hinges on you and the Ravens being able to protect us.
The rest of you, start warming up the courtyard warming charms and bluebell flames one whatever you can, lets make this area as inhospitable to frozen constructs as we can.”
Draco looked at him for a moment, “Ok, but what are you going to do Potter?”
Harry grinned with a feral smile, “Me, why Draco you should know me by now, I’m going to do something Dumb and impossible.”
Daphne wacked Harry in the back of the head, “No Harry, WE are going to do something Dumb and impossible”
Draco looked at the Harry for a moment then glanced at Hermione and Daphne, “right then, so you three are doing normal shit then!”