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Despite Harry’s trepidation of the Yule Ball, there was something special about Christmas Day at Hogwarts. Almost all students from fourth year up had stayed at school, and quite a lot of the third years who had found themselves a date. Christmas lunch was a magnificent affair, with turkeys and Christmas puddings, and huge piles of Cribbages Christmas Crackers. A yule log filled with Canary Cream that somehow found its way onto the Slytherin table right in front of Malfoy and his court was one of the many highlights of the day.
After lunch, almost everyone went out onto the snow-covered grounds. The students from Durmstrang joined them, and even some students from Beauxbatons, although Fleur Delacour and her friends, complaining loudly about the cold and the snow,
immediately headed for the Beauxbaton carriage that looked like a pumpkin frozen blue and covered with snow.
The need to burn off the huge sugar intake of the day soon led to an epic free-for-all snowball fight. Alliances formed across school, house, and year borders.
Harry fought alongside the twins, Ron, Hermione, a boy from Beauxbatons, and two girls who looked so much alike they had to be sisters. The older one seemed familiar, although he couldn't put a name to her face.
It was a rather pretty face. Gleaming golden locks cascaded down her shoulders and back from under a fluffy knitted hat, framing cheeks pink from the cold and deep blue eyes sparkling with the excitement of the battle.
Despite the fight needing his full attention, Harry just had to glance at her from the corner of his eyes, and each time came with a flutter of his stomach.
It was almost like getting sick, but in a nice way.
A snowball hit him square into the face, followed by a triumphant cackle of their opponents. He forced his attention back to the snowball fight.
It hadn't been their smartest idea to team up with the twins.
Malfoy and his two bookends, putting the blame for the Canary Cream incident at lunch at the right doorstep, were out for blood. They had persuaded the Slytherin Quidditch team and two boys from Durmstrang to join them, and had put them under siege.
As if that wasn't already enough, Fred had done something this morning that pissed off Angelina, and she had recruited Alicia, Katie, and Katie's friend Leanne for a crusade against Fred, and by default against anyone who was with him. A mixed group of giggling Ravenclaws and girls from Beauxbatons came to their support.
They were seriously outnumbered and under crossfire.
Oh, the shame of being overpowered by Malfoy! The ferret would lord that over him for years after they would have their N.E.W.T.s.
“Oh no, Malfoy, you're not going to win this,” the blonde beside him said through gritted teeth—as if she had read his thoughts—and fired another snowball at their opponents.
A barrage of snowballs hailed down on them in return.
“We've got to stop them! Think of something, Potter!” the blonde girl shouted, and ducked behind the makeshift wall of snow they had hastily conjured when their opponents closed in on them.
Harry started, hesitating for a moment too long to take cover, and another snowball struck him at the shoulder. “Me?” he asked, his voice going up several notes, and also crouched down.
“Yes, you,” the girl snapped back. “You've got the reputation to think on your feet and get out of sticky situations, so don’t disappoint me!”
It was all of a sudden very warm under his thick winter cloak. That a girl that pretty thought highly of him—wow! He was more used to people calling him a freak or an attention-seeking cheat, depending on the eye of the beholder.
Above their heads, the merciless onslaught of snowballs continued. Crouched behind the snow-wall, Harry looked around for a means to defend themselves against the bombardment.
There was only snow how far he could look—
Think, Harry! You've got snow and a wand, and—
Of course, that was it! Was he a wizard or what? He almost slapped his forehead, and his mouth turned into a wide grin.
“How good are your Enlargement Spell and your Levitation Charms?” he asked the blonde.
“Huh?”
There was no time for a long-winded explanation. Harry gathered some snow between his hands and formed three snowballs in quick succession. He put them into a line at his feet, pulled out his wand, and enlarged them until each snowball was twice the size of his head.
The blonde watched his actions with a frown on her face.
Her sister, however, broke out into a delighted cackle. “Do you want to do a series of them?”
Harry nodded, concentrating on holding the Enlargement Spell on the next three snowballs.
“Come on, Daffy, help me!” the younger sister said and already bent down to form more snowballs. “I'll do the snowballs, but you've got to enlarge them, I can't cast that spell yet.”
“Oh—kay,” Daffy drawled, clearly still at a loss where this would lead them.
Daffy? What kind of name was that? Although it suited her, a cute name for a cute girl.
They worked as a team until they had about a dozen rows of enlarged snowballs lined up in front of them.
“Keep going while I send those babies on their way,” Harry said to the sisters. He waited for the next onslaught of snowballs, directed his wand at the first line of XXL- snowballs, and cast “Wingardium Leviosa!”
The three snowballs rose straight into the air, five—nine—fifteen feet high, until he directed them with a flick of his wrist to a spot beyond the walls of the opposing fortress, from where he suspected Malfoy and his allies to launch their attacks at them. Hopefully, they were already that drunk on their imminent victory that they didn't notice what was coming. He dropped the spell and turned to the next three snowballs.
Loud yelps and cries from the opposite fortress were proof enough that his new weapon worked.
A feral grin appeared on Daffy's face. “Brilliant, Potter! Keep them coming, speed is what we need now!” She doubled her efforts to enlarge the snowballs her sister provided.
Their comrades in battle also caught on. Seconds later, an assembly line for XXL-snowballs worked like a well-oiled machine: the little sister, the boy from Beauxbatons and George formed the snowballs, Daffy and Hermione enlarged them, and Harry and Fred levitated them behind the lines. They soon learned to put them on a zig-zag course and high enough to be out of the reach of their opponents. It didn't matter if the other side destroyed the balls as soon as Harry and Fred had maneuvered them in the right position for dropping, they'd be caught in a small avalanche nevertheless.
Malfoy was the first to give up. He'd lost his hat, and his wet blonde hair was plastered to his head, with snow dripping out of it, as he ran for the castle, his two bookends close on his heels.
Daffy howled with triumph and levitated a last, impressive farewell of four snowballs behind them that caught them just before they disappeared behind a bend. She crowed and exchanged high fives with Harry and her sister.
The members of the Slytherin Quidditch team were next and ran after them, and the two students from Durmstrang held their hands up in defeat and bowed towards them as they ceased their attack.
Angelina, Alicia, Katie, and Leanne had the good sense to make an orderly retreat as soon as they saw what happened to Malfoy and Co. They probably knew they were going to be next.
Silence settled down on the battlefield.
Harry and his comrade looked at each other, then broke out in excited laughter and cries of triumph as they jumped up and down and hugged each other in celebration of their victory.
Daffy and her sister had taken Harry in their midst. “That was absolutely brilliant, Potter!” Daffy shouted in his ear and hugged the stuffing out of him.
It was brilliant.
“Thank you, Daffy,” he shouted back.
Her face became rigid, and she dropped her arms. “How did you call me, Potter?” Her glare was like a frostbite.
Shit.
Harry did what sometimes, although not often, worked with Hermione, and smiled at her with big eyes. “Uh—Daffy. Isn’t that your name? I heard your sister calling you that.”
The icy stare turned towards the younger sister.
“You call me Tori all the time,” the girl replied with a shrug, and as if she was oblivious to her sister’s wrath.
He had to do something, had to protect the younger girl—Tori?—from the lashing out that was without no doubt on the tip of Daffy’s tongue, or whatever her name was.
“I think it’s cute,” he blurted out. “It suits you.”
The blue eyes turned back towards him. They had lost all the coldness, and the colour on her cheeks deepened. “Thank you, Potter,” she said. “You might continue calling me Daffy, then.”
“Wow,” Tori breathed beside him. “I wouldn’t have believed that if I hadn’t heard it with my own ears.”
Behind the sister’s backs, Ron and Hermione shared one of those looks, as if sharing an entire silent conversation about him, and the twins grinned and gave him a thumps-up.
Harry ignored them all, he was too busy smiling down into Daffy’s amazing eyes. “My friends call me Harry.”
Daffy linked arms with him and pulled him towards the castle. “I don’t know with whom you’re going to the Yule Ball, Harry, but I expect that you’ll dance with me at least once tonight, Harry.”
“And with me!” Tori piped up.
A huge grin appeared on Harry’s face. “Agreed, to both of you.”
And within the blink of a moment, attending the Yule Ball didn’t seem like a terrible chore anymore.
The End