Turn in time

Chapter 15 - Snow

Harry and Ginny were gathering snow. They had been subconsciously avoiding eachother since everyone arrived and now somehow they were gathering snow together in awakward silence
"So" Harry said, trying to break the silence "So" Ginny replied, there was more silence "How much snow do we need?" He asked, Ginny seemed to snap back into the conversation "Right um, a little more" They kept gathering snow for a few minutes until she declared that they were done "Now we start building" She said "Sorry, it's not like you've never made a snowman before" She half-laughed "Actually um" Ginny looked up "Seriously?"

She paused "I'm sorry that was insensitive-" She started, "No, no it's fine, Ive only ever played in the snow at Hogwarts, my aunt and uncle welk they're not-" He flinched a little "They're not great people" He sighed, Over the years everyone had learned a few things about Harry's home life, for example, he'd never had a birthday party, something they learned in the summer before second year.

Mrs Weasley had made a birthday cake for Ron, Fred and George as they all had had there birthdays at hogwarts, everyone was eating the cake when Harry said
"Wow, this is delicious!"
"Yeah, mum makes a mean birthday cake, how's your Aunts cooking?"
Harry seemed very confused and said "She's never made me a brithday cake before" Like this was totally normal, everyone looked up just as baffled
"What?"
"I mean my cousins had some very tall cakes before, I've never had any of it luckily, I'm sure they'd use the chance to posion me" Harry laughed but no-one else did "What?" He asked as he noticed everyone's confused stares
"You've never had a birthday cake-" Fred said
"At any of your parties?" George continued
"Parties?" He asked

"No-" Hermione answered "You've never even had a party!" She continued
"No?" Harry was shocked that everyone here had birthday parties each year "But you do get present right?" Ron asked "No" Harry sighed "But it's fine, I always used to take some paper and make airplanes in my cupboard-"

That was another thing they learned about Harry that summer

"YOUR WHAT!?" Mrs weasley yelled "My... Cupboard"

That summer they learned that Harry lives in a cupboard. Ginny never found out how on earth dumbeldore managed to convince Mrs weasley to let Harry go back to the dursleys, it was a mystery but Dumbeldore must be pretty convincing she guessed.

"Well the first layer of the snowman is done" Ginny said, trying to change the conversation "Not quite yet!" Harry said, he took two small pieces of coal and added them to the snow "OK now its done" He said, they both smiled, they was another moment of silence

"So crazy day yesterday huh?" Harry said awkwardly "Um yeah I-I suppose so" She replied, they had seemingly had a silent agreement where they won't speak about it... apparently not any longer.
"It was definetly a hard pill to swallow" Ginny said, she started rolling up the next layer of snow "Not what I would have guessed the future was like" He laughed fakely, she looked at him in a ok-little-rude way before looking away
"I didn't mean it like that" He said hastily "I just meant, I honestly didn't think I'd live to see twenty-twenty" He said this quietly, as thought it was a secret, which it most likely was "What?" Was all Ginny could reply with "Voldemorts trying to kill me, it kind of makes you weary of targets on your back" he explained, that was fair, there was no doubt a war approaching and usually the leaders of wars are quite famous targets and the wizarding war was no exception.

"Yeah I suppose so" Ginny croaked "But still, as crazy as everything we've learnt is, you did survive-you do survive" She corrected herself, this was just as true, he did survive or will survive that is, against voldemort of all foes
"So far my future self has done a bang up job on the living front" He chuckled, she chuckled too "looks like it" she said quietly before turning back to the thick white snow, the whole garden and everything in sight was snowy, the roof, the mountains in the distance, were all covered by a heavy white blanket of snow, it was nice, peaceful.

The snowman was almost fully built, the coal eyes were on as were the coal buttons "all thats left, is the scarf, stick arms and a hat" Ginny smiled
"a hat?"
"of course, snowmen need tophats"
"right, I can go get one"
"No need, I have one right here" she said, she pulled a black top-hat from the bag of snowman accessories such as scarfs and coal that'd been brought out with everyone, she sat the hat on the snowman head and adjusted it slightly until it was precisely straight "Alright we need a carrot" Harry said, the eventually finished the snowman who had a coal smile, a carrot nose and (after much debate) a Gryffindor scarf.

"Snowman looks good" They both smiled "Yeah" there was an awkward silence, neither of them wanted to stop talking to eachother but neither of them had anything to say "I guess we should go help the others with their snow-things" Ginny said finally "Oh yeah right" they couldn't count the number of awkward silence they had been caught in by that point or the number of times one of them felt compelled to break the ice that just kept freezing over their conversation once again

"I have no idea how future me wasn't petrified of your older brothers" He laughed, it was true, dating a girl with six older brothers seemed like a death wish "especially when one of them is your best friend" she added on
"right- that's gonna be awkward" Ginny chuckled at this before saying "well he doesn't murder you so that's something" they soon finished talking and went to help others aoth their snow activities