A Holiday Season (Drarry Fanfic)

Muggle Magic

He was gathering the snow in one spot. Why he was doing that, I couldn’t really tell. It was very cold outside and the grey threatening sky was not very encouraging. He looked rather cheerful, though. Enthusiastic as only a light-hearted Gryffindor like him could be.

“What are you doing?”, I asked casually; we had been talking and spending some time together in the last days. Nothing very intense, but enough to give me more confidence to approach him.

“Oh, hi!” he said from the snowy ground where he was kneeling, putting together the snow with his gloved hands, “What does it look like?”

I changed the focus of my attention from Harry’s handsome face to the mountain of snow he had gathered. What it looked to me was…. A mountain of snow. As plain as that. I looked back to Harry, unsure whether my honesty could hurt his feelings. But then, I was never too imaginative of a guy to start with, so whatever he was planning to do, escaped my creativity.

“A… bunch… of snow?” I said as mildly as I could and much to my relief, Harry giggled at my response.

“It is indeed a bunch of snow. At least as for now,” he looked at the soft ice in front of him as an artist appreciating his piece of work, “I’m building a snowman.”

“Oh, of course!” I said as if it had been obvious from the start.

“Have you ever done one?” he asked me as he worked with his hands to make the uneven edges smoother and more rounded-like.

“Not ever.”

He turned at me looking astonished and I felt my cheeks go slightly red in embarrassment.

“You had no childhood, then,” he shrugged and went back to his work.

“I know how to do it with magic, though. I am sure you know how, too. Why bothering in picking up all the cold, heavy snow when you could easily use a spell?” I said logically.

“Because it wouldn’t be fun. Some things are to be enjoyed without magic,” the lower part of the snowman’s body was already looking like a ball. Harry began to pick up snow from the ground to make the head.

“I’m not sure I understand that.”

“Of course not. You have always been a wizard. Though discovering magic was the best thing that ever happened to me, I admit being raised as a muggle was a lesson as how to enjoy life in a different way.”

I had heard he had been raised by some muggle relatives after his parents had died, but I had never really paid much attention to the detail. I was curious to ask, but decided to leave the topic aside for another time.

“Want to help me?” he pointed the unfinished snowman tilting his head.

“In muggle fashion?”

He nodded.

“I guess I can try.”

He smiled warmly and I had the impression that he was happy that I wanted to join him. Perhaps he was just glad not to be by himself.

I started to work on the head, trying to give a more ball-like look.

“Oh, where are your gloves? That looks painful,” he minded my bare hands, which were red and dry because of the icing snow.

 “I forgot,” I took my black gloves out of my coat pockets and put them on. Harry looked suspiciously at my hands but said nothing.

He went to pick more snow as I shaped the head and all of a sudden I felt a hard, painful hit on my back. I turned to find a mischievous Harry picking up another snowball, ready to attack. I moved faster than him, however, and hit him with my snowball on his right arm.

“Ah! You got me!” he exclaimed, as he threw another snowball with his left hand; it was clearly not his strongest, since the ball fell on the ground at the middle of its trajectory.

From that moment on, the war began. Semi-rounded snow balls flew through the air from one direction to another, sometimes hitting trees as the opponents tried to protect themselves from attack, sometimes falling into the ground, and others hitting hard in arms, legs or chest.

“I give up!” Harry cried after my ball hit him in the lower back. He fell dramatically into the ground, performing a theatrical surrender. I walked to him and sat down next to him on the ground where he was lying. I could hear the agitation of our breath after the exhilarating game. Harry was looking at the sky through his emerald eyes as he tried to gain his breathe.

“We didn’t finish the snowman,” he broke the cozy silence suddenly.

 “That was fun, though” I replied, heated by the emotions of happiness and excitement that ran through my body.

“And we didn’t need magic.”