Ivy pushed open the door to the stone bridge with great difficulty, hearing the wind whistle through the opening as she did so. Once she opened it just enough, she slipped through and closed the door behind her. Leaning against the door for just a moment, Ivy took a deep breath, her lungs filling with the icy winter air.

At least I can breathe out here... she thought as she pushed off the door and began meandering across the bridge.

With it being so cold, she didn’t anticipate running into anyone out here, at least not anyone who was in the mood to talk. Most people out here would just be scurrying from one class to another as quickly as possible to get out of the cold. Ivy, though, didn’t mind the cold. Home was cold, and as odd as it was, the feeling of the inside of her nose freezing with every breath was very comforting to her.

Part way along the bridge, she stopped and turned to look out across the viaduct, her hands playing with some snow remnants that had piled up in the corner of an arched opening. She missed home... she missed her mom... she missed cheeseburgers.

Professor William W. Williamson was never in the mood to talk, but he also wasn't scurrying from one class to the other. He was always outside and always dressed for the weather.

But even he grew homesick once in a while. Today, he was leaning over the stone bridge, looking down, and thinking of someone in particular. He needed a distraction, a kid to bother... AHA. There was one. He spotted her out of the corner of her eye... a little Hufflepuff, playing with some snow, and looking out over the viaduct too.

Williamson gathered up a small pile of it on the stone by him and made it into a compact, tight little ball. Then he tossed it gently at the girl, hitting her right on the shoulder, the snowball bursting into a little cloud of white. Nailed it! He still had it, regardless of what the haters may say. Quickly, Williamson spun back around so his back was to the girl and he was instead looking into the courtyard.

Should he whistle? He took up a jaunty tune just in case, to look less suspicious.

Lost in her own melancholy, Ivy heard more than felt the snowball hit the back of her shoulders. She whipped around, indignation apparent on her face. ”Hey! That’s not ni-....” she began, but there was no one there for her to yell at. Doing a more thorough search of the bridge, she saw no one except Professor Williamson, and a professor would just never throw a snowball, let alone at a student.

She walked closer to him as he whistled, tucking her hair behind her ear nervously. ”Uh.. Professor? Did you...? I mean... was anyone else...? Someone just hit me with a snowball, and there’s no one here but you, and... and Peeves can’t, like, come outside can he?” She finally asked with wide eyes. Oh if Peeves could follow them around on the grounds, that was a whole new kind of horror. She’d never go near the lake again!

That was right; a professor would never ever throw a snowball at a student just for the heck of it! Good Hufflepuff! He turned to look at the girl as she approached, pretending to have just noticed her as he cut off his whistling.

"Huh? Oh, someone hit you with a snowball?!" He rubbed at the shadow on his chin and pretended to look around for the culprit. "I didn't see anyone." That part was true. "Maybe it was Peeves. He can turn himself invisible, you know. And the courtyard isn't really part of the grounds, so..." It wasn't even Piers's jurisdiction.

He pulled a gloved hand out of his pocket, hoping she wouldn't notice the snow clinging to his palm as he patted her gently on the shoulder. "Don't worry, kiddo, we'll find whoever got you and we'll hit 'em back." Williamson nodded assuringly. "Might want to make yourself a few snowballs in the meantime, though in case it IS Peeves.... that Poltergeist has an arm like a Beater."

Heh. Heh. He almost convinced himself that Peeves was to blame. "Lemme help you make a few snowballs...." Willy continued, starting to pack the snow that had accumulated around the fountain in the courtyard.

Ivy felt quite relieved when the professor agreed that it could have been Peeves. If it hadn’t been Peeves, who had it been? She smiled at the Professor when he said he would help her get them back and encouraged her to start making her own snow balls. Giggling, she started scooping up the snow and molding it into balls. It wasn’t the beeeest snow for snowballs. Not quite dense enough. But it would do!

”Professor - is there a way to to keep them frozen? Peeves might be inside already. They’ll melt in there!” she asked as she continued to pack snow together as past as she could with her knit gloves. The snow kind of stuck to them - gloves with that swooshy material were best for snow sculpting.

SOME first years really did take the staff's word as law, huh? Williamson almost chuckled at the sincerity rolling off this one. He started packing snow too, making a few small balls in a row that he'd have to come back to and add more snow on.

"Yeeeeees, I do believe there is a spell for that." He looked up from his ball with his thinking face on. "Glacius, maybe? Do you know how to do that one?" Look, now he really was taking over Piers's job. Teaching Charms now too. "You make a circle-ish motion like this." He flicked his wand into his hand and demonstrated nonverbally. "And it freezes the snowball pretty rock-hard, so, be careful who you toss these at."

He picked up one of his snowballs, cast glacius on it, and then tossed it at the wall, where it exploded ROUGHLY and sent a shower of powdery snow outward. Wiliamson grinned down at the girl. "Go on, you try one."

Ivy watched intently as Professor Williamson demonstrated the spell. When he threw the charmed snowball at the wall and it exploded in all of its powdery glory, Ivy gasped. She’d never seen a snowball do that before! ”Woah!” Quickly, she copied the spell just as the professor had done it, then launched the snowball at the ball and watched it explode just like his had.

Laughing in delight, she started casting the spell on her entire pile of snowballs. She couldn’t wait to throw these at someone. Although... Peeves wasn’t solid so the effect wouldn’t be nearly as glorious. Maybe she should seek out other targets... ”Um... Professor? Are there any... rules about throwing snowballs at people?” she asked, doing her best to keep her tone sounding innocent and curious... and failing miserably

"Now, I will say," Williamson narrated as he picked up another icy snowball, "that these will hurt A LOT if you throw them at someone. So, uh, don't do that." Or they'd BOTH get in trouble with the Headmaster, and WWW didn't like talking to that grompy man any more than he had to.

He grinned at her eagerness. "Er, just, y'know, what I said." He liked throwing them at the wall, personally. It made his arm feel like it was getting a good stretch. "I mean, you could at least ASK if someone wanted to join in your snowball fight before pelting them in the back, for example. Oh, and it's usually frowned upon to aim for the head." Because faces were precious and brains were important, yada yada.

Ashley was looking for a quiet spot to contemplate life. Here there were two people making snowballs. Not what she was looking for, but this was cool too. She watched them quietly for a little. "Cool snowballs. How do you make them? Oooh those look like they could sting," she noticed suddenly. She totally definitely totally didn't wanna get hit with one just to find out what it was like. Totally not. She didn't make many snowballs, because it didn't usually snow in Australia. Soooo... now she was interested.

Ivy nodded as she continued making her special snowballs, trying to read between the lines of what Professor Williamson was telling her. So like, the snowballs hurt, so she shouldn’t throw them at people, but just don’t throw them at their head? Was he saying that she could or could not throw snowballs? Wait, throw them at their back... had he...? ”Heeeeey.... wait a minute.... did you... were you the one who hit me with the snowball, professor?” she asked in growing suspicion.

Hearing someone approach, she instinctively made a move to hide her snowball collection for some reason, but it was just Ashley! Beaming up at her, eyes dancing with a mischievous glint, she greeted her friend. ”Hi Ashley! It’s easy! You just get some snow and pack it together in your hands until you have a ball,” she demonstrated. ”Professor Williamson showed me a charm to make them stay frozen, but he says those ones will hurt if I throw them at people and, well...”

Trailing off, she suddenly launched her freshly made snowball at her fellow first year and immediately started giggling.

Oh. That snowball hit Ashley really hard in the shoulder, and it stung. She was immediately intrigued. She laughed a little. "Ooh, what's the charm for that? Does it have to do with ice? Because that stuff is like frozen snow. I wanna make some of these. I would definitely have a use for them." She just made a normal good snowball (she didn't know the charm) and launched it back at Ivy. Now she was giggling too.

Williamson had started whistling loudly again, a tune that surely drowned out any suspicious questions (or the sound of snowballs) heading his way. Fortunately, another kid had joined their crew now, and was tossing snowballs with Ivy. Good, good. She could show Ashley how to make them. Would it be too easy for him to sneak away, or...?

Willy loaded a few of his charmed ice-snowballs into his pockets and started sneaking toward the exit to head back into the castle. He had an idea for these....

The strange whistling answered Ivy’s questions or her. He had absolutely been the one to throw the snowball at her. Now it was time for some payback...

Ivy giggled some more at Ashley’s reaction to the snowball. ”Here! I can show you how!” she explained. Squatting down, she made another snowball and used her wand to demonstrate the Glacius spell Professor Williamson had shown her. She knew he was sneaking away, but she didn’t let HIM know it, pretending to be completely distracted by teaching Ashley the charm.

But before he had made a full exit, Ivy turned and threw a non-charmed snowball right at the middle of his chest.