December 02
Title: Baby, It's Cold Inside
Author: scifichick774
Rating: T
Word Count: 1987
Prompt: Snowman
Warnings: none
Summary: A disturbing surprise turns into a more spectacular one.
A/N: Many thanks to pokeystar for the beta and the title of the fic.
The snowman on her front yard was unsettling.
It wasn't the sculpture itself, exactly, but the fact that it was there at all. First of all, her house was under the Fidelius charm to keep undesirables away-there were a great many of them, especially since her short relationship with Ron ended.
Second, it was a cold winter, but thus far there hadn't been any snow. One needed snow to make a snowman, the last she checked.
Snow or a knack for the kind of magic that bent the laws of nature.
Hermione sighed. George had to be responsible, then. He was the only one-out of the people who had access to her home-that she could think of that might be able to pull off a stunt like this.
Right. So she had the who, what, and when, and she wasn't sure she wanted to know the how. That left her with finding out why he'd done what he had. She might be able to understand if the snowman lobbed balls of icy wet yuck at her every time she ventured outside, or even if it was charmed to burst into dirty versions of Yule carols at the most inappropriate times of day.
But it did neither of those things.
Nor did it do anything else.
It just stood there with a fake-looking grin-how she thought the expression might look real, she wasn't sure-and stared at her.
She could almost swear that its unwavering, black coal gaze was sentient, but even if it wasn't, it was creepy.
Thank goodness the weather was cold enough for her to blame her shiver on the chill in the air. She was sure George would have quite the chuckle if he knew his prank was actually getting to her.
~*~
The blasted thing was intelligent-she was willing to bet money on it.
And although it had yet to do anything to prove its intelligence, its eyes followed her regardless of where she went on her property. When she had to harvest winter moonflowers? It stared at her. When she had to do something on the other side of the lawn? It moved its head around to stare at her.
If it started spewing something that looked like pea soup, she was going to have her own little solstice celebration in front of her house and set up the bonfire right next to the bloody thing.
Granted, George could have charmed it to keep its gaze on someone or something-like a Muggle motion detector-but the only charm she knew that would accomplish such a feat would have the snowman turning to face anyone whoever happened to set foot on her property, and that wasn't the case.
Harry and Ginny had both visited within the last couple of days and the snowman's unsettling stare hadn't followed either of them.
Hermione frowned and then lifted her chin. This was ridiculous. She was afraid of a snowman for Merlin's sake!
Well no more!
She strode over to the front door, unlocked it, and then pulled it open. The only way to get rid of a fear was to confront it head on, and if that's what it would take, then she had to do it-regardless of how utterly stupid the entire situation was.
In retrospect, she probably should have stopped to dress for the weather first.
It was a bitterly cold evening and while the inside of her house was comfortably warm, the temperature outside was substantially different.
And she was wearing a housecoat and slippers.
Goddess! She'd really let George get to her this time.
But that was alright, she told herself. Because she was going to confront her fear and then she was going to go back inside, hang her slippers by the fire, and come up with an ingenious way to get him back.
Her trek across the lawn ended abruptly as she realized that her silent fuming had helped her reach her target sooner than she'd expected. She glared at the snowman and put her hands on her hips, unintentionally taking the stance she normally adopted before ranting at someone-as if she actually expected the bloody thing to respond to the words she planned to scream at it!
But then, knowing George, it probably would.
~*~
The snowman was not actually a snowman, as it turned out. Though after she discovered the truth, she almost wished she hadn't.
Unsurprisingly, it did not reply when she asked where it had come from and why it kept looking at her like it expected her to do something.
So she did something.
She pushed it.
It was, perhaps, not the sanest of responses to a situation where an inanimate object simply refused to be otherwise, but the second her bare hands touched its icy exterior, it shuddered and then morphed in front of her very eyes.
She blinked and took a step back in surprise. She'd seen goblets turned back into rats with the swish of a wand, and Animagi transform from their animal forms into their true human ones, but seeing a snowman change into a person was a new one for her-and quite startling, particularly considering who the person was.
It took her a moment to find her voice and when she did, it came out as a high-pitched squeal.
“Malfoy?”
Her shock was warranted. While it might be true that she and Draco's childhood animosity toward each other had considerably lessened with maturity, they still weren't exactly friends.
Plus, he was naked.
She tried very hard not to focus on that, or that he was shivering uncontrollably because of it, but even with what little light there was, she could see that his pale skin was badly chapped and his lips were an unhealthy shade of blue.
Hermione grimaced and then heaved out a sigh. She had intended to spend her night curled up with a good book, but she supposed it would be churlish of her not to help him.
“Come on. You can explain everything inside where it's warm.”
His teeth chattered as he tried to nod in agreement and she turned on her heel to head back to her house. As fun as it might normally be to see him covering his bits and pieces, the glaring detail that he looked half-dead kind of ruined it for her.
“There's a blanket on the sofa you can use,” she said as she strode through the front door. “Or would you prefer to take a hot bath first?”
He made a grunting noise that she took to mean he wanted to put off the inevitable explanation conversation as long as possible, so she started toward the bathroom. He was probably used to bathing pools the size of the one in the Prefects' bath at Hogwarts, so he might be disappointed in her vintage claw-foot tub-despite the fact that it was larger than was standard for most homes these days.
Not that she really cared whether he was disappointed or not. There might have always been a part of her that yearned for acceptance and approval-even his-but this wasn't a social call, and he was lucky that she'd taken pity on him. The only expectation he should have now was that the hot water would help ease him out of the beginnings of hypothermia.
~*~
“So?”
She was proud that she'd managed to ask the question with a straight face, since it had taken considerable effort to do so. There was no men's clothing lying about her house, so the only thing she had for him to cover up in after his bath was the over-sized housecoat she'd been wearing when she confronted him.
Thankfully, he didn't throw much of a fuss about donning a garment that a witch had just had on-though she imagined his pouting would have reached tantrum-like levels had the robe been a girly colour like pink or yellow.
Instead, it was robin's egg blue and actually looked better on him than it did on her.
Prat.
Draco sighed but his grip around the mug of hot tea he was holding got tighter, so he obviously wasn't as relaxed or resigned about giving her information as he was trying to act. “What do you want to know?”
“How you transformed into a snowman in a good place to start. At some point during the story, I would also like to hear how you bypassed the Fidelius charm on my property.”
“A curse is the answer to both your questions,” he answered shortly.
“Lovely,” she replied, her voice dryer than it had ever been. “Since I invited you into my home so you wouldn't die, perhaps you could be so kind as to elaborate.”
He sighed again and looked down at his cup, refusing to meet her eyes. “My father's line is cursed; has been for a few hundred years.”
Oh. She supposed it was good she hadn't sent George that howler like she'd planned, then.
“Every other generation, sometime during the firstborn son's twenty-first year, the wizard is turned into the one thing his soul mate-”
Could he sound any more disgusted? She thought not.
“-fears in a possible husband. Or, if the witch already knows him, it turns him into something that epitomizes what she thinks of him. The curse then transports them to said soul mate's current location, where true love's touch lifts the curse or they stay like that forever.”
“But...”
But it had transported him to her house.
“Oh,” she squeaked.
A person didn't get to choose their soul mate; she remembered that much from the books she'd read for Divination before she dropped the class. But, still... Malfoy?
“Yeah. Nice to know you see me as having a heart of ice, Granger.”
She grimaced. “I... didn't think I did.” A bit cold, maybe, but not heartless. “Maybe I just see you as abnormally pale,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.
He snorted, but it didn't sound as though he was truly amused.
“So. Soul mates, huh?”
“You're the first Muggle-born soul mate since the family was cursed,” Draco said. She stiffened-just a little, but it was noticeable. “I didn't mean it like that. I meant... despite everything, my father's still... You know how he is. And he already thinks of me as a disappointment. He won't give either of us an easy time of it.”
Hermione parted her lips to reply, but closed them again when she thought better of the scathing retort she'd been about to voice. Draco wasn't being a git, she told herself, he was just trying to give her fair warning.
“You don't have to tell him,” she suggested softly.
He scoffed. “I'm pretty sure he'll figure it out when I bring you to the manor for Christmas dinner.”
“No. I mean... there are are lots of people-most, really-who don't end up with the person magic or nature or whatever planned as their perfect match. What says-”
He gave her the oddest look and it did what countless people had tried and failed to do in the past. It shut her up. Surprisingly, he didn't launch into an argument like he could have. Rather, he set his cup down on the end table, rose from his chair, and then sat down next to her on the sofa.
And then he kissed her.
The action was hesitant, as if he wasn't sure of her reaction and didn't fancy being slapped, but there was no denying the spark of magic that jumped between them.
“That says,” he said, answering her half-asked question in a breathless voice.
She felt like her entire body was thrumming-and from a kiss that was just barely more than chaste!
Hmm.
Maybe he wasn't as cold as she'd thought he was.
~end~