Prompts!

Sally Donovan.

(Ah, snowtime. I went sledding.)

I think Sally probably doesn't like it. Everyone acts as if they've never seen it before, as though there's magic in the air and they're all deer who get to frolic in the spring-time; they all forget there's work to do. She likes the way the drops are soft, before they melt; she likes the dust of white on Anderson's shoulders. There's just not any reason to make a big deal of it, is all.

She doesn't like that even Lestrade appears to like it, even John, and she certainly doesn't like that Sherlock seems indifferent to it. In fact, she hates the way he never comments on the weather; she hates the way he hasn't dressed for it; she hates the way his eyes are cold, and colourless--alien; she wonders whether he sees anything at all. She hates the way that sometimes, she feels just like him.

And so that evening she goes home and calls her mum, and tells her that it's snowing in London.

"Oh, you used to love the snow," says Mum.

"I know," says Sally.

"You used to go sledding," says Mum.

"I know," says Sally.

"You used to be so loving; you were so open." There isn't even a pause--"Not that you're not now. I just meant--"

"I know," says Sally.

Now the pause. "And how is work?"

"Mum, it's fine."

"And how's the young man?"

Sally can feel the blood rise to her cheeks. "I think he likes the snow," she says.

Sally doesn't love the snow like she once did; she feels that she's grown up now, and besides, you can't sled in London. What she loves best is when the snow begins to melt; the streets get slushy, and everyone complains. Everything is gray and ugly, and all the magic is gone. But that's when Sally loves it best; she knows it's ridiculous, but she also loves fall best after all the leaves get colourful--only after they've died and gone to brown. She loves the detritus; she loves the drabness. She loves it because no one else does, and sometimes there is no room, no room for loving beautiful things, and magic, amongst all the ten million people who love it too.

"We can't all be special snowflakes," she had told Sherlock once, in a fit of pique.

Neither of them had believed it to be true.

I'm so sick of snow. >.>

Cute house though! :D

I'm going to jump on the same fandom as the above poster and say BBC-verse Jim Moriarty.

I love the snow! And I like our house a lot :o)

Er. This contains violence? I dunno, you asked about Moriarty.

Jim used to hate the snow. Kids at boarding school stripped Jim down to t-shirts and shorts, hauled him outside, and threw snowballs at him. They shoved it down his back, too, and said, "That's for Andrea Sutton!"

But Andrea Sutton had deserved what she had got--she was a stupid, stupid cow--and Jim knew the real reason they had done it. It was because he was pasty and puny, and not as beautiful as Henry Su, as though that mattered at all. They thought he was weak.

Then Henry Su said, "Stop it. Just, everyone stop. Jim, you get inside; you'll catch your death," and everyone stopped, because Henry Su was Henry Su. He was tall and beautiful and black-haired; he was in secondary school. He was very clever, they all said, though never half so clever as Jim, but Henry was "good", they said, and kind. Everybody listened to Henry Su.

When Jim finally came in his feet were the colour of beets and larger than normal. They felt like they had been burned.

Philip Su was Henry's brother, and liked to call Jim his friend. That was because Jim had helped Philip sneak into Nora Pritchard's house to watch her undress, not because he was interested in Nora Pritchard; she hadn't any tits yet and Jim was fairly certain he still would not be interested if she did. Sacks of fat, filled with glands, a thousand million molecules of trigylcerides and lactose; the fact that anyone found that interesting was positively jejune, just like Philip Su. But Jim had helped him just to see whether it could be done, because the Pritchards were very wealthy and had an alarm system, and Nora kept her door locked. In the end, it was too easy.

So Jim enlisted Philip Su to help him get back at Henry. Philip was happy to help; he hated his brother for being bigger and better and kinder, and loved by everyone, which was a stupid reason to hate someone, if you asked Jim. A much better reason was the knowledge that you could break a man, if only you were a man yourself; if only you were an adult and could have cars and credit cars and things, not because those were so very important, but if you were smart and you were grown up, you could probably press a button, and bring the world to its knees. And Jim would some day; he knew he would, but now he was stuck being nine years old, when Henry Su was still the strong one, and people could still break him just because he was small.

Jim had always known that one day he would have to take down Henry, and so he had groomed Philip to help him take him down; he'd engineered it so that Philip thought that Henry had broken his model MIG; he engineered it so that all the girls were always telling Philip how much they loved his brother; he engineered it so that Jim was Philip's one and only, desperate friend.

First, I'm gonna have to tell you that your home looks wonderfully snug and cozy in the snow!

Now, I'm going to prompt you with post-war Draco/Harry.

:D

Seconded! Lovely house in the snow.

It is pretty snug! I do worry about ever getting to work again, though.

Draco Malfoy loves the snow. He loves it, loves it, loves it, which strikes Harry generally as funny.

Draco just shrugs. “I don’t know. It makes me feel clean.”

“Clean,” Harry says.

"Clean. Snow is clean." Draco frowns slightly. “What’s wrong with that?”

"I dunno," Harry says, but that's a lie; he knows exactly what’s wrong with it: snow is wet and cold and usually rather dirty, actually, and Draco's got on pristine wool slacks and a well-pressed linen shirt. Every hair is swept into place in a perfect, practiced way--and all of this is in fact highly unusual, because most of the time, Draco's dressed even more posh; he wears a three-piece suit and looks like some kind of gentlemen out of a play by Bernard Shaw. Harry's never seen a play by Bernard Shaw, but Hermione said once that Draco talked like Henry Higgins, and it sort of stuck--because Draco's a stuck-up prat, actually. He carries a pocket-watch. He has a fob.

He looks the exact opposite of any person who would enjoy being out in the cold and wet, the exact opposite of someone who would enjoy wrapping themselves in wool and bright colours, just for a romp in frozen particles of water.

Draco is this way because he’s prissy, Harry knows; he likes things just so, but sometimes Harry wonders whether there’s another reason, something that Draco is trying to prove. Draco works like an addict and likes things to go precisely as planned; he is very, very careful never to do anything that could be construed as wrong in any way. He doesn’t like to take his shirt off, and he doesn’t wear short sleeves. Harry’s seen it of course—the Dark Mark—but he knows that Draco doesn’t like to see it himself.

Harry doesn’t think that’s right, but he didn’t fall in love with Draco because of who he once was, and certainly didn’t fall in love with him because of who he could be. He loves Draco exactly as he is, and Draco hardly ever talks about the past.

Draco's frown deepens. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?"

"With fondness."

Harry wonders whether Henry Higgins's voice--whoever Henry Higgins was anyway--often dripped with as much disgust as Draco's did. Harry quickly pushed in a mouthful of toast. "I'll try not to look at you with fondness in the future."

Draco rolled his eyes. "Just eat your breakfast. You're wasting precious time."

The precious time that Harry was wasting was precious time that was occurring before seven-thirty in the morning, and if Harry wasn't shoving toast in his mouth he would've pointed that out--sounding just like Henry Higgins, probably. Draco was always up at ungodly hours of the morning. He was always dressed and absolutely perfect, having had two cups of tea and frowning down at his cuff-links, adjusting them, around the time Harry was just stumbling out of bed--except for last Tuesday.

Last Tuesday he had stayed in bed with Harry, under soft white sheets, wide awake at six o' clock but not leaving yet, staying just to slide down beneath the covers, slide down and down and touch Harry there, take Harry's soft cock in his warm wet mouth and moan and suck and tug while Harry was still half asleep.

They had fought Monday night, because Harry had wanted to fuck without Draco wearing a shirt for once.

It had not been worth it, and apparently Draco forgave him, and apologized in his own way—after Harry had come, Draco had turned him over, spread his legs, and applied his mouth to Harry's arse, just as soft and wet and messy, kissing and licking and nipping until Harry was a writhing mess. Finally, Harry was warm and wet and completely, utterly plaint; he could have gone to sleep again, he was that relaxed--finally Draco had touched his cock, and Harry had come again.

"You didn't," Harry had croaked drowsily, when he realized that Draco was finally getting out of bed, leaving him without having come himself at all.

Draco had chuckled, low and warm and soft. "Go back to sleep, Harry." He'd bent and kissed Harry on the forehead. "You'll give it to me when I get home tonight."

Draco's impatient voice breaks Harry's reverie. "You're looking fond again."

Harry abruptly focuses. Blinks. "I'm not awake, yet."

"I don't understand how one person can possibly sleep so much."

Harry goes back to eating his toast. "Sometimes good things happen if I stay in bed."

The corner of Draco's mouth twitched. "You were thinking of last Tuesday."

"Got it in one." Harry grabs another piece of toast off the plate.

"You're having more?"

"Come off it, Draco. I've only had one."

Draco frowns. "Last Tuesday will never happen again if you continue in this manner."

"Pity," Harry says, and spreads his marmalade. He doesn't understand why Draco is so impatient.

Usually Draco lets him sleep, even if he does whinge about how much Harry sleeps; he slips out quietly and even makes breakfast, sometimes. He prepares Harry coffee even though he prefers tea; he even knows not to talk until Harry's had his first cup. But this morning he came in and announced very loudly, "It's snowed."

Harry had just rolled over, but Draco had ripped the covers off. "It's snowed," he'd said again.

"'M bloody cold," Harry had said.

"That's because, did you hear? It snowed."

"So? Give me back the blanket."

"No," Draco said. "It's snowed."

"You're bloody crazy," Harry told him.

"Harry."

Harry groped blindly for his wand. "It snowed all the bloody time in Scotland. What's your problem?"

"I haven't got a problem. It's snowed."

"Give me back the blanket."

"I've taken off work."

"You've . . . what?"

"Yes," said Draco.

"I'm up," Harry said.

Draco finally appeared to notice. He crossed his arms. "Well, good. Get dressed. Ten minutes."

That had been half an hour ago, and Draco's been tapping his foot since.

But he still hasn't told Harry what's so important--what was important enough to take off work for, when Draco never took off work, even when he had a bloody fever--so Harry eats his toast. Then they get ready to go outside--Harry would really rather not, since, as Draco has stated multiple times--it's snowed. It’s cold and wet, but Draco insists.

So they do go outside, where Draco promptly pelts him with a snowball.

“Ugh,” Harry says, and stands there. Cold wet is dripping down his neck, and Draco is making another snowball.

“Come on, Potter,” Draco says, and he hasn’t called him that in years.

“You got me out of bed so you could pelt me with snow?”

“Fight like a man,” Draco says, and lobs another.

“The fuck,” Harry says, takes out his wand, and drops a pound of snow from the eaves on Draco’s head.

Draco just stands there for a moment. He’s got on his perfect double breasted coat, his perfect scarf, his perfect boots (Harry had fucked him in nothing but those boots), his perfect hat. At least he had long since abandoned the ushanka, but Harry’s pretty sure a noble seal had sacrificed itself for Draco's gloves, except that now Draco’s shivering and looking distinctly displeased.

“You started it,” Harry says, amused, and yet unable to help feeling slightly sorry for him. Draco hates getting wet; he hates getting messy; he hates being outside, really—even if he does look like a drowned rat, he acts much more like a cat.

“I’ll get you,” Draco says.

Harry shrugs. “You have me,” but Draco draws his wand and whips more snow at Harry’s head, and Harry has to duck and cover.

After several minutes more of this, Harry realizes that he’s really got to have a strategy, because Draco is good, very good, and was serious when he said he was out for blood. By now, Draco’s got a veritable fort his wand has formed from snow; he’s crouched behind it and lobbing snowballs from behind crenellations, for godsakes; what kind of snow fort has crenellations?

But the thing is, Draco’s laughing, he’s red-skinned with cold and wet and covered in snow, and laughing, and the next thing he’s doing is drawing up more snow with his wand and practically making an igloo, so Harry can’t sneak up from behind, like he’d strategized.

Then Draco Apparates; he’s in front of Harry and kissing him, so warm and heady and happy that Harry is distracted, and Draco is smashing snow down his collar. “I won.” Draco pulls away, and beams.

“Is it over, then?”

Draco spells him dry, pulls him close, and kisses him again. It’s better than a warming spell. “You tell me,” he breathes, in Harry’s mouth.

“You win,” Harry breathes.

“Now we’re going to build a snowman,” Draco says.

Harry snorts. “You?”

“Us. You and I. You will do most of the manual labour, of course. I will supervise.”

“Oh, will you?” Harry kisses him again. “Wouldn’t you rather go back inside?”

“No,” Draco says.

So they do build a snowman, and Draco lied; he does more than supervise. He does make Harry roll the bottom ball, but rolls the middle one himself, then looks about to conjure sticks and stones for eyes and mouth. They go inside, but just for a little while—hot chocolate, and time to start a fire, with Draco impatient by the door, shifting foot to foot. Harry doesn’t understand it, but he’s never seen Draco quite so pink and happy as he is out there, so they go back out and go for a walk, because Draco says that meadows are more magic, under snow.

Once they're outside walking, it's nothing special. It's just snow. They've got a house in the country--a little one, not very far from a village, and not so very different from the Burrow, or what Godric's Hollow might have been, and, for Draco, not so very different from the Manor, only much, much more small and snug. It's very nice, but it makes snow an inconvenient thing, especially if you were a Muggle, and have to walk. But they're not Muggles; they can fly, or Apparate, or Floo, and never have to go outside at all, unless Draco Malfoy is your live-in partner, and you are crazy, crazy in love with him.

Draco catches his arm, his gloved hand locking over the elbow of Harry's coat. "Look," he breathes, his breath a puff in the white winter air.

"It's a crow," Harry tells him.

"Raven," Draco says.

"Raven, then."

Draco drops his arm. "You have no poetry," he tells him.

"And you have?"

"When I see a raven in the snow, I notice the high contrast. I appreciate it." Draco puts his nose up.

Harry sighs, following as Draco marches along. "Are you suddenly in Hufflepuff?"

"What?"

"I just--I never thought that you would like the snow so much."

"Potter. The trees are laced with icicles. Laced."

"Yes," Harry agrees. "It's very pretty."

Draco sniffs and kicks the snow as they walk along the winding path. "I meant that if you’re not careful, one might fall and stab you in the eye."

"We could go back and fuck in front of the hearth," Harry says, but they keep walking.

After a long time of not speaking, they stop beside the fence the protects the paddock. Draco puts his elbows on it and looks across the wide expanse of pasture, frozen glittering white.

"That's pretty," Harry offers. Draco's so lost in thought that he suspects he won't notice that Harry's not looking at the field at all; he's lost in the bright red shell of Draco's ear, the one curl of white hair escaping his hat.

"My mother loved the snow."

"Oh," Harry says, because he doesn't know what to say.

Draco shakes his head in that way he has that is barely a movement at all, barely a denial. "That's not it. My mother loved it, but because she loved it, my father, he . . ."

"It's alright," Harry says. “You don’t have to.”

Draco looks down at the bar of wood beneath him, frowns. "I do."

“You don’t.”

“You don’t think I owe it to you,” he lifts his eyes, looks across the field, “considering all the things I’ve done?”

“I consider the things you’ve done,” Harry says. “I consider them all the time. Why do you think I’m here?”

Female Sherlock!

I feel like if I ever do really write in Sherlock, it will be female!Sherlock. She makes me happy! ♥

*

Sherlock loves the snow. She absolutely adores it.

"That doesn't seem at all like you," John tells her.

"Why not? Of course it's like me. I don't like a thaw. A thaw is," Sherlock pauses, "inconvenient."

John looked at her a little while. "Children."

"What?" Sherlock says, impatient.

"Children and dogs." Sherlock frowns, and John goes on, "Children, dogs, people who like Christmas, artists, naturalists, telly-watchers, hot chocolate-drinkers, and polar bears. They like snow."

Sherlock begins, "I doubt scientifically--"

"Maybe not the polar bears and dogs," John says. "Everyone else."

Sherlock closes her mouth. "I'm not everyone else," she says, after a bit.

"I know." John has this quality of patience that Sherlock doesn't understand; no matter how many times he tells her she's brilliant, or seems taken by surprise, he never seems completely surprised. It's as though John is always . . . waiting; he's always waiting for a moment, and perhaps the reason Sherlock tolerates him is that she is waiting too; she is waiting for the moment when she can finally figure out what his moment is, and then she will at last understand.

"I'm just wondering why," John says slowly.

"What?" Sherlock frowns.

"Why you like it."

"Oh. That. Eskell will tarry by the bridge again, don't you think; he'll smoke one--no, make that two cigarettes, watching the joggers, and then he'll have--"

"Eskell?" John says.

Sherlock stares at him for a moment, not knowing what he is asking, and then realizing suddenly. "He's the murderer, obviously. I thought you had worked that one out."

"That would be you," John says, and goes back to the paper, where he had been reading that it would snow.

"I didn't have to work at it," Sherlock says. "He obviously--"

"I'm sorry." John puts down the paper again, frowning at Sherlock. "What does that have to do with snow?"

She blinks. Her mouth works for a second before she can speak. "Footprints. Footprints, John. Snow is a--a plaster, a mould; it holds everything in, all of it; just by looking at snow you can see--"

"Find out where he's going?"

"Don't be ridiculous, John. I know where he's going; I need to see everywhere he's been, and snow is perfect. It's nature's snapshot; it freezes time."

Ahh how awesome!

Spn character of your choice ;D one-fandom pony here

Hmm. Okay!

I think that Lucifer, while in Sam's body, sorts through Sam's mind, and sees memories of snow. He sees a trashcan lid on a drive-way, and Sam and Dean taking turns sledding down. He sees them building a snowman; he sees a snowball fight fifteen years later, both of them cold and wet and rather calculating in their icy vendettas.

Lucifer sees them as children, Sam begging Dean to go outside, Dean shaking his head, "Dad told us to stay inside."

"But it's snowing," Sam says, and Dean gives in, because he always does.

John's gone, hunting the hat that brought the snow demon to life ("Frosty," says Sam.

"Abominable Snowman," says Dean.

"Frosty," says Sam. "Don't you know the song?"

"You don't know anything," says Dean. "It was the Abominable Snowman.) They’re outside among Minnesota pines, where John had told them not to go; Dean's moving his arms and legs as he argues, and Sam's peering down at him.

"What are you doing?"

"I said you don't know anything," says Dean.

"You look like a helicopter."

"It's a snow angel," says Dean.

"Helicopter," says Sam.

"Angel," says Dean.

"Frosty," says Sam.

"Abominable," says Dean, but Sam can't say the word abominable--although one day he will--and so they argue, and fight.

"You messed up my angel!" says Dean, and he sounds actually angry, all of the sudden.

"Helicopter," says Sam. "It was stupid anyway."

"No, it wasn't."

"Yes, it was."

"No, it wasn't," says Dean.

"It wasn’t an angel," says Sam. "You’re not an angel."

“I didn’t say I was one,” says Dean. “You’re the one who wanted to come out here!”

Sam kicks a up a puff of snow. “I just wanted to see what it was like.” He frowns down at the scuffled snow, where Dean’s angel was. “It looks like angels fighting now,” he offers.

“Stupid,” says Dean. “Angels don’t fight.”

“Well, brothers aren’t supposed to either!”

Dean looks at Sam and sighs. “Come on,” he says. “You’re all wet.”

They’re shivering, freezing cold; inside, Dean rubs Sam’s hands between his, afraid he’ll get frostbite.

Lucifer jerks away from those memories, unnerved by the cold he has not felt in so long. He knows the love, forgiveness, are supposed to be warm, but fire is hot, a destructive heat; it melts, causing things to slide apart. It’s ice that sticks, solid and real; snow packs together and builds men and their fortresses; it brings them inside and brings them together. Snow builds men, not angels.

Lucifer used to wonder whether his brother could ever forgive him, but he knows the answer.

There’s not a snowball’s chance.

Helo. ♥

Oh, okay! Thanks!

I think that Helo probably built snowmen on Caprica. In fact, he lived on a farm; in the autumn there were hayrides, and he was in charge of checking the mechanical threshers, and dreamed of flying. In the winter, snows were heavy; he had half a dozen sisters and one elder brother, and they played with the children across the pastures, down the road.

They spent hours building armies--said they were Cylons, the snowmen. Once the armies were built, they mounted attacks, destroying the snowmen with snow-missiles and canon. Karl never told anyone (but for his youngest sister Janna)--he enjoyed building them more than he enjoyed the war.

Then Jacob told Najma told Jocelyn told Marcus--Karl's older brother--the old legend of Snegurochka, and Marcus told Karl. Snegurochka was a snow maid, a lovely young girl built out of snow, who talked and lived and breathed among the rest of us for the space of a winter season, but melted when spring came. It was magic that brought her to life--obviously, but on every colony they tell this tale, and the mechanism is different.

On Tauron, it is an old hat that brings her to life; on Gemenon she is given a spark of the soul by Hephaestus, which slowly melts her from the inside; on Aerilon she springs fully formed from the side of a mountain. But on Caprica, on Caprica the story is that she is the daughter of the Mother of Spring, and the Father of Frost; she was built by them together, and in her, together, they breathed the breath of life.

The story terrified Karl, and ever thereafter, he refused to build snowmen. Cylons were built by men, weren't they, and who was to say Hephaestus wouldn't come along and give the snowmen the spark; who was to say that no one would give them a hat? Janna and Marcus and Tara (the eldest) tried to tell him that Cylons were different, but Karl was never able to believe it.

A couple years later, the thresher system broke; his parents replaced it with a new one, better--computer operated. Karl no longer had to check that they were working after that; it was automated. At first he was frightened to go into the silo--that big empty room with that big, heavy machine, working so quietly--but in the winter, while Janna and the rest built snowmen, he went there to sit.

He liked the way the dust caught in the sunbeams, streaming from above; he liked the smell of hay. He liked the sheaves of grain packed so neatly, and after many winter afternoons in the heated metal barn, he lay his hand down on the threshing machine. It lit up, and a print-out came up on the screen: Do you require assistance?

Karl took his hand away; the machine hummed for a moment, then went silent and gray. What was the difference; he wondered--this machine knew he was there; it knew how to chop the hay, and when; it knew where to place it, and where everything went. What was the difference between threshing and thinking?

It was the spark, he concluded, the breath of life. The Cylons were built, just programmed machines; there was no magic in them, like human beings. A human body was a construct too--atoms and molecules, bones and blood, chemical reactions that tell us what to think, but we have one thing that was different--the breath of life, the magic that isn't in machines. That night Karl dreamt of a girl, pale-faced, her eyes like coal. She melted into water, and somehow he was swimming, swimming, adrift among the stars.

Many years later, he holds his daughter in his arms. He thinks that his wife's very being is magic, and he is the father of spring.

Snape!

(Snow is so pretty. But cold! But pretty.)

Hm. I think I will always think of your fic when I think of Snape and snow! Snow-fighting with Harry, and in particular the delicate flower that only blooms in the frost. I loved that!

I think he probably doesn't like it very much. The Maurauders probably put snow in his pants at some point or other, and snow meant he had to go home for the hols, which he hated. When he starts working for Dumbledore, it means that he gets to stay at Hogwarts without the students, and he pretends to savour this--and perhaps he does. He finally gets some actual brewing done, and collects the winter-blooming plants. The halls are wide and cool and silent, and he's so sure he likes it that way.

Albus is at his most ridiculous at this season, with Christmas, and the "little ones who don't have homes, Severus,"--he actually said that one year, in an attempt to get Snape to wear a Christmas hat. Albus is outrageous in general insofar as trees and tinsel are concerned, ridiculous about the stockings and decorations, and Snape has taken to throwing away the Christmas card without opening it (the singing is always dreadful).

It is on Boxing Day that Snape can finally bear to be near him again. There are moments when Albus is quiet, his eyes very bright, and he will say preposterous things such as, "Thank you for the socks," but in between he says nothing, and drinks tea. It is flowery, but for once, Snape doesn't mind.

Albus spends every holiday here. Both of them do.

So Snape claims to like the snow, and says that it is better than almost any other time of year, but for summer, when they are rid of students completely, but it's all a dirty lie, and Albus knows it. Snape loves spring the best; he always has. He loves the lilies, because he is a fool and still feels so utterly unprepared when a beam of sunshine catches him unawares.

In the spring, Draco Malfoy invariably five years running came to whinge about examinations; Parkinson comes to her Head of House with troubles, and takes more tea than really she should. Spring is when loves blooms and Slytherins become restless, down in the dungeon, and Snape finds it appalling, insipid, and crude.

Still, he prefers spring.

Ice melts in the spring, and wild things grow; they do so without design or prompting. It's the angle of Earth's axis and the direction of the sun--he knows this to be true; he knows that turning is a gravitational force. He knows that all the things that grow will die, but Snape has always taken a helpless sort of pleasure in green.

It's the expectation of new leaves.

A snow-based call for prompts is just about the cutest thing ever. <3 It snowed here as well! *tries to toss some snow at you, slips and lands on back*

No worries if you don't get to this one, but Cedric Diggory.

Yay! Oh, but don't hurt your back! This is really fun, actually. I'm just writing what I think that character thinks about snow, and most of them are turning into fic, but I don't think this will.

I think that Cho and Cedric snuck outside after the Yule Ball. He was handsome and honey-haired and so very Hufflepuff. She adored him then, but it didn't snow.

The day he died, she thought of that night, and for some reason the only thing she could remember about the whole evening was what she wore. Her dress had been silver; Marietta had helped her with the eye-liner; she had wanted to be perfect, delicate, like snow--she couldn't remember Cedric, the numbers they had danced, whether he had laughed, whether he had kissed her. She just kept thinking that she had wanted to be snow.

A year later, she kissed Harry Potter under the mistletoe, and promptly began to cry. After it was over, she went outside. It was cold and wet, but not snowing yet, and she remembered his grave. The stone was sparkling white.

Sitting on a parapet outside, Cho found it easier to remember him--he talked very quietly, most of the time. He had a habit of running his thumb in circles around the pulse of her wrist. He thought Muggles were interesting and liked lemonade, and loved the rush of flying. At first he didn't say anything about Harry entering the Tri-wizard Tournament, but several days after the second task, he told her that he thought Harry was, "one of the best blokes he knew." Cedric knew very many nice blokes.

Cho looked down at the lake and remembered being inside it, among the mermaids and the algae. They were supposed to have been put to sleep, but she remembered it, and remembered the cold of the water, his firm strong arms. That was not when she knew that she had been in love. Cho had never known if she had been in love. There hadn't been time to find out.

She looked up at the sky and waited for some sign, a signal or anything, a change of light that hit the water--something to let her know that Cedric or someone was watching, and that everything would be okay. It was alright to go on. She waited for snow, but it never came. Neither did rain.

Seventeen years later, the war is over; Cho is married, two young children, and a successful career as an attorney. She's friends with Harry, though still never best friends, and she and Marietta have drifted apart. She loves her husband; his name is Pierre, and he has bright black eyes and brown hair.

But whenever it snows, she still thinks for a moment of Cedric; she doesn't know why, since not a single memory she has combines him with snow; it didn't snow when they danced, or snow when he died; it didn't snow on his grave, and it didn't snow beneath mistletoe. She does not know; there's just something about it that is gentle and soft; it cleans; it forgives, and that reminds her of him.

He would be happy, she thinks, if he knew what her life has been, for she is happy too.

HOW TO CHOSE. I WANT ALL THE PAIRINGS.


Actually... Harry Potter, with as many pairings mentioned/referenced/alluded to/downright spelled out as possible. *cackles*

Hm. I've got Harry/Draco here and Snape here and here is a little Cho Chang/Cedric. As for the rest . . .

Hermione hates the snow; it reminds her of camping. Ron lights fires in the hearth and makes sure she's warm, and never tells her why he loves it, or how at times he longs for the shock of freezing water, or pain, the cold metal of the sword in his hand. His finest hour is also his biggest shame.

Neville brushes the snow of the fronds of his night-blooming moonflower. Glimpsing him in the kitchen window, Hannah pauses and smiles; she can't help but watch him. She loves that he is always so gentle, methodical; these are not chores but rather returning the favour, for beauty they give in the spring. Neville never ever doubts the days will be brighter, and does not ask why when Molly asks for daffodils.

It's snowing when Molly first visits Bellatrix's grave--the woman she slayed, but really it's more like sleet. As she nears the plot marked Lestrange she sees she's come at a very bad time--not due to the sleet, but rather the lone woman standing there before the massive tomb. Molly almost turns back, but clutches her courage, her flowers, and goes forth. She puts down the flowers at the foot of the steps, and they stand together for a very long time.

"I didn't know what flowers she liked," Molly says at last, when the sleet turns soft.

The corner of Narcissa's mouth turns wryly. "Believe it or not, she preferred poppies."

"Of course," says Molly, and because she never had a rein on her tongue, says, "I'm sorry."

"It was for your daughter," says Narcissa.

In the snow, they understand each other perfectly.

Ginny flies in all weather--rain sleet or snow; Dean tries to dissuade her, but more than anything, Ginny hates to be trapped. She needs to be free, and flying, she feels that way. She loves him because he lets her go.

At The Three Broomsticks, Madam Rosmerta is serving Minerva, who likes a hot toddy in this sort of weather, but never admits it where children can see. Rosmerta works there because Papa owned it and his father before him and his mother before him, but she likes it well enough. She likes the shine of the tables and the warm wood lustre of the bar; she likes it when people come in from the cold. She likes to watch people warm up and be filled, to leave merry and happy; it's not a high calling, but it's enough to be kind.

When the door opens, yellow light pouring out in a rectangle, snow swirling in, she waits for another stranger to be revealed and be warmed. The man unwraps his scarf, revealing Draco Malfoy, and nothing is warm at all.

Madam Rosmerta pauses, her hand on the tap, and just watches. He spots her and marches toward her, and the whole pub falls silent. Everyone knows what he did to her.

"I'd like," he says--and for one frozen moment, she believes he'll say a pint of ale; she believes she'll throw it in his face--but instead he says, "to make amends. I'll do anything, for as long as you need. If I can help in any way."

His words are stiff and stilted, oddly formal, and Rosmerta stares.

"Well," she says finally, and slowly pulls the tap. Pint full, she takes it away, and places it before him on the bar. "You can begin by drinking this beer."

Twenty years later, she thinks of him: it's not the strangest friendship she's ever had, but it's one of the best, and lasted the longest. She thinks of him when it snows.

John Thornton (possibly in pairing with margaret but i don't mind if its just about him).

Also, I loved the Harry/Draco story. I also thought your musings about the issue of non-consent/dark mark etc. were really fascinating.

Oh! What an awesome suggestion! Okay, let me think.

*

The fluff that floats about freely in the open air of a mill is so reminiscent of cotton, that even a man not in the habit of drawing connections between dissimilar things could easily have likened it to snow. John Thornton, however, was a man in the habit of drawing connections between dissimilar things, a penchant that, one could argue, had arisen from rather too much poetry in his youth, and a distinct lack of attention to mathematics. Mathematicians, after all, are not given to metaphor.

Despite having made this connection, indeed several times--the essential correspondence being, that aside from the obvious similarity of colour, shape, and weight, that cotton and snow were both rather pretty--Thornton had never taken the trouble to examine the comparison further. It was Nicholas Higgins--a soul whom John would not have, previous to this, suspected of being either poetic or mathematic--that encouraged contemplation of another propinquity. "You have got a fan, haven't you?" Higgins asked.

They were speaking of the recent debilitating cold, and for a moment Thornton wondered whether Higgins actually supposed that the fan was a proponent in keeping the temperature low--a ridiculous proposition, considering that it was quite warm in the mill. Furthermore cooling was necessary, which surely Higgins understood, and more importantly, the purpose of the fan was nothing to do with temperature. But Higgins did know that, of course, Thornton realized, returning Higgins's keen gaze; his daughter had died of brown lungs not so very long ago.

"I see you don't take my meaning," Higgins said.

Thornton frowned. "I'm afraid I don't."

"The fan keeps the fluff off the workers," Higgins said, while somehow managing to make the patient explanation avoid the condescension the words might have implied. "You want to prevent brown lungs. Why not lung fever?"

Thornton did not stop frowning. "Working with the fluff is part of the job," he pointed out.

"So is walking to the mill in the snow, half a foot deep," said Higgins.

"That is not something under my control," said Thornton.

"It could be," said Higgins.

Thornton observed him for a while, Higgins clever, bright eyes, and wide mouth. "You might as well propose I open a dormitory," Thornton told him. "Do you expect me to be den-mother, too?"

Higgins just shrugged. "I don't expect naught."

Dobbin.

I LOVED reading these. My favorites were girl!Sherlock, Helo, and Snape.


Things that I liked in general because they were awesome, and awesome, or pretty:

he is a fool and still feels so utterly unprepared when a beam of sunshine catches him unawares.


Ice melts in the spring, and wild things grow; they do so without design or prompting.

Snape has always taken a helpless sort of pleasure in green.

A human body was a construct too--atoms and molecules, bones and blood, chemical reactions that tell us what to think, but we have one thing that was different--the breath of life, the magic that isn't in machines.

He thought Muggles were interesting and liked lemonade, and loved the rush of flying.

these are not chores but rather returning the favour, for beauty they give in the spring. Neville never ever doubts the days will be brighter, and does not ask why when Molly asks for daffodils.

it's not a high calling, but it's enough to be kind.

a penchant that, one could argue, had arisen from rather too much poetry in his youth, and a distinct lack of attention to mathematics. Mathematicians, after all, are not given to metaphor.

And your house really does look warm and cozy. If it were snowing like that outside my house, I would probably never leave.