Synopsis: A very near blizzard and a lot of snow. One in detention flees to the snow to claim first test, the other follows to teach the first a lesson, once and for all. Very, very light slash.
Dedication: Seven hundred and infinity to the lovely Kat. Though you ought stone me, this is crap. I’ll never be as good as you, it is depressing!

Notes: Touch of Draco/Ron. I don’t like this. At all. It was done in generally one sitting, and I didn’t get a chance to look it over.. Criticism would be great, fixing errors good too.

The sky was thick and white, marshmallows rolled heavy and pregnant and eagerly blanketed the dark that lay beneath them. The wind was cold and swift, it carried a brash hint of an upcoming storm, and it left skeleton trees shivering in its wake. It was night, so the cotton clouds were purple and black and suffocating the stars that commonly sung—they told tales of old and angst, but they were silenced by the swollen clouds.

Whether or not this weather was miserable or celestial relied solely on one’s opinion. Professors and adults alike might dread the snow it promised, and the difficulty that came hand in hand with the white flurries. For the very same reason each and every young person would be eagerly crowding any near and available window.

And when the sky relented and the first flake dropped, they held their breath. Everyone wanted to be the first out when the powder blanketed the ground. No student could deny the wish to beat all the others in tarnishing a smooth landscape of shimmering, fragile white.

Yet it fell slow. The clouds suffered through contractions of horrible magnitude, and the snow tumbled reluctantly out. Then it stopped entirely, stubbornly refusing to leave the comfort of its home. The students gave a collective groan and realized how heavy their eyelids were, how their bodies ached. A fairy by the name of ‘Slumber’ danced unknown above each, scooping a microscopic hand into her hip pouch and bashing each student over the head with a sparkling mallet.

And so they drifted. And when they drifted the sky chuckled at their lack of will, and shattered. The snow fell, fell and laughed and danced as flake mingled with flake and joined as one stretching cloth over the land.

But it was deceived. There were two students not asleep, not caught in the brash spell of Slumber. Both sulked though one more obviously in a first floor classroom, the professor assigned to their watch having locked himself into his office. Ah, detention.

The classroom was lit by flickering candles. The professor had not bothered to summon up any magic type of light and instead insisted the two boys strike up candles, one for each. But the candles were nearly done, burned to their bottom where they revealed their knickers with appropriate abashed giggles. What neither boy knew was that by all definition their detention ought to have ended an hour before, and that the professor had fallen prey to Slumber in his torn and lumpy armchair.

“Well, Weasley, you do look happy.” The speaker was pale and blonde, reclining haughtily in his wooden and stiff-backed chair.

The red head scowled at the boy, forcing himself (with the company of a scarlet face) to stare at the distant wall. He drummed fair fingers barely speckled with freckles against the desk in front of him.

“Shut up, Malfoy, you prat. We aren’t supposed to talk, we’ll get another detention.”

Draco rolled his eyes, pushing himself lazily out of his chair and giving the empty room a rather disgruntled look.

“Oh, and you always do what they say. Whether is mummy, or Scarhead, or professor saying it, right? Oh! But of course, dear old Ronniekins cannot have another detention; he’d get a big bad Howler!” The boy sneered with condescension at the rapidly angering Gryffindor, pulling a cruel smirk to already viciously twisted lips.

“Look, you bastard, you cursed me first!” While Ron did all he could possibly do to keep from giving Draco a permanent black-eye, the ostentatious other mouthed the words in a mimicking manner, flapping his left hand next to his head—as if it were a mouth running on and on about very little.

“What are you, five?” Ron lashed out with the pathetic jab, speaking with a mix of surprise and contained anger. The comment had an effect less desired. The blonde didn’t appear to be in the least offended—no, wait, pale eyes might have flashed, but perhaps he had been in this room one minute too long and was beginning to hallucinate.

“Maybe I am, so? At least this five-year-old can notice we’ve been in this room an hour too long. It’s one A.M., Weasel, and I really don’t care to spend any more time in here.” The Slytherin drawled in response, pulling a gold watch from his pocket, as if to double-check.

The boy strode to the window with purpose, right hand moving up to grasp a fistful of its baggy sleeve and wiping the cloth against the misted window. He apparently found whatever lay out there satisfactory, as he nodded within the first second of a clear look.

“Where are you going now?” Ron nearly shouted the words, leaping from his seat as Draco turned from the window and began to walk towards the door. He was still bristling, of course, from the very audacity Draco possessed. He could not suffer another detention. His mother had warned she would send three Howlers, the professors had given him explicit warnings, his record was suffering.

And then Draco, knowing this as he seemed to always know everything he had no business knowing, had deliberately taunted him. Oh, not that he didn’t commonly do the same. But he had insulted his family’s honor and cursed him from behind his back when Ron had attempted to fight back in the verbal battle. After that it had become an all out war. Just Ron’s luck this had happened in the middle of Potions. Entire specimens were wrenched from their jars and chucked at respective people, curses having peculiar effects that soon wore off.

Needless to say, detention resulted, and Ron had had to sit through hours of Draco making snide comments that implied far more than what the dull would interpret them as. Now the imp was doing a very good impression of one about to just leave the room.

“You can’t! We haven’t been dismissed!” It was late, and Ron was tired. But he was backing up further into the room, panicked eyes darting towards the closed and long silent door of the professor’s office. Then again, what did he care if Draco got in trouble? And yet, did he really want to sit in the stuffy, sweltering, and dull classroom for rest of the night and next day (Saturday), waiting for the blasted professor to wake up?

“Oh, really?” The dripping voice somehow found room for mock-shock. “I hadn’t realized! Oh, silly me, I really ought to wait forever for the blasted man. Funny, are you concerned about me, Weasley? Are you hoping that if you’re suddenly a brown-nose, I’ll tip you some galleons? Dream on, Weasley.”

Before Ron could rip his throat out, he had swept from the room and left Ron looking like a tomato near eruption. Or, according to the opinions of various people, as if the tomato had already exploded. It was no long a matter of falling asleep in the classroom and waking up sore and aching, no! It was now a matter of pride. If he did not make Draco bleed, he would, no, could never forgive himself.

With a last desperate and miserable look to the never-opening office door, he hurried from the room. The hall was no cooler than the classroom and enraged glances along each direction of the hall left him in momentary surprise. Draco was not, as he had originally suspected, walking towards the direction of the Slytherin Commons. No, instead to the left and therefore to the outside.

Ron briefly considered allowing Draco to do whatever he seemed to feel had to be done and catch a cold the process, idiot buffoon that would appear to want to walk outside in the middle of an exceptionally cold winter. But Poppy could fix a cold quick and he still needed to pummel Draco.

Ron set his jaw, furrowing his eyebrows and picking up his pace, completely disregarding the three prowlers of the halls that mind find the two out of their commons.

“Hey! What on earth are you doing?!” Ron was not a stupid person, and thus the reason why he screamed the words can be sufficiently beyond most sane persons. The underlying but boiling fury might evince some of the inquiry.

Draco stopped with one pale hand wrapped around the gilded door handle, turning with a flickering expression of annoyance.

“Is that a trick question? I’m going outside, Sir-Shit-For-Brains. Are you stalking me, Weasley? Lost without Potter?” He sneered at Ron, yanking open the door and evidently oblivious to Ron’s hand groping through his pocket for his wand. Ah, right. The professor had confiscated both wands at the start of the detention. Perhaps the man had some case of narcolepsy, but he was no fool—Ron might have cussed Draco’s head through his arse if it were not for the fact the man had taken his wand from him.

Yet that unfortunate and easily forgotten fact—as one certainly became used to the presence of their wand, they would assume it was always there by default—affirmed that Ron would truly need to use his fists. Draco had stepped too far one too many times, and he was not going to let him keep blatantly insulting him and everyone without retribution.

Self-encouraging thoughts and flash-images of a mutilated Malfoy soothed his legs into jerking him forward, spotted hand pulling impatiently at the door. He walked too quickly onto the stone top of the stairs, falling into the snow nearly to his waist. If not for already frigid hands finding security on the snow piled railing, he might have gone tumbling down the stairs and inevitably into Draco.

It was still snowing, and still heavily so. Already an impressive four to five feet had thundered down, and the clouds did not relent. It was looking to be a blizzard—the wind was rough, cruel, and cold, the snow falling so thickly it was hard to see more than a few inches in front of himself.

“Before you ask, Weasley, I’m out here because I would prefer to get my share of the snow while it is unadulterated. Everyone will be going for it tomorrow morning, it’s still smooth and clean..” Draco’s lips were blue but still moving into a smirk as he turned to face Ron, standing at the bottom of the stairs and looking up.

“Right, and this way you get the first touch at the snow. Always have to be first.” Ron spoke the words with disgust, but Draco looked almost pleased.

“Exactly. Of course, your very presence is tainting it.” He drawled, ever stupidly confident of himself and his superiority.

Unfortunately, he had failed to notice that Ron had struggled shivering down the steps, and that the second the words had left the shorter boy’s lips he had lunged. Draco’s eyes widened too late, he tried to struggle back in the snow too late, and he fell flailing back with Ron on top and swinging wildly at his face.

The landing was announced with a subdued thud, and the vaguely humanoid crater in the snow would likely be there the next morning when the first eager students ran outside.

Draco made frantic attempts to cover his head with his arms, cold arms that had the meager protection of expensive but too thin robes. One of Ron’s irate fists met its target, causing Draco to yelp as blood almost immediately began to flow from his nose.

“Take it back!” Ron shouted over the howling wind, slugging but only meeting the slight protection of the smaller one’s arms.

“By dose! M-my nose! I can’t take anything back if you keep—STOP!” Draco’s drawl had far from disappeared, but there was pain and panic blending uncharacteristically in with the common tones. Not so uncanny was the rage.

Ron took a deep, chilled breath, shuddering as he did so. He dropped his hands to his sides but made no effort to move from the position he had climbed up to while attacking, remaining thus in a kneel on Draco’s abdomen.

“Can’t.. breathe..” Draco rasped, scowling despite his lack of air. Just you try and speak while someone sits or kneels or stands on you.

“Take it back. Everything, right now! And.. And say you’re a pathetic little snot-nosed, arrogant son of a bastard, with no sense of morals and a face oddly similar to a horse’s arse!”

“Alright. You’re a pathetic little snot-nosed, arrogant son of a bastard, with no sense of morals and a face oddly similar to a horse’s arse.” Draco grinned through the blood as he said it, as he by all technicalities had done what Ron had asked.

Ron was pulling back his right hand, it clenched into a ready fist. Of course, during the pause after his assault and the time Draco had wailed of his lack of oxygen, he had completely missed the boy’s bluing hand burying itself in the snow. He had overlooked it closing around a fistful of the powder, and was entirely unaware right up until the moment frozen white slammed into his face. He inhaled snow, and Draco made the best of the moment to struggle, shoving Ron off of him and staggering to his feet.

Now, Draco was not by any means an idiot. In fact, he was very aware that the smart (and perhaps cruel but Ron had just nearly broke his nose, perhaps then justified) thing to do was to give Ron a sharp kick in the ribs and run. Or, do his best to flee through the snow and back into the castle without any dignity but without any broken bones. Therefore, the reason for his next actions can only be interpreted by the most insane of people.

Draco did kick the red head, swiftly and firmly, shoving his foot square into the freckled boy’s solar plexus. It would do the job of keeping him down and out of breath for all of a few moments. He squatted in the make-shift crater beside the panting Weasley, wiping the back of his left hand under his nose—the very motion caused his nose to scream in protest—and clearing the blood. He reached with his frozen right hand to grab hold of one of Ron’s ears, yanking and twisting it just enough to make Ron cry-out like he had over his nose.

“Tell me, Weasley. Don’t you even get sick of playing the shadow? Run along after Potter, sometimes you almost look like you could be his shadow.” Draco drawled slowly and clearly, annunciating each and every syllable with firm intent. Ron swung his left and curled hand, and he was forced to yank again on the (should his opinion be fact) oversized ear.

“But you are taller, and who could miss that bloody red hair? Yes Potter, anything Harry, I love you Harry! And the only ones who notice you are people asking, ‘My, where is that wonderful boy Harry, my I want to be his bitch! You’re so lucky, you get it for free!’” He spoke with a careless air that hinted at cruel fact, at truculent dare. Ron positively bristled, absolutely struggled, but Draco continued the merciless assault on his ear—and it certainly helped he occasionally jabbed an elbow into Ron’s stomach.

Both of them were shivering by now, both with lips blue and faces red from the cold. Each was covered and sprinkled with the frozen snow and beyond promised a stay in the infirmary with gallons of hot soup.

“Otherwise who are you but the shadow? Why, it does seem that the only one who notices you is me! Aren’t you lucky, Weasley. Without me, you’d probably forget how to speak.” He might have continued if not for Ron’s sudden, enraged (and lunging) interjection.

“I am no one’s shadow, and I’m just myself! And you? You notice me? Hah! Right, insisting that I need you to tell me what I know, that I don’t have much in the way of finances or your kind of riches! But I have what you couldn’t ever have! People care about me, no one gives a flying snitch about you!” Ron spat the words, struggling with the half-hearted actions of someone who had been sitting in the snow and cold weather for the past fifteen minutes without a jacket.

Draco smiled, and it was a thin and almost sour pressing of his lips. He leaned forward, his lips nearly brushing Ron’s ear, who looked repulsed at the very idea of it.

“Well, Weasley, it is attention isn’t it? You’re lonely, it’s obvious. So, so sad. But not lonely at all. And.” He pulled away, irritably wiping at his nose and wetting his cracking lips with his tongue. “It’s cold out. But you’re still warm.”

Ron could do little more then stare with a mix of loathing and confusion.

“You stand out like a beacon with your bloody red hair and your noble attitude, and you’re so warm but alive that you respond to everything because you have the fire of life through your veins. And Potter sort of sits back and dreams of golden snitches and pretty catches, but you want it all, little Poor-boy.” Ron may have been baffled beyond belief all throughout the dialogue, and he may have been nearly frozen, but he still bristled at the infuriating title.

“Would you bloody—“

“Shut up, Weasley! You’re always warm because you’re very alive. And you’re light and shining, but no one else sees you outshining Scarhead, freckle-face. Sometimes, the dark and dead and cold doesn’t even know it wants something else because it doesn’t know much else. Well, I’ve had time to see a little ‘else’.”

It may not have made much sense. No, it certainly did not. Though, a good reason for the lack of clarity may be that Ron was positive his brain had turned to ice and shattered. Things cleared up quite a lot and yet not at all as the last words were languidly uttered and a black sleeve was dragged beneath a swelling nose. It was at that moment Draco’s eyes widened from their ever narrowed state before closing, and he leaned down to press a very gentle—and yet hungry, so hungry—kiss against Ron’s cold (but ever warm) mouth.

Ron didn’t move. Maybe he had become a snowman due to the time he had been forced there, maybe he was shocked. Draco labored to his feet, again pale eyes narrowed and a sneer mauled his mouth.

“No surprise you’re shivering, Weasley, they don’t sell coats for a knut a piece. I am going to the infirmary. Suspect I’ll be seeing you, fancy chicken soup? Though I’m sure you could never afford the chicken, perhaps your mother was able to make do with broth. And you have been attending Hogwarts, they’ve had it!” Draco yelled the words over the still howling but weakening wind, pushing his freezing legs into the now terribly difficult effort of climbing the stairs to the school. When he did reach the large doors, he pushed it open and walked inside.

Hardly noticeable was the slight twist of his numbing head, just barely allowing grey eyes the corner-glance down to a slow-moving red head. A freckled boy who was touching almost sapphire lips with fingers colored in the cold after-effects of standing and lying and sitting out in that weather. On his glacial face there could be seen a number of tumultuous emotions: frustration, anger, disgust, surprise, hatred.. and something else entirely. He reached the cold, tall doors, and eagerly stumbled into the warmth of Hogwarts.

The air howled and raced and screamed. It sung of the still falling flakes and the horrible disruption in it’s lovely landscape. The wind urged the sky to release a downpour of snow, specifically there, where some inconsiderate ruffians had torn a gaping hole in its ivory blanket. The sky chuckled, the clouds cackled.

Slumber the mallet-bearing fairy was quite irritated at the escape of the two boys. Oh, and she more than made up for it. While all those who had willingly complied with her wooden attacks built snowmen and made snow angels in the following week, the two fugitive students were kept in sluggish sleep and ill with fever and cold. As often as she could, and once while both were sipping at tentative soup, she would rear up behind them and whack them good.

Fancy chicken soup?