Snowballs and Dark Lords

Hermione ran back into the Gryffindor common room and found Harry and Ron.

The two boys were playing wizard chess. Ron had already crushed Harry's position so thoroughly that the defeat looked less like a match and more like a rout.

Harry's pieces kept protesting his terrible commands, and every one of them seemed to have an opinion. The noise was beginning to drive him mad.

When Hermione arrived, Harry swept a hand over the board and knocked the pieces aside.

"How did it go, Hermione? Does Edmund know who Nicolas Flamel is?" Then he blinked. "And why is your face so red?"

Ron opened his mouth and looked at Harry with a very strange expression.

Hermione's already flushed cheeks turned even redder.

"Nothing. I ran too fast. I just need a moment to breathe."

She hurried past the subject.

"Edmund knows who Nicolas Flamel is. He already told me."

Harry's attention shifted at once. Ron leaned in as well.

Both of them had agreed that asking Edmund made sense.

Harry had a good relationship with him, and unlike Hermione, Edmund lent out homework easily. Harry also believed Snape targeted Edmund in Potions as often as he targeted Harry, though in Edmund's case it was actually special instruction.

Since both of them had grown up in the Muggle world, Harry could talk to Edmund about things Ron did not always understand. Aside from Ron, Edmund had become one of Harry's closest friends at Hogwarts.

Ron had less of a direct relationship with Edmund, but Edmund was friendly with Fred and George. Ron often saw the twins huddled with him, and Edmund somehow always ended up at the center of whatever was happening.

As someone who had spent his life being tormented by the twins, Ron both admired Edmund and feared him a little.

Hermione had been the only one against the idea.

She did not want every problem solved by asking Edmund. She wanted to find the answer herself and make him see her differently.

Stubborn as ever, Hermione had spent day after day in the library, searching madly for any trace of Nicolas Flamel.

A month had passed, and the investigation had gone nowhere.

Harry and Ron finally could not bear it anymore. If they delayed much longer, Snape would probably have finished his evil plan already. After enough pleading and persuasion, Hermione had finally agreed to ask Edmund.

That was why the earlier scene had happened.

Now Hermione repeated what Edmund had told her, adding her own deductions. Harry and Ron became fully convinced that Snape's target was the Philosopher's Stone.

None of that had much to do with Edmund.

He only needed to appear at the end and see whether he could obtain the Stone for himself.

...

December twenty-fourth.

The snow that had fallen all day yesterday finally stopped. Classes had long since ended for the holiday, and the students remaining at Hogwarts had little to do. Many ran out of the castle to play in the snow.

Edmund had grown tired of reading, so he decided to go outside and clear his head.

Recently, he had been studying Snape's Potions notebook. Snape truly deserved his reputation as a master. The notebook contained not only his thoughts from his student years, but also revisions he continued to add in the present. It was, in a sense, the work of his life.

Outside, the younger students had already begun their games. Some were having snowball fights. Others were building snowmen.

Of course, the wizarding version was not quite the same as the Muggle one.

With a wave of a wand, a pile of snowballs could be made in an instant, then launched by spell without anyone touching them. A single student could throw several at once.

A game between a few children somehow managed to resemble two armies exchanging fire.

"Whoosh!"

More than ten snowballs came flying at Edmund.

There was no time to dodge them all, so he raised a defensive charm.

"Protego!"

The snowballs struck an invisible barrier and dropped to the ground.

Edmund looked toward the source and saw Fred and George standing there, waving their wands to make more snowballs while laughing at him.

"Cheater!" one of them shouted.

"No Shield Charms in a snowball fight!" the other added.

Edmund's sense of play rose as well.

Two against one? Dishonorable.

He did not draw his wand. He merely pointed at the ground. A large mass of snow lifted into the air, split into dozens upon dozens of fist-sized snowballs, and compressed slightly to make them harder.

Edmund smiled wickedly at the stunned twins.

"Oppugno!"

Every snowball shot toward Fred and George at once. The barrage sent them fleeing with their arms over their heads. Before long, they conjured a temporary white flag and raised it in surrender.

Edmund let them go. He had only joined in on a whim.

After sparing the twins, he sat off to one side and watched several witches build a snow castle. They were shaping it after Hogwarts, and to be fair, it did resemble the school in miniature.

After a while, Edmund began to grow bored.

Just as he was about to return inside, he noticed Professor Quirrell, who had somehow come outside, being chased by Fred and George. The twins were pelting him with snowballs and aiming specifically at the turban around his head.

Quirrell fled in panic, both hands clamped tightly over the back of the turban.

Edmund shook his head.

Quirrell really was an idiot. Why not use magic? Or had Voldemort ordered him to avoid casting too much in case Dumbledore noticed something?

Still, the twins were ruthless. They were chasing Voldemort's face around with snowballs.

This might be the greatest achievement of their school careers.

No wonder only one of the twins survived to the end. This had to rank among the Dark Lord's more humiliating memories.

Fortunately, Filch soon came hurrying from the distance. The twins saw him and bolted at once.

"Professor Quirrell, are you all right?" Filch helped Quirrell up from the ground and brushed snow from his robes with surprising care.

"F-Fine..." Quirrell stammered, his voice trembling.

"Idiot!" Voldemort roared inside Quirrell's mind, beyond Filch's hearing. "Why did you not use magic? Have you lost what little sense you possess?"

"Master... I... I was afraid of affecting your plan."

Quirrell answered with his thoughts, terrified.

"Are you sure you are all right, Professor?" Filch asked. "They ran, but that red hair gave them away."

"Do not worry. I will find Professor McGonagall this instant and have them put in detention."

Filch made the promise with great conviction.

Quirrell answered with a few perfunctory words and hurried away.

Seeing that there was no more show to watch, Edmund headed back into the castle as well.

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