Snow. Just.. snow.

Dizzy with the chills of the winter air and intoxicated with the adrenaline that darted through her veins, Melissa Finnigan pelted inside the castle walls of Hogwarts in the vain hope she could take cover somewhere; anywhere that was safe, warm and away from the snowball fight the first years were insistent upon having.

The blonde tore her hat from her head upon entering the relative warmth of the castle and smiled somewhat hesitantly at the lingering teachers that were talking over cups of hot cocoa about a recent detention. She could have sworn she had heard her brother’s name but let it worry her not, deciding against worrying about what he was getting up to and focusing on her object of concern: snowballs.

The snow had long since melted, leaving in its wake solid lumps of ice that were no longer a swift, soft shock on your cheek but one that could leave quite a nasty bruise at the very least. This was reason enough alone for Millie to disappear into the castle and disappear she did, bearing no mind to the snow she trod in through the castle as she made her way up the grand staircase, going nowhere in particular at all really, just ... for a walk.

So it was no real surprise in the end that she should end up by the Room of Requirement. Without even so much as a thought, Millie slipped into the room, through the welcoming double doors, and shed the rest of her wintery, padded armour, leaving it on the floor where it would drain off and hopefully warm – or at least that was the reason she supplied when an inner voice berated her for untidiness.

The girl collapsed with a contented sigh on one of the couches that had appeared around a roaring fire. She tucked sock-clad feet behind her and snuggled into the pillows, pleased to be far away from the snowballs and warm enough to find pleasure in just sitting, watching the flickering, dancing flames in the hearth.

"I need someplace warm," Keith muttered to himself, doing his best to keep his teeth from chattering too loudly. "I need someplace warm. I need someplace warm."

Note to self: Ice not yet thick enough to cross. He thought to himself, tearing off his soaking wet wool hat as the double doors leading to the room of requirement appeared. He grabbed the handle, pulling them open and darting inside as fast as his frostbitten little legs could carry him. I blame the squid.

When he entered the Room of Requirement, he found himself in a cozy little room - a roaring fire, a few couches. Keith wondered privately if the Room couldn't have made the fire a bit bigger. Like, three times that size.

He shook his head and wiggled out of his coat (also sopping wet) before charging at the nearest couch and leaping over the back. The good news was that he was successful in clearing the backrest - the bad news was that he landed, still freezing cold and soaking wet, on what was unmistakably another person.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaugh!" Keith shouted, falling to the floor and flopping around a few times in a blind panic. "Aaaaaaaaaugh."

“BLOODY, BUGGERING HELL!”

Now, Melissa Finnigan was a very polite individual, take that as you will, but she did not take kindly to being landed upon and so it was with great flailing that she scrambled out from beneath the offensive being that had sought to sit on her person. Landing roughly on the rug before the fire, Millie used one of the other couches to haul herself up onto her feet and once standing, she rounded on the horrible creature that had taken no care what so ever when parking his sodden body on her.

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!” She shrieked without preamble, unabashed in every way with her verbal assault. “COULD YOU NOT SEE THAT I WAS SITTING, TRYING TO GET WARM?!”

Millie stamped her foot on the carpet like a petulant child and threw her arms over her chest before jutting out her bottom lip – her every movement adding to her show of distaste. Her shoulder hurt too, by the way, just to point that out. She certainly didn’t take kindly to being sat on. In fact, it had never happened to her before. She’d never been so ignored.

As the red mist cleared, Millie found she recognised the boy. A fourth year. A Prefect! Millie’s anger peaked at this point and then opened her mouth again to exclaim,

“YOU! YOU’RE A PREFECT TOO! YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER! SHAME ON YOU! LOOK AT YOU! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW COLD IT IS OUTSIDE! HOW COLD I AM!? MERLIN!”

Keith, whose heart was currently blazing by at approximately a million beats per nanosecond, was in no mood to be yelled at - but apparently, his physical condition didn't factor much into the mystery girl's response to the whole situation.

Still rolling on the floor, trying desperately to recover from the shock and fear landing on another human being had caused, Keith could hear the shrill, high pitched screams of whoever he had landed on. Boy, she was really letting him have it.

Eventually, he recovered enough to hear the tail end of her indictment of him. Something about how cold it was outside, and how cold she was, and such.

Keith rolled to his knees and looked up at her, still breathing heavily. It was Melissa...something. Finnigan? Sounded right. Sixth year, Gryffindor. A prefect, like him. Oh, wasn't that just fantastic. She was probably a goody-two shoes (even though, on second thought, it hardly seemed a good track record was required to become a prefect anymore - case in point, himself).

"Okay, let's just...uh, take a step back here," he said, holding up his hands in a mostly meaningless symbol of surrender. "This is not my fault. I am not to blame here. You should've made yourself like...more visible, or something, and then things like this wouldn't happen to you."