Closed Snow Place Like Home PV

Date: Jan 20/2023
Location: Grounds
Character(s): Shay
Mentions: @Tesla Stone

These next two months were some of the coldest of the year. It was that time when deep frost settled beyond the surface layer of the ground, when trees hung heavy with ice and risked cracking, when lakes turned from placid glass to shifting, groaning masses of cloud. If you weren't careful the chill air could worm its way beneath your coat and settle into your bones, setting your teeth chattering for well beyond the time you sought out warmth.

Shay didn't mind.

He'd come bundled up in his thick coat, House-coloured scarf tucked around his neck. It wasn't cold enough to be truly dangerous, but the tips of his ears and cheeks practically glowed crimson after being out more than a half hour. Puffs of fog dispersed beyond his lips with each exhale, and he had to continuously pause in what he was doing to wipe the steady drip of his nose, sniffing loudly every couple of seconds to slow the mucus factory.

"C'mon, ye son of a wasp arse," he growled as he stretched his hand up, huffing in annoyance when he couldn't quite reach the branch overhead.

Since most people liked to stay inside the castle these days - toasting their toes in front of Hogwarts' cozy fires - Shay had the grounds to himself a lot of the time. He'd decided to use that opportunity to try to grab some of the random pieces of paper that were stuck in trees. He'd gotten a few already; boring love notes, torn pages from books, scraps of wayward homework. Nothing overly interesting besides a page of someone's half-written story involving carnivorous plants. That one he'd added to his collection of cool-things-he-found-outside. Still, you never knew what waited just out of your reach.

"Little bit... more..." he muttered, cursing his small genes. He'd climbed halfway up this big bastard to get the note, and he wasn't about to give up now. With a sudden burst of strength, he kicked against the trunk and jumped awkwardly to grab the branch he'd been reaching for. Success!

Except the branch he'd grabbed was already loaded down with ice, and it didn't handle his extra weight well despite the fact that he barely cleared seventy pounds. With a massive crack, it snapped neatly right at the base and sent him plunging to the ground.

He screeched as he fell, whacking branches and twisting, disoriented, until he hit the snow under the tree with a muted thud. It cushioned his fall enough that he wasn't hurt, just stunned. It took a moment for his breath to come back, and in that space between inhale and exhale the note he'd been reaching for that had been caught between two twigs floated down to land gently on his forehead. "Well that was fecking embarrassing," he informed no one in particular when he could breathe again. Hopefully no one had seen that, it could ruin his (nonexistent) tree-climbing reputation.