((OOC 1: This is open to as many people as possible.)) 
((OOC 2: Donald's outfit)) 

It was a cold Scottish morning and, despite being wrapped up very warm, Donald shivered a bit, his breath making that smoke effect that happen when people breath in cold weather. The young lad looked across the snowy landscape and grinned slightly, he enjoyed the snow and always felt that there was something magical about it, something exciting and wonderful about the blanket of white dust that now covered the Hogwarts grounds. It also gave the 13 year old boy an idea for a bit of fun that he could have. Don wanted to have a snowball fight, there would be no harm in it, right? He was sure that people would get into the spirit of things. It was all meant to be harmless fun. If people where careful he was sure that snowballs would not cause any real damage that everyone involved in the battle was consenting.

The pale skinned youngster did not want to get into trouble but also did not want to miss the opportunity for a bit of fun. Sometimes he felt that some other students felt that he was a bit of a stuck in the mud, too serious or not fun at all and that simply was not the cause. Don could have fun, he could enjoy himself. He was not all books, swotting and quidditch after all. However, sometimes his life did seem to be that way. Well, today was going to be different, today was going to be the day where Donald showed the school he was more than a nerd.

It had snowed somewhat considerably during the night and the snow was quite deep but not too deep. The Welsh wizard felt that this would be perfect for the snowball fight plan. He took out his wand and used it to build a few piles of snowballs and some snowball forts. There were nothing too fancy or complex, just a simple rounded wall really. They would do the job of offering some protection to the people behind them anyway.

The Ravenclaw seeker still felt nervous that he might get into trouble for this, but then what would he be if he couldn’t occasionally cause a bit of mischief? That was if this could even consider to be mischief. He was quiet sure that he would be okay though, besides he had already come too far in setting all of this up to turn back now.

Another thing that might become an issue was no-body coming out because it was too cold to do so. He guessed since he ventured out and wrapped up warm with his Ravenclaw hat, scarf and gloves, his orange jacket and Ravenclaw quidditch jumper and he guessed that some other students would be out enjoying a walk in the snow. Feeling less worried that he was either going to get into trouble or not have anyone that he could ambush, he moved behind one of the snow walls and grabbed a few snowballs.

Donnie was not a fool, he would pick his target carefully, if it was someone who he felt would react badly, either by getting upset or turning violent then, of course, Donald would not target them. Equally the third year would not go for a teacher or anyone in authority, lest they take point away from him. Spotting someone who he hoped would take it in the spirit it was meant to be, the young lad launched a few snowballs at them.

Children in the snow were always beautiful. She remembered the battles that she participated while she lived. During the first day of heavy snows, Helga had closed the classes, and all would participate. Her mother and Salazar always tried to use them as learning opportunities for new sells, new strategies, tricks and tips in case of wars and duels, before Godric would drop boulders of snow on them. She distantly remembered shrieking as a few of them would fall on her the days she stuck to her mother's side, and her mother would try inventing new spells in shocked disbelief or lose all dignity that she clung to.

During the years the Founders had split, the snow battles became less common, more vicious. Students turned against each other, and many hedgewitches had to be summoned to Heal sages and students both. After Salazar had left, the battles had. . . stopped for a few years. The Founders hadn't continued them, and when students made their own, it was always with Godric and Helga looking on, not participating again.

Helena missed that about living. She missed the joy that strung through the air when students and professors warred in the snow. She drifted closer to the battlements, watching snow being packed into stocked projectiles. Perhaps if the air grew thick with snow she'd drift down into it, and laugh. She rarely laughed enough. The students in their last few years always thought themselves too grown for some fun in the snow.

Outfit

When it was snowing, Caerus knew what to expect being out on the grounds. It was the same every year, and if a good amount of snow happened to fall on a weekend… all the better. He knew that plenty of people would swarm to the grounds—whether they were making snowmen, or trying their hand at skating on the Black Lake when the ice was thick enough… or having snowball fights. In the winter months, rogue snowballs could come from any direction—even walking from class to class and happening to go through a courtyard made anyone a target for a snowball. Caerus didn’t really mind it. If anything, he thought that other people’s reactions were more amusing than anything else, especially if a witch got hit. That always ended up being entertaining. Caerus wasn’t one to play in the snow—not even in his first couple of years in this school, when he was still just a kid, did he engage in… too much of that. He hadn’t started it anyway. But he had thrown a few snowballs in his day, if there was a tempting target in the area. He thought perhaps that was what was most amusing about… all of this. The right target and an amusing reaction.

That wasn’t what was on his mind today, however. It was Sunday, and he was heading down to the Quidditch pitch with @lj. There had been a match the day before, not that it was anything particularly mind-blowing. It had been Slytherin versus Hufflepuff, and as Caerus had expected, Slytherin had dominated the match. With Kim as their seeker, they were a hard team to beat. But Ravenclaw had pulled it off in their last match, and they were going to do it again in the spring. Hopefully. He knew that every game was different, and that a lot of it had to do with luck as well as skill. Westwood as their seeker, and LJ with a well-timed bludger had done wonders for their last match. There was no telling what was going to happen next time, but he did think that they could even the playing field a little bit. It was something that he was thinking about anyhow. The broom that Westwood had was… not the best. He understood that not everyone could afford brand new brooms—hell, there were other players with brooms just as old. But as a seeker, it would certainly be to Donald’s advantage to have a faster broom.

Originally, he had been thinking about flat-out buying him one. Money wasn’t exactly a concern for him. His family had enough of it, that he could buy a broom and no one would even blink twice. If he were to say he was buying it for a third year on the house team, they might think it was a little odd and frivolous, but they wouldn’t even know that. They would have no reason to suspect that he’d just up and buy a racing broom for someone other than himself—or a friend. At the very least, they wouldn’t expect him to buy it for some third year that he barely knew. Eventually, he realized that maybe that wasn’t the best idea. He didn’t know if the bloke would take him buying him a brand-new broom all that well. People could get odd about that sort of thing, and obviously he knew not everyone had the kind of money that his family did. They wouldn’t understand that this wasn’t… all that much to him. Still, he’d determined that maybe it wasn’t the best of ideas. He’d come up with an alternative, in his mind anyway.

Over the Christmas holidays, he had bought himself a new broom. He didn’t really have any reason to, he just liked having the new model. Now that he had a new broom, he had an old one that wasn’t getting any use at all. He had been thinking about giving that one to their seeker, and just playing it off as a ‘well I don’t need it anymore’ moment. He wasn’t sure yet, which was why he hadn’t done it, but it would certainly have to happen before their next game—and with enough time for the third year to get used to the broom if he did indeed take it. Today, though, his focus was on getting down to the pitch with LJ, to go over plays. Maybe in the locker room, since it was pretty damn cold out here. They had made it a good way down the grounds before he saw motion, and glanced at LJ in time to see him get hit by a snowball. Laughing, he looked in that direction, just in time to get hit by one himself and his eyes narrowed as he tried to figure out the culprit.

Outfit

LJ knew that winter was worse in Scotland than it was down in London, but he thought that this one might have just felt colder. He knew that that was probably just in his head, but he couldn't help it. He thought that it was colder, and he knew that missing everyone the way that he did didn't really help matters. He had friends here in the castle, that was nice. He thought that it was a little ironic that his friends were Notts, when his aunt was going to be a Nott, but he supposed that he really should just be used to the way that the pureblood world worked now. Everyone was related to everyone else, and that was just the way that things were going to continue to be. They had been that way for years now. If it weren't for all of the wars, and everyone killing one another all of the time, he thought that they would have been surrounded by purebloods. If they would just stop killing one another, they would have been in the majority. LJ knew that what should have happened, and what was actually happening weren't the same things though. Nothing about this was the same. Nothing was ever going to be the same…

He was on his way to the pitch with Caerus, they were working on the things that they were going to need to make sure that they kept winning. He didn't want to think about just how it was that they had been winning. There weren't any real reasons. Luck. They had won because they were lucky. They had won because there wasn't any reason a well-timed bludger or two couldn't make contact a little harder than necessary. LJ knew that people had to wonder what it was that they were doing, because their seeker was young, and inexperienced compared to the rest of them. But they had a decent enough team around him to make up for it. LJ pushed his chasers a little harder than was absolutely necessary, but he hadn't heard them complain. They were eagles, and if there was one thing that LJ thought that they rivaled the Slytherin's on it was their undying need to actually win at things. They didn't lose. LJ didn't lose. That, at least, was something that hadn't changed.

He was trying to do better this semester. He was trying not to worry about any of it. To make sure that he was focused on him, and his life, and the things that he could actually do something about. Not things that weren't ever really going to change. Because there were certainly things that he wasn't going to be able to do anything about. And really, he thought that if he was going to have to figure out how to get better. How to move on and not dwell, he needed to do it now. He needed to do it before April rolled around, and things sucked again for a little while. Losing Ma had been hard, but he thought that they could all get through it. He thought that he could get through it, that he could do better than he had been doing, and really, he was just determined to try. He had to try something after all. Anything would have been better than the whole lot of nothing that he was doing now.

They were out to the pitch, and he had his broom over his shoulder. It needed oiled, and he knew that he had only oiled it the other day, but he was diligent about it. He thought that there was a reason that he had one of the best brooms not even on the market. It had been made for him, Ireland's mum had made it, before she had moved back to Bulgaria, and he thought that having a one of a kind broom was an advantage. Of course, there was a line of them, it wasn't the only one like it, but it was the only one that had been changed by the designer specifically for him. That was something that he didn't think that anyone else, at least on the Ravenclaw team could say. He had turned to say something to his friend, only to feel the impact of a snowball against his shoulder. Turning the rest of the way, he saw one hit Caerus too, and his eyes scanned the grounds for whomever was throwing them. "Did you see which way they came from?"

The spikey haired assassin was enjoying the snowball fight that he had started, a few pupils had gotten involved now and he was having a lot of fun with it. Of course the young lad was being very careful not to actually hurt anyone with the snowball. He would be absolutely devastated if his actions caused another person to get hurt. Especially if it was a younger student. He didn’t want that on his conscious. However, with a bit of care, and some magic, he managed to make the snowball war as safe as it possibly could be for everyone. After all, this was meant to be a bit of fun, and he didn’t want it to end in tears or upset.

Donald dodged a snowball that was coming his way and returned fire at the Hufflepuff who lobbed one was way. Wham, directly hit. The third year laughed triumphantly, before being pelted with several snowballs from other combatants, knocking the young lad off his feet. Serves me right he thought to himself as he picked himself off the ground, ready to try and get his revenge on everyone. Rolling up some more snowballs, the pale skinned youngster started to take some careful aim at his targets, wanted to get a good hit on them, wanting to show that he was not done for yet.

He was taking careful aim when he was distracted by The Grey Lady spirit floating nearby. Of course, the third year boy was used to ghosts by now but he just didn’t expect to see her outside, taking an interest in his snowball fight. As such Donnie missed the student he was targeted and watched in horror as his snowballs went hurtling passed them towards two 7th years. Two Ravenclaws, towards two of his teammates, towards a prefect and head boy, and worst than that, towards the captain of the Ravenclaw quidditch team.

This is it… he thought to himself in a panic …this is how I get kicked off the Ravenclaw team while he was pretty happy with his own performance as seeker, he still wasn’t sure he was totally accepted on the team. Despite him having a good record of catching the snitch. Donald wasn’t entirely sure that LJ or Caerus wouldn’t have the sense of humour, or fun over this either. In his experience the older students seemed to be a bit more miserable when it came to things like this. It was like they had their sense of enjoyment of life extracted from them on their 16th birthday.

The 13 year old went to scramble for his wand to try and divert the snowballs but it was too late, they hid the older students. His fellow combatants must have seen where the snowballs where heading as well as most of them had fled before the snowballs had hit their accidental targets. The Welsh wizard considered hiding behind one of the snow walls of the snow fort but decided that could make matters a bit worst. Besides, for some reason his lead had turned to lead. At least figuratively speaking. He just stood here looking at his teammates, looking like a bit of a naughty school boy expecting to be in trouble.

Snow was honestly just… snow to him. It was a rare occasion for him to want to just go out and play in it, or anything like that. When he had been younger, maybe he had liked it more. He remembered being home with Ophion and with Rhea, and building snowmen and having snowball fights. Those had always been fun, but he hadn't even been at Hogwarts when they had done that, and it was something that had kind of faded away once Ophion had gone to Hogwarts. It wasn't something that he thought of now. It wasn't like he hated it or anything like that. He wasn't a scrooge. He thought that his classmates could be a little bit ridiculous and over-the-top when it came to their excitement about the snow, but he was content to just ignore that. He didn't care if he got hit with a stray snowball. Sometimes it was pretty amusing when someone else was hit with one. He just couldn't remember the last time he'd been involved in a full-fledged snowball fight. But that seemed to be exactly what was brewing on the lawns today.

That didn't surprise him too much. It was a good day for it. There had been quite the snowfall the night before, but it wasn't unbearably cold today. Enough for the snow not to melt, but not so much to be too cold to enjoy a snowball fight at all. He was completely unsurprised by some of the younger students taking advantage of that. There would be no poor sports on the grounds today. It was the weekend. If someone didn't want to be in the snow, then they were likely up safe in their dormitory by the fire, or drinking some hot cocoa in the kitchens. They wouldn't venture out today, which meant no one was going to bitch and moan about being caught in a snowball fight. That made it both more amusing, and unfortunate. He thought some sixth year touching up her lipstick while she walked through a courtyard was a perfect target for a snowball. That was funny to him. There was nothing like that happening outside today.

But there was something that was just… interesting, about a snowball fight where everyone was going all out. There were forts built, there were bags abandoned on the ground as people had joined in. It was his kind of snowball fight. It reminded him of the ones that he'd had with his siblings when they were kids. It felt like ages ago now. It almost made him wish that Rhea was around here somewhere, just so he could chuck a snowball at her and see her reaction. But she was likely inside with her friends, jabbering away about something or other. Merlin, that girl could talk. But it was still unlikely that she would be anywhere near this. He could only laugh when he saw LJ get hit with a snowball, because it was just funny to him. He didn't know why. People getting hit by flying balls of snow just never stopped being amusing to him. It didn't matter how old he got, it was just funny. When one hit him as well, he looked in that direction to try to find the culprit.

There were other options. There were plenty of people about, but he thought that the answer was rather obvious when he saw Donald. He looked like someone that had just successfully thrown snowballs at people that maybe he hadn't meant to. Merlin. He hoped he didn't come off as that big of a stick in the mud--LJ was one, but he wasn't. He thought that he was pretty damn fun. Caerus nudged LJ and then gestured in Donald's direction. "Westwood, I'd wager." He raised his eyebrow at his friend. He had no idea if LJ just wanted to continue where they were heading, or if they wanted to take a… momentary break from that. He thought he knew exactly what he would pick, but there was no telling what LJ was going to stay. While he waited, though, he pulled out his wand, and levitated a snowball into the air, and then smirked at Donald. He thought that it was a nice little warning that he could chuck this at him at a moment's notice. And he was a chaser, so his aim was very good…