Do You Wanna Kill a Snowman

[Edric Slughorn]

Open to two employees younger than Edric who might do…this.

Edric was glad the temperature had decreased a bit this week; the wizard had never been a man to fancy extreme hot or cold, but instead was happiest somewhere in between. He could not help but notice as he entered the Ministry that the foyer was a bit chillier than usual, but chalked it up to maintenance overcompensating for the recent heat. Nothing prepared the wizard for what he saw when the lift doors opened.

His face, usually one of passive concern, shifted to an expression of genuine surprise as the doors revealed behind them a snowy floor and two employees putting the finishing touches on their snowman as a light dusting of flurries continued to fall around them.

“What have you done?” the wizard asked softly, not sure whether calm or panic was called for now.

  

[Laurel Arquette]

Laurel had entered the lift just a floor earlier, making her way back to the foyer after having run an errand. The woman was using her good hand to secure a nose to the snowman while she was packing the snow in tightly on the snowman's head with her damaged hand. She heard the lift's doors open and turned to look towards it. Her eyes widened like a deer in headlights and her cheeks immediately heated, turning a deep red. "I. . ." She started, then stopped, her gaze averting to the ground. When she had gotten onto the lift, she imagined she had looked at the employee in the lift a lot like the man before her was looking at it now. Ah, screw it. She had already been caught being rediculous and childish.

"Well, I got onto the lift only a floor ago and the snowman was nearly finished."She gave a small smiled. "It looked fun, so I helped finish it." The blush had not faded from her cheeks as she turned to her snowman-building partner. "Did you start the snowman? Or did you discover it half-built?"

  

[Penelope Sykes]

Penny had been on her [x break of unknown nomenclature] when she had come across the snow. Living in the south of England, snow had mostly been reserved for her Hogwarts days. She loved snow. And as she could hardly make snow angels in the ministry, she settled for a snowman instead. It hadn't taken her long - especially as Miss Arquette had joined her not ten minutes after she had started.

"I started it!" Penny replied, rather proud of herself. She liked snowmen and didn't give a shit what people thought. It was welcoming to the foyer.

  

[Edric Slughorn]

A sharp chastisement died on Edric’s tongue as he recognized the second of the two women as none other than the Junior Assistant to the Minister of Magic. His initial skepticism of her appointment was now magnified tenfold, but as he was quite sure she was his equal if one checked the Ministry hierarchy (perhaps even his superior), he was hesitant to come down too harshly and have it affect his own status—already strained by the revelations of the previous year.

“Had it not occurred to you,” he remarked to them both with measured tone, though his distaste for the scene before him was plain to see, “that your time would be better spent informing maintenance of this peculiarity, rather than crafting a gentleman out of snow?”

  

[Laurel Arquette]

Laurel could not help but think that Mr Slughorn really had to lighten up. It was just a snowman and snow was so much fun! She let a small giggle escape. "Oh, but what is the fun in that, really? He completes the lift!" She exclaimed excitedly before looking at the woman next to her. One of her hands burned from the cold, but she did not mind that too much. The other was cold, though with her partial loss of feeling and mobility in that hand it was not a problem at all.

The confidence of her cnowman building partner had very obviously rubbed off on her, not to mention the standing of her partner, which had made her feel a bit invincble, really. Her eyebrows furrowed at the men as he showed his clear distaste for their actions. "Had it not occurred to you, that we might be on our way to do just that? We cannot very well contact maintenance from the lift." Her eyes widened a bit. She was normally not one to talk back to anyone like that. What had gotten into her?