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Harry looked ahead in his book, groaning at the number of pages he still had to read. His eyes were starting to blur, and his head was so stuffed with information that he couldn't have wretched any of it out if he wanted to.
He scoffed softly under his breath. He had skipped his seventh year of Hogwarts, and now here he was, up to his ears in Auror lessons. He had been prepared for a bit more dueling lessons, but it turns out that you needed to know law as well.
His musings were interrupted by a soft knock on the door of his flat.
"Oh, thank you, an excuse for a break." He closed the book and stood, his body sore from sitting still for so long. He dragged himself to the door, wondering if Rita Skeeter had finally managed to track him down again.
"Luna," he said, smiling he opened the door. "Wh—"
Without a word, she grabbed his hand and started pulling him down the corridor.
"—ere are we going?" he improvised, as his feet stumbled after her.
"Outside."
"Why?"
"To catch the freeziflups."
Her tone was so decisive, and her statement so characteristically odd, that Harry somehow felt that it was impossible to argue.
They stepped outside, where the yard of Harry's building was covered with a foot of snow. Harry's shoulders jumped up—he was wearing a jumper, but he hadn't had a chance to grab a jacket or anything.
"Er. Alright," he said, looking around awkwardly. "Do you see anything that might be...frizzlefluffs?"
"Freeziflups, and no. First we have to attract them. Oh," she added, turning to him with her large, silvery eyes. "You must be cold, aren't you?"
"It's fine," he said, but Luna had taken out her wand and was conjuring up a scarf and mittens. For some reason they were a very garish mix of pink and green.
Harry smiled wryly as he put them on. "You shouldn't do that out here," he chided, jerking with his head toward the building. "Muggle neighbors, you know."
Luna nodded vaguely, looking out over the snowy yard. "Freeziflups are attracted to people—they fly around them and try to freeze their ears off, you see."
"Right," Harry said. His tone implied that this was common knowledge.
"The problem is, they don't like warmth. So we'd have to wait until we're either very cold, in which case our ears might freeze off anyway, or we have to trick them with something that looks like us but doesn't have any body heat."
"Of course." Harry tried to think. "So...we conjure some sort of...?"
"We build a snowman."
"Ah," he said, feeling foolish. And, paradoxically, that she was instead.
She bent down and began to collect snow into a pile. "You work on the head," she said, in her casual, dreamy way.
"Alright, then."
He felt silly. But then, he thought, he could be upstairs studying.
Harry rolled the snow into a Quaffle-sized ball, hefted it up, watched it break into pieces in his hands, and tried again. He had never been very good at this sort of thing. Meanwhile, Luna had gathered enough snow to shape into a decent-sized body. They added the second head on top, at which point Luna began to dig around in her bag.
"I brought supplies," she said proudly, taking out some buttons and pressing them into the snow for eyes. Then she took out an old, stringy wig, which she placed on top for hair. Harry snorted, then ducked to the ground, looking for sticks to use as arms.
Finally, their snowman was complete. It was a bit shorter than Luna and was now wearing her scarf. She had carved an unnaturally broad smile on its face, while Harry had shoved a pinecone where its nose should be.
"That's a very large nose," Luna observed.
Harry nodded. "We could name him 'Snape,' if you hadn't made him look so happy."
"No. It's all the wrong shape for that. His nose was more hooked."
"Right."
They stared at their creation for a moment. For the most part, it was just a normal snowman. Wearing a terrible wig, but still.
"So, you think this is will trick those, er—freeziflobs?"
"Freeziflups," she said, frowning. Then, "I have a confession. There are no freeziflups."
Harry blinked.
"I mean, there are. But not around here. They live near the Arctic Circle. I just wanted to build a snowman with you. But it seemed a silly thing to ask, especially with you so busy studying for your Auror exams."
Harry snorted again. He almost asked "Since when have you worried about seeming silly?," but stopped himself. It occurred to him that Luna rarely did anything that she considered silly—rather, she simply had very strong opinions about ridiculous topics.
Harry slipped his hand in hers, and thought he could feel its warmth even though their mittens.
"Well, you hardly needed to make something up. I would gladly skive off to build a snowman with you."
"That's good to know," she said, with a contented smile.