An Early Christmas Present

A/N: This was written for the Winter Wonderland challenge. I was given the characters Molly Weasley (Percy's daughter, not mother) and Lysander Scamander and the prompts frozen lake and lost. I hope you guys enjoy it!

An Early Christmas Present

Molly looked around at the wintry landscape. She had been sitting by the lake for over an hour now. Earlier, there had been a group of fifth years sliding around on the ice, but they'd gone back up to the castle at least half an hour ago. This had left her alone in the freezing cold. Not even her little magical fire was helping ward off the frozen air as the sun began to sink below the horizon.

She brought her gloved hands up to her face and breathed on them, hoping it would warm both her hands and face.

Lysander should have been here a long time ago! She would have to go in soon. It wouldn't do for the Head Girl to be caught out after dark.

She couldn't help but be a little worried. Lysander Scamander had been her best friend since he started Hogwarts in her second year, and he'd never just leave her out in the cold.

He probably got distracted by nargles or something. Molly thought as she rolled her eyes and grinned.

After another five minutes, she finally began to make her way back to the castle. She was almost to the Ravenclaw common room when Lysander was suddenly coming towards her. The first thing she noticed was that he was very out of breath. He seemed to have been running for a while.

“I'm so sorry,” he gasped as he bent over and put his hands on his knees. “I wanted to give you your Christmas present early, but I must have misplaced it. I've been searching for it everywhere and only found it a moment ago.”

That was when she noticed he was holding a somewhat large wrapped package.

“It's okay,” Molly assured him even though in reality she had been a little annoyed, “I don't have your present though. It still needs to be wrapped.”

“That's fine,” Lysander shrugged, “I wasn't expecting it.” He held out the gift to Molly. “Here. Open it.”

She took the package from him. It wasn't small but not really large either. It was rectangular in shape, and Molly couldn't help but suspect that it was a book. Those were what she usually received as presents.

As she carefully removed the paper, she discovered that she had been right. The writing on the cover revealed the book to be The Truth About Nargles by Luna Scamander. Molly smirked a little as she looked up at her best friend.

“Maybe you'll actually believe me now,” Lysander grinned, “Mum's self-publishing it. No publisher would agree to it. She thinks she can sell enough to make a decent profit though. There are people out there who are open-minded.” The look on his face told her that she was not included in this open-minded category.

“I told you before,” she laughed slightly, “It's not that I don't believe in nargles, it's just that I need proof of them before I say they're definitely real.”

“Well, you need to get started on that book then,” he told her.

“I'll read it tonight,” she nodded as they began to make their way towards their common room.

When they'd reached the common room, and were preparing to go their separate ways, Lysander leaned down to kiss Molly's cheek.

“Merry Christmas, Molly,” he smiled at her.

“Merry Christmas, Lysander,” Molly felt a blush begin to rise on her cheeks. She couldn't determine the reason why though. It wasn't the first time he had done that, but this time felt different for some reason.

Molly would never admit it to anyone, but when she'd went to bed that night (after reading a chapter or two of the book as she had promised) she dreamt that she was standing in the common room with Lysander just as before. Only this time one thing changed. He kissed her on the lips instead of the cheek. She had a hard time admitting it to herself, but she would have preferred that outcome.