Written for The Houses Competition

Head of House Hufflepuff

Category: Additional

Prompt: [Event] Easter

Word count: 1,081

Beta: Aya Diefair

Children were running from place to place, occasionally stopping to pick up a small object they had found. They all wore excited grins as their parents watched on with cups of tea and coffee. The boy listened to the excited chatter from inside his cupboard with his eyes closed. He imagined what it would be like to be out there with the other kids, searching for the small chocolate eggs and being able to present them proudly to his family.

His head hit the wall of the cupboard as he let it fall back. The sounds from outside faded as his mind drifted, imagining how it would be. He would be running outside, checking under each bush and flower, under the house and in all the corners. He'd ask someone to lift him up so he could check in the hanging pots for eggs, he'd double check that there were none hidden inside the house. It would be wonderful, he knew. He also knew that it would never happen so long as he lived with his Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and their son, Dudley.

He was jerked out of his dream by Dudley screaming loudly that Piers Polkiss had stolen his egg. The screaming lasted until his Aunt Petunia promised Dudley an even bigger egg than the one Piers had claimed as his. Harry grimaced slightly in the semi-darkness of his cupboard. His cousin got everything he ever desired and all he had to do was throw a tantrum. If Harry threw a tantrum, he'd be thrown in his cupboard for two weeks with a piece of stale bread and a cup of water every second day. He hated living with his relatives.

Harry loved Hogwarts. He had friends for the first time, he was learning about magic, and he had somehow received presents on Christmas. Sure, there was the whole thing with the three headed dog, the Philosopher's Stone and Professor Snape hating him, but that wasn't all that bad. Harry was used to people hating him for no reason he could understand and dogs being scary. The stone was new, he was still figuring that out.

He had even seen his family! All of them; his parents, his grandparents, his great grandparents, and all the rest. It had been amazing until Dumbledore had told him he couldn't see them anymore. At least Harry now knew what they had looked like. He held the memory of himself being held by his parents while the rest of his family watched on with smiles. He knew they weren't really there, but it was more than he had ever had before.

Ron came up behind him and said, "Harry, mate! What are you doing in here? Me and Hermione have been looking for you."

"I wanted to see Hedwig," Harry replied, stroking Hedwig's feathers.

"Well, come on, you can see Hedwig after." Hedwig let out an indignant noise at that and clicked her beak. "There's chocolate to find!"

"What?"

"Hogwarts' egg hunt!" Ron grinned at Harry. "They've got a whole load of Honeydukes chocolate hidden on the grounds and in the castle for the students to find. First years are searching the third floor this year, you coming?"

Harry couldn't stop the grin spreading across his face. "Definitely," he said. "See you later, Hedwig!" he called as he and Ron raced down the stairs of the Owlery to get to the third floor and hunt for some eggs. Harry really loved Hogwarts.

Children ran around the backyard while the adults watched on. Some of the children were happily directing their chosen adult in the direction they wanted to go from their shoulders as the adult carried them around the yard. There were adults giving subtle hints to where an egg might be found to a struggling child, there were children curled up exhausted in a lap with their booty of found chocolate eggs next to them (several of the eggs had already been eaten).

"Hey, Dad!" Teddy called out from where he was standing under Luna's hanging plants. "Can you lift me up so I can check these pots?"

Harry grinned, set down his tea cup, and went to pick Teddy up. "Course I can, squirt. How many do you think you'll find up there?"

Teddy thought about it for a second before declaring, "A hundred!"

"A hundred? Well, let's see, shall we?"

There weren't quite a hundred eggs hidden in the hanging baskets, but there were four. Teddy grinned at his genius of thinking about the baskets, dumped the eggs in the pile Harry was guarding for him, and then ran away to find more. Harry watched him as he darted from place to place, occasionally racing up to Harry with his hands full to dump the eggs he had found before running off again.

This was what he had wanted when he had been stuck in his cupboard, this was what he had imagined for himself. All around him were the people he called family. Luna and Neville were helping the younger children find eggs, Ron was calling out hints to his children from the porch, and Hermione was being pulled along by an eager Hugo. George was cackling whenever a child stumbled on one of his joke eggs that turned into a bunny and hopped away from them while Susan was carrying her Yasmine wherever the girl pointed to search for eggs.

The whole D.A. was there for the egg hunt that Harry had insisted they have. The Hogwarts hunt was the first time he had been able to feel this kind of joy and it had been with this group of people that he had hunted for eggs with. He was just giving their children the opportunity to have the same kind of friendship that they had had in their first year before the kids even went to Hogwarts. There was nothing better in his mind than a giant egg hunt where everyone found at least twenty eggs for themselves.

Rose sidled up to her father and asked quietly, "Are there eggs in the house, Papa?"

"Why don't we go see, flower?"

Rose grinned and nodded, skipping alongside Ron as he led her into the house to look for the eggs that may or may not be hidden inside. Harry watched them go knowing that they would find at least ten in the house; he had hidden them there just in case a child decided to check inside.