Author's Note:
Written for the rwhg_ldws challenge on Livejournal.
They were no longer four - not really. They were now three.
The common wisdom was that the eldest children were the ones who understood sharing. How could they not? They had to share their toys, their clothes, their time, and even the affection of their parents with their younger siblings. What people forgot was that the younger children were the ones who had never known anything but sharing. They had never had those few months or years of being the sole star on which the entire world seemed to revolve. They had always had to compete for their parents' time and attention. They had always had the cast-offs, old toys and clothes, pushed on them. Even Hugo had received things his older sister or cousins no longer wanted - though never for long. His mum had thought it was only practical that something to be recycled if possible, even to her own children. His dad had always bristled and tried to replace said item as soon as possible. Despite that, Hugo knew that he could expect to receive Rosie's old books in two years time, and he already had her old broom.
Right now, he didn't care about either. The novelty for him was returning to a home where he was the only kid. He hadn't understood before why his parents were so anxious about Rosie leaving; she was only going to Hogwarts, not Pluto. Now, as a silence settled over the car and Hugo looked over to where his sister would have sat, he did.
His mum turned around to fix him with a soft smile. "Since your dad and I have the day off, we were thinking we should all do something fun together. Any you get to choose what."
He was going to like this.