A/N Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter
Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (Challenges & Assignments)- Charms Class (Assignment 7)
For your task, I want you to write about any small animals whether they come from a wand or not.
Prompts used: Rain (Word), 3rd person (Writing Style)
Word Count: 659
Spring is the season in which small animals are abundant. And a little known fact is that Harry Potter loves small animals.
When he was little, locked away in his cupboard, the spiders that spun their webs in the dust were his only friends. He loved to watch their intricate designs glitter in the sunlight and see them scuttle across the floor.
When he was allowed outside he would collect snails and keep them in an upturned flowerpot. When the first shoots of Spring appeared the snails would come out of hibernation. He was mesmerised by their shining trail of slime and their slow but deliberate crawl across the stones. The first year he tried to keep then Petunia found his snails and squashed then all. Harry cried when he saw the pile of broken shell. After that, every Spring until he left to go to Hogwarts Harry would collect every snail he could find and then release them, safe and sound, in the park.
Hedgehogs would also come out in Spring, and sometimes, when the first rays of the Spring sun began to warm the ground Harry would see the old badger emerge from his burrow. These were Harry's friends, his only companions to keep him from being lonely.
Birds fly back in Spring and Harry would watch them through the windows whenever he could, envying their freedom. Once, he saw a bird fly into the back window. When he knew no-one was watching he crept outside and scooped up the injured bird. He took it back to his cupboard and looked after the little brown bird for weeks, feeding it scraps and talking to it. Eventually it made a miraculous recovery (which Harry would later figure our was due to a burst of accidental magic) and was set free.
Spring is also a time of rebirth, and as well as meaning that all the animals came out from hiding, it also meant that Harry came out too. He would spend the Winter cooped up, doing chores while Dudley and his friends played in the snow, but come Spring Harry was finally allowed out again. Of course, it was usually just to help Petunia work in the garden but at least he was outside, usually digging in the dirt for worms and other creepy crawlies.
Oddly enough, Harry also liked the rain. Spring is the wettest season, and in the heaviest rainstorms Harry would sit in the dust, clutching a worn out blanket around him, just listening to the sound of the rain beating down. Often he would smuggle in a bedraggled kitten or fox cub to keep him company. Then, when the rain parted, he would run out to the window, watching for the rainbow. Even when Dudley shoved him out the way he never gave up,, always knew that the rainbow would come, clearing the skies, even if he couldn't see it.
Harry loved Spring, loved the way streams gurgled through the forests and the way new shoots spring up from the ground. Most of all though, he lived the way the woods and meadows filled with the sounds of birdsong, the way little animals crawled out from their hiding places and were filled with new hope.
Three years after the end of the wizarding war, the Chosen One is living a very different life from the one everyone had expected. Harry keeps a low profile, appearing and speaking publicly only at the annual memorial services. Most people alone, which suits him just fine.
He has a job doing what he loves, working as a wizarding vet. Of course, he mostly looks after smaller animals; cats, rats and owls mostly, but sometimes he gets more exotic cases. He had operated on dragons, dissected blast-ended screwts and healed unicorns. Harry is happy, living in a world where he is appreciated and getting to help animals the way he always wished he could.