Written for the Houses Competition, Year 2, Round 10
House: Hufflepuff
Year: Prefect 1 (Stand-in)
Category: Drabble
Prompt: [Object] No entry sign
Word count: 496
Betas: Angel, Aya
"Mommy, the boys won't let me play with them," a four-year-old Rose comes up to the kitchen table and complains. Hermione sighs and picks up her daughter. Ron pats her red hair affectionately.
"It's okay Rosie. Let them play by themselves. Boys are mean." Hermione tells Rose, who giggles happily.
"Hey! I heard that!" Ron exclaims dramatically. Hermione rolls her eyes at her husband. Harry sighs.
The trio were at Burrow for the weekend and were busy drinking coffee and discussing work issues. Harry had told the boys to let Rose play with them, but six-year-old James and four-year-old Albus were very hesitant. They liked to play with twelve-year-old Teddy, who made them feel older and cooler when they were with him, and thought that Rose was just their annoying cousin. They do the same with Lily, but the two-year-old was laying down for a nap and had not interest in bugging them.
"I'll go tell the boys to let Rose play with them," Harry said, getting up and heading for the living room, where he left the kids and told them to stay there. When he got there, though, they were nowhere in sight. He groaned and started checking rooms on the main floor. When it was obvious that they were not on that floor, Harry went up the stairs and checked all the bedrooms.
It wasn't until Harry looked in Ron's old room on the fifth floor that he saw evidence of the boys.
Some books of Teddy's, Albus's toy broomstick, and dirty kid-sized socks, among other things, lay on the floor of the room covered in Quidditch posters.
What Harry saw in the middle of the room, though, made his heart smile. A fort, made with Ron's old sheets and blankets and some chairs from the kitchen, stood in the middle of the floor, displaying a badly handwritten no-entry sign. He heard the voices of his sons and godson from inside the fort. From what it sounded like, they were trading Chocolate Frog cards.
"Here, James, I'll give you Burdock Muldoon for your Edgar Stroulger," He heard Teddy say. James responded with a "sure". From what Harry could tell, they exchanged cards before James spoke again.
"Hey, Al, I'll give you Godric Gryffindor, Hengist of Woodcroft, Jocunda Sykes, and Tilly Toke for one of Dad's cards. Please? You have almost twenty of him." James groaned. Albus refused.
"Here, I'll throw in Merlin." James spoke once more, but was turned down.
"I won't give you one of Daddy's cards. His cards mean more to me than anything else because he is my daddy and he saved the world and I love him so much, more than you ever will, James." Albus declared proudly.
Harry walked back down to the kitchen with a huge, affectionate smile on his face.