Disclaimer: J.K. Rowling is awesome.
His Family
Chapter Eleven: Easter
"Are you kids ready to dye some eggs?" Remus asked one Saturday afternoon as Harry and Rozzie ran about the house like a couple of bats out of hell. They had been chasing one another back and forth, around and around, from the playroom, through the kitchen, around through the solarium, across the living room, and into the playroom once more. Each held a wooden sword and Sirius had thought he'd heard them yelling about 'scurvy sharks of doom' as they passed him in the solarium, but he hadn't been completely sure.
It was raining out, a downside to the coming of spring, so the children had been stuck inside all morning and were basically rampaging through the house out of pure unused energy bursts. If Lexie had been home instead of at work, she would have put a stop to it after the first twenty minutes and figured out something more constructive for them to do. However, she wasn't home, it was just the guys, so, instead of stopping the kids from burning themselves out, Sirius and Remus watched them go by, laughing at their antics for a whole hour until Remus stopped them in the kitchen with those magical words about dying eggs.
"Eggs!" Harry cheered, tucking his sword away in his belt. Rozzie tried to do the same, but she didn't have a belt, so she opted for shoving it down the side of her underwear where it dangled precariously but stayed put. She had been doing a lot of imitating in the past couple of weeks, wanting to be more like her big brother now that she knew she was going to be a big sister. She wanted to learn how. And she just wanted to do everything like Harry. That was one of the side-affects to being a younger sibling.
One of those imitations had involved dressing herself that morning. She'd done a good job at getting her shirt on front ways round, though it was inside out. She had been wearing pants, but after a slight bathroom accident and a new pair of undies, the pants had been forgotten for the time being and no one had said a single thing about it. When you were two going on three you could get away with running about in your undies. And sticking things in them. They were just perks to being a toddler who didn't know any better.
"Alright, sit down at the table and we'll get started. Sirius, come dye eggs with us!" Remus called as he set the cooled hard boiled eggs on the table in a bowl.
"Alright! Egg dying time." Sirius entered the kitchen rubbing his hands together. "Let's get started! I love egg dying."
"Only because you like putting inappropriate things on them in crayon." Remus scolded slightly, but he was smiling as he sat down to join them. They would be eating eggs for weeks at this rate, but it was such a fun thing for the kids (and adults) to do that he hadn't been able to resist boiling two dozen eggs.
They had completely skipped Easter when Harry was four, too preoccupied with Lexie being pregnant. The next year though, Lexie had remembered and they'd hidden eggs…. real eggs just plain white. And while Sirius had faith in his godson's abilities to search and locate, they had been smelling rotting eggs for two weeks after that escapade. At least the baskets the Easter Bunny had brought had been good.
Last year Remus had done some research through the kids at the daycare and their parents. They allowed the Easter Bunny to put out his plastic eggs around the garden. They hard-boiled and blew the insides of eggs out to dye them pretty colors, usually with a kit from the market. That was all Remus needed to hear… he had it from then on. When Lexie found the old Easter music tape in the box of Harry's cassettes it had just been icing on the cake. They had another holiday to celebrate properly in the lull between St Patrick's day and Rozzie's birthday.
"Am I too late for eggs?" Lexie's voice called from the living room. She was only working until early evenings, not wanting to push too hard while being pregnant. After almost losing Rozzie a couple of times, she wasn't allowed to. At six months along her stomach was definitely bigger now, but not as big as it was going to get. So far the pregnancy was going much smoother than the one with Rozzie had, thank goodness.
"'Uma! Come dye! Dye! Dye!" Rozzie chirruped as her mother came into the kitchen. Lexie laughed, glad she'd made it in time. She kissed both of her children on the tops of their heads and sat down beside Rozzie, eyeing her daughter up and down curiously.
"No pants pirate day?"
"No pants pi-wate!" Rozzie nodded, quite pleased with herself and her attire.
"I'm going to make a blue one." Harry announced, reaching out and grabbing up an egg from the bowl. He placed it down in the bowl of blue dye near him and let it sit there, watching it get darker and darker with color as it sat there. He liked this part, when only a bit of the egg was hanging out of the bowl and then, when it was dark enough on the other side, he could flip it over and dye the bit of egg that hadn't gotten much color to it. Sometimes he got the color all over his fingers, but that part was fun as well. There was just something so wonderful about changing the color of something. "Can we dye other stuff too sometime?"
"What kinds of other things?" Sirius asked, looking up from where he was drawing on an egg with a white crayon. The wax would keep the dye from coloring that part of the egg and the patterns that came out were usually pretty neat. Lexie was watching him carefully though, last year he'd written 'Poop' on one of the eggs and none of them had known it until Harry had started laughing and couldn't stop.
"I dunno. Other things. Like more white things like eggs, but not eggs." Harry shrugged not really sure what he would want to dye, just that he liked it a lot and thought it would be neat to try with other things.
"Well, we can change the color of anything with magic, Harry."
"Yeah, that's cool… but it's not the same. I don't have a wand yet, so only you can do it, but I want to do it."
"I'll look up some things we can dye when we go back to school, alright Harry?
"Okay." Harry grinned, glad for the usefulness of having a librarian in the family. Remus always knew just where to find what they needed to look up. There were also computers at school, but Harry wasn't really sure of how to use one of those yet as their class was being taught how to use books first as that was still their main source of information. Remus, however, was still working on figuring out how those strange boxes worked. It was hard being raised in the Wizarding world and working in the Muggle world, but if anyone could do it, he could.
One hour later, upon the table, sat two cartons of beautifully colored eggs that were still slightly glistening with dye. The rest of the table was covered with the mess of it as well, but thankfully Remus had through to put down newspaper on both the table and underneath Rozzie, Harry, and Sirius's chairs.
"Sirius Orion Black! What does this egg here have on it?"
"I was trying to make a heart and lost my place so it came out as a butt." Sirius shrugged, eyeing the egg with Lexie was holding up. "You can't see the crayon very well when you're drawing…"
"It looks like an on-purpose butt." Lexie crossed her arms and Harry climbed down out of his chair to see the egg in question. He laughed, seeing the butt drawn on the bright yellow and orange egg, unable to help it.
"It does look like an on-purpose butt, Pad." Harry nodded in agreement, reaching out and taking the egg from Lexie. "Mum, can we have egg sandwiches for dinner? I'd really like to crack this one, right here." He pointed to the center of the butt on the egg and Sirius laughed, unable to help himself.
"You want to make it a butt-cracked egg?"
"Yeah!" Harry giggled, grinning brightly up at Sirius, glad his Padfoot had gotten the joke. Sirius felt a rush of pure pride at this, feeling so happy that his godson was following the proper footsteps.
Lexie tried not to smile. She tried really quite hard, but then she too, let out a laugh. She reached out and gave Harry a tickle, pulling him towards her. "You little imp! What am I going to do with the pair of you?"
"Love us forever despite our childish behavior?" Sirius suggested, jutting out his lower lip and making his eyes much bigger than usual. Lexie laughed again.
"Alright, we can have egg sandwiches for dinner. You lot clean up this mess while I get the ingredients."
"Okay, Mum." Harry nodded, setting the butt egg down in one of the cartons and moving to help pick up the main different cups of dye. He lifted up the cup of deep blue dye from the table and then, tripped. He went falling forward, the dye splashing and spilling out of both of the cups he was holding and all over Rozzie who let out a cry of utter surprise at suddenly being soaking wet. And then the vinegar in the dye reached her eyes and she started to howl.
Sirius snatched Rozzie up from the chair and carried her over to the sink as Remus pulled out his wand. Sirius tilted Rozzie back over the sink, supporting her head as she screamed and kicked, not liking this at all. Using his wand and the pure clean water pouring out of it, Remus gently began flushing out Rozzie's eyes, although the color of the dye had already sunken into her skin and turned most of her face a mixture of blue and green.
"It's alright, baby girl. You're okay, it's okay." Sirius stated gently, brushing his thumb over Rozzie's cheek, trying to calm her as the water continued to pour over her face and into her eyes, though Moony purposely avoided her mouth and nose, not wanting to obstruct her breathing and scare her even further.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Harry looked on, his own eyes wide with worry. He hadn't meant to get the dye all over his sister.
"It was just an accident, she'll be okay, Harry." Lexie promised, moving away from the sink to give Harry a reassuring hug. "It could have happened to any of us. The vinegar just stings in her eyes, but it'll wash out."
Harry frowned, his lower lip quivering for a second. He wasn't so sure. The way Rozzie was carrying on, he was almost certain she was really hurt badly. "Did I break her new eyes?"
"Oh gosh Harry, no!" Lexie shook her head, pulling him to her and lifting him up onto her hip. He was growing bigger and bigger, and so was her stomach, but she could still hold him when he needed her to. She rocked him gently, kissing his face. "You know how sometimes you get shampoo in your eyes and it stings?"
"Yeah." Harry nodded, hiding his face against her neck.
"Well, vinegar stings a little bit more, but you don't have to worry. The water and crying will wash it all out." Lexie promised, brushing Harry's hair back from his face. He was due for a hair cut soon, his locks getting a bit too long for his school's dress code for boys. In the wizarding world it would have been seen as perfectly normal for a little boy to have longer hair, like both Sirius and Remus did. "Let's you and I finish cleaning up here and make dinner."
"Okay." Harry nodded and Lexie let him slide down to the floor.
Remus and Sirius stood at the sink, washing out Rozzie's eyes for a good twenty minutes. She stopped screaming after ten and just let the water flow over her closed eyes, blinking every now and then as instructed. By this time, Harry and Lexie had dinner on the table and Rozzie was starting to feel a lot better.
"Alright, I think that should be more than good." Remus waved his wand, shutting off his flow of water. Sirius righted Rozzie, holding her to sit on the edge of the sink, looking her over.
"Go like this." Lexie instructed, coming over and making her eyes really big. Rozzie did as she was told and Lexie reached out, gently pulling Rozzie's eyelids apart to get a better look at each of her eyes in turn as Harry stood by nervously. "Well, they look alright. How do your eyes feel, love? Do they still hurt."
"No." Rozzie shook her head, her hair dripping went all down her stained shirt. Her face was still blue and green but that would go away on it's own after a few days and baths. No use worrying about it since it wouldn't cause her any harm.
"Good." Sirius smiled and, balancing Rozzie with one arm, removed her shirt with his other hand. He used it to sort of mop of her hair a bit before he set her down on the floor. "There you go then."
"I'm sorry I hurted your eyes, Rozzie." Harry frowned, reaching out to hug his sister tightly, glad she was okay after all. Rozzie hugged him back, grinning now that she was all better. She hopped up and down.
"It o-tay, Haw-wy!"
"I cracked the butt egg." Harry announced after a moment, rushing over to the table to grab up the egg with a butt on it. He held it up proudly, pointing to the crack right down the center of Sirius's inappropriate drawing.
"Beautiful." Sirius remarked, beaming. He lifted Harry up and swung him around in a circle, dancing about for a moment. "Butt-cracked egg! Butt-cracked egg! We've got a butt-cracked egg!"
"Butt-cracked egg! Butt-cracked egg! We've got a butt-cracked egg!" Harry sang along, laughing and smiling so brightly now his cheeks might have torn. He was so happy with this silly egg and how his Padfoot understood that without question.
"Butt egg! Butt egg!" Rozzie laughed, dancing around the two of them like a little child running around a May pole. "Egg has a booty! Egg has a booty!" She danced, crooking her elbows like a bird and shaking her bottom back and forth with absolute pure delight.
Lexie watched, torn between joining in and hiding her face in her hands to cover her amusement. This was her family, these crazy people who sang joyfully about silly eggs with silly drawings on them.
"Booty egg! Boot booty booty egg!" Remus joined in on Rozzie's dance and Lexie lost it. She broke out laughing so hard she could hardly breath and finally, took part of their craziness. After all, if you couldn't be crazy with your family, who could you be crazy with?
…...
Harry was tucked all nice and snug into his beg. It was pretty late at night for a seven year old boy, about ten-thirty and he'd been in bed, asleep, for two whole hours. He was cuddled under his favorite red lion blanket with Lion in a choke hold against his chest. He didn't hear the bathroom door creak open, nor the pad of two little bare feet across the floor of his bedroom. He did, however, feel the slightly jammy little fingers prodding at his face as well as all twenty-five pounds of little girl sitting on his stomach.
Opening his eyes and finding silver ones staring back at him from mere centimeters away, Harry jumped slightly, sending Rozzie falling sideways off of him, thankfully still onto the bed. Harry sat up, rubbing at his eyes and reaching over to the bedside table to get his glasses.
"Rozzie? What're you doing? It's bedtime."
"Wozzie not a bunny." Rozzie frowned, looking completely disappointed with her lot in life at the moment.
"No, you're a human." Harry nodded, wondering why on earth his sister was in his room when they were both supposed to be asleep.
"Wozzie hab dweam. Wozzie want be bunny." Rozzie explained as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Of course, why wouldn't a two, almost three year old, little girl want to be a bunny in the middle of the night when she was supposed to be sound asleep in her bed? It seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to her. "Haw-wy make Wozzie bunny?"
Harry pondered it for a few moments. He did still feel bad about getting vinegar in her eyes by accident and it was also kinda his fault her face was still colored green and blue. She liked that part though. "Okay. Let's make you a bunny."
"Yay!" Rozzie beamed and the two of them climbed out of bed. Harry wandered over to the wall and flicked on the light, hoping they wouldn't get in trouble for being up after bedtime. He thought about it for a couple of minutes, wondering how he was going to turn his sister into a bunny before his eyes alighted upon the little table in the corner of his room where all his arts and crafts stuff was.
"I know what we need. Rozzie, can you get me some of your pants?" Harry asked. Rozzie nodded and raced off for her bedroom, heading through the bathroom as it was the quickest route. The bathroom light was always on at night because both kids preferred it that way. Harry followed after her, but stayed in the bathroom. He climbed up on the counter and tugged open the medicine cabinet. Inside were the basic kids things that the adults didn't want them to play with most of the time. Harry grabbed out the bag of cotton balls, knowing they would make a perfect tail and carried them back over to the table in his bedroom. Rozzie came barreling in from her room, dragging along a pair of blue denim overalls. They were her special Easter ones with bunny embroidery on the front bib pocket. Most little girls would have a new dress, but Sirius had done the shopping that day.
"Perfect." Harry grinned and took the overalls from Rozzie. He set them on the table and got out his glue. He squirted some on the bottom of the pants and carefully covered the area with cotton balls. He added more glue and more cotton until he had made a pretty good tail. "There! Look Rozzie, a bunny tail! But you have to wait for morning when the glue is dry, okay?"
Rozzie frowned. She wanted to be a bunny right now, not wait until tomorrow which would take a very very long time! "Wozzie bunny now."
"You have to wait until it's dry or your butt'll stick to everything." Harry shook his head, hoping she wouldn't start throwing a fit. She did that sometimes when she didn't get her way and this looked like it could be one of those times. "If we don't go to sleep right now the Easter Bunny won't come. He's like Santa Claus."
Rozzie bit her lower lip.
"And if you go to bed now, I'll give you bunny ears in the morning too," Harry offered slyly. Rozzie pondered this over. She did want bunny ears…
"Wozzie sleep Haw-wy?"
"Okay." Harry nodded and got up. He went over to the light switch and clicked it off. "C'mon." He climbed into bed and Rozzie followed after him, her special blanket dangling from her head like usual. Harry tucked them both back in and they snuggled down. Rozzie cuddled up next to him, burying her little face against her big brother's chest and Harry wrapped an arm around her. He never minded sharing his bed with his sister. It was his job to look after her.
…...
"Here comes Rozzie Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail." Sing-songed Harry, laughing as he followed Rozzie down the stairs the next morning. He was very excited to get to their Easter Baskets and see what that good old bunny had left them.
"Tisket-tasket, gween yellow basket." Rozzie laughed, hopping down each stair like a bunny. Her hair had been parted in pigtails that flopped from the top of her head like droopy bunny ears, though they were quite lopsided and she was quite gleeful about it at the moment, pretending to be a little bunny rabbit. The tail made out of cotton on the seat of her overalls had dried perfectly over night and stayed stuck.
"Look Mum!" Harry laughed, pointing to his sister's bottom very proudly. He jumped the last few steps of the stairs and jumped around in a circle, bouncing around Lexie as she inspected the back of Rozzie's pants. She chuckled, having wondered what her children were up to upstairs. Normally the pair of them came right down for breakfast in their pajamas. It was a surprise seeing them both already dressed and ready for the day… and even more interesting that Rozzie's hair had been done up already.
"Whenever did you do that, Harry?"
"Er…" Harry pondered, wondering what the correct answer would be to that particular question. He didn't want to get in trouble for being out of bed past bedtime last night, but he didn't want to lie either. "Yesterday." He opted. Technically it had been yesterday since his clock hadn't said it was past midnight when Rozzie had woken him.
"Well, that was very nice of you. Did you do her hair as well?" Lexie reached out, patting Rozzie's messy pigtails and Harry nodded, his face tinging pink.
"It's girly stuff but she needed ears."
"What a nice big brother you are! Are you two ready to see what the Easter Bunny brought for you?"
"Yeah!" Harry and Rozzie cheered and raced away from Lexie into the living room where two lovely baskets sat upon the coffee table for them. The baskets were identical. Made out of painted red wicker, each had an assortment of candies in it, including the classic wizarding chocolate eggs with candy inside of them while both children also had the Muggle traditional chocolate rabbit. Both kids also got two small matchbox size cars, again, identical. There would be no fighting over anything.
"Wow! Thanks Easter Bunny." Harry laughed, dumping out his basket and starting to open one of his smaller chocolates. Rozzie did the same, reaching for a candy as well before Sirius swooped into the room carrying a breakfast tray.
"Oi!" Remus called quickly. "Two pieces each but then you've got to eat a proper breakfast before the egg hunt."
"Aw Moony, it's Easter!" Harry frowned, already munching away at his first piece of chocolate. He swallowed and reached for another, this time a crunchy chocolate with bits of rice crisp in it.
"Moony's right you two. Too many sweets and you'll get cavities." Lexie nodded in agreement. "Besides, if you eat all of your candy now, you won't have any for later."
Harry pondered this over for a moment and sighed. "Oh, alright then. I'll eat breakfast. Rozzie, we gotta eat breakfast." He prodded his sister and she pouted, not liking this until she saw the buttered toast on the tray. If the was one thing Rozzie could be counted on to always eat, it was buttered toast. Cut into triangles. Without any burnt spots.
Everyone ate their breakfast and the kids played with this new little cars, pushing them across the coffee table and allowing them to fall off the edge of the cliff into the burning pit of 'lava' below. When it was about nine o'clock and the grown ups had enough tea and coffee in their systems, Sirius stood up.
"Alright you two. The Easter Egg hunt has begun! I think they're all outside this year as the weather has been pretty nice lately." They all watched as the two children both dumped out the current contents of their baskets and raced into the solarium and then out the back door.
"There's some Rozzie!" Harry pointed gleefully, reaching out and picking up a couple of plastic eggs. He gave one to Rozzie and she squealed excitedly, putting it in her basket. She and Harry romped across the yard, looking here and there, finding lots of eggs just sitting out on the grass while others were more hidden in little crevices of trees and holes in the ground. As Harry rounded one of the bigger trees in the yard, he stopped dead in his tracks. There, standing back towards the house, his hair looking very red in the morning sun…
"RON!" Harry shouted. His basket dropped from his hand and he bolted across the grass as fast as his little legs could take him.
"Harry!" Ron called, running towards him, looking just as excited and happy as Harry felt.
The two met in the middle, their arms flinging right out and wrapping tightly around one another. Harry held onto his best friend, hardly about to believe that he was really here. After four whole months of not seeing each other when they had played together almost every single day before that, the pair jumped up and down, dancing about on the spot as they held onto one another.
"Ron, what're you doing here?" Harry asked when they finally let go so Rozzie could attach herself around Ron's side and give him a hug as well.
"My mum said your Pad asked if I could come spend the week with you for the spring holiday." Ron explained, grinning from ear to ear, looking just as freckly as Harry remembered. "So now we get to play again!"
"Wooohooo!" Harry shouted, bouncing all over the place in his excitement. A whole week with Ron! This was the best Easter ever! Harry raced over to Sirius and hugged him tightly around the middle, burying his face against his stomach. He grinned, tilting his head back and looking up at his godfather with the biggest smile any of them had seen in months. "Thanks, Paddy."
"You're welcome, Harry. Now go play." Sirius beamed, stroking Harry's hair back from his forehead. Lexie was right. The kid needed a trim.
Still smiling, Harry and Ron dashed across the yard to retrieve Harry's basket, Rozzie hot on their heels. They grabbed up the red basket and put the eggs back in it, Harry removing about half of them to place in Ronnie's orange basket that Lexie had given him when he'd gotten there. That way he could look for eggs too.
The three children scoured the rest of the yard, dancing about every time they found one of the lovely bright colored eggs that was full of either a sweet or tiny plastic toy. When they'd found all they could, all three came laughing back to the house, sweaty from running about like a bunch of raggamuffins, dirt on their knees and bits of old dried grass in their hair. The day was bright and sunny, warm despite it being so early in spring still.
Harry, Ron, and Rozzie dumped their baskets of eggs out on the grass beside the backdoor steps and began sorting them out into three groups, Rozzie getting all of the pink ones since neither boy was very fond of that color saying it was too 'girly'.
"We've got thirty-six eggs, so that's twelve each." Harry stated brightly after counting them out a second time. He was very pleased at knowing his times-tables up through the number twelve now, so he liked being able to use his knowledge and show how smart he was to Ron and Rozzie.
Ron nodded, counting out the eggs in each basket to be sure. He hadn't gotten quite so far in his schooling yet, but he would soon. Mrs. Weasley took her time to make sure her children all knew exactly what she'd taught them before they changed subjects, and it worked out just fine. Right now with Ron she was focusing on spelling.
"Yep." Ron nodded in agreement again. "Let's see what's inside!"
"Okay." Harry picked up an orange egg and pulled it open. A chocolate marshmallow bunny fell out and he smiled.
Rozzie stared at the bunny in shock. "Tandy?" She asked, reaching out and picking up one of her own eggs excitedly. She pulled at it and then banged it on the ground until it popped open. A little packet of gummies fell out and she jumped up with a squeal of delight. She snatched up the packet of gummies and turned out to hold it up to Lexie who was sitting on the back steps with her hands wrapped tightly around a warm cup of tea. "Uma! Lookit! Tandy!"
"Oh wow! That's wonderful sweetheart." Lexie laughed, reaching out to take the packet Rozzie showed her. She admired it for a moment then gave it back. "Put it in your basket for now."
"O-tay." Rozzie dropped the packet in her basket and began banging open more eggs, jumping up in excitement each time and showing her mum what she'd found.
Harry and Ron opened all of their eggs and dumped out their baskets again, sorting through their sweets and little toys.
"Hey Harry, this one's got a treacle nut chocolate. You want it?" Ron asked, knowing his best friend liked treacle candies the best.
"Yeah!" Harry beamed, taking the sweet and adding it to his pile. "Here, you want this one? It's peanut butter."
"Sure." Ron took the candy from him.
The next ten minutes of candy sorting involved trading. Harry ended up with more treacle treats than anything else but Ron got more chocolate frogs which Harry knew were his favorite because he collected the cards. Harry had about five cards in his own collection that were all different, but Ron had at least ten. If they got doubles, they'd give it to each other or, if they both already had it, it went to Ginny or Rozzie who was absolutely fascinated by them and had all three of hers attached to the wall above her bed with a damage-free non-permanent sticking charm.
"Cawd?" Rozzie asked, eyeing her own two chocolate frogs curiously. She held them out to Harry, wanting him to open them.
Harry laughed, taking them and ripping open the packaging gently. He held tight onto the frog, lest to hop away, and handing it to Rozzie. She grabbed it round with both hands and bit into it. It stopped moving and Harry wiggled the card out of the rest of the packaging. "You got Gregory the Smarmy."
"Hi Gwegowy." Rozzie beamed, holding out her card and hugging it to her chest, admiring the very sly looking wizard on the front. She danced about, holding out her second chocolate frog, wanting it to be opened as well.
Once she had both of her frog cards and a sticky face, Rozzie held the cards up to her mother expectantly. "Wall?"
"Alright darling. You boys behave yourselves. Call if you need anything." Lexie scooped up Rozzie and carried her inside
"Okay Mum." Harry promised as he and Ron looked over the cards they had gotten. "Hey, I got Bowman Wright. It says he invented the Golden Snitch! That's cool! And another Dumbledore."
"Have you still got the Dumbledore I gave you?" Ron asked, shoving some chocolate into his mouth as he tugged out his cards.
"Yeah. It's the first card I ever got. I'll give this one to Rozzie, but she already has him. Does Ginny have him yet? Who'd you get?"
"Yeah, she does, he's pretty common. Oh! Circe! And Bertie Bott, I don't have either of them yet! Cool!" Ron grinned brightly, admiring his two new cards joyfully. "Even Fred and George don't have Circe yet! Oh but I can't tell them or they'll do something awful to try and get it."
"Yeah." Harry nodded, knowing how the twins got over frog cards. They were nice about most things, but whenever Ron got a new card they didn't have, they tried to get it from him with every means they could think of. If they fought too much over a card, Mrs. Weasley would threaten to toss the thing in the fire. Not that she ever did, but the boys wouldn't put it past her. "What d'you wanna do now?"
Ron pondered this question over for a minute and then smiled. "I haven't seen your new room yet. It's all Quidditch, right?"
"Oh, yeah!" Harry nodded excitedly, standing up and shoving all of his sweets and eggs back into his basket. He picked it up and together, he and Ron headed inside the house, running around through the solarium into the living room and up the stairs where they raced from the landing down the hall to the last door on the left.
"Woah!" Ron stared, gazing wide eyed at Harry's fairly new room in astonishment. "This is so cool!" He bounced around, heading over to the Snitch bean bag in the corner and flopping down on it excitedly. Harry grinned, glad Ron approved of his bedroom. He flopped down on the bean bag as well, big enough for the two of their little boy butts or one adult sized bottom. He set his basket down on the floor and gazed around. His room was a little messy, toys strewn about and some clothes on the floor, but it was otherwise pretty tidy for a seven year old's bedroom. Probably because he'd had to clean it up yesterday.
"Have you still got your model pitch?" Ron asked after a couple of minutes gazing up at the clouds floating across the ceiling. Harry nodded and got up, heading over to his little desk where he kept his model. He brought it down onto the floor and then grabbed the little wooden box all the pieces were kept in.
He and Ron sat down on their knees, pulling the pieces out and setting them back up in their rightful places. They snapped the metal hoops into place and got out the players, setting each one standing up near the center line of the pitch, the teams across from each other and the referee in the middle.
"Blue or red?" Harry asked, grinning. He and Ron had played this game a few times. It wasn't like wizard chess where you could command your pieces to go where you wanted because there were too many pieces moving all together but it was still fun to pretend you could.
"Blue." Ron grinned, liking the color better than red and knowing Harry preferred red. Harry reached out and tapped the center of the board. The little ref blue his whistle and the wooden players rose up on their tiny brooms. The small Quaffle was released and the two boys watched with wide eyes as the game began, the players catching, bumping, and avoiding Bludgers just like a real game of Quidditch.
"Pass! Pass!" Harry shouted, knowing the pieces couldn't hear him. He watched as one red player tossed the Quaffle but it was intercepted by a blue guy who sped off with it in the opposite direction.
"Yeah! Shoot it! Go go go!" Ron laughed, standing up and bouncing from one foot to the other as he looked down at the game excitedly.
They two boys laughed, calling out commands, pretending they were really in charge of their own teams, just like a real Quidditch Captain. The game was fierce, going on for a full half hour before the blue tem caught the Snitch and won the game.
Ron was ecstatic, jumping up and down. "Blue wins! Blue wins!"
Harry laughed, a bit put off that his team had lost, but then again, Ron seemed really pleased… Sometimes it was hard being on the losing end, especially when you really wanted to win which was what Harry always wanted when it came to Quidditch. Remus said it was okay to feel bad, but it was good to feel happy for the winner as well. It was okay to lose… so long as it wasn't a real game of Quidditch. So Harry grinned, happy Ron had won. After all, if you couldn't be happy for your own best mate, who could you be happy for?
"Want to go again?" Ron asked when he had calmed down a little.
"Yeah, okay. Maybe I'll win this time." Harry agreed, reaching out to re-set the pieces.
Just then the door banged open, and Rozzie entered, hands on her hips, chin jutted out from her Frown-of-Betrayal. When you were two going on three it was hard feeling like you were being left out of something very fun. When Rozzie's face set like this… her chin out, eyes glaring accusingly and her mouth frowning so sadly you'd thought someone had kicked her imaginary puppy, you knew you were in for it. Sirius had dubbed it the Frown-of-Betrayal because you couldn't help feeling like you'd done something terrible to be on the receiving end of it.
Rozzie stomped in, bare feet padding loudly on the green carpet, her pants gone as they usually were by lunch time. She preferred the freedom of running about in her little pink training pants, juice staining the front of her white shirt, manta ray blanket hanging from her neck like a hooded cape. Lexie had sewn two flaps of soft fabric on either side of the blanket beneath the hood and added a hole and a large button that Rozzie could easily manipulate. It kept the now rather ragged blanket from being dragged across the floor everywhere.
Rozzie came to a halt in front of the model pitch. Her eyes scanned over the players and then Harry and Ron. "What chu playing?"
"Quidditch." Harry offered, standing up. "What d'you want?" He asked, reaching for the box his model pieces went into. Ron quickly began picking them up. Last time Rozzie had caught them playing without her, she'd had a tantrum and kicked their toys. The pitch model was breakable.
"'Uma says lunch times." Rozzie stated, grinning and holding her hands behind her back, very pleased with herself for having relayed the message. "You come eat. Then we plays."
"Okay." Harry heaved a sigh of relief, glad there would be no tantrum for now. Usually Rozzie had one whenever Harry had a friend over because she wanted to play too. It had been a long while since he'd had anyone over though, not being allowed to have friends over for safety's sake., so Rozzie had had him all to herself.
Harry and Ron put up the pitch model and traipsed downstairs after Rozzie who was getting better at going down using her feet instead of her butt. She still slid down on her butt most of the way, but usually by the last five steps she stood up and held tightly onto the railing with both hands as she made her way down, one foot to one step and the next foot to that same step. Her legs were still too little to switch steps and legs.
"Oh good, there you are. I was just going to call you." Lexie smiled as the kids entered the kitchen. She set a tray of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off down on the island beside a plate of carrot sticks. She lifted Rozzie up and placed her into the tail high chair at the end of the island, buckling her in so she wouldn't fall. When she was older, she'd be allowed to sit on the high stools Harry and Ron were climbing onto, but for now, she was still too little.
Harry always liked eating at the island because it was high up. He also liked the stools. They had backs, arms, and cushions, but the very best part was that they spun around. He could make his spin easy by pushing off the counter. The first time he'd done it, the stool had nearly fallen over. Instead of telling Harry not to spin though, Sirius had simply attached the stool to the floor with a non-permanent sticking charm. It kept the stool from tipping and could be removed with a counter-charm whenever needed.
"Mmm!" Ron stated appreciatively, his mouth full of peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The bread had been cut into fourths, making the sandwiches small and easy to eat for little hands.
"Milk for everyone." Lexie announced, pulling the carton out of the fridge and pouring it into four cups. She dropped a straw into each of the cups and handed them out before sitting down in the last stool next to Ron. She was particularly fond of the fact that the island fit three stools. It would be perfect for when all three of her children were big enough to sit there. A couple of years and Rozzie would be in a stool of her own.
"Yum!" Ron laughed, taking his milk and sipping it up through the straw. He'd never sat so high to eat before, so this was very exciting. Something about sitting up high made food taste even better.
"What've we got here?" Sirius asked, coming in and washing his hands in the sink. He dried them off and grabbed up a sandwich, biting into it. "Ooooh! Peanut butter and jelly, my favorite!"
"Mum makes the best kind too." Harry nodded in agreement, licking some drippy peanut butter off of his hand. Lexie didn't just serve the sandwiches cold. No. First she very lightly toasted the bread, Then she spread it with the peanut butter and jelly, usually raspberry because that was Rozzie's favorite. Afterwards, she used her wand to warm them for a few seconds, getting the peanut butter and jelly melty without making the bread soggy. It just tasted better that way for some reason. Warm and gooey with a slight crunch on the outside.
"Well thank you, Harry." Lexie smiled.
"Ooooh, I smell something delicious." Remus laughed, coming in from the dining room where he had been putting away dishes in the hutch. "Oh yes! My favorite!"
"Mine too!" Ron nodded in agreement.
"Yum." Rozzie agreed, her face covered in stickiness.
"The best." Harry grinned, taking another sandwich and biting into it. It was the little moments like this… a simple lunch or a giggle of happiness, that meant the world to all of them.
Yay another one! Sorry about the wait, I was away for a while visiting family, thus, the lapse. Anyway, I really like this chapter, despite it's crap ending (can you tell it's actually lunch time here?) so I really hope you guys like it as well! Thank you so so much for reading, I ALWAYS appreciate every review, favorite, and follow it gets. My inbox is always overrun with messages saying someone's followed or favorited a story and it's typically this one or His Boy, so THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU! :D I already have a plan for about half of the next chapter, so woohoo! I'm always looking for ideas or suggestions as to what you guys would like to see happen though, so if you've got one just pop it in a review or inbox me. I love hearing from you! If you are sending in an idea or suggestion, please sign in so I can credit you if it gets used. :) If you've sent me an idea in the past and I haven't used it, please know it's because I haven't been able to find a place to stick it in the plot because you guys have some awesome ideas. If I haven't responded to an idea suggestion, I'm just busy. ): But seriously, if there's something you're DYING to see happen that you've already mentioned, mention it again! PM it to me, those I don't lose track of as easily.
Credit for the wonderful idea of an Easter Egg hunt goes to!: Jasper's Mom
Love and hugs always!,
S.Q.O.
PS: If anyone ever draws a good picture of Rozzie in that get up of hers when she enters Harry's room, I will love you forever. Or anything from this series of stories at all actually. -says the girl who can't draw-