Sometimes he wondered if things would be different if he had everything that everyone else did...everything they took for granted. The essentials, such as a place away from the Castle to call home...a father and a mother...a past! He didn't know anything at all about his grandparents...uncles or aunties...well, he knew about one of course, but he meant the magic side of his family. Everyone else always spoke about going to a cousins birthday party, and when it was their birthday they recieved owls and presents from more than just their friends and classmates in Hogwarts...they recieved them from family members young and old, spread right out around the country.

Even though he didn't want more presents or cards, he was truthfully happy with what he got already, he just wondered sometimes what it would be like. To holiday for a week to stay with grandparents or to have all the cousins over for Christmas.
What if he had a little brother or sister? Ginny was kind of like his younger sister...but it wasn't the same. What if he had an older brother or sister like Ron and Seamus did? What would that be like? For Ron it seemed like they caused nothing but greif, but going over to his house for half the holidays they seemed like they were mostly fun...or at least interesting.
They would be company for sure...someone to unite with against everyone else, just like how Ron and his brothers and Ginny fought against Malfoy as one.

Harry sighed, fiddling with the quill between his fingers. What would it be like having a house to call home? Although he did have his aunts and uncles house to call home...he meant a normal one where he had a place in it. Not just a room they felt forced to give him after a while. What would it be like to have a room that had posters in it, and wardrobes and bookshelves full of his own stuff? What would it be like to have a real past, and not one full of lies and things Dudley didn't want anymore or had broken already?
There, sometimes, or well...most of the time, he hadn't even had a real meal. Dudley and his father ate more than their fair share and Aunt Petunia never seemed to need much...all he got was the left over vegetables, gravy and the fatty piece of left over meat. Harry wondered, most importantly, what it would have been like to feel wanted? To have had the right to get what he wanted, or to have the best thing offered to himself first, or to have an event especially for him...like when Ron had been younger, his mum had cooked whatever he wanted for his birthday. Would he ever feel what that felt like?
At 'home' he had been nothing, and now here at the castle there were too many of them for him to be something.

What would life be like? Living with the essentials?