The Houses Competition
House: Hufflepuff
Class: Potions
Category: Drabble
Prompt: (Animal) (Easter) Bunny
Word Count: 879
Warning: Hermione and Ron divorce/Severus Lives and Marries Hermione!AU, and a slight bit out of character due to the AU.
I hope you all enjoy Easter the Bunny.
"I caught him!" Five-year-old Hugo's voice cried excitedly from downstairs. "I caught him! Rosie, come look!"
"What's Hugo on about?" Hermione's groggy early morning voice asked from beside Severus.
"It's a surprise," he answered, moving to get out of bed. He could hear Hermione shifting to look at him. "Don't worry. It's a good surprise, I promise."
"It is him!" Rosie cried, thundering footsteps crashing down the stairs. "It's really him! Sev said he was real and you didn't believe him. See! It's him in the flesh!"
"Him?" Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow in question at her second and final husband.
"The Easter bunny," Severus explained.
"You believe in the Easter bunny?" She stared at him incredulously.
"Yes. I do believe in the Easter bunny. Do you not believe in him?"
Hermione shook her head. "A rabbit who delivers candy and goodies to children on a Muggle religious holiday is just ridiculous, Sev."
"Is it any more ridiculous than anything else that you've seen in your entire life including flying broomsticks?"
Hermione shook her head, and he knew what she was going to say even before she opened her mouth to say it. He held up a hand to stop her.
"Just wait and see," he told her, hearing the thundering footsteps of the two children racing up the stairs along with terrified rabbit noises.
"Severus!"
He smiled mischievously as the door burst open and Hugo and Rose raced in—a bronze cage clutched in Rose's arms contained a rather shaken-looking rabbit. The soft, gray fur was standing on end from the fright it just had. Its pink nose was sniffing the air, and its ears were darting this way and that from all the noise.
"Mummy, look!" Hugo said, climbing onto the bed and jumping up and down where he'd landed. "Look! Sev said he was real and he is!"
"I see," Hermione said, smiling at her son's excited face. Hugo was the spitting image of his father who she had divorced amicably when he chose Lavender over her. They chose to stay friends in order to both be there for their children.
"But look, Mummy, he's right here in the cage," Rose said, putting the cage on the bed next to Hugo and pointing excitedly. "It's the Easter Bunny!"
Hermione sighed and looked at Severus' expectant face. He expected her to ruin the children's fun with cold, hard facts. But he wasn't ready for her play-along the way that she did.
"That is not truly the Easter Bunny," Hermione explained, looking sadly at the small creature cowering in the cage at all the noise that had surrounded him. "That's one of the Easter Bunny's cousins. You see the Easter Bunny, knowing that children are going to want to prove he's real, always brings a brood of cousins along in case they are caught. That way the Easter Bunny gets to slip away while his cousin stays behind to encourage the child who lives there to believe in him. Isn't that right, Sev?"
"Of course it's right," Severus said, grinning at her which made his usually sour face look more charming.
"But if it's not Easter Bunny and only his cousin what is this bunny's name?" Rose asked, looking inquiringly at the rabbit as though it might answer with its name.
"Why don't you and Hugo give the bunny a name?" Hermione suggested. "After all, if you catch one of the Easter Bunny's cousins you get to keep him."
"I know!" Hugo cried out, looking at his sister for allowance to continue.
Rose nodded for him to say what he had to say.
"Why don't we call him Easter the Bunny?" he asked, grinning. "Because we found him on Easter, but he's not the Easter Bunny."
Rose grinned and nodded.
"Easter the Bunny it is," Hermione said, making a note to look up what exactly rabbits ate before Hugo and Rose got any ideas on what to feed poor Easter. "Why don't we find a nice place to put Easter's cage and then look up what bunnies like to eat? Then we can open your Easter baskets."
"Okay, Mummy!" the children said, jumping up from the bed and going in search of a nice place for Easter's new home.
"That was quick thinking, my love," Severus said, placing a kiss on Hermione's cheek. He had lightened up a lot since they married. Always making an effort to be kinder and gentle around the children. After all, they didn't want the children to be afraid of Severus.
"It truly was," she said, sighing and placing her feet in her slippers and padding to the door. Before she exited the room, she turned back to Severus. "You can help the children with Easter when they are at their father's." As much as she wanted to say she wouldn't help with the bunny, she couldn't. She had always wanted one as a child, and now she had one.
Before Severus could answer, Hermione had exited the room and was calling for the children to see where they'd chosen for Easter's new home. But Severus couldn't help but be happy. He'd made the children's Easter and gotten them to believe in the Easter Bunny. All was right in the world.
I hope you all enjoyed Easter the Bunny as much as I enjoyed writing it. I would also like to thank each and every person who beta-read this for me and the last few stories as well. It truly means a lot that you would take the time to help me out like this. So, thank you all. I would also like to thank the Hufflepuff team in general for being the best team ever! You guys are all amazing!