A short story adapted from J.K. Rowling’s series for Ryan’s birthday by his Auntie Kay. *
Harry dodged Peeves the pesky poltergeist and jumped down the stairs two-by-two hoping to avoid the trick stair in which he had so painfully lodged his leg years ago. Nearly trammeling over a couple of Hufflepuff first-years Harry yelled his apologies back over his shoulder, and pelted out of the castle and onto the grounds. Hermione would shake her head and tut under her breath if he was late for Herbology again. Quidditch practice had been particularly grueling lately, and he had had back to back detentions with Professor Snape for falling asleep during potions. This, Harry felt, was typically unfair of Snape. Malfoy was constantly nodding off in class and one time even started to snore with nary a consequence.
Harry reached Greenhouse #3 at the exact same minute as Ron who glanced sheepishly over him and said,”Overslept too, mate?” He grinned over excitedly at Harry his red freckles matching his flaming hair,” Lets hurry up, Sprout’s been hinting at a bang-up lesson today.”
Harry grinned back and adjusted his glasses, “I know! I wonder what she has planned?” The boys were shocked to see the towering form of Hagrid blocking the entryway to the greenhouse. Why was he at a Herbology lesson? Their eager anticipation only deepened…
”All righ’ there Harry, Ron?” boomed Hagrid. His flyaway mane of hair was even spikier and more flyaway than usual. The sight of this black matted mess caused Harry to ruefully try to smooth down his own rumply bangs which often had a mind of their own when it came to hair styles.
“Hey Hagrid!” the boys answered in unison and made their way to the table that they shared with Hermione and Ernie Macmillan, the pompous Hufflepuff boy who often annoyed Harry.
“Morning gents.” Ernie nodded officiously at Ron and Harry. Ron grinned cross-eyed at Harry. Harry had to stifle a laugh as he nodded back at Ernie just as solemnly. It was like greeting the mayor. “And wheeeere is Herrmione?” Ernie inquired as if he wanted to know the whereabouts of the Queen of England.
Ron shrugged. Harry and Ron had assumed that Hermione was already at Greenhouse #3. It was their second surprise of the morning to realize that her bushy-headed self was not already ensconced at their table. She never had a bit of a sleep in, in fact she was one of the most perkily awake people they had ever come across.
“Perhaps she’s using one of those time-turner thingys again…you know, to attend more lessons?” Ron suggested. Hermione had once driven herself to exhaustion by trying to carry a heavier load then anyone else, attending more than one class at any give time. Ron and Harry had later learned that she had pulled off this seemingly miraculous feat with the aid of a time-turner necklace.
“All right settle in everyone!” Sprout called. “I asked Hagrid to join us today in our lesson.” Hagrid beamed and nodded. “What we are going to learn about today crosses over the disciplines of Herbology, Transfiguration, and the Care of Magical Creatures.”
“What we are going to discuss is the Muggles’ legend of the Easter Bunny. Muggles actually believe that a cuddly, white rabbit or bunny hops around the eve before Easter Sunday. As legend has it, this rabbit leaves chocolates and jellied eggs behind for little Muggle girls and boys to find and collect in an Easter container.”
“Do you mean an Easter …basket?” Harry corrected Sprout while waving his hand in the air.
“Yes, yes the container…erm…basket…five points for Gryffindor, Harry!” smiled Sprout. Ernie clapped Harry in a congratulatory fashion on the back. Sprout used her knobbed wand to scratch a spot under her floppy patch-ridden hat, dust flew, “Ahhhh…that’s better.” Then she continued, “In fact that reminds me of the special warning spell, ‘a tisket-a tasket…a green and yellow basket’. This is an incantation that the Muggles supposedly use to alert the Easter Bunny to their presence. This way the ever-wary and aloof Easter Bunny can scamper away undetected while the kiddies collect their goodies. This is pure nonsense!”
Harry was inclined to agree with Sprout. He had always thought the Easter Bunny was a rather dubious character. As a young boy he never was left the prerequisite rainbow jellies, marshmallow chicks, and hollow choco-rabbits. Instead, he usually discovered a few pieces of the green plastic grass and a wadded mass of sticky foil wrappers shoved through the cat-flap on Easter morning. The rest of day was a festival of tummy-aching jealousy as Harry would have to endure the sight of his cousin Dudley gorging himself on all of the treats that Harry would have given his left pinkie finger just to sample. Harry squirmed uncomfortably in his seat at the memory of all of the wonderful candies he had missed out on due to his porcine cousin’s overweening greed.
“Righ’ then,” Hagrid boomed, out of his element in the greenhouse, his voice loud enough to rattle it windows in their panes. “righ’,” he continued more softly, startled by the sound of his own voice. “Yeah, see its bin a conspiracy of the wizarding world to keep the truth abou’ tha Easter Bunny from the Muggles.” Harry sat up straighter, his interest peaked. All those years of missed Easter goodies would be worth it as he would be privy to such important information, that and that Dudley Dursley would never know.
“The Easter Bunny innit a rabbit at all! A wizarding family, who asked ter remain anonymous, started the tradition of tha Easter Bunny hundreds and hundreds of years ago! A long time ago, one talented young wizard from this family figured out how ter transform inter a rabbit. Tha’s how it all began!” Hagrid opened up his voluminous jacket. To the amazement of the students he whisked out what looked to be a young, garden-variety rabbit similar to the types depicted in Beatrix Potter’s famous story Peter Rabbit.
Harry stared intently at the small, brown rabbit that sat on the lab table unconcernedly washing its paws. It definitely was no ordinary rabbit. Any wild cottontail that Harry had ever encountered usually scampered off in fright before Harry could even begin to get a second look. Amazingly the rabbit seemed to have felt Harry’s intense stare and froze in mid-wash. To Harry’s further bewonderment the rabbit stared back just as intently with big, brown, and very intelligent eyes.
“All righ’ then, Duncan, it’s time!” said Hagrid as Sprout smiled encouragingly.
And in an instant, where a cuddly bunny was once sitting there appeared a young freckle-faced man with blonde curly hair and a big welcoming smile. Ron gasped and rubbed his eyes. Ernie whispered to Harry, “I had no idea, did you?”
Ron stammered, “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it! All these years Fred and George have been calling me a ‘stupid git’ for insisting that a rabbit delivered our Easter treats. I was right! There really is an Easter…Bun…erm…thingy!”
Duncan’s smile deepened at Ron’s words and his nose seemed to twitch. “Young man, you are most certainly not a git. I am real! The bunny gig is rather a part-time thing.”
At that moment Professor McGonagall came rushing into the greenhouse looking flustered and a tad bit unkempt. Harry was surprised at the state of her. McGonagall’s green tartan hat was askew on her head and a rather large rent traveled up the backside of her normally well pressed red wool robes. However, the lesson was just too engrossing to pay much attention to the messy McGonagall. Harry decided to file the mystery of her uncharacteristic appearance away and think about it later.
“I’m so sorry! I had received Professor Sprout’s invitation to join the class, but I was regrettably delayed. Please continue…” stated McGonagall breathlessly.
“Of course, Minerva,” Duncan said with a smile and a slight bow, “A long time ago, my ancestors decided it was time to use their wizarding powers to remind good young girls and boys to use their powers wisely and to continue to do good. My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grand-ancestor, Ryan convinced his very own sister, Sarah, to learn how to become animagii. They both worked at it until they were able to transform into rabbits.”
“Rabbits? Why rabbits? If I were an animagus I’d transform into something really good. Like a tiger or something!” Seamus Finnegan interrupted with a look of disbelief.
“Well you see young man, a ginormous, striped jungle cat wandering around England, is bound to get noticed, isn’t it?” replied Duncan. Harry smiled to himself at the thought of a large Bengal tiger padding down Piccadilly lane with a pink basket full of Easter eggs hanging from its mouth.
“Wild rabbits turn up just about anywhere in the world so they are usually beneath peoples’ notice. They live on just about every continent and are exceedingly common. By transforming into rabbits my family and I can hide treats for deserving children all over the world on Easter’s eve without being discovered.” Duncan continued.
“So you’re an unregistered animagus! You and the rest of your family are in an unlawful conspiracy! The Ministry of Magic must be alerted to you and your kin’s activities!” said Ernie aghast. He looked left and right trying to catch the other students’ eyes to see if they agreed with his astonishment at such egregious law breaking. Neville, pink faced, ducked Ernie’s wild look. Ron rolled his eyes. Seamus and Dean glared and cracked their knuckles. Lavender and Pavarti whispered and giggled.
“Whoa…slow down there, young Ernie!” exclaimed Hagrid. “Duncan an’ his clan are doin’ nothin’ wrong an’ the Ministry full well knows what they’re up to!”
“Mr. Macmillan, “McGonagall pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, “Mr. Macmillan, before you go accusing someone of malfeasance, make sure you have all of the facts. Of course such an ancient and accomplished group of animagii has been completely sanctioned by the Ministry of Magic! As a matter of note, if you paid better attention to the facts assigned in Transfiguration class your own spellwork would improve immensely!”
Ron sniggered. Ernie turned beet red and muttered an apology.
“Set your mind at ease, my family has been fully investigated by and has a very comprehensive file in the Department of Mysteries.” added Duncan.
Neville poked his head back up and waved his hand in the air. “Excuse me, excuse me, Duncan? How do you make all of your deliveries in only one night?”
“Ahhh, good question laddie!” exclaimed Duncan. His nose twitched violently just like a rabbit in the midst of a pile of carrots. “I have a lot of help! You see my family has been transfiguring into rabbits for over two thousand years. My family is similar to rabbits in that our population has grown and grown…there are literally thousands of us now! It is a point of honor that those members of the family that have mastered the feat of rabbiting go out and make the Easter deliveries. Those of us, who do not have the talent to transform, help out by painting eggs, filling Easter baskets, and making candy.”
“Crikey!” gasped Seamus, “Your family must be huge…loads larger than mine…and I have seven brothers.”
“Even with such a big clan, my family would still be hard pressed to deliver all of those candies, eggs, baskets, pastries, jellies, and mallow-bunnies without our family knowledge of the science of Herbology.” continued Duncan.
“This is where I step in.” interrupted Sprout enthusiastically, “You see with the right decoction of sap from the Venomous Tentacula plant picked on a slivered-moon, Sunday evening, at precisely 1:52 AM, you can produce a most potent potion. Potion…dear-dear that reminds me, I really should have invited Professor Snape to this lesson today!”
“Better for us all that she forgot.” muttered Harry. He had spent way too much time in Snape’s dungeon lately. His last detention was an example of Snape’s over the top malevolence as Harry had had to scrub out all of his rusty old cauldrons without the benefit of dragon-skinned gloves. Even with Hermione’s best efforts to help, Harry still had an indelible rash on his left forearm that now was exhibiting a lovely shade of fluorescent orange.
“Any-hoo,” said Sprout, “Once the potion is swallowed a person will have increased speed and unlimited energy for hours. This is perfect for anyone, like Duncan, who needs to be able to run long distances quickly without tiring!”
Eager murmuring erupted throughout greenhouse #3. Snatches of excited conversation could be overheard as the Hufflepuffs and the Gryffindors speculated how such a potion would make their school lives easier.
“Wicked!”
“I need to get a hold of some during finals week!”
“Cool…I wonder how fast I could run?”
“Wait, wait!…My family has been passing down the secret recipe to this potion for generations. Generally this concoction is not available for widespread use as its abuse can cause uncontrollable giggling, oozing purple pimples and an itchy bum. There is no cure for the pimples once they develop on your face! However, it has been cleared for our use by the Ministry and we know that we must use it sparingly…only a few sips and only on Easter’s eve! Remember potions are not to be overused or used for the wrong reasons! They can be dangerous.” explained Duncan
“Why are you telling us all of your secrets?” asked Pavarti Patil.
“Yeah, I was wondering that too…” and a whole chorus of new murmurs broke out amongst the students.
“Well now, most wizards don’t know about tha Easter Bunny cos’ it’s a Muggle legend innit? An’ what Muggle would believe you if you tried ter tell ‘em?” chimed in Hagrid.
The class bell rang signaling the end of the lesson. Yet no one moved to pack up their things or to rush to the door. A hushed silence fell over the greenhouse. The students were impressed that they had been privileged enough to meet such an interesting character such as Duncan. Harry started clapping, and the rest of his classmates followed suit and broke into hearty applause and cheers. Soon even the Professors had joined in. Duncan blushed and transformed back into a rabbit. As students crowded around, he jumped up and danced a little jig upon the table that he had just been sitting next to.
Duncan turned back into a young man and shouted happily, “Happy Easter!” And then began shaking hands with the queue of students that had lined up around him.
“That was awesome!” shouted Ron as he vigorously shook Duncan’s hand.
“Yeah!” cried Harry, munching on the cream filled, chocolate egg that Duncan had handed him after shaking his hand. “Too bad Hermione had to miss it! She would have had a million questions for Duncan! I can’t wait to tell her about it!”
Hastily jamming his spell books into his bag Ron lowered his voice, “Huh, I wonder where she is? Skivving off a class is not like her! I hope she is okay.”
Shouldering his book bag Harry started walking towards the door with Ron trailing.
“Excuse me, Mr. Potter…Mr. Weasly, wait a moment!” exclaimed Professor McGonagall.
Harry turned around to a shocking sight. McGonagall was even more disheveled at closer view than he had originally realized. Her face was haggard, and her eyes looked worried. There was a smudge of dirt on her nose. What had happened to her?
“Boys, we need to talk…there is something I need to tell you about Hermione…”
THE END!!!!!
* A couple years ago I wrote this for a nephew of mine-he is a big Harry Potter fan. Plus his birthday always falls right around Easter Sunday.
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