"EASTER SPECIAL!"
(Set in Year One, springtime at Hogwarts)
The castle grounds were blooming with fresh spring color. Soft lavender buds lined the edges of the Black Lake, and sunlight poured through enchanted stained-glass windows, warming the Great Hall’s long tables.
It was Easter morning. Baskets of pastel-colored chocolate frogs and golden foil eggs appeared with a shimmer at every House table. The ceiling reflected a sky bursting with drifting petals, and a soft breeze carried the scent of magic and sugar.
Mei had gone all out.
She wore little lavender bunny ears clipped into her curls and passed around hand-painted eggs she'd enchanted to bounce and squeak like baby chicks. "Happy bunny day, lovelies!" she giggled, handing Lily an egg that chirped "sunshine!" when squeezed.
Lily grinned, turning it in her palm. “Did you charm it yourself?”
Mei nodded. “I even made one for—”
“Severus,” she whispered before slipping a dark green egg into his hand. It was quiet. Simple. Not enchanted to squeak or sing. Just a small Slytherin-colored shell with silver vines. He held it longer than he should’ve.
Lucius watched that.
From across the table, his eyes narrowed—calculating, unreadable. He didn’t say anything. Just tapped his fork once, softly. Narcissa, beside him, leaned her chin on her palm, eyes sharp as she glanced between Mei and Severus.
James was chasing chocolate frogs with Dorcas and cackling like a maniac. “You’ll never catch me, Potter!” she yelled as she leapt across the bench.
“I will—when I’m not covered in egg goo!” he laughed, flicking yolk from his sleeve.
Dorcas had enchanted half the eggs in Gryffindor’s basket to explode glitter when touched. She claimed it was “team building.”
In a quiet corner, Xenophilius Lovegood was calmly creating an Easter crown from daisies, whispering to each flower before weaving them together. “The Equinox speaks through the eggs, you know,” he told anyone who’d listen. “Life, rebirth, pattern in the chaos.”
No one knew what he meant, but it sounded magical.
The only student who seemed off was Lucius. He hadn’t touched a single egg. Not even the gold one Narcissa rolled gently toward him. Instead, he stared across the room—at Severus, at James, at Mei’s glowing smile.
Later that night, when the feast had ended and the halls dimmed, Severus found a cracked egg under his pillow. It wasn’t Mei’s.
It was black.
Inside was a folded note in thin cursive:
"Not everything that hatches should be trusted. Choose wisely who you follow."
— L.M.
He didn’t sleep that night.