Choices Not Made

Snape was right, at least concerning childhood nightmares. By the next morning five children had managed to worm their way into bed. From their descriptions they were Ramses, Osiris, Helena, Ruby and Sapphire. Harry quickly learned that being jumped on by small bony kids was not his preferred way of being woken, especially after only a few hours sleep.

He was also frankly surprised at how well Snape kept his temper and managed to sort out why their bed had to adjust itself to fit seven. Especially considering that he had a hard time understanding any of them when they were all talking at once.
From Snape’s translations, Ramses and Osiris had been telling each other ghost stories; each story scarier than the last. By the time they were tired enough to fall asleep the loud winds banging the trees against the outside walls and the images brought to their minds by the stories had simply terrified them. The trees had also woke Helena up and frightened her, Ruby and Sapphire with whom she shared a room had simply followed her.

A simple enough explanation, but one that took much more noise than Harry was used to -- even after living in a dormitory. Eventually Harry got tired of the din and decided to sneak out of the room while the boys were trying to explain that they weren’t babies and said that the only reason everyone else wasn’t there too was because they slept on the side facing the inner court yard.
When he finally shut the door behind him he was amazed by the blissful silence (helped in the most part by charms). In his opinion he was way too young to deal with that many children, also not nearly patient enough.

The momentary quiet was interrupted by a loud wail, coming from down the hallway. He’d forgotten that there were four other kids in the house the thumped his head against the wall a few times before walking down the hall in search of the crying baby.
He finally found the baby already being bottle-fed by Danielle Brown, the Nanny. He sighed in relief that they had a nanny, especially as he knew he wouldn’t have known what to do.

“I don’t know what I’d do with out you,” Harry commented aloud.

She laughed. “I’m sure you’d do just fine, nowadays. Back when Orion was little… maybe not so much. I remember you were absolutely horrified that you’d break him.”

“I’m glad you’re so sure that’s changed,” Harry commented as she handed him the baby. The little boy stared into his eyes and frowned, looking as though he was about to break into tears again. He whispered to the baby, “I hope you don’t notice how nervous I am about this.” Happily, this didn’t upset the boy and he broke out in a large grin, which really calmed Harry. That is, before the boy grabbed at his glasses.

“Hey, hands off the glasses!” He held the baby at arm's length. “I need those to see you know.” The boy squawked in response while still reaching for his glasses.

Danielle walked over to him and took the baby back. “You should get your eyes fixed,” She commented before carrying the boy over to the changing table. “I don’t get it, the second you find out one of the kids has vision problems, you have theirs fixed. But you won’t do it yourself.” The boy fussed as she dressed him in a jump suit.

“I guess I don’t feel comfortable with out them,” he commented watching her. She just hummed in response. He was somewhat jealous of how calm she was while handling the baby.

“Ramses, Osiris, Helena, Ruby, and Sapphire weren’t in their beds this morning, were they frightened by the wind?” she asked.
Harry groaned. “Yes, I didn’t get any sleep last night. Too many bony bodies, I think Helena thought my side was a nice, soft place to jab her elbow. Then of course the idea of staying in bed past 6 AM is an obvious crime, which Ruby felt she should punish by jumping on me. I think Sapphire did the same to Sn…everus.” Harry winced at his goof.

She grinned while putting the boy in a playpen, where he immediately started chewing on a small stuffed dragon’s tail, the dragon crossed it’s short fore legs and rolled it’s eyes. Harry blinked.

Danielle giggled at the dragon. “I was woken by the wind, myself. If you’d like I’ll go into town to buy some Silencing Charms for the outer wall. Unless you’d think the Professor would prefer to make them himself?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know, you’d better ask him.” He watched the baby for a minute while Danielle walked around picking up the room.

The boy stopped chewing on the dragon and looked towards the door before squealing and raising his arms. Harry went to pick him up when the young boy from the Library surprised him by squirming between them and rubbing the baby’s head.

“Hi Justin, you chewing on Norbert again?” He asked the baby. In response the baby babbled and thrust the dragon towards his older brother.

“Oh, no, I haven’t chewed on him since I was a baby.” Aaron answered, Justin frowned before sticking Norbert’s tail in his mouth again. The dragon puffed out a bit of purple smoke in frustration.

Aaron finally realised that Harry was in the same room. “Hi, Daddy!”

“Hi,” Harry answered.

“Papa was busy yelling at Ramses and Osiris. They were fighting and chasing each other round your room. He seemed upset that they were ignoring his "Professor" voice.” The boy snorted. “I’m just glad he doesn’t use that on me, I would get scared.”

“Danielle, can you bring us flying?” Cassie popped her head in the door.

Danielle looked at Harry who shrugged. “Let’s ask the Professor, he might want you concentrating on your studies. And you just went flying yesterday.” She walked towards the door.

“Oh, come on. He wasn’t even supposed to be here, he was supposed to be on vacation,” the girl glared at Harry.

“Cassiopeia Snape!” Danielle reprimanded.

The girl bowed her head. “Sorry Dad, it’s not your fault you got sick,” she muttered in his general direction before stalking down the hall with Danielle following behind.

Harry sighed.

“Do I have to like her just because she’s my sister?” Aaron questioned.

“You have to love her,” Harry answered still staring at the door.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because, she’s family. If your family doesn’t love you, who will?” Harry wasn’t sure that the Dursleys ever loved him, but he always assumed that his parents and any siblings would have.

“I don’t know.” The boy frowned. “Your nanny?”

Harry laughed, “She’s family, she’s just not related.”

The boy shrugged. “Can I hang out with you? Papa is probably going to be busy today and Danielle’s going to bring Cassie and the older boys flying. I’ll watch Justin,” he offered.

“How do you know Papa won’t make Cassie do school work?” Harry questioned.

“Because, he spoils her,” Aaron muttered, “they say he spoils me, but if I did half of what she did, I’d be cursed sideways.” The boy got a serious look.ke wke when Ramses tripped Helena and she scraped her knee and was really sad and then he was extra nice to her and let her play with his toy figures and didn’t even get mad at her when she broke Gryffindor even though that’s his favourite.” He paused to breathe. “Cause he felt that hurting her was worse than her breaking Gryffindor or something. Papa’s always like that with Cassie.”

Harry stared at the boy. How was he supposed to get this kid to think that everything was normal? “I need to read some things in the Library. You can come if you want,” He said weakly. “Why don’t you go get a toy to bring with you while I get dressed?”

The boy wandered off to grab a toy and Harry collected Justin while shrinking his playpen and a few of his other toys.

When Harry reached his bedroom he found Snape holding Helena on his hip while arguing with the older twins, Cassie and Danielle. Orion was hovering in the doorway looking to find out what which way the argument would go. In the meanwhile Ruby and Sapphire were nowhere to be seen. Harry handed the baby to Orion and went into the closet where he found the younger twins trying to swing from Snape’s robes and therefore having pulled most of them down. Twinky was attempting to put the robes back on their hangers and simultaneously trying to stop the twins froingiinging them back down again. Harry grabbed the twins and placed them in the middle of the room and then dropped large wizard hats on their heads. This seemed to appease them long enough for Harry to get dressed.

When he was dressed he got the Twins into the bedroom. He also got himself and Justin out of the room with Snape glaring at him the whole way. Orion, deciding to avoid the chaos in the room, followed behind him.