At least Harry had thought it was the kitchen he was entering. Instead, he seemed to have transported into a warzone. A warzone where the weaponry was foodstuffs… He even stepped out and closed the door before opening it again. Yup, still covered in flour. Covering himself with a low-level protego charm, he entered.
On one side of the room were Octavia and Ursula who were using an overturned bench as a defence. On the other side, Tom and James were using a cupboard doors as shields. The house elves had retreated and stood pressed back against the walls with the babies in their arms. All four combatants were covered from head to toe with evidence of their fight. Ursula's long hair was white from flour. Tom appeared to be covered in eggs. James had what looked like ketchup running down the front of his top whilst Octavia had used the golden syrup on her head to put her hair in a bun so it was no longer in the way as she launched an apple across the room like a tennis ball. Harry had to admit it was an ingenious way of using your enemy's weapons against him.
"Your parents were Death Eater scum!" Tom screamed at Octavia as the apple bounced off his shield and he returned fire with an egg. Of course given that he was only six it came out more as "Your p'rents were deff eater scum!".
Octavia retaliated with a glass of milk given dead on accuracy thanks to, Harry assumed, accidental magic. "Our parents never hurt no one! They died!"
"They were purebloods! All purebloods were death eaters. Death Eaters murdered our parents in Diagon Alley!" James came out with. Harry was shocked at the amount of logical reasoning in his words but when he thought on it, at the age of eight he didn't remember feeling stupid. Quite the opposite, he was very aware of the world and the injustices of it. And Luna, Luna had only been a year older than James when she watched her Mum die. Although he would have to address the fact that James thought all purebloods with Death Eaters. The Weasleys, for all their madness, had fought valiantly against Voldemort. However, in the time that Harry had been musing, the fight had progressed beyond the food remaining in the house and the children were now moving on to the cutlery. Casting a quick shield charm over the boys to deflect the fork that Ursula had thrown, Harry announced his presence.
"STOP!" he shouted. The children immediately did so dropping the projectiles in their hands. The elves jumped as well whilst Harry's loud voice caused Teddy and Arianne to start screaming. "Hoopy, Nanna please see to the babies. Oakey if you could find and inform Kreacher of what occurred, he may need to adjust the shopping list accordingly."
Harry waited whilst the elves popped out to do as ordered. He walked into the middle of the room and picked up a discarded chair. Placing it back on all four feet, he sunk down into it wearily. The four children hadn't moved in this time and were shuffling from foot to foot looking downwards.
"Could you please explain what happened?" he said in a quiet tone. No use shouting at the children; whilst they may certainly know better, he would make them clean the kitchen as punishment and he knew first hand that shouting at them would only incite tempers rather than solve anything – Molly Weasley's 'letter' served as a wonderfully fresh reminder. Unfortunately, all four children took this as an invitation to start shouting at him instead.
"They started it!" cried Ursula. "They said mean things about Mummy and Daddy!"
"Octavia called me a no good half-blood!" Tom shouted with a fury impressive for a six year old.
"Enough!" Harry said firmly before it escalated any further. "You are all responsible for this fight and so you will all be punished. I want you to clean the kitchen. I will get you buckets, soap and sponges. Please try and get it done before dinner or else no one can cook."
With that, he conjured the required materials and set the children to work in different corners of the room. Levitating the cutlery and glassware to the sink, he left them to be cleaned later and sat back down to supervise the children.
A/N: I usually hate ANs but I wanted to apologise to readers. I have struggled to get this chapter how I wanted it, I still don't really like it but I need to get it over with in order to move onwards...