The first of the trials was Gregory Goyle's, which started the Monday of the following week. It was a short trial without much evidence and the Ministry's case rested mostly on the dark mark that was on Goyle's arm. Narcissa and Andy watched the three babies for the day while Harry and Draco went to the Ministry to testify on Goyle's behalf. They left when their testimony was over, not staying to hear the end. It went on into another day, but by the next afternoon, Harry received an owl from the prosecutor informing him that the warlocks had thrown the case out, because of lack of evidence.
Not long after, another owl arrived. This time it was from the Goyle family, thanking Draco and Harry for their testimony and helping to get Greg's trial moved up.
Wednesday Draco was poring himself into his school work, setting himself a study schedule for his NEWTs, which meant that Harry was increasingly left alone with all three babies. Alone time away from Draco was good, because their anniversary was coming up quick; it was this Sunday and Narcissa had informed him that the portkey and hotel were all set. She even gave Harry a magazine full of advertisements for all of the activities available on the island. Whenever there was a lull in baby activity and Draco was off studying or brewing a potion, he would pull out the magazine and look over his options.
The most obvious thing they would need for the trip was a rental car, so that they could get back and forth between the various attractions. There were many wizarding conveniences on the island, such as a hotel with a floo connection and several restaurants with connection to the floo, but most of the activities were muggle owned and operated. That combined with the fact that he had never been to the island and that they had three young babies meant that they wouldn't be able to apparate.
Harry knew he needed a car, but renting a car through the muggle car rental agency without Draco finding out was much more difficult. He didn't have a phone and couldn't just make a firecall. Luckily he had Hermione, who was muggleborn and knew how to make phone calls. Draco wouldn't find out if she was the one doing it.
Hermione owled Harry back the next morning. The car was arranged and she sent the confirmation number and all of the other pertinent information he might need.
There were only three days left, so he started to panic about not having any activities planned. Draco was down on the first floor, brewing a NEWT level potion, so Harry was free to pore over the advertisement magazine in between caring for the three babies. He wasn't normally left completely alone with them, but Andy and Narcissa were downstairs looking over offers Andy had received on her old house, which she was still trying to sell. They were around if an emergency occurred and Harry needed help, but he didn't want to interrupt them if he didn't have to.
Harry wanted to prove that he could do it and look after all of his children on his own. The problem with that was that Sev was a highly active seven month old. Sev kept crawling over to Harry, pulling himself up, and trying to grab hold of Harry's magazine. Harry was waiting for the lulls in activity, when Teddy was asleep and Scorp and Sev were playing in their jumpers or their swings. Then when all of the babies were occupied, he'd sneak out to the sitting room to read the magazine.
There were several activities that looked exciting. Harry knew Draco liked to snorkel and there were boat tours that promised to take you out to a sea turtle populated area during the day or a manta ray populated area at night, both of which sounded perfect for Draco. There was a helicopter tour of the active Volcano on the south side of the island. Then there were zip line and kayaking tours of the rainforest and waterfalls. There were coffee, macadamia nut, and pineapple plantations to visit. And of course there were luaus. The question was how to choose which activities to book?
Harry was just thinking that he definitely wanted to do the night snorkel with the manta rays, the macadamia nut planation, and a luau, when he heard Sev banging on the baby ward on the nursery door.
"How did you get there, Sev? I left you in your jumper," Harry said, putting down his magazine and picking Sev up.
"Da da da dasss," Sev said with a hiss.
"Yes Sev, but Dada needs to arrange our trip to Hawaii, so Dada needs you to stay put. Now go play," Harry said, putting Sev back into the jumper. Sev whined and fussed at being put down and didn't seem to want to play in the jumper. "Alright, I'll take you to the study with me, but Dada needs you to be quiet for a few minutes while I write Auntie Hermione an owl."
Harry took Sev out to the study and put the baby on the rug, while he sat at a desk and wrote Hermione with the information for the luau and snorkel cruises and the details on what he wanted to schedule. The macadamia nut planation was open to walkthroughs and didn't need to be scheduled, so he only needed Hermione to book the luau for seven and the night snorkel for two.
Harry had just finished writing down the details for the night snorkel. He turned to pick up the magazine again to get the details for the luau, but the magazine wasn't there. "What the-?" he started to say, but cut himself off, because there was a baby in the room. He looked under the desk, to see if the magazine had fallen, but it wasn't there. Looking around the room, he finally spotted it in Sev's grasp. Sev was under a neighboring desk chewing on the pages.
"Sev, how did you get that? You need to give it back to Daddy," Harry said, picking Sev up and pulling the magazine away from the baby, making Sev cry. He sat back down at his desk, holding Sev on his hip, while he tried to smooth out the magazine, but Sev was still fussing at the loss of his toy.
"Sssoor-ee-ussss," Sev started to say in between his cries.
"Sev, can't you just give Daddy five minutes to finish writing Auntie Hermione?" Harry asked, abandoning the magazine to comfort Sev with both arms.
"Ssooor-ee-uss," Sev said and let out another wail.
"Alright, I'll take you back to the nursery, but you're the one who wanted to play with Daddy," Harry said, casting a notice-me-not charm on the magazine and parchment in case Draco came upstairs. He took Sev back to the nursery, where Scorpius was happily clapping his hands along with the lights and music of the swing and laughing.
"Ssssooor-ee-ussssss," Sev said, reaching out his little hands for Scorp, while Harry stopped the swing.
"Hi!" Scorp replied.
"Do you want to go in the swing with Scorp?" Harry asked, converting the swing to a two-seater and putting Sev in the second seat, next to Scorp, and strapping the baby in.
Sev reached out his little hand and held hands with Scorp, while Harry turned the swing back on and found a blue soother for Sev. Sev stopped crying, so Harry sat down on the floor in front of the swing for a while and watched to make sure Sev was alright in the swing. Sev's eyes closed and the baby was soon asleep, despite the fact that it was an hour before lunch and that Sev never took morning naps. But Harry wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so he reclined Sev's seat and went back to the study to finish his letter to Hermione. He sent the owl off and hid the magazine.
It was half an hour before lunch and Draco always fed Sev and Scorp mush at this time, but Sev was still asleep, so Harry cast a monitoring charm on him and then took Scorp and Teddy downstairs in the twin stroller. He put Teddy in the basinet and strapped Scorp into the green highchair. Then he called Mipsy, who had moved back to the Manor with them, since she was originally a Manor house elf. The family of Gaunt house elves had moved back as well which meant a group of house elves that had been here at the Manor were now at the Villa.
Mipsy materialized and Harry requested a bowl of mashed peas with Scorp's potion mixed in, which she produced with a snap of her fingers.
"That's all Mipsy, you may go," Harry said, dismissing the elf in the manner in which Draco used to deal with elves. He found that the Manor house elves preferred not to be thanked. "Do you want some peas Scorp?" He took the bib that was always draped over a bar on the back of the highchair and put it on Scorp. Then he scooped up a small bit of peas with the baby spoon and offered it to Scorp. The baby opened his mouth and Harry inserted the peas. "Are the peas nummy, Scorp?"
"Pa pa paaas," Scorp said, spitting out a bit of the green mixture back onto Harry.
Harry wiped the peas off of his glasses and offered Scorp another bite. "Yes peas, very good, Scorp."
Harry continued to feed Scorp, but a few minutes later Teddy started fussing, so he put the spoon and the bowl down on the table, well away from Scorp. He'd learned that leaving them on the tray led to the babies trying to feed themselves, which led to baths. He picked Teddy up and checked his nappy, before concluding that Teddy was hungry. He summoned Mipsy for a bottle.
While Harry was feeding Teddy, Scorp grew impatient in his highchair. He reached out for the food, but his arms weren't long enough, so he slapped his little hands down on his tray and said, "Aaahhh!"
"Sorry Scorp, Daddy only has so many hands," Harry said, unable to reach the spoon with Teddy in one hand and the bottle in the other.
Then Scorp started crying in earnest, because he was hungry. Harry was about to call an elf to fetch help, but then Draco walked in from the potion's lab and picked Scorp up, immediately quieting the baby.
"What'd you do to Scorp?" Draco asked, wiping off Scorp's face, before removing the breast pump so that Scorp could nurse.
"I had to stop feeding him his peas, because Teddy was crying for a bottle," Harry explained.
"Where's Sev? Does my mother have him?"
"No, he wanted in the swing and fell asleep."
"What in the world did you do to my baby to make him fall asleep before lunch?" Draco tried to think back to the last time Sev had fallen asleep before lunch and decided that it must have been about three months ago.
"I was trying to write Hermione a letter, but he somehow got hold of my parchment when he was on the floor. I took it away from him and he started crying for Scorp and Scorp was in the swing."
"Why didn't you just put him in his jumper before you tried to write your letter?"
"I did, but he got out of it and was banging on the nursery wards. I was almost done with it, so I brought him into the study with me."
"How'd he get out?"
"No idea," Harry replied, putting the bottle down and moving Teddy to his shoulder to burp.
Narcissa and Andy came into the room then and the house elves made their lunch appear. Draco ate with one hand, while holding Scorp with the other and Harry waited until Teddy burped to eat.
"We got in the canvas depicting wildflowers, a sofa, and a banquet with house elves this morning. I'll hang it in the nursery before I leave; Andy and I'll be visiting the real estate agent," Narcissa said as she finished her lunch.
"Thank you Mother," Draco replied with a nod. "Harry, can you try to feed Scorp the rest of his peas? I need to finish my potion."
"Yeah, alright," Harry agreed.
Draco put Scorp back in his highchair, before leaving the room. Harry offered Scorp more peas. Scorp didn't want them now that he had nursed, so Harry cast a stasis charm, before taking Teddy and Scorp back upstairs. He would have to offer Scorp the same peas again later, because Scorp's potion was in those peas.
Scorp's left leg had to be exercised twice a day now, so Harry laid him down on a play mat. The baby wasn't particularly fond of the exercises and liked to kick when he was doing them. If Scorp kicked out with the left leg then that would at least be helping to build strength in the overly thin leg, but Scorp only ever kicked with his right leg. When Scorp wasn't kicking, he was trying to sit up or squirming in a way that made the process more difficult. But still, he only had to do ten of them and it was over quickly. Harry put the toy bar for the play gym onto the top of the play mat and let Scorp play.
When naptime came, Sev was just waking up from his early nap and Teddy had just fallen asleep. Harry laid Scorp down and took Sev to the dining room for a bowl of mashed peas of his own, followed by a bottle. When Sev finished devouring the peas, Harry took the baby back upstairs and played with him.
Normally Harry got at least an hour every afternoon when all three babies were asleep, but he didn't get that hour of peace and quiet this day. Instead he got an opinionated Merlin telling him that the sofa in the field of wild flowers was too hard and too pink. Furthermore, the flowers were prettier back in Merlin's day and the food on the buffet table was too abstract looking. But at least Merlin kept his potty mouth out of the nursery, as per Harry's request.
Author's Note: Harry's made a lot of progress with the babies, especially when you consider how scared he was to even touch his doll back in the room of requirement.
Up next will be their anniversary in Hawaii. I think the boys could use the vacation :)
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