Chapter 8

Harry was hiding and Sherlock was sulking, not a good combination when Harry's hiding place was under Sherlock's coat. It meant that Sherlock made no move to dislodge the child and encourage him to participate. Not that John really blamed either of them; he had no idea what Mycroft had been thinking.

"I thought we agreed to one or two," John said to Mycroft, "Not four…five…oh good God, they're cloning themselves. Can they clone themselves?"

"Not to worry, John," Mycroft answered calmly, "Those are twins. The Weasleys are a rather…prolific family." Before them, the children were alternately running wild and attempting to hide behind relatives. Harry certainly wasn't the only one a bit overwhelmed by the gathering. John felt a bit sorry for one little boy in particular who was being instructed quite sternly to get out there and play when he obviously wanted nothing more than a Sherlock to hide behind.

"And why are we doing this, again?" John asked, still a bit annoyed with Mycroft for inviting so many tiny terrors to what was meant to be Harry's introduction to the magical world. At this rate, they'd never get him out from behind Sherlock's legs.

"Dr. Sundberg thought Sherrinford would feel less like a freak if he knew other children who were like him," Sherlock answered unexpectedly, "Mycroft insisted upon arranging this gathering of 'approved' families and as usual could not settle for just one." Apparently being able to belittle his brother was enough incentive to break him out of his vow of silence.

Before Mycroft could respond, the old woman who had been scolding her boy into joining the other children approached them, little boy in tow.

"Hello! You must be Harry Potter's uncles!" she said, offering them her hand, "I'm Augusta Longbottom. This is Neville, my grandson. His parents were aurors, you know. They would be here now if they weren't in St. Mungo's; tortured in the line of duty."

To this she received one look of barely concealed horror, one look of bored annoyance and one look of polite fascination.

"Cousins," Sherlock answered her abruptly while John automatically accepted the hand, still trying to work out how to respond to that statement.

"Delighted to meet you Mrs. Longbottom," Mycroft said, "Why don't we let the boys play and you can come tell me about your delightful family." Though that seemed a bit tactless to John when the woman had just implied the boy's parents, presumably one of which was her own child, had been tortured, Mrs. Longbottom appeared delighted and forcibly pushed young Neville towards them, instructing him to 'play nicely like a well mannered auror's son should' before allowing herself to be led away.

Unfortunately, thanks to Augusta Longbottom's introduction, other families had finally realized that the couple lurking in the corner contained the very family they had come to meet, something they had so far avoided by letting Harry stay hidden. On the other hand, it did restore order to the room when various parents called their children into line. John was finally able to do a proper headcount and discovered it was only six children after all, four redheads all from one family. The fifth little girl was red haired as well, but obviously not attached to the woman arranging her offspring into some kind of order. If it weren't for young Neville's soft blond hair, John would begin to wonder if having red hair weren't a magical trait.

"George, Fred, Ronald, you stop that and stand here this instant!" her voice carried authoritatively across the room, "You don't see Harry Potter running about like a hooligan! Ron, you let go of your sister's hair this instant!" Then a man carrying the fifth redhead approached them and set her down next to Neville.

"Hello, nice to meet you," he announced politely, "I'm Mortimer Bones, and this is my daughter Susan."

"Dr. John Watson and this is Sherlock Holmes. Harry's feeling a bit shy, I'm afraid." John shook his hand while Sherlock continued to ignore social conventions and Harry continued to cling to his legs.

"That's alright," the man said pleasantly, "Susan can be just the same sometimes when meeting strangers." Indeed, the little girl, upon being set on the ground, had immediately latched onto her father's leg. Then the mother of four managed to hustle them all forward and offered a whirlwind introduction, not only of the children present which ranged from the three year old girl to the almost seven year old twins, but also explaining about three more who weren't there. John privately wished that she had left the twins at home as well, considering they seemed far too old when she had two much closer to Harry's age, but politely greeted them all the same.

"Well," she finished with after all that, "I can see you are Lily's nephew, same eyes, though you didn't get her red hair…well, but here I go on and on, and I'm sure the children are bored to tears. Why don't we let them get to know each other and we can…"

"I don't think that's a good idea," Sherlock interrupted, "While social interaction is important for childhood development, forcing Sherrinford to interact with…"

"What Sherlock means," John interrupted quickly, "Is that perhaps six children at once is a bit much for Harry at the moment."

"We'll keep the petrified one and the mute one. Please remove the older screechy ones." And Sherlock smiled politely, while the other adults stared at him.

"Mummy, is it really him?" the smaller redhead boy said into the silence, pulling at his mother's robe, "Why doesn't he want to play?"

"Why don't we let all the four year olds meet each other," John suggested quickly, before Mrs. Weasley could properly react to Sherlock's blunt dismissal of her children, "They'll probably get on better that way."

So somehow, between John and Mycroft, they convinced the woman to take away most of her children except for the smallest boy. It helped that the twin's obviously thought of the other children as 'babies' and that the little girl had decided to latch onto her mother with a death grip. Thankfully, the boy was not at all shy and didn't protest his mother leaving him alone with strangers. Unlike poor Neville who didn't seem to know what to do or where to hide; John had no idea what his grandmother had been thinking. As it turned out, however, Susan and Neville knew each other, and Susan's father got them both to stand calmly next to each other, holding hands.

"Why don't we all sit in a circle," John suggested after a moment of awkward standing, looking particularly at young Ronald who was attempting to peek beneath Sherlock's coat at the boy hiding there.

Harry was finally coaxed out when his hiding place agreed to sit down with the others but still insisted on sitting in Sherlock's lap, his coat arranged so he could duck under it at a moment's notice. John sat down on the floor a bit more reluctantly, even if it was his idea in the first place.

"Well," John said, once they were all sitting and staring at him; he had apparently been somehow elected as leader of this play date, though the only thing he could think of was to suggest a round of names. "My name is John and I'm a doctor. That is a Muggle healer. And…" what would interest four year olds? "And…I like…books on pirates."

"I'm Ronald Bilius Weasley," the red haired boy said next, all enthusiasm and excitement as he completely ignored that it wasn't his turn in the circle, "And I have five big brothers and one baby sister and I'm four and a half, I'm Ron, really, and I'm almost, almost five, and I like dragons, and…"

"Thank you, Ron," John interrupted, "Let's let Susan go now."

"I'm Susan and I live with my dad and I like, I like…I like unicorns."

"Very good. What about you…er…Neville?"

"…"

"His name's Neville Longbottom," Susan said, when Neville didn't do anything more but look anxiously towards the floor, "He's four years old and he lives with his grandma and he likes flowers."

"Boys don't like flowers," Ron insisted scornfully, "That's a stupid girly thing. Tell her you don't like stupid flowers, Nev!"

Neville looked up at last, and to the general surprise of the group stated, "I do like flowers."

"Very good, Neville," John said, giving him a smile which the boy shyly returned, before turning to look at Sherlock. Sherlock had spent the entire time very similarly to Harry, by observing the other children closely.

"My name is Sherlock Holmes," he said to them, "I'm a consulting detective and I like solving crime." The children stared at him.

"What's a con…con…consitting dective?" Ron asked, "Is it a Muggle job?"

"A con-sult-ing de-tec-tive," Sherlock answered carefully, and with surprisingly the same patience he generally used with Harry, "is a person who is called to solve crimes for the police." The children continued to stare at him. "I catch bad people."

"Like…like an error?" Susan asked.

"A bit," Sherlock said, leaving John completely confused, until Sherlock went on, "An au-ror is like the police. I help the police."

"It's a Muggle job?" Ron asked again.

"Alright," John interrupted before the rest of their time was spent with Sherlock teaching the children exactly what it was he did, likely including graphic descriptions of crime scenes, "Now it's Harry's turn. Harry?"

To which Harry, somewhat predictably, hid beneath Sherlock's coat.

"Why's he hiding?" Ron demanded, "He's tiny. Is he a baby? Why doesn't he want to play?"

"Perhaps because he doesn't like you," Sherlock suggested, causing Ron's face to twist into something that could mean either tears or screaming at any moment.

"Some children like to be quiet," John interceded quickly, "Look how quiet Susan and Neville are being."

"I'm quiet," Ron whispered loudly, "I'm a little mouse, quiet. Do you want to play now, Harry?"

Harry, cautiously, peaked out of the coat.

"Go on, Harry," John said encouragingly, "Tell us your favorite thing. See, Susan likes unicorns and Neville likes flowers and Ron likes…er…"

"Dragons," Harry said.

"You like dragons?" John asked, but Harry shook his head.

"Honestly, John, Sherry was helping you. Ronald said he likes dragons. Very good, Sherry."

"Thank you, Harry," John said, "Can you tell us what you like, now?"

"…I'm Sherrinford Harry and I like experiments."

"No you're not; you're Harry Potter," Ron told him, as though he honestly thought Harry needed help to know his own name.

"No!" Harry answered, voice going higher pitched as he clutched tightly to Sherlock's coat, "I'm Sherrinford Harry!"

"Harry Potter!" Ron insisted.

"Sherry!" Harry answered back, crawling forward to assert himself more fully.

"Harry!"

"Sherry!"

"Harry Potter"

"Sherrinford Holmes!"

"Hey, hey!" John intruded, "Hey." Which got both boys to turn and take their argument to him.

"He's Harry Potter and he says he isn't," Ron explained, as though John hadn't been there the entire time, while Harry simply told him, "I'm Sherry Holmes."

"Ronald," Sherlock interjected, "Sherry has two names."

"But…"

"Ronald." Then Ron looked at Sherlock's stern, disapproving features, and burst into tears. At that, Harry suddenly started crying too, and turned to burry himself inside Sherlock's coat. Susan and Neville stared at them, and then Susan leaned over to pat Ron on the back, saying, "There, there."

Sherlock awkwardly made similar motions towards Harry. Both Sherlock and Neville turned identical expressions onto John, asking him to fix this.

"Well," John said, raising his voice in an attempt to be heard over the crying, "Who wants to draw?"

Afterwards, when the other children had been collected by their families, thankfully none of them crying at that particular moment, John was feeling about as worn out as Harry looked.

"Well," Sherlock said, after they let Harry add a star to his chart , after John had fallen exhausted into their bed as he tried to decide which he'd rather face again, Afghanastan or four screaming four-year-olds, after they had washed off the colors that had strayed from paper onto skin, "I think that went rather well."

Afghanistan won.