Chapter Seven; Sibling Rivalry

"Let me get this straight, you're my sister?" Harry questioned with uncertainty. "How is that possible?" he asked.

"Well you see it's a little complicated but I'm actually your half-sister. Mum had me ten years before she married your father." She told him.

"Then who's your father?" he asked her.

"Well, believe it or not Severus Snape." She answered.

"Snape!? He never told me he had a daughter_ come to think of it he never really told me anything except how much he hated my father. Although if he had a child that probably made him hate him even more." Harry said.

"Yeah well I spent the first decade of my life with him and Mum." April began.

"So what was she like?" Harry asked her.

"Oh she was the best mother that I could ever ask for. She was always there to help me out with my problems, and she was very funny and had a great singing voice. Whenever I got upset she would either tell me a joke or sing me a song and it would make me feel a lot better. I kept most of the songs that she wrote actually." She explained.

"My wife's a singer too, and she's about to have a baby." Harry told her.

"Gee that's great Harry, you're going to be a father and I'm going to be an aunt!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"Yeah, fantastic." Harry responded.

"What's wrong Harry? You don't seem all that excited about it." She said.

"It's kind of a long story, but what I want to know is how did you escape?" he asked her when all of a sudden her face grew awful pale and Harry suddenly realized that he must have offended her. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to bring back all the painful memories." He told her.

"No that's alright, I completely understand why you would want to know. Well the night that Voldemort (Harry was surprised that she used his full name) came to our house I had gone out to search for our cat. He was a black and white one named Cosmo and awfully cute. He had gone missing for several days and Mum had gotten concerned about him. I found him down the street inside a muggle village. He had got hit by a car.

Anyway when I got back the house was a mess, and that's when I found our parents dead inside the house. I rushed over to your room to make sure that you were safe. When I saw that you were alive I bent down to you and reassured you that everything was going to be alright in a soothing voice trying to calm your tears. I didn't think that you were old enough to understand all that or who I was but I loved so you much and I thought that it was my job to see that you were protected.

Then just as I glanced down at the scar upon your forehead my father entered the room and he told me that he found my mother's corpse and wanted to know what had happened to her. I could tell that he was trying so hard to keep it together.

I told him that I didn't know but that I needed to stay here to make sure that you were alright. That's when he told me that Hagrid would be by to pick you up and take you to your aunt and uncle's. I just assumed that meant that you were going to be fine so I left to spend the rest of my life with him. That is until I got old enough to go and move out on my own." She explained. "So that's how it happened." She added as Harry simply just looked at her.

"You don't believe me do you?" she asked him.

"No, it isn't that. It's just that it's hard to believe that all these years I had a sister." He said feeling his voice start to crack before she embraced him tightly once again.

"I know, and I really didn't think that I would ever see you again. But at least we're together now." She told him.

"Right." Harry said while he hugged her back and blinked away his tears.

…

"Harry sure has been gone an awful long time." Ginny began as they all exited the building together. "He missed the rest of the party." She finished.

Ron (who had recently gotten back from the hospital) reached down to pick his daughter up and held her up to his hip. "So what are you going to do?" he asked her.

"I'm going to text him and make sure he's alright then I'm going to find out where she's at." She answered as she dug out her phone.

"Well c'mon then Rosie, we better get you home and ready for your nap." Ron told her.

"No nap." She told him firmly.

"Yes you need your nap because I need one too. I've had to manage your birthday party and help your mother deliver your brother all on the same day and I'm exhausted." He said.

"Then this probably won't make it much better." Ginny began. "Harry just texted me back and told me that he found his long lost sister." She told him as Ron rolled his eyes.

"Good lord help him now." He said before carrying Sheela out into the parking lot.

The next couple of days flew by for Ron and Hermione. Pretty soon the day arrived for Hermione and Chase to come home from the hospital. Both Ron and Hermione were both very eager to see what their daughter would think of the situation.

Unfortunately for them it went worse than they both expected. Sure Sheela seemed excited when her mother and baby brother first arrived during suppertime, but she wasn't very thrilled about the fact that her bedtime needed to be cut short because of the fact that her baby brother needed a lot more of their attention.

Then the following week when she started preschool everything started getting worse. Everyday her mother would drop her off and pick her up, and every day she would show up with the baby and all of the kids would start paying more attention to him than to Sheela and pretty soon she started to feel like everyone was ignoring her purposely. That's when she really started getting angry and having major temper tantrums that would cause things to happen.

One day when Chase was taking his nap she (accidentally) magically caused the music on the television set to become so loud that the neighbors from a crossed the street could hear it. The baby awoke instantly and started to scream his tiny little lungs off. Ron rushed to the TV to turn it down while Hermione rushed to go comfort their son.

Sheela thought that she would at least get some attention by getting yelled at by her parents for waking up the baby, but yet again she went unnoticed and ignored. She wished that she didn't even have a little brother anymore, she wished that he never would have been born, and most importantly she wished that her parents still loved her. If there was only a way to make him disappear forever, she would be the happiest little girl on the planet.

One night she had been staying over her Uncle Harry's and Aunt Ginny's house (April had been there visiting too) because her parents had gone to get Chase Christened and they agreed to stay home and watch her. After her uncle Harry had finished reading to her The Tale of The Three Brothers, she asked him a question that had been lingering on her mind for weeks.

"Uncle Harry?" she questioned.

"Yeah?" he questioned her back.

"How do you make somebody disappear? I mean what spell do you use?" she asked him as Harry laughed.

"Let me guess, this is about your brother isn't it?" he questioned her as she drew back her lips and pouted while blinking up at him innocently looking like she was going to cry.

"I hate my stupid dumb baby brother! Mummy and Daddy don't care about me anymore, all they care about is that stinky dumb baby and all he does is cry, eat, sleep, and poop!" she snapped angrily as Harry laughed again. "It isn't funny!" she spat.

"I'm sorry Sheela but you know you were a baby too once, and you couldn't do a lot of things that you can do now. You took up a lot of your Mummy's and Daddy's attention just like Chase is doing now. But that doesn't mean that they don't care about you anymore. Your Mummy and Daddy love you very much, and you know what you're very lucky to have them because I don't have any." He explained.

"Why not?" she asked him.

"Well I guess I do have them but they're up in Heaven." He told her.

"Oh." She responded when suddenly Ginny walked inside the room.

"Yeah and your baby brother is lucky too because he's going to need a big sister around to watch out for him, and help teach him how to walk, talk, and ride a trike." She told her.

"And use the potty." She added as they both laughed.

"Your aunt's right, Chase is going to look up to you I guarantee it. Because he loves you very much. You're his big sister." Harry told her.

"And no matter what or who they are, families need to stick together." Ginny added.

"Thank you, I feel much better now." Sheela said. "Maybe I like Chase a little bit more than I thought I did." She admitted.

"Alright then, so we read your story, and you brushed your teeth and you have your nappy on for overnight. I think that pretty much covers it." Harry began before he got up off of the side of the bed and placed the book back on the bookshelf while Ginny pulled the covers up over her.

"Alright Sheela, time to go to sleep. Your mummy and daddy will peak in on you when they get home." She told her before she turned off the light and kissed her goodnight. "Have a goodnight sleep sweetie." She whispered as she smiled down at her warmly before she and Harry left the room quietly shutting the door behind them.