The cheerful sound of whistling echoes throughout the Wexlers’ new house, bouncing off the walls of the still mostly-empty rooms, and rising up to the second floor, and even the tiny tower room. The focus of the bright music, though, is Sibyl Wexler, bustling heavily but contentedly around the living room, studying it from every angle – and, occasionally, from a lower angle, as she takes a break to rest in the large squashy chair that sits in the middle of the room, one of the few pieces of furniture that has been moved in. But then she is up again, poking into the corners of the room. Occasionally, the cheerful rhythm of the music is broken up by a considering murmur from Sibyl: “Blue? Hm, with white trim, perhaps? No, maybe green…”

Striding in with his arms full of wallpaper and what looks to several wall poster, Basil drops them all onto a table that has been set up in the center of the room. “Which is for what?” he asks, looking quite perplexed at all of it, and as a snitch darts across one roll, he frowns. “I thought we told Briony no Quidditch paper.” He brandishes the roll at Sibyl, too seemingly distracted to figure out whether it is a poster or is, indeed, a roll of wallpaper. “I liked the green better, “he comments quietly and comes over to her, leaning down to kiss her gently.

“It’s just a poster, love,” Sibyl replies soothingly, tilting her head up to return the kiss. “And do you really think the green would be better? Here, look – ” She reaches down to fish through her voluminous robes for a moment, and pulls out her wand. Pointing it at the wall with the fireplace, Sibyl murmurs two quick incantations – and one half of the wall turns dark blue, and the other forest green, leaving the fireplace and mantel white. “I think I like the blue…” The color starts to fade after only a few seconds, but it is long enough to get a sense of what it would look like.

Pulling his wand out and pointing to the wall, Basil turns around once, surveying the room. “I was thinking more like this.” He waves his wand and a splash of color goes in stripes against the blue in a much lighter green, almost a muted heather color. “That’ll make it less dark in here, I think,” he comments. Realizing her comment about the quidditch print he shakes his head. “Whatever got her interested in Quidditch, I’ll never understand. It’s just so dangerous.” He sighs a bit. “Is she playing next year?” he asks, holding his wand out stil to sustain the color on the walls.

“Hm….” Sibyl muses, and tilts her head to consider the stripes. She raises her own wand again and makes a gesture of her own – the muted green lines narrow, and split, making a thinner, lighter pattern across the blue background. “There,” she says, with a satisfied smile. “How does that look?” Sibyl wriggles forward in her chair and pulls herself up, taking a few steps forward to get a closer look at the pattern before it fades away again. “I don’t know if she’s playing next year,” Sibyl continues, a little absently. “I know she wants to, but it depends on how her final examinations go. If she can’t keep her marks up, she won’t be playing again.”

“Maybe with a lighter blue,” Basil comments, drawing his wand along the way of each of the blue stripes to light them just slightly to match the green that he has put up there. “Much better,” he comments and smiles a bit while waving his wand to set the colors so that he no longer has to hold them with his wand. Turning to Sibyl again he sighs a bit. “I’d rather she didn’t play anyway. It’s just… so dangerous.” His comment does repeat itself with little difference from the last time he said it, but he seems to mean it just as fervently.

“Oh, perfect!” Sibyl cries, giving her husband a merry grin and a kiss on the cheek in response to his smile. “Yes, that’s going to look lovely!” And then Sibyl sighs, her own smile softening sympathetically, and slips her arm comfortingly through Basil’s. “I know, love,” she murmurs. “I’m the one to put all the children back together, when they get hurt. And I spend every match hoping that our Briony won’t be among them. But she hasn’t yet, and she loves it.” Fervor intensifies Sibyl‘s voice, even though her tone is still soft and soothing. “And she’s good, too,” she adds, with a ring of pride. “We’ll see how her marks are after this year,” Sibyl continues, giving her husband’s arm a gentle squeeze. “If she can’t pay attention to school and Quidditch, then…” She leaves the sentence unfinished, but the tilt of her head and the warning lift of her eyebrows imply the way it would have ended.

“She’d better be paying attention,” he comments and shakes his head a bit, glancing around the room. “I suppose we’ll have to fix the furniture to match,” he comments, glancing around at it all. “Maybe, er, tan?” he comments, not sounding entirely sure as he sits down on the furniture which is broken in quite well. Seemingly out of the blue he sighs and leans back. “I’m not sure how I’m going to get used to being home all day. At least the kids won’t be with Eva all day anymore.” Basil stretches back and looks around. “So, tan, do you think?”

“Mm. Perhaps,” Sibyl replies. With a sigh, she eases herself down onto the sofa next to Basil, and leans back, reaching out to wrap her hand around his. “You’ll find things to do. I know you will, love. The time fills up, when you’re taking care of the children and the house – sometimes without you even realizing it.” Sibyl stretches her feet out in front of her, and tilts her head to follow her husband’s gaze around the room. “Maybe tan, for some of the furniture. And some in green, to match the stripes?” She points to the large, squashy chair that she had been sitting in before. “I think that one would look lovely in green.”

“Sure,” Basil agrees, squeezing Sibyl’s hand. He pauses quietly, looking around the room. “It’s not the same as the house in Abbey Orchard.” Is this perhaps a bit of nostalgia from the man as he glances around at the walls with their partially affixed stripes. “I suppose I should have taken up your offer to teach me better cooking techniques when you wanted to teach me before,” he finally admits, glancing over to her. “I’m afraid I’m not very good at it.” Shaking his head, it almost seems as if Basil is having second thoughts about his change of employment.

“You pick that up pretty quickly too,” Sibyl replies comfortably, giving her husband’s hand another reassuring squeeze. “And I’ll be home all summer, so we can work on it together. I’m sure you’ll learn how to cook in no time – half of it is following recipes, and I know you’ll be good at that. Always so careful and exact.” Her smile softens fondly, and she shifts her weight on the couch, leaning closer to Basil and further back against the cushions. “We can see if any of the children want to help, too. I doubt Briony would stay still long enough to listen, of course.” Sibyl looks briefly heavenward, with a grin of affectionate exasperation. “But Alden and Alice might like learning to cook. Good practice for their Potions classes, too, really.” Her hand tightens around her husband’s again, and she adds, more softly, “You’re going to do fine, Basil. I know you will.”

“Briony’s little friend is going to be in Hogsmeade this summer, she said, so I don’t expect we’ll see any more of her this summer than last.” Basil shakes his head and slyly rolls his eyes. “She’s just like Eva that way. I’m still not sure how that’s even possible.” With a sigh, he shakes his head again. “It’ll do Alice and Alden some good, at least. Alden won’t be able to stay in the tower all the time.” Another pause and he looks at Sibyl with a smile. “I’m sure I’ll get used to it… I don’t know how you ever did it.” He pauses. “Maybe I can do my work by correspondence, and … take them with me on research assignments.”

Sibyl‘s only response to Basil’s observations about Briony is another comfortable, affectionate laugh, and a shake of her own head. “I know you’ll be able to do it,” she repeats, a little more seriously. “I think taking them on your research assignments is a fine idea. Finding little trips and things to take with the children is one way to pass the time, and to keep their minds – and your own – sharp.” Sibyl sighs, leaning farther back, as she muses, “It’s both harder and easier than you think, staying home with the children. I don’t know how I did it at first, but I got through it – and I was much younger and more foolish than we are now, when I left nursing to stay home with Briony.”

“I wonder if they’d let me do that,” Basil comments, leaning back. “Or…” The man’s face lights up as if he has thought of something brilliant. “Well, I doubt they’d let me back on since I quit like I did, and so quickly, but what if we wrote our own newspaper, Alden, Alice and me?” He looks to Sibyl with wide eyes. “We could send it to my family and to yours, or at least our parents, and keep everyone updated on things. It could be a way of writing letters almost.” He sits up, the fervor that often fired him up in his early days of journalism returning to his face after years of absence.

Sibyl knows that smile, and her own grows wider and warmer as she watches her husband’s face light up with enthusiasm. “That is an absolutely wonderful idea,” she pronounces. “The perfect thing to do! I can’t wait to read it. Truly, I can’t! I’ve missed so much of what’s been going on with the little ones, and this way, I’ll be able to know everything about what they’re doing. And once I start leaving this little one home for longer times,” Sibyl adds, giving her rounded belly a light pat, as her bright eyes shade towards wistfulness, “I’ll be able to keep up on what it’s doing, too.”

“Well, it can’t help all that much, I imagine,” Basil answers quickly, putting his hands on his knees. “But we’ll likely to be able to get the out weekly, if not more than that, and it will be good learning for them. Perhaps Alden will choose a career at the Prophet, or go on to do that Wireless thing that’s catching on so well, and he’ll rise to the top of his rank, and…” Basil trails off, “We can call it the Wexler Weekly, and create artwork for it, a specific design, everything. They’ll learn all about how a paper is created.” He leans back with a rather rapturous look on his face.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting the little one to contribute personally,” Sibyl laughs, giving her husband a playful nudge. “Just that you’d write about it.” As Basil starts to get caught up in his enthusiasm, Sibyl falls silent, letting him speak, and just watches, a warm, affectionate smile spreading her face as she watches her husband. “We’ll start this summer,” she offers. “So that Alden can have a chance to help before he goes off to school. And then you and Alice can keep it up after the term starts. Unless you’d like to keep Alden on as a traveling correspondent?” Sibyl is only half-joking – even though her tone is light, there is a core of honest interest and encouragement as she speaks about her husband’s new project.

“Oh, right. Right.” Basil shrugs as Sibyl points this out, seeming to let it roll off of him for the time being. “Oh, right, Alden is off to school, isn’t he? Hmm. Well, I suppose it could be Alice who goes into the Prophet after all.” The man shrugs again and smiles warmly to his wife. “I don’t know that he’ll have time to be a correspondent when he’s supposed to be worked on his studies. He isn’t to distract himself any more than Briony is.” He says this quite firmly and turns a bit on the couch to face her more closely. “It will still be good, though. Alice can help me copy things down and she’ll learn just as well.” He nods as he says this, though the inspiration does seem somewhat diminished as his team is lessened by this realization.

“Of course she will,” Sibyl agrees, lifting her head in unconscious defense of her youngest daughter. “Alice has a good head on her shoulders – I’m sure she’ll take to it. And if it turns out that it isn’t to her taste, well, at least she’ll have had a chance to try. They all will. And I’m sure that Alden will be very conscientious in his studies.” Sibyl glances up, as if her son were already in the tower room that had been reserved for him, and smiles fondly. “He’s going to do wonderfully.”

“He ought to for the amount of time he spends reading books. He doesn’t play with Eva’s kids the way Alice has been, so he ought to at last do well for the schoolwork.” Basil chuckles as he says this, leaning back on the couch and reaching his arm up over Sibyl as he turns a bit toward her. He reaches out tentatively and leans his hand on her belly. He almost seems as if he’s afraid, just as he had been with Briony, but this time, there’s more excitement and perhaps a bit of calm there, even. “Do you think it’s a girl or a boy?”

Sibyl leans comfortably back into the circle of her husband’s arm. “It won’t break if you touch it,” she says, as she has so many times before, with a soft, murmuring laugh. “And neither will I. And I haven’t any idea, really. It hasn’t given me any indication of what it might be. I still think that another boy would be nice, to make two of each, but I can’t be sure. And I don’t really like ask anyone to use Divination for something like this. I like surprises,” she finishes contentedly, lifting her own hand to cover her husband’s, spreading her fingers out across the wide rounded arch of her belly.

“Oh, Divination is mostly horsehockey anyway. The “seers” we had at the Prophet had no idea what they were talking about. Most of them predicted Diagon Alley would self-implode at least once a week, or else that all muggles would miraculously gain magical ability.” Basil sighs as he says this, rubbing his hand idly over her belly. “I hope it’s a boy, too. Alden’s told me no less than five times to make sure that it’s a boy. I don’t think he quite understands.” Basil chuckles as he says this. “I suppose I’ll have to explain it to him again. He still keeps telling me that girls are gross and he’s never going to want to marry one.” A pause. “You don’t think he means that, do you?”

“He’s young, and he quarrels with his sisters,” Sibyl reassures her husband. She lets her head tilt back and lets out a contented sigh under the soothing motion of Basil’s hand, and lets her own hand slip off, coming to rest on his arm as she continues, “You probably didn’t have a very high opinion of girls at his age, either. And I know I didn’t want to spend any more time around boys than I absolutely had to.” Sibyl smiles, and even though her eyes have drifted shut, her voice is still clear and alert. “When the time is right, he’ll like girls.”

“Well, no…” Basil admits, but then frowns. “But if you consider that Eva was all I had to go by, it’s no wonder I didn’t want anything to do with them.” He sighs audibly as he says this, but then reaches up and runs his fingers over Sibyl’s face. “But you’re not like Eva at all.” For Basil, this seems to be the highest possible compliment he can give. “I’m sure he’ll come around and find someone almost as good as his mother.” Basil still blushes as he says this, even after years of being married, he still has ‘newlywed’ moments.

She’s entirely ignored Basil’s comments about his own sister, but at the last compliment, a soft chuckle sounds, low in Sibyl‘s throat, and her smile broadens, and her eyes open long enough to catch the slight pinkening of her husband’s face. “You’re sweet,” she pronounces, lifting her head to plant a light kiss on his cheek, and then leaning back again. “Alden will turn out all right, because he’s got a good father whose example he can follow.” She lifts her hand to catch Basil’s in hers, twining her fingers through his for a moment, and then letting them slip away.

“I’m just honest, is all,” he tells her softly, drawing his hand down over her hair and smiling happily. “And if Alden’s got any brains in his head, then he’ll know that’s all he needs to get someone who he doesn’t deserve.” Sighing, he leans in and kisses her cheek gently. “Let’s hope he catches the lesson, though.” With a chuckle, he looks out into the room. “Merlin, it’s so big. I don’t know what we’re going to do, just Alice and the baby and me in this huge house. Why didn’t we get that tiny one closer into town? At least I wouldn’t feel like we’re wasting the space.” Basil begins to sound like a bit of an old woman as he says this, though it contrasts quite greatly with his face.

“Because when we’re all home on holiday, we’d be tripping over each other and getting our spells crossed and being utterly miserable,” Sibyl declares with absolute confidence. “And with all this space, we can have Christmas here.” Sibyl opens her eyes, and lifts her head to look around at the wide expanse of floor stretching from the living room through the dining room. “We can easily fit my family in here – maybe even some of yours, too. That’s what we’ll do with the space,” Sibyl concludes, lying back again, with a slightly dreamy note in her voice now. “When you have space, you can fill it with people.”

“We can go to my mum’s house if we want to see my family; I’d much rather have yours.” He shakes his head and laughs a bit, leaning back and leaning his head atop hers. “It’s been a little while since we saw your brother, anyway. Is he married yet, or does he still want you to fight his fights for him?” Clearly, Basil hasn’t been paying quite as much attention as he ought into family matters. “Oh, I guess we should have Gil over. Kalika’s expecting anytime now, I guess. I have to say, there are far too many Wexlers already; I figure this one will get overshadowed by its many cousins.” He sighs as he says this, the romantic thoughts having clearly slipped out of his mind now in favor of family thoughts.

A gentle, reproachful nudge is Sibyl‘s first answer to Basil’s question about her brother – still defending him, even as she says, “He’s doing quite well, thank you! And no, not married yet, but doing very well for himself. We’ll have him and my sisters up for Christmas. And yes, we can have a few of your brothers over, too. One at a time, if you prefer,” she adds, with a soft laugh. Sibyl tilts her head to the side, nestling closer to her husband as he leans in towards her. “But after the little one is born. And I’m sure it will do just fine with its cousins. No matter how many cousins there are by then…”

“Well, I just wanted to know, that’s all,” Basil defends himself, shrugging, though there is a grin on his face. “I just wanted to know if you should still be looking after him like at school. Do you think Briony’ll do that for Alden?” He pauses. “I should hope not. I’m sure I taught him to stick up for himself better than that.” A half-shrug comes from him and he sighs a bit. “Why do they have to grow up and go away, and do dangerous things? I mean, who knows how many things Briony could blow up by trying things she oughtn’t. And that Quidditch. I’m pleased that Alice doesn’t seem to want to do it. I don’t think either of them would like very much getting hit by a bludger.” He shakes his head at the thought of it, which clearly doesn’t please him. Always back to the Quidditch, as well.

“I should hope they’ll look out for each other,” Sibyl retorts, with just the slightest pointed note in her voice as she looks back up at Basil. When her husband resumes his familiar, fretful litany, Sibyl lets out a soft sigh of her own, and pats his hand again. “And they’ll look out for themselves. I hope our Briony won’t get hurt either, and I know how reckless she can be sometimes, but she’ll learn. We did,” she points out gently, with a little mischievous twinkle in her eyes now. “Potions mishaps, Transfigurations gone wrong…”

“Just… hopefully she won’t blow up the kitchen or something.” He shrugs and sighs as he says this, running his hand up and down her arm gently. He stops about the Quidditch for now, though. “We ought to see about making the table a little bigger for the dining room. It’ll fit now, full size, and except this one here,” he pats Sibyl’s stomach as he says this, “Everyone can reach it at full height anyway.” He chuckles as he says this. “I expect Alice is about to have another spurt. She’s done that thing where they get a little round before they grow really fast. Remember when Briony did that right before she went off to school?” He pauses. “Well, of course you do.” Basil shakes his head as he says this and smiles a bit, clearly having put the thoughts of danger out of his head for the moment.

“I do,” Sibyl replies contentedly. Now that her husband’s moment of anxiety seems to be passing, Sibyl lets herself relax a little more – there is no need to steady Basil, and no need to be on guard. “She shot right up, and I’m sure Alice will do the same. And I’m sure Alden’s getting taller, too – he’s almost up past my shoulder now. We’ll need to get new robes for all of them. Although Alice might be able to use Briony’s old school robes when it’s her turn. If there are any that Briony hasn’t put holes in,” Sibyl adds, with an affectionate laugh.

“I doubt that, really,” Basil comments with a rueful shake of his head. “Maybe if Alden’s not too big when he starts, she can use his robes from first year, but I doubt Briony will have any that are really salvagable.” He pauses. “And you know how much she hates hand-me-downs as it is; I’d rather not give her any that have been patched or look too worn.” It seems that Basil has been paying attention over the years after all. “She actually complained at me for it when she put on one of Briony’s old dresses and it was too wide for her. I guess I never realized that Briony was a bit, er, larger… I guess, than Alice.” He shrugs. It is, perhaps, a good thing that he has never noticed this.

“She complained at you?” Sibyl repeats, her voice rising a note or two in surprise and concern. “Oh, dear. Well, we’ll have to make more of an effort to get her a few new things this year. It will be tight – but with two of them just needing school-uniform robes instead of all sorts of new clothes, maybe we’ll have a few more Galleons left over to get Alice some new dresses. It’s hard on her being the youngest, I suppose – so few new things, the others always having gotten there first…” Sibyl trails off, grinning as she corrects herself, “Well, she won’t be the youngest for long. But that won’t make a difference in clothes, really.”

“Well, she did mention it once or twice, especially when I dug out some more of Briony’s old dresses. I think she might like it better if she had some new things of her own.” Basil shrugs a bit. “I imagine some of my brothers might’ve felt the same, since they got my own hand-me-downs.” After a pause, he retracts this statement. “Actually, only Logan did, because by the time he was done with them, they were too worn to go to Jared, Gilbert or Freddie. I don’t think Logan ever complained to me, though.” He shrugs and reaches up, running his fingers down over Sibyl’s hair. “I’ll do some features for the Prophet if I need to this summer. Then we won’t have to worry about it. We’ve paid for most of this house already, plus with our savings. I’m sure we could put off the vacation another year or so…” He sighs. “I’m sure we can manage it.” It seems fateful that Alice and Alden should both come tearing into the house, giggling between themselves. “Dad, have you got the paper? Briony told us you got posters for the walls, too… did you really? Do I have to have Quidditch posters in my room, really?” Alice chimes, coming to stop rather breathlessly near the couch where her parents sit cozily, Alden close on her heels. Briony comes tearing in just a moment later, laughing louder than the two previous had combined. “You cheated!” she calls, and this echoes through the whole of the house.

“We’ll manage,” Sibyl agrees, giving her husband’s hand another reassuring pat, and leaning her head into his hand, smiling at the affectionate gesture. And then – the storm hits. With a sigh of fond, amused exasperation, as her children go tearing through the still-empty rooms of the new house, Sibyl hauls herself into a more upright sitting position, calling out, “Slow down!” Despite her contented serenity of a few moments before, Sibyl juggles her children’s questions with a sudden, efficient ease. “Yes, we’ve got the paper, and yes, Briony may have whatever she likes on her side of the room and you may have whatever you like on yours, Alice, and Briony, careful, there’s going to be a table right where you just ran through, so don’t get too used to doing that!”

“Oh, really? But she doesn’t even live here most of the time? Can’t she put them at school?” Alice sighs loudly as Sibyl tells her this and seems resigned to it. Briony scoffs from her side of the room, but shrugs. “I’m going to go upstairs and pick my side of the room now. Last one up’s a rotten egg!” With that loud exclaimation, her footsteps are heard tromping up the stairs, while her brother and sister both protest. “No fair! You got a head start!” and they also make their way upward. Basil looks at Sibyl with raised eyebrows. “Do you see what you’ve left me to? The lion’s den…” He looks over his shoulder at the now-departed children, trying, momentarily to ignore the shouts and giggles from atop the stairs until he hears a rather loud thud and a shriek. “Oh, no.” His voice is rather flat as he says this and he closes his eyes. “I suppose we’d better go take care of that. Would you like some help up the stairs?”

“Oh no,” Sibyl says, almost in unison with her husband, and her eyes take on the alert, watchful look of the professional nurse. “Yes and yes,” she says quickly, already starting to wriggle herself forward, struggling out of the deep, soft cushions of the couch. “Oof. And a hand up, too, I think,” Sibyl sighs, reaching out to brace herself against her husband’s arm. “You’ll manage on your own, love – oof! I know you will,” she continues, her comforting words starting to be broken up by little grunts of effort as she starts to push herself up. “But better to – oof! – take advantage of it while we’re both here.”

Basil helps her up, and slips one arm around her as the two of them make their way toward the stairs. Though it is not their usual way of walking together, Basil seems to be doing just fine at helping her and slowly helps her toward and up the stairs. They disappear out of sight to deal with whatever it is that has happened upstairs, going about the usual family way of things, though perhaps in a more subdued and pleasant mood than might usually be.

Other Interesting Logs:

• House Hunting in Hogsmeade
• Home for a Holiday
• Licorice, Licorice, Chocolate and Licorice
• A Joyous Surprise
• Sorting Day: Olivia’s Perspective