Chapter Nine; Homework Time
Harry breathed a deep and heavy sigh. "Alright, let's try this again and take it from the top." He began. "I start my minute long drum solo before Neville kicks in with the keyboard and then Ron it's your turn to play a few chords before Ginny starts to sing. Now, do you think that you can handle that?" he questioned.
"Oh c'mon Harry, can't we give it a rest? We've been at it for hours and my fingers are exhausted. If they strum and pick at the strings too much longer I'm afraid that they'll fall off." Ron said.
"There aren't many chances that I get to say this but Ron's right." Ginny began. "Can't we take a break?" she inquired.
"Listen guys, I know that this is frustrating but we have to rehearse until our fingers bleed if we stand a chance at beating The Dragonettes." Harry told them.
"Good. They're already bleeding. I'm calling it quits and throwing in the towel or however the heck that old saying goes." Ron said while he removed his guitar.
"Yeah and if we hurry, maybe we can still have a chance to go to Disneyland with the others." Ginny said while she, Ron, and Neville started heading towards the door.
"Wait guys! You're really not going to leave me here all alone by myself are you!?" Harry cried but it was already too late since all three of them disapparated just as Aaron and Brittany were walking through the door. Harry breathed another deep and heavy sigh while Brittany carried Danny's car seat towards the restrooms so that she could go change his diaper. That's when suddenly Aaron walked over to Harry.
"Are you alright Harry?" he asked him.
"What does it look like?" Harry questioned him back while he propped his elbow up on top of his drum and rested his head on top of his palm. "My girlfriend and two of my best friends just left me by myself so that they could go to Disneyland." He told him.
"Well, can you really blame them?" Aaron asked.
"No." Harry began miserably. "But Aaron, we're here in Las Angeles for the greatest wizarding music competition in the world. If we stand a chance at winning that means that we'll have to rehearse and by that I mean doing lots of it." He told him.
"Listen Harry, I know that this competition means a lot to you, but maybe you should go easy on them. There's no sense in making them work when they're tired and frustrated. That's only just going to push them away." Aaron said before Harry took a deep breath.
"You're right. Maybe I'll go see and if I catch up with them." He said before he got to his feet.
"Alright see you later Harry. We would have stayed longer ourselves but we had to come back here so that Danny could take his afternoon nap. Maybe we'll run into you down at the pool. That baby really loves the water. In fact, I always thought that's where he was the happiest. That is, until I saw the look on his face when Cinderella talked to him today." He told him with a grin as Harry stifled a laugh.
"Isn't he a little too young for stuff like that?" he questioned. "I mean, shouldn't you wait until he's at least out of pampers before you let him get a girlfriend of his own?" he asked him as Aaron grinned back at him and chuckled.
"Oh yeah, don't worry. He won't be allowed to date any girls until his graduation ceremony at Hogwarts." Aaron assured him while Harry continued grinning at him before he turned around and walked away.
….
Snape took Tobey, Eve, Teddy, and Heather upstairs to their hotel room to start working on their homework. That's when all of a sudden Heather let out a rather large groan of frustration. "What's wrong Heather?" Eve (who was busy writing her potions essay) asked her little sister out of concern.
"This is way too hard! How am I supposed to know how muggles impact the wizarding world!?" she cried while she quickly threw down her quill.
"Alright, just take a deep breath and relax." Eve told her as the little girl suddenly filled her lungs with air. "Good." She said. "But you can let it out now, you're already starting to turn colors and it looks like you've been hit with a color changing charm." She told her with a tiny little giggle. "Anyway, it's like I told Jerry, just because our family is made up of witches and wizards doesn't mean that we use magic for everything." She said.
"That's because we can't. You're not allowed to do magic outside school yet except for homework, and I'm not even in Hogwarts yet!" Heather exclaimed before Eve giggled again.
"So? Even when we're adult witches I doubt that we'll use magic for everything. I mean look at Harry, he's past the age of seventeen and a lot of the times he prefers to drive his car instead of disapparating and apparating or using the floo network." She told her.
"Yes but he still loves riding his broomstick and all of the dragons that he works with." She said.
"Yes but he really only does that for fun. A lot of the places that we travel to are in a muggle related community like where we are right now. Right here in Las Angeles. So that's one way that muggles impact the wizarding community through their inventions." Eve told her.
"Okay, thanks." She said before she picked up her quill again and wrote that down. "How do you spell inventions?" she asked her.
"Here Heather, go ahead and use my quill. It's spellcheck." Eve told her while she handed her quill over to her.
"Thanks Evie." Heather said while she grabbed ahold of it and started writing it down.
"And don't forget, if wizards and witches weren't allowed to interact with muggles, then I would have never met Jerry." Eve told her.
"Yeah, but not all witches and wizards want to." Teddy pointed out.
"That's because they're too arrogant and ignorant about their blood status to care about them. Luckily, I don't know too many witches and wizards that are." His father told him while Heather finished writing down inventions and started jotting down interaction and socializing.
