Chapter 21
A Boy Who Need Help
Disclaimer: Everything in Harry Potter universe belongs to J.K. Rowling. I got nothing out of this except for enjoyment.
Harry got up on the following morning, and he felt good about last night, although there had been a slight hassle on the relationships between him and Hermione, it was easily resolved.
After breakfast, he sat down, and began to read his school books.
One hour later, he stopped reading, and then Hermione came in.
"Hi Harry," she said.
"Hi Hermione," Harry said. "I had just finished reading my schoolbooks."
Hermione moved closer to him.
"What did you do just now, Hermione?" he asked.
"I was just staying in my room, doing nothing for a while," she said. "Then I felt bored, so I came into your room."
Harry beamed at her.
"Why don't you sit down?" he asked.
Hermione sat down, and she looked at him.
He looked back at her, deciding that it would do no good to say anything that might upset her, he didn't want to ruin his relationship with her. He knew that he had other people to choose from, but he also knew that there was only one person who will fit him.
He really hoped that he could say something to impress her, but at the moment he didn't really know what he should say. In fact, the request for dating and the words of proposal could wait.
As he was thinking, Dan entered, and they looked up.
"I and Emma had been talking to Sirius yesterday," he said.
"We heard part of it," Hermione said immediately.
"No offence," Dan said. "We will discuss this when Sirius and Emma gets back."
/Scene Break/
Emma arrived back at half past three, and she sat down on the sofa in the living room, feeling exhausted.
"Is the construction complete, Emma?" Dan asked.
"The construction will be completed some time next week," Emma answered.
Sirius arrived back at about half past five.
"It was such a busy day," he said as he sat down.
Dinner had gone very quietly, and as soon as everyone finished their meals, Emma was doing the dishes, and Harry and Hermione went into the living room.
Harry knew that some day, his future would be bright, he imagined that he would be with the bushy haired, brunette girl beside him, the one who had been standing at his side.
Fifteen minutes later, Emma entered the living room.
Dan whispered something to Sirius, and then Sirius nodded and got up from the sofa.
"Harry, please follow me into another room for a bit," he said.
Harry followed Sirius into another room, and they sat down.
"Harry," Sirius said. "How long have you been friends with Hermione?"
"Ever since Halloween in my first year at Hogwarts," Harry replied.
"Do you like her?" Sirius asked.
"Yes," Harry said. "I haven't asked her out yet."
"And when are you planning on doing this?" asked Sirius.
"At the end of this school year," Harry said. "I need to focus on my grades."
Sirius could see that Harry was serious about his grades.
"Having a good grade does count, but it is only in part," he said. "How are your grades now?"
"Pretty decent, I should say," Harry said.
"Well, what's the reason for you to avoid asking her out? Anyway, you don't have to think about dating her solely based on your grades," Sirius said. "She would certainly not want someone with clumsy grades, but do you think someone like her would want a guy with good grades but bad character?"
Harry shook his head.
"And as you told me that your grades are decent as of now, why are you considering asking her later than sooner?" he asked. "Does asking her out interfere with your study?"
Harry pondered this question in his head for a moment.
He realised that the exams were still a few months away, and he had been studying quite hard, and asking her out does not really interfere with his study.
"I will ask her out soon," he said. "But I want to ask her out when we are alone."
"Fair enough," Sirius said.
/Scene Break/
As soon as Harry and Hermione got back to school on the day before the new term started, they made their way to the common room, and they saw Joshua and Joyce, as well as a few others.
"How was your holiday, Harry?" John Lemus asked.
"Good," Harry said.
"You better study hard," John said. "You will need to pass your exams so that you can take Ultimate Wizarding Standard subjects."
"I will," Harry said.
Just then, a boy entered the room, he has long hair and blue eyes.
"Harry, this is Joel Ramos," Joshua said.
"Hi Joel," Harry said, and they shook hands.
"How is your holiday, Harry?" Joel asked.
"Good, what about yours?" Harry asked.
"Not too bad," Joel said.
At half past five Harry and Hermione made their way down to the hall for dinner.
They ate dinner in silence, and after they had finished, they went back to the common room.
A moment later, more students arrived in the common room, and sat down.
"Oh shoot," a boy with golden hair said in a soft voice. "I haven't finished my homework yet."
"What did you do in your holidays, Roy?" Joyce asked.
"I had guests arrived at my house and gave me some gifts, such as Legos, remote control cars, etc, I was playing with them." Roy said. "I also went to the gym several times a week, and I kept on forgetting to do my homework, I remembered my homework on Saturday, and I started to do them, but I didn't finish all of them, and then I forgot to do my homework again until now."
"Did your parents ask you about your homework?" Joyce asked.
"No they didn't," Roy said.
"You better do it tonight, Roy," Joyce said.
Roy didn't say anything else, he pulled out his homework, and started to do it.
At nine o'clock, he put down his quills, and put his homework inside his bag.
Then he walked out of the common room, and entered the boys dormitory.
/Scene Break/
Class started again on the following morning, and each professors were pushing the students harder since their OWLs are approaching.
Harry and Hermione didn't find this surprising, and he was delighted that he had got an Outstanding in his Charms homework.
Joshua was about to collapse when the teachers had issued the class tons of homework that they would only be able to finish if they put a lot of time into it.
"The teachers had never been issuing me this much homework," he said to John Lemus.
"You got more homework right now because the exams that will be coming up are not ordinary exams, they are exams that would determine what subjects you should take in your sixth year," John said quietly. "I have seen a few students who had to repeat fifth year in this school because they failed their OWLs in almost all of the subjects that they had taken."
Joshua fell silent.
He wasn't like Hermione, who put so much time in study, and he was not very diligent to put time into study for his OWLs either, the school work in his past four years of this school had not been hard for him, but this one had caused him to collapse.
The amount of homework that the teachers assigned to him had proven to be too much for him, and he didn't like most of the subjects, although he didn't fail in any of them.
His current passing grades, however, would cause him to not be able to step up to Ultimate Wizarding Standards. He simply could not bring himself to think that John had already told him this multiple times, that he needs at least Exceeds Expectations to step up to Ultimate Wizarding Standards.
Thinking back, he didn't have a lot of passing grades that were at least Exceeds Expectations since he entered his fifth year, more than half of his subjects were mostly Acceptable grades, and even the ones that he had gotten Exceeds Expectations for a certain amount of time had dropped to Acceptable.
He frequently saw Harry and Hermione studying in the common room or in the library, and he considered that he would do the same, except that he had to put more time into study than the time that he had put into his study in his previous years in this school.
Joyce had told him that she was nervous with her exam as well, but she was determined to try to do her best.
He knew that Joyce would be disappointed if he had failed his OWLs, so he decided to do his homework.
In the twinkling of an eye, two weeks had passed, Joshua had decided to try and achieve an improvement in his grades so that he could do better in the exam, and take more subjects in his sixth year.
Finally, on the final week of August, he had gotten an Outstanding in Charms.
I made it, he thought.
And as time went on, he had received Exceeds Expectations in most of his subjects, and sometimes he had Outstanding grades.
My parents would be pleased with my improvements, he thought.
Manual was more stressed, he knew that he was in his final year, that he need top grades since he want to work in the Ministry of Magic.
His grades had not been not mediocre but the grades in some of his subjects were only slightly above average, he knew that he need to work harder to get better.
He was really stressed during his previous year, although his results turned out to be quite well, that he got five Outstanding grades, and the rest of them were Exceeds Expectations.
He spent a lot of time in the library studying, sometimes he saw Harry and Hermione taking glimpse at him working in silence, and they didn't say much.
/Scene Break/
Dan and Emma, meanwhile, were both working as usual, the construction of their dental practice had been complete, and they had a lot more patients.
"We are going to be very busy before Christmas," Dan told Sirius as Sirius arrived home.
"And the same goes for me," Sirius said.
After dinner, as soon as Dan and Emma cleared the dining table, Sirius waved his wand at the table and the table was good as new.
As soon as Emma arrived back with a table cloth, she realised that the table didn't need to be wiped.
"The dining table looked clean," she said.
"Indeed," Sirius said. "There's no need to wipe it."
Emma was wondering how the dining table had become so clean, although she didn't want to question about it yet.
"Let's go to the living room, then," she said.
Sirius agreed, and together they went to the living room.
Emma switched on the TV.
The police had arrested a few drug dealers earlier today, they were found to have bundles of Hashish drugs in their house, and they were planning to sell them a few days later. The drug dealers were awaiting trials in court.
Sirius didn't feel pleased at all after he had watched the news, he felt that the Death Eaters in the Wizarding Britain had gotten off too easily, and he was unjustly imprisoned.
He knew that his clone had died, and now that he is safe, Harry's parents were really playing tricks against the Wizarding world in Britain.
And right now, Harry's clone and Hermione's clone were supposed to be back at Hogwarts, and he wondered what they were doing,
Another few minutes passed, and then Dan entered the room and sat down to watch the TV.
At eight o'clock, Sirius left the room.
/Scene Break/
Another few weeks passed, the fifth year students were preparing for their OWLs, and they hardly spoken to one another.
One Saturday, however, Joshua was making his way back to the common room, as he crept past a toilet that has the door half open, he took a peek inside, and saw two students beside a cauldron on the toilet seat.
Why would they want to do this? He thought as he walked away from them. Are they simply practising how to brew potions.
Then he saw Professor Wagner walking towards him.
"Professor," Joshua said. "You need to come and see something."
Professor Wagner raised an eyebrow.
"What are you talking about?" he asked.
"Two students brewing potions in a bathroom," Joshua replied.
"Lead me to them," Professor Wagner said.
Joshua made his way towards the toilet that he just walked past, and he took a peek inside.
"There," he said.
Professor Wagner entered the toilet, and stared at the two students, one of them had a book in his hand as well.
"Oi! What do you think you two are doing?" he asked.
The two students didn't answer.
"Follow me to my office now!" Professor Wagner ordered.
The two students followed Professor Wagner, and Joshua watched them as they walked out of his sight.
Joshua returned to the common room, and he sat down.
Then Harry and Hermione approached him.
"What's up?" Harry asked.
"I saw two students brewing potions inside a toilet," replied Joshua.
Harry let out a light gasp.
"Then I told Professor Wagner about this," Joshua said.
"So you mean that these two are now in Professor Wagner's office?" Hermione asked.
Joshua nodded.
"Do you know these two people?" asked Harry.
"Warren Horton and Tim Neal, they are both in their third year," Joshua said.
/Scene Break/
Herbert, meanwhile, had just arrived back into the common room (beside the one that Joshua had occupied) from the library, and he was sitting alone in the common room, trying to finish the homework that the teachers had set him.
About twenty minutes later, he saw Warren and Tim arrived inside the common room.
"What's up?" Herbert asked.
"Professor Wagner had issued us detentions," Warren said. "Next Saturday and Sunday evening at seven o'clock."
"Why?" Herbert asked.
"We were brewing the Polyjuice Potion," Warren said. "Joshua must have caught sight of us."
Herbert gasped.
"Why did you two want to brew Polyjuice Potions?" he asked.
"I can't tell you that, I am sorry," Warren said.
Herbert looked at them suspiciously.
Before he could say anything else, Manual entered the common room. He sat down, and took out his homework, then he began to do it.
About forty five minutes, Herbert got up, and put his homework inside his bag.
He took a glance at Manual, and saw him still focusing his eyes on the parchment, his quill was still moving.
Herbert quietly went out from the common room, then he saw Harry standing outside the common room beside the one that he just came out of.
"Hi Harry," Herbert said. "Finished your homework?"
Harry nodded.
"Let's walk around a bit, then," Herbert said.
Harry agreed, and the two of them walked for a while, and then they made their way back to the common room.
Hermione was waiting for him.
"Harry," she said.
"Hi Hermione," Harry said.
"I need to tell you something, Harry," Hermione said. "There is someone who had trouble doing his homework."
"Who?" Harry asked.
"Roy Gray," Hermione said. "He had fallen behind in his homework."
"Are you wondering whether we should help him?" Harry asked.
"Joyce had been pleading with me to help him out," Hermione said.
Harry considered for a moment.
"Did you check Roy's homework?" he asked.
Hermione nodded.
"All of the homework that had been assigned to him were the ones that we had already learnt," she said.
"And how often does he fall behind his homework?" Harry asked.
"Sometimes a bit too often," Hermione replied.
"I'll think about it," Harry said.
After ten minutes of consideration, he beamed.
"Did you give him any guidance?" he asked.
"Not yet," Hermione replied.
"If he doesn't understand anything, why don't he go to a teacher for help?" Harry asked.
"He forgets to do his homework too easily, and he has trouble on the theory stuff," Hermione said. "He's better on the practical side of things."
Harry nodded.
"Maybe we can try and assist him in some cases, but we should never help him during an exam," he said.
"You are right, Harry," Hermione said.
"The trouble is that we are also doing revisions right now," Harry said. "We might not have enough time to help him."
"So you just want me to go back to Joyce and say that I refuse?" Hermione asked.
Harry nodded.
/Scene Break/
Joyce didn't look happy after Hermione told her that she refuse to help Roy because she didn't have enough time.
"Look at you, Hermione!" she screamed. "You almost always study one step ahead of the others, and you answer the questions that a teacher had asked correctly every time, and now you even say that you don't have time to help someone else?"
"I'll talk to a professor about this before I do it," Hermione said.
"Fine, go for it," Joyce said, and she stomped away.
A/N: What do you think the professors are going to say about Hermione helping Roy out with his homework?