Disclaimer: We all know how these work, I acknowledge that J. K. Rowlings, Warner Bros. and Scholastic own Harry Potter and all other characters and settings from cannon, and I get to write whatever I please and even add in characters of my own as long as I don't get any money. The no money sucks but there you go, at least I don't get lawyers knocking on my door. Addendum: If you recognize a name of a character from elsewhere it isn't mine.
A/N: Okay I admit it you all don't really need that level of detail about the wedding but I enjoy planning parties and one of my dream jobs was being a wedding planner. Sorry mea culpa. Maybe I'll eventually get around to going back and re-editing this and I'll probably omit almost all of the last two chapters, most of that was so I could have a clear picture in my head. Not to mention it was fun for me.
Sirius' Savior
Chapter 32 School Days
Harry grimaced as he looked at the grade on his first humanities paper, B-. He hadn't had a grade that low in two years. He looked around the room he shared with Dominic Santini before heading to the floor common room. It wasn't a large room but it wasn't small either. Their floor was made up of the fifth and sixth grade boys. Their room shared a bathroom with two sixth grade boys Michael Coldsmith-Briggs III and Varun Pratitashwa. Sunday of last week when Beth and Sirius had escorted Harry to his dorm they had met the three boys, at Harry's insistence Sirius and Beth had made the good byes short. After that, Dominic and Michael showed him all around campus using his schedule as a guide.
Dominic was the cheerful and smart son of the Italian Ambassador. The school had set them together because in the fall trimester Dominic had a room to himself because of an uneven number of fifth grade boys and they figured that he would be a good person to help Harry adjust to American culture. Dominic was surprised that his new roommate was only eight but accepted it. He played football, or soccer as the Americans called it, and was delighted when he saw the ball in Harry's belongings. The room had many sketches he had done and his violin sat on a shelf above his bed.
Michael's father was a businessman and a divorcee who didn't like to be bothered by spending time with his son. However he was too vindictive to let his ex have custody, not that according to Michael his mother had a maternal bone in her body. Michael kept two horses in the stable and liked playing polo and viola. Michael was in sixth grade in everything but math, he took math with the fifth graders because he had dyscalculia. He loved to debate everything, he loved spinning other people up just because he could. He was surprised on Harry's third day that after five minutes of arguing with Harry for arguments sake; Harry suddenly stopped arguing with him gave him a calculated measuring look and suddenly continued arguing with a grin on his face instead of the frown he had worn mere minutes earlier.
Varun was the son of the Indian Ambassador. Unlike his roommate Michael, he liked quiet. He was very studious and he was Harry's assigned tutor for English composition, and he loved to paint, he and Harry were on swim team together. Both he and his twin sister Kamala attended Stuart-Cavanaugh but had to work hard to keep up.
Harry's new friends entered the floor common room as he was mourning the grade on his first paper. Dominic looked at Harry's expression. "What's wrong?"
"I got last weeks humanities paper back."
"What did you get?" asked Varun.
"A B-. I never get anything below an A."
Michael grinned, "Welcome to the world of Stuart-Cavanaugh. Let's see the comments."
" Docked eight points for english grammar mistakes ouch. Over simplified, check your argument's logic, not bad could be developed more, expand on this." Varun smiled at Harry. "Next time let me proof your paper before you print it out, that will help cut down the grammar errors. Not bad for a first paper."
"Not bad, I got a B-! I always get A's!"
"Yeah but Harry that's at regular schools. I was an A student at my school in Rome and do you know what I got on my first paper a C-." Dominic stated.
" We study in groups for a reason, we do individualized reading, then we study together. We debate and argue, discuss the reasoning behind the logic and thinking. You made a newbie mistake you did the first paper solo. Solo may work for flying planes but it doesn't at this school. I have to say though, I'm impressed a B- on a first paper." Michael added. "I've been a student here since I started school and since I started boarding here two years ago, I've seen or heard about a lot of first papers. A B- is a good grade on a first paper an average one is a D."
Varun and Kamala said, "We got C-'s on our first papers as well. A B- is actually quite good."
"Hey a B- is good even if it's not a first paper." Dominic said.
"What did you get on your paper?" Harry asked.
"A B+."
"Merde."
"That's French, You speak French?"
"Since I was three." Harry confirmed.
"What language class are you taking?"
"Latin."
"Okay, Verun and I are taking French, and speak English and Hindustani. Dominic there speaks"
"Italian, English, and Latin and is taking German."
Michael smiled and said "I am taking French, but I know English and some Spanish my nanny was good for something. Do you speak anything other than English and French?"
"Yeah Indonesian and Balinese and a smattering of Latin and Japanese."
"Six languages? Okay its official you make me sick." Kamala complained. "What is your worst subject?"
"Art."
"Art how can you be bad at art?" Varun asked.
"Don't ask. It's not that I can't see what makes a pretty picture, I just can't reproduce it with anything except a camera."
"Name something else you can't do." Michael challenged.
"Sing."
"Nonsense," Dominic said, "everyone can sing,"
"I don't."
"Of course you can. Everyone can sing."
"There speaks the boy that sings La Traviata in the shower." Varun said.
"Complete with arpeggios," Michael added.
"I suppose it's true everyone except mutes can sing. The question is should they, and the answer in my case is most definitely not." Harry added. "I suppose I'll give up moping over a less than stellar grade and start my homework I'm supposed to meet sensei tonight and I don't want to be up passed curfew trying to get my homework done."
In the weeks that followed, Harry's suite mates discovered Harry had many small but annoying skills. He could speed read which they harassed him about a little. They took to sharing his copies of the morning papers and weekly magazines instead of trying to get the upperclassmen to share. And all of them traded off tutoring. Harry tutored Dominic and Michael in math, Varun and Michael in French, and was being tutored in return by Dominic in Latin, and Michael and Varun in English. His tutoring the other boys for math was giving him his service hours. He joined Dominic's study groups for his humanities and social science classes. It took him two more weeks but he found his rhythm and his grades came up almost to the level they had been at on Bali but not completely except in Math where they never dropped. Science was as always interesting but not terribly challenging. In his other classes, he was learning a lot. Gymnastics was improving his fitness level. His critical thinking class was strengthening his reasoning ability much to Michael's and Sirius' delight. In orchestra, it helped that two of his three suite mates also played in the school orchestra the three usually met twice a week outside of class to practice the pieces that would be played in the end of trimester recital. His cotillion class soon had him comfortable with western manners and he knew at least two western dances that he would be able to use at the wedding. The challenges his classes provided meant he gave daily thanks for his early training from Sirius in mediation and organizing his mind. He joined the school's Boy Scout troop and the journalism club as a photographer.
Harry's suite mates had taken him in and treated him like a kid brother; he took mental notes on what they did so when the time came he'd be able to be a good big brother to the babies. His photos joined Dominic's sketches on the walls. Both were joined by the third place ribbon he had won at the first swim meet. Michael had gotten him interested in horses but it was only on Sundays in the late afternoon that he had time to act on that interest. He got a crash course in conflict resolution when another sixth grade boy that was also new tried to start a fight. Harry had been ready to go toe to toe with him but Michael, Varun, and two other sixth graders had stepped in and took them through the steps of conflict resolution; identifying the problem, figuring out who's problem it was, coming up with potential solutions, and deciding which solution was agreeable to both parties. Harry's one frustration was he had very little time for his independent studies, he had found a source for notes for the ancient humanities class and had managed to do some of it but found himself with no time to do much of it's coursework or that of the Japanese class.
Weekends were spent basking in attention from Sirius and Beth. Since the lions share of the wedding was planned, Beth planned other things for them to do. All three of them spent time volunteering with the Washington DC Food bank. Beth took Harry to a women's shelter and he played with kids there and helped them with their homework. Both types of volunteer work were interesting but only took about two hours of the weekend. They also spent time going to movies, caring for John's cats and just spending time together.
Most weekends they spent an hour or two on details with the wedding. The professional photographers Bonnie had hired had been impressed with Harry's photos of the engagement. And Bonnie liked the idea of using a over-sized mat for a guest book. On February 7th when they took Harry back to school he skipped going to the stables because the next weekend he would be missing Friday and the following Monday the 15th, because he would be helping with the wedding. He was really looking forward to it because he was going to get to meet his cousin Nymphadora Tonks and his pen pal Susan Bones. But he needed to work a head a bit or his absence was going to hurt come time for midterms in two weeks.