First grade with Miss Heliat turned out to be quite enjoyable. She was a woman in her late twenties and happened to be a Metamorphmagus, which she explained meant that she was born with the ability to change her appearance at will without needing to use potions or spells. She normally looked like the average, fairly pretty woman, except she kept her hair as a shade of blonde so pale that it looked almost white, except for a streak of black in the middle, and she liked to change the color of her eyes so that it was a different one every day. However, every so often she would change her appearance for her students' amusement, or when acting out something from a book she was reading to them so she could match the characters' looks.
In addition to reading and writing lessons, the class learned simple arithmetic, which consisted first of addition, then moving on to subtraction. They also had spelling lessons, which ended in tests or spelling bees at the end of the week, where they learned to spell three, four, and five-letter words. Miss Heliat handed out gold stars, stickers, and the occasional sweet to those that did well, and due to her habit of never speaking down to children, the class' vocabulary grew. Her lessons often incorporated magic, as she would often create colored balls of light or conjure up small items when demonstrating a math problem, and she would create illusionary letters when teaching spelling.
Once a week, on Fridays, Miss Heliat would conjure up a bag, which was always filled up art supplies and other materials for a project. The projects for the first Friday of each month always involved making a decorative name tag for each student's desk, which would reflect the month. For example, the ones made in October had pumpkins and drawings of sweets (for Halloween), the ones in December had Christmas and Hanukkah related decorations, and the ones in March had drawings of crocuses and tulips.
Ron, Arista, and Draco had birthdays during the school year, and the class celebrated them. Miss Heliat gave the birthday boy or girl the gift of a book and a box of crayons, had them blow out a candle in the shape of the number seven on top of their favorite kind of cake after the class sang 'Happy Birthday', and then cut slices of cake for everyone. Since the other students had birthdays after school ended for the summer, Miss Heliat had early birthday celebrations for them during the last week of school, one each day, so that each one of them could have their special day.
Stella's took place on the last day of school, on a Friday, with her cake being an ice cream cake, with a spell on it to keep it from melting until eaten. A pinata in the shape of a unicorn had also been set up, with the students taking turns to hit it while blindfolded, and in the end Draco was the one that actually broke through it. Various sweets fell out, and after everyone had gotten a equal share, Miss Heliat handed out additional sweets, one for each gold star that the students had been awarded throughout the school year. Stella, who had been awarded the most gold stars at thirty-six, got the most additional candy. Though the class was celebrating, there was a slight undertone of sadness, for it was the last day of the school year and all of them wished that they could keep Miss Heliat as a teacher.
When the bell rang, signifying that the school day was over, the students clustered around their teacher. "Can't you switch and teach second grade, Miss Heliat?" asked Ron.
"That wouldn't be fair to the graduating kindergarten class," Miss Heliat replied. "Don't you want your sister to experience having me for their first grade teacher, Ron?"
"Yes," Ron admitted. "But you're as good a teacher as Mum."
"Yeah," Eileen seconded. "We wish we could have you forever, Miss Heliat."
"I'm sorry, but when you finish a grade, you have to move on and have a new teacher in the next grade," said Miss Heliat gently. "Also, you couldn't have me as your teacher forever even if I did move on to teach the other grades. Eventually you'd start Nightwind School and you would have different teachers for the various subjects you'd have to take. And someday, you would have grown up and graduated from school."
"But second grade won't be fun without you, Miss Heliat," Harry protested.
"Just because I won't be your teacher doesn't mean second grade won't be fun. Mr. Larson is very nice and he does fun activities. And you can always stop by and say hello to me. Now, your parents are here to pick you up, so please get your backpacks. Have a good summer, everyone."
During the holidays, Harry spent two weeks with Aunt Yuki and Uncle Dylan. They had recently had a second daughter, whom they named Sarah Jane, after their favorite of the Doctor's companions in Doctor Who. The entire family spent the two weeks in Japan, since Sarah Jane had to be introduced to her maternal grandparents. Harry learned some Japanese words while he was there, and had fun visiting temples, the wizarding part of Tokyo, and seeing the Japanese wizarding school, Mahoutokoro School of Magic. He had his first taste of sushi, and while some he didn't particularly care for, he liked the others, especially the shrimp and eel ones. For his birthday he was taken to a Quidditch match, where he cheered on the Toyohashi Tengu team, which ended up winning.
After that, Harry went to visit Uncle Remus and Aunt Amina, who now had a son in addition to their daughter, named Zane. They were spending the summer in Saudi Arabia, in order to visit Aunt Amina's family. It was quite hot, the only thing that Harry didn't like, though thanks to cooling spells inside the house, he only had to deal with it when outside during the day. He was able to visit the wizarding section of the capital, Riyadh, which outside of where the government was housed and the hospital was set up like a bazaar, and had a ride on a flying carpet (which was a pleasant ride, but he preferred the broom). In Arab countries, lunch was normally the main meal of the day, and the food served during the meals was very different from British cuisine, but delicious.
When the visit ended, Harry returned home to spend the last two weeks of the holidays with his relatives. Uncle Tau took a few days off work and the family toured London, including a visit to Diagon Alley.
On the first day of second grade, when Mr. Larson was taking attendance, he looked up with a humorous smile when he got to Ron's name. "So, Ron, are you a prankster like your twin brothers Fred and George, or are you more serious about your schoolwork like your brother Percy?"
"I'm neither, Mr. Larson," replied Ron, returning the smile. "I like pranks, but I don't play pranks often, and while I want to do well in school, I don't fuss over it like Percy."
"Then you'd be more like Charlie and Bill, then," said Mr. Larson. "Which means I don't have to teach you to relax and not fuss so much over schoolwork, nor teach you that there are times to focus and not go about playing pranks." He put down the student list and continued, "For your first assignment today, I would like you all to take out your notebooks and write a summary of your summer vacations. When you're done, bring them up to me and I'll look them over. Once everyone has finished, you will come up one by one to the front of the room and read what you wrote."
Harry raised his hand. "Mr. Larson, I visited three places over the summer. Do I have to write about all three, because that could take a long time?"
"No, Harry, you can just write about one of them," said Mr. Larson with a smile. "Just pick the place you liked visiting the most and write about that."
Harry thought for a moment and decided that he liked visiting Japan the best, so that was the focus of his summary. He wrote about the places he went to in Japan, the new foods he'd eaten, the Quidditch match he saw on his birthday, and included some of the Japanese words he had learned.
After everyone had read their essays, Mr. Larson then handed out copies of a book entitiled Amelia Bedelia. "To start out the school year, we are going to read these very funny Muggle books about a housekeeper named Amelia Bedelia, who has some trouble with words whenever Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, the couple she works for, asks her to do something. You'll see what I mean when we start reading. Ron, could you please start by reading the first page for us?"
As the book progressed, the students giggled over the silly things that Amelia Bedelia did, such as interpreting the order to 'dust the furniture' by sprinkling dusting powder over the furniture, and 'dressing the chicken' (that was to be for dinner) by making an outfit and putting the chicken in it. At the end of the story, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers were going to fire Amelia Bedelia, but upon tasting the delicious lemon meringue pie she made, they forgave her and in the future tried to give her better instructions (such as having her undust the furniture rather than dust them).
"So, what did you all think about the book?" Mr. Larson asked after June had read the last page.
"Amelia Bedelia was funny," said Eileen. "She takes everything literally."
Mr. Larson nodded. "That is the kind of person she is. However, she is a very good cook, so that is why she is able to keep her job. Tomorrow we'll read the next book in the series, entitled Thank You, Amelia Bedelia."
Draco raised a hand. "So does Amelia Bedelia do this in every book?"
"Yes, she does, Draco. I won't tell you what she does, because that would spoil the books you haven't read yet, but I think you can guess."
Harry raised his hand. "My Aunt Petunia makes sponge cake. So if Amelia Bedelia made a sponge cake, would she use a sponge in it? You know, the kind used for washing things?"
"Very good, Harry, that would be something that Amelia Bedelia would do," said Mr. Larson. He glanced at the clock, then said, "All right, it's snack time, and after that, you can all go outside to the playground for recess."
After a snack of juice and granola bars, the class went out to the playground. They had a fun game of tag, and then the boys went on the swings while the girls skipped rope. After that, they went back inside where Mr. Larson did a review on the arithmetic they had learned in first grade, and then dismissed them for lunch.
In the afternoon they had a spelling bee, where Stella, who won it, was awarded a gold star and a chocolate frog. Harry, who came in second, got a silver star and a licorice wand, and Arista, who came in third, got a bronze star and a strawberry-flavored fruit drop. After the spelling bee they had recess again, followed by an art project, and then school was over for the day.