"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.
....
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