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Harry really, really, liked stripes.
That's why his mummy had laid out a blue and green striped shirt for a his very first day of school. He was four now, a big, big boy; and that meant he could go to Gemma's school now. Except, she was in the year four grade, and Harry was only going into Kindergarten. Nevertheless, he popped the shirt over his head, used the Special Bathroom Step to brush his teeth, and wobbled down the steps to his mother and sister, who were both happily eating breakfast.
"Morning, darling! Excited?" Anne asked, standing from the table and scooping the toddler into her arms. She always told Harry he was getting too big to carry, which made Harry sad because he loved being carried. Anne placed her son in a big boy chair, though he still used a booster seat so he could properly see what he was grabbing around the table. Anne had made his favourite, a special green smoothie which she didn't dare tell him was full of spinach, she only mentioned there was banana in it.
"Morning mummy, morning sissy!" Harry chimed, holding his plastic cup with both hands and wrapping his mouth around the striped white and purple straw.
"Morning, Hazzy. Excited for today?" Gemma responded, standing out of her seat and bringing her crumb filled plate to the sink. As she passed her brother, she gingerly pressed her lips into his puffy cheek, earning a disgusted sound from him, and a soft coo from their mother. Harry nodded in answer to his sissy's question, because he really was excited! Gemma had told him all about Kindergarten over her summer break. She said Harry would meet lots of friends, and learn how to read books like she could, and he would learn to count and tell time too! Harry's favourite idea was the thought of friends. His house was always filled with girls and, even though he loved Gemma and her friends dearly, they were nothing to the idea of having his own friends to play with.
Once Harry had finished his smoothie, Anne nearly forced him into a coat against his eccentric bounces, and the family of three headed into the car. Harry got a car seat with lots of buckles and toys in the side pocket, while Gemma got nothing. She got to just sit and use the seat belt and Harry always thought she must be bored because she couldn't pull out any toy she wanted when she wanted it. But, she never complained, so he never said anything. Harry pulled out his favourite toy, a wrecked bear his mummy had given him. She said it was hers, but Harry could have it as long as he took really good care of it. Which he did. He took it everywhere with him, only choosing to leave him in the car the previous night because he was too excited to go to school, and refused to go to bed with Harry. Harry took it upon himself to give his special friend a name, to which the whole family learned to call him Boo or Boo Bear.
Harry was so busy talking to Boo about how excited he was for school, and explaining to him that mummy said he couldn't take him along, that he didn't even notice he was in front of his first school until Anne began unbuckling him from his seat. Once he was free, she went to Gemma, already standing on the sidewalk and shoving the last of her things into her pink backpack. Harry smiled and put a finger in front of his lips to tell Boo to be quiet, and shoved the bear into his backpack. Anne lifted him out of the car, waving goodbye to Gemma as she met up with a few other girls Harry recogized as her friends, they even waved 'hi' to him. Anne held Harry's hand all the way to his classroom, kissing him goodbye with wet eyes and Harry thought he might have done something wrong. But, she said no and kissed him again, then walked back to her car so she could go to work.
The classroom was really colourful and bright, letters and numbers lining the walls with bright pictures of butterflies and ants. Toys were all over the floor and other boys and girls were playing with them, they were all laughing too, which made the room really loud and hurt Harry's ears, "Well, who are you, little munchkin?" a big adult with bright red hair asked. Harry had to look up at him, and he got nervous because the man was so, so big that he could be squashed, "I'm Mr. Sheeran, your teacher," the man chuckled, kneeling down so he stood at Harry's level.
"'m Harry Styles, your student!" Harry answered, throwing his hand over his mouth and laughing at his own joke. Mr. Sheeran ruffled Harry's curls, telling him nice things and how they would start learning new things in a little bit, but for now Harry should go play and make friends. Harry only nodded and wandered off to find something nice to play with.
He saw a boy, one of the lots of 'em that were in the room, he was blonde and had blue eyes and was playing on the floor all by himself, making a stuffed ducky dance around as he made quacky noises. When he noticed Harry, he didn't look the slightest bit embarrassed, only motioned for Harry to take off his backpack and get on the floor with him. The boy only continued to make the ducky quack around, and Harry wanted to play really bad, so he pulled Boo out of his bag and placed him next to the ducky with a loud grrrr. The ducky jumped and hopped away, and Boo told Harry he was sad because he wanted to be friends with the ducky, and he guessed the ducky heard because he came back and they started dancing around together.
"I'm Niall, wha's your name?" the boy finally asked. At first, Harry didn't answer because Niall had a funny accent when he wasn't making duck noises.
"I'm Harry, and this is Boo," Harry introduced, because Boo was too shy to do it himself. Niall and Harry continued playing for awhile, laying on their stomachs and building a whole city out of blocks for Boo and, as Niall would tell, Kevin. Kevin and Boo became bestest friends, and Niall and Harry promised they were bestest friends too, pinky promised and everything. Lock and key. They could have played all day if Mr. Sheeran didn't come over and placed name tags on them. Only their first names though. They had bright colours and little smiling stars next to them, but the boys only continued playing after that, leaving Boo and Kevin to play by themselves while they played with swords.
They stopped playing when the door opened and bigger kids walked in the room. Mr. Sheeran and a nice woman, another teacher, spoke for a moment before she made a motion for the bigger kids to travel through the room. They would walk up to kids Harry's age, one on one, and play with them and talk to them. These bigger kids were gonna be Harry's friends? But they were so bigger! Niall could be Harry's friend because he had a funny voice and they were the same height so playing games made a lot more sense. But, if Harry was friends with a bigger kid, games wouldn't be as much fun because they were so tall!
A boy sat down in front of Niall, reading his name tag and smiling down at him. He had darker skin than Harry, and black hair with brown eyes, "Hi, Niall, my name is Zayn," Niall nodded and stopped playing Knight with Harry, "I'm going to be your Big Buddy this year!" Zayn sounded really excited, which made Niall smile, but Harry didn't know what that meant. Gemma never told him about this...
Harry played around with Boo, having a conversation with him because he didn't have Big Buddy. He was okay with it though, because he had all the friends he needed, and Zayn eventually called to Harry and let him play with Niall and himself, so he thought maybe Zayn was his bigger friend too. But, eventually, another boy sat down, crossed legged, in front of Harry, not saying anything or interrupting the game. Zayn and the other big boy laughed together, and Harry knew they were friends. And, any friend of Zayn's could be a friend of Harry's right? But, Harry was shy, and when he was running over to the other boy, he darted for Boo instead. He tripped along the way, still grabbing Boo in his left hand, but landing face first in the carpet. The other big boy ran over to him, scanning to make sure he was okay like Gemma did when they were playing too rough.
"Oops," Harry laughed, knowing he was okay.
"Hi," the bigger boy said. His voice was really really nice, and it made Harry feel all warm inside. The boy had brown hair, not as dark as Harry's, and it wasn't curly either, it was straight down and fluffy looking. He had blue eyes too, but not like Niall's. They were brighter and bluerer and Harry liked looking into them. He had a nice smile too, which he showed the whole time as Harry placed Boo in his lap. Also. He was wearing a white and red striped shirt, that proved itself to be enough for Harry to really, really, really like this boy, "I'm Louis, I'm in third grade, I'm going to be your Big Buddy, Harry!" Louis laughed, eyes cast down to Boo, "Who's that?"
"This is Boo. He's my very best friend, but he's shy," Harry stated, looking down as Boo waved and said 'hi' because he needed to be nice.
"Hi, Boo!" Louis smiled, waving back to make Boo a little less upset. Harry giggled, keeping his best friend tightly in his arms when Louis stood and offered Harry to play a game.
After that, Harry and Louis played all day. Louis was really tall, so he helped Harry make a block tower that was made of red, yellow, and blue. When it got too tall for Louis to even keep it going, one of them would knock it down and pretend it was an accident, then they would both start all over again. They played with thinner blocks too, which Louis called Counters. Louis would grab a whole bunch of them and lay them out in front of Harry, then help him count them. Harry had trouble passed ten, but Louis told him that was okay because he would help him throughout the year. Then, Louis got Harry cookies and apple juice at snack time, sneaking him one more than the other kids because Harry deserved it for being such a good counter. Louis read to Harry, too. It was a funny story about ham and eggs and it rhymed a lot and made Harry laugh. Louis even let Harry sit in his lap a lot, wrapping his arms around his tiny waist when Mr. Sheeran took over the class to tell everyone they needed to clean up and thank their Buddies.
"Thank you, Louis!" Harry cooed after he had dumped all the blocks he carried in his shirt back into their box-home.
"Thank you too, Haz. I had a lot of fun, today. Buuuuuuut," Louis' smile faded and he moved into a pout, sniffing and fake crying, "You were carrying Boo around all day, I'm super jealous!" Harry stared at the bear that was leaning against Louis' leg because Harry was busy being good, and Boo was bad at cleaning. He looked up to Louis, before skipping over to Louis.
He took Boo away from his leg and put him back inside his backpack for a nap, then ran over to Louis' and gave his legs a tight hug. He got to hug Louis again when the older boy sat on his bum and hugged Harry back with a big grip, and Harry's head fell perfectly into the crook of Louis' neck, and he was comfortable so they stayed that way awhile. Harry pulled back, keeping his arms around Louis' neck, and Louis keeping his arms around Harry's back, "If you want to, you can be my very bestest friend,"
Louis gasped dramatically, eyeing Harry's backpack, "What about Boo?"
"You can be my OTHER Boo!" Harry laughed, bouncing on his feet, "My-...my Lou Bear!" Louis smiled, differently than he had done all that day. He smiled a lot lighter this time, a lot sweeter and it made Harry much more happy.
School was over then, and Louis held Harry's hand while they exited Harry's class and waited around for their mums. Louis let Harry meet his sisters too, Fizzy and Lottie, who were in two grade and one grade. When Gemma finally found Harry, he introduced her to Louis, calling him 'Lou Bear' and clinging to his arm. He hadn't let go of his arm since they had left the room, and Louis seemed completely fine with it. They all waited around for their mummies, and Louis' mummy came first, but he told her to wait because Harry's mummy needed to get here and pick him up. He even stayed when Gemma said it was fine and that he could leave.
When Anne finally did come, she nearly fainted over what she saw. Gemma was talking to another friend, Louise, and her baby Harry was in the arms of an unknown boy. He looked like he was focussing hard to make sure he didn't drop Harry, though he still managed to rock side to side like he was lulling Harry to sleep, and Harry looked absolutely comfortable as he leaned his head against the boy's shoulder.
"That's me mum!" Harry called, Louis letting him down to the floor after. The older boy still accepted a hug from the toddler, almost way too happy to be receiving one, "Lou Bear, will you always be my friend?" Harry asked before Louis could stand back up, feet above Harry's height.
"Of course, Hazza, we'll always be together," Louis ruffled Harry's curls, kissed him on the forehead and waved him a goodbye as he finally entered his mum's car.
Gemma went off about her day as Anne buckled Harry into his car seat. She was shocked to see that Boo was no where in Harry's grasp, but he seemed content and calm either way, head turned to listen to what Gemma did on her first day. Harry didn't need Boo, well he needed him but not right now, because he had another very special Boo, his very own Lou Bear, and he liked stripes and laughing and made Harry feel really happy.
Harry really, really liked Louis.