February of 1996

85

Fred was cleaning a mess that Damian had made at the shop. He was sitting on the floor with his arms crossed and holding back in tears. While Irena was taking care of Leah. When a customer came in and opened the door, an owl came right behind him. The owl dropped the letter it was from Alek.

Fred opened the letter; his hands were shaking, trying to open it. He unfolded the letter and tried to read Aleks messy handwriting. The only thing he could understand was the word Gryffindor with all the letters capitalized.

"I knew it!! Rena, our son is a Gryffindor," Fred said, excitedly everyone in the shop could hear him. Fred was happy that his firstborn was a Gryffindor just like him. Irena walked up to him and got the letter from him. She was able to read Alek's handwriting a bit better.

"What else does it say," Fred asked, looking at his wife. "He made three friends already, and one of them is in Gryffindor with him," said Irena reading the letter.

While Fred continued celebrating back at the shop, Alek was going to start his first day. Aleks 1st year at Hogwarts was fun with his friends.

Oscar and him were housemates since both were in Gryffindor. They share the room with other boys, but only the two of them were the ones that became closer. He would see Analisa and Amber in the halls. They had a few classes together.

Oscar and Alek had Potions and Transfigurations with Hufflepuff. Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts they had with Ravenclaws. For their transfiguration class, his aunt Rue taught the 1st years to 4th years since the Headmistress was busy. McGonagall only taught 5th years and higher that way; she had more time to do her job as a headmistress.

In transfiguration, he was sitting next to Oscar, but in his potion class, Professor Slughorn made a seating chart. He had to sit with Amber for the rest of the year. He didn't mind, but he didn't know how to communicate with her. He would write on a parchment paper, and that was how they talked their first week in the class.

But in the second week of school, he couldnt sleep. He wanted to talk with her. He wanted to learn sign language. Late at night, he made his way to the library trying to not get caught. He slowly went in, trying to not make any loud sounds. He looked through all the books. "There must be something here that can help me," whispered Alek.

After almost 40 minutes of looking, he found an old book. "This would do for now." Maybe on Christmas break, he could get a more recent book. He decided that it was the best idea to take the book to his room and not stay in the library where he could get caught. That night he read the book and tried to learn the basic signs.

"Wake up, Alek. You didnt wake me up, and now we are going late to class," said Oscar, putting on his clothes. Alek was the one who would wake up early and make Oscar get up to eat breakfast. But because he stayed up reading the book, he went to sleep late.

"Sorry I didnt sleep well." Alek yawned and rubbed his eyes. "Come on, mate, get dressed." Alek changed, and they were late for breakfast. They decided to just go to class. They both quickly made their way to their class.

"Sorry, professor," said Alek. Oscar was out of breath after a moment he said, "what he said, we are sorry," he pointed at Alek, who was making his way to his desk.

As the months went by, he was able to communicate a bit better with Amber.

At first, she was taken back by how fast he had learned the basic signs and how hard he was trying to communicate with her; she couldnt help but smile. No one had done something like that for her. When people found out she was deaf, they wouldnt even try to communicate with her, or they would scream thinking that would help. It meant so much to her that Alek was taking time out of his day to learn a new language.

That's how Aleks first year in Hogwarts started. He made three best friends, he got good grades in his classes, and he learned a new language to help out a friend.