Yer a Wizard

Dear Mom,

I know you don't like getting my letters by owl, but I checked, and there's still no normal postbox around there, even after four years.
The first weeks have been going alright. In Potions we made a Girding Potion and mine was good, so I got to bring back two vialls to the dormitory. I'm sending you one with this letter, it gives extra endurance, might come into use. I'll buy everyone a present as soon as the Hogsmeade weekends start. I'm eating well and I got an Exceeds Expectations in Charms for my Summoning charm that I cast on a pile of books, and Jono only got an Acceptable. That charm makes whatever object you want come to you. It's very practical for tidying and organising. Mike Duce and I got 20 points for Hufflepuff for our Lapifors spell. We transfigured our desk into a bunch of rabbits. Professor Way was both crossed and content so he gave us 20 points.
Hope you, dad and the others are doing well.

Love,
Aled.

Aled Phillips put down the quill, letting the purple ink dry. He folded the letter in two, slipped it in an envelope with the address written onto it, and rolled it tightly, attaching it to the Hogwarts brown owl's leg next to the small package.

"Here, you can go."

The owl screeched, its orange eyes gleaming, and it flew away from the Owlery by one of the openings.
Aled sighed, and skipped down the stairs of the West Tower, finding himself on the gallery along the paved grounds back to the main castle.
His mind drifted as he looked at the misty mountains that framed the loch down there. As he internally rambled about his little brother Seth stealing the colour change ink Jono had given to him to pour it down the toilet, he wasn't looking in front of him, and bumped into someone.
He lost equibrium, swayed for half a second, before managing to restablish balance.
He rose his eyes. The guy he had bumped into was Mike Duce, his classmate. The boy was red in the face.

"Sorry, man..."

"No, it's me" Aled mumbled, his eyes dragging on the letter Duce was holding. "You posting a thing?"

"Yeah, my family's owl is there, so I'm sending them my letter..." Duce said, looking at his feet.

"Oh. Well, same, except I used a Hogwarts owl. Well, uh, see you in class I guess."

"Yeah."

Duce watched Aled walk away, and sighed.

It was like he and Aled just didn't click together. It made him sad, really, really sad. He wished him and the curly haired boy had more in common. But apart from being in Hufflepuff, they didn't really have much of it, did they?

Mike was from a "blood traitor" pure blood family of Italian origins. For all he knew, Mike's own line was exclusively pure blooded - but his cousins were half blood. It wasn't like it mattered a lot anyway. He'd lived in London all his life, in the family house, with his parents and his older brother Nicholas, who now was in America as a healer. Nic had had a brilliant scolarity : Ravenclaw, EEs everywhere, a jurist pure blood Scottish girlfriend met at Gringotts America.
Mike had been sorted in Hufflepuff, and generally got notes that were, at best, Acceptable. Girls didn't attract him- neither did boys. He just lay in his bed staring at nothing, asking himself what actually wanting to have sex would be, since his friends were all talking about it like it would be the best thing in the world.
The were people like Josh Franceschi, or Lee Gaze. Then there was Mike.
Mike was just kind of there.

He reached the West Tower, toying with the idea of trying to remember his earliest memory.

Maybe it was that time when his parents were going crazy because Nic, who was 11 at the time, was in Hogwarts during the battle ; and that they didn't know how to get to the school.
Turned out Nic had fought, sustaining a slash to his cheek, but Stunning a Death Eater. Mike had had to stay in his room while his parents worried for Nic, as he listened to a self-reading book of the Tales of Beedle the Bard.

Mike reached the West Tower, and a great brown owl flew towards him, landing on his arm. Mike got out the rope he had taken with him, and tied the letter to the owl's foot. He sighed, and let it fly away.