Chapter 68    

The timetables were distributed by Padma and the mornings of Mondays and Tuesdays were completely free for the Ravenclaw second years.

"Quiet lucky, aren't we? We can talk to professor Flitwick right after he finishes his breakfast."

"He has classes until the end of the day…", replied Alex as he placed the small piece of parchment back on the table.

Aman sighed but looked extremely impatient as he stuffed himself with bread and soup.

"Vooms oh buuai?" he said as he tried to chew the stuff that had jammed his mouth while Alex simply waited for him to finish.

"Sorry about that. As I was saying, when's your birthday? I've never seen you getting presents last year so I assumed it's in the holidays.", Aman said as he buttered a new slice of bread.

"My birthday huh…", Alex muttered as he thought. Nothing came to his mind for a few seconds and suddenly he was hit by a sharp pain that came from inside his head.

"…. Twenty third of February. I haven't seen you getting any presents either so what about yours?" he said as he tried his best to hide the pain which seemed to be subsiding.

"Oh… February. Mate, if I knew that last year, I would have gotten you a present. Ah… I feel like I'm a very bad friend but even you don't know my birthday so let's call it even. So now, about my birthday… You'll have to guess haha."

Alex simply blinked and said, "In the holidays probably."

"DING! Absolutely right! I turned thirteen on fifth of August.", he said excitedly. "Oh, it's fine. You don't have to feel bad because you didn't give me a present."

Alex nodded, "You don't look too happy though. There's no need to keep things to yourself. Just spit it out."

"How can you tell what's in my head? Like, you're not perfectly accurate but still. Anyways, forget that. Yes. I'm salty that I didn't get a gift from you. I know that you didn't know but like … you're my best friend.

Why are you looking at me like that? I'm just saying what's in my head like you asked."

Aman didn't really get why people stressed on presents and gifts so much but he felt pitiful when he saw his friend angrily stuffing himself.

"… Didn't anyone else give you stuff?"

"Not really… mom gave me a hug and told me that the biggest gift I got from her was being born into this world. My sister… let's not talk about her.

I got stuff from Hannah but it was a romance fiction novel which I'm totally uninterested in. So yes, one gift and that was from someone who I didn't talk to for a few months.

The confusing part about this is that I never told her about by birthday."

"You got one and I got none. Stop complaining." Alex said and saw Aman's expression change for the worse which made him change his mind, "I actually prepared a gift for you already but since I didn't know when it was, I didn't give it to you."

"You really did that?!" he exclaimed, the expression on his face rebounding back to being happy.

"Yeah… but since your birthday is already done, I guess I'll give it to you next year." Alex answered, smiling widely.

"H- hey, you don't have to do that you know? I'll gladly accept your gift if you give it to me today. I'll die before I turn fourteen due to the suspense. Pretty please?"

"Pfft- hahahaha pretty please!! Say that again, haahahahahaaa!"

"Heyy!"

**************

From the far corner of the Hufflepuff table, a girl sighed as she averted her gaze from the Ravenclaw table. Her friend spread a generous amount of pineapple jam on a piece of bread and put it on her plate.

"Why do you keep looking at those two? It's not like you owe them something."

"… Susan, we have to apologize to Aman. I've written him dozens of letters and he hasn't replied to a single one of them." She said as she took a small bite.

"If he didn't reply, you don't have to bother. He doesn't deserve your worry or attention."

"But we were such good friends… until you decided to spread rumors just because you thought it would be funny."

Susan frowned, "Why are you blaming me for everything? You say that we were good friends but Alex never hung out with us properly while Aman simply cared too much about him to pay us any attention."

Hannah said nothing as she placed her toast on the plate and stood up. "Let's go we have DADA as the first hour."

"Yes, let's go! I don't want to be late for professor Lockhart's first lesson." Susan said, completely forgetting about the two boys.

The two of them walked off towards their dormitory to get their books and on the way, Hannah saw Neville walk towards the two boys before she was ushered out of the great hall by her friend.

Neville walked over to the Ravenclaw table and got closer to Aman and Alex, who saw him from the corner of his eye.

"Umm… Alex, I uh bought a new wand. Could you take a look at it for me please?"

Aman turned to look at the person who interrupted his conversation and when he saw who it was, he turned back to look at Alex who looked intoxicated as he stared at Neville's wand.

"Neville… if I'm being honest, I never expected you to get a wand like this. Tell me what you did after our talk in the game board.", Alex said as he gestured him to have a seat.

"Umm… you told me that you will personally teach me when I get a new wand and also… I tried to ask uncle Olivander about this wand but he told me that it is a very interesting combo and ignored me. I heard from a few people that you have a lot of knowledge about wands so I decided to come here."

Alex smiled as he looked Neville and said, "What did I ask you to tell me, Neville?"