Today, before Flitwick comes around, the Gryffindor boy sitting next to him taps him on the shoulder. He's awkwardly tall with a mop of black hair that he has to keep brushing out of his eyes.

"You've gotta use more elbow."

…Sasha blinks up at him. 

He tries again, with more (elbow elbow which part is the elbow) arm motion in general. 

It doesn't completely fail to work! His cup is now slightly more bluish. 

"Thank you," he says earnestly. 

He grins.

"No problem."

He flicks his wand at his teapot with a slight swing of his arm. The teapot shifts from celadon green to a frankly alarming electric blue.

He watches that motion carefully and tries imitating it. 

The cup shifts from white and pastel pink to bright ultramarine. Sasha doesn't beam openly but he's visibly pleased. 

So is his neighbor!

"See? 's not so hard once you get the hang of it."

He leans against the desk.

"You're, uh...I swear I knew your name, honest..."

"Aleksander Mikhailov. 

I am sure I hear yours too." 

"I'm–uh, I like Z better, but Stephen is fine."

He pronounces it zee, not zed, and waves his wand in a zigzag demonstratively as he does.

Oh, good, something he can pronounce. He can't tell if wizards have strange names or if the British do. 

"Thank you, Z." 

He beams like Aleksander just handed him the moon.

"–like I said. It's no problem."

…Sasha's smile fades when he realizes that most of his housemates are looking at him. 

He looks at Sasha with some concern, then looks around and frowns.

"...what's their problem...?"

"I —" 

He tries not to talk much, it always kind of falls apart. 

"I am not good at being a Ravenclaw," he goes with. It is very obvious that he's choosing words as he goes along. 

"And I'm a shite Gryffindor," he says cheerfully. "We should be friends."

…What. What is this. What is this Gryffindor who apparently wants to be friends with him. What is happening. 

"Alright," Sasha says, and he's smiling openly now. 

"Fantastic," he says, grinning ear to ear. (Although it's sort of hard to tell under all the hair.)

So apparently making friends is a thing he does, now. 

By the end of the lesson Sasha's quill (why do they use quills, he still hasn't gotten a satisfactory answer), ink, and shoes are varying shades of very bright blue, and Sasha has the least Charms homework he's ever had, and he smiles at Z before they head in different directions to their next classes. 

Z waves at him as they leave.

Next up is Potions, oh joy. 

Snape at least doesn't spring a pop quiz on him, though he does hover over Sasha's cauldron and make remarks just slowly and carefully-enunciated enough that Sasha understands them. Sasha tries not to mess anything up, but - his hands are shaking and there's a cloud of steam between him and the board and all the letters still look strange and Snape's handwriting isn't helping - he doesn't finish his potion by the end of the lesson, and the half-potion he has isn't any of the colors that any of the stages of this potion are supposed to be. 

His classmates are watching, as always, murmuring amongst themselves, quietly judgemental. The Hufflepuffs mostly just look sorry for him.

Of course they are. Of course they do. That's how this works, isn't it? 

The next time he runs into Z is Muggle Studies, which isn't until Wednesday. Professor Burbage seems nice enough - Flitwick had wanted to know why Sasha was taking this when he was already muggleborn, back at the end of second year, and Sasha had stammered out something about being new to the country and wanting to understand muggles here, and apparently Flitwick told Burbage about it, so she doesn't ask or seem surprised that he's here. 

At the last moment before he would technically qualify as “late”, Z dashes into the room, vaults the unused back row of desks, and slides into the seat next to Sasha.

"Hello!" 

It shouldn't be a surprise that Z is taking a Muggle Studies class, he's proven already that he doesn't care what people think of him. It's still a surprise, a little bit. 

He grins triumphantly.

“Hey! Didn’t know you were into this stuff too!”

Does he not… 

"I am muggleborn," Sasha says, in case he doesn't in fact already know that.