Alex Elby

Backstory

I wasn't really shocked when I got my letter, but I ended up being surprised by the events that followed. I have always been an outstanding student--you see, I was raised in a muggle family in muggle schools, in a muggle community, etc. Anyway, I had been dedicated to learning and have loved to read since, well, preschool. I loved to pretend that the magical stories I read were true, but I always knew they weren't. Something was completely different when I read the Harry Potter series for the first time in second grade (age 7). I completely believed what was happening in these books. I still played dress up, whittled wands out of sticks for myself, and spent hours pretending to be a witch/wizard (I have not yet found a gender neutral term for a magical person) but something about this felt more real. What about the time that I opened a locked door when nobody could get into the school? What about the time when I somehow managed to calm down my mother when she was super stressed out just by looking at her? This had to be magic. It was. Unfortunately, my parents have never let any of their four children consider boarding school--mundane or magical. Too bad for me, this meant no Ilvermorny. No school of magic. I was crushed. I soon learned of this online school. I had to stay on top of my "real" schoolwork, but if that was all done I was allowed to get on the computer and learn these lessons. As interested and focused as I am on education, it's hard to slip in these classes when my mundane school gets challenging, but I do what I can.