The Novelle Diaries & The Wampus Cub

Chapter 10: A Cry From The Bushes

Over the next month Wren attended classes and spent time with her friends. She continued her late night talks with Erris and when she wasn't too tired from the late nights, she continued her early morning walks, exploring the grounds and having conversations with Hagrid when she bumped into him.

She had learnt quite a lot about Erris during their conversations. He had lived in a fashionable part of London his whole life in a grand terrace house. However, he had rarely been allowed outside to explore. His family had kept him cooped up in his quarters with various tutors. Seeing as he had had nothing to distract him he had thrown himself into his studies and over the years had become rather accomplished, learning everything from piano, fencing, Latin and on his step mothers request, ballroom dance. It seemed that his whole life he had been honed to become the perfect McGrath heir, a prominent family in wizarding high society and yet he had always been treated like the child that nobody wanted in every other respect.

After Erris' mother had died, his father had become withdrawn and distant, spending most of his life in his drawing room or out of the house entirely. This had left Erris to fend for himself against his vicious stepmother and her daughters. He had become the girl's favourite punching bag, pushing him, pinching him and locking him in cupboards for hours at a time and with no one to intervene, Erris had simply had to suffer through it. Home was such a miserable place that he had often found himself skipping meals as a way to avoid his stepmother's scrutiny.

His only solace and friend other than a particularly kind tutor was his Magpie, Sullivan, whom he had found as an injured fledgeling on the McGrath house doorstep. Erris had nursed him back to health but when it came time to release the bird, it refused to leave. Returning every day with gifts. Since then, Sullivan had been Erris' only true companion, until now.

Erris still did not talk in the day, however, as he had become more friendly with Wren he had begun to sit with her and Rosewaine in the common room, face buried in a book. He even joined them at meals.

Although Rosewaine found him to be rather strange for not speaking, she trusted Wren and simply gave him time to find his confidence.

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As the leaves began to change and fall from the trees and the nights drew in earlier every week, Hogwarts began its preparations to celebrate All Hallows eve. The enormous pumpkins that Hagrid had grown had been carved and placed in the entrance hall as sentinels to the great hall. Floating lanterns had appeared in many of the larger hall ways and far more bats and spider webs seemed to be spotted about the castle.

Out of all the castle residents, The ghosts seemed to be the ones who had utterly embraced the festival spirit. As the night drew closer, they had begun to jump out at students, frightening them half to death. Nearly headless Nick, an Elizabethan ghost with a mostly severed head had sent Rosewaine into a near paralytic fit when he had jumped out at her on the way to Transfiguration class. It had taken nearly an hour and many apologies from the ghost in question for her to finally regain any sense of herself.

Peeves was the worst of the lot. As the school poltergeist, he was always up to some sort of mischief but at this time of year he really stepped up his act as if the holiday was a stage for him to shine. His favourite prank was to hide inside a suit of armour and make the helmet skew disgusting gunk on unsuspecting students as they walked by.

On All Hallows eve, Wren, Rosewaine and Erris made their way down to the great hall for the halloween feast. The hallways were a buzz with excited students as they all swarmed towards the food.

When the children had made it to the great hall they couldn't help but stand in the doorway and gork for a moment.

The bewitched ceiling had been decorated with swarms of bats that flew in between floating jack o' lanterns with grinning faces. The enormous fireplaces on either side of the hall had been lit to produce green flames that cast an eerie glow on their surroundings. The four long tables looked set to break under the sheer amount of elaborate food towers and pumpkin decorations. Any decorum that was left within the children vanished at the sight of all the sweet delights on offer. They lunged for their table, battling to find their seats in the mayhem and began to gorge themselves until they felt sick. There had probably been an announcement prepared but any teacher seeing this free for all thought better of it and simply sat back down to enjoy a slightly more civilised version of dinner.