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After Erris' mother had died, his father had become withdrawn and distant, spending most of his life in his drawing room or out of the house entirely.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.
...........................................................................................................................
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.
Once Wren had had her fill of pumpkin pasties and treacle pudding she found herself longing to escape the excitable hordes. The roaring fires and sheer amount of bodies had made the hall rather stuffy so she decided to step out into the fresh air, making her quick excuses to Rosewaine, who was still munching through a plateful of food.
As the cool air of the autumnal, window lit grounds touched Wren's face, she breathed a sigh of relief. She had been excited for the feast but never before had she experienced the school quite so exuberant. She walked around the various courtyards for a while, enjoying the solitude then decided to take a little stroll around the side of the castle towards the green houses.
She was approaching one of the first green houses in the row when she wandered past a large bush that grew at the base of a castle. A rustling sound caught her attention and as she turned her head to take a closer look she heard a little cry, like a creature calling for its mother. Hesitantly, Wren approached the bush, slow and steady so that she didn't spook it's resident, then she carefully lowered herself to her knees to peer into the bushes undergrowth.
At first Wren believed that she was viewing one of Hogwarts' many cats staring back at her with its big yellow eyes but as she grew accustomed to the gloom more of the creature's features came into view. Small rounded ears, a broad snout and far too oversized proportions to belong to any adult creature. The strangest feature about the creature however was its extra pair of front legs with oversized paws. Wren gasped as she realised what she was looking at then stumbled back, looking around wildly. Where there was a baby, there was usually a much larger and more aggressive mother. However, the wide expanse of lawn before her stayed free of prowling beasts and after a few more moments she looked back toward the bush to realise that the small, six legged cub had ventured out of its hiding place to follow her.
'Hello, little fella.' She whispered in an enticing voice. 'Where's your mama then.'
As she saw the cub in its entirety however, she had the sinking feeling that its mother may not be coming to find it. There was a red tag with numbers and a logo pieced into one of its ears and as she watched it walk towards her, she noticed that it was holding one of its front paws off the ground, showing the unmistakable burn mark from a ricocheted curse.
Wren reached out her hand to make friends with the cub and it bounded its last few steps over to her. It butted its little head up against her knee and chirped an excitable greeting.
Wren sat with the cub for a little while in the dark, petting it and playing tug of war with a stick whilst she contemplated what to do. Usually she would have gone straight to Hagrid for help with such an unusual creature but he had taken a two weeks holiday to visit an exhotic animal exhibition. In the end she decided that, seeing as she couldn't just leave him outside all alone, she would have to smuggle him into the castle.
Wren coaxed the cub up into her arms then wrapped her cloak around him to hide him from view before slipping through a side door. On the way up to the Ravenclaw common room, the cub chirped several times wishing to see its surroundings. The paintings looked at her suspicious armful when they heard the noise to which Wren clarified, 'My cat. He has a cold.' Then she scurried off before she could be questioned further by oil paint.
After solving a thankfully easy riddle and entering the common room, Wren made her way up to her dormitory. Thankfully everyone still seemed to be preoccupied by the feast down stairs so both the common room and the dormitory were still deserted.
Wren let the cub out onto her bed and watched it trot around the covers exploring the new sights and smells. Eremial stared down at the creature with a disdainful eye as several of the cats in the room ducked under their owners beds.
'What am I going to do with you.' Wren allowed to herself. She thought about taking the cub to a teacher but the thought of leaving it with someone else just didn't sit right. She found him and gained his trust, so she should be the one to look after it. She felt that she had learnt enough from caring for the Hogad to do a good enough job.
As Wren became settled in her decision, she heard the door latch sound and dived for the cub, who quickly scooted under Wren's bed out of reach.
Rosewaine walked into the room to see her friend's back side in the air as she peered under her bed.
'Lose something?' Rosewaine asked curiously. 'I've been looking everywhere for you. You just disappeared from the feast.'
'Oh thank god, it's just you.' Wren sighed in relief as she righted herself, emerging from under the bed looking a little red and flustered.
'What's going on.' Rosewaine demanded as she crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes at her friend. Before Wren could say a word, the little cub burst out from underneath the bed to greet her.
'What is that,' Rosewaine shrieked as she saw the many legged creature cavorting towards her.
'A Wampus cat, well wampus cub to be precise. They get to be a little bigger than a tiger when they are fully grown. They are native to the Americas. I found him outside' Wren explained, her passion for magical creatures showing a little too enthusiastically for the situation.
'And what is it doing here?' Rosewaine asked with a very unimpressed expression.
'I have no idea.' Wren replied with a shrug.
'I mean, in our bedroom!' Rosewaine clarified.
'Oooh,' Wren responded with a sheepish grin. 'Well, Hagrids out of town for a few weeks and I doubt any of the teachers will be best pleased to be given him to look after so i..'
'Brought him up here as a pet.' Rosewaine finished her friend's sentence as she glowered at the cub, then as it rolled onto its belly to show its plum coloured fluff, her expression softened. 'How big did you say it was going to get?' she enquired.
'Bigger than a tiger.' Wren replied with a smile but her eyes revealed worry.
'Right then. We are going to need to find somewhere other than our room to keep him.' Rosewaine pointed out. Wren smiled in relief as she realised that Rosewaine was willing to help her take care of the cub.
'His front paw is injured. Do you think you could hold him still while I clean and bandage it?' Wren asked hopefully.
Rosewaine rolled her eyes before rolling up her sleeves and plopping the wrigley cub onto her lap. As she held it still she observed its strange features. It looked very similar to a leopard or lion cub in its shape, other than an extra pair of legs. However, its fur was a deep shade of plum purple, marked with the black rosettes of a leopard contrasting with its brilliant floodlight yellow eyes. As she held it, it seemed to chirp like a bird, every now and then, stringing a few different notes together to sound like a robin's morning call. All in all, this was the oddest creature that Rosewaine had ever come across but she couldn't deny that it was very cute.
Wren set to work cleaning the wound on the cub's front paw then splashed some All Purpose Healing potion her mother had given her onto it before bandaging it up. She hoped that that would do the trick in healing everything up but she knew she would need to check on it regularly.
Once she was happy that the bandage was secure, Wren looked under the beds before finding a cardboard box with a cushion inside that Freda's cat usually napped in. Wren took the box and plopped the cub inside, then taking a quilt from her bed, she layed it over the top to hide the cub from view.
The two girls ferried their very suspicious package out of the common room and along the now, sparsely populated corridors. They got a few strange looks but as it was All Hallows eve, people dismissed the first years as simply being up to no good setting pranks for the following day.
Wren and Rosewaine had decided on hiding the cub in a disused classroom in a little ventured part of the castle. They had found this area on one of their break time exploration sessions. The Castle was so vast that there were many hallways and classrooms that had been forgotten for years, some had such thick layers of dust on the desks and yellowed parchment that Wren doubted that they had been disturbed for decades.
When the girls found their designated classroom, they set to work finding a good place to house the cub in between the dusty desks and cabinets. Wren heard Rosewaine exclaim, 'Perfect,' as she opened the door to a large supply cupboard with stacks of warped unused textbooks, chalk and paper towels inside.
To Wren's delight, at the back of the small room sat a window in the middle of the wall. She hated the idea of shutting the cub in complete darkness when they weren't there. The girls set up the box in one corner, laying the blanket inside to make it extra cosy, then took the paper towels from the shelf and began laying them out on the floor to catch any puddles the cub might make in the night.
'We will have to find a litter tray tomorrow.' Wren sighed as she looked at her handy work then laid the now rather lethargic cub down in its boxes. It clung to her arm with its paws as she tried to pull away, then stroked its head soothingly so that it would settle down. As it began to nuzzle into the blanked, it latched on to Wren's finger and began to suck. Wren couldn't help but giggle as she felt the cub's raspy tongue suckling away. Not having the heart to withdraw her hand, she let the cub suckle until it grew floppy and its eyes remained closed as it slumbered.
'We should give it a name.' Rosewaine whispered as she stared at the sleeping cub. Over the past hour she had become rather enthralled by the cub despite her original reservations.
'What about Chirrup.' Wren suggested, thinking back at the bird like chirping sounds that the cub made.
'Chirrup,' Rosewaine repeated, nodding in approval. 'It suits him.'
Quietly, as not to wake the cub, the girls slipped out of the supply room and out of the classroom into the corridor. They had spent a long time with the cub and it was now well past curfew. Wren and Rosewaine did their best to sneak around the halls undetected. When they reached one of the upper corridors, however, they passed a rather large, scruffy looking Maincoon cat with tawny brown fur. At first the girls paid no attention, dismissing it as one of the many cats that roamed around the castle and grounds, until it meowed loudly then trotted off down the corridor.
'Hang on, was that Mrs Norris?' Rosewaine queried in a whisper.
As if to answer her, the voice of the grouchy old caretaker came floating around the corridor corner. 'Students out of bed you say? Now that wont do, my sweet.'
Wren and Rosewaine froze for a second. They couldn't afford to be caught now, especially by Mr Filch. He hated children and revelled in giving them the worst detentions imaginable. Rosewaine, thinking quickly on her feet, dragged Wren behind a statue of a rather odd looking wizard with one eye and a maniacal grin. The pair waited with baited breath as Mr Filch limped by, his grizzled long hair swaying limply around his face as he moved.
The girls didn't move for a long time after the caretaker had passed, making absolutely sure he was truly gone before they continued up to their common room.
When the girls entered through the common room door, Wren saw that Erris was already waiting for her. He looked a little surprised to see them arriving so late but as usual, said nothing.
Rosewaine nodded at him then headed up the stairs leaving them to their nightly talks that had now become tradition.