The next morning, Wren awoke bright and early to go and check on the cub. Rosewaine had never been an early riser so Wren allowed her to remain asleep.
As usual at this hour, the corridors were deserted and even most of the portraits were asleep in their frames. When Wren opened the classroom door she could hear Chirrup calling to her in his little bird-like cries.
'I'm here Chirrup.' she crooned as she opened the door to let the little cub out. He bounded over to her joyfully and began to sniff about her robes, evidently hoping to find a hidden morsel.
'I'm sorry, little one. You're going to have to wait a little longer for food. I promise that I will feed you after breakfast.' Wren promised as she extracted the cub's head from the sleeve of her robe.
Over the next hour, Wren changed the now soggy towels for a litter tray that she had nabbed from a store room along the way, and sat playing with the cub. She hoped to tire it out enough that it would fall back to sleep until she could get it some food.
Chirrup enjoyed chasing her around the class and chewing on old discarded quills from around the room but his favourite game was chasing his extremely large, bushy tail. It was so large that it seemed to be the same length as the rest of the cub. Eventually the cub settled down in its box once more and nodded off letting Wren head across the castle for an early breakfast.
As soon as she arrived in the close to empty great hall she began to fill a drinks glass with sausages, kippers and bacon. She then grabbed another glass and filled it with milk. Finally she stashed a saucer in her robe pocket and shoved a croissant in her mouth before picking up the glasses and hurrying out of the great hall once more.
When she returned to the classroom, Chirrup was still asleep so Wren took some time to lay out the various tip bits she had brought. Wren wasn't quite sure what the cub was eating at this stage in his development so she had brought both milk and meat to cover all bases.
Soon enough, Chirrup's nose began to twitch as he came around groggily, brought to by the smells. Wren watched him trot over to the saucer of milk first and began to lap it up messily then his attention was caught by the small pile of assorted meats. He sniffed at it, then pulled a chunk into his mouth only to chew it and spit it back out.
'Milk it is then.' Wren giggled before filling his saucer back up and leaving him to his meal.
During break that day Wren ventured up to the library and checked out every book that she could find on Wampus cats. In her brief flip through some of the books before her next class she discovered that there were in fact several different species of wampus cats. The most common and well known species were found in the Appalachian region of America and resembled mountain lions in every way other than their extra legs. The species that Chirrup belonged to was the far rarer and more elusive tropical Andes wampus cat, only having been spotted in densely forested parts of Peru and Bolivia. Their strange deep purple coat acted much the same as the jaguar in camouflaging them in the dense jungle shadows.
Over the next couple of days Wren and Rosewaine spent every spare minute they could with the wampus cup, even bringing their homework to complete in the old classroom. They adored playing with him in the evenings and took turns on bottle feeding him from an old pumpkin juice bottle with a rubber pipet pump on its top acting as a teet. Chirrup gussled greedily from the bottle, making funny little grumbling sounds when the girls told him to slow down.
In the early mornings, Wren would bring him outside to explore and stretch his legs. At first she was afraid that he would run off but it soon became clear that he refused to leave her vicinity and she relaxed a little. Wren watched him snuffle about the piles of leaves and explore the bushes surrounding the castle. Wren always made sure to bring him places that weren't overlooked by many windows or masked from view by trees.
During the day, the girls tried to maintain an air of normality though their friends had begun to question where they kept disappearing off too, all except Erris, who never questioned Wren,but simply observed their comings and goings, usually only just making curfew. He knew Wren enough that she would tell him about it all when she was ready.
One evening as Wren had just come through the common room door, she noticed that quite a lot of students were all crowding around the notice board. As she drew closer she could hear the excited whispers, 'are you going to join choir this year?'
'Maybe, it was fun last year.'
'What about these pen pals?'
'Meh, I don't much like writing letters.'
As Wren fought her way to the front of the crowd she was able to see two notifications pinned to the board. One informed the students that Professor Flitwick's choir would be starting this week with a sign up sheet attached and another advertised the chance to get a Beauxbatons pen pal. The instructions simply stated that you must write a letter introducing yourself and your interests and deliver it to Professor McGonigals office by the tenth of November.
Wren rather liked the sound of both of these opportunities. She had always liked singing, though she doubted she was any good and part of her saw it as another good excuse to be up a little past curfew to check on Chirrup. The pen pal advertisement caught her eye because she loved to write and seeing as she had been learning French for most of her life ,thanks to her home schooled education, she saw this as an excellent way to practice it.
Over the next day, she penned her letter, half in english and half in french, offering to write in either on a pen pals request and documented a little of her personality and interests then dropped it off at McGonagall's office and hoped for a reply.
Two evenings later Wren found herself standing outside the charms classroom with a group of other students of all ages and houses waiting for the first choir rehearsal to start. Rosewaine had opted to stay with Chirrup and tire him out before bed.
Everyone filed into the classroom and on Flitwick's request, sectioned themselves into different voice ranges. Wren had no idea what she was but seeing a lot of the girls heading for the soprano group, she followed.
As the rehearsal began, Flitwick moved several of the girls down into the mezzo and alto groups leaving only the girls with the highest voices in soprano. Wren was one of the girls who remained in this group and as they all began to sing it became clear why the groups were so important. The sopranos were given a melody so high that even Wren struggled with some of the notes. It didn't help that the song was entirely in gaylic and she had no idea what she was singing but she enjoyed it over all. Singing in a large group with voices harmonising all around her seemed to lift her spirit in a way that other things didn't. It was exhilarating and comforting all at the same time.
By the time practice ended, Wren was grinning ear to ear and as she trotted along the corridors to say good night to Chirrup and give him his night time feed she found herself humming the tune they had been rehearsing.
When Wren arrived in the abandoned classroom, it was evident that Rosewaine had only just left because Chirrup was still happily chewing on a stick in the supply cupboard.
'Now, who's a hungry boy?' Wren coed at him as she warmed up his bottle of milk with her wand, a spell that she had learnt specially for this task. Chirrup padded over to her and began to paw her arm expectantly.
'Patience, patience, or I will start to think I'm raising you without manners.' Wren scolded playfully. Chirrup harrumphed before seating himself down on his fluffy little bottom and produced a cascade of twittering bird song as it stared longingly at the bottle. Finally, Wren presented him the teeth and he latched on rather viciously and began to gulp furiously. It only took a minute for him to drain the bottle and began sniffing around for more.
'Now, now, you've had enough. I can see your round little belly practically dragging the floor.' Wren reasoned with the cub.
At that moment, Wren became aware of running footsteps in the hall outside. She instinctively grabbed the Wampus cub but before she could do anything a small boy burst through the door and slammed it shut behind him.
On seeing that he wasn't alone, Rory Ridcully exclaimed, 'What are you doing her-' before cutting himself off and shaking his head. 'No time.' and with that he hurried into the open supply cupboard dragging Wren with him. They stood in the dark for a moment before they heard the unmistakable bellowing voice of Peeves.
'Student out of bed! Student out of bed!' Peeves cackled as he flew into suits of armour making them clash and clatter loudly.
'If he hud a neck, ah wid ring it!' Rory grumbled in a whispered tone as they stood, squished in the dark.
'Some people have probably thought the same thing about you,' Wren replied, thinking back to the various pranks the boy had pulled in the past month alone. He had recently managed to turn one of the corridors into quicksand using his new found overly powerful Reparo charm. It was a quick fix but it caused a lot of mayhem in the meantime.
'Nay, i liven the place up a bit, is all.' Wren could hear the grin in Rory's voice as he spoke.
'Is the coast clear?' Wren asked irritably.
'Aye.' Rory replied as he slowly opened the supply cupboard door. It was at this moment that Chirrup decided to jump from inside Wren's robes down onto the floor.
'Aaah, whit on earth is that?' Rory gasped in surprise at the cub, padding towards him.
'Would you believe me if I told you it's a house cat?' Wren asked hopefully.
'No' one bit.' Rory replied, eying the creature's six legs.
Wren sighed as she sat down to stroke the little cub behind the ears. 'It's a Wampus cub. I found it wandering the grounds a week ago. You must not tell a soul, do you hear me.' Wren said very seriously as she stared intently at the cheeky boy.
'Aye, nae a soul, as long as i kin hulp ya tak'care of it.' Rory grinned as he reached out to stroke the cub.
'You want to help me?' Wren repeated, a little taken aback.
'O'course, Nay more mischief tae be had than raising a tiger at school.' he replied excitedly.
'It's a Wampus cat.' Wren corrected him then dropped her tone to become very serious. 'As long as you don't mess around. This isn't just a bit of fun, this is a life we are protecting, ok?'
'Ah understand. Besides, this wee bairn is going tae need meat soon and i know how tae git in tae school kitchens.' Rory beamed, his scottish accent growing thicker the more excited he became.
'How-' Wren began curiously.
'Well known secret amongst th' Hufflepuffs. If yer know th' right folks you can learn alot aboot this place.' Rory flashed his teeth at her mischievously.
Wren and Rory agreed to meet up the next day at break to discuss things further but in the meantime they settled Chirrup down in his bed and snuck back to their respective common rooms.
'You what?!' Rosewaine exclaimed, nearly spitting out her break time apple that she had just taken a bite from. It was the first chance that Wren had been able to tell her exactly what had happened the night before without being overheard.
'It's not as if I just told him. He walked in on me.' Wren reasoned with her friend.
'But he's a blabbermouth. We are sure to get busted now.' Rosewaine protested.
Unbeknownst to them, Rory had been making his way over to the girls and had heard Rosewaine's comment.
'I'm a lot o'things, Rosewaine Swift, but a snitch is nay one of them.' Rory announced his presence with a rather afronted tone.
Rosewaine opened her mouth to reply something else until Wren elbowed her in the ribs and hissed. 'Be nice, he only wants to help.'
Rosewaine huffed then, with crossed arms, seemed to resign herself to the situation.
'So, I was thinking that seeing as there are more of us now, we should probably find a way of talking about our little friend in public without worrying about being overheard.' Wren suggested.
'Thats a great idea.' Rory exclaimed excitedly. He was evidently having a lot of fun at the idea of keeping such a big secret. 'Maybe his code name could be birdy, after all he does sound like one, then when we need to talk about him we can say 'A little birdy told me...''
'I'll have to admit that that is quite a good code.' Rosewaine admitted grudgingly.
'Brilliant.' Wren beamed, then as the bell rang for the end of break she turned to Rory and said 'A little birdy told me to meet in class at six.'
Rory nodded in understanding then disappeared into the crowd.
...........................................................................................................................
That evening, the trio met up in the classroom as planned and fed Chirrup his dinner time bottle. After playing with him until he had become rather cuddly and sleepy, the group began to look through some of the books Wren had checked out of the library. Wren had already read quite a few of them but she hadn't had a chance to scour them all for information.
'It says here that the wampus cat's yellow eyes are reputed to have the power of both hypnosis and Legilimency.' Rory read aloud from one of the books. He looked down at the cub who was happily chewing on one of his shoe laces then picked him up by the armpits and gazed into his eyes for a minute. 'Nope, nothing.' He concluded with a disappointed huff as he set the cub back down on the ground.
'Maybe there just isn't anything to control in your mind.' Rosewaine teased. She still wasn't particularly happy that Rory had gate crashed their little adventure.
Rory stuck his tongue out at her in response before flipping the page and holding it up in surprise. The image in the book showed a fully sized wampus cat standing next to a human for scale.
'Bloody hell! Look at th' size o'that. What are we going tae do when Chirrup gets tae tha' size?' Rory exclaimed in shock and a little concern.
Wren bit her lip as she looked down at the cub who had already grown from the size of a house cat to a small spaniel in a week. 'I will be completely honest. I haven't thought that far. I suppose I should probably start looking for a sanctuary or safe habitat for him.'
The thought of ever being separated from Chirrup was hard but she knew that at some point she would need to let him go so that he could live a good life, but not yet. Right now he was getting all the love and attention he needed right here.