A Shallow Grave

Chapter 2

It took about ten minutes to find the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Not as long as I anticipated, but then again I didn't know the temperament of the class's teacher, Professor Hecat. Ominis had said earlier that she could have given everyone detention if they'd been late. The classroom was located on the highest right side of the Defence Against the Dark Arts Tower, up some marble floored stairs with a dark wooden banister. Before I'd even opened the door I could hear the blasts of spells being shot around the room. On the inside, students were crowded around in a huddle-like fashion. I wasn't eager to get involved in trouble on the first day, perhaps tomorrow would be a more appropriate time to start causing trouble, so I slowly began to walk towards the centre of the room.

A series of spells continued.

"Confringo!" "Protego!" "Stupefy!"

It was as if they were speaking a completely foreign language to me.

I need to learn these things quickly.

An opening in between a few students gave me enough space to be able to see what was happening. I should have expected to see Sebastian in the middle of all the chaos, duelling with another student. A tall, freckled, ginger haired boy was casting multiple defensive spells to counter Sebastian's attacks. Eventually, he saw an opportunity for an attack of his own. A red flare emerged from the boy's wand as he yelled out "Stupefy", the spell swirling towards Sebastian's direction. I had the immediate instinct to reach for my wand, I didn't even know how to use it properly. But Sebastian was fully educated in how to protect himself.

"Protego!" he responded harshly before smirking wickedly and changing his tone sarcastically, "Is that all you've got?"

He scoffed and raised his wand. "Bombarda!"

The ginger boy had hardly any time to react to Sebastian's quick spell casting, yelling out "Protego!" one final time, causing the spell to bounce off of the invisible shield, shooting towards the ceiling. The hard crashing sound of it contacting with a large dragon skull caused students to jump back away from the duel. The skull swung back and forth on the edge of the spine for a second before snapping away, falling quickly towards the floor underneath the ginger boy's feet. He collapsed, ducking, with his hand over his head as some poor attempt to try and protect himself from the impending impact. Horrified looks came from everywhere in the room and I swear I could hear a faint, "What's going on?" from a worried Ominis.

So he can't see.

An older voice came from slightly above us. It rang out throughout the room and a purple blast darted towards the skull.

"Levioso!" echoed through the wooden interior . The skull hung over the boys head, levitating in mid-air. I was frozen to my spot, in a trance-like state, watching the purple swirls wrap around the empty holes in the skull. Chatter amongst the students begun, talking about what had just ensued.

"Professor Hecat!" a small Hufflepuff girl stepped forward a few paces. I looked up slightly to see an older woman, dressed in blue hobbling down a small stone stairwell. Her eyes remained fixed on the dragon skull as she talked.

"Perhaps you'd be good enough to blast each other to pieces on your own time," she started, almost reaching the final few steps. The skull had begun moving upwards, back towards the dragons now headless skeleton, "I get new students every year, but I only have one Hebridean Black skull."

She continued on about her experiences during a poacher raid whilst she connected the skull back onto the dragon's body. I stepped forward, staring at the floating skull. I ended up to the side of Ominis and I could sense he had detected my presence, turning his head slightly towards me. Professor Hecat explained that we would be learning the spell that had practically saved the ginger haired boy's life. Ironically, he piped up and had something to say about this, snarkily asking, "Levioso? A levitation char-"