Do you remember me?- Simon Snow

Whispers

The news spread through the school faster than the enchanted snakes someone set loose last Halloween. Corridors cleared when Simon walked into them and classrooms fell silent when he passed over the threshold like they had when he had first arrived at Watford.

The teachers had done their best to cover up the incident but one of the sixth years who had been there had blabbed before a teacher had used a simple charm of confidentiality on everyone who had been present. Simon had his money on the girls who had enchanted the grass on the quiffler pitch a few summers ago. Simon was just an innocent first year at the time and thought the school could harbour no more surprises within it's walls until Penelope stepped out onto the newly mown grounds and a petrifying screech sounded from beneath her feet. The quiffler game was called off that evening after the gardener tried to silence the grass to a wailing chorus of "oh the pain" and "move it fatso, that's my blades you're standing on."
Agatha, ever the one for humour, asked the gardener when he thought they'd get to the root of the problem.

Simon tried to think about that day as he suffered through potions, his usual partner still hidden away in the tallest tower. The class had an odd number and the professor had tried his best to convince Jennifer Bridges, a girl who usually swooned at Simon's presence, to be his partner but she scuttled away to work with some others at the back muttering about how my partnership was cursed and working with me would be ensuring herself ultimate doom. Even though no one would work with him Simon noticed small clusters of students peering over their dusty books at him in morbid fascination. If people were interested in him when he was the school hero; they were fascinated now he was the villain.

As the end of the lesson drew near Simon grew tired of their stares. It only took a flick of his wrist and the cauldron in front of him billowed out smoke, cloaking him from their eyes in its grey safety.

When he finally escaped the cold stone walls of potions he blew the dust off his timetable. Next he had hypnotism then healing spells, in both he sat next to Baz, after that he had an hour of transport spells in which he sat nowhere near Baz but not even sitting far from the vile vampire could make that lesson interesting. Simon contemplated whether he could carry on visiting lessons full of gossip and sneaky whispers. To his left he heard "did you hear? In potions he set fire to Jennifer Finnicks! I can't believed we thought he was normal," accompanied by gasps and that was enough to make his mind up.

Stealthily he slipped into an alcove and flattened himself against the wall, waiting for the thunder of footsteps to turn into a lighter drizzle. After a few minutes he peered out to an empty corridor, the curtain of the alcove cloaking him still. Echoes threw around the room when his shoes hit the cold stone floor.

"Avisco," he muttered pointing his wand at his feet and his next steps were silent.

He wandered around for a few minutes not knowing where he was headed, well not admitting it to himself because two pixies, four wrong turns and a shortcut later he found himself standing at the hospital entrance.