Skeletons in the Closet

Term

I woke up. Checking the clock, it was 3:45 AM. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to sleep for the rest of the night, I got up. I grabbed my wand and lit it as I walked through the halls. Wandering, without really any goal or place to go. Just wandering. For the sake of it. Eventually, I returned to my dorm with the rest of the Wampus 1st years. The girls and the boys were separated, so I shared the dorm with about 4 other girls. Careful not to wake them, I grabbed my school things and headed down for breakfast. I sat alone in the hall for about an hour, just waiting. Soon, breakfast appeared, and I was the first one out of the great hall. I almost immediately went for the library, but a crowed in one of the corridors stopped me. A group of people were surrounding 2 people. One of them looked to be at least a third year, but the other was Charles! Charles, was again on the ground, and whenever he tried to get up, the older boy would use a tripping jinx on him. It was very cruel, and I watched for a few minutes, until I drew my wand and stepped in front of Charles. The older boy mocked,
"Gotta hide behind another person eh? Well, they can  join you on the ground," he taunted, as he sent a tripping jinx at me. Watching his form, I could see it was very sloppy. A simple spell could dismantle his entire defense. That is, if he was smart enough to actually have one. I effortlessly blocked the spell with a simple shield charm. He kept sending them, and I kept blocking them. One of his friends, eventually yelled, "Come on! Let's help Toby deal with these little buggers" he drew his wand. So did about 3 others around him. Judging by their stances, they were as sloppy if not more so than the first guy, Toby. I did 3 things in response. First, I levitated Toby off the ground using a quick "levicorpus". Next, I  disarmed 2 out of the 4 others that had their wands raised. Finally, I created a shield so powerful, it sent the other two's spells rebounding strait back at their owners. One, had tried to do a tripping jinx on me too, so I strung him up like Toby, once again using "levicorpus" the other had sent a stunning spell, and ended up flying several feet and getting knocked out. I released both of those suspended in the air, using a quick "libercorpus" and they fell to a ground in a heap. Leaning down, I whispered to them, "not so fun when the positions are reversed, is it?"  I pulled Charles up to his feet, which he then thanked me profusely. I walked towards my first class. It was charms. Perfect. I would ace the class easily. All the first years had charms together, so I was with Charles. We sat through a quick lecture about the importance of using charms properly, while I was already thinking about which charms we would need. Finally, he said to us, 

"Today we will be working on the levitation charm. The incantation, is Wingardium Leviosa. Practice with the feathers on your desks. First one to get it right, gets 5 house points!" We all got to work. Considering I could do this spell in my sleep, I decided to help Charles and the short, sick-looking girl to my other side. I tried my best to explain, but eventually they just wanted a demonstration. I picked up my wand, and incanted clearly, "Wingardium Leviosa". The feather rose to the ceiling, for everyone to see. The professor had his nose stuck in his book, so I floated my feather over to his head and poked it a couple of times. He looked at my feather, then at me and my raised wand. Evidently surprised, he said,

"Well done! 5 points to... " he trailed off, waiting for me to tell him which house I was in.
"Wampus, sir."
"5 points to Wampus, yes. Now, the rest of you, get to it!" After a few more tries, Charles got his up in the air. It hung there, perfectly still, until the professor commented,
"Well done! Nice control over the feather too! There's no wobble at all!" At this last comment, I had to agree with him. Charles had amazing control. If only he was more confident. After explaining to the girl a few more times, she got it up too. That class, only one other person besides us three got it. Although, to be fair, he looked as if he didn't expect it to happen that fast either. As we left class, the girl and I had a chat. By coincidence, she was the Hamilton, that I had heard about from her father. Echo Hamilton, she told me. She knew not to expect any special treatment, and was just searching for a friend. With Echo, Charles, and I in Horned Serpent, Pukwudgie, and Wampus respectively, we had very little time outside of class to interact. Even so, we got to know each other really well and we did and went almost everything together. I helped them with spell casting, and in exchange, they helped me with other subjects. I soon discovered that I was absolutely useless when potion-making was concerned, but Charles was an absolute Guru. For someone so clumsy, he had remarkably steady hands when it came to potions. Echo helped me with astronomy and history of magic. I had no patience to stare at the sky for hours, or at a bunch of dates. At our first flying lesson, we each discovered we were equally remarkable at flying, so we didn't really need to help each other in that. Months passed, and we grew closer. Even with how close the tree of us got, it wasn't for several months, that I found out Echo's dark secret.