Casper entered the room, an eerie sense of foreboding as his shadow. The feeling was only intensified when the first year took in the plastic coverings and the stick-straight frames of text. On closer inspection, the text was rules. Strict rules.
Casper didn't know much about Hogwarts, or Cooper's for that matter, for he was only a first year. But he did know his older brother Stephen. Stephen would never have praised his education so fondly if this was truly the school where he had been educated.
Casper searched each corner for a patch of joy or warmth. He would even have been happy to have spotted a girl, those creatures of gossip and high-pitched giggles that taunted the presence of his sketch-book, filled to the brim with private, personal drawings. But there was none around, and he was forced to approach a plastic-covered couch with the tenacity of a mouse approaching a lion. Casper sat down on it, only to discover that it was as cold and unaccepting as the entire building. |