The Founders

Chapter 2

On their pilgrimage to find an empty carriage, Grace and Kyra became besieged by a group of lost-looking first years milling along the corridor. One shy girl with white-blond hair invited Nina to join their ranks of confusion.

They let her go, Kyra feeling relief at the prospect of avoiding babysitting, and edged around the group, continuing further down the corridor in a shuffle. When they had peered through most of the carriage windows and were approaching the final section of the train, they finally found Oscar, who had managed to hog an entire carriage for them.

Kyra slid open the carriage door to find him texting, sprawled across two seats. His brown hair was dishevelled and tossed with sunlight, and his wiry limbs took up far too much room.

Oscar Christensen was a Hufflepuff sixth year who Grace and Kyra had been friends with ever since their first year. He had the amazing capacity of being incredibly louche and surprisingly high-strung at all times, and he had the slightly anaemic look of a scrawny Matt Damon. The response that he had developed to his tightly wound nature was stress-baking and he therefore almost always carried around a tin filled with baked goods that he was trying to palm off on people.

He'd actually managed to introduce the concept of a cake rota to the school in their third year, for which he considered himself a visionary, and he had broken into the school kitchens so many times that the house elves considered him one of their own. Professor McGonagall had stopped giving him detentions after Oscar threatened to get a medical note saying that a kitchen was a necessary requirement for his disposition.

"You're such a slob," she said as way of greeting, pulling her trunk behind her into the carriage.

He glanced up from his phone and sprang up with a yell, picking her up in a hug. Kyra yelped and hugged him back, burying her face in his neck. He set her down and held her at arms-length, appraising her in shock. "Kyra, your hair."

She grimaced.

For all the years that Kyra had been at Hogwarts, she had dyed her hair a dark brown. Over the summer, when Grace had chopped her hair bluntly short and dyed it platinum, she had convinced Kyra to make a change as well; Kyra had finally decided to let her natural hair colour grow back, using growing potions to grow out the roots quickly.

It had grown back into a dark gold mass spilling in waves down her back. When Natalie, Kyra's adoptive mother, first saw her with her natural hair, she had steadied herself on the staircase banister and taken a shaky breath, saying that Kyra looked exactly like her mother. Natalie Chen and Carys Havard had been best friends for most of their lives when Carys, Kyra's mother, had died in a freak accident along with Kyra's father and aunt.

Natalie and Carson had moved back to England from Singapore, uprooting their young family to adopt Kyra. Kyra still felt guilty about the fact that Grace and Nina hadn't grown up near their grandparents like they ought to have, only being able to see them once a year in Summer.

Kyra forced herself to focus back on Oscar, touching her hair self-consciously.

Oscar shook his head with a grin, before catching sight of Grace behind Kyra, his eyes widening even further. "And you!" Grace threw her arms around Oscar's neck, grinning. Oscar took a step back from Grace, appraising her as well. Her hair had been almost black and pin straight right down to her back before she had chopped it off into a bob and forced Kyra to dye it in the sink. "So, you guys had identity crises without me, then?" Oscar surmised.

Kyra snorted and flopped down onto a seat beside the window, dropping her belongings onto the seat beside her in a heap. "Yes," Kyra responded for both of them. At Grace's look of betrayal, she shrugged innocently. Grace's situationship with a boy called Michael had ended in July and she had been adamant that she was perfectly fine. Kyra had endured Grace playing the Fearless CD on repeat in their shared room and begged to differ.

She pulled her legs up under her, crossing them on the seat and leaned her head back, watching the other two bicker and catch up. She had always loved travelling by train. It was somehow the most companiable way of travelling, and the most comfortable, and the Hogwarts express especially so. The upholstery was a lovely powder blue, the seats large and cushioned and the wood a dark, polished mahogany that gleamed in the sun. Kyra stretched out her hands onto the fabric, feeling it rough and warm beneath her fingers.

Oscar sprawled out again across the seats but conceded the window seat to Grace. The pace of the train picked up as the train left London and sped through green countryside. A line of forest ran alongside them, very green against the yellow of the fields.

Country stiles and low stone walls began bisecting the landscape, and ran up beside the train before dropping away as copses sprung into being, fading into the distance again. The rhythmic chugging made sunlight flicker on the ground below the glass like the light thrown from a pool onto its ceiling.

Half-listening to Oscar and Grace's conversation, Kyra pulled out her phone and scrolled through Pinterest while her service was still working. She reached for Oscar's rucksack, pulling out a tin which had the faded image of a church in the snow on it and pulled out a ginger biscuit. Oscar's house was scattered with all kinds of religious paraphernalia; a picture of pope Francis on the fridge, crosses above the doorways.

He had been raised a Catholic but joked that he only stayed for the hymns. There was actually a Catholic chapel in Hogsmeade which he sometimes went to, usually before Christmas or before exams. He liked to make no sex before marriage jokes with girls that he went on dates with, just for the pure shit-stirring joy that he got from their reactions.

Kyra balanced the tin on her knee and, holding her phone in one hand and a biscuit in the other, she sat cross-legged on her seat, tuning the others out as they began their routine bickering about quidditch teams.

She put her phone away just as the sulphur lights flickered on, the weather turning foul outside of the windows. The outline of mountains was barely visible through the streaming water tracks and the glass was slightly fogged up. She tuned in just as Oscar mentioned a small news article from the summer.

"- her father attacked back, but the really messed up thing is that he's now in Azkaban and they're not."

"What's messed up?", Kyra asked, reaching for her jumper and pulling it on. It suddenly felt much colder. Bloody Scottish weather.

"Apparently some blood purists attacked an autistic girl from a muggle born family. She's in hospital now, and so is the mother, who had a nervous breakdown. The father's in Azkaban."

Kyra blew out a breath through her teeth. "I didn't even know that stuff still happened. Not since Voldemort."

Oscar winced slightly, and Grace teasingly nudged his foot where it lay beside her. "What, do you not like us saying Voldemort?".

Oscar tried to kick her with his foot, which was already on the seat next to her. She pushed it away with a yelp. "Just because I'm not heartless like you guys," he sulkily muttered.

"Hey," Kyra said sternly, crossing her arms. "Stereotypes hurt, Hufflepuff. So, watch it. Otherwise, we'll make you sit at your own table like a loner."

"Oh, yes." Grace confirmed, standing up, and stretching onto her tiptoes.

She reached up for her bag, and left for the bathroom to get changed before they arrived in Hogsmeade station.

Once she had slid the carriage door closed, Oscar gave Kyra a considering look. He swung his legs off the seats and came to sit opposite her, holding the seat sides. A carriage lamp hung outside above the window and cast shadows onto his face, making it appear as though streaks of water were slipping down one side of Oscar's face. She watched him warily.

"You okay?" He asked casually, nudging her foot with his. "You're kind of quiet".

Kyra smiled tiredly. "I'm glad to be back," she responded, not answering the question. Oscar nodded. His eyes focused on the circular charm hanging around her neck; a silver disc set in with a yellow stone.

"Nice necklace. It's new, right?"

"You're so bloody nosy," Kyra smiled at Oscar. "And no. It was my mum's. I only started wearing it this summer," she added, by way of explanation. Before Oscar could respond, the chug of the train started to slow as they neared Hogsmeade and Grace pushed the door open again.