The Founders

Chapter 10

On Friday, Kyra had her next DADA lesson after lunch. She ate her pea soup quickly, scarfed down some bread and hurried back to the library for half an hour before the lesson started. When she emerged at the top of the ladder, her head poking through the trapdoor, she found that a neat pile of books had replaced the previous chaos. Even the cushions had been arranged under the windows again.

Kneeling down, dropping her bag, she began sorting through the titles. It seemed that a few books had been removed from the pile, and a few unfamiliar titles added. She considered dubiously that house elves came to the library to tidy. Why they might be interested in her defence books, though, she had no idea.

Looking at the new titles, and flicking through them, she saw that they might actually be very useful. The covers of some of the books looked fairly brutal, like what she imagined the books in the restricted section looked like, and described inside were militaristic looking spells.

There was a spell to create a line of javelins, and one to trap the opponent in a case of silvery threads. One to coalesce fire into a weapon. She was pretty sure that using them in class would be frowned on, though. They were certainly all above NEWT level.

When she arrived in Brockett's classroom twenty minutes later, she saw that Alexander was already there, leaning back at the desk where she usually sat so that the front two legs lifted off the ground. The window set up high in the wall above him showed a grey sky threatening rain, and the classroom was particularly dark today. The brackets had already been lit, despite it being early afternoon, as well as the candles in the iron chandeliers.

"Hey," she said, approaching. "Could you move, please? My friend sits there."

He glanced up at her and the front legs of his chair thunked down. "Brockett told me that we're paired up," he responded, crossing his arms.

Kyra dropped her bag heavily on her desk, and slouched into her seat, looking straight forward. "Well, get ready for crushing humiliation then," she threatened.

He looked at her profile with amusement, and asked, "What are you going to do, strangle me with one of your plants?"

Ignoring this, she amended her words. "Get ready for crushing humiliation some-day."

"I'm shaking in my brogues," he responded, leaning forward to rest on the desk.

"You will be. I've been practising."

"I know," he huffed out with a laugh. "That's why I can't use my library anymore."

She turned her head involuntarily to face him. "Your library? Fuck off." Kyra leaned back and faced the front again where Professor Brocket was setting up as the class began to filter in. "So, you're the one tampering with my books then," she concluded.

He smiled, also facing the front now, and shrugged a shoulder. "Your selection was poor. I couldn't help it."

Brockett called the class to attention with a sharp rap against her desk, standing before it. She explained that they would be working on duelling technique for the rest of the term with the partners sat next to them.

The desks had to be cleared to the edges of the room to create a makeshift duelling space. Kyra went to the corner furthest from the door, where there was a large space. The room felt chillier in the corner, beside the two stone walls.

She took a step back and tilted her face up to match Alexander's gaze across from her, raising her wand. She crossed her body quickly, stepped back again, and cast an avis charm to throw him off guard, throwing up her own shield. Dozens of tiny canaries attacked his head, causing his jinx to lose aim.

She sent out a jet of water onto the floor in front of him as transfigured the birds into pencils which came shooting back at her, mini daggers. She threw up another shield and cast a stunning spell, and he skidded in the pool of water, but ducked to a crouch, avoiding it, and threw an underarm disarming spell at her.

He sent a volley of stunning spells her way and she backed away, swiping her wand across each time to block it. Sweaty and breathless, she glanced up at the iron light fixture above his head, hung with droplets of glass lit to gold and in a split-second decision, swiped her wand across, severing it from the ceiling.

She jumped back, registering immediately that the light would hit them both and Alexander propelled her backwards, pushing her down and covering her body with his own. Her back hit the stone below her awkwardly, and her head snapped back. The glass turned to sand as it passed through his shield above them and coated them in a thin white layer of powder. Head throbbing, she looked up him, barely an inch away. She could feel the warmth of his body pressed against her own, his breath skating her neck.

"So, do I win?" she asked with a winning smile.

He pulled back, starting to grin and she realised that her wrists were bound above her head with the same rope that he had used last time.

"Fuck," she muttered, as the rest of the class gathered around to look at her.