The Founders

Chapter 43

Alexander stopped speaking for a moment, looking up from his hands to Kyra, who was motionless with shock. She swallowed carefully and pushed her knees down so that her legs were stretched out on the bed. Then she eyed Alexander and swallowed again. "So, someone is currently trying to raise Salazar Slytherin so that he can keep killing muggleborns," she said slowly, and Alexander nodded. "And you're the...Ravenclaw heir. Right?"

He nodded again, carefully watching her reaction.

"But this person hasn't yet got hold of any of the objects. So, we're..." she trailed off as she saw Alexander face darken. "They have?" she whispered in horror.

He nodded, and rolled his jaw, saying in a tense voice, "Before the start of the year, the sword of Gryffindor was stolen from McGonagall's office. It was kept quiet, but it's the reason why I was sent here."

His eyes darkened further as he continued angrily. "I should have been sent here years ago, but I was kept in training. No-one ever thought that it would actually happen; not after a thousand years."

She nodded mutely and he kept talking, wrapped up in his own memories. "But Ravenclaw's wand...that is my fault." He glanced briefly up at her. "When I came into the common room, there was girl...a first year, suspended in the air, with a rope around her neck and a platform levitated under her feet." His voice shook.

"She was muted, but her eyes were terrified. Behind her on the wall were these huge burning letters: 'remove the wand or she dies.' The wand of Ravenclaw actually was the wand attached to her statue and only the Ravenclaw heir can remove it, unlike with Gryffindor's sword; he hadn't lived long enough to put that kind of protection on it."

Taking a shuddering breath he paused, the scene replaying itself out in front of his eyes. "I knew rationally that removing the wand and essentially helping to raise Slytherin would end up with more people dead. But she was so tiny, and so terrified. I couldn't let her die. So, I broke it off, and it disappeared. Then I cast a cushioning charm, cut the rope above her and stunned and obliviated her."

Finally, he met her gaze and pressed together his trembling hands again. "So basically, I've done a shit job at the only thing that I was raised to do," he ended, with an ironic smile. "You can blame me if you like."

Kyra shook her head slowly, and slipped her legs out from under the covers. She moved over to him, sitting on the edge of the bed beside him. His head was bent down, his hair tangling over his forehead, and she watched his profile for a moment.

"I don't blame you," she murmured in a low voice. "You saved my sister's life, and this little girl's. And anyway. One person shouldn't have to deal with the secrets of a millennium."

He raised his eyes slowly to hers. The sun was now so low that a slanting beam of light lit his green eyes to jade and picked out little golden specks, feathered by the shadows of his eyelashes. His knee inadvertently nudged hers as he faced her and replied in an uncertain voice. "That's the thing," he began slowly. "I'm not sure that I am the only heir. I think- I think that you're the heir of Hufflepuff."