The Founders

Chapter 53

Term started again in late April and the school, full of the returned students, felt shockingly busy and loud after the weeks of quiet. As Kyra and Grace were walking slowly to the great hall for breakfast, Kyra thought about the last few days.

They had agreed not to explain everything to Oscar and Kat, since it would only endanger them, and they hadn't known about the first attack on Kyra anyway.

At least with Oscar and Kat, they didn't have to hide their relationship completely, but they also decided that they didn't need to formally announce anything.

At least they were able to spend time together in the evenings, in a secluded corner of the Hufflepuff common room. The fact that there had been no more attacks (that the faculty knew of) meant that the curfew, at least, as well as the ban on quidditch, had been removed.

This meant that they could finally all spend time together in the evenings again, and although Kyra refused to let Oscar go down to the kitchen by himself, she could occasionally convince the whole group to migrate downstairs and lounge about on the kitchen sofas instead.

As they crossed the entrance hall, Grace chattering mindlessly beside her, Kyra realised that, despite all the stress and uncertainty, she felt really happy. It felt almost perverted given the circumstances; almost like she should be miserable, on behalf of the bloodshed that they were trying to prevent.

She and Alexander were certainly trying their best, researching as much as possible into the oldest records of Hogwarts, and of Godric Gryffindor's life, available. They were desperately trying to find anything that might help explain why it would be Gryffindor who was contained.

On the evenings when they weren't sprawled out on the floor in Oscar's room or the common room, they were lying on her bed, reading through countless biographies of Gryffindor's life, trying to build a map of motivations and actions.

Although most of these biographies were undoubtably incomplete, they tried to use the bare structures of the events in his life to build a web of reasons why he might have acted in a way that led to his containment.

During meal times, Alexander wouldn't sit with her, in order to maintain the illusion that his connection to her friendship group was no more than friendly itself.

Walking down the aisle to the Slytherin table one lunchtime, her eyes automatically raised to the Ravenclaw table and her eyes met Alex's.

He grinned at her for a moment, before returning to his conversation with the person beside him. Glad to see he's finally making friends, she thought, inwardly smiling.

For such a long time he had thought that being dedicated to his task meant cutting himself off from anything which would bring him joy, like friends, or quidditch, or charms. He hadn't said anything, but she noticed that he was gradually allowing himself to spend more time enjoying them.

In some ways he seemed more relaxed, but in other moments, Kyra thought that the uncharacteristic silence of the attacker was making him increasingly tense. Perhaps it meant that they were having trouble finding the cloak, or perhaps in working out how the ritual worked; perhaps they were biding their time.

"-and I think Professor McGonagall is having an affair with Lingard, she's such a cougar," suddenly cut into her consciousness, as Kyra pulled the roast potatoes towards her.

"What?" she asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

Grace cuffed her over the head. "No, obviously not," she scoffed, reaching for a plate of roast chicken legs. "You were just tuning out, as usual." Kyra rolled her eyes, amused.

Kyra ate lunch hurriedly and then left with Grace to meet Alexander in the DADA library for training. Oscar had pretty much stopped coming, since exam season started looming and he became chronically stressed.

Kat had occasionally come, but found the whole thing a little ridiculous, and certainly didn't want to miss quidditch practice for it. That meant that it was usually Kyra and Grace alternating as to who would duel Alexander.

Kyra was focusing on integrating her creative duelling style with the more practical spells that Alexander advised her to use. After a few weeks of still being bested by Alexander, she was getting much better, and the precision of her spell work improved as well.

As he stood opposite her, on the upper level of the library, she crossed her body sharply and took a step back, settling into duelling stance. She ducked his stunning spell, sending a silent tickling spell at his waist.

As he instinctively reached his arms down, she sent a stunning spell at his exposed chest, which he dodged and then a disarming spell, which met its mark.

His wand flew out of his hand and she advanced, casting the ropes spell around his wrists. It had taken all of three minutes.

Grace cheered from her perch on the window sill while Kyra blinked in shock. Alexander shook off the ropes, using an impressive bit of wandless magic that Kyra barely registered, and came over to her, grinning.

"That was brilliant," he said, shaking her slightly by the shoulders. She blinked up at him, a smile slowly spreading across her face and she raised both hands to high five him. He clasped their fingers, lowering their joined hands down and taking a step closer.

"A room," Grace reminded them from the corner, picking at her nails. "Find one. Please."

Kyra turned away from Alexander, laughing loudly. She advanced on Grace, wielding her wand and shaking with laughter. "Watch it, Chen, I'm an accomplished duellist now."