Author's Note: I would like to give a huge thank you to my beta – Bex – for being a totally amazing person about this fic even though I thought it was complete BS. Please read and review if you have anything to say!

Title/Link: followed

Team: Kenmare Kestrels

Position: Beater 2

Extension Used: No

Season 6, Round 13: Treat – Unicorn: Write about someone who is luckier than most (can be bad or good).

Optional Prompts: (action) getting down on one's knee/s, (sound) explosion

followed by ValkyrieAce

BOOM!

Something was obviously wrong.

The castle was telling her that something had happened to one of the Founders, and she made the connections to the explosion out of inference. She moved quickly, catching herself from tripping twice as her long hair blocked her vision. Her mind went through the few diagnostic charms she had practiced. She hoped that those would be enough to save him.

As she arrived at her destination, she kneeled by his side and tilted his head back. Tying her hair at the nape of her neck, she pressed an ear by his heart, hoping that she could catch a heartbeat echoing through his ribcage. To her horror, she couldn't hear a sound.

At that moment, he was empty of life.

Interlocking her fingers, she dealt quick compressions to his chest, willing his heart to start beating again. Checking his breathing once more, she counted a few more of the compressions until she heard him gasp.

She leaned away as he gathered himself, choking and wheezing as he gradually gained control of his breathing. She stood, then, and offered him her hand. He looked at her as though she was crazy – and she might very well be – but accepted her hand, his expression cold, but his eyes filled with a reluctant gratitude.

She'd take what she could get.

Rowena sighed, throwing a cashmere scarf over her shoulders to ward off the chill of a winter day. Aesthetically, it was just the right amount of royal purple to match her eyes in sunlight. Even though she didn't need aesthetics since she was not planning to step out of her private quarters.

There were too many events of significance happening around her to be comfortable with the dangers of the world beyond the walls. She wasn't sure what was happening around her, but it made her feel both safe and in danger.

Her multitasking mind barely allowed for her physical body to catch up, and it had resulted in a lot of unfortunate situations prior to the school's opening. And since Hogwarts had truly been opened to the population of all witches and wizards, she had barely had a scratch or tripped over something her mind had forgone in the name of 'getting things done'.

And she had assumed that she'd been having a spot of good luck in an otherwise revolutionary time. That it had brought her luck.

But later, she began to notice things. Strange things that occurred whenever danger surrounded her. And even though she was there, using both mind and magic to defuse the situation, the injuries that had been on her body – scratches, cuts, and even a few crushed bones – had vanished.

At first, she had assume that the castle was using its own magic to heal her, as one of the four –and after Salazar had left, three– Founders. After a month had passed, however, she'd found that, while the castle did tend to the others in any way it could, it could not heal others. Not even for Godric or Helga.

She was left clueless and frustrated at the turn of events.

Her curiosity did strike her when she'd realized the Potions mishap in her class should have resulted in her being injured, and yet it did not. She'd instinctively closed her eyes, so she didn't see what happened, but when the pain didn't come, she opened her eyes to see the telltale blue of a protection charm disappearing into the air.

Her mind considered all the possible avenues of the situation, really. But the only hypothesis that made sense left her frozen and speechless.

Someone was protecting her, and had been doing so for the past few months. And now, a week after the Incident, she couldn't help but obsess over this mystery person. It was bad enough that she couldn't sense them for a whole month, but for another person to be able to maintain a consistent routine tailored to hers would have taken impeccable organization. And she was wholly impressed.

And even worse, she didn't know why they found her worth protecting. Sure, she had helped found Hogwarts, but it wasn't a job that needed to protect her and only her when Godric and Helga were still actively helpful to the growth of Hogwarts. She was well known in the wizarding areas, but she'd rather stay in the library and read all day, so there were only rumors and opinions to her character and beauty.

And while she was tempted to try and figure out who they were, she wondered if that would be the best course of action. Of course, she wanted to know his identity; there were too many questions that she'd want answered, too many curiosities.

Why her, of all people? What was his purpose? Was this some ploy to find her vulnerable weak spots, to attack for some reason or other? Were they planning to protect or kill? What did they want in return for having done something she would never ask for?

She hugged herself gently, trying to soothe the frayed tendrils of her mental processes. The unknown, while it made her uncomfortable and a bit paranoid, would be let go of for now. She could sense that whoever it was didn't –or couldn't– enter her rooms, and all she wanted to do was relax with a book before she headed out into the battlegrounds of teaching.

That didn't mean she couldn't come up with plans to oust the person who followed her. It wasn't as hard to think up of a mischievous plot to have them reveal their location, she'd had to avoid a lot of the 'entertainment' Godric had set up for the students as the school opened. She'd probably even get their help, if she was desperate enough, that is.

Opening her book and nuzzling into her purple scarf, she prayed to Merlin that she wasn't making a big mistake and began reading.

Tomorrow would be a good day to be followed.

Fin

Word Count: 1,007

The Golden Snitch Prompts:

Through the Universe - (word) 167. Solstice — significance

Ollivander's Wand Shop - Beech: Write about Rowena Ravenclaw.