The Founders Troubles - chapter 10
JudgeDP



"What are you doing here?" asked Godric as he practiced his sword play.

"I am here because I am always here."

"Listen Hat, I do enjoy your company but, well, aren't you supposed to help all of us?"

"By 'us' you mean you and your three fellow pupils?"

"Yes."

"Well, truth be told you are the only one left."

"What?" Godric asked, panic in his voice.

"I have tried to spend time with all of you, but it is so hard. I do spend time with Helga but in the middle of the day when she is practicing her music, right now she is digging around in the dirt and heaven knows I look tattered enough without a fresh coat of dirt. Salazar is almost always off somewhere where I cannot find him and Rowena is with him half the time. Then when she isn't with him she is surrounded by those birds and they always poke and pick at me. You are my last choice for this time of day."

"It is after dinner, I am sure that one of them is doing something you can stand."

"No. Helga is giving her plants one last talk before you leave tomorrow."

"What about Salazar?"

"Salazar has disappeared and Rowena with him."

"So what you are saying is that I am never going to be rid of you, correct?"

"Correct. If the four of you had a massive fight this very day and went your seperate ways I would go with you."

"So in a sense-"

"I belong to you first, eventually I will belong to all of you equally, but not now."

"You have got to be the most insane hat I have ever met."

"How many hat's have you met that could talk?"

"Good point."


The next day Godric, Helga, Adolf, Archanes and Hat set out for Cassandra's house and it was not until a week later that the trouble started. First though the travelers reached Cassandra's home three days later after being sped up by magic. Cassandra lived in what appeared to be a small, beaten down cottage at first sight but when one entered they found that it was really the size of a mansion. Cassandra herself was very imposing. The woman had knee length, jet-black hair, and black eyes. She was the most beautiful woman either of the children had ever seen.

Days later after everyone had gotten settled (Archanes and Cassandra sharing a room, Helga and Godric with seperate ones, and Archanes sleeping in the surrounding forest of his own choice) the boys were outside studying what Godric needed the most work on: plants, and the girls were inside studying what Helga needed the most work on: divination.

"Do you actually spend all your time outside?" Cassandra asked kindly.

"Yes, I like to help the flowers bloom and the plants grow," Helga said not looking up from the ancient scroll she was reading, it was the twentieth she had tried to decifer that day and her eyes were beginning to hurt.

"Come on," said Cassandra, grabbing the scroll out of the girl's hands, "I have some vegetables that need some work and we've looked at these long enough."

"But-"

"Come on!" Cassandra began pulling the girl to her feet and Helga had no choice but to give in. 'I am going to have to ask Rowena to help me stregthen my muscles when we get home,' she thought.


"I cannot believe I promised Helga I would look after her plants," Rowena said to no one imparticular.

She had left Pest at home with Salazar to help him work with the babies who weren't so much babies anymore. They had reached half of their full length and Rowena was beginning to worry about how they were going to keep the two a secret. Rowena had learned Parseltongue very quickly, Salazar still needed some words clarified for him but the girl was sure he would be as good as a born Flocksong, eventually. It didn't really matter how much Flocksong Salazar learned though, Slither would listen only to Parseltongue and Slink would only listen to both parents when they were in unison. That meant that they couldn't be fighting and it helped if they held hands, both complained, a lot.

"Aahr," came a sound from within the forest, not ten feet away from the girl.

"Hello? Brother stargazers? Brother moonchangers?"

"Aahr," the sound came again and was now accompanied by a very familiar, "hello?"

"Yes? What are you?"

"Human, what else?"

"You are in these woods and you think humans the only beasts that speak? You must either be blind or not what you say you are, which is it?"

"I would know that tongue anywhere," came the voice, "Rowena? Is that you?"

"Answer my question first."

"Neither. I am human, but not blind."

"I am Rowena. Who are you?"

"It is me," came the voice, the owner obviously trying to drag himself, "Thomas Eleaf."

Rowena raced the ten feet and jumped over a bush to see-


"My old betrothed," Rowena said. She and Salazar were sitting outside the room Rowena had been in after her fight in the cave. Rowena had asked an owl to get Salazar's horse, while she had waited with him Thomas had passed out. He looked as though he had been in a fight with any number of the forests inhabitants. The horse had come and taken Thomas through the castle to the room he was presently in, the horse had left before Salazar arrived.

"Your what?!" Salazar thundered. Two scared quakes could be heard coming from beneath them.

"He was, and I emphasize the word was, my betrothed. I have no idea what he is doing here."

"I do!" Another quake.

"Salazar, calm down, you're only frightening them."

'Them, what about me?' thought the parseltongue, but he kept it to himself. "All right. Do you know what happened to him?"

"I was attacked by beasts," Thomas said. He stood in the door of the room, leaning on the frame. He was your regular tall, dark and handsome who was fairly beat up.

"What kind?" asked Salazar.

"It was dark, I couldn't see."

"Hmph," the parceltongue mumbled.

Seeing the building tension Rowena grabbed Thomas' hand. "Come on, you shouldn't be up and we have to start on dinner."

"All right," Thomas said kindly.


"What do you think you're doing?" Salazar asked when Rowena walked into the kitchens.

"I'm helping an old friend."

"An old bethrothed!"

"Salazar there was never anything there, we were only betrothed because we got along when we were young, that is all." Salazar opened his mouth to say something but Rowena silenced him with a look, "Drop it Parceltongue, just drop it."