Chapter 4: Secrets
"Right so how are we going to decide who duels who?" Brenna asked as Cyrus joined them in the courtyard for their tutoring session on Thursday night.
"I say the tutors go first against each other." Cyrus answered, after all they had to figure out how much of their skill to use.
"Alright, Padfoot, ready to get to arse kicked?" James asked with a smirk.
The two boys faced each other in the center of the courtyard, bowed, then turned and walked tree paces away from each other.
"3, 2, 1 duel." Brenna counted in as the James shouted the stunning spell and Sirius used a blocking spell. Turning to her brother she whispered, "I think we can trust them with our secret."
"Brenna, no, we can't tell them, not yet at least." Cyrus whispered back watching the two duel.
"Well we can show them a little of what we can do, as long as they promise to keep it a secret." She said, for some reason she trusted the two Gryffindors who were duelling in front of her. "James nice dance!" She called as Sirius hit him with Tarantellegra and sent his legs dancing uncontrollably.
"What makes you think they'll keep it a secret?" Cyrus asked still studying the duel.
"They have a secret of their own that they don't want to be told. That's why the four 'marauders' are so close." Just then Sirius shot a stunning spell at James who had almost lost his balance in his dance and hadn't noticed. James flew backward as the spell hit him and Sirius smirked.
"Fine, we'll show them a bit." Cyrus agreed walking over to James and saying the counter curse.
"I guess you won, Sirius, congrats." Brenna said with a smile.
"That I did." Then James stood up frowning at Sirius.
"You got lucky that's it, you're not a better wizard than me." He said obviously upset that he had lost, Sirius merely grinned.
"Alright, let's see the Templar twins then." He said as Brenna and Cyrus walked to the center of the court yard while they bowed to each other Brenna whispered to her brother.
"Don't go easy on me, I won't go easy on you, it'll be fun to test ourselves against each other again."
"Oh it's on." He whispered back as they both turned and walked the customary three strides.
"3, 2, 1 duel." James called and instantly Brenna whipped her wand through the air shooting a non-verbal spell at her brother.
With a slash of Cyrus' wand the blue light Brenna had shot at him was deflected.
"Holy crap" Sirius said in awe as the two began to circle each other, still duelling non-verbally. Every second a spell was shot and deflected by the opponent. Their duelling became more rapid and intense, but they still walked in careful circles maintaining an equal distance between them, if one sped up the other did as well, mostly it was Brenna who changed the pace from slower to fast and back to slow.
"You've been practicing Cyrus." Brenna said as she was nearly hit by one of his spells. Slowly she increased her pace and Cyrus moved faster as well.
"I have" Cyrus responded.
Sirius and James were still watching wide-eyed, they weren't even able to use non-verbal spells let alone carry out a conversation while duelling with them. While James and Sirius had stood still only moving to dodge the occasional spell, Brenna and Cyrus were in constant motion, moving in circles not quite walking but something along those lines on the balls of their feet, crossing them quickly one in front of the other. Then Brenna shot a particularly hard spell at her brother who barely managed to deflect it and rocked back a bit from the impact.
"Damn I guess she wasn't kidding." James muttered to Sirius eyes still trained on the duel as Cyrus retaliated with a strong hex of his own. Brenna ducked slightly as she deflected the charm with an incredibly powerful shield that caused a ball of white/blue light where the two spells met.
"Well this has gone on long enough." Brenna said and before Cyrus could respond Brenna spun out from the circle she had been walking in and back in. Using the momentum of the spin, Brenna shot her most powerful spell yet. It was so powerful that it blew through the shield Cyrus had used and threw him backwards at least 10 feet to the back of the courtyard.
"Oh crap" She said running toward her brother and quickly followed by Sirius and James.
James and Sirius stood completely stunned, looking at Cyrus lying on the ground. He wasn't bleeding or anything and he didn't seem to have broken anything but he was unconscious.
"Shit Brenna what the hell did you do?" James asked looking at her with wide, worried eyes. Brenna pointed her wand at Cyrus and a green stream of light flowed from her wand and surrounded Cyrus. As the light dimmed Cyrus blinked open his eyes, a green aura around him. Sitting up he shook his head to clear it.
"Well that's gonna hurt in the morning." He said smiling as Brenna offered him a hand up. "Nice hit, I must say I didn't think it would be that strong." Cyrus grinned proudly at his twin who smiled at him before they turned to acknowledge the two very shocked Gryffindors.
"Say something" Brenna said biting her lip as she looked between the two boys.
"That was bloody amazing." Sirius said his eyes still wide as Brenna and Cyrus chuckled at the awe in his voice.
"So what do you think, can you still beat us in a duel?" She asked as the two boys shook their heads. "There's one thing about everything you've seen tonight…"
"You can't repeat a word of anything you've seen or heard." Cyrus finished and the two boys looked at them confusedly.
"What? Why?"
"It would raise questions we can't answer, its best if no one knows." Brenna explained.
"Why?" Sirius asked still not really understanding the need for secrecy.
"We can't answer that" Cyrus said surprisingly patiently.
"If you can't answer any of our questions then why'd you show us?" James asked as Cyrus turned to look at Brenna.
"Brenna I'll let you answer that, I've got to get back to the dungeons." He said walking around the Gryffindors back to the entrance of the courtyard. "Bren, I mean it don't say anything."
"Oh ye of little faith!" She said rolling her eyes.
"Oi, and you two, talk to me in the corridors and I'll hex you." He added as he grabbed his bag and walked back into the school leaving Brenna to explain everything to James and Sirius.
"So why'd you show us?" Sirius asked shaking his head at Cyrus' rather confusing exit.
"I don't know" She said shrugging.
"So it was your brother's decision?" James asked confused, he couldn't see Cyrus wanting to tell them anything.
"No, it was my decision, Cyrus just trusts my judgement way too much. I guess I just figured that we can trust you guys." She said shrugging.
"Well you can trust us; we know how to keep a secret." Sirius said exchanging a look with James.
"I figured as much." Brenna said giving them a smile.
"Oh you did?"
"Yeah, I'm sorry, but there's no way that four guys are that close unless they're hiding something, or you're all gay, which is totally cool if you are." She said pretty sure that they weren't gay and causing James and Sirius to erupt with laughter.
"We're not gay!" Sirius said wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.
"That's what I've heard, so it's definitely because of a secret." Brenna said as they all sat on a bench in the courtyard.
"Really who have you heard from?" James asked.
"Lily, Alice and Marlene, they said something like the Marauders have a new prank everyday, and a new girl every week." Brenna said as the smiles fell from Sirius and James' faces.
"Who said that?" Sirius asked sternly.
"Lily I think…but it could've been Alice." She added the last part quickly seeing the pained look that crossed James' face when she said it was Lily. "And really I think they were mostly talking about Sirius."
"Hey!" Sirius said looking at her incredulously.
"It's true; I've been here, what, two days? And already I know it's true." James smiled a bit at the look on his friend's face. It was almost pained, disappointed. "You guys are taking this all extremely well; I think I would be asking a lot more questions."
"We're not done with the questions."
"Yeah, where did you learn that?"
"Can't answer that" Brenna said shaking her head.
"What spell did you use?"
"It's very complicated and if you two used it McGonagall would have my head for teaching you." She answered earning a humph from Sirius.
"Okay, let's try this, what can you tell us?" James asked running a hand through his hair.
"I can tell you that my brother and I know a lot of magic, that the only teachers who know are McGonagall and Dumbledore, which is why we ended up with tutors, that if you try to talk to Cyrus or prank him or put him in a less than ideal position he will hex you. I can tell you that tomorrow in Defence, my brother and I will duel exactly the way you two did this evening, which is why it was good for us to see how you duel. I can tell you that it is absolutely crucial that no one suspects us as anything but regular, mediocre students."
"Why is secrecy so big for you two?"
"If I told you it wouldn't be much of a secret now would it? But really, it's far too risky for us to tell anyone that we aren't 100% sure we can trust."
"Why did you choose to tell McGonagall and not the other teachers?" James asked still puzzled by Brenna's intense requirement of secrecy.
"I am 100% sure I can trust her, she would never say anything to anyone that isn't supposed to know and she looks out for Cyrus and me. She knows how to keep our secret."
"All this secrecy, jeez you act like it's a matter of life or death!" Sirius said exasperated at constantly being told 'I can't answer that'. Brenna regarded him with a straight face, she didn't say anything concerning Sirius' comment, she didn't laugh or smile at it. She simply looked at both Gryffindor boys as their eyes once again widened.
"I think we ought to go back to the tower now. Remember, if either of you say anything to anyone, and I mean anyone, you will both regret it. And by the way, Lupin and Pettigrew are included in anyone, tell them and I will personally take care you're lapse in control, understand?" Brenna said standing up and looking at them menacingly. The way her demeanour went from pleasant to threatening was shocking and it scared the two boys a bit.
"Yeah, we get it, but really Moony and Wormtail wouldn't say anything." Brenna looked at James with a raised eyebrow as he used his mates' nicknames.
"I presume you mean Lupin and Pettigrew, but really I don't care, tell anyone and you will have made the worst mistake of your lives." She said staring coldly at the two boys.
"Fine, we get it."
"Good, and I know you guys are wondering why I won't let you tell your mates who evidently have kept your secrets and really it has a simple I answer, I don't know them so I don't trust them. Plus I prefer to tell people secrets myself instead of a third party." The three began to walk back to the Gryffindor Common Room in contemplative silence.
"Brenna, why does your brother listen to you?" Sirius asked randomly.
"What?" She asked giving him a puzzled look.
"You said that telling us was your call and obviously your brother didn't exactly want to tell us but he went with it because you decided. So why did he go with it? Are you the older twin?" He asked as Brenna frowned slightly thinking about her answer. After a few moments she shrugged.
"I don't really know how to answer that. I'm not older though, Cyrus is, only by a few minutes, but that's not it. I think the only way I could answer that would be to tell you things that I can't. So I guess I'm going to go with, we just listen to each other. I listen to him, he listens to me."
"You never really answer anything do you?" Sirius asked as both he and James looked unsatisfied with her response.
"I tell you guys what I can. Now remember-"
"Yeah, yeah we know. Don't tell anyone anything or I'll kill you." James recited her warning.
"I never actually said I'd kill you, that would be illegal, but then you guys know all about illegal things." She said as James and Sirius' eyes widened for the umpteenth time that night, as they reached the portrait hole. "Centaur"
"What're you saying?" Sirius asked as Brenna stepped through into the Common Room.
"See you later Black, Potter."
"Do you reckon she knows?" James asked as Brenna walked up the stairs to the girls' dorms.
"I hope to Merlin not, no one can know." Sirius answered as the two boys proceeded into the Common Room.