A rare moment of sibling bonding on Library

Kira and Tristan Spaulding

January 28, 2016 1:25 PM

A rare moment of sibling bonding by Kira and Tristan Spaulding

Kira sighed to herself. Her challenge team is was in last place and she couldn't help but feel inferior again. She'd never been the type to care about winning everything but why did they have to be last ? All she'd wanted to do was beat Kelsey for once but she wasn't even done that. Why did the second year always have to be the loser?

She didn't even know what she'd personally done wrong though odds were that there was something. Of course Kira didn't want to blame anyone else either. Maybe she should have contributed some idea or something. No, that was ridiculous. She didn't have good ideas. Wasn't good at anything other than magic. Her ideas would likely have been mocked and ridiculed, had she even had any to begin with. Nobody ever listened to her anyway. Besides, she hadn't wanted to overstep her bounds.

The Crotalus sighed to herself as she walked into the library where she saw an unusual sight, her older brother. Tristan was not a reader. He was even less of one than Fabian was. The other second year was at least inclined towards comic books and stuff about how to survive in the wild. Even though a Brockert was unlikely to ever need to survive in the wild, it still interested Fabian and Kira knew he'd enjoyed playing at such things as a child.

Tristan, on the other hand, never seemed to like to sit still much. He'd always been very into flying and Quidditch and spent most his childhood doing that, so this was not a place Kira expected to see him. Then again, he did have RATS this year and was planning to become an Auror so perhaps he was studying for that.

As she looked over, she noticed he didn't seem any happier than she really was. Kira hesitated. She didn't want to interrupt if he was busy or irritated about something but on the other hand, he was her brother and while they'd never really been close, she thought it would be rude to ignore him and not at least say hello so she approached him, as she did most things, with caution.

Tristan, on the other hand, was incredibly focused on what he was doing. His team was not doing that much better than his sister's, being tied for second to last with Portia Dobson's. While Kira just didn't want to be in last place and be a loser-again- he wanted to win. Or at least do better than they were doing. Tristan, unlike his sister, was not used to not being on top and did not like when he wasn't. Even with Head Student it had been rather disappointing not to be included on the ballot though he'd gotten over it and had taken not getting prefect in stride mainly because he'd lost it to Nellie, whom as far as he was concerned was an amazing, beautiful woman and if it wasn't going to be him, it should be her.

Therefore, the seventh year was engrossed in a strategy for winning the next challenge. Unfortunately, much like the first one, there was not a lot of information to go on. Honestly, how were they supposed to make plans for success when they didn't know anything?

Fortunately, what Tristan did know was good news for his team. They'd have to bring their wands and, if they had them, brooms. They were also to dress for a physical challenge and split their team into three groups. He was ecstatic about getting to fly plus he had a team full of people who shouldn't mind having to do so.

They were going to dominate.

Still, the minimum directions given made it all over more difficult. Tristan had to imagine every possibilty for what could be done on brooms and how to best utilize people. The groups themselves were not that hard to figure out but not knowing what precisely they were going to do made it hard to assign them specific instructions.

Not to mention that Tristan had never been an especially creative person, so it wasn't as if he could really think out of the box very well, which come to think of it might have been the reason for his team's low placement thus far. Of course, he felt he most likely did not need to in this case because he doubted the staff would be coming up with any idea that was too outlandish or unusual. A better use of his time would be to look up the history of any obscure broom sport-he knew about all the more well known ones- played with six to seven people that involved being split into three groups. Just in case it wasn't a relay race with obstacles, which Tristan was ninety-nine percent sure that it was and thus had dedicated a significant amount of time to looking up each and every obstacle that could possibly exist-not that he'd strayed into anything a bit unusual as those didn't occur to him or anything real dangerous as he doubted the staff was going to make that a possibility-and how to defeat them.

So he didn't notice Kira until she was upon him. Of course, he did notice her before she spoke, because Tristan felt it was necessary to-as a future Auror-know when someone or something was sneaking up on him and had practiced honing this skill ever since he'd chosen his career path.

However, he did not bother to hide his plans, as he most likely would have had it been anyone else. It was just his sister and certainly, he didn't expect her to be spying on other teams. Of course, Tristan supposed that if he was less honorable and going to pick someone to spy, he'd have picked someone unobtrusive like Kira to do it, but he'd have also picked a team to spy on that was closer to the top. If Charlotte Spencer was going to send his sister to spy-which was not a tactic he'd ever suspect her of thinking of-he'd have picked Scarlett's as her team was tied for first place and Scarlett would be way easier for Kira to get close to than Duncan Brockert or anyone on his team. And more likely to open up to Kira.

He actually wished for a brief moment that he was less honorable. However, Tristan wanted to win by skill and strategy, by being the best, not by any form of cheating. He didn't need to. "Hello there." He greeted the second year.

Kira relaxed slightly when her brother spoke. He didn't seem angry or annoyed with her intrusion, he was just like his normal self. She noted what he was reading. The Complete Encyclopedia of Broom Sports. Of course, that would be one of the few books in existance that interest Tristan. One that she'd personally find to be deadly boring.

It dawned on her though that her older brother was not reading for pleasure. Kira realized that the older Crotalus was probably planning for the next Challenge. She knew him well enough to know he didn't like to lose. That he wasn't used to it the way she was. That Tristan was likely as unhappy about the team placements as she was as his team wasn't doing too much better than hers. "Hey, um, I'm really sorry you guys aren't doing well." Kira hoped she wouldn't upset him by bringing it up.

Tristan looked surprised. His sister-whose team was the only one doing worse than his-was expressing concern for his feelings. He hadn't stopped for a moment to think how she must feel. Of course, with the exception of Nellie, Tristan didn't often stop to think of how others felt. Not that he was openly cruel, not even to Leo whom he found to be an immature irksome creature, but he didn't usually take time to empathize with others. Just not something that generally occurred to him. "And I'm sorry your team isn't." He replied.

"Yeah," Kira responded. "Awful feeling isn't it?" It just slipped out. She never truly confided in most people about how terrible she felt about others being better than her on a regular basis and wasn't really going to start now with Tristan, but the fact that for once she felt that just maybe her brother could relate to her and vice versa....

Tristan nodded, though still unaware his sister was generally used to being in this position, as he'd heard that she was rather amazing with magic for her age. Some sort of prodigy, he'd heard Father tell his uncles over midterm with the same sort of pride that he usually heard Father talk about him with. Tristan wasn't all that jealous though, he'd let her have it. "It really is, but I don't think it's really our fault. I mean, the last Challenge was strong on magic ability, which is really your thing and logical thinking and creativity, which I don't think is my team's. We'll probably do better this time as this one is where our strengths lie."

When Tristan mentioned her magic ability and the fact that he didn't think she was to blame for her team being in last place, Kira beamed. She'd never thought he'd noticed-or really cared that much if he had-but just hearing that he had made her feel good. He'd said magical ability was her thing. "Thank you." The second year replied shyly. Her brother had never complimented her before, not that she could remember. Kira surveyed his materials. "I'll um, let you get back to work." Beating Tristan had never been a priority for her, it wasn't him that she was compared to all the time. All she wanted was to beat Kelsey for once and not be in last place. "Good luck next time." She said as she began to walk away to go find some new fiction to read and a book on fourth year level spells.

"You too." Tristan replied as he turned back to his own project.

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