- Chapter 7: Physics and Physicality -

I was never a particularly athletic child, though I did show some talent for rolling about in the mud with other children and somehow coming out on top. I was wiry and reasonably strong for my age, but terrible at throwing, catching, and handling any sort of projectile. I nearly broke my nose after failing to judge the trajectory of a football falling towards me. I couldn't score a goal in football to save my life. I routinely left the park with scrapes and bruises where various flying balls had hit me and left me smeared with goose droppings or clods of muddy snow, depending on the time of year. I was also never an especially fast runner, though I could out-pace my sister and her prissy friends with relative ease. All told, I was average and did not, for the most part, care to improve.

School was easy enough for me. Contrary to what my peers and parents expected, I turned out to have little difficulty keeping diligent. I did my homework each night, at the same time, and always finished it before bed. I was a fast reader and grasped math well enough out-perform my classmates without really understanding why some of them had such trouble with it. I also displayed signs of talent with words, first evidenced by my consistently perfect or near-perfect scores on grammar and spelling exams when I was about nine years old. I became an avid storyteller, for which my classmates either admired or detested me - and when they detested me, I detested them right back and left my wounded pride at that.

The only real challenge I experienced in school was the playground. Every day after lunch, our teachers would escort us out to the playground, where we could mingle with the younger and older children. Here I often saw Edwin and Noah - who were a year older than I - playing football with a crowd of older boys or digging for worms with which to harass the girls. Indeed, by the time Edwin was nine, he had developed quite a penchant for chasing Petunia with worms and various captured insects just to get a rise out of her; though my mother always assured her that he only tormented her because he thought she was pretty, Petunia knew better.

"That kid is such a little prat," she said furiously, slapping dirt off her shirt one afternoon. She sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. I grabbed her arm before she could raise it again and smear mud into her eyes.

"Use this instead," I said, pulling a crumpled piece of paper towel out of my pocket. Petunia looked at it in disgust for a moment before taking it.

"Thanks," she replied, dragging the paper towel across her eyes. "I swear one day I'm going to choke him to death."

"Face it, Tuney, you wouldn't know how."

Now Petunia gave me a wounded look. "Whose side are you on?"

I chewed my lip. Now Edwin was with a group of boys, yelling: "Hey you, get on defense! I want to kick off!"

"I'll tell him to stop doing that," I said after a moment. "Sorry he was being a jerk."

Petunia sniffled and wiped her nose again. "It's not your fault."

Just then there came an ear-piercing shriek from the football field. Petunia nearly jumped. "What was that?" she demanded, looking around agitatedly. The shrieking continued, now intermixed with swearwords. "What've they got up to now?"

I turned. The source of the shrieking was the far end of the field, where - I groaned - Edwin had apparently tackled a boy to the ground. He had pinned him solidly by the waist and appeared to be grabbing the boy's arms, which were twisting and flailing wildly within Edwin's grip. Now the boy began to shout.

"Let go of me, you piece of blood trash! I'll have you screaming for mercy if you so much as lay another finger on me - you filth! Unhand me now, or I'll - "

The shouts were promptly muffled as Edwin crushed his chest onto the boy's face. My heart palpitated and I broke into a run.

"Lily! What are you doing!"

"I want him to stop!" I screeched, stumbling. Edwin, picking on my sister. Edwin, picking on some scrawny kid no one knew or cared about. Edwin, Edwin, Edwin.

I came sliding to a halt in an evaporated mud puddle; the boys were rolling around in the soggy dirt a few feet away. "Edwin O'Neill!" I shrieked, grabbing his shirt and yanking. "Get off him, what are you doing!"

"Nothing," he panted, wrestling the boy's thin, wiry arms back to the ground. "He just wouldn't play defense, that's all."

"So what?" I demanded. "You can't force him!"

Edwin released the boy's arms; now the boy lay there, breathing hard, sneering at Edwin with utmost contempt. "He was just skulking around the edge of the field, I caught him spying on us. Thought I'd make him play, see if he's got any guts, the little git."

I glanced down at the boy's face. Stringy, overgrown black hair; hooked nose; thin lips; sallow skin; sunken cheeks. He looked like he hadn't eaten a decent meal in a week. His eyes were livid. I rolled my eyes and kicked Edwin in the thigh, smearing mud over his shorts. "What did you want him for, stupid?" I said disgustedly. "He probably can't even kick the ball, and now you're wrestling him? What the bloody hell is your problem?"

Edwin grinned and stood up. "Watch your mouth, Evans," he said, licking his lips. "Teachers don't like little girls who swear."

I spat at Edwin's feet. "Go to hell."

Now the other boys laughed. "Ooh, I'm so scared," Edwin taunted. He was still grinning. "My mum says you should come over for dinner tonight. My brother wants to play with you."

"You associate with this scum?" the boy on the ground sneered. Edwin raised his foot, and the boy flinched and covered his face with his arms.

"Ooh, big words," Edwin jeered, raising his foot higher. "Going to out-talk me, are you, you little snit?"

The boy's face contorted with fury. "You have no idea."

"Eh? What was that? I can't hear you!"

"Stop that!" I shouted, and shoved Edwin as hard as I could. The force of it knocked him off the one foot he was standing on, and I fell on top of him, mashing my face into his chest as we landed. He gave a yell and tried to throw me off of him, but I had managed to land on one of his arms and so kept him pinned beneath me. I sat up and shoved my knee over Edwin's pinned elbow, raising my fist. For the first time I saw a flash of fear in his eyes. "If you hit this kid again," I said, breathing hard, "I'll - I'll smash your bloody face in."

Edwin's eyes widened, and now I stood up, glaring at all the other boys around me. All of them were staring in awe. A heady feeling had come over me and I felt reckless. "You can all bugger off too," I said loudly. Then I turned around. The boy was still lying on the ground, gawping at me.

I swallowed. My head was spinning a bit. "What's your name?" I demanded.

Hastily the boy got to his feet, wiping his muddy hands on the oversized tweed coat he was wearing. "Severus," he replied, leering at me. "Severus Snape."

"I'm Lily," I said shortly. "Now you might want to get out of here before anything else happens."

Severus gave me a strange look - a cold, scrutinizing look - and then he turned around and skulked off.

"What a weirdo," one of the other boys said. "You ever smell that kid?"

"Yeah," came the reply. "He smells like shit."

I snorted in disgust and walked away.

x.x.x.x.x.x

"What did you do that for?" Petunia hissed, grabbing my arm as I shuffled back to where she was standing. "I saw everything! Do you have any idea how much trouble you're in now?"

"I'm not in any trouble," I said stubbornly, yanking my arm away from her. "Nobody's going to tell anybody. They're all afraid I'll beat them up."

"Which you know you bloody well can't. They're all bigger than you, you got lucky, there's no way you could fight any of them - "

"Ugh, shut up, I don't know what got into me, alright - "

"Here, let's get you cleaned up," Petunia said, pulling me over to the hose mounted on the wall of the school building. She turned the valve and sprayed freezing water over my legs and sandals, causing me to shriek. "Oh, calm down, Lily, it's just a bit of water - "

"It's cold!" I yelled, hopping about. "Tuney, that's enough!"

"You've still got mud all over your knees, just hold still. Anyway, how did you do that? He's bloody four times your size, and you knocked him over!"

"He was only standing on one foot, he couldn't balance."

"No," Petunia said, looking at me seriously. "He put his foot down at the last second and braced himself, I saw it. You shouldn't have been able to knock him over like that. His leg did something funny - it went all soft or something. I mean it actually bent backwards."

I blinked. "What? You mean I broke his leg?"

"No, stupid, he got up and walked away as soon as you left. I mean you did something to him that made him fall over."

I stared at her.

"Come on, Lily, you know you did something," Petunia groaned. "I saw you."

Now I whimpered and slumped back against the brick wall of the school. "Oh, God."

Petunia folded her arms across her chest. "What?"

"They probably all saw that too. Now the whole school is going to think I'm a freak, aren't they?"

Petunia sighed and leaned against the wall beside me. She put her arm around my shoulder. "You are a freak, little sister," she said bitterly. "You're just really, really weird. You make things happen that just shouldn't be able to happen." She paused and gazed wistfully out at the playground. "But don't worry. If anyone picks on you I'll bring the headmaster down on them. Just don't get into any more fights or he won't think you're such a sweet little kid anymore."

"I'm not a sweet little kid," I mumbled, staring down at my sopping feet.

"Okay, so maybe you're not," Petunia said. Her voice was strangely high. I looked up. Her jaw was trembling.

A feeling of overwhelming guilt swept over me. So I did the only thing I could think of to do: I hugged her.

Petunia sniffled. "Okay, so maybe you are." Then she pushed me away and made a shooing motion. "Go back to class before you get into even more trouble."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Dinner at Edwin's house was awkward that night, needless to say. I had tried to convince my mother that I had too much homework to go, but she'd immediately sensed my guilt and bullied the story out of me. Upon hearing what I'd done, she gave me the most scathing lecture I'd ever heard and marched me straight to Edwin's house, where she explained to his mother that I had some major apologizing to do. For her part, Edwin's mother seemed taken by surprise that "roughhousing" with her son was even an issue, forgave me on the spot, and summarily insisted on stuffing me with pork chops and broccoli; as for Edwin, he simply smirked and dismissed the whole incident as a freak accident.

"I don't think he takes it personally," Noah said after dinner, moving one of his pawns up a square. "He just acts like a really huge git sometimes."

I stared at the Chess board; no matter how hard I studied it, I had no idea what to do. I moved a knight. "I don't hate him. I just don't understand why he had to bully that kid."

"Oh, Severus Snape? Yeah, he's a weird one. He practically begs to get beat up, running around calling people 'Muggle' and stuff."

"What does 'Muggle' even mean, anyway?"

"Dunno. Probably something he made up that's supposed to be racist, but I've never seen him use it on the Chinese kids. Or even the black ones."

"Bloody git. He should at least come up with a better insult, God. One people could actually understand."

"Snape's a creeper. I saw him picking the wings off flies once."

I rolled my eyes. "All boys do that."

"Snape's just weird. You should probably stay away from him. There's something dodgy about him."

"I guess."

Noah moved his Queen and grinned. "Check. Did you really threaten to punch my brother in the face, by the way?"

I blushed, both because I couldn't believe I'd let him put me in check again, and because I couldn't believe I'd sworn so badly at Edwin. "Yeah. I think I was in a bad mood. And I hate you! Here. I'll put this pawn - " I thrust it forward for effect - "right here."

"Aha! Checkmate!" Noah crowed, knocking my king over with his bishop. "I am officially the Chess Lord!"

I groaned. "You always beat me."

"No, no, I'm teaching you how to play. Everybody loses a lot in the beginning." Noah picked up his pieces and reset the board. "But we can stop playing if you want."

I sighed. "Nah, I'm fine. Let's play another game. I'm going to beat you if it's the last thing I do."

Noah grinned. "You're on." And he pushed a pawn forward, a certain undefinable something glinting in his eye.

We continued playing Chess for another two hours, right up until the moment my mother appeared at the O'Neills' doorstep to pick me up. Noah won every single time, often in less than ten moves, and with each loss I became increasingly convinced that I would never be able to out-strategize him. Being the kinder of the O'Neill twins, he stopped rubbing it in after the first round and began giving me advice on what I ought to do to bolster up the defense on my side of the board. And then, in what I would later remember as the most crushing victory ever of Noah O'Neill's quiet and utterly precocious astuteness, he told me that Chess was like physics: You could predict the outcome based on the rules each person played by. If one player believed he'd lose, he was more likely to misjudge the other's intentions. And if he did that, he'd predictably misfire, like a catapult manned by a jittery soldier. A person playing Chess was really fighting a mental war with his opponent.

It had never even occurred to me that a Chess player was supposed to figure out whether his opponent was afraid of losing, much less how to make him nervous and stupid. As it was, I hadn't the faintest idea what people were talking about when they said the word "physics". I figured there were math and mechanics involved. But what Noah was talking about - that was beyond the reach of my imagination.

From that day on, I blanched at the thought of playing Chess. Noah had taught me that I could not rely on anyone to be stupid for me; if I was to win anything, it would have to be by my wits and strength alone. And that I was not sure I would ever be able to do.

x.x.x.x.x.x

I skipped the mail room the morning after James and Sirius's test flight and opted for the post office instead, as I didn't feel like seeing Hestia the day after bleeding out three obituaries in a row. Surely she would tell me to be thankful that I was alive to be the one writing the obituaries, rather than one of the people being written about in such perfunctory manner. I didn't want to hear about my good fortune; I wanted a day off from feeling guilty and I did not want to be backhandedly reminded of my apparent immaturity. Hestia Jones could shut up and stuff her resentful face with cake for all I cared.

I folded the obituaries gently into a single envelope, which I addressed in my most careful penmanship, and then left before the postmaster could ask me to select an owl to carry my letters. I did not care to look at birds of prey either.

The breakfast room was buzzing when I arrived at Headquarters. A few heads turned when I walked in - I suppose I only noticed because I was feeling particularly sensitive to how people were looking at me that morning. The window shades were up, the lights were on; the lie detector at the door was humming quietly to itself. My nerves tingled with the darting of individual voices in and out of the din. Aimlessly I made my way across the room.

"Lily," came a voice. "Hey, Lily, wait."

I turned around and stared for a second. Peter Pettigrew, disheveled and looking as though he'd gained some weight, was pushing through the crowd of breakfasting Aurors, Charm Breakers, janitors, trainees, and fresh-faced recruits. I hadn't seen Peter in months; what was more, neither James, Sirius, nor Remus had been able to get a definitive word out of him during his absence.

"Peter," I said, a bit dumbly. "Wow. How - er - how are you? It's been a while."

"Yeah, I know." Peter shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked nervously on his heels a few times. "I - I had to get my mum and dad into hiding and all. Found out the Death Eaters had a, uh - that they had a lead on them. But you know my mum and dad. Bit senile nowadays." He smiled weakly.

I tilted my head. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah. I mean, now it is, anyway. I think. Have you seen the guys?"

"Not this morning."

"Oh," Peter said, looking even more nervous. "Well, I was hoping I'd be able to get in on the dueling lessons Moody's apparently giving on his off-hours."

I narrowed my eyes slightly. "Who told you Moody was giving dueling lessons, Pete? Nobody's seen hide or hair of you since December."

Peter scratched his nose. "I forgot his name. Tallish blond bloke, I think. Mentioned it over chips at the Leaky Cauldron. I was there the other night."

I looked around. There were several tall blond men in the room. I doubted any of them had spoken to Peter within the past several weeks, but decided not to push it. "Ah. Well, you should probably talk to someone higher up in command than me if you want to learn how to duel."

Peter's eyes widened slightly. "I don't think they'd take me seriously."

"Why not? You're one of us, aren't you?"

"Yes, but - I just don't think - "

"Just explain what's been going on. I'm sure someone will understand."

Peter looked at me uncertainly, almost incredulously. I sighed inwardly, but chose to put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm serious, Peter. Of course people won't take you seriously if you're going around acting like you've just killed their dog or something. But if you relax you'll blend right in. Really. You're one of us. We all understand having to go into hiding around here."

Peter seemed to mull this over for a moment; he ruffled his hair and sighed. Then he straightened up and gave me an awkward smile. "Well," he said, turning to leave. "Thanks, Lily. I guess I'll see you 'round."

I stared at him for a moment, puzzled. "Sure thing," I muttered to his retreating back. Then I shook my head and reached for a cup of coffee. "Take care, right." What a weird kid.

Just as I was thinking that, though, I felt a strange force of something - perhaps that of a distant memory - pull my gaze in a different direction: In the corner of the room, behind the coffee pots and half-empty fruit trays, stood Severus Snape. He was looking intently into his palm, shoulders hunched, lips moving indistinguishably. Then, as suddenly as I'd noticed him, his eyes snapped up and widened as they caught mine; but in a split second it was over, and Snape turned. With a single sharp swoosh of his cloak he was gone.

x.x.x.x.x.x

Oddly enough, this was what prompted me to go looking for Alastor Moody myself. Though I didn't know what I wanted Moody to do or say when I found him, having re-created the memory of the fight in which I had defended Snape from Edwin O'Neill nine hours prior had left a fighting taste in my mouth. I thought I might ask him if he'd include me in whatever he was doing with James. I fully expected him to tell me to go away and let him train the people who would actually matter on missions and undercover operations - why would he bother with an uncoordinated girl whose sole purpose was now to write what were little more than advertisements on the dead? - but I continued to his office anyway. For the most part I think I expected him not to be there at all.

Moody's office was at the center of a long hallway, the door tightly shut. The roving glass eye mounted over the knocker stopped its rolling and fixed its gaze squarely on my head. I blanched.

A moment later the door swung open. I froze. It was Moody.

"Well? What do you want?" he barked.

I fidgeted for a second. "I - er - "

"Lily?" came a voice. James appeared in the doorway, wand in hand, his hair singed. His face was contorted in an expression of poorly controlled pain. "What's up?"

Moody twirled his wand, staring coldly at me. "What happened? Your houseplant die?"

"I - actually," I said, drawing my wand as well, "I was hoping you might be able to show me a few things about dueling. Sorry if I interrupted you."

Moody worked his jaw. He looked at James. "You want me demonstrating dueling maneuvers on your woman?"

James paled. "I trust you wouldn't hurt her."

"Oh, who do you think you're talking to," Moody growled. "Bloody kids these days. Alright, Evans, get in here."

Timidly I stepped into the room and shut the door behind me; no sooner had the lock clicked than Moody had shoved me against the wall, pointing his wand straight at my head. James shouted and lunged - and then went crashing backwards as Moody cast a lightning-quick Shield Charm in his direction. Moody licked his lips and re-adjusted. I stared at him in terror.

"What are you going to do about this?" he asked, his eyes boring into mine.

"LET HER GO!" James roared, lunging again. "EXPELLIARMUS!"

Moody's wand didn't budge; James crumpled to the floor with a shout. Moody shoved his knee against my stomach. "First lesson," he said quietly. "What do you do when I've got your throat?"

"Well," I choked, trembling, "I'm pretty sure I'd try to peel your hands off my throat, for starters."

"So do it!" Moody barked. I complied and found myself struggling frantically; I was having trouble breathing. Moody only crushed me harder against the wall. I felt my wand caving dangerously into my stomach; I tensed my abdominal muscles out of fear that it would break right there against my skin and rupture an organ.

"Wrong, Evans!" I struggled harder. "In the time you've spent flopping around like a fish, I could've killed you twice over! What are you going to do?"

With a scream I threw my free arm over my head to snatch at Moody's wand, which he promptly moved out of the way; while he was bringing his wand hand back up I grabbed the arm that was choking me and twisted it as hard as I could, thrashing violently. Moody simply let me shove him, landing with perfect balance a few steps away. He raised his wand again.

"You're lucky you're not dead," he said pointedly. "What now?"

Shaking, I fumbled for my wand.

"Faster, Evans!"

"STUPEFY!" I shrieked, stepping towards him. He deflected the spell effortlessly. In a rage I lashed my wand at him, over and over again: "Incendio! Confundo! Alarte Ascendare! - CONFRINGO!"

"Lily, stop! You're just - "

And then I felt myself being blasted off my feet, so hard that I had to snatch the overhead light fixture by its cable to avoid crashing into the ceiling. I hung there for a moment, hyperventilating, before I realized that Moody had placed a levitation charm on me. Trembling violently, I released the lamp and floated gently back down to the ground.

Moody pointed his wand at me and muttered a few incantations. I felt something warm spread over my body, upward and downward from the sore point at my throat. I collapsed against the wall, my face in my hands.

"At least you knew not to run at me," Moody said roughly. "That's a start. But don't ever just throw a bunch of curses like that unless you want to blow yourself the hell up." Now he jerked his head towards James, who had been watching with an expression of barely contained rage. "Come on, Potter, you're up. Evans, keep your head down and watch."

Snapping his robes, James drew his wand took up what looked like some sort of dueling stance, his left foot forward and his feet about a shoulder width apart. He raised his wand to Moody's eye level, teeth bared.

"That's the standard dueling position," Moody said. "You come back to that position after every spell. If your wand isn't spitting fire, it's pointed straight at your opponent's face. And your feet are always one step apart, ready to run, dodge, or sidestep. Your feet aren't balanced, you're not alive."

I watched in silence as they circled each other. "Now, if you expect to get out of a duel alive," Moody went on, keeping his wand pointed straight at James's forehead, "you need to - ANTICIPATE!" he bellowed, sending arcs of flame flying in James's direction.

Not a split second had gone by before James roared some countercurse I couldn't make out and sent a ten-foot high wall of ice daggers rushing back. With a slash of his wand, Moody vanished the daggers into a single gust of wind.

"Stand down," he ordered.

Breathing hard, James whipped his wand back and dropped his arm to his side.

Now Moody nodded. "That was pretty good, Potter. But if you had really been thinking, you would have cast the third variant of Agua Eructo and used it to strangle me in half the time it took for your knives to cross the room."

James set his jaw. His face was white with fury. "Which one was that again, sir?"

"That's the one you learned during your sixth year at Hogwarts, Christ. The jet of water you could turn into a lasso to water your lawn, remember?"

James looked toward the ceiling as if to say, Well, fuck you too, and wiped his wand on his sleeve with so much force that smoke and sparks shot out the end. "Right. Of course. Thank you."

"So that's your first lesson, Evans," Moody said. "Rule number one: If you're in a position of disadvantage, never waste time struggling - either plead for your life, take the other guy's wand, or set up a trap. Rule number two: Always reset to your original dueling stance. Rule number three: Unless your opponent has no bloody idea how to hold a wand, you win on the counterattack. Wait for him to strike, then counter. While he's busy dealing with your counter, you hit him upside the head with something he's not ready for. Repeat as needed. Then get the hell out of there. Got it?"

I nodded. My whole body felt cold.

"Good. Now scram. Go take a break. Eat some food. You could use it. Come back with Potter when he has his next session. I won't rough you up so badly next time."

Wordlessly, James watched me leave. The expression on his face was anguish.

x.x.x.x.x.x

I woke the following morning to the sound of muffled thumps coming from the next room. The covers were pushed back on James's side of the bed, from which he was noticeably absent; his slippers lay abandoned by the door. Nonplussed, I pulled on my pajamas and shuffled into the living room.

James was doing push-ups in the middle of the floor, his feet under the coffee table, his shirt wadded up and tossed off to the side. He was red in the face and sweating lightly.

"'Morning," he said from between gritted teeth.

"Hi," I replied, tilting my head. "What exactly are you doing?"

James exhaled noisily and pushed himself upward. "Thought that would be pretty apparent."

"Maybe a better question would be what this is for."

He sat back on his knees and cracked his knuckles. I shuddered. "To keep you having sex with me, obviously," he said flatly. "You like muscles, right?"

I raised an eyebrow. James laughed dryly and mopped his forehead with his shirt. "After you left, Moody yelled at me to 'grow some bloody muscles'. Said I'm a skinny lout who wouldn't be able to last in a fight to save my life."

"Are you serious?"

James smiled bitterly and rubbed his triceps. They looked rather nicely defined to me. "Apparently I need to get in better form if I expect to kill Death Eaters with a wand."

"Yes, because it takes a lot of bloody brawn to cast a Stunning Spell," I said, kneeling beside him. "Ugh, James, you're sweating on the carpet."

"Hey, hey, I know Scourgify just as well as you do. Anyway, we lost a person a few weeks ago because he apparently got tired in the middle of a chase and couldn't fight off a wandless Death Eater who was trying to choke him. Didn't have the energy." James examined his fists, then looked up at me. His face was deathly serious. "I've been thinking you and I should practice a few things together."

I narrowed my eyes. "You mean you think we should fight each other?"

Now James looked at me as though I'd lost my mind. He gave a harsh laugh. "God, no," he said. "Are you kidding? I'd probably kill you - "

"Oh, we'll see about that," I shot back. I shoved him; he hardly flinched. "Try me, arsehole. What do you know about fighting that I don't?"

"Well, for one thing," James said ironically, "Moody had you pinned against the wall with one leg and a finger and you can't even shove me, so I'd say you're at a disadvantage. "

"Don't push it," I growled.

"Oh, Lily," James said, pulling me into his arms, "you're so cute when you're angry. You're breaking my heart."

"I am not cute when I'm angry! And let go of me, you smell!"

"Yes you are," James murmured, kissing me. He buried his face in my neck and breathed deeply. "You are unbearably cute. It's terrible. We need to fix that. I can't let you get beaten up by some fucking nasty old man again. I swear, Lily, if Moody hadn't let you rest after what he did to you, I'd have killed him." His voice was hoarse. "I'd have smashed his fucking face in."

My stomach twisted. I put my arms around him and pressed my face into his shoulder. I had no words.

"You need to build up some better strength," James murmured. He exhaled and pushed me back to arm's length, his eyes sweeping from my head to my toes. "Will you come with me today and run a few miles?"

"A few miles?" I repeated.

"You can do it, trust me. We'll only run three. You can stop at two if you have to."

"Well," I said. There was no way I could run three miles, least of all without puking. I'd be lucky if I made it past one - which, I realized, only proved James's point.

"Lily," he said pleadingly.

I swallowed. "Okay. I'll run with you."

x.x.x.x.x.x

Running with James was a disaster, of course. He Transfigured a pair of shoes for each of us into running sneakers - a feat I had to give him credit for, as he managed to approximate my size well enough to make my sneakers bearable - and promptly chose what must have been one of the muddiest, most uneven, most heavily slushed-over trails in all of Britain for us to run on. Our starting point was a dirt road running through what looked like a wheat field lying fallow for the winter, half-submerged in melting ice and snow; from there we slogged through what was most definitely more than three miles of muddy storm ditches, patches of naked trees, and scrubby graveyards. We paused for a few minutes when I was suddenly forced to bend over a bush and vomit; but then we were off again, with James in the lead and I staggering along ten or so paces behind. Towards the end I tripped over an exposed root and twisted my ankle, so that I hobbled the last half-mile while James simply plowed onward. When we finally finished, he congratulated me on surviving a full four miles, and informed me that we'd run again in two days' time, regardless of the weather. I told him to kill himself. He merely shrugged.

It was during these early cross-training sessions that I sincerely hated James; I began to understand, for the first time, why he had been captain of the Quidditch team. He simply did not succumb to the prolonged physical pain of training. Rather, he seemed to thrive on it. A manic glint came into his eye when he was in pain; and the more intense his pain was, the harder he pushed.

"James," I gasped one afternoon, struggling through my eighth set of sit-ups, "don't you think we should give it a rest?"

"Not yet," he replied, grimacing. "This is how fighters are made. You have to be able to take the pain."

"Sure, sure…I just…we have other things to take care of too."

"Suck it up for ten more minutes. And bloody fucking push it this time."

Furious, I got on my fists and did push-ups until my elbows buckled and my knuckles bled. Afterward, James kissed me on my sweaty forehead and rubbed my hands with aloe vera. The muscles in my arms, shoulders, stomach, and legs burned - and, for the first time I could remember - were beginning to feel hard to the touch.

x.x.x.x.x.x

March 16, 1979

11:24 PM

All the same.

I'm an obituary writer, not an Auror. Not an assassin. Not a spy or a healer or even a bloody scout. I'm an obituary writer.

I think I'd be a terrible fighter.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Author's Note: Hey all. Thanks for reading. And thanks for your lovely reviews on the last chapter! Your comments always make my day. :) I'm sorry it took me so long to get this one out. The short of it is that graduate school - and therefore research - is now in full swing. I do a lot of lab work these days. Smeh.

Anyway, I'm still very motivated to keep this story going. I've got it outlined from start to finish; it just needs to be written. Whether I can deliver or not depends on how forgiving my classes and research schedule are at any given time, as I have very little time off. I'll post as often as I can, and I'll always respond to signed reviews via PM.

Lastly, to Nicholeintheclouds: Yes! I have read The Bell Jar. I tend to gravitate towards books like that - Girl, Interrupted was another favorite of mine. Your review left me stupidly, incoherently happy. Thank you. :)

Cheers,

- Silverspinner