Author's Note: Okay, I would just like to say this really quickly. James isn't bulimic. He is anorexic. Anorexia can sometimes be associated with the occasional…well…vomiting session to get rid of something consumed. Bulimia is usually a binge before purging, whereas anorexia…never has a binge. In James' case, he'd prefer to go without any food at all besides a half a carrot and some water per day, but he was forced to switch it up a bit to cover himself. Still, there is no binging involved in anything that James does. Good? Okay, so this chapter took me a very long time to write. I so apologize. I have so many excuses, but I'll just give you the first three. I've been sick, I've had 39423049343 tons of work to do, and this chapter was sooo difficult to get perfect. Therefore, since you know how hard I worked rephrasing and rewriting, maybe it will inspire you to review? Maybe? Anyway, I really hope it was worth the wait. :( It's written in first person, by the way. It just felt right.

Oh, yes. It's a good thing my mother made sure to find a meal for me with enough sugar to make my tongue fall out. I'm so glad she cares enough to do this.

"James," she said gently, "would you like something to drink?"

"Water," I mumbled, picking crumbs off my blueberry muffin. Just holding the crumbs in my hand made me shudder.

Mercedes watched me carefully, making sure I did not throw half the muffin out of the window behind me.

Mum set the glass of water down next to my plate. I didn't thank her. I wasn't exactly thankful for anything she was doing for—or to—me.

"Can I be done?" I asked. I probably sounded childish, but that really did not matter.

Mum didn't answer me, but she stared back into my eyes, showing no emotion. Then, she picked up her newspaper.

"Guess that's a no."

They were watching me so closely, so I nibbled a bit on a few of the little crumbs I'd picked off. If I ever wanted to go back to Hogwarts, I would have to be able to convince them I had made a full recovery. The sooner I could go back to school, the sooner I would be getting apologies from the people who accused me of being anorexic. I'd forgive them, but I would still have to wonder what the hell was wrong with him.

Me? Anorexic? I actually kind of found it amusing. A diet—a much needed diet—is never something to be ashamed of. People just worry too much.

So why was I the one being punished? What about all the other dieting people in the world that were trying to get healthy? No one was punishing them. They probably used my diet as an excuse to send me to my mother because she had been complaining about how much she missed me. I will never be able to believe, as long as I live, that my friends had the audacity to claim I was doing something wrong.

The suicide attempt was a different story. I know that might have been a bad decision, but I really did have good intentions, and if I could do it again, I probably would.

But seriously, hadn't I been punished enough already?

"I'm done," I said, pushing my plate away. My poor muffin was simply demolished on my plate. I could still feel the pieces in the back of my throat that I had refused to swallow, and they were quickly melting.

Something that didn't make me happy.

My mother did not look up from her copy of The Daily Prophet. "You didn't eat a thing, James."

I felt that she might have been challenging me, perhaps daring me to get out of my seat.

My mother was the only one in the world that I hoped would be someday proud of me.

But she never was. I didn't think she'd ever be.

"Yes," I said, standing. "I'm done."

Mum finally looked up from the paper. "Okay, James," she said gently.

Yeah. She cared about me, my arse.

As I walked out of the dining room, I heard Mercedes shout, "Mum!"

I laughed. If Mercedes was my mother, she would hold me down while shoving the entire muffing down my throat whole, and then she'd sit with me every moment of every day to make sure I didn't throw it up.

I was definitely glad that my mum didn't do that, of course, but still…in the tiniest little piece of my heart, I sort of wished she would.

When I got up to my room, I saw that more letters had arrived—probably exclusively from Sirius. I pushed the letters onto the floor, sighing before I sat down. I didn't feel like reading the letters.

There were two possibilities. The letters could be heartfelt apologies, in which case I wouldn't believe there was any truth in any of the letters. It would hurt to see Sirius writing with such pain and regret. After all, I had grown accustomed to the bright and funny side of Sirius. I didn't want to deal with the strange unhappy side of him. Therefore, reading it would be a bad idea.

The other possibility was that the letters could be falsely cheery and full of jokes. I would find myself tempted to reply to the letters with my own witty comments. These letters would also make me unhappy because it was all so fake. The thread that was holding our friendship—or whatever relationship we had, something less than that now—up was breaking, and I hated the thought of pretending the words that came out actually meant something.

Besides, no one needs a reminder of what he no longer has.

I lay down flat on my back, staring up at the gray ceiling. My head was starting to pound. I closed my eyes, hoping it would just pass. I promised myself that I would not fall asleep; I had a lot more willpower than that. I just needed some time to think.

I was getting so tired of dealing with comments from other people about how badly I was doing. I was not an idiot. Diets help people get healthy!

I decided to check the scale. It had been a while.

When I walked into my bathroom and slammed the door shut, I found myself face to face with the full-length mirror on the back of it. I was immediately reminded of my horrific dream.

I couldn't look away from the disturbing image I saw. Everything was wrong. All wrong. I reluctantly lifted my shirt, and I was not surprised to see—just like always—fat. What the hell did I have to do to get rid of it all?

I turned away from the mirror that obviously liked to mock me. I walked over to my other enemy: the dreaded scale.

I cautiously stepped onto the scale, closing my eyes as I waited for the arrow to stop. I opened one eye slightly, disgusted by the 100. That was what I wanted to reach? There was no way in hell 100 was going to impress a good dieter. To ever think that I could have been satisfied by the weight of 100 pounds clearly made me an amateur.

I don't really know what came over me then, but I was suddenly overpowered by a truly frightening fury. I picked up the scale who, so many times, laughed in my face, and I threw it at the pretentious mirror.

The sound of it shattering was incredible.

I opened the door, avoiding the glass carefully. I knew that there was really no chance mum would ignore the crash, but I still hoped she would. It was getting harder and harder to explain to people why I did the things I did. Or maybe it was just getting harder for them to hear and understand.

I walked over to my bed, and I picked up the letters again. It wouldn't hurt to read them. It was certainly preferable to the idea of going near the scale again.

Mentally preparing myself, I opened the letter slowly, as if it were the answer to a marriage proposal…though it probably wasn't because Lily didn't even remember that time when I had suggested…

James,

Thank you for all the caring messages you sent us. We really appreciate hearing from you.

I rolled my eyes. Sarcasm in writing?

Things have been just great around here. You'll be happy to hear that Lily and Gavin are still together.

I know that you have been anxiously waiting for these letters of mine. Now, to the serious part of the letter…prepare yourself.

I was already beginning to regret picking the letter up. Was there going to be anything of importance at any point during the letter?

So, breaking news: this morning, Remus got up to open the window…and it was snowing.

Amazing. Sirius realized that winter was coming. That was certainly important enough to waste a piece of bloody piece of parchment.

So, as you can imagine, it was cold. It was quite cold. We almost considered closing the window, but we had opened it already…and we were tired, so you can understand the dilemma. Right?

Of course. What a terrible predicament. Heaven forbid they move their lazy arses to shut the damn window.

Then, despite the frigid weather we had going on in our room, we all fell back to sleep. When we woke up, we were, of course, frozen. We were basically stuck to the beds. It was fun, though. You should have been here.

That was the entire story? Wow. I was very glad he decided not to tell me about breakfast.

I quickly reminded myself that I shouldn't think such thoughts because there were still more letters to get through, and an explanation of how, exactly, Peter managed to knock over the salt was not something I wanted to read about. And since there was nothing else to do, I would have no choice.

You probably would have hated it. You know, you're always getting cold lately.

Ah, here comes the lecture part of the letter. My favorite.

If only you had some fat on your body…that's all I'm saying.

Of course. That's all you ever say.

You're my best friend.

Please.

I don't judge or anything.

Seriously? What planet was he living on?

I just…look. If you could answer one of my letters, we could do this a lot more pleasantly. I don't want to sit here and talk about how horrible you are. I hate that it's come to that.

Give me a break.

I know that you hate us right now, but please just answer one letter. Just one little letter. You won't regret it.

How would you know?

As soon as we can make it happen, we're coming to see you, so we will be able to talk to you eventually. Why not make it easier on yourself?

I rolled my eyes again.

Well, I hope everything's going well at home.

-Sirius

What a bloody waste of my time.

I tore up the letter, feeling only slightly satisfied by the destruction I caused. I then let out a terribly frustrated scream when my door opened.

Mercedes was standing with her hand still on the doorknob. It seemed as if she were trying to decide whether or not to stay.

"What?" I asked irritably.

She flinched. My sister, the only girl aside from Lily that had never been unafraid to tell me how she felt, was looking nervous. In fact, it was the first time in my life that she actually looked small to me. I felt like I was in charge now. This switch of power struck me as extremely unexpected, and I knew there was a reason for it. I wasn't sure if I wanted to figure it out.

Mercedes had changed since breakfast. Her hair was no longer thrown into a messy bun; she now had it two long braids over her shoulders. She was wearing a red turtleneck, a short black skirt, and tights. My sister never dressed this way willingly. It was too fancy for her taste. In addition to it being fancy, it also was not covered by black robes. Mercedes never went without robes on.

Unless Ciara was in the building.

That must have been it. Ciara would not have Mercedes dressing like a "slob" without a word to say about it.

"You got something to say, Mercedes?"

Mercedes seemed to gain her usual spirit back from my comment. "Why? You too busy laying on the bed to deal with me?"

"Farewell," I said, closing my eyes.

"James," she said. I could, from her shaking voice, that she was trying very hard not to snap. "James, mum wants you downstairs."

By then, I had opened my eyes enough to raise an eyebrow at her. "And I care why?"

"Because she has been nothing but kind for you, though I don't really think you deserve it," she said.

"Why?"

"Why what?" she spat. Apparently, she no longer cared about being pleasant and calm.

"Why do I have to go down there?" I asked. Now, I was actually curious rather than stubborn. What were they planning? Food, perhaps? Merlin knows I didn't digest any of the muffin bits. Most of them ended up on the floor.

"Would you just come down?"

"No."

"You can't do this for mum?"

"No."

Mercedes looked at me for three minutes straight. Then, she shook her head, turned on her heel, muttered, "Asshole," and shut the door.

I knew that wouldn't be the end of it. Sooner or later, mum would come up, followed by Ciara (after I refused to listen to mum), and she would get me up. I don't really know how, but that woman always had some sort of supernatural persuasive power. At least…when it concerned her siblings.

Suddenly, the door was thrown open again. Had Ciara been notified already?

No. It was Mercedes again. Wonderful.

"What?"

"Did I see—" Mercedes rushed over to the bathroom door that I had stupidly left open, exposing the glass that was spilled all over the floor. When had she seen that? She hadn't even been looking in that direction? Had she?

On second thought, I probably wouldn't have noticed. I hadn't exactly been paying attention to her.

"Glass. Yes. That would be glass," I said languidly.

I bit my lip as Mercedes inspected the bathroom. "What is wrong with you?"

"Time to go downstairs," I said, jumping off the bed. I would have done anything at that point to avoid answering her question.

My parents, like any other human beings, had made a lot of mistakes in their lives. Some could be easily overlooked, like my mother's decision to change her hair color from dirty blonde to black when I was twelve. Thankfully, she changed it back. Some, however, would stay with us forever.

In my opinion, the two worst mistakes my parents, Emily and Andrew Potter, had ever made were: having nine kids and building a kitchen that was way too small for them all.

When I walked into this small kitchen, I was confronted with a hell of a lot of perfume and arguments. As always, they were too busy with their own conversations to notice me, the guest of honor, for almost ten minutes. When they did see me, they went ballistic.

I could barely understand what they were saying. I heard that my name, however, was used quite a few times.

"…but that's…James…"

"I don't ca…"

"…mum knows…best for…"

"…handle it better than…"

During this battle over who got to speak, I took a moment to silently pray that I would wake up and find out the past seventeen years of my life were a dream. I was actually an only child, right?

"James!" Ciara was the first to address me.

Ciara walked over to me and threw her arms around me in a tight embrace. "How are you?" she whispered. "I'm so…are you okay?"

I rolled my eyes. "We jumped right into that, didn't we?"

"I'm sorry," she said, pulling away.

I wasn't sure of the details or of what they were planning, but I did know that they were having some kind of meeting over what to do with me. They were planning to pass me over to someone else. I was the garbage everyone knew had to be taken out, but no one felt like taking care of it.

I looked around the room, carefully scrutinizing my sisters' faces. Mercedes was determinedly looking at the floor, possibly ashamed. Maybe she had called the meeting. Ciara was shedding tears, as always, unabashed. Jennifer was focusing on her hands. The rest of them seemed pretty unemotional, stirring coffee and eating small breakfasts.

"You said mum wanted me to come down here," I said, realizing that she was not in the room. "Where is she?"

"Shower," said Mercedes quickly. Much too quickly.

"Oh, really?" I said skeptically.

Ciara played with her wedding ring anxiously. "She wanted to lay down."

I raised an eyebrow, challenging her. Ciara wasn't the best at keeping secrets. "There's more to the story."

Gina loudly hushed anyone who tried to explain more to me.

"Not now, James. We have something to talk to you about," she said.

"If you want me to stay in this room, one of you is moving. I want to sit down," I said…kindly.

If only we had enough chairs, my mother wouldn't have to complain about my sisters never visiting.

Now comfortably in a seat, I waited to hear about the plan I would definitely have to refuse.

Ciara crouched down in front of me, taking my hand. Just like Mercedes and her outfit…if anyone else had dared to treat me this way, I would have run back upstairs.

But this was Ciara. And she had special powers.

"James, I think it would be best if we had you stay with me for a little while."

I laughed. I should have expected Ciara, who fancied herself some sort of psychoanalyst, to want to have me under her supervision at all times.

"I am not moving in with you," I said.

I could just imagine it. Ciara would wake me up at nine, set up some elaborate breakfast for me and stare until I finished every last bit. She would spy on me while I went to the bathroom, making sure I was definitely doing only what one was supposed to do in a bathroom. I would also be forced to wear humiliating clothes and go to work with her.

Or stay home with her husband, which would be much worse.

"It's not exactly moving in," she said, squeezing my hand. "It's just a visit."

"You have to be kidding me."

For the first time in years, Ciara half-smirked at me. "Do I ever joke?"

"I hate you."

"Hmm," she said, pretending to think my words over, "…no…I'm okay. You didn't wound me."

"I'm not going," I said. She was so patronizing.

Ciara pulled me up to a standing position by the hand. "Did I mention this is non-negotiable?"

Ciara just had to have special powers. I don't know how it worked, but no matter how hard I tried to deny her the opportunity of getting her way…I still ended up in her house less than two hours later.

When we walked into the house, she was so damn cheery I felt like throwing her down.

"Well, here we are," she said, putting her handbag on the rack by the door.

"Gorgeous. No need for a tour," I said, throwing my bag in the middle of the room. I knew it would piss her off, and though it could have been considered immature, I needed to feel like I was in some kind of control of the way my day was going.

I believe I saw her shudder, but she didn't make me move the bag.

It was sickening, the way there wasn't a misplaced item in sight.

"Does Hitler know I'm here?" I asked, checking for signs of Jeremy as I followed her into the kitchen.

"Who?" she asked, confused.

I leaned against the counter while she poured herself a glass of water. She looked very confused.

"Muggle reference," I said. "I have too many muggle-born friends."

"Oh," she said, putting the glass down. "Were you referring to Jeremy?"

"If that's what you want to call him…"

Ciara ignored my comment. "Yes, he knows you are here. No, he is not home yet."

"Can I go to bed?" I asked. "I know where the guestroom is."

"Yes, you may," she said. "However, you're making lunch with me in about an hour, so be ready."

I nodded without really listening to her words. I was making lunch with her? Why? Did she have some sort of evil plan? Who the hell makes lunch anyway? Don't normal people just put a sandwich together?

I knew Jeremy was home by the sound of the door slamming shut. I wondered if maybe that man just enjoyed showing off his own strength.

Figuring it had been almost an hour, I got up, anticipating a boring session of cooking with my sister and some sort of an argument with her husband.

I walked down the stairs, kicking myself for falling under the demon's spell. I didn't want to be at Ciara's house; that much was obvious. But I wasn't sure where I did want to be. Home was crappy. Mercedes and my mother were like leeches. School was almost worse. Sirius and Remus were on my back all of the time, making Hogwarts seem like my own personal rehabilitation center. Nothing felt like home anymore.

"Well, I kind of have a lot to do, your majesty."

I stopped before reaching the last stair.

"Look, you said you would be okay with James' staying here." Ciara pleaded desperately with her jackass of a husband while I just listened.

"Yes, I was fine with that because I didn't think he'd be in the way."

I almost wanted to stay now. Just to make him unhappy.

"How is he in the way?"

"You're making lunch with him!"

"So?"

I sat down on the step, knowing I'd better get comfortable. There was no way I would be walking into that.

"I work all day, and I come home, wanting to spend a little time with my wife, but no. You have to spend time with your suicidal brother."

If only I had the strength to rip a head off…

"First of all," said Ciara, "you have only worked like two hours. Second of all, my brother needs me right now."

"For God's sake, you know that I don't like to be spoken to in that way."

I stood up, ready to run in if necessary. Jeremy had that air—I could even tell from outside of the room—of suppressed anger. I was not going to listen to my sister get physically attacked.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I can't tell him to leave."

"Oh, you can't? Really?"

"No, I can't."

Ciara was one of the strongest people I'd ever met. She had powers, for Merlin's sake. But her powers were cancelled out when it came to Jeremy. She relinquished her powers and her strength in his presence, and it hurt to listen to her cry.

"You can't or you won't?"

"Don't even do this to me, Jerr," she said, trying to sound strong. But she failed. It was obvious to both Jeremy and me that she was only pretending.

"Don't you dare tell me what to do."

And the sound of the simple—compared to many other forms of abuse she had been through—slap reverberated through the house.

I truly despised that man. My anger that was directed toward my family completely shut off when the hatred boiled in my veins. Jeremy Canderack. He was nothing more than a disgusting, dead, shriveled toad smashed into the ground by my foot.

And I was going to do it. I was going to rush into that kitchen and beat the hell out of him. How could I just sit there and pretend that their relationship was okay?

I always did this, I reminded myself. No matter what, I didn't do anything about him.

But this time, I would. There was no excuse now because it was right there in front of me. If I managed beat him to death, there was a success. If they sent me home because I of my loss of control, there was another success. If he killed me, that truthfully sounded just as good as the other options.

I stood up, feeling determined, and then I turned right around to walk back up the stairs. There was no way I was strong enough for a fight, and there was no way my sister would survive if I died.

Hey. My first non-selfish thought in months. I would certainly have to notify Sirius one day.

Author's Note: Umm…well, I'm very excited. I got my permit yesterday—here in NY, we get it after we turn 16—so I drove for the first time…yesterday…and it was so exciting. I had never been behind the wheel before. Yes. You probably don't really care lol. So…please review!