Chapter Six

Practice Makes Perfect


"Remus," I said the next day, taking a seat next to him in the bleachers. "Can I ask you a favor?"

He looked away from the Quidditch practice and met my eyes. "It depends…what kind of prank is it going to be this time? Last time, while it was great while it lasted, the punishment was ghastly."

I laughed, remembering. Not only had we gotten two month's worth of detention, Sirius and James had been furious that we hadn't let them in on it. And Lily, of course, was just plain ticked with me that I had gotten detention on a Hogsmeade weekend that she had been planning for quite a some time. Needless to say, we had been in the doghouse for a long time.

"Sorry to disappoint you Remy, but it has absolutely nothing to do with pranks."

"Really?"

"Really."

"What is it then?"

"Can you teach me magic?"

"What?" he asked, taken aback.

"Can you teach me magic," I repeated myself. "As in spells and charms and whatever the hell it is you people do."

"Why me?" he asked, not quite whining, but there was a definite "I'd really rather not" behind his words. "Why not Lily?"

"Because you're smart. And brilliant. And—"

"Complimenting me will not help you gain the upper hand, Eridani," he interrupted. "And we both very well know that Lily is just as good, if not better, than I. Now tell me the real reason."

I gazed at the Quidditch players, easily detecting James by the goals, directing the practice and currently yelling at his fellow Chasers, and Sirius, club in hand, sending Bludgers at "enemy" targets. Oh how I loved to practice with them. Quidditch was fun. If only everything else were as easy and simple and realistic as that game.

"I don't want to tell them. Not yet," I said quietly. "I don't know how they'd react."

Remus sighed, and then put a comforting arm around my shoulders. "No matter what, you know they'll still love you. If anything, you know they'll be jumping with joy. All of us have been hoping that something like this would happen."

I looked up at him, eyebrow raised. "Oh really? So you all were hoping that Dumbledore would make a special magical ring that would transfer his powers to me just by wearing it on my finger? Really Remus? Of all the things your imaginations combined could have put together, you came up with that? I'm thoroughly disappointed in all of you."

"Let's just say that some of the ideas where pretty damn creative."

"Prongs and Padfoot?"

"Who else?"

I grinned, and a few minutes later I faced him again, completely serious. "Remus, you still didn't answer me. Will you?"

"Do you promise to tell them?" he asked in reply.

It was my turn to sigh in aggravation. "Yeah. I promise I'll tell them."

"Then yes. I'll teach you."


"I don't fucking get this!" I yelled about an hour later.

Remus gazed up at the ceiling, muttering something under his breath, trying to keep his patience and failing miserably.

"It'll take time Eridani," he said for the thousandth time. "You can't just get magic one day and expect to be able to perform every spell the next."

"But it's a simple spell!" I argued.

"No, not really. I can remember when we first learned this spell—"

"You. Were. A. First. Year! On your THIRD DAY!" I growled. "And I bet that you were able to make the stupid feather levitate on the first try, weren't you?"

He was silent.

I cursed and turned back to the irritating feather on the desk in front of me, raised my wand, and growled, "Wingardium Leviosa!"

It did nothing.

"You're putting too much anger into it," Remus said, his face tiredly in his hands, seemingly exhausted. "Speak to it like you would to any normal person. Swish and flick the wand gently, not violently. Gods, you and Sirius have some serious anger issues."

I took a deep breath and, for the hundredth time that hour, pointed the wand at the black feather, swishing and flicking as I said, "Wingardium Leviosa."

And this time, the feather rose a few feet up off the desk. And I was utterly shocked.

"You did it!" Remus said, his earlier irritated features lit up in a huge, proud grin.

"I–I—" I couldn't find words. "My first spell… Okay, well, technically, my second spell…"

"Perfect, River. Perfect," he said affectionately, using the nickname (and meaning of my first name) he had given me when we had first met.

"Thanks Remy," I said. "You don't know how much this means…"

"I do know. Just…calm down, okay? You always over-think. You try too hard. Just…let it come naturally, and the magic will come effortlessly and quickly the next time."

I nodded.

"See? I know what I'm talking about every now and then."

I snorted. "Yeah. Right. You never, ever know what you're talking about."

"Hey, now. Be nice to your teacher," he warned.

"I swear you're going to become a professor at this school someday," I said, rolling my eyes at him.

Remus shrugged, but I could tell he doubted it. He was already worrying about the chances of him getting any job considering his…condition.

"We'll just have to wait and see. But in the mean time, you keep practicing."

"Ah shit. Speaking of practice, do you have the time?"

He held out his pocket watch for me to look at, and I cursed again.

"I'm gonna be late," I muttered. "Thanks again Remus."

"Anytime," he replied as I ran out the door, heading for the common room. I had exactly three minutes to get changed into some appropriate clothes and my cleats and shin-guards. As it was, I was gonna be late for my own practice. What a sucky coach I was.


"Sorry guys," I said as I ran onto the field. "I lost track of the time."

Lily grinned at me. "I figured you would be, so I took care of warm-ups. Is that okay?"

"Oh gods, Lily, you're a freakin' life-saver."

"Naturally."

I cleared my throat and then raised my voice. "Alrighty. Gather around you guys and listen up!"

All fourteen members of my team hurried over, talking amongst themselves, but dropping the chatter immediately when they took a seat in front of me. I kneeled down and then lowered my voice to a normal level.

"As we all know, our first game is going to be on Friday, which is two days away." I looked at each of them, happy at the wide smiles that appeared on their faces at the news. "I have arranged it so we'll be playing against some teams in the muggle world too, which won't be a problem anyways since this is a non-magic sport, but I just wanted you and anyone else you thought about having show up to know that. So be careful. Celebrations and cheering need to be strictly non-magical on the field.

"Second, we've got a slight problem. It turns out, and I was a complete airhead for forgetting this tiny little fact in the first place, that technically, in the muggle world, I'm too young to coach you guys since you're all my age, and even if I wasn't too young, if I coach, I can't play."

"But Sozo!" a Hufflepuff girl, Areana, said. "We need you! Sure, we're good, but we'd be lost without you!" The others voiced their agreements.

"Every team has their leader that walks into battle with them," a Ravenclaw boy, Mikael, said, "and you just happen to be ours."

I smiled at them all. "I'm glad you all feel that way about me. But, hold your protests for a couple more minutes, then you can get back to complimenting me." Lily snorted and rolled her eyes, but all affectionately. I assumed her thoughts were running somewhere along the lines of 'Gods, she's just like her toe-rag brother!'

When there was silence, I said, "So, I asked Professor Dumbledore to talk to the teachers if anyone would be interested. And, he laughed at me for this too, I had him tell them that they didn't have to know anything about what was going on, they just had to stand there and look pretty. Or at least try to."

"So who's coming with us?" Addis, a Gryffindor boy asked.

"Please please please, NONE of you laugh, okay? And don't give him a hard time."

"Who is it?" several asked warily.

"He seems very optimistic about the whole ordeal, and he's a nice man—"

"Sozo! Spit it out!" Lily snapped, losing her patience.

"Yeah, you're making it sound like it's Professor Slughorn or something," Josh, a Hufflepuff boy laughed.

"Erm…would that be a bad thing?" I asked sheepishly.

All of them had frozen smiles on their faces, even Lily, who held nothing against any of the teachers. Out of nowhere someone burst out laughing.

"Guess you just rained on their parade," Sirius said, coming up behind me with James.

"Sorry we're late boss," James said. "Practice got over a wee bit late."

"No thanks to our wonderful captain," Sirius grumbled.

I rolled my eyes at them and turned back to the rest of the team. "C'mon you guys…it isn't as bad as it seems."

"Sure, if you want them to be laughing their heads off at us," a Ravenclaw girl, Maria, muttered.

"No one in their right minds are going to believe Sluggy managed to teach us everything we know. And I'm not trying to brag or anything, but especially since we're really good," a Gryffindor boy, Sam, added regretfully.

"Oh well. Who cares what they think? And it'll be funny when they see that a team coached by someone like Professor Slughorn just whipped their asses. Am I right, Lils?" I said, turning to my best friend. She liked the professor; they got along fairly well, especially seeing as he was the Slytherin head of house.

Lily was frowning at me. "You honestly couldn't have told Dumbledore 'oh, find me anyone! Anyone but Professor Slughorn, that is,' could you?"

"Guys…come on! It isn't that bad! Swallow your pride and embarrassment!" They all went quiet at the sharpness of my tone. I took a deep breath, trying to control my anger. "Look. I know this isn't what he had planned, hell, we sure don't want this. But we either take what we get or we have all of the hard work and time we spent putting this team together and shove it down our throats.

"So I, for one, am going to suck it up and be thankful that I even get to play. If you can't appreciate the fact that we got someone to step forward when, more than likely, everyone else is going to shun it because it's a freakin' muggle sport, then maybe we should just forget about the whole damn thing. It's your guys' choice. I'm waiting for the answer." I folded my arms across my chest and stared at them all in turn, watching their facial expressions turn from utter horror and disbelief to a look of shame.

"Hey, as always, I'm with you," Sirius said, putting an arm around my shoulders, grinning.

I smiled back. "Yeah, but you don't count. So…?"

"There's no way I'm giving this up," a Ravenclaw boy, Edmund, said.

"Besides, Slughorn's not all that bad," Ian, our only Slytherin, said.

"You have to say that though," Stuart, a Hufflepuff boy muttered.

"No, Ian's right," Lily said. "And we could be stuck with someone worse."

"We're sorry," Rowland, another Hufflepuff boy, said.

"Yeah. It was just…shocking…to say the least, that Sluggy would volunteer," Hugh, a Ravenclaw boy, said.

"For me too, when I found out, to tell the truth," I said, as everyone else were nodding their agreements. "But, hey, this'll be fun."

"No doubt about that," James said.

"Okay! So, now that we're through with chit-chat, let's get down to business! Tonight I'm going to put together our starting lineup, so I want to see you all practice like you're in a game, okay? The eleven who play the hardest tonight will start. But don't worry, everyone is going to get equal playing time. I have no favorites."

"Except for me," Sirius piped up. "We all know you love me most."

"Oh, go sod off," I said, shoving him over. "Anyways, we'll scrimmage tonight. I'm not gonna practice because I want to watch and make corrections and my roster. Lily and Addis, you're team captains for tonight, so pick your teams and then get in the goals." They both nodded, grabbing their goalie gear.

"Ladies first," Addis said, bowing to Lily. I stifled a laugh at the look filled with loathing that James shot him.

"That never gets old," Sirius muttered in my ear.

"Just wait until they get married, then we'll have a show to watch," I muttered back.

He laughed under his breath. "That won't happen anytime soon, so right now let's watch him not be chosen by her." And Sirius was right. Poor James had to join the team of the man who was flirting with "his" Lily-flower. Oh dear. How was I to keep them from murdering each other?


A/N: Well, there's that. Not much to say over it except that sorry it took me so long to write! The biggest problem I had was finding British names since my internet hates me and doesn't really let me search things without it turning off. Hopefully these ones are accurate enough! :)

Oh, and I feel terrible that I don't have three chapters done for my three reviewers! I'm SO terribly sorry…I'll have to work harder next time on my deal. It's just…hard to get to where I want to go, ya know? So if any of you want to see somethin' happen, PM me and if I like it and it fits in with my story plans, I can maybe add it in here. And with that…it could be quite awhile before my next chapter update, because I have to figure out what I want to happen.

Now, to my reviewers:

Azalia Fox Knightling: Thanks! See…I wanted to do something different…and I didn't think it was that far of a stretch; couldn't you see Dumbledore finding out how to do something like that?

paili-chan: Very good points! And I thought long and hard about it, and I think I have found an answer for you! The Blacks (and I think most pureblood families, too) name their children after star constellations. So a constellation name would immediately alert everyone that she had pureblood status, therefore the Blacks' horrible "mistake" would be known. So not only was it to "protect" their name, it was to protect Eridani herself from angered purebloods. With all that in mind, Dumbledore chose Sozo, which means "to heal" in Greek. Now, about the whole knowing before-hand thing…eh…not sure. Let's just remember that he likes to have fun and amuse himself too! =) Haha either that or he could never get a hold of her before-hand where no one else would be present.

Great Ice Dragon: Thank you! I've been told that a time a or two…just always in a sarcastic manner! ;) I'm pretty sure I will explain later about where her powers come from…so wait in anticipation! (Just kidding…'bout the anticipation part, that is). And yes, her powers flow from her hands. BUT! But, she's special, so her powers just MIGHT be controlled by her mind with practice…

Please review! You guys are doing an absolutely WONDERFUL job on that request of mine!

Until next time,

Nike