Slipping

Her focus was slipping. At first she thought it was because she already knew most of the material they were covering, but she found that it wasn’t just a wandering mind or boredom - the words weren’t quite reaching her. She could see the lips of Professor Bishop moving, could sense the students around her bending over their desks as they took their notes. Time felt... wrong. Like there was some sort of delay. She glanced to her right, where @Elijah Krum was attentively watching the front, before she glanced to her left, to see @Ace Longbottom sitting straight up in her seat, hand outstretched for the ceiling, a question trapped behind her lips. Lily blinked, and found it was hard to open her eyes once they had closed, but she forced them apart.

Oh no.

The class was nearing its end but she wasn’t going to make it. She could already feel sweat beading at her temple, her throat dry as she struggled to build the courage needed to excuse herself. It was the fear of what happened last time, the violent shaking, the nausea, the feelings of faintness - those what motivated her now. She slipped a hand into the air, and it quivered. She dropped her other hand to pinch her leg, trying to keep focused, stay steadied.

But the professor was answering Ace’s question. Lily couldn’t wait though. “Professor, may I be excused? I need to use the restroom.” She bit her lip, trying to convey a sense of urgency without desperation.

Moments later, she was hurrying down the halls, her breath shallow in her throat, trying to force herself to breath through the nose. There was a pain in her ribs, the harbinger of worse pain, and (only because there didn’t seem to be anyone else in the hallway) she ran for the bathroom, throwing the door open and fumbling for the latch on the stall. She wheeled around, locking the door, sitting and rifling through her bag. Her hands were shaking and she was cursing herself, fearing the worst-

But she found it. A medium sized vial, her salvation. For a moment she worried she wouldn’t be able to uncork it, but her desperation took hold and she yanked the cork off, reaching up to pour the liquid down her throat.

She slumped back, eyes closing as her chin lifted. The pain potion would take a few minutes, but it would steady her. She was going to be sore, going to feel the sensations of pains darting from the point on her hip that would have permanent trauma. But she wouldn’t faint. She wouldn’t vomit. She would t shake. She wouldn’t attract attention she didn’t want or need right now.

She released a long breath, and checked her watch. Class had ended. People would be coming out now. A few more seconds and she could slip into their midst unnoticed. Maybe a bit pale, maybe a bit disoriented, but who would say anything?

She was late this morning. That’s why she had forgotten. It was always worse after the full moon. Not only was the pain more poignant, but her system was fragile, meaning the side effects of both the potions and the withdrawals were extra noticeable. And worse, she was exhausted. She probably needed a night or two of ten hour rests after the moon, but she rarely got them. So she overslept. And then she forgot her medicine.

It wasn’t ideal, to say the least. But the potions kept the pain at bay. They dulled her a bit, she had noticed, made her feel less present, less... Lily. But then the anxiety rammed through, reminding her of where she was and what was at stake. It was a bit mad, really, but before the potions there had only been pain. She wasn’t anxious, she was dull, she wasn’t Lily, she was just pain. That was what happened when an already small fourteen year old broke all of her bones every month to become a monster.

But there was no point in despairing. She needed to eat, she knew that much, and if she didn’t get going now, she was going to be an even more ostensible presence in the Great Hall. And that was the last thing she wanted. She just wanted to slip into the crowd, eat her lunch, and live to fight another day.

She gathered her things, patted her face with a napkin, and then left the bathroom - immediately colliding into someone else.

She had heard them again.

The rumors about her had started again. She didn't know what she expected, they wouldn't just go away. Yes, little Artemis Knox, the fifth year Hufflepuff, had killed her brother. She had purposely thrown him into the lake by their home and watched him flail around until he didn't anymore.

Yes, she was a monster.

Artemis didn't know if that rumor would ever go away. Or if she was always going to be labeled a murderer when she had been the only one who had taken any interest in finding out where Devon had disappeared too for so long.

Sticks and stones, Artemis. Sticks and stones. The fifteen year old thought to herself, hoping she could trick her mind into believing that she wasn't upset by the words of her classmates. She always faked the smile on her face when everyone thought she didn't hear the things they said. After all, ignorance is bliss.

She had learned to ignore, but that didn't mean she didn't hear.

Artemis wasn't sure if it was her fault, or if it wasn't, but regardless of who's fault it was, she felt herself make contact with someone else as she tried to make her way to the bathroom, trying to hide tears that threatened to fall. She blinked the years back in her surprise and looked up, seeing the face of one Lily Potter.

"O-oh, I'm sorry! I should've watched where I was going! Are you okay?" She exclaimed, playing with the sleeves of her robes as she took a step back.

Lily felt small these days, frail, like she didn’t transform into a hulking wolf but a small baby bird. Lily never felt like a lion, or a wolf, always some fledgling bird with hollow bones and matted feathers, legs too spindly for their own good, always close to wobbling out of the nest or folding under the weight of her own body.

So the sensations of being knocked into reverberated throughout her body, sending seismic quakes through her bones, jarring her joints. She closed her eyes briefly, reminding herself the potion will kick in and you’ll feel better. You’ll feel fine.

Her eyes slid open, and she unfurled a small smile for whoever it was. It was Artemis, someone who had been in her grade until Lily had launched right past second year and into third. Lily didn’t know about the girl, just knew that she didn’t have many friends besides whispers that seemed to follow her. Lily made a point of never indulging these whispers, having been stalked by them herself for so long.

“No, no, it takes two, after all,” she said lightly. She tried to widen her smile but pain was still flickering beneath it all, licking at her heart, reminding her that it was always there, no matter how much she dulled her awareness of it.

That was when she saw the gleam in the girl’s eye, a shine brought on only by emotion spilling into tears. “Are you okay?”

There was a slight blur to her vision as she looked up at Lily and for a moment, Artemis had forgotten that tears had threatened to fall just a minute earlier. The burning sensation in her cheeks and nostrils brought on by fighting back tears came back, but she was not about to let those tears fall.

She would not be so weak.

She blinked a couple more times, looking down and quickly wiping the remains of the tears with her robes sleeve, before she replaced her gaze on the Gryffindor before her. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just fine." She responded in the most cheerful voice she could muster.

"Were you going down to the Great Hall? I was going to get some lunch soon." She tried to change the subject, wanting to leave the thoughts and tears from earlier behind.

Yes. It was tears. Lily recognized that sheen. For years, that brightness was the color of her mother’s eyes, the sole feature she noticed when she looked at her mother.

Lily might have lost her prefecthood, but she had gotten into the habit of lending a helpful hand. Besides, she thought it might make her feel like herself. Or feel like the person she wanted to get back to being. Back to someone that had some sense of direction. That she wasn’t spiraling out of control.

She glanced down the hallway. No one had noticed. She smiled kindly and put an arm around the girl. “C’mere.” She led her into the bathroom, closing the door firmly behind them. “Everything all right?”