WHITE FLAG ▹ potter

012. you're on your own, kid

The fall knocked the wind out of the girl, and she held tight to her stomach, trying for air, utterly exhausted. Lili's heavy breath echoed in her ears. The fire crackled in the hearth. Sev stood perfectly still on the other side of the sitting room, observing her. She couldn't do it anymore. She was exhausted and defeated and embarrassed. Angry tears started in her eyes, and she fought bravely to hold them back, rubbing hard at her eyes with the heel of hands.

"I can't do it..."

As if he couldn't hear her, Sev asked, "What was that?"

Lili tore her face from her hands and snapped, "I can't do it! All right?! I can't!"

"You can. If you try harder."

"I've tried! I'm trying." Her voice was hoarse as she demanded, angrily, "What is the point of this?! What are you preparing me for?!"

It couldn't be school. She'd learn all of this in due course; she was sure. Did he want her to be ahead of the curve? Did he not want her to humiliate him? It seemed likely.

Instead, he said, "I am preparing you for what lies ahead, Lilium. If you continue as you are, you will end up... dead."

Despite herself, true hurt registered on her pale, freckled features. Then hot indignation and tired hopelessness shot through her heart, and she found herself breathlessly fighting back.

"What're you saying? That I'm weak and I'll never be able to defend myself? That I've no chance? There's no use?"

Sev's eyes narrowed infinitesimally, and he approached her — each step slow and measured. Finally, he bent over her, face impossibly close to her own, their noses nearly touching.

"No. No one is going to hurt you. Not ever."

She was confused, and he knew it.

"Listen to me, Lilium. You are attempting... to rely upon stamina and strength to attack. You are hesitant. Your heart is not in it. You know the proper incantations and yet you hold back."

"Yes."

His obsidian eyes gleamed dangerously, "Then why don't — you use — them?"

"Who says they would work?" She countered hopelessly, blinking wetly through the hair in her face.

"You are intelligent and you are fast, Lilium. You have more heart than anyone alive. Use these qualities to your advantage."

Her eyes perhaps filled with even more tears at the shocking compliment, and a lump rose in her throat so big that she couldn't get a single word out. With a whip of his black sleeve, he stretched out a hand and pulled her up.

"Now. Try again."

ϟ

Lili loved Spinner's End, no matter how much her father despised it.

It existed in a miserable, dirty place called Cokeworth — a Muggle town, nothing at all like Hogsmeade. Covered in a perpetual cloud of smoke and smog, it was a tired old town with several streets of identical brick, terraced houses. It could barely be found on a map, its only geographical indicator was a dirty river, the bank of which was completely strewn with litter. In the hazy distance, from Lili's bedroom window, one could see the old mill factory that was no longer in commission and had left many of Cokeworth's residents jobless and utterly destitute.

There was nothing beautiful at the place, absolutely nothing at all.

And yet Spinner's End was still home.