When James pelted back into the library, shaking and out of breath, he was just in time to see Halley perform an incredibly successful Reduction Charm under Nashville's supervision.
"Alright, Potter?" Nashville asked, as James collapsed into a chair.
"Yeah, yeah yeah. Fine. Fine fine. Just been running" James replied breathlessly. "Don't mind me."
As Nashville shrugged and carried on, tutoring Sirius this time, James beckoned Peter over to him.
"Need you to go down to Remus and Sammie" he muttered quietly. "Tell them there's no point in waiting. Tomorrow night's the night. The Bowtruckles are coming. And I know where they'll be going. Also tell them Nashville's tutoring us, so no chance to plan till tomorrow."
Peter's eyes opened wide, and he was about to say something.
"Go!" James ordered sharply. Peter nodded and ran off.
"Where's he going?" Nashville asked curiously, from over with Sirius.
"Loo, probably" Sephy chimed in, looking hard at James, who inwardly smiled. Sephy knew something was up already.
"Right" Nashville said, a little tautly, eyeing the exchange. Sephy curled up on the desk she was sitting on and let James catch his breath. From the look on his face when he came in, she would be damned if James hadn't found something out. She was a little concerned as to what it was, as she hadn't seen James look so terrified since she threatened to disembowel him at the dinner table whilst holding a knife.
"Potter, Sephy?" Nashville asked again. "I was thinking of putting on a Quidditch practice tonight. Just drills. You both coming? We should probably go now."
James and Sephy looked at each other again, before hopping up and following Nashville's lead.
"We going to be OK tonight?" James asked, just to make conversation. "To practice, I mean. What with the Lethifold and stuff."
"Try and stop me" Nashville replied flatly. "Easter break is practically upon us, and after that it's exams exams exams until the next half-term. I'm getting my practices in now."
"Point" James conceded, as they walked back to the Gryffindor common room to get changed. "Where are the others?"
"Orson told the Carters from me" Nashville replied. "And Bleu was there when I decided to call practice. It was why I came looking for you two."
Sephy knew from his voice that he was lying. He had been looking for her, to check if she was alright. She could feel it. Her stomach gave a rather painful flutter of butterflies, and she struggled a little to keep the pace with the boys. Most of her mind was taken up with wondering what on earth James had found.
"I'll leave a note for Remus and Sirius in my dorm" the Seeker whispered to her as they entered the common room. "They'll make up some sort of plan. They'll have to. I've found how the smugglers are getting the animals out of the castle, I think. And the Bowtruckles are coming tomorrow night. Hurry!"
Sephy scrambled up to get changed for practice, her mind whirring. So they were right! And James knew how it was all working! Suddenly the idea of stopping the smugglers became all the more real for her. Quidditch wasn't on her mind at all.
She hesitated as she reached for the gloves Nashville had bought her. She'd been wearing them in the match she broke her elbow, and in training, and they were very good. She was worried, though, that Nashville suspected that the seven of them were into some mischief. She didn't know how she knew. She just suspected.
Quickly plaiting her hair into French plaits, she grabbed her helmet from her bedside and met up with James.
"Nash has already gone down" he told her. She sucked her lip.
"Okay. I'm worried he suspects we're up to something."
James sighed as they left the common room and headed down the stairs.
"Nash isn't stupid, you know" he pointed out. "You've been acting really weird around him lately. And you're his focus. It's obvious he knows something is up."
Sephy humphed.
"But seriously, please sort out your emotions, Pygmalion" James commented blandly. "It's bleeding awkward for the rest of us."
"There's nothing wrong with my emotions" Sephy replied tightly, as they reached the bottom of the moving stairs and set off for the covered bridge and the Quidditch pitch.
"Then why are you being like this, Perce?" James demanded. "Where's cheeky Persephone gone? Why are we all of a sudden faced with bland looks and nervousness?"
Sephy humphed again, and didn't speak until they reached the training pitches, no matter how hard James pleaded with her.
"Fine" she snapped, as they stood in the broomstick tent. "If you really must know. I'm bloody terrified, just like Halley is. I'm scared of keeping things from Nash, I'm scared of the Lethifold, I'm scared because Halley's scared-James, she fought that thing off with a Patronus that wasn't even corporeal. And she's still bloody terrified of it. She doesn't show it. None of us do. I'm also scared because-" Sephy's words caught in her throat, and she leant on her broomstick, swaying.
James waited patiently.
"In January" Sephy carried on quietly, so quietly James had to step forward a little to hear her. "In January when I dueled Snape in the corridor. He could have killed me if Kennedy hadn't come. You saw the spell he used. What it did to Halley-and it only glanced her arm. If that had gone through my chest or my neck-and it could have, you saw how helpless I was..."
"And now we're going up against people with the same intent but more powerful" James muttered, and Sephy nodded.
"I think you needed that off your chest" he continued, trying to lift the mood a little. "Perce, sit down."
Ignoring the benches, Sephy sat with a bump on the floor. James sat on a nearby bench.
"You don't have to come" he offered. Sephy shook her head frantically, holding back tears and looking up.
"I can't not come."
"Fine" James sighed. "Get up. Come and hit some tennis balls at me, Perce. Please?"
He held out his hand. Sephy grabbed it, scrambling up, and the two of them took their brooms and made it out onto the pitch.
"About time!" Nashville shouted at them.
"Sorry!" James yelled back. Beside him, Sephy winced.
"Take these" the Quidditch Captain ordered, passing a bat to Sephy and some tennis balls to James when the pair got close.
"Warm up" came the command. Passing the bag to Sephy as he mounted up, James couldn't help but feel like Nashville was being a little bitter today.
Up in the air, Sephy was struggling a bit. The wind was cold and strong, and every now and again she'd get buffeted about a bit due to her small frame. But she dutifully kept smacking tennis balls left and right for James to catch, and it seemed he wasn't on full form either. Below, Nashville was carefully levitating the poles and the sandbags out of the store cupboard. Sephy saw this and cursed. Agility drills for the Chasers and Seeker. Power drills for the Beaters and Keeper. Lovely.
When Nashville called his team down with a piercing whistle, it didn't take long for the poles to rearrange themselves in the air in a beastly obstacle course between the two sets of goal hoops. There was a collective groan from everyone.
"Right" Nashville shouted grimly. "Potter, Carters, Bleu, the route goes like this. Hit a bar or stray off of the route, you fall out and start again."
He waved his wand, and a shimmering red and gold line weaved itself among the obstacles, back and forth six times and going through each of the goal hoops in themselves.
"Orson" Nashville smiled. "Since your recent injury was due to lack of agility, I'm sure you'll be thrilled to hear that you'll be joining them."
The tank of a Keeper glared at his Captain playfully, before resigning himself to his fate.
"Cardale, ground drills for us" Nashville added. "But I'll explain all when this lot have taken off. Get going, team. And no cheating. I'll know if you do."
Sephy, like Orson, resigned herself to her fate of ground drills. She didn't mind the drills themselves, she was more worried about what Nashville was going to say to her. Because she had a feeling he was.
As the rest of the team took off and headed to the start of the obstacle course, Nashville turned to his tiny team-mate.
"You don't seem on form today, Sephy" he commented. She shook her head lightly.
"I'm not. But we all have off-days."
Nashville stood two sacks up on their ends, and leant them back to back against each other, before passing Sephy another bat. She automatically took her place and gave one of the bags a hard backhand smack.
"Watch your wrist with that" Nashville remarked. "You keep losing tension just as you hit. You've always done it. If the Bludger is at the wrong angle, you'll break your wrist doing that. Again."
Sephy humphed once more and re-adjusted her grip, before taking another hit at the bag. Nashville, now sitting on a third bag, watching her carefully, bit his lip.
"Better. Come here."
Sephy put the bat down and obediently came over.
"Sit" came the next command, as Nashville stood up off of the bag. "Hands."
Sephy sat and put her hands out in front of her, with Nashville's Quidditch gloves on. He knelt at her feet, and took her right hand first in his.
"I wasn't sure whether you'd notice this" he commented, as he worked away at the threads of the glove. "It's why I got you these. Didn't want you breaking your wrists, since you're so good-there."
He had pulled out two wide leather straps from the front and back of the glove, and they just about reached all the way around Sephy's wrist. As Nashville tied them with more threads, Sephy noticed how much support the extra leather on her wrist gave her. She smiled thinly. Nashville saw her do it.
"It's good, isn't it? Nice to see you smile. I've barely seen you smile all day. Other hand."
Sephy gave her other hand and inspected the first. It was rather complicatedly tied, and she couldn't quite follow the pattern.
"How did you do this?" she asked curiously. "I don't think I'll be able to get out of these, let alone tie them myself!"
Nashville grinned up at her as he finished the second glove.
"I'll help you. It's not hard once you know how. Or I might just leave you to suffer. Your choice."
Sephy's smile widened and her mood lifted somewhat. Above them, she could see one of the Carters had progressed furthest on the obstacle course, the others seemingly getting caught up on a part on the second leg where two poles got dangerously close together, then the trail went straight up.
"You've got to do a barrel roll between the first two, then hover up" Nashville explained, as he saw Sephy looking. "That's where they're getting caught up. I've no bloody idea how Sadie did it, though. Although her Comet is quite small. If she pulled up fast enough she could probably just make it."
"How do you know that one's Sadie?" Sephy asked curiously. Nashville laughed, tapping the inside of his nose.
"I think Florence has a pink scrunchie in her hair today. Think being the active word."
Sephy chuckled a little before picking up her bat once more and readying her stance in front of the sack. She tightened her grip, and attempted the backhand slice again.
"Feel better?" Nashville asked, having sat back down with a damp patch on his knee where he had knelt before. Sephy nodded, but the rush of confused emotions was still clouding her mind, due to the young man being knelt inches from her a few seconds prior.
"The gloves are great, Nash. Thanks."
Sephy then turned her attention back to the sack, and proceeded to beat it senseless with all manner of backhands, forehands, and slicers.
"Careful with that downwards hit" was Nashville's next comment. "I thought I'd ironed this out of you last year, Sephy" he carried on, sighing. "Look. You cannot make contact with the sack when it's in front of your face. Come on. You know this. If it was a Bludger, it would have dropped an inch or so, missed your bat and concussed you. Ten of those. Again."
Sephy shook her head to clear it and began, but Nashville could see she was losing focus.
"Sephy" he said again, stopping her and taking her chin in his hand, holding her bat arm with his other. "Seph. Look at me. I don't know what's in your head right now. I don't know why you're off colour. But it's got to stop. At the end of the day, I'm just your Quidditch Captain. We don't need to talk about Valentine's, if you need it to we can just pretend it never happened. You've got O.W.Ls, Sephy. They're important. We've got our match against Slytherin. And I know that's as important to you as exams are, if not more so. So come on."
Sephy shut her eyes and nodded, hoping Nash couldn't feel her shaking.
"Practice the motion of the hit. Slowly" her Captain ordered, stepping away and giving her the necessary space. Sephy focused on the bag, trying desperately to clear her head, and raised her hand above her head with the bat in it.
"Tilt it slightly" Nashville's voice came from her left. Sephy tilted her bat more horizontal.
"Other way. Come here."
Nashville came up behind Sephy, quite close, grabbed her wrist and the bat in one hand, and moved it to the right angle.
"Hips" he then chided. "Straight on. You're on a broomstick, for hell's sake, Cardale."
Sephy did know all of this, and whether it was down to frustration at not being on form, her fears about the Lethifold and the smugglers, exam stress, or her confusion over her own romantic emotions, when Nashville put his hand on her stomach, pushing her back against his body to straighten her hips up, she just broke. Tears came all too quickly-and she felt herself crumpling, the bat falling to the ground.
Nashville's reflexes were enough to manipulate his little Beater's body weight to stop her from hitting the ground too. He came down with her to a crouch, and sat her on his knee as she buried her face in her hands and sobbed. She was shaking too, now, from cold, and realising he should probably get her somewhere warmer, Nashville sat Sephy down on the sack and put his Quidditch cloak around her.
"Guys!" he hollered up to the rest of the team, still struggling with the obstacle course he had set them. He was rather proud of that course.
"Everyone get through once then pack up the poles. I'm calling early finish!"
James Potter flew lower to talk to him.
"What's wrong with Sephy?" he yelled down. Nashville shrugged.
"Not sure. I'm taking her to McGonagall."
Up in the air, James swore quietly.
"Right!" he shouted back, flying up to start the course again.
Nashville watched him go suspiciously. He had begun to get an inkling that Sephy and her gang might be up to some sort of trouble. He wasn't entirely sure why, but a newspaper headline he had read from a paper inside Halley Derwent's Arithmancy textbook earlier that day worried him.
Sephy seemed calmer when he scooped her up like a child and began to carry her off the pitch. It pained Nashville deeply to see his little team-mate in such a state, and he hoped that he wasn't part of the problem. Somehow, showing Sephy how he really felt about her had done more harm than good.