With all the force of a great typhoon (Jake)

It was a very long day of a very long week. There was a surprise pop quiz in Magical History, mountains of homework were assigned, the Prefects kept coming to her with questions and problems and one of her players broke his leg during Quidditch practice. And all that was on top of trying to study and work out. Because it was still the beginning of the school year, nobody was taking studying seriously yet and the common room was always loud. Well, it was loud for a Wormwood common room. Luckily, Mary and Zayne had their own common room that year and the Head Girl escaped there when the first and second years got too loud. With everything that's been going on, she didn't get much sleep and was being kept awake by caffeine and anxiety.

Even though it was Friday, Mary wasn't particularly looking forward to the weekend. It meant Quidditch practice without Luke and catching up with homework and studying, leaving barely any time, if any at all, for leisure time with Lydia. She's been on the verge of crying since Wednesday morning, when that Nightshade second year somehow transfered the owl droppings from the Owlery into the Dining Hall. Zayne was still sleeping and Mary was left to deal with the delinquent herself.

After dinner on Friday, Mary gave a quick kiss to Lydia and hurried to her dorm room to change. She was meeting up with Jake in fifteen minutes and she didn't want to be late. She changed from her uniform quickly, grabbed her wand and went down to the fields. They were going to practice her dueling today, if she remembered correctly and even though she was exhausted, she was looking forward to it. It was a great way to let her frustrations out.

She arrived on the field and put her water bottle down beside the tree and started stretching. The witch was almost done with her routine when she heard footsteps behind her.

Mary was finishing up with her push-ups and then jumped on her feet, grinning at Jake. It was good, being outside and working out, it made her feel more free, like she could do anything. She didn't care that Jake was late, she knew he had a lot of things on his mind; juggling being a Professor and a Quidditch Star wasn't easy in her mind.

"It's okay, stretching's probably boring for you, anyway." she said happily and started doing jumping jacks. She could see her progress, she wasn't even out of breath at this point and she was quite proud of herself. "I'm alright. You?" Mary said with a shrug. Sure, she felt better now that she was out of the school, but she was still tired from the whole past week.

The witch nodded and stopped jumping. She was done with her stretching and she pulled her wand out of her pocket.

Mary nodded to Jake and gripped her wand tight. She knew she couldn't use only her wand, she had to know how to defend herself without it, but while she had it, she would use it. It was very important to know how to survive in a fight without her wand, though, and she's been practicing her kicks and punches as well.

"Protego!" the witch thought and a silver barrier erupted from her wand, sending the man's jinx away. She's been getting pretty good at non-verbal magic and it certainly had its advantages.

"Ebublio." she muttered and a great purple jet of light was sent flying towards Jake. Mary's never used the spell before, so she didn't want to risk it by just thinking the incantation. She read about it during last year's research and she was just waiting for the opportunity to use it.

There were two spells heading her way, fast and she had mere seconds to think. Mary learned to rely on her instincts, as there wasn't exactly time to think of an elaborate plan. She threw herself on the ground, so she was lying flat on the grass and when she saw the spells flying past her, she jumped back up again.

Mary muttered the incantation for the Multi-Shot Jinx and several purple blasts shot out of her wand. She knew that it wouldn't throw Jake completely off, but it bought her a little time and that's all she needed. At least that was until she was hit by his jinx, which she didn't see coming due to the purple blasts. The witch hit the ground with a loud thump and it seemed her breath was knocked out of her lungs.

It took her a few seconds to realize she should be back on her feet and a few more before she actually got up. Her back and her head were aching and she felt annoyed. She should have seen the jinx coming and she shouldn't have spent so much time getting up. In a real duel, she'd be dead by now, because of her own stupidity.

"Sorry." she muttered to Jake, surely he was just as disappointed in her as she was. "Tarantallegra." It was better to just go on as if nothing happened.

One of the things Mary liked about training with Jake was that he didn't treat her as a fragile little girl. He told her what she needed to know and he didn't hold back with criticism. Some people may take that as an insult, but that's why they were there, to work on what she was doing wrong. Plus, the people in actual Auror training wouldn't cut her any slack and it was best to get used to that.

'Protego,' Mary thought and a shield erupted from her wand once again, deflecting the spells Jake sent her way. "Stupefy," she whispered and sent the jinx towards the Professor. She made sure the charm wasn't too strong, nothing to cause any real damage, just to knock Jake back. She practiced the strong ones on dummies, as she didn't want to hurt anyone alive.

Her shield vanished and one of Jake's spells hit her and so Mary found herself dangling in the air upside down. The situation was kind of amusing, but thinking of how very not amusing it would be in a real fight prevented Mary from laughing. "Liberacorpus." she said and fell back down, not quite as graceful as she would have hoped.

"Mary, what's going on? That's twice in quick succession you've failed to block." Jake told her, evidently a little annoyed that the witch wasn't focussing. "If you don't want to train, we can call time on the sessions."

The Head Girl picked herself up, frowning and wanting to die. Jake was clearly annoyed that she couldn't block his spells, her head and back were still aching and she felt humiliated. She was annoyed with herself as well and couldn't blame Jake for being impatient.

"I want to train." she replied thickly as tears began pricking her eyes. Mary blinked them away, angry at herself. She had to get a grip. This was so very important to her and she was not going to ruin it just because she was a little tired. Without the training, she had lesser chances of getting into the University, getting through it and succeeding in being an Auror.

She knew Jake was a reasonable guy and knew that he wouldn't just stop helping her because of one mistake, but in that moment, it felt like he would. Just the thought of not continuing with the training and consequently not getting into University made more tears appear and that made the witch even angrier with herself. On top of all that, she started thinking about the last Quidditch practice and how it was probably her fault that one of her players broke his leg. They were probably going to take away her Captaincy now and maybe it'd be for the best. Who'd want such an incompetent Quidditch Captain anyway?

She told herself to stop acting like a child and walked away from Jake, so that they'd be at a proper dueling distance. None of this was helping, though and tears were now running down her cheeks, way beyond her control.

"Ex- Expelliarmus" she sobbed, pointing her wand at the man. As expected, nothing happened and it only made her cry harder. She felt so silly, standing there in the middle of the field and sobbing and she was so, so angry with herself. If she couldn't even keep it together for this one hour while the training lasted, how is she ever going to last through the actual Auror training? "I c-can't even d-dis-disarm you!" Mary sobbed and aggressively wiped away her tears. Not that it mattered, for new ones ran down her cheeks in a matter of seconds.

As Jake pulled her in a hug, Mary supposed it was supposed to be a friendly, comforting gesture and it normally would be, but it made her cry even harder. She felt so silly and was trying to will herself to stop crying by yelling at herself in her mind. Trying to suppress her sobs didn't work, though, and the witch started to hiccup as well.

She was still gripping her wand tight as if it would be a life line and she wrapped her arms around her torso. Nothing was working, though and the Head Girl kept crying. She couldn't stop thinking about how Jake must be really disappointed in her, how she was disappointed in herself and that she'll probably never be good enough to be an Auror anyway and she'll just throw away years of her life and not even succeed in something she really wanted to do. She heard Jake say he wasn't mad at her and even though she wanted to believe that, there was a nasty voice in the back of her mind saying he was lying. He pitied her, that must be it.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Tears were still pouring out of her eyes and just the thought of saying her fears out loud made her feel a bit sick. What if she confessed to what she thought and Jake would agree? That, that would be even worse than just thinking she'll never make it.

"Just a lot of th-" she hiccuped, "things piled up at once." she said and hiccuped again. It was getting annoying and Mary wished she could make herself stop crying and hiccuping. "I'll never make it, will I." she said quietly and fresh new tears made their way down her cheeks.

Mary listened to Jake trying to console her through her hiccups and started crying harder again. She knew he was trying to make her feel better, but it wasn't working particularly well. Hearing that he thought she was amazing at everything she did, made her feel as though if she would fail at anything, nobody would like her anymore. After all, who'd like a Head Girl that was rubbish at everything she did? Nobody, that's who.

"But, if something is troubling you, please know that you can talk to me, any time."

"I can t-talk to Lydia, bu-but she has her own pro-problems." Mary tried to say through crying and hoped Jake would understand what she said. "Plus, we h-haven't really had m-more than a mome-moment to ourselves lately." She hated how things were with Lydia at the moment. They were both too busy with their studying and extracurricular activities to talk about important things and they barely had time for 'hello' and 'goodbye' kisses. Most of their conversations happened when they were already falling asleep, both of them exhausted and failing to stay up for more than a few minutes.

"Thanks J-Jake."

When Jake didn't react to her mentioning her girlfriend, Mary smiled to herself through her tears, happy that her friends were so accepting of her sexuality. She was comfortable with it and didn't mind at all what strangers or acquaintances thought of her, but she wanted her friends to be okay with it.

They sat down and Mary pulled her legs towards her and wrapped her arms around her knees. She's managed not to cry anymore and just had an occasional hiccup.

"It's just... I'm really grateful and honored and happy, don't get me wrong, but it's exhausting. Everyone thinks their problems are my problems and then somebody goes and falls off their broom and of course it's my fault, I'm the Captain. I mean, I love my team, Victoria's amazing, she's trying so hard and Michelle and and, everybody. But it's hard keeping up with everybody's abilities and planning around their schedules. We're Wormwoods, nobody wants to give up their study or reading time, it's infuriating.'

'And then there's that kid from Belladonna," Mary had to pause to take a breath and her voice grew angrier and more exasperated at the mention of the delinquent. "He's so insufferable. He was the one who got owl droppings in the Dining Hall the other day and one time, he threw marbles all over the hallway. By the time I got there, at least four people fell and broke or sprained something."

"Then there's my parents. They're Muggles, Mom teaches physics at the community college in my town and my Dad's a chef. They can't defend themselves, especially not against the Widows." at this point, Mary's voice was trembling again, but this time, she was determined not to cry. "I've set up protective spells around their house and if anyone would break in or do any magic there, I'd know. This bracelet would light up and make noise." She held up her wrist, where the dragon was lazily stretching its tail beneath a silver bracelet.

"They thought I was being paranoid, I haven't told them half the things that have happened. Had to tell them about the Quidditch attack, though. They... they knew Oscar." the witch drew in a shaky breath, avoiding Jake's gaze. He was the one who practically tore her off Oscar's body and carried her back to the school. Apart from that one time, they never talked about it and neither did Mary want to. "Thing is, though, I keep expecting something to happen. At my parent's house." she added as an afterthought. "Keep glancing to the bracelet, getting ready to race to the first fireplace to go to Greenswitch and Apparate home from there."

She had thought out many times what would happen if the alarm did go off, plan how she would react and what she would do. She couldn't Apparate out of school, so the Village was the next best thing. At least until Gavin and her found the apartment, she could go there from Salem and then to her house.

"It's not... I don't feel bad about disciplining him, he just gets on my nerves." the witch said, when Jake commented on her long speech. She actually felt better now that she got most of her problems off her chest and her hiccups have stopped.

His comment about Victoria liking Quidditch almost brought new, happy tears to her eyes. She knew the younger Wormwood was excited about flying and was always a ray of sunshine at the practice. It was good to hear it from someone else, to confirm that Victoria actually liked how Mary led the Quidditch practices. "Well, that's Victoria for you." she mumbled fondly.

As Jake moved on to talk about Oscar, Mary felt the familiar pang of pain. It had been almost a year and she was still hurt, sad and angry about him dying, no matter how much she tried to move on. It was better, most of the time, to be honest and she wasn't constantly thinking about him. When she did think about him, however, it hit her hard. All the hurt and sadness exploded inside of her at those times and it felt like she was being ripped apart by an invisible force and there was nothing she could do about it.

"Just... Oscar would have wanted you to be happy, you know?"

Mary nodded in response, not trusting herself to speak. That was another thing. She felt guilty about both moving on and not moving on. She knew Oscar would want her to be happy and she was trying so hard and when she wasn't, she felt like she was letting him down. When she was feeling happy, however, she felt as though moving on was the worst thing to do. After all, how dared she be happy and enjoy things, when her best friend would never laugh with her again? He'll never be able to do things she was doing, so how could she enjoy them.

She didn't want to bother Jake with that, though. Even thinking about it made her feel as though she was acting silly and a little insane and she didn't want her trainer thinking of her like that.

"But the one thing I can most definitely help you with, my dad works at the Ministry, if you're worried, I can ask him to go over and set up some stronger wards for you? Would that make it easier?"

The witch thought about it for a few moments and then shrugged, conveying her thoughts. "I honestly don't know. When I set up the charms, my parents laughed it off and said I was being paranoid. If someone comes from the Ministry and starts setting up stronger wards, they'll know something's up. I don't want them to worry more than they already do."

Her Mom asked if she was alright with such worry in each letter she sent and the writing was cautious, as if she didn't want to upset her. "Can I think about it some more?" she asked Jake. It would help her lots, she wouldn't be quite as worried about her parents if proper wards would be up around them. "Thank you for offering, honestly."

Mary nodded and taking Jake's hand, she got on her feet. She had stopped shaking somewhere along their conversation, for which she was really glad. The fact that she had an emotional breakdown in front of her Professor was bad enough for one day.

"Sorry about today, by the way. It'll be better next week." she promised, determined not to cry next time.

"And, everything that was said this evening, it won't go any further. Just remember you're never alone."

The witch nodded once again, giving Jake a smile. "Thanks. I truly appreciate it."

She was quiet as they walked back to the castle, because she couldn't, for the life of her, think of anything to say. Mindless chitchat didn't seem quite right at a moment like that and they've pretty much exhausted all her problems back on the field. Once or twice, Mary wanted to ask Jake whether everything was okay in his life, but closed her mouth every time. If he wanted to talk about his problems, he could do so, but she decided not to push him.

"Say hi to Azalea, please." she said as they parted, giving the man an awkward hug before hurrying off. A warm bath sounded incredibly nice right about then.