/𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐒\ [𝒔. 𝒃𝒍𝒂𝒄𝒌]

𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭

𝟏,𝟏𝟑𝟐 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬

Artemis was on a roll. She somersaulted under a beam, wand drawn, and shot her patronus- something she'd just learned to do- at the fake dementor in the corner of the training room. The silvery panther darted from her wand and circled once or twice around the dementor. Artemis jumped and swung herself onto one of the practice bars, jumping across them like it was nothing. She landed on her feet and dove under the flaming arrow flying from the practice dummy, then got up, jumped over the small pond at the end of the course and skidded to a halt in front of the rest of her class.

"Damn!" Sirius said, clapping loudly.

Hestia clicked off her stopwatch. "Close," she said, marking it on her spreadsheet. "Two seconds under your record."

"You're joking!" cried Artemis. "What was my record again?"

"Twenty three seconds."

Artemis, still struggling to catch her breath, tucked her wand back in her pocket and sighed. "I don't believe it."

"You need more practice," said Hestia. "You need to work on your dives, too, you look like you're trying to go down a slip n slide."

"A what?" said Sirius.

Artemis laughed. "Muggle thing. Come on, let's get lunch."

"We're dueling afterwards, so eat light!" Hestia called after them.

Sirius and Artemis joined the rest of the trainees in the cafeteria. They sat with the Prewetts, Alice, and Frank. James had dropped out of training after the first week to do full time work for the Order. Artemis and Sirius missed him, but they saw him enough outside of training to make up for it.

"How'd you do?" asked Frank, covered in sweat from his own run of the course.

"Two seconds under my record," Artemis said moodily.

Alice rolled her eyes. "Says the girl with the fastest record in the class."

"Not fast enough," said Artemis.

"Running fast isn't going to help you beat Death Eaters anyway," said Gideon. "You've got to work on dueling."

Fabian shook his head. "But that's where the agility training comes in, it's reflexes that matter. It's all connected, Gid."

"Oh, stop psychoanalyzing Moody's training tactics," sighed Alice. "Art, you'll get better at the course. It happens with time."

Artemis smiled at her. "Well, now I'm just excited to duel."

A few feet away, Dorcas was sitting against the wall with Hestia Jones. Every time Artemis spotted them together, she thought of Marlene. She wondered if maybe Hestia had been part of the reason Dorcas broke up with Marlene years ago. When she'd brought it up to Marlene, she'd shrugged it off and said something to the effect of, "If you're still bitter about that, you're way behind." Since then, Artemis was decidedly cool with Hestia.