Go ahead and underestimate me, I dare you

Training

September 2003

6 y/o

Jennifer was breathing loudly as she proceeded with her physical training. Huffing each time as she pulled herself up on a metal pipe that was parallel to the ceiling. In her ears she had a MP3 player with a language program. The program would say a word, the translation and then give her time to repeat the word. This week she was learning Japanese, something she found way overdue for herself. She had long ago read all the books in English she could get her hands on in the mansion, and even though the RoR never lacked more books in English for her, there was simply so much more information available in other languages, but only if she could read said languages. Her options were to buy books or read them in a different language. She opted for the latter. And with learning to read a different language she immediately learned to speak it as well, for later uses she might have. After all, you can't say you know a language if you can't speak it.

Jennifer was inside her seven layer trunk, currently on the fifth floor, which was completely furnished for physical training.

Today she had already done her 10km run, her 2km swim, push-ups, sit-ups, flexibility training and tightrope walking. All that was left were her pull-ups.

Her parents were not home at the moment, neither was Charlie. They went to a magical core specialist in south-Africa somewhere. Apparently Charlie had been having problems producing even a small levitation charm, and they were concerned that he suffered from magical exhaustion. Or something. She didn't really pay attention after they said 'We will be gone for 7 days'.

That was another thing. Every time the other Potters left, leaving her behind at the manor, they gave her what she called sorry-that-we're-leaving-you-again-money. Basically, it was more than enough money to make sure she had everything she needed while they were away. They never bothered to check what remained of the money when they came back from wherever they had been, leaving young Jennifer with more than enough money to buy equipment. Such as punching bags, pull-up bars, and wires to train her balance and flexibility on.

To say that her training was going well was the understatement of the year, even if she didn't know this herself. She could do most spells, charms, jinxes, etc. from first and second year, make potions up to forth year, and had read more about history as some professors. Astronomy was also easy for her, as all she had to do was look at a few maps and she could find all the stars needed, thus losing her interest in it very fast. She had also begun reading books on healing magics.

Recently she had also taken to knife throwing, after her brother had gotten a set as a present on his birthday. As many of his things went missing, some went 'missing' in the term of Jennifer took it and no one knew it was her. But as her brother lost so many things, a few would go missing and no one would think twice on it even if Charlie insisted that he hadn't lost it.

Finally done with her physical training, she let go of the metal bar and landed with a soft Thud on the padded floor. Wondering what she would de next she scanned the room. There were weights she could lift, but after a moment her eyes fell on de boxing equipment. She smirked. Boxing was next.

'''''''''''''''''''''

At 15:00 PM she finally thought she had trained her body enough for the day and retired to the first compartment –the library / study- for some more reading. She had been busy reading up on potions for the past 2 months or so, and was nearing the limit she could know about the theory behind brewing. It wouldn't be long before she would continue with the practical aspect of the subject.

Up until fourth year potions the potions couldn't really do much harm should anything go wrong with the brewing of it, bar for minor explosions or melted cauldrons. After that the chances of getting more serious injury were much more present, and therefore she was doing mostly theory and some healing magics before trying her hand at the more complicated potions. She knew for a fact that Charlie wasn't learning potions after James and Sirius loudly proclaimed that it was the most useless subject ever and Charlie was right in refusing to learn it, but Jennifer found it necessary to know as much about everything as she could.

Her library was already overflowing with books, while not too long ago she put 3 more bookcases in the room. There were already new piles of books forming on the floor for lack of room after her last visit to Hogwarts and she knew that before her next visit in 10 weeks she would have to have at least four more, otherwise the piles would get to big.

She moves to take the three top books from a pre-made pile that are sorted per subject. Each book is about a thousand pages thick, which would take any other 6-year-olds forever to read, while Jennifer could read one page every 5 seconds. Her perfect memory allowed her to absorb reading material like it was nothing. There wasn't a subject she hadn't read a book or two (more likely twenty or so) about.

Due to her nature she only needed a full three hours of sleep every night to feel like she had slept enough. When her parents were home she filled her nights with reading, learning languages or listening to music. Sometimes she would practice drawing runes, but at the risk of being caught, she nearly never found this worth the risk, and mostly left all practical magic for when her parents and brother were gone. Which was about ¾ of the time.

At 19:00 PM Jennifer was finally done with her reading for the day, and made it down to the kitchen for dinner. The house elves were currently at the house her family was, so she made herself a simple sandwich with actual butter on it. Her mother never wanted her to eat a lot of fat, for fear that boys or her friends from the upper class would find her too fat once she was a teenager. Screw them. She honestly couldn't care less what boys or her mother's friends thought about her. It was her body after all, and seeing the six-pack she had been left with as a result of her training, she thought that her parents should mind their own business.

It really wasn't fair, that Charlie could eat everything he wanted, for he was a 'growing boy' while she couldn't eat anything with fat, carbohydrates, or sugar while she was the one that needed a lot of energy for her physical training. She always snuck down at night for a midnight snack, especially if they only gave her vegetables for dinner once more. It was getting to the point that she kept a bowl of cooked macaroni standard in her room.

But even with this she loved the way her life was. She actually felt bad for Charlie, who was getting everything handed to him on a silver platter. Later in life he would be in trouble due to not being independed whatsoever.

As she was eating her dinner, a pretty ruffled looking owl flew through the window and landed in front of her plate, pulling her from her thoughts. Looking closer the owl had a package tied to its leg. A big, flat and square one.

Jennifer couldn't help but leave out a big smile upon seeing it. A new album! She quickly took the package from the owl, which flew away once again.

Opening the package she laughed in utter happiness. A new Skillet album, her favorite band! Quickly finishing her sandwich she ran to her room and raced down the ladder into the trunk on the fifth floor. As she spent most of her time here, and there was enough space, she had put her record player in this room. Putting the record in its place she listened to the entire album, sitting on a tightrope she used for balance practice, whilst lazily throwing a knife in the air and catching it again, sometimes throwing it at a wall, where it (most of the time) hit the target dead in the center before reaching for a new knife from a box on her left.

Extremely pleased she spent the rest of the night in there, only leaving at 3 AM for her three hours of sleep.

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Her parents coming home was something that always left Jennifer with mixed feelings. On one side, her parents were home, on the other hand, she had to put the mask of innocent and helpless little girl back in place, wear frilly brightly colored dresses and generally not talk about anything other than how amazing she found her new clothing, dolls etc. that they brought back for her from wherever they had been. She would have to abandon her dark clothing and don't give a damn attitude on many subjects, such as fashion, or the latest gossip. But she was always, always happy when they came home, no matter how little they understood her.

Anyways, they were coming home within the next two minutes, time to stop the mushing, and time to put her mask back on.