Chapter 20
I’d noticed, of course, how over an auror’s first year in training their body changed. It had always been academic, before. The recognition in the back of my mind that they were gearing up for a final physical exam that required that buff physique. It had been academic, that is, until now. I hated very much what happened now.
I was dressed in those gymnasium clothes. My scrawny legs revealed beneath the shorts, skin so pale and white it practically glowed. I’d sweated through the long sleeved shirt and wished I was alone so I could bunch the cloth up to my elbow without worrying anyone would see my Mark. Maybe I should do it anyway, flash my Death Eater badge so they’d all stop giggling at my splotchy red face.
Maybe Weasley knew I fucked Potter and he was punishing me. More likely, he was doubling down on every hairbrained scheme we ever brainstormed because more of Potter’s recruits returned after winter hols, and he was afraid come year end Potter would win.
I might have just once told Weasley it wasn’t a competition. He made me run laps. Fucking laps. Who did that? I wasn’t a trainee, for Circe’s sake. No, I was one thing better. I was a mascot. Weasley’s team's little cheerleader that he was using to prove all the actual recruits could pass the final physical exam. After all, if he could whip me in good enough shape by end of year, nothing could hold back the rest of them.
If I had any energy left to chase Weasley I would throttle him. This was his worst idea yet.
It grated all of my nerves to be the person Weasley pointed to when other trainees wanted to call it a day. See Malfoy? He’s still trying. The trainees were starting to resent me and it made struggling through all the pushups worse. Even if Weasley thanked me afterwards for being a good sport. Even if he sat with me each morning to rigorously review every trainee’s progress, always pushing me to think harder and speak up more, overvaluing my advice.
I might have just once told Weasley to chill out and his responding look was ice cold. I exhausted-sneered back at him and, only because I truly felt miserable, I said I bet Potter’s trainees came back because he was nice to them and they wanted to be his friend. That sent Weasley into the most repressed little fit I’d ever seen. He was clearly seething, but what came out of his mouth was a succinct, five point argument that it wasn’t enough for the trainees not to quit he also had to get them to pass final exams, and if I really wanted to compare him to Potter could I do him the service of admitting Potter’s recruits were woefully behind.
Well. If he insisted. I really would be happy to drag on Potter. The incompetent, inconsistent, perfidious slag.
I mean, I didn’t say all that out loud. Weasley was still his best friend, and probably didn’t know we fucked that one time.
Potter wasn’t actually incompetent. Maybe a little slow, a little dense, but he saw Weasley dedicating extra time to physical training and realized he should probably get his recruits out there, too.
Which is how I came to be right there beside Potter, while he was in too-short shorts, showing off his tree trunk thighs. More than once he wore a sleeveless shirt, and I decisively did not get caught up staring at the cords of muscles in his arms. No wonder he could lift me and toss me on desktops if he wanted. I shifted my weight and willed certain body parts to settle down.
It wasn’t like he wanted to be using those hard, chiseled muscles to manhandle me. He was back to not looking at me. Which was good because maybe he didn’t see my overcooked pasta arms, thin and soggy and a hair's breadth from useless. Weasley said I was improving but mostly I ached. There was no way I’d make it to passing the auror exams. They had to do superhuman feats, regularly demonstrated by Potter who was currently rope climbing for the class and giving me the most perfect view of his ass.
My mouth was dry. I had touched that ass. I couldn’t fathom what this hunk of a man had ever seen in me.
My idiot roommate came to the gym for fun. He enjoyed lifting heavy things and fiddling with magic do-dads that made muscles grow. Not, like, by magic. I begged Ajax to find a spell to improve my muscles unnaturally and he always declined. It was well known those faded quickly with nasty side effects. Instead Ajax made sure I didn’t slack off on the schedule Weasley assigned and adjusted whatever machine settings required a wand.
At least the gym wasn’t considered a place for talking. It was a place for jocks to be better than me and for me to struggle. I’d have quit, if Weasley didn’t always look so stressed. The recruits couldn’t tell, because nothing bad had truly happened to them yet and they were unfamiliar with the trepidation in his eyes. I probably wasn’t actually helping anything, but Weasley did get joy out of seeing a marked improvement in everyone’s skills and he was as quick to celebrate me as his real charges. I wished I was remotely attracted to him so I could crush on someone inclined to pay me attention. I just found nothing attractive in a man with that much ambition. Far too Slytherin for my taste.
Do you think she’s hot, Ajax asked one day, pointing out a tall brunet who could probably bench press me. Ajax was staring at her ass as she bent over and stretched. A bit lude, but her ass was as fine as Potter’s.
I suppose she’s cute, I hedged because it felt safest. The look Ajax gave me told me it wasn’t safest. I had most definitely gotten that answer wrong. A flash of realization hit him and he reminded the both of us that Potter once told all my friends I was gay.
I bristled and lashed out that I was not gay. As soon as I said it I could hear my response was too harsh. I had just never identified as gay, or “homosexual” as my father would have sneered. I didn’t share his animosity for the orientation but I did hate when people called me it. Perhaps it was residual, ingrained embarrassment from having been raised by bigots. “Internalized homophobia,” as the kids say. I didn’t think about it much, whether I was gay, or queer, or some variety of sexual. Assigning labels on it made me twitchy.
The difference between Ajax and Potter, one difference of many, is that Ajax nodded acceptance and let it go. He did however ask again five minutes later if the woman he was clearly into was attractive. I don’t know, I muttered. I don’t know her. She has big tits, I suppose, if that’s what you’re into. Ajax nodded, because that was clearly what he was into. Then he asked what he’d clearly been working himself up to ask, should he go talk to her?
Yes, obviously. Go fall in love and let me quit this work out ten minutes early.
He was nodding again, like one of Iris’s bobbleheads, clearly into this woman if she was worth letting me slack off. Then he paused as if just hearing what I’d said.
I didn’t know if she was attractive because I didn’t know her. Was I like, that thing Trix was talking about? The demi one? I didn’t look at him. I actually looked at the weights. I picked one up that was too heavy and struggled with it instead of talking. He waited just long enough to give up on me ever answering before he spoke again in a way I’m sure he thought managed tact. We got along well, didn’t we? Was that, well, was Potter… was Potter onto something about me liking him?
How it had taken Ajax this long to ask something so stupid I’d never know. And right when he’d finally started to grow on me.
I threw a resistance band at Ajax’s face and told him he was practically an infant. I need someone more mature than a flobberworm. Now fuck off and go talk to the hot auror lady who was strong enough to kick his ass, which apparently was what got him hot and bothered.
Sometimes I wondered if Potter was more mature than a flobberworm. Neither would look at me, but only one didn’t have eyes. It made me wonder why I was even interested in him.
That was a lie. I knew why I was interested in him.
I’d escaped his office where the earnest, encouraging words of support he provided his trainees constantly washed over me, letting me bath in his kindness even if it wasn’t meant for me. I’d long ago abandoned the file he gifted me, but only after I memorized every word in it and sometimes still recited lines that showed he saw me as a person not just a thing. “Essential” he had called me. He hadn’t meant it, I know he hadn’t meant it, but he could look at anyone and see how they mattered and when he smiled and told you what he saw it felt true. I tried to avoid him as effectively as he ignored me but I was never as talented as he was. I was constantly stumbling past him, seeing how he never missed a chance to be there for one of his trainees. Often, one of Weasley’s trainees. He’d help anyone who needed it and it shows. I don’t know if he caught me watching when he doled out life advice as much as exercise tips, or that infectious smile. I don’t know if he could tell what it did to me to see his hands gliding over a different body, showing some other person how to angle themself just so to achieve the greatest benefit from their work. I don’t know if he caught the times I had to slip out, cursing these ridiculous workout clothes for being too obvious when watching his generous kindness got me hot and bothered.