August 8th, 1890 — Padmore Park, Hogsmeade
James Fletcher

Ever since the incident in Twilfitt and Tatting, Billie had been attempting to lay low.  She'd spent more time in Ollivander's than she usually did, skulking about in the shadows and sweeping until there was scarcely any dirt left on the floor.  Gideon had encouraged her to get some fresh air, so she had retreated to Padmore Park.  At least she could squirrel away in a tree somewhere.

She had even brought two books with her, a couple of her new texts for school.  Billie figured it might be useful to learn some history and theory about magic.  She was sure children who had actually grown up in a magical family would be far more ahead than she would.  She was determined to at least be able to pretend she had a clue.

The books were a bit dry, and she struggled with some of the words, but she'd gotten through at least the first chapter of one of the texts before she heard a figure approaching the tree.  Glancing down, she peering over the spine of the book, her face scrunching up into a frown.

"What do you want, Fletcher?"

Of all the people she had wished to avoid, he was on the top of her list.

  

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MJ, yet again working her magic.  <3 <3 Thank you

Jimmy had spotted Farrow making tracks across the park, and - entirely neglecting the errand he was supposed to be on his way to running - he had followed the other boy, only for him to up and disappear.

Oh. Up was the word. Jimmy eventually spied Farrow up a tree, poring over a book. That would be a disappointment, if Jimmy hadn’t already had some hilarious news to share. He scooped up a few early fallen horse chestnuts and pushed the conkers out of their spiky cases. With a couple in hand, he started lobbing them upwards, tapping on the back of Billie’s book.

Farrow had stopped reading and noticed him, but Jimmy threw one more conker anyway. The temptation was too much.

Apparently Billie was already grumpy today, before he’d even done anything else. Hm. Well, Jimmy thought he could cheer him up. “I got the funniest thing to tell ya. Just wait!” Jimmy crowed, already dissolving into giggles and slapping his knee. “You won’t believe it!” Maybe Billie had already heard the story: everyone had been talking about it.

He could keep yelling from down here, but he was going to hurt himself craning his neck and here Billie could ignore him if he liked. So instead, without waiting for permission or for the official calling of a momentary truce, Jimmy launched himself at the tree, heaving himself up the trunk towards where Billie had made a perch.

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It seemed Billie's grumpiness hadn't scared Jimmy away, and she sighed, swatting the last horse chestnut out of the way so that it bounced its way down the branches and back to the ground. Unfortunately, it missed the boy below.

Hearing his words, she blinked, having been sure that he was just popping by to gloat at her. She knew full well that the incident in the robe shop had started to make its rounds around Hogsmeade. Whether that was due to Diggory's blabbermouth or from the gossip of other onlookers, the damage had been done. However, even though she'd been outed, she had lived up to her insistence to Gideon that she wear trousers while she was home.

Billie stretched her legs out to one of the other branches, attempting to bar Fletcher from settling on any of the limbs above her. She wanted to have the high ground in case this was all some sick joke. Not to mention she didn't wish for him to snap any of the branches and fall on her.

"What's so funny?"

Why was he acting so normal?

  

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MJ, yet again working her magic.  <3 <3 Thank you

If Billie had no idea what was so funny - the funniest thing he’d heard all week, that made him almost sorry not to have made it up himself - then Billie didn’t know what people had been saying.

He got as far up as he could before the other boy had barred his way and peered up with an ear-splitting grin. “I can’t believe you didn’t hear!” He exclaimed gleefully, although he was glad because everyone had left it to him to break the news to Farrow! “It wasn’t me what started it either, honest,” - everyone had been talking about it; he’d heard it from Arnie - “but someone thought they saw ya buying dresses! Haven’t you heard ‘em all calling you a girl?” Jimmy’s face creased up in a fit of guffawing at the ridiculousness of it. Farrow was never going to live this down!

“I don’t think they’re gonna stop it, either, ‘cause everyone wants to pitch in to buy you hair ribbons and toy unicorns now,” he added, falling into seriousness, as if a girl was the worst insult anyone could muster at their age. “What’s all that about? You must’ve done something mad to piss ‘em off like that!”

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Of course that was what Fletcher would have found funny. She already knew what people had been saying, and she'd been doing her best to try and blatantly ignore it. It was much more difficult than she had ever imagined.

Billie tried to stamp down the knee jerk reaction to physically boot him from the tree; Jimmy had to be handled with a bit more finesse. She'd need to get the upper hand of the situation, or she was sure it was a topic he would hold over her forever. While she didn't care what most people thought, for some reason, Jimmy's opinion mattered.

"Yeah, I've heard," she commented, though there wasn't a hint of mirth in her voice. At some point, she'd decided that, if she didn't react emotionally, others would have less ammo in which to hurt her with. It was a tactic she had used on her mother, a survival tactic. Billie just hoped she could keep up the facade, and that it would continue to work in this particular sitaution.

"I didn't do nothing except buy my school uniform," She stated, matter-of-factly. She was going to loathe wearing it, and the stares. Her shortly cropped hair and gawkiness made her look like some sort of skinny scarecrow. In a way, Billie was jealous that Jimmy would have the luxury of wearing the right clothes. Of being the right gender. "That's what made 'em so mad." She hoped Fletcher would be able to connect the dots, but she prepared herself to be more explicit.

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MJ, yet again working her magic.  <3 <3 Thank you

Farrow’s answer came in the flattest possible manner, which made Jimmy’s brow crease doubtfully. They weren’t talking about vegetables here! This wasn’t supposed to be boring! He was making fun of Billie and so was half of the village, it seemed like, so he had been expecting some reaction, and hopefully an exciting story attached.

Annoyed that he had no more conkers to throw, Jimmy was idly contemplating how to angle a kick up at Billie from his branch without falling off in the process when he finally got an answer.

But not the one he’d expected. That made no sense. If nothing had happened no one would care, and people seemed up in arms about something. His brow furrowed even further, mouth pulling into a confused frown. Clearly Billie was pulling his leg.

“Then...” Jimmy said slowly, concentrating hard. “Then why’d you buy a girl’s one?” That was the strangest thing he’d practically ever heard. Why would a boy want to wear girls’ clothes?! He was asking to be bullied if he showed up at Hogwarts in ‘em, unless it was on a very secret, very dramatic, very important dare. Or maybe there was some new Florida man who’d swept through Hogsmeade and this time just messed especially with Billie’s brain?

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Billie flopped her head against the branch she perched on with a sigh. It seemed subtleties wouldn't penetrate Fletcher's thick brain. Not that she fully expected him to, either way. It wasn't as if it were commonplace for people to suddenly switch their perceived genders. Despite the good reasons she had to do so in the first place.

"Because..." she started, her voice quiet, hesitant. She was sure he was going to hate her. Billie cleared her throat. She couldn't sound weak. "I'm a girl." The statement was said in an assertive tone, but the last word crackled a bit with uncertainty. She continued on, trying to sound confident, though her hands wished to tremble. She clutched on to her books to keep from doing so. "They won't exactly allow me to wear a boy's uniform at Hogwarts."

Normally, she would have fixed Jimmy with a glare, daring him to make fun of her. In fact, she probably would have threatened him by now, but she just remained quiet, allowing her words to sink in. Billie tried to appear as if she'd merely told him about the weather, trying to ignore the feeling of all the air being compressed in her chest. Was she holding her breath? Why the Hell did she care what Fletcher thought?

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His mouth had been half-open as if to laugh, but Billie didn’t usually seem so... subdued... so in fact no sound came out at all, and his jaw stayed slack in surprise as Farrow spelled it out.

But it had to be a joke, a trick, a huge prank that Billie was playing specifically on him. Maybe for the last attempted Honeydukes heist. Maybe because it was the last summer before Hogwarts, and he’d wanted to pull out all the stops. But why was Billie so quiet?

“You ain’t a girl,” Jimmy insisted when he regained speech, deciding to be as brazen as usual to make it clear that he hadn’t fallen for the trick. “You can’t be a girl. You’re...” What? Dressed like a boy. Short-haired like a boy. Named like a boy. Ready to throw hands at every opportunity and as good at cussing as any boy. Billie couldn’t be a girl, because not only did it make no sense, then it made all the times they’d had in Hogsmeade - well, he wouldn’t call them ‘good’ times because they weren’t friends, but there had been adventures and pranks and arguments and fights in the streets - different, somehow. He’d given Billie a nosebleed not all that long ago. Bleedin’ hell. He hadn’t meant to do that to a girl.

He looked balefully at Billie in the tree, trying his best not to slip off the branch in bewilderment or betrayal. Because if it were true - it wasn’t true, but if - then Billie Farrow had been lying to him the whole time. And worse, he’d never suspected a thing! “I ain’t stupid, Billie,” he said, his voice a little loud in his rising fervour. He scrabbled for a reason to prove that this was a joke and everything he knew was right, even if it was something he would never otherwise admit. “You’re... you’re too fast a runner.”

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Jimmy's admission that Bille was a fast runner caught her a bit off-guard almost as much as his insistence that she wasn't female. Had she really been that convincing? A small part of her realized she had. Perhaps she should have chosen to remain as a boy, but it would have been worse for her and Gideon in the long run. Even though now seemed just as terrible.

"I am, Jimmy." This time, the confession was quiet and much too serious for a girl who liked to try and shove Fletcher into any horse droppings they happened upon. She wasn't sure wished for that to ever end. Who else was she expected to goad into adventures? Or pretend to loathe entirely?

"And girls can, too, run fast!" She scrunched up her nose at him, "Remember that Susan Parks girl from Irvingly. She outrunned all of us when we played Witches and Hunters against them. Even you gotta admit that." It had been impressive, really.

While she had momentarily sounded like herself again, Billie drew silent once more. However, she was terrified to face his reaction. Fear usually had her blurting, and that day wouldn't be any different. "Just 'cause I'm a girl don't mean that I can't still kick ya in the face!" She wiggled her foot at him and smirked, despite her mind questioning why on Earth that was the first thing that came to her mind.

What was wrong with her?

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MJ, yet again working her magic.  <3 <3 Thank you

He wasn’t stupid, so at her continued corrections, Jimmy’s disbelief began to settle. He kept staring at him - her - in an attempt to communicate that if she was only messing with him that he was going to push her out of this tree without blinking. But Billie was still dead serious. She was still dead serious.

It was a lot to take in, but her mention of Susan Parks was just the thing to flick him back into his usual state of mind, regardless of any earth-shattering revelations. “No, I don’t gotta admit it!” He protested, though felt almost cheerful in being able to argue about something else. “She cheated somehow. I dunno how, but she did.” Dumb Susan Parks.

Outrage was an easier feeling to bear than dumbfounded confusion, so when Billie added a threat about kicking him, Jimmy’s mouth twitched into an unconscious smile. “Yeah, I’d like to see you try,” he taunted, shifting away from her feet a little further in the tree so she didn’t take him up on it. The smile stretched into a smirk as another thing dawned on him. “Is that why you’re so short?” He cackled a laugh. It made sense, he supposed. Even with the recent inches she’d grown, and his scrawny build, Farrow was tiny. And it was an excellent thing to tease her about, same as usual. “Even the house elves at Hogwarts will be bigger than you, I bet.”

Maybe he was asking for a kick, here.

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To say Billie was relieved that Jimmy hadn't thrown a tantrum like Bertie was an understatement. Her shoulders visibly relaxed, even though she still intended to keep her guard up. He could still turn on her; people were like that. How many times had her mother feigned kindness or neutrality only to sneak attack her later?

For now, their usual bickering was a welcome distraction. "How do ya cheat at running?" She blurted out with a scrunch of her nose. "But them Irvingly kids always cheat, I guess. I hope they ain't expecting to cheat their way through Hogwarts!" Although, she conceded, slightly, the look on her face made it clear that she thought his opinion was a rather stupid one.

Billie soon found herself smirking. Had that been a challenge? "Maybe I will!" Girl or not, she could still kick with the same amount of passion she'd done in the past. She didn't care if it was 'unladylike.' Being a lady would get her where? Married and caring for screaming babies for the rest of her life? No thank you.

Her smirk faltered at the insult, but she was grateful for the distraction. "I ain't that short! You take that back, James Fletcher. At least my face don't look like it was kicked by a horse." Billie moved as if she were going to follow through with her threat, but Jimmy had retreated further down the tree and she could no longer reach. The only thing she had to throw were her books, and she wasn't about to let them get ruined. Instead, she sat up taller and stated matter-of-factly. "Besides, being smaller is good for quidditch. Less likely to fall off your broom if you ain't a lumbering troll."

  

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MJ, yet again working her magic.  <3 <3 Thank you

“I’ve told ya, it’s about the shoes -” Jimmy grumbled. They had been charmed, most definitely. He was a little less irritated about the possible cheating itself than the fact that someone else had come up with it first.

He had insulted her first, but Jimmy conveniently forgot this in his outrage about Farrow’s response. And she had called him James like she was his mother, eugh! “Stop with the everyone kicking me in the face,” he growled (pouted?), very offended at her choice of insult. “You ain’t got a clue! Horses love me!” 

She probably had a point about the quidditch thing, and the lumbering trolls. He wasn’t one, though. Definitely not too big to play quidditch, if adults flew around all over the place without trouble. Some of them were even pretty fast sometimes.

With nothing clever to say to contradict that, he narrowed his eyes and instead retaliated with the name-thing. “And don’t call me James. Or else I’ll - wait, is Billie even your real name?” She had lied about one thing, so who was to say she hadn’t lied about that. What if her name was something completely else that no one would ever name a boy? Like... Gladys. Bessie. Marianne. Isabella.

Eugh, why did she have to be a girl? Making fun of girls was a lot different. What if he wanted to beat her up now? She was still threatening to kick him, so it was only fair if he got to do the same.

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"Well, maybe at Hogwarts we'll find out the spell she used!" Billie blurted out, trying to make the most of their disagreement over if Susan Parks actually cheated or not. "And test it out in a real race. I heard the castle's big as Hogsmeade!" Which was an obvious exaggeration, but she had been promised that it was large enough to explore, and the grounds were also expansive. It had its own quidditch pitch, after all. Those were huge.

"Yeah, love to kick ya in their shit's more like it," she remarked with a smirk. She looked about to launch into a teasing tirade about how she was certain Jimmy already smelled like excrement when she heard his question.

"Yes," she stated, immediately, but then slowly explained. "It's my real nickname like how Jimmy's yours. But I ain't telling ya my whole name. It's even worse than James and nobody gets to know that except Gideon and--" Well, Hogwarts knew she was a Wilhelmina, but Fletcher didn't need to know that. "And---I guess my Mum and brother."

It seemed, no matter poor Jimmy's stance on her lies, she wasn't about to suddenly make 'buddy buddy' with him. They were still mortal enemies, after all.

  

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MJ, yet again working her magic.  <3 <3 Thank you

Jimmy nodded eagerly at the prospects of races at Hogwarts, and spells too! He had only seen the castle in the distance on Hogsmeade’s horizons, but castles had to be huge. Imagine scaling those walls! And it was probably full of hidden passageways and secrets and stuff!

Billie punctured that daydream with the kick ya in their shit and Jimmy growled at her rather than bother with a proper comeback besides a muttered, “shut your gob.”

Besides, here was another secret, a mystery, Farrow’s first name. James wasn’t a bad name at all, see. Boring, but not bad. Billie was normal enough too, but he couldn’t figure out what her real name would be. Jimmy pulled a face at her refusals, to say fine, be like that. Guess she hadn’t lied about everything, then.

“Well,” Jimmy sniffed, with narrowed eyes but a shit-eating grin, “then, Billie-no-mates, you best stop bein’ rude to me, or I’ll call ya Miss Farrow and tip my hat when I see you.” Though he thought it’d annoy her more, he was mostly joking, because you didn’t be pretend-polite to enemies, even if your enemy was a girl. No, if she was going to continue to threaten to kick him in the face then he would be damned if he didn’t get to be horrible back. Fair was fair.

He slid down to the branch below on his way down the tree, yelling up merrily: “And you best stop reading books and get practisin’ for those Hogwarts races, ‘cause I am going to crush ya!”

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It was Billie's turn to look offended, and she narrowed her eyes into a rather fierce glare. "Don't you dare even try, or I'll toss ya hat into the lake so the squid eats it," she spat out, but then paused. "Except I won't only 'cause the squid would probably die from how foul you make it." Leave it to Billie to care about a terrifying creature's welfare, even in a hypothetical scenario.

She watched him slide down the branches and stuck her tongue out. "I don't have to practice for races 'cause I already know I'll win." She sat up straighter, looking incredibly confident that he wouldn't be able to beat her in a foot race. Maybe, if he wasn't miserable on a broom, they could even have a broom race. That would be even more fun! "And I won't stop readin' 'cause I need to make sure I know how to hex you twenty different ways." And overall be better at spellwork than him. Though, her true reason for reading was more pathetic than that.

"Smell ya later, Fletcher."

  

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MJ, yet again working her magic.  <3 <3 Thank you