Caiti was due to meet her mentor, Alora Serpen, in Diagon Alley at ten o'clock that morning. It was just over a week since she'd arrived back home and while she had thought about what she was supposed to be doing nearly constantly, Caiti hadn't actually done anything for her research. Marlowe kept telling her it was fine to give herself a break, but Caiti felt like her break had been the month she'd given her focus over to preparing for N.E.W.T.s. If she didn't get back to work now, she was afraid she'd lose her momentum.
She arrived outside the Leaky Cauldron with three minutes to spare and found Alora already standing there. She had her hair pulled back into a french twist and wore neat, crisp robes that were nearly black but had a sort of emerald sheen to them. Caiti, who wore muggle clothes, had forgotten how professional Alora had looked when she'd met her last and she felt a little intimidated until Alora skipped the handshake and went right in for a hug.
"Congratulations on finishing school," she said. "N.E.W.T.'s go alright?"
"I think so," said Caiti as they stepped apart again. "I won't get the results back for a few more weeks."
"Well, not to spoil anything, but people are already talking about you and potions," said Alora, leading Caiti through the door. "There's been lots of talk and some of it started with the examiners."
Caiti had been so wrapped up in being home and with Marlowe again that she had almost forgotten to worry about how she had done. Her stomach gave a nervous twist at these words.
"Good rumors," Alora assured her with a glance over her shoulder.
They chose a table near the window, peaky morning light filtering through the half open curtains and shining on the dark wood of the table. They ordered a pot of tea to share and then the conversation turned to Caiti's research and her stomach started flip flopping all over again.
"So what have you been working on lately? How can I help you?"
"Oh," said Caiti. "Well, I haven't— I mean it's been sort of— I guess I haven't done much in a while. Because I was studying and everything."
"Of course," said Alora. She lifted her teacup, but didn't take a sip yet. She didn't say anything else either.
Caiti didn't know where to look.
"I have— I have a place to work on stuff now," she said. It was the only thing she could think to talk about. "Professor Munslow is going to bring my plants from the school on Friday and help me get them all set up."
"Well that's excellent. You were able to find a greenhouse space then?"
"My best friend built one," she said. "Before I came home."
Caiti didn't know why she always called Marlowe this, except that the word boyfriend felt stupid and juvenile and her relationship with Marlowe was so much deeper than that. Every time she went to call him anything other than his name, best friend slipped out instead before she'd even thought about what to say.
"Wow, that was very kind," said Alora with surprise.
"I know," said Caiti. "I couldn't believe it."
"So you'll have the plants soon. Are you ready to start experimenting with them more?"
"Maybe," said Caiti. "I'm just not... I guess I'm not sure how to. I don't know what I'm supposed to try."
Alora considered her. Her expression was so much like Professor Pym that she could almost have pretended they were the same person if not for the hair.
"There's no 'supposed to' in potion making," Alora said after a minute. "That's one thing I had to wrap my head around after always following a recipe in school. Potion makers are in the dark most of the time. Very rarely do we have any idea what we're doing."
"That's exactly how I feel," said Caiti and she was so relieved to hear someone else put it into words she could've cried.
"Well," said Alora with a small smile. "Why don't we see if we can outline some first steps for you. It may not lead to anything significant, but having an idea where to start always makes me feel better."
So they spent the next hour and a half coming up with a plan for how Caiti might start testing the Sun Violet with other ingredients and how she might measure the results. There were so many variables to play around with — the petals, the stem, the leaves, the nectar, the roots, and then on top of the various parts of the plant, there was the possibility of using these fresh, dried, or even pickled — and Caiti would most definitely have become overwhelmed by the options if Alora hadn't encouraged her to choose one to start with.
They agreed that the petals were the easiest first option as they didn't require uprooting the plant and starting from scratch.
Fresh petals meant minimal prep time, but also required that they be used right away. She didn't have many she felt comfortable working with either, so she would have to be judicious about it, at least for now. This would be difficult with the sheer quantity of ingredients she could test them with, but they agreed that beginning with the ingredients already used in the Wolfsbane potion was probably smart.
As daunting as the whole idea still seemed, she felt better knowing what to try first.
They stayed at the table for nearly forty minutes extra, not even talking about her research but about transitioning into adult life after school and what Alora was currently working on and if Caiti was planning to work at all on top of her own project. She was so easy to talk to and despite how put together she always looked, Caiti found her so approachable. For the first time since the weeks immediately following her presentation, Caiti felt a little bit excited about what she was doing.
There was only one thing she hadn't spoken to Alora about, and that was Marlowe's idea. He hadn't brought it up again and Caiti certainly wasn't going to be the first one to say something else about it, to him or to anyone else. That felt like a private thing between the two of them, and mostly between Marlowe and himself. She thought that if she mentioned it to Alora, she would probably have a whole list of reasons it would be a great idea, starting with the fact that testing the sun violet with the venom would probably be highly informative. If she mentioned it to Alora, she knew she would be tempted to bring it up again, to see what Marlowe was leaning towards.
But Caiti had meant what she said. She wasn't going to make Marlowe do it if he didn't want to. She would never ask him to do it.
—-
Practice had just ended for the afternoon and Marlowe knew he hadn't really performed his best. The full moon was still a week out, and while he was typically a little off the days immediately leading up to and following it, it was too early to blame his poor performance on that. And anyway, he'd gotten better at dealing with it.
He was accustomed to the transition now, though it wasn't anymore enjoyable. He knew what to expect. He had learned how to prepare his body better and take care of it afterward so the ill feeling didn't knock him out quite as hard. His teammates, though they never said anything, knew what they could reasonably expect out of him on those days (although he'd noticed his coaches were beginning to push his limits more each month).
And because Marlowe was otherwise pretty consistent, he knew they'd noticed he was off today. He'd seen the glances they shared when they thought he wasn't looking and he'd certainly not missed his coach's frustration growing as the afternoon wore on and Marlowe kept making the same mistakes.
One thing he'd always struggled with was separating his mind from his body. When he was in a good place, his game was on. When his mind was busy, his performance suffered. He cringed whenever he remembered one of those last few practices at Hogwarts after he'd returned from the hospital, how he'd treated his team.
At least now he wasn't taking it out on anyone else.
He pulled off his practice robes and threw them in the laundry bin with the rest of the team's gear then went to the sink to splash a bit of water on his face. He'd shower at home, but it had been so bloody hot out that day, the sky unusually cloudless, and he felt grimy from all the sweat.
Brian McSorley came out of one of the bathroom stalls and turned on the sink next to where Marlowe was slicking the excess water out of his hair.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," Marlowe returned.
"You feeling alright today? You seem a little in your head."
"Yeah," Marlowe shrugged. "I'm fine."
But McSorley's statement felt so on the nose that Marlowe felt like he'd been opened right up. There was no way for anyone else to know what was on his mind. The only person he'd ever mentioned it to was Caiti and she hadn't brought it up at all since he'd first told her a week ago, but he felt like McSorley could read it right off his face.
That idea he'd told Caiti, about the venom or poison or whatever it was that leaked its way out of dormancy when Marlowe transformed — it was eating at him constantly. The way she had said probably when he'd asked if it might help was on repeat in his brain.
Marlowe thought it probably would help, but the thought of actually doing it paralyzed him. Worse was the thought that if he did it once, she would probably need him to do it again and again each month until she'd been able to figure things out. It was childish to even hope one go would be the trick.
"I've just got a lot on my mind."
McSorley nodded, drying his hands off on a paper towel.
"When my mind's busy like that, it helps just to fly," he said. And then he walked away without asking Marlowe to explain himself any further or even offering to listen if Marlowe wanted someone to talk to about it.
Marlowe appreciated that. He didn't want to talk about it.
Maybe he would go fly though, later. Once the sun had lowered and it started to cool off. Maybe that would help.
—-
Marlowe headed to the greenhouse right after work. He was almost through with the kitchenette, but he was having a bit of trouble with some of the trickier spells. It probably would have been smarter to hire someone to do these more technical tasks, but he had gotten so far doing it himself, he didn't want to relinquish any of it now. Besides, it was satisfying learning these sorts of skills.
Someday, maybe he'd use them again to build them a house.
He'd been there working on things in the office space for maybe half an hour when he heard noise out in the greenhouse. He quickly set down the things he'd been holding and picked up his wand before heading out the door, but it was just Caiti.
She jumped when she saw him, but luckily, she had already set down all the plants she had apparently just brought in so nothing went flying.
"Sorry," Marlowe said hastily.
"That's okay," said Caiti.
"I didn't know you were coming here today. I thought you weren't getting your plants till Friday."
"Oh, these aren't the sun violets." she said. "These are other plants. I was in Diagon Alley this morning and I just thought I'd get a couple things that I could grow instead of buying them over and over, since I have all this space—"
"This from the girl who pretends not to like herbology," said Marlowe with a wry smile.
Caiti shot him a look. Marlowe came over to see what all she had brought in. He recognized some of the plants from school, others from his grandmother's garden, and some only by the name on the card sticking out from the soil.
"You could have a whole side hustle running an apothecary," he said.
Caiti laughed. "Maybe if things get desperate," she said softly.
He pulled her into a hug and Caiti turned her cheek against his ribs. It was strange how quickly being with her had calmed his mind.
He went back to his work shortly after that, absolutely forbidding Caiti from peeking until he said she could. He could hear Caiti pottering about behind the door, getting all her plants set up in their locations, organizing things just so.
For probably an hour, they worked without interacting at all and it was sort of nice. It felt like being in school, when they would sit side by side or across the table from one another, each working on their own tasks in companionable silence. They weren't even in the same room just now, but it gave Marlowe a warm and fuzzy feeling to know they were even sort of together. Coexisting this way seemed like such a luxury after months of getting an hour together here and there, always feeling like he had to make the most of every minute he got with her.
When he was pretty sure he'd finished up everything (at least until they tried to put it to use and found out he'd done it all wrong), he poked his head out the door. The words he'd meant to say fell right out of his head at what he saw there.
"Woah," he said instead. Though the table space was by no means full, it suddenly looked so much more like a greenhouse than it had when he'd arrived here earlier.
"What do you think?" she asked, hands on her hips. She tipped her head to one side and considered her setup. "I've moved it all like seven times trying to decide what's the most functional layout and trying to make sure that different plants get the right kind of light at the right time. Like this one," she said, touching the leaves of the one nearest her, "needs full sun so I thought right here in the middle was probably best, but I put this one here because it needs partial shade and I think with the roof from the other room and everything... right?"
"Makes sense to me," said Marlowe.
"And then I left this whole side open," she said, walking over to the far side of the room where the narrower end of the greenhouse was left completely empty for now. "I thought this was where my sun violets could go when they get here. And I want to leave lots of room, because I'm going to keep propagating them so I have as many to test as possible."
"I think it looks great," said Marlowe. "It looks so real now."
"You built it," said Caiti.
"I know," he said. "Damn."
She laughed.
"Can I see what you were doing now?"
"Yeah," said Marlowe. "I think everything's pretty much done."
Caiti came around the center table to him and held onto his hand while he showed her what he'd put together that afternoon. The cabinetry was all done and he'd put in a few cooking appliances, enough to make a simple meal or heat up a pot of tea while she worked. The bathroom had been finished over the previous weekend. The only thing that remained was adding a little more life to the place, but he figured Caiti would want to do that herself.
"We should put up pictures," she said. "Like the one from the Yule Ball. And the one from after your match."
"After your presentation," Marlowe suggested. "And probably something from when we were kids and you were a dweeby little first year, too."
"I wasn't the one asking you to kiss me for six years straight," said Caiti.
"Well it was a joke till you took me seriously," Marlowe teased. "Now I don't know how to get rid of you."
"Oh please," said Caiti, rolling her eyes.
She flopped back on the couch and patted the spot next to her for Marlowe who stretched out gratefully. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and shut his eyes for a few seconds.
"So how'd your meeting go this morning?"
"Good," Caiti said. "It was easier than I expected. I feel a little better about things now. How was your day? How was work?"
Until she asked, Marlowe had almost forgotten about his off day. "I don't know," he shrugged. "It was fine, I guess. I got kind of in my head this morning, but I think I can shake it off before tomorrow."
"What about?" Caiti asked.
"I don't know," Marlowe said again. "I guess it was just an off day. It happens." And then he turned and kissed her, felt Caiti smile against his lips, and she didn't ask anything else about it.