For almost two weeks straight, there had been no sign of the plant whatsoever. The soil remained unchanged no matter how often Caiti stopped out at the greenhouses to check on it, always hoping for even the tiniest sprout. In the meantime, she and Professor Munslow continued to care for the seed according to the very detailed and complex instructions they'd been provided, and Caiti continued to mess around with various potion ingredients, deluding herself that she had anything resembling a plan when she sat down to work.

Professor Pym gave her lots of suggestions about how to plan and track her tests, assured her that this kind of process was always messy and unpredictable, that you really couldn't plan to discover something but had to fumble around until you found it by mistake. Caiti knew this was all meant to make her feel better about her lack of direction, but it didn't.

Marlowe had seemed happy when she'd taken him his potion the night the seeds had first arrived. He had seemed in good spirits. He had hugged her and smiled a lot and told her stories about work (which was a subject he had been relatively silent on ever since she'd gone back to school). He had made a note to himself to check if he was free for her next Hogsmeade weekend — he wasn't, but she hadn't expected him to be — and they had started making plans for what they would do while she was home for Christmas. It had been nice. It really had.

But Caiti hadn't missed how exhausted he looked. She hadn't missed the way he winced when he moved, the way he moved a little more gingerly, slowly than he usually would have. She definitely hadn't missed the way his eyes flicked out the window every so often, keeping tabs on the sunset.

If she had pointed this out to him, he'd've said he just wanted to make it outside before it was fully dark, just to be safe, but she knew it was more than that. There was real fear in the way he looked out the window. There was dread.

Caiti couldn't get that look out of her head after she left.

She had already stopped by the greenhouses during her morning break, but the moment classes ended for the afternoon, she slung her bag over her shoulder and headed down again. Professor Munslow was probably sick of seeing her already, but this was her only real lead, and she couldn't think about anything but making sure Marlowe never had a reason to look like that again.

A gust of freezing cold December air slapped her across the face when she stepped outside and Caiti ducked her head down as she trudged into the wind, stuffing her hands safely into her pockets.

This weather made her think about last year this time. She remembered how no one had been able to talk about anything by the upcoming Yule Ball. Who was going with who... who didn't have a date yet... what everyone was wearing... and Caiti had been sure for the first time that she had started to really like Marlowe as more than a friend.

It was crazy to think it had almost been a year since they'd kissed.

It was crazier to think that in less than two months, it would be a year since the attack.

The greenhouse was stiflingly warm after the wet, winter air. Caiti shed her cloak almost at once and headed straight for the little corner where she and Professor Munslow had set up the Sun Violet. He wasn't there at the moment, probably had been in another greenhouse for his last lesson, so Caiti pulled out her wand to check the soil on her own. He'd taught her a charm to help gauge if the plant needed water or not. She'd checked earlier that day, so she didn't anticipate anything having changed, but it made her feel better to be caring for the plant in some kind of way.

Everything was fine. The light was set properly, the soil was plenty moist... everything seemed to be in order, which meant there was nothing for her to do.

But as she turned to go, she thought she saw a bit of green. She whipped back around, leaned over the plant this way and that, trying to catch sight of it again, praying she hadn't just made it up.

It was almost impossible to see, just barely poking through the soil, but there it was. A tiny, brand new sprout. Caiti's heart leapt. She heard the door open behind her.

"Back again?" asked Professor Munslow. She could hear the amused smile in his voice.

"There's a sprout," she said. She hadn't expected her voice to sound so high and jittery.

"Is there?" asked Professor Munslow, coming to peer down at the plant with her.

"There." Caiti pointed to the tiny sprout. Her voice came out a whisper, like she might disturb the plant if she spoke too loudly. It hit her that she was more terrified of that tiny bit of green than almost anything she'd experienced in her life.

"Well, look at that. She's growing after all."

"They said it would start to grow really fast once it made it through the soil," said Caiti.

"Quite right," said Professor Munslow. There were a number of wooden chairs stacked in a corner and he pulled two over. "You have your notebook?"

Caiti took it out of her bag.

"I believe it's time to start graphing some more data."

Caiti had been keeping track of when she watered the plant already, but there hadn't been much to observe except the moisture levels in the soil.

She flipped to the page she had started two weeks prior when they'd first planted the seeds. There was only one entry so far, stating when the seeds had been planted.

She drew a link underneath, and wrote:

Friday, December 14, 2018 — Sprout is just barely visible above the soil, no more than a mm high but too small to properly measure at this point.

She glanced at Professor Munslow to see if there was anything else they could add at this stage. There wasn't all that much to observe.

"Green," he said. "It's bright green." And Caiti scribbled this down, too. Then, for good measure, she added the time she had noticed the sprout. If it grew as fast as they had said, this could be important when she started measuring multiple times in one day.

She closed the notebook again, hugged it to her chest, and stared at the sprout with her lips pressed tight together. Please, please, please let this lead to something, she thought.

—-

"Peter and I are going out again today," said Margaret. They had finished up a storytime about half an hour prior and the children's section was completely empty. She and Evelyn were sitting on the floor preparing the materials for a craft project they were leading tomorrow that went along with a book.

"Really?" asked Evelyn, looking up at her, eyes wide. Peter was the muggle guy Margaret had met a few weeks back and it sounded as though it was going really well.

Margaret smiled down at the floor. She tucked a section of big, dark curls behind her ear.

"Have you told him yet?" Evelyn asked.

Margaret inhaled slowly, then shook her head and exhaled a small, "No." She looked up at the ceiling and added, "I'm terrified."

"I mean if he takes it badly, you can just obliviate him right?"

"I don't know how to obliviate anyone," said Margaret. "I'm just afraid he'll think I'm mocking him. He's literally a magician. If I come out and say I'm a witch, do you really think he'll believe me? He's going to think I'm making fun of him. And if he does believe me... don't you think he'll feel really inadequate because my magic is real? I mean, I don't think that way. I think what he does is fascinating. But...."

Evelyn thought back to when she'd gotten her Hogwarts letter. They were always hand-delivered to muggle borns so it could all be explained. Her parents had tried to kick Professor Westwick out of the house. They'd thought he was a lunatic. But he'd been very patient, very gentle. He'd eventually worked them up to a few demonstrations, pointed out that they'd probably seen signs of Evelyn's magic already, listed off a few distant relatives that had attended Hogwarts they may have attributed to how Evelyn had ended up with magic at all... eventually they'd been swayed. It did explain a lot of the odd things that had been happening to her for the last few years.

"Is he the kind of person who'll sit and hear you out? Or is he going to react quickly?"

"I think he'll listen," said Margaret. "He's a good listener."

Evelyn tried to offer some more advice, but she didn't feel so invested in the conversation anymore. Sean used to be a good listener, too.

—-

At home that night, Evelyn came out of the bedroom after she'd showered, hair clipped up in a messy bun to keep the water off her neck, and found Sean sitting on the sofa with a report of some kind in his lap. She put her hands on his shoulders and looked down at what he was doing. "Hey," she said.

"Hey," said Sean. He barely held back his frustration at being interrupted. He was always getting short with her these days when she tried to talk to him while he was working, which was always.

"Your birthday is coming up," she said. Sean didn't say anything, so she added. "Was there anything specific you wanted to do?"

"Not really," said Sean.

Evelyn came around and sat on the couch next to him, tucking her feet up underneath her.

"Were you doing anything with your parents?" she asked. "Or we could see if Marlowe could get dinner with us or something. You haven't seen him in a while."

Sean shrugged but didn't look at her. "Maybe," he said.

"We could do something just us, too, if you wanted. It's up to you."

"I don't know, Evelyn. I haven't really thought about it." Sean's voice was already growing snappier.

Evelyn sat back against the cushions, pulled her knees up to her chest, and her eyes flicked up to the sheet. She felt like crying, but she didn't want to do it in front of him.

Margaret was probably talking with Peter right now and Evelyn had a gut feeling he wasn't going to run away scared. Marlowe was going to Hogsmeade the very next day to surprise Caiti and he had seemed so excited he could barely contain his smile on the few occasions she'd spoken to him about it.

Sean didn't seem excited about spending time with her at all. Ever.

"We'll talk about it later," he said. "I really need to get this done."

"It's Friday night," said Evelyn.

This didn't seem to change Sean's view at all.

"You can't take five minutes to talk to me?"

"Give me like thirty minutes to finish this and we can talk before bed," said Sean.

"Right," said Evelyn. She sat there hugging her knees for a few more minutes while Sean plugged away at his work, and then she got up, went into the bedroom, and curled up under the covers. After only five minutes, she reached over to turn off the lamp. Sean would have another excuse when his thirty minutes was up. She knew waiting up for him, expecting to actually have the conversation was stupid.

Still, she couldn't fall asleep.

When Sean came back into the bedroom much more than thirty minutes later, she was still wide awake.

She rolled onto her back, so he would know, and looked at him in the dark.

"My parents will probably want me to come over," said Sean as he got in bed next to her. "But I'm sure you can come, too."

She nodded, looked away, and kept her mouth shut.

After a long pause, she said, "Well just let me know."

"Yeah," said Sean.

Evelyn thought about kissing him and saying goodnight, but instead and curled up close enough to the middle of the bed that maybe he would think to scoot in.

She was so sick of initiating everything, every conversation, every touch. She was so sick of feeling like she was tiptoeing around his forever bad mood.

"Sean?" she asked. Her voice felt too loud in the dark.

"Mm?"

"Have you ever heard of someone from Hogwarts going to muggle uni?" she asked.

"I don't think so," he said.

He didn't ask why. She couldn't help but notice.

Evelyn sucked in slow breath. "I just wondered if it was possible."

"Probably."

"I've been thinking about going to school for education," she said.

"You should," said Sean. It was a noncommittal answer. Anyone could have said it. But Evelyn latched onto those two words like they were gold. Her heart started beating faster.

"I just don't know how I could without having gone to a muggle school."

"Yeah," was all Sean said.

"Margaret thinks I could maybe send an owl to Professor Osset and see if he could help."

"Margaret." He sounded confused.

"From work," said Evelyn.

"Right, sorry. I'm just tired."

"Sorry," said Evelyn. "I should let you sleep."

She tried to close her eyes again, but her brain didn't feel ready to sleep.

Sean stayed quiet for so long she thought he had actually fallen asleep. "Just send him an owl," he said, long after she'd thought the conversation was over. "It can't hurt to ask."

Evelyn swallowed. "Okay."

Sean was quiet after that and she figured the conversation was over. It was the longest they had had in what felt like weeks at the very least. Then Sean turned to her, kissed her on the cheek, and laid back down on his back, just far enough away that they weren't touching. "You'd be a good teacher," he said.

Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted to say thank you, but she didn't think she could keep the shake out of her voice.