Marlowe decided he didn't much like not being at Hogwarts on Halloween. It felt strange not to be drooling all through his classes, thinking about the feast that night. His thoughts kept coming back to his sixth year, when Caiti had still been with Theo. She and Marlowe had just been friends but he'd become pretty aware at this point that he really liked her.

He felt smug through the whole feast, because Caiti had chosen to sit next to him instead of next to Theo and his friends.

There had been this gigantic bowl of licorice wands on the table during dessert that no one had touched amid the array of more exciting choices. Caiti had picked three up and started braiding them together and the next thing he knew, Marlowe was running up and down the Ravenclaw table announcing that they were hosting a licorice wand weaving contest and Sean was paying a galleon to whoever made something that most resembled a garment.

Sean didn't know this, of course, but the thing about Sean was that he'd do it anyway.

He and Caiti had used almost the entire bowl of licorice wands trying to weave something that looked semi-wearable so one of them could model it, but it just ended up looking like nothing. Still, Caiti had stood in the aisle giggling, arms held out like a scarecrow while he did his best to attach their contraption at her shoulders. The more he told her to stop laughing (after all, her shaking was making a mockery of their design), the more her laughter picked up and pretty soon, she was standing in the middle of a pile of deconstructed licorice wands and her actual clothes were a sticky mess. They had lost their own contest miserably and Sean had paid a galleon to a pair of fourth year girls who had made a very sensible candy hat.

Caiti had picked up the fallen licorice and started sticking it all over Marlowe who had grabbed her around the middle to make her stop. He had caught sight of Theo down the table looking very jealous. Caiti didn't laugh that way around Theo. That smug feeling he'd had all night grew, and he became just a tiny bit hopeful.

He would have given anything to be at Hogwarts right now, making Caiti laugh. His only plan for tonight was to sit on the front porch with his mum passing out candy to the muggle kids out trick-or-treating.

Or at least that had been his plan until he and his teammates were all heading back to the locker rooms after practice and one of the chasers, a guy named Damon who was probably one of the closest in age to Marlowe, asked who was coming out tonight. Marlowe hadn't heard anything about going out so he kept quiet. He wasn't usually a part of these gatherings.

The other team members started chiming in with their yeses and nos as they rounded the corner into the locker room, and Brian McSorley, the beater who had always been relatively nice to Marlowe, turned to him and asked, "What about you, Finnegan? You coming?"

"Oh," said Marlowe. He glanced around at the others looking for signs they didn't want him there, but no one was side-eyeing anyone else or averting their gaze and truth be told, Marlowe did kind of want to go so maybe he could stop feeling like such an outsider at practice.

Ever since the interview had been published, the dynamic at work had changed slightly. Marlowe didn't feel like he had friends at work, exactly, but he did feel like his coworkers were friendly now. No one had specifically mentioned the article to him, but he knew they'd all read it. Some of the guys asked him about Caiti sometimes. All of them finally seemed to have grasped that he really was human. That this was just something that had happened to him.

Maybe now he could finally weasel his way into the team.

"Okay," he said. "I don't have any plans."

"Nice," said McSorley, clapping Marlowe on the back.

Marlowe smiled an awkward smile and started to shrug off his quidditch robes.

They all headed out together a quarter of an hour later, walking into the little village near the stadium he had often gone to with Caiti over the summer. There was a pub there that was having a big special for Halloween, live music and everything.

Marlowe stayed near the back of the group, not saying much. He tucked his hands into his pockets, because it was pretty brisk out now that the sun had almost set.

Brian hung back with him. "You weren't going to do anything with your friends from school tonight?" he asked.

Marlowe shook his head. "No, they're busy," he said. He hadn't even thought about checking in with Sean and Evelyn to be honest. Evelyn reached out occasionally. They'd even had lunch once or twice just to catch up. But Sean never did and the impression he'd gotten from Evelyn was that he worked pretty much nonstop and hardly had time to talk to her.

"That sucks," he said. "My fiance is having a big party, but she said I'm not invited. Ladies only. So I guess I'll have to hang out with these buffoons," he said.

Marlowe grinned and snapped his fingers. Brian laughed.

The bar was pretty well packed, but they managed to find one large round booth and enough empty chairs to seat everyone, if a little haphazardly. A guy named Patrick bought them all a round of drinks and Marlowe sipped his slowly.

Patrick was one of the oldest on the team. He'd been around nearly over a dozen years and still was only the fourth or fifth alternate for keeper. He'd barely had fifteen minutes of playtime in his whole career, but everyone seemed to really like having him around.

"Don't you have kids you should be taking out trick or treating or something?" one of the other guys asked him.

He swallowed the big gulp of his beer he'd just taken and waved a hand. "Hogwart," he said. "Youngest went to Hogwarts this year."

Marlowe wondered if he'd known his older kids. It was weird to think he now worked alongside someone whose kids had been at school with him. Marlowe felt very, very young.

"God, I wish I could be back at Hogwarts," said someone else. Marlowe couldn't tell. There were so many of them crammed into a small space he could only see about half their faces.

"Actually had a chance at winning a match at Hogwarts," said someone else to a general sprinkling of laughter..

"Actually had a chance at playing in a match," said Patrick and the laughter picked up.

"Finnegan's probably the only one here who's had a win under his belt in the last six months," said McSorley, resting his glass on his knee.

Marlowe snorted. The Cannons had won a game sometime the previous fall, but they hadn't had a win all this season. They weren't a bad team really. Just everyone else was better.

"Yeah, what's that like, man? Give us your secrets."

Suddenly, all eyes were on Marlowe. He almost sank back into himself, let himself continue to be this new, shy, quiet Marlowe who skirted the edges of everything, because that was easier than putting himself out there. But being that way sucked. That wasn't him. The only person he really felt like himself around these days was Caiti and he only got to see her an hour each month.

"Well," said Marlowe, straightening up. "Here's the thing."

And he began to tell them all about his strategies for the previous season, making it all very dramatic and life or death. "This kid's funny," Patrick said, smacking his knee.

And before Marlowe knew it, everyone was laughing along with him, he was smiling a real smile, and he felt warm and buzzy. It was the best night he'd had in a very long time.

—-

Sean had been working the whole weekend again. Evelyn had tried to get him to come take a walk with her the previous afternoon, but he just kept saying maybe later, that he had to finish this one thing for work first.

But one thing always seemed to turn into something else. He never stopped.

Evelyn came back from the grocery store on Sunday morning and found him exactly where she'd left him, on the couch with his work spread out all around him.

"Hi," she said, setting the bags down on the counter. "Are you close to done?"

"Not really," said Sean vaguely.

Evelyn opened the fridge and began putting things away, keeping an eye on him the whole time. He hadn't even looked her way.

"I was thinking maybe we could grab dinner out tonight. Just somewhere quick."

Sean looked up at her for a brief moment. His eyes seemed unfocused. "You just got groceries," he said, and went back to his work.

"I know," said Evelyn. "I just thought it'd be nice to do something together."

Sean did not respond to this. He had started muttering to himself as he scribbled something down on the paper in his lap.

Evelyn emptied another bag and started in on the next one. She glanced at Sean over and over again, but he didn't seem to notice her eyes on him.

When everything was put away, she pulled out her wand and flipped open a magic cookbook she had checked out at work. She'd been experimenting with cooking charms and wanted to try out another recipe to pack for her lunches this week at work.

"I was going to make some chicken and stuff for work," she said. "I can make extra and put some in containers for you if you want."

"Sure," said Sean slowly, still never looking up at her.

Evelyn waited for him to say something else, but he didn't. "Okay," she said quietly.

She got to work selecting ingredients. This recipe required quite a bit of chopping, and she wasn't all that great at it with a wand yet, but that was why she'd picked it. The first few carrots she tried to slice came out all uneven and jagged, but by the time she finished she was getting the hang of the charm.

In fact, she was pretty impressed with her progress as a chef in general. The dish certainly smelled good by the time she'd finished and it looked mostly the way it was supposed to according to the picture. It was good to be learning spells again. She envied Caiti, still in school.

When everything was boxed up and stored in the fridge, she walked over to where Sean was still sitting on the couch, stood behind him and put her hands on his shoulders.

"Let's go out tonight, okay? You need to take a break."

"I don't know Ev," he said. "I just have a lot that I have to wrap up before tomorrow. I can't go in with this not done."

"Are they paying you overtime to work on the weekends?" Evelyn asked.

"No, it's stuff I should've gotten done this week, but I ran out of time."

"I don't think they expect you to work on your days off," said Evelyn. "I'm sure you could just finish it on Monday."

"No, I couldn't," Sean said. She could tell he was getting irritated. He got that way whenever she interrupted him. "And anyway, you just got groceries."

Evelyn leaned further down to give him a hug from behind. Sean made no move to reciprocate. "I know, but we never go out. It's not like we're splurging all the time. You still have like three or four hours till dinner time, anyway. I'm not saying we have to leave right now."

"I said I don't know, Ev. We'll see."

Evelyn unhooked her arms from around him, stood behind him for a moment trying to think of something to say, but nothing came to mind. "Fine," she said after a minute. "We'll just make something here."

She walked into the bedroom and lay down on the bed, hugging a throw pillow to her chest. Her head felt so full of one thought that nothing else seemed to push through to the front of her brain for the longest time: she was so, so lonely.

Sean came through the bedroom at some point on his way to the bathroom. He doubletook when he saw her lying there.

"I'm just tired," Evelyn lied, in answer to the questioning look on his face.

"Right," said Sean. He didn't push.

When he had gone again, Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut to keep herself from crying. The Sean that was her best friend wouldn't have accepted that answer.

—-

On Monday, Sean met Jenny for lunch in the cafeteria. Truth be told, he didn't have the time to take a real lunch break and Evelyn had made lunches for the both of them the day before, but Jenny had come by in the morning to resolve a scheduling concern between her boss and his and she always stopped to say hello to him when she was around.

She had her dark hair back in a ponytail that made her look very young, despite her work attire. Sean wondered if he looked that young to everyone else.

"How's Evelyn these days?" she asked when they had sat down with their sandwiches. "I haven't heard you talk about her much lately."

"She's good," said Sean. "She's working at the library with the kids. I don't remember if I told you that or not."

"Oh that's perfect for her," said Jenny, perking up.

Sean nodded. He didn't have much else to say about Evelyn. And realizing that made him feel like shit. Maybe tonight he could try and wrap up at a normal time. His to do list was a little shorter than usual.

"Weren't you dating Robbie McClean?" asked Sean, hoping to change the subject.

Jenny shrugged and waved her hand. "Not seriously. We kinda stopped hanging out after graduation."

"Oh," said Sean. And that was another dead end in their conversation.

He circled things back around to work, and they managed to occupy themselves with complaints for the next quarter of an hour before Sean said he really did have to be getting back, told her he'd see her soon, and headed back up to his cubicle.

Their conversations were always the same. Pleasant, probably the only thing he didn't hate about this job, but a little monotonous. A little draining.

Sean glanced at the clock and then at his calendar. "Damn it," he muttered. He only had forty five minutes until their afternoon staff meeting. He'd forgotten it was Monday. He wasn't presenting anything today, thank god, but he still had to be there and that meant A) being around Rhett for several hours, which was never pleasant, and B) several hours of wasted work time. He doubted he'd be able to get home earlier tonight after all, but maybe tomorrow, if he got a little ahead today.

Then again, Rhett would probably assign him some other project this afternoon he didn't have the proper training to complete. So probably not tomorrow either.