Evelyn was waiting for Caiti, as planned, on a little bench outside Honeydukes. Hogsmeade was bustling, as it always was when there was a Hogsmeade weekend. Evelyn had used to think that the village was always this way, but when she had gone to take her apparation test at the end of her sixth year, she had realized that this had been a very false misconception. There had been almost no one there that day. She'd seen a few older wizards pottering about, sending parcels off at the post office and a bunch of birds chirping and hopping around on the cobblestone street near the entrance to the Three Broomsticks, but otherwise it had been quite silent. It was peaceful.

Hogsmeade when the students were there was not peaceful at all. Still, Evelyn liked to see the Halloween decorations up. There were stacks of pumpkins outside the post office, most definitely held up by magic rather than physics, a garland made from colorful leaves and decorated with little twinkling fairy lights — real fairies of course, something Evelyn had still not gotten over — running up and down one of the alleyways between two buildings, and a mouth watering display of pumpkin flavored treats inside the window of Honeydukes beside her.

More and more students started to appear coming down the path from the school now that it was getting a little later in the day. Evelyn saw Caiti approaching, got up and started making her way to her.

Caiti waved vigorously when she caught sight of her. Evelyn noticed she was carrying her school bag, which seemed odd. When she got a little closer, Caiti started jogging. Evelyn picked up the pace too and they hugged when they met in the middle.

"Oh my god," said Caiti. "You have no idea how good it is to see you."

"You too," said Evelyn, beaming at her. "This year has been so weird. How've you been?"

"Good," said Caiti. "I mean, sort of. Kind of awful actually. I hate Hogwarts with you guys gone. But it's fine. School's good I guess."

Evelyn frowned and pursed her lips. "I don't want you to hate Hogwarts."

"I mean it's fine," she said. "It's just not the same without you and Marlowe. And Sean, I guess."

Evelyn laughed at that.

"But anyway, what about you? How've you been?"

Evelyn shrugged. "I like my new job," she said. "The girl I work with is really nice. She's older but she doesn't make me feel stupid. We just talk about her dating escapades all day."

"Well that's good," said Caiti. Evelyn wondered if she had noticed that she hadn't said anything about living with Sean. Probably not. It was probably only Evelyn that was so hyper aware of it, because she was so hyper aware of everything to do with Sean right now.

"Yeah," said Evelyn. "Well. It's really good to be back here. Feels like old times."

Caiti nodded. "It does since you're here. Do you want to go walk around some of the shops first or something? Anything in particular you want to do."

"Sure," said Evelyn. "Start at the end?" Caiti nodded and they headed down to the end of the street to start poking into the shops one by one. Evelyn balled her hands up inside her sleeves and glanced around. It was chilly outside.

"So, I have to tell you something," said Caiti after a minute. She tucked a bit of hair behind her ear.

"Okay, go for it."

Caiti nodded, rolled her lips together like she wasn't quite sure how to put it, and then said, "Okay. So..... wait. You have to swear to me that you won't tell Marlowe anything about this. Or Sean."

"Got it," said Evelyn. "I won't say a word."

"I mean it Evelyn. You have to swear it."

"I swear it," she said.

"Because I know you and you suck at keeping secrets."

"I'll keep this one. I absolutely promise you."

Caiti still looked skeptical, but she started to explain anyway. "So I've been doing a bit of research. It's not like... it's not that big of a deal. It's just been occupying my time since I don't have much of a social life right now. But anyway, I've got a meeting today with someone for a sort of interview. Just a few questions I've come up with that I can't answer without talking to him directly. I sent him a letter on a whim when I found out Marlowe wasn't going to be able to come today and I didn't really think he was going to respond to my owl, but he did. So he's meeting us at the Three Broomsticks at eleven thirty."

"Okay," said Evelyn, frowning at Caiti. "Who is it?"

"Damocles Belby," said Caiti nervously.

The name rung a bell, but Evelyn couldn't quite remember where she had heard it.

"Is he involved in potions somehow?"

"Yeah," Caiti nodded.

"And are you going to tell me how?"

They stopped outside the door to the shop they had been about to go into.

Caiti looked very nervous. "You swear you're not going to say-"

"Yes," said Evelyn. "I don't even see Marlowe that often."

"But you see Sean every day."

"Yeah, sort of, but he works late, so I hardly see him either."

"Okay fine." Caiti sighed and looked up at the bright blue sky. "He invented the wolfsbane potion."

Evelyn had suspected something like this and yet, hearing it aloud confused her. "But you already know how to make it."

"Right," said Caiti. "But I'm not trying to learn how to make it. I'm trying to learn how he made it. Like in the first place. How he came up with it."

Evelyn stood still for a minute as she processed this. The process of inventing a potion was one she had given very, very little thought to. She had done alright in potions, but she had never cared all that much about it. She hadn't even brought her cauldron with her when she moved. It was stored somewhere in closet back home.

"Why?" she asked. "I guess I don't get like... what you're really researching. You just want to know how it works?"

"For now, yeah," said Caiti.

She didn't offer any more details, so Evelyn had to push again. "And later?"

"I mean...." Caiti said evasively. "I don't really know what I'm doing yet. I guess like..." she sighed again. "Talking about it makes it sound so stupid," she whispered. "I haven't really told anyone what I'm doing yet. It's far-fetched. Like I said, it's just... occupying my time for now. It probably won't amount to anything."

"But you have a specific idea, don't you?" said Evelyn. She could tell. She could almost see Caiti mulling over the idea right then and there.

"I guess so? Okay. I'm just gonna say it." She took a deep breath. "At the end of the summer, Marlowe told me what it felt like to transform, and it was... really awful. I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I got to thinking how the wolfsbane potion is the best we have and it's a really big deal that it was invented at all, but it's not really enough. It's only solving one part of the problem. And so I guess in the back of my mind what I'm trying to figure out is how to make a potion that would stop him from transforming at all, so he could keep his human mind and body. And I know that sounds ridiculous and it'll probably never happen, but," she shrugged. "I don't know. It's stupid."

"No it's not," said Evelyn quietly. This was not the first time something about Marlowe and Caiti's relationship and the depth with which they cared for and about each other had made her worry that her own relationship wasn't all that strong.

—-

They sat down at a table at the Three Broomsticks shortly before eleven, ordered two butterbeers, and asked the waitress to direct a man looking for a girl named Caiti to their table. Mr. Belby arrived several minutes after them, dressed very casually in a set of old, worn brown robes and a plaid shirt. Caiti felt exceptionally nervous upon seeing him. This had been a huge mistake.

"Caitlyn O'Connell?" he asked as he approached the table.

Caiti stood up quickly and offered her hand to shake. "You can just call me Caiti," she said. "Thank you so much for meeting with me. I know you're probably very busy."

"Not in the slightest," he said. "I'm retired."

They sat down again and Evelyn, who did not seem to know whether or not she was a part of this conversation, glanced at Caiti for help.

"Oh," said Caiti, eyes widening. "I'm so sorry. This is my friend Evelyn. She graduated last year so she's just visiting for the day."

"Damocles Belby, pleasure to meet you," he said, holding out his hand to shake.

"You too," said Evelyn with a smile.

Once Mr. Belby had ordered a drink and gotten settled in, he turned back to Caiti. "So you explained to me a bit about this project, but tell me again what you're working on."

"Right," said Caiti with a nod. "So I take the regular NEWT level class, but I also take private lessons with Professor Pym. For the last five or so years, we've just been working on potions that are outside the curriculum or more advanced than what the rest of my year is doing. So last year, for example, I learned to make your potion-"

"You can make the Wolfsbane potion," he said, sitting up. "At... how old are you, eighteen?"

"Nearly," said Caiti. "Yes, I learned it last year. I make it every month. I don't know if you saw in the papers last year about the kid that was bitten..."

"Yes, I saw about that, very unfortunate," he said, looking like he meant it. "And you make the potion for him."

"I do," said Caiti.

"Well, I must say, I'm very impressed. I can name only a handful of people who can make it successfully and consistently, and I'm sure you know it's very dangerous if it's even slightly off."

"It took a lot of practice," Caiti agreed. She felt flattered by the compliment but also nervous about how the conversation might proceed now. "It's not an easy recipe."

"Certainly not," he said. "So go on, that's what you've been doing, and now..."

"And now, Professor Pym is having me help her to vet the new recipes people have proposed this year. Testing, and offering feedback and all.. I'm sure you've..."

"Yes, from time to time," he agreed.

"She wants me to learn more about what it's like to be a professional and to have some practice with the procedures... both for doing this kind of work on my own later, or just to be prepared if I ever try to submit something myself."

"Naturally," he said.

"So," said Caiti, growing more nervous as they approached the part of this conversation she had really asked him to meet her for. "I'm doing a bit of a research project to go along with the professional practice. And I'm supposed to interview a potion inventor about the process of composing a new recipe for a purpose, what that entails, how many iterations it took to complete the recipe, how to test it safely... that sort of thing. And I asked you if you'd be willing to meet with me, because your potion is one of the ones I'm most familiar with. So I'm hoping you could share a little... about that process."

Most of what Caiti had told him was true. The only place she had stretched the truth was in insinuating that her research was assigned for school. It did relate in some ways to what she was doing in her private lessons. It was just that Professor Pym didn't know a thing about what she was doing, let alone that Caiti was sitting across the table from Mr. Belby right now.

"It's been quite a long time since I invented it, but I'm sure I could scrounge up some of the story for a talented, young colleague," he said with a kindly smile.

Caiti's cheeks felt a little hot, but she pretended not to notice. "Great," she said, and she opened up the leather bound notebook she had brought in her school bag, the same one she had been using to keep track of all her research.

She took a quick glance at Evelyn. Her blue eyes were wide, marveling at what was going on here. Caiti gave her a nervous little smile.

"Where shall I begin?" he asked when Caiti was ready with her quill.

Caiti opened her mouth to speak but quickly realized she should have thought more about this, should have composed a list of questions to guide their conversation. "I suppose what I'm primarily wondering is, what came first. Did you stumble upon an ingredient or a combination of ingredients that sparked the idea? Or did you set out to make a potion that did exactly what the Wolfsbane potion does? Or..."

Mr. Belby considered this. "It's a funny thing, potion making," he said after a minute or so. He took a deep, long sip of drink. "I knew a kid down the street from me who got bitten by a werewolf when he was four. He didn't make it, it was very sad. And it really stuck with me. I remember growing up, and I'd just be having a normal day and all the sudden, I'd remember that kid and it just made me feel so strange. I was terrified, I think, but I didn't call it that at the time.

"I don't know that I set out to cure anything. I don't think I thought that was an option. I just wanted to go back in time and make that kid not die, so I could stop thinking about it. And the only thing I could think of that might have prevented it was whoever it was that bit that kid to have had a choice in the matter. And so very slowly, over most of my life, this idea came into my head. And at some point, I became pretty obsessed by it. Took me years and years to work out how to do it, but I couldn't think about anything else. Never got married or anything, became sort of a recluse... I just worked and worked at this thing.

"And I don't think I made any progress whatsoever for the first... I don't know, five, six years, but then I discovered wolfsbane, the ingredient itself... course it wasn't called that at the time. You know there's multiple names for it..."

Caiti nodded.

"People started referring to it as wolfsbane after I used it, because it's the key ingredient. It has many uses, but it's not actually used all that often, and I remember messing around with it one day, trying to figure out everything it could do and then... without really meaning to, I started piecing together a recipe. And it took lots and lots of changes and adjustments, and I'll admit I didn't know what I was doing almost all of the time. Occasionally, had a stroke of brilliance and did something intentional, but usually it was just guesswork. Luckily I took pretty detailed notes of that guesswork, or I don't think I'd have ever been able to replicate anything I'd done. I wasn't systematic at all."

"So how did you know when you'd gotten it right? Or at least close?"

He shrugged. "I didn't. I did a pretty reckless thing and befriended a werewolf, asked if he'd test it for me. It was safe to do that at all, but I had every sort of antidode imaginable prepared and ready to go should any of the ingredients prove poisonous. Let me tell you, he had to use more than one of them and there may have been a trip or two to St. Mungo's in there.

"But in those days, werewolves couldn't work, and I was paying him and potentially offering him a way to better his life, which wasn't great, if I could work out what to do, and slowly but surely, we figured it out."

Caiti scribbled this all down, her mind whirring. It was not at all what she'd expected to hear and yet, it was almost exactly what she was experiencing, or at least, anticipating experiencing. There didn't seem to be a secret she didn't know, an easy answer. Of course, he had already given her some food for thought as she moved on with her own investigation.

They talked for an hour and a half more, going through, to the best of Mr. Belby's memory, his discovery of the various ingredients and why he'd chosen to use them, what all he'd tried that had not worked, the changes he'd made after some of his tests and just how far the original recipe had changed before it became the iteration that was approved and published.

Caiti filled seven pages in her notebook, and her hand ached from writing so much by the time their conversation was wrapping up. She planned to soak it in water that night and hope it wasn't sore the next day from overuse.

"Well," said Mr. Belby. He downed the last sip of his second drink and set the glass back down on the table. "Caiti, it has been a true pleasure to meet you. I have no doubt I'll be hearing your name in the future."

Caiti smiled. "We'll see," she said. "Thank you again for meeting with me. This has been really useful."

"Not a problem, not a problem. Please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any other questions. And I expect a personal announcement of any and all future successes."

She laughed a little. "Alright, I'll make sure to update you on anything of note."

They shook hands and then he turned to Evelyn.

"It was pleasure to meet you as well," he told her, holding out his hand. Evelyn shook it and he paused, looking at her face inquisitively. "I feel like I recognize you from somewhere."

"I recognize you from somewhere," he said. Evelyn's cheeks went bright red. Caiti frowned.

"Probably from the Daily Prophet," she said miserably. "Caiti's brother is my boyfriend, and he was the Triwizard Champion last year. There were pictures of us in the paper."

"Not the first time you've been recognized is it?" he teased.

Evelyn shook her head. "It happens all the time, now" she said.

He laughed. "Well it was nice to meet you. Tell your boyfriend I said a belated congratulations, alright? And Caiti, it was lovely to meet you. Good luck with your project and please write me if you have any more questions."

"Okay," said Caiti. "Thank you so much. I really appreciate your help." They shook hands again and he headed out. Caiti sank back onto the bench with a little sigh of relief that it was all over.

"Evelyn," she said, "Under no circumstances are you to tell Sean that he said congratulations, because this, as I'm sure you remember, is a completely confidential outing that you are not to breathe a word of."

"I promise," said Evelyn, exasperated. Her blush had not yet subsided. "He won't ask what we did today anyway."

—-

On Thursday evening at seven o'clock, Caiti knocked on Professor Pym's office door for their meeting.

"Come on in, Caiti," Professor Pym called. Caiti pushed open the door. The room was dimly lit. There was a small cauldron on the desk and a bunch of ingredients that Caiti assumed they would be working with.

"Hi," she said, sitting down in her usual chair.

"How's your week going?" asked Professor Pym calmly.

"Okay," said Caiti. "How is yours?"

"Fine, thank you."

And she didn't say anything else. Caiti began to feel inexplicably nervous. Was she supposed to know just what to do or say when she came in now? Was she supposed to be leading these sessions?

"So, I received an owl from Damocles Belby yesterday morning."

Caiti's eyes went wide. "I'm sorry I lied and said it was for school," she said quickly. "I just didn't think he'd come otherwise."

"That's quite alright," she said. "He had lovely things to say about you. He was very impressed."

Caiti did not know what to say to this.

"Would you like to share with me what you're working on?" asked Professor Pym.

"I-" Caiti hesitated. "I sort of wanted to keep it private for now," she said.

"Why?"

"Because..." Caiti looked down. She looked up again. She looked at all the potion bottles and ingredients stored along the wall of Professor Pym's office. "It's hard to talk about it," she said finally.

Professor Pym considered her a while, just waiting, but when after several minutes Caiti still had not offered anything else, she said, "Caiti, look at me. You are an exceptionally talented potion maker. More than you know. Hardly anyone has the patience and attention to detail that you do. It's a gift, what you have, and you've worked very hard to develop your potential. I'm very proud of you. But you still have plenty you can learn. We all have more to learn, no matter who we are. I want to be able to teach you as much as I can before we can only communicate remotely. We have the rest of this year and that is all. If you're working on something, let me guide you, let me be a resource."

Caiti hesitated again.

"I'm not asking you to let me do your work for you. I'm asking you to let me know what you're doing so that when you encounter a question or a problem or even something good, a discovery, and you want or need someone to talk to about it who can converse with you on your level, who might be able to offer you something of use.... You'll be able to come to me. Let's maximize our time, here."

Caiti pressed her lips together. She felt a strange pressure building behind her eyes, and it had nothing to do with what Professor Pym was saying to her.

She told her everything.

---

That night when Caiti got back to her room, she pulled out a fresh piece of parchment and composed a short letter to Mr. Belby.

Thank you again for meeting with me this weekend, she wrote. It was very informative and will be useful for my project. I have thought of one other question if you wouldn't mind answering. Did you ever try to improve the potion or work towards something more, like a cure?

She received a response the day after she sent it.

I never tried again, he'd written. I felt I only had one good idea in me and to try anything else would be reckless.