On the morning of her presentation, a whole host of owls arrived for Caiti at breakfast. Amelia had been in the middle of a long diatribe about the pros and cons of studying with a boyfriend around, but she stopped mid-sentence to stare as they dropped four letters and two small packages in front of her.

"Oh my god, this is all about your presentation, isn't it?" she asked with a gleeful smile, sliding over to see what had arrived.

Caiti flipped through to see who they were from. There was a letter from Sean and Evelyn, a letter from her parents, and a small parcel from her grandparents. Even Mr. and Mrs. Finnegan had sent a letter of well wishes. Marlowe had sent a letter and a package.

"Well, aren't you going to open them?" asked Amelia.

"Yes," said Caiti, but she wasn't sure she wanted to. She had been oddly serene all that morning, knowing what was coming, and she was nervous that if she read their letters, it would get her all stirred up, however well-intended their words were.

She opened Evelyn's first (Sean had signed at the bottom, but the rest was in Evelyn's handwriting) and she had written a couple paragraphs about how proud they were of her and how she would do great. Her parent's letter and Mr. and Mrs. Finnegna's were very much the same. Her grandmother had sent a package of very fancy quills and a short note saying they couldn't wait to hear all about it.

All their words were very sweet and thoughtful, but they stirred up the butterflies in her stomach. There was no more putting it off. The presentation was today.

She saved Marlowe's for last. It was the one she was the most simultaneously eager and afraid to open.

Amelia was on pins and needles next to her.

Caiti opened the envelope first, unfolding the bit of parchment inside. Marlowe had not written very much, and her nerves relaxed again as soon as she opened it up.

Kick ASS today! he had written in very large print.

Then in smaller writing at the bottom, he'd added a parenthetical PS: (Sorry your gift is cheesy. Love you and can't wait to hug you later.)

"I'm gonna cry," said Amelia, peering at the letter beside her.

But Caiti didn't feel like crying. She felt like laughing. She opened the little box he'd sent, found a large cauldron cake inside, and her smile grew.

—-

Marlowe's stomach was a mess. Sean and Evelyn kept trying to talk to him, but he was too jittery to answer. They were seated in one of the first few rows in the large hotel ballroom where Caiti's presentation would be happening in just a few minutes. He kept turning around, looking at how many people had come in. It was a much larger audience than he'd expected. He wondered if Caiti knew.

If he'd had to speak in front of a room this packed — for an entire hour, no less — he'd have been sick.

He had already picked out where the judges who had selected her were sitting. He'd caught on to the fact that sitting just behind him were several notable potion makers who were interested in mentoring her. All around him, the conversations were academic and technical.

"Her bio in the program looks so professional," Evelyn was saying.

Marlowe nodded. He'd already read it six times.

Her dad leaned across his wife to say something to the three of them, but at that moment, a woman walked up onstage and he sat back quickly. The entire audience went silent almost at once.

Evelyn reached over and gave Marlowe's hand a comforting squeeze.

The woman pointed her wand at her throat and when she spoke, her voice rang out magically amplified.

"Good afternoon," she said, smiling around at everyone. "My name is Loretta Oleander. I am a board member here at the Libatius Borage Prize and had the honor of being a part of the committee who selected the two-thousand-nineteen winner. We had an exceptional pool of entrants this year — many of whom are present today — and choosing only one winner was incredibly difficult.

"But I'll get to introducing our winner shortly. First, I'd like to share with you some of the history behind the Libatius Borage Prize and it's namesake and thank some of the donors who make this grant possible each year."

Her spiel went on for a very long time. It probably wouldn't have seemed that way if Marlowe hadn't felt so anxious. He just wanted Caiti to start. If she started, there would be no more waiting around for either of them. It was the waiting that was the worst part. He knew that well from quidditch, although he hadn't had to worry about it in a long time seeing as he never played.

Marlowe zoned out through many rounds of applause for the people who had made this all possible, thinking about how she must be feeling waiting to get started. He only jerked back to reality at the sound of Caiti's name being announced up onstage.

And then there she was, walking out from a door off to the side of the stage. Marlowe's breath got caught in his windpipe. She looked older. She looked professional. She wore her hair in neat waves, clipped back on one side sort of like she had worn it at the Yule Ball the year before, and she had on gray dress robes with narrow sleeves.

Caiti looked like she belonged there, like she did this sort of thing all the time. She shook hands with Loretta Oleander and she smiled in a way that didn't seem nervous, and then she stood behind the podium and looked out at the audience. For a split second, he thought she might have faltered, but when she spoke, her voice was clear and calm and confident. So confident.

It floored him. She had said nothing except a thank you for the kind introduction and Marlowe already felt so much more relaxed.

"I'm very grateful to be here today," she continued. "I still don't quite believe it's really happened, but here I am and here all of you are... So many of you, by the way. That's also unexpected... and I just feel very lucky to get to share with you the work I've been doing this year."

She took a brief pause. "And with that said, I'm going to jump right into it because I've got a lot to get through."

There was a small ripple of laughter throughout the audience.

"About a year and a half ago, I got the opportunity to learn to make the Wolfsbane potion. We thought it could lead to a job out of school and it would be a good challenge for me to do something outside the curriculum. I was very excited about the prospect of saying I could make a potion that challenging, and I had no idea at the time that knowing how to make it would become so personally important to me.

"The Wolfsbane potion is, without a doubt, the most challenging potion I have ever made. It is also the potion I feel the most confident making. I've brewed it every month for the last year. I made it repeatedly for a month straight before the first time I gave it to anyone. I know that recipe by heart and I can make it almost without thinking about it.

"But I didn't know why it worked, and that was something I became very intrigued by at the beginning of the school year. I wanted to understand how those particular ingredients in those particular quantities, mixed together in that particular order for that length of time all worked together to do something so specific.

"I will be the first to say that what the Wolfsbane potion accomplished is a gift to anyone who needs it. The ability to drink something that allows you to stay you at heart in an instance where you would otherwise get lost in a phenomenon beyond your control... that offers a peace of mind I could never hope to compete with in my own work.

"But the potion isn't perfect. I've spoken to Mr. Belby about this so I don't think he'll mind my saying so. It's not a cure and it doesn't remove all the stressors a person deals with when bitten by a werewolf. It only accounts for one piece of the puzzle. A very important piece, but still only one piece.

"It does not account for the physical pain of a forced transformation. Transforming into a werewolf is very unlike other physical transfigurations that are completed voluntarily, like those of an animagus. It's also different from human transfiguration completed involuntarily, but still with a wand. From what I understand, and I say this as someone who has never experienced it, so I acknowledge that my understanding is limited to what I've been told... a werewolf's transformation comes from within, not without as in wand-led transfiguration. It's both temporary and not, because it recurs. It cannot be completed at will, not can it be restrained at will.

"Everything within that person is forced to change and readjust. The days before and after a full moon can leave a person feeling feverish and achy and nauseous. Over time, if you aren't careful, you can start to lose yourself in that cycle, especially if you aren't fortunate enough to benefit from the Wolfsbane potion which makes it a little easier to bear those physical symptoms.

"Back in September, at the same time that I was reading all about the ingredients used in the Wolfsbane potion, at the same time that I was experimenting with the ingredients two at a time to see how they interacted outside the potion... I was also spending countless hours thinking about those physical symptoms, trying to figure out how they could be avoided. If it was possible to allow a person to keep their human mind during that transfiguration, then it must be possible to allow them to keep their body, too.

"I had no idea what I was doing at the time, but I became obsessed by that possibility. It's very nearly the only thing I've thought about this year. I found myself pouring through books of ingredients, old little used potion recipes, and magical plants looking for anything that might have properties to help me accomplish this goal.

"I made lists of hundreds of possible ingredients, many of which got crossed off as soon as I looked into them further. But I came across one ingredient that I just got this gut feeling about and I kept coming back to it, kept searching the library for any sort of information, but there was very little I could find.

"It's a plant called the African Sun Violet. It's by no means a recent discovery, but it's been used very seldom in potions and not at all in magical healing techniques. The only thing I was able to learn about it in books was that it was once used in a potion that forced someone who had taken the polyjuice potion to turn back into themselves. This particular potion didn't stay in fashion very long, because it was a lot of hassle when polyjuice potion wears off in an hour anyway, and there was a spell invented shortly after that could do the same thing without the mess. But the idea of a potion with those properties — sort of anti-transfiguration — was intriguing to me. It wasn't precisely what I wanted. It wasn't stopping someone from transfiguring in the first place. But it was a similar idea, and this plant was not only the key ingredient but also the only ingredient in the potion that wasn't entirely ordinary. It seemed unlikely that anything else used in that particular potion... spiders, nettles, flobberworm mucus... none of these seemed like the unexpected key I was looking for.

"So, I learned about a foundation in Namibia, where the African Sun Violet is a native species, that's dedicated to researching and growing the plant, and I wrote them a letter requesting information. To my very great surprise, they sent me two seeds and very detailed instructions to grow my own Sun Violet.

"It's been exceptionally challenging. Potion making has always been my strength and I never really flattered myself to be much of a herbologist, but there is really quite a lot of overlap between the disciplines. They are, I think, the most scientific of the magical fields.

"Luckily, with a bit of help from a very talented herbologist, Professor Munslow, and frequent reference to the instructions I'd been given, the seeds began to grow and then bloom. I've actually been able to propagate it so I currently have seven growing in the greenhouse at Hogwarts and I'm hoping this number will continue to grow so that I can begin to experiment with the plant some more, to see how it interacts with other ingredients, especially those already used in the wolfsbane potion.

"I'm confident that it's not an entirely new potion I'm trying to develop, but an adjustment to one that already exists."

Caiti paused here, which gave Marlowe a second to realize he had not blinked in what felt like minutes. He was so glued to her every word. She had not looked down at the podium once, was speaking entirely without assistance, and her words were not filled with uhms and uhs and other fillers. It was unbelievable. This was his best friend, his girlfriend, and she was the most intelligent, well-spoken, soon to be hugely successful person on the planet, without competition.

For the next twenty minutes or so, she talked about her plans for the grant she had received, how she would spend it and what she predicted she would find. She also ran through several possible avenues of investigation should her current line of inquiry not pan out as expected. All throughout this, she sprinkled in more bits of information she had learned, more of the research she had already done — things she had learned about the Sun Violet already from watching it grow as well as things she had learned or realized while researching and making the Wolfsbane potion.

When the time came for her to answer questions, hands shot up all over the room. Ms. Oleander, the woman who had introduced her at the beginning of the presentation, facilitated this piece of the talk, holding her wand out as a microphone for those who had a question for Caiti.

And Caiti answered every question with ease. Nothing seemed to really stump her, even when she admitted to two different people that their questions were not something she had ever considered. In both cases, she still came up with an eloquent, well-reasoned answer that sounded perfectly plausible to Marlowe.

"I think we have time for maybe one last question," Ms. Oleander said now, glancing at the clock on the back of the room. She held her wand out to a woman near the front of the audience who stood and asked, "We've gotten very deep into the technical aspects of your project, and I appreciate the depth of your answers, but I'm still interested in the personal aspect of your work. I'd love to know what inspired you to take on such an ambitious project? Why this specifically?"

Caiti's mouth hovered open for several seconds before she answered. She looked down at the podium. "My best friend was hurting," she said. "And I didn't know how to help."

Marlowe's heart stopped at those words. He swallowed, blinked back the burning sensation behind his eyes, and looked away from Caiti for the first time since she'd come out. Evelyn put her hand on his upper back and patted a few times.

—-

Caiti hadn't felt nervous while she spoke. She had not been afraid of forgetting what she meant to say. She had not felt unworthy of being there. But now it was over, now that she had to go down and see everyone who had come to support her, now that she had to go into that other room with the fancy white tablecloths and the big tall windows where the luncheon was to be held, now she had to go and mingle with all these important people that would maybe mentor her... now she was nervous.

The event had taken place in the ballroom of a large and stately muggle hotel, on the second floor. Nearly everyone else had cleared out of the ballroom by now. She'd had to stay back and take photos for the Daily Prophet and a number of potions journals. Only a few people lingered in the back of the room, talking.

Caiti took a deep breath before she stepped out onto the landing outside the room. She had emerged on the top of a very wide and very grand staircase, with green carpet and gold railings. Standing in the lobby below her, she could see her family all grouped together. Her parents were talking with Professor Pym, Professor Osset, Professor Munslow, and, by the looks of it, a number of other people who had been in attendance. Sean and Evelyn had their heads together talking, too, but Marlowe did not appear to be participating in any of these conversations.

He stood at the edge of the group with his hands in his pockets and his eyes up the staircase, so he was the first one to see her. Caiti hesitated for just a moment before she started down the steps, eyes down at the floor. Marlowe walked towards her at the same time, meeting up with her precisely when she had reached the bottom step. Standing one step up, she was almost on eye level with him.

For several seconds, neither of them spoke or did anything. They just looked at each other. Then Marlowe pulled her into this hug that made her stomach ache and a lump rise in her throat. Tears stung at her eyes and she held onto him tight, her eyes just above his shoulder. Marlowe pressed his face down into the curve of her neck and they stayed there for entire minutes.

Her family held back. No one tried to interrupt. Perhaps they'd realized this was, for Marlowe, so much more personal.

She was glad he didn't say anything. They would talk later. She was still processing right now, and surely he was, too. For now, he just held on to her in this hug that went on and on and on.

When he finally started to let go, he pulled back only enough to press his forehead into hers and then brush his thumb across her cheek and kiss her. He pulled her into one more hug, tight, but not long, then said softly, "I'm monopolizing you." It was the first thing he'd said.

"That's okay," Caiti whispered.

They stared at each other for another few seconds, but Caiti could see her family approaching behind him, so she let her arms fall. Marlowe's hands slid down her arms before he let her go.

She let her mum and dad and Sean and Evelyn and Professor Pym all hug her, one by one. Everyone kept saying how proud they were, how impressive she had been. She smiled and she said thank you over and over and over, but she felt overwhelmed.

Marlowe stood by her, a short distance away, his hands back in his pockets, and didn't say much to anyone at all. He seemed very far away, deep, deep in thought.

A group of people she didn't know approached when her family had started to calm down, and one of them held his hand out to Caiti. "Lucas Strickler," he said as they shook hands. "We were all finalists as well. We just wanted to congratulate you."

And then Caiti was back to saying thank you over and over again as she shook hands with all five of the others. They all had lovely things to say and were very complimentary but it was especially nerve-wracking standing in front of this group of older and more practiced witches and wizards who she had somehow beat out for the prize.

The Daily Prophet people swung back around to take a picture of Caiti with the other finalists and then they all headed out together. She wondered if they knew each other. The potions community was rather small.

The next twenty minutes were a blur of introductions. In fact, the entire lunch was a blur of introductions. Caiti didn't get to take a single bite of her food until it had gone completely cold because so many people kept appearing to talk to her.

She spoke to at least seven people who were interested in working with her. These were all people she would continue to communicate with over the next month or so before coming to a decision that apparently she had to make.

She also spoke with each of the judges who had helped to select her as the winner. Every one of them was eager to share their thoughts about her work, to ask further questions, and to explain what had stood out in her proposal.

She spoke with all sorts of potions enthusiasts and researchers that had been in attendance. She spoke with some of the donors who helped the Libatius Borage Prize continue year after year. She spoke to several recent winners who were eager to share all the great benefits of winning. She lost count of how many congratulations and bits of advice she received, how many hands she shook, and how many photographs she posed for.

There was still one person Caiti wanted to talk to, however — someone who she knew was still there, but who had kept a backseat all day. Damocles Belby waited until she had finally been able to eat a little something, until the crowd around her had finally settled, before he made his way over to her.

"Lovely to see you again Caitlyn," he said, holding his hand out.

"You too," she smiled. Her heart had started pounding. She had been nervous to hear his reaction ever since she had spotted him in the audience during her presentation.

"I'm sure you've heard it a thousand times today, but the work you've done is really phenomenal," he said. "So much more organized than I ever was."

Caiti let out a nervous laugh. "Thank you," she said. "It doesn't usually feel that way."

"I'm not sure potion making ever does," he said. "It's a messy process."

He paused, thoughtful. "What I think is so spectacular about what you're doing is that you're not attempting to find a cure. You're not trying to start completely from scratch. You're taking something you know very well and you're seeking to make it better. Making little adjustments here and there... maybe adding some new ingredients... It's very smart. It's very resourceful. And I feel quite honored that it's my little contribution you're taking these chances with. I feel very lucky you think it's worth it to push its boundaries further than I did."

"What you did isn't a little contribution, Mr. Belby," Caiti said. "It's a very, very big contribution."

"I appreciate you saying so," he said, but he offered no more on the subject. "I'll be looking forward to hearing where your research goes moving forward. I'd be very surprised if you didn't achieve your goal somewhere down the line. And I hope you'll stay in touch, keep me updated on what you find."

"Of course."

"I know everyone expects me to offer to mentor you," he went on. "But I don't want to do that.

I think this work should be yours. You don't need my name attached to it in any way. However, you are always welcome to ask questions about my potion if you have them. Anything you might need to know, I'm more than willing to share. There are no secrets."

"I appreciate that very much," said Caiti, but a part of her was disappointed. She had been among those who thought that Mr. Belby might offer to mentor her and as she had met him before and he knew his potion inside and out, she had anticipated that maybe, just maybe that partnership would make the most sense. At the same time, she understood his reasoning.

Before either of them could say anything else, the Daily Prophet workers swept over again to photograph the two of them together.

"Now this is a front page moment if I ever saw one," said the photographer from behind his camera. And when they were done smiling for the photo, Mr. Belby patted her on the back in a fatherly way, and he headed out the door. For the first time that entire day, there wasn't another person immediately ready to jump in and talk to her next. A wave of fatigue washed over her and she just wanted out of that room, to be somewhere quiet and have a break from all the smiling and the thanking and the hand shaking. Marlowe was standing nearby next to Sean and Evelyn, who were deep in conversation, but Marlowe, as he had all that day, didn't seem to be an active participant. She headed his way.

—-

It was after 6:30 before everyone started getting themselves ready to leave. There had been so much commotion around Caiti, he had scarcely said a word to her all day. She fell back beside him now and her fingers found his.

"D'you want to go outside for a minute?" she asked.

Marlowe nodded. They slipped away before someone else could try to talk to her.

Outside, the sun was nearly ready to set and the air was cool and damp but not cold enough to be unpleasant. They walked around the side of the hotel and found a stoop next to a side door labeled Please Use Main Entrance with an arrow pointing left. They sat down there, and for a while, neither of them spoke. It was nice to have a moment of silence after all the commotion of that afternoon.

Marlowe watched the clouds turn a dusky purple as the sun lowered behind them. The sky beneath them was striped with bright colors: orange, then pink, then red.

"I feel like I have so much to say, but I don't even know where to start," he said finally.

Caiti just nodded slowly, her eyes straight ahead.

"I'm still kind of processing it all."

"Yeah," she breathed. "Me too."

Caiti reached for his hand again and he wove their fingers together.

"It's okay if you don't say anything," she said. "People have been saying things at me all day."

"Yeah," Marlowe agreed. He took several slow breaths through his nose. "I do have two things I want to say today and then... I don't know. You'll probably get a letter from me in a day or two with like ten-thousand questions because I'm trying to figure all this out."

She smiled. "You can ask them now, too, if you want," she said.

"Nah, I've gotta figure out what they are, still." He took another slow deep breath. "I just want to tell you, and I know literally everyone's beat me to this, but I've still got to say it... Caiti, I'm really fucking proud of you. I mean I can't tell you how professional you sounded, it's insane."

"Thanks," Caiti said quietly.

"I should be thanking you," said Marlowe.

"You don't need to thank me, yet. It's only the beginning. Nothing's guaranteed."

"You don't have to even come close to figuring this out to deserve a thank you," said Marlowe. "It's not for the work. It's for the way you care about me."

Caiti just squeezed his hand and smiled down at her lap.

They fell quiet again while Marlowe re-collected his thoughts. A breeze rippled past, fluttering the bushes on either side of them.

"The other thing I wanted to say," he continued after a while, "or request, I guess... will you just keep me updated?"

Caiti turned and looked at him, a sheepish smile on her face. She looked more like herself in that moment than she had all day and Marlowe felt himself relax a little.

"Like every little thing. Good or bad. Just... tell me about it. Day by day, tell me what you're doing, even if it's just that nothing's changed. I want to hear about it."

"Promise," she said, and she gave his hand a squeeze. "No surprises."

They turned back to the sunset after that and watched it until the sky had gone completely dark. Only then, did Marlowe turn back to Caiti and kiss her. The way she kissed him back made his whole body wake up.