Marlowe had been to see Jack three times now and was planning to go back again one more time just before the full moon. He'd promised Jack he would be there before and could answer any questions he might have.

It still broke Marlowe's heart that this was an eight year old kid condemned to the same life Marlowe had gotten stuck with, but he had to admit, talking about this stuff was doing him a lot of good. He hadn't realized how much he'd needed to say out loud what happened to him every month, and not to someone who would just feel sorry for him.

Caiti was good about showing sympathy without pity. She was always in reaction mode, trying to figure out what she could do to help. But she still would never be able to really understand.

Jack didn't seem afraid of what was coming. He seemed more curious than anything. Marlowe knew he would probably develop some of the dread Marlowe carried around all month after he'd actually experienced a full moon, but he was still in awe of how brave he was.

He'd just gotten back from the hospital and he found Elliot sitting on the couch with one of his textbooks out. Their mum had been on him lately about getting a move on his summer assignments and Elliot had only begrudgingly taken her up on the idea.

"What'cha working on?" asked Marlowe, heading into the kitchen to grab a snack.

Elliot didn't respond.

Marlowe came back into the living room with a handful of almonds and sat down. "Homework?" he prompted.

Elliot lifted his eyes. He looked angry. Marlowe felt bad for interrupting him. Maybe he'd been deep in thought.

But then he asked, "Are you going to Caiti's house?" which really took Marlowe off guard.

"I don't know," Marlowe said. "She was maybe going to come over here. Why?"

Elliot just rolled his eyes. "You're always with her," he said. "Or that kid."

Marlowe didn't know what to say, and Elliot didn't elaborate.

"I'm just trying to help him out," said Marlowe. "I didn't really have anyone to talk to when it happened to me. Not anyone that got it, anyway."

"Yeah, I'm aware," said Elliot. He sounded pissed though and Marlowe didn't know why.

"What's your problem?"

"I don't have a problem."

"Yeah, you do. You're acting all pissy."

Elliot snapped his textbook shut and headed down the hall towards his bedroom.

Marlowe let out a heavy sigh. "Don't act like a stupid teenager, Elliot," he said, following him down the hall. "It's not a good look."

"Oh, 'cause you were so perfect."

"I never said that. I was a little shit."

"Yeah, well not much has changed."

They glared at each other for a second, but then Elliot stepped into his bedroom and slammed the door in Marlowe's face.

"Just tell me why you're mad at me," Marlowe snapped. "You didn't pick a fight over nothing."

"Maybe if you actually ever talked to me, you would know," Elliot called through the door. But after that, he was silent and nothing Marlowe said would make him open the door back up. Marlowe knew better than to unlock it by magic. They had both agreed that their dad getting his wand out to unlock their doors when they hadn't wanted to talk to anyone was the greatest violation of privacy.

He went back into the living room after a minute with a pesky guilty feeling settling into his stomach as Elliot's word started to sink in.

—-

Elliot didn't come out again until dinnertime, and only because their mum told him he had to. He gave Marlowe the silent treatment all through dinner, but once their parents had gone into the living room to relax, Marlowe pulled him aside and said, "Hey, I'm sorry. You're right. I haven't really spent any time with you this summer."

Elliot didn't appear to want to forgive him and he just rolled his eyes again.

Marlowe plowed on anyway. "Tomorrow night I'm off work at three," he said. "I can come get you and bring you back to the pitch. We can toss the quaffle around or something. You're gonna try out for the team again, right?"

Elliot hesitated. Marlowe could tell this idea had piqued his interest.

"Theo's graduated so the seeker position is available," he said.

"You'd be a killer seeker," said Marlowe. "You had a knack for it even your first year. Maybe I can ask Aaron if he's got any tips and we could work on stuff to help you get ready."

Elliot didn't smile, but he gave a short nod and said, "Okay," and Marlowe knew he'd gotten through to him.

—-

Marlowe had taken Elliot and his parents to see the field before, and they'd been to a few matches, including the first one he'd ever played in back in the spring, but Elliot still seemed a little starstruck actually standing on the pitch. Marlowe had let him borrow his old school broom, which was much better than the broom Elliot was currently flying. Elliot held it very gingerly.

"That's a little zippier than you're probably used to," Marlowe told him as he climbed onto his own broom.

Elliot rolled his eyes. He was positively full of eye rolls these days. "God you're dorky in your old age," he said.

Marlowe scoffed at him. "Race you to the other side of the pitch," he said, and he kicked off without warning.

"That isn't fair," Elliot called, hurrying to catch up. Marlowe beat him by a mile, and he waited there with a smirk on his face.

"Who's old now?"

"Rematch," said Elliot.

"Alright. I'll do it fair and square this time. On the count of three."

"On three or after three?"

"On," said Marlowe. He gripped his broom.

"One," Elliot started.

"Two."

"Three," they said together, and they both shot off. Marlowe didn't hold back. Elliot would have been mad if he thought Marlowe had gone easy on him.

Still, Elliot was speedy, even on an inferior broom. He was littler than Marlowe, and leaned down over his broom, he almost kept up.

Marlowe high fived him on the other side.

"I've gotta get a new broom this year," Elliot said a little breathlessly. "This is so much better than mine. D'you think Dad'll get me one when we go to Diagon Alley?"

"Maybe," said Marlowe. "I'd let you try this one, but I think it'd ruin you for any broom we could afford."

Elliot looked at it longingly.

"Some day," Marlowe said with a smile.

"Come on. I'll grab a quaffle."

For twenty minutes or so, they hovered a little ways off the ground, tossing the quaffle back and forth. Elliot kept purposely throwing it too far so Marlowe had to dive for it. "I think it's for the best that you want to be seeker," Marlowe said, shaking his head after retrieving a missed quaffle for the tenth time. "Safe to say you haven't mastered the art of the pass."

He tossed it back to Elliot.

"Safe to say you're an idiot," said Elliot, and he threw it back hard, but direct. Marlowe caught it, but it whammed into his chest and he flew back a few feet from the force.

"God, you are such a thirteen year old," said Marlowe, exasperated.

It was fun, though, really. He hadn't spent much time with Elliot lately. In the last year, he'd been kind of wrapped up in his own stuff, but he used to always do this with Elliot over the summers and Elliot had soaked up every tip Marlowe gave him. Back then, all he'd wanted in the world was to be on the Hogwarts team. He had dreamed about it, all based on the stories Marlowe would tell him about his own games.

"Can we get out a snitch?" Elliot asked.

"You gonna catch it?" Marlowe asked. "I don't want it to go missing."

"Yeah, I'm gonna catch it," Elliot said, like Marlowe was stupid to even ask. "Obviously."

They landed back on the pitch, and while they walked to get the snitch out of the box, Marlowe told Elliot what Aaron Sutton had told him about training as a seeker.

"And," Marlowe said. "He told me if you wanted, you could come back in August, like closer to when you go back to school, and he could give you a few pointers. That way it'd be fresh going into tryouts."

"Really?" asked Elliot. For a minute, he forgot to act like a tough, cool thirteen year old, and he looked at Marlowe with these hopeful little kid eyes.

"Yeah," said Marlowe.

"Cool," said Elliot.

Marlowe unlatched the snitch from the box, clutching it in his fist before it could escape. "Alright," he said. "You get ready, but shut your eyes. You've gotta give it a head start."

He released the snitch, counted to ten, and said, "Okay, go." Then he hovered in the air watching Elliot fly around in search of the snitch. It only took a minute or two before he spotted it and shot after it. He fumbled the first grab, but managed to get hold of it on the second.

"Now do that with thirteen other players and three more balls in the air," Marlowe called, but really felt pretty damn proud of him.

—-

Caiti couldn't bear the thought of looking at another book. She had done nothing but pour through the stack she'd checked out from the library for weeks and she was about ready to check them all right back in and never utter the word transfiguration again.

Every time, she thought for sure her frustration level had peaked, it got worse.

She wanted to talk to Marlowe about nothing, go for a walk or something, but he was at work, and Evelyn was busy today at an orientation for school which was starting in a few weeks. She half thought about trying to get in touch with Amelia, but as much as they'd bonded over the past year, she didn't think she was in the mood for all the questions Amelia would pester her with. She wanted to avoid thinking about everything. Not think about it more.

At a loss for other ideas, Caiti went to Diagon Alley and marched right into the Magical Menagerie where, luckily, Sean was standing behind the counter and Barry was curled up in the sunny spot in the window.

"Welcome in," Sean said with a half glance up, and then he double took. "Oh," he said. "Hi."

"Can I pet Barry?" Caiti asked. "I need to clear my head."

Sean frowned. "Yeah. Sure." So Caiti plopped right down on the floor amidst the cluttered window display and scratched Barry behind the ears. He stretched himself out, little toes flexing, and then settled back down with his head in her lap. She hadn't spent a minute of one on one time with her brother since that past Christmas when Sean had very much not been himself, and even though he was mostly back to normal, it was apparent to her how little she really talked to him anymore.

Now they were out of school, their relationship was almost reliant on their friends.

It was weird to think that at one point, not even all that long ago, they had been very close.

"So what's going on?" Sean asked. "How's the project coming along?"

Caiti closed her eyes. "I simply cannot talk about it," she said dramatically. "I'd rather talk about literally anything else."

"Okay then," said Sean. "Sorry for bringing it up?"

"It's fine," Caiti said. "It's just the only thing I ever think about and I'm sick of it."

"Hm," Sean said. "Well, I don't really have any news. My life mostly revolves around Barry's whims."

Caiti smiled a little. It was simultaneously so unexpected and so him that he would have become such a devoted dog dad.

"How's Evelyn?" she asked.

"She's good. She was a little nervous about today, but I'm sure she'll come home talking about it all nonstop. She's itching to be in school again."

Caiti started to say something, but then the bell at the door tingled and a customer came in.

"Morning," said Sean. "Can I help you find anything?"

Caiti wondered if she should get up off the floor, but Barry seemed so comfortable with his head in her lap, she couldn't bear the thought of moving him.

So she stayed put, watching Sean help the woman find what she was looking for. He seemed to know what he was talking about and he was personable, but Caiti just felt something missing about him, something that had been bugging her every time she'd seen him since she'd come home.

It took until the customer had left and Sean had let out the smallest, almost imperceptible sigh of relief, for Caiti to realize what it was.

Sean had lost confidence.

He'd gone back to being kind and patient and everything else he'd always been, but that quiet confidence he had always had, that self assuredness... it was gone. In its place, there was this whirring and self-doubt that Caiti could recognize, because it was something she had always dealt with.

She'd still never heard the full story of what had gone on last year, but between the parts she knew and the tournament the year before that, it seemed like everything had just chipped away at him.

"Sean, do you feel stuck?" she asked. She hadn't actually meant to say it. It had been a question she'd meant to keep to herself, but it slipped right out.

Sean looked at her and the look in his eyes reminded her so much of when he'd come to visit her in Hogsmeade with Evelyn, how lost he had seemed.

"Not exactly," he said. "Not stuck. I just... I don't really know where I want to go from here."

Caiti thought this over.

"I just feel paused," he said. His eyes were down on the counter. "But I like where I'm at, too."

Caiti nodded.

They were silent for a while. Barry lifted his head as a bird flew by, landing on the cobblestone outside the window to pick up a bit of food someone had dropped.

"I feel a little stuck," Caiti said. "I feel like a fraud."

"What exactly are you doing?"

She shrugged. "Pretending to be busy with stuff? I'm not exactly having any breakthrough ideas. Mostly I'm reading about transfiguration. Trying to understand what goes on when something transforms and how countercurses work and stuff. But I don't even know how that would help."

"I did an essay on countercurses my seventh year," Sean said. "About the theory and stuff."

"Really?"

"It was like seven rolls of parchment. It's really complicated."

"Do you think you can explain it to me in simpler terms?"

Sean smiled a little. There was a little spark in his eyes. "Maybe," he said. "I can try."

—-

Caiti headed back to the greenhouse a little after one. She and Sean had grabbed lunch on his break, sitting outside with Barry laying at their feet, and he had talked her through what he could remember from his essay.

She wasn't crystal clear on everything, but she felt like she had a better grasp on it than two dozen books had given her, so she stacked them all back into the bag she'd gotten from the library weeks ago and brought them back to return.

She had meant to just leave when the books were dropped off, but some little nudge drew her back to the shelves again. She avoided the transfiguration section this time, heading instead (after quite a few wrong turns), for the section on werewolves. She felt afraid to touch the books. What if they were outdated and harsh? What if they made it out like werewolves were all volatile, untrustworthy monsters? What if these authors forgot that all werewolves were people first?

She didn't grab every book that looked promising this time, but perused very carefully, checking the table of contents, trying to get a feel for any negative bias from the first few pages. When she left, there were only two books in her hand, but she was hopeful they would give her some more insight. These books were written by healers and they focused on the actual transformation, what happened before and during, how it was different from voluntary animal transformation and transfiguration spells.

She had read a little about this last year, but never in depth.

"Please be something useful," she whispered to herself," as she headed for the checkout desk. Sean wasn't the only one who had lost confidence in himself. Hers was dwindling by the day.