The first match of the season had arrived and Marlowe was a nervous wreck. It didn't matter that he had been working himself ragged in training day after day. It didn't matter that he was eating, breathing, and sleeping quidditch and almost nothing else. It didn't even matter that if he did get to play today, it would likely just be for a few minutes. Marlowe did not feel prepared whatsoever.

He had never felt such immense pressure before a quidditch match. His conversation with Benson had left him energized at first. He'd been feeling confident in practice and felt like his feedback had been mostly positive, but now he felt like all he had to do was mess up once and Benson would change his mind.

Caiti kept telling him he was being ridiculous, and he knew she was right, but he couldn't quite get himself to believe it.

She was coming to the match with Sean and Evelyn. His parents would be there. Even Jack was coming. Marlowe hadn't seen him in almost a month and he was feeling bad about it.

In the locker rooms with the rest of the team, Marlowe couldn't help but notice McSorley looking at him every so often. He finally came over to where Marlowe sat on the pretense of getting something from his locker and said, voice low, "You feeling alright?"

Marlowe nodded. "I'm fine."

McSorley just glanced back at him.

"Nervous," he said, because he felt like he had to give some sort of explanation. He'd barely spoken a word to anyone all through their warm-up and that wasn't like him.

McSorley just clapped him on the shoulder. "You're ready," he said. He was always so calm. Marlowe wished he had a little more of that.

—-

About an hour into the match, the Cannons were down ninety points and things were looking pretty miserable. The Catapults had possession of the quaffle (again) and Marlowe watched as they took another shot at the goals, and the quaffle slid right through (again). He couldn't even find it in himself to groan with the rest of the team, or to swear like Benson did. He was still on edge.

"God," said Benson, wiping a hand over his forehead in utter distress. "You'd think they'd never flown a day in their lives."

As he said this, the chasers fumbled a pass and the other team intercepted, swerving back to the goals where they scored, yet again, leaving the score at 130 to 10.

"I'm calling a timeout," he said. "Finnegan, you're going in. And Fuller."

Marlowe glanced at Mick Fuller, the reserve keeper, who gave him a nod as they stood up.

Benson's timeout words weren't particularly uplifting. Mostly he seemed to want to berate Crawford for letting in 13 goals in an hour, but he did turn to Marlowe just as he was sending everyone back up in the air and say, "Give me something to smile about, alright? My blood pressure can't handle much more of this."

Marlowe managed a laugh, gripping his broom tightly. Then the whistle blew to resume play and they all kicked off the ground. Marlowe could have sworn he heard Caiti scream his name, somewhere in the stands, but it was probably just a projection. He felt shaky. Not in the full moon way, but in a nervous way. But Benson was counting on him to do something positive for this match, even if it was something small.

Marlowe took one glance around at the crowd and then he tuned it all out, tuned the game in. From across the field, he saw McSorley give him a little nod, and then Marlowe zeroed in on an approaching bludger, and whacked it.

—-

"Oh my god," said Caiti, sitting up straighter. "Oh my god, look. They put him in." She clutched Evelyn's arm leaning this way and that as she tracked his progress up into the air and around the play area.

"Didn't you know they were going to?"

"Yes, I knew he'd probably get to play, but I didn't know when," Caiti said.

The announcer called out the substitutions as play resumed and Caiti screamed and cheered much louder than anyone else around her. Her heart was pounding already. Watching him play was so nerve wracking.

Almost immediately, a bludger got so close to Marlowe she almost thought he wasn't going to manage to hit it, and she jumped, stomach lurching, but then the bludger went sailing away from him and she knew he'd made contact after all.

She watched him eye the match, looking for opportunities. That was something she hadn't really noticed watching Marlowe play at school, but that was very apparent to her now. She'd never realized before he'd gone pro just how much thought he put into when and where he hit a bludger. In school, she'd just assumed it was random, that he hit it whenever he could, wherever he could, but she could see now there was an awful lot of strategy. He would do things to distract the other team so his own could score or to cause the opposing chasers to drop the quaffle or swerve right as they were going for a goal. Within the first ten minutes of his being up there, she was pretty sure he'd aided in at least three different plays.

Her heart was still pounding, but it was in a good way now.

Sean sat on Evelyn's other side giving his own commentary right along with the official announcer, Evelyn clapped everytime anything happened at all — either team — and Caiti just clasped her hands together tight and leaned forward in her seat, her heart swelling with pride.

It wasn't until Marlowe flew somewhere a little closer to where they sat, though, and she caught a little smile on his face that she really relaxed. He'd been so nervous and all she'd wanted was for him to be reminded not only that he could do it, because that was obvious, but that he enjoyed it.

In the end, he only played for about half an hour, his coach subbing Walters back in after there was a second pause for someone from the other team to get a bit of medical attention, but she couldn't see any reason why he wouldn't be proud of what he'd done, and neither could Sean, who knew a lot more about quidditch than she did. He stopped at least three goals and helped the Cannons to score once.

The Cannons lost spectacularly in the end, but Caiti couldn't stop smiling anyway.

As she, Sean, and Evelyn made their way down the steps out of the stadium, stuck in the bottleneck of people trying to get down the stairs, she felt a tap on her shoulder and she turned around. It was a younger man, old enough they probably wouldn't have been at Hogwarts at the same time, but much younger than her parents.

"I'm really sorry to bother you, but where did you get your sweatshirt?"

"Oh," Caiti said, glancing down at what she was wearing. It was one of the things Marlowe had had made for her with his name on the back. "I don't think you can buy them yet. I know the player so he had it made for me."

"Shoot," said the man. "He's such a good player. They should've kept him in longer. Tell him he should let the merch people know that there's demand for stuff like that. I'd buy one for sure."

Caiti beamed with pride for him. "I will," she said.

"Do you think he'll stay on the team?" he asked. "I swear every time we get someone decent, they end up leaving for a better team."

"He wants to stay," Caiti said. "I think if he can, he will."

"I really hope he does," the man said with a nod. "And they should let him play more."

"I'll tell him you said so," said Caiti. She felt like she'd been filled with bubbles, like she could float right back up to the top of the stands. They'd just made it to the exit and they each turned to go different ways.

"Nice talking to you," he said. "I really will buy something if they make it."

"Nice to meet you," Caiti agreed, still smiling so much she was almost embarrassed for herself.

Sean and Evelyn had gotten a little ahead of her during this exchange, but she didn't hurry to catch up with them. It was Marlowe she wanted to tell first.

She perched herself on the edge of a brick ledge surrounding a bit of landscaping outside the players entrance to the stadium to wait for Marlowe to come out. Sean and Evelyn found her there and they both talked while they waited but Caiti didn't say much. Her heart was pounding.

By the time he finally came out, the area had almost completely cleared and the sun was starting to go down. He smiled when he saw Caiti, jogging towards her. She got up and met him halfway. He pulled her into a hug and said, "I did okay, right? It wasn't terrible?"

Caiti laughed, "Are you kidding me? They shouldn't have taken you out at all. You were doing so well!" She lifted her head to look at him.

Marlowe just grimaced.

"Guess what," she said, and she told him about her conversation coming down from the stands.

Marlowe frowned at her. "You're making it up."

"I most certainly am not," said Caiti.

"I can't tell the merch people to make stuff with my name on it," he said. "They'll think I've got a big head."

"Then I'll tell them myself," Caiti said. "And I'll let them know the demand isn't just coming from me."

She could see on his face what a weird thought it was that anyone besides her might want to wear a Finnegan shirt, but she was pretty sure, once it sunk in, it would feel good, too.

"I feel like I didn't do very well," was all he said. "I felt a little off."

"Well you didn't look it," she said. "You were great."

Marlowe just nodded in this small way like he didn't believe her, but appreciated it anyway. He pulled her back into another hug, resting his chin on top of her head and Caiti just couldn't stop smiling.

—-

The bubbly feeling still hadn't gone away by the time Caiti went into work on Monday. They had done a bit of rearranging in the weeks since the nice older witch had told Caiti she would send her friends in with their potion-making questions. She had not lied. Caiti now had regular and predictable hours only because so many people were coming in asking for her, and they had made it so that she could sit and brew potions out in the main shopping area instead of in the backroom.

Caiti was really enjoying herself there now. It had grown much less awkward and she found she was really enjoying the break from thinking about her questions and problems. It was nice to answer the questions people brought to her instead, most of which were much simpler than the ones she was grappling with back at the greenhouse. It was also nice just to make a potion that wasn't tied into everything else. Being at work made her feel like making potions was enjoyable again. She was remembering all the things she loved about it, things that had started to get buried under layers of frustration.

That morning, she'd been at the shop less than an hour when not one but three of the old ladies who now frequented the shop during her hours bustled in together. One of them was carrying a magazine.

"Welcome in," Caiti started to say from the little table where she was prepping ingredients, but they weren't interested in greetings apparently.

"Is this you?" one of them asked, looking beside herself with glee.

She held the magazine out for Caiti to see. Sure enough, there she was, right on the cover. There were two pictures actually — one where she was standing up from her seat up in the stands that weekend, cheering, and another from after the match, hugging Marlowe outside the stadium in the semi-darkness.

She hadn't realized there were cameras trained on her in either of these moments.

"Oh," Caiti said. "Yeah, that's me."

"I told you," said one of them. "I told you Doreen. I said, that's our girl."

"I didn't say it wasn't her," said Doreen. "I just said it might not be. I just said you shouldn't assume."

"But I was absolutely right, wasn't I?"

"Yes, you were absolutely right," said the third lady. Caiti was pretty sure she was called Tricia, but there were several she got mixed up still.

"How'd you manage to meet an up and coming quidditch star then?" Doreen asked.

"Well, we went to school together," Caiti said. "He wasn't a quidditch star when I met him."

"Hogwarts sweethearts," said the first lady. "Just like I told you."

They carried on this way with very little input from Caiti for several minutes, Caiti feeling a little uncomfortable about the way her own face kept staring at her from the magazine cover as the women flapped it around, passing it between themselves. It was still weird to think about being the subject of a gossip magazine.

But mostly, she kept thinking about the way the first lady had said "that's our girl" with this look of grandmotherly pride on her face and about the man asking where he could buy her shirt and about Marlowe's face that night when they'd gone home after the match and he'd finally let it sink in that he had done more than alright.

"Lucky lad isn't he," said one of the ladies to her friends when they finally made their way out of the shop later. "Smart, pretty girl like that."

The others nodded their agreement, but Caiti knew that really, she was the lucky one.

Suddenly, she couldn't wait to get back to the greenhouse when her shift here was done. She wasn't exactly sure what about this scene had motivated her, but she wasn't going to question it.