LUNAR (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

Twenty. Christmas Break.

Sean was already up and almost ready for work by the time Evelyn got out of bed. She grabbed a hair tie off her bedside table, pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and then slipped out to the bedroom and into the kitchen where she could hear Sean making his coffee. It was still dark out the window. The weak, flickering light from the streetlamp filtered in through the crack in the curtains.

"Hi," she said quietly.

"Morning," said Sean without looking at her.

"Are you about to leave?" she asked.

He nodded. "Almost."

Evelyn came to stand by the bar-top counter, resting her elbows on top of it. "I know it's kind of last minute," she said. "I forgot to ask last night. Margaret wanted to see if you and I could come over and play games with her and her new boyfriend. She wants to meet you."

"I can't tonight," said Sean.

"Oh," said Evelyn. "Do you have to work late?"

"It's our office Christmas party," he said. "I have to go."

"Oh," she said again. "I didn't know you were having one."

"I have to go to it," Sean repeated.

Evelyn wondered why he hadn't asked her to go. Usually things like that, corporations... people brought their significant others to the event.

But this thought only lasted a moment before she felt stupid for wondering it. He didn't ask her to do anything anymore. Not unless she put the idea in his head first.

"Well, I'll tell Margaret we can find another day," she said. "Maybe when you have a little time off over the holidays."

Sean didn't say anything.

Evelyn hovered there for another few seconds, but Sean was gearing up to leave. She put a hand out and touched his arm as he passed her.

"Have a good day," she said. "See you tonight."

"Yeah," said Sean.

And then Evelyn fell back into the bedroom to get ready for work, feeling stupid for fighting back tears over such a nothing conversation.

—-

On the Thursday before break began, Caiti went down to Professor Pym's office for one last meeting. She was feeling much brighter than she had that whole semester knowing she was one day away from two weeks home and two weeks with Marlowe.

They spent the first forty five minutes working on their peer review — the potion they had been testing was in its final stages and about to be market-ready — but as they were wrapping up, Professor Pym looked at her, folded her hands, and said, "So give me an update on your research. Where are you at?"

Caiti thought about this. "The plant is growing well," she said. Professor Munslow promised to keep up with it and keep me updated over break since we're a little afraid to move it. But I'm hoping after the holidays it will have grown enough I can start to take a few leaves every once in a while. To test with. I'm still going to have to be really deliberate about how and when I use it, because I don't have much, but eventually, I should be able to propagate it and grow more so I can study it further.

"I also have..." She paused here and flipped to a different page in her notebook. "A list of ingredients I think might react with it the way I'm hoping. I've been doing a lot of research about how to predict based on the properties they have and everything. So... I don't know. It's really messy. I've crossed a lot off."

Caiti turned the paper around towards her professor who ran her finger down the page as she read Caiti's scribbles.

"This process is messy," she said quietly. "It's never straightforward."