LUNAR (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

Fourteen. Halloween.

Marlowe decided he didn't much like not being at Hogwarts on Halloween. It felt strange not to be drooling all through his classes, thinking about the feast that night. His thoughts kept coming back to his sixth year, when Caiti had still been with Theo. She and Marlowe had just been friends but he'd become pretty aware at this point that he really liked her.

He felt smug through the whole feast, because Caiti had chosen to sit next to him instead of next to Theo and his friends.

There had been this gigantic bowl of licorice wands on the table during dessert that no one had touched amid the array of more exciting choices. Caiti had picked three up and started braiding them together and the next thing he knew, Marlowe was running up and down the Ravenclaw table announcing that they were hosting a licorice wand weaving contest and Sean was paying a galleon to whoever made something that most resembled a garment.

Sean didn't know this, of course, but the thing about Sean was that he'd do it anyway.

He and Caiti had used almost the entire bowl of licorice wands trying to weave something that looked semi-wearable so one of them could model it, but it just ended up looking like nothing. Still, Caiti had stood in the aisle giggling, arms held out like a scarecrow while he did his best to attach their contraption at her shoulders. The more he told her to stop laughing (after all, her shaking was making a mockery of their design), the more her laughter picked up and pretty soon, she was standing in the middle of a pile of deconstructed licorice wands and her actual clothes were a sticky mess. They had lost their own contest miserably and Sean had paid a galleon to a pair of fourth year girls who had made a very sensible candy hat.

Caiti had picked up the fallen licorice and started sticking it all over Marlowe who had grabbed her around the middle to make her stop. He had caught sight of Theo down the table looking very jealous. Caiti didn't laugh that way around Theo. That smug feeling he'd had all night grew, and he became just a tiny bit hopeful.

He would have given anything to be at Hogwarts right now, making Caiti laugh. His only plan for tonight was to sit on the front porch with his mum passing out candy to the muggle kids out trick-or-treating.

Or at least that had been his plan until he and his teammates were all heading back to the locker rooms after practice and one of the chasers, a guy named Damon who was probably one of the closest in age to Marlowe, asked who was coming out tonight. Marlowe hadn't heard anything about going out so he kept quiet. He wasn't usually a part of these gatherings.

The other team members started chiming in with their yeses and nos as they rounded the corner into the locker room, and Brian McSorley, the beater who had always been relatively nice to Marlowe, turned to him and asked, "What about you, Finnegan? You coming?"

"Oh," said Marlowe. He glanced around at the others looking for signs they didn't want him there, but no one was side-eyeing anyone else or averting their gaze and truth be told, Marlowe did kind of want to go so maybe he could stop feeling like such an outsider at practice.

Ever since the interview had been published, the dynamic at work had changed slightly. Marlowe didn't feel like he had friends at work, exactly, but he did feel like his coworkers were friendly now. No one had specifically mentioned the article to him, but he knew they'd all read it. Some of the guys asked him about Caiti sometimes. All of them finally seemed to have grasped that he really was human. That this was just something that had happened to him.

Maybe now he could finally weasel his way into the team.

"Okay," he said. "I don't have any plans."

"Nice," said McSorley, clapping Marlowe on the back.

Marlowe smiled an awkward smile and started to shrug off his quidditch robes.