VIOLET (A Harry Potter Universe Fanfiction)

1.

Marlowe hadn't been expecting Caiti over that night, but he still wasn't all that surprised to see her at the door when he went to answer it.

"Hey," he said.

"Are you busy?"

"No, I'm not doing anything."

"Can we go for a walk? I feel overwhelmed."

"Yeah- yeah, hang on a second." Marlowe left the door open for her, but ducked back into the house to grab a pair of shoes.

"I'm going for a walk with Caiti," he said, poking his head into his parents bedroom where his mum was watching something on tv.

"Caiti's here?"

"Yeah," he said, and then he ducked back out again and found her at the door. She looked troubled.

"I'm ready," he said.

He slipped his hand into hers and they walked down the front porch steps and along the stone path beneath the droopy tree branches hanging over the front yard, then onto the street where they kept to the side in case of passing cars. It was dark, and the street wasn't well lit.

"You said you were overwhelmed,' Marlowe prompted when they'd been walking awhile and Caiti hadn't said anything yet.

"Yeah," she said.

"About?"

She shook her head. "Everything."

"Okay, well... start with one thing," Marlowe suggested, feeling a lot like Evelyn, except less calm.

Caiti didn't answer right away. "I don't know what I'm doing," she said as they rounded a corner.

"Well, you graduated like five days ago, so I feel like that's probably okay for now."

"Well, sure for a minute. But I've been working on this since September, and I just feel like I've used up all my ideas and now I don't know where to go with it, but I've got all this money and people are expecting things and I don't even know where to start. Like I've got all this information, but it's all discombobulated in my brain and I don't really know why any of it matters or what I'm supposed to do with it. It just feels like I'm at the point where I should be done just looking stuff up in library books and actually trying something, but I don't know how to do that."

"Are you going to meet with your mentor soon?"

"Next week," she said.

"Maybe she'll have some ideas."

"I'm sure she will, but I don't want to show up and act like a student."

"You won't."

"I might."

"You won't."

"I have to show up with a plan. I need to have an idea of what my next step is so she can guide me on that. She's not supposed to be doing it for me. She's not a teacher."

"She isn't going to do it for you. I just meant maybe she'll have questions that'll get you thinking and maybe that'll spark something."

"All I have are a bunch of plants and I don't even like herbology that much."

Marlowe couldn't help it. He laughed.

Caiti pulled her hand out of his and shoved him.

"I'm sorry," he grinned. "It's just the way you said it."

"Well, I don't like it! It's kind of boring! Nothing even happens for weeks and what if I'm just wasting all this time growing these stupid things and they don't even turn out to do anything?"