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Caelum doesn’t quite have the words to describe Potter.
It’s been near five years now since they’ve been acquainted-
No, that’s wrong.
It’s been four years since they’ve been friends.
He hadn’t even realised it until Hestin had appeared that day, informing him of his parents untimely arrival. The fear that had seared through his form, dropped down his spine as iced water... he hadn’t been expecting it, had been blindsided.
He hadn’t expected to look upon Potter and find an equal traits he could appreciate. Her exemplary potions knowledge, the precision of her technique that was almost level with his own. The thirst to prove herself in such a challenging field and the sheer ingenuity of her ideas.
She’s a lit match, unobtrusive yet starting bonfire after bonfire, sending fireworks cascading up into the night’s sky to erupt in a thunderous symphony.
As all other look on, enthralled by the product, the outcome, no one seems to look for and see the source.
Not like Caelum does.
Perhaps it’s not the best comparison, to consider Harriet Potter a match. Perhaps with some adjectives before it? Immortal? Inexhaustible?
Omnificent is certainly a damn good one for her. Having unlimited powers of creation. She never seems to run out, a bubbling well of ideas that is always giving and giving and giving.
Only that’s still not right. A muggle well requires physical effort to gain the substance. Potter just, produces. Generates all on her own, idea after idea after idea and each blindsides the world just after it’s started to recover from the one before it.
There is a monumentally selfish part of him that clings to the match descriptor too.
When he had first begun brewing, neither of his parents had cared to indulge his passion, never bothering to light the fire beneath a cauldron for him. Hestin had duties to attend to, though the elf had always answered when he called.
Instead, before he struggled through teaching himself how to light the flame wandlessly, Caelum had a box of matches.
They had been the instrument to indulge in his ‘little side project’. They had been instrumental to his developing interest in potions and the relevant academia.
Matches meant something.
Just as Potter means something.
He just can’t quite define it yet.
It’s Wednesday, Potter finally let loose upon society after the outing of her outrageous secret. He probably shouldn’t even be surprised that it was actually her curing unforeseen sicknesses, slaying basilisks and winning international tournaments.
Why would she stop at simply turning the potions community upon its head?
Had this ruse of hers been revealed at an earlier point, then perhaps his little match would be in Azkaban instead of the Leaky Cauldron.
However, saving the lives of the Minster of Magic and Lord Riddle in a single swoop does leave one in a particularly good position for bargaining.
The SOW Party leader hasn’t been seen since, but Caelum knows enough to be aware the other is in a biblical rage; his mother scampering back through the Floo after attempting to soothe that anger, singed and shaking, had been evidence enough.
“Caelum. Good afternoon.” Potter smiles up at him, those green eyes impossibly vibrant.
“Potter.” He’s not going to bother describing her true face; it’s already immortalised in his mind as it is, what with all the attention he’s heaped upon her since the modified Polyjuice expired. She’d been under house arrest, but that hadn’t meant she couldn’t have visitors.
The look upon James Potter’s face as he came through the Floo had been a sight to see.
“Why the Leaky?” Potter asks, looking around and politely ignoring the way those who recognise her outright gawk. The sheer balls she has to have done what she did–
Well, Caelum can remember the upset, the disappointment at being told he was going to Durmstrang instead of Hogwarts. He’d been furious, humiliated that neither of his parents apparently trusted him to attend the very school they had. Worried he would be sullied by the blood traitors that roamed the halls. Instead, they’d shipped him off to Eastern Europe, to the seat of Pureblood ideals. He’d never dreamed of going against them though. Would never have thought to go against society itself if they were the ones holding him back.
The funny thing is, if they’d allowed him to attend Hogwarts, perhaps then he’d have interacted with Rigel Black (Potter) enough in her ruse that he’d feel as thoroughly betrayed as her former friends.
As it is, Caelum knows her only through their potioneering work, their joint projects and the developing habit of restaurant hopping.
He knows her as that spark flint that has burned away the paper walls his parents and society had erected to narrow his world view. He’d been aware there was life beyond those walls, how could he not given his interest in academia? But there’d not been a desire to explore it.
Never had been.
Not until Potter had set it alight, torched the boundaries of his world until she’d stoked the flames and they’d eaten through everything, consumed the comforting restrictions of thought he’d known all his life.
“We have to set the line for basic expectations in our restaurant ratings,” Caelum says with a sniff, watching Potter’s lips twist up into a smile.
How ridiculous it is to think this girl is the formidable dueller he’d watched on a screen during the Triwizard Tournament. She’d been glorious then, unyielding and flexible and an utterly unstoppable force that just couldn’t be put down.
She’d been wildfire that no other contestant had the ability to deal with- no.
She’d been fiendfyre, devouring all her opposition and burning all the brighter for it.
All from one unassuming little match.
“I’m not exactly an inconspicuous halfblood who’s secretly a pureblood anymore,” Potter mutters, running a hand through the short hair atop her head. It’s slightly longer than it was during her ruse, curling over the back of her neck, but still uncomfortably short for a respectable Pureblood lady.
Caelum finds he doesn’t care.
What woman from the list his father had oh so proudly presented him with could command magic like she can? What woman could start a fire that changes the world as effectively as Harriet Potter does?
It’s delusory to think he’ll ever be able to settle for anyone else when the girl before him burns so bright that he’s blind to any other.
“I wouldn’t settle for anything less. Anyone I spend my time with has to be resplendent.” It’s not the word he wants to use, but Caelum’s beginning to come to the conclusion that such a word doesn’t actually exist.
The smile on her face has flared into a full blown grin. Her lower lip has a small cut to the left, like she’s toyed with the skin a bit too much and it has bled recently.
He wants to taste the copper tang of it on his tongue and that is when Caelum knows he’s come undone.
“Did you think I would waste my time visiting you, only to dismiss our relationship when out in public? Whatever has given a brat like you the impression that I care what others think?” He knows exactly what has given her the impression, is more than aware of it.
But, he’s grown too.
Fire burns through matter, releasing nutrients into the soil to enable growth. It removes weeds and other unnecessary elements.
He feels purer for knowing her.
“Relationship?” Potter parrots, one eyebrow arching while she looks him over, arms folded across her chest as she shifts her weight to rely more upon one leg, hip cocked. “Not friendship?”
“I am no expert on friendship,” Caelum drawls, “but I am quite certain the thoughts I have of you aren’t the kind shared between friends.” He drops his gaze to her lips again meaningfully.
Potter doesn’t move, even as he leans forwards, even as he takes a gentle hold of her chin and presses his lips to hers.
She doesn’t move until there’s contact and then he’s the fire, a chemical reaction only she can bring about because she’d a fucking match who is kissing back.
And Caelum will spend the rest of his life burning for her, if she’ll let him.