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Of course Harry would only learn it was Caelum’s birthday a few weeks before the day itself. Even if he had found it within himself to acknowledge that they were friends, he couldn’t change that much.
No matter. Harry would make this a birthday to remember. And if it was in part an attempt to match the party he had thrown her after she passed her Potions Mastery, that was a bonus.
Leo too, joined in. Caelum should have expected no less what with Leo’s repeated entering through the window.
They would make fast friends if Harry had anything to say about it. Even if Caelum didn’t know about the Court of the Rogue yet. It was only a matter of time. With him living in the alleys, with him meaning so much to her, she wanted, nay needed him to know. Besides, she thought, his potions prowess could be valuable.
…
The obvious idea was to host a party for Caelum at the Dancing Phoenix, and with Leo’s agreement, the next step was to inform Caelum about the Rogue.
…
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell him yourself?” Harry asked Leo one day, a little more than a week before Caelum’s birthday.
“He’ll probably take it better coming from you,” Leo replied. “He barely even refers to me by my name.”
A small wry smile appeared on Harry’s face. It was true. Caelum often referred to Leo merely as “her tall friend” or something similar.
“Alright,” she said, grinning at him. “Don’t worry about him not referring to you by name though, you just have to bully him until it happens.”
And if for whatever reason Leo wasn’t comfortable with that, Harry would do it herself.
…
It was just a random Sunday, but Harry made a nice brunch for the two of them.
Caelum, sitting down across from her, raised an eyebrow. “What’s this for?”
Harry grinned winningly at him. “Can I not appreciate my friend with a nice Sunday brunch?”
Caelum’s eyes narrowed. “No.” He said shortly.
Harry laughed and speared a potato from the kale-breakfast sausage-potato dish she’d made. “Okay then, I have something to tell you.”
Caelum raised one beautifully sculpted eyebrow her way. She was well aware her friend was gorgeous, but it didn’t affect her in any meaningful way; it was just a simple fact. Like a beautiful piece of art.
“So,” she said. It really would have been so much easier if Leo had taken this over; he had practice with introducing the Court of the Rogue to newcomers. How had he introduced it to her, all those years ago? For the life of her she could not remember.
“You know Leo,” she said.
Caelum nodded, eyes narrowing. “Yes, I know the tall fellow who breaks in through our window on the regular.”
Harry’s eyes crinkled in the corners with her fond smile. Our window. No matter how many time she heard him use that possessive pronoun like that, it always sent her heart a flutter. “Yes, him.” She bit down on her lip. “And you’re familiar, at least tangentially with the Lower Alleys?”
Caelum nodded again.
“Well.” She started again. She was truly doing a terrible job of this but she persisted. “So. The Lower Alleys. Has its own system of government.” She paused, collecting her thoughts and trying to figure the best way to explain this. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the general British Wizarding World doesn’t much care about the people down here.”
(She was heartened to see his nod then.)
“Yeah,” she said. “Well, Leo is the leader of the Lower Alleys. The position is called the Rogue.”
…
All in all, Caelum took it fine.
He had his questions, but so had she when Leo told her about the Rogue.
Whether Caelum would now have a more positive view of Leo when he popped in through the window, remained to be seen.
…
The anniversary of Caelum’s birth finally came, and Harry made sure to be out of the apartment when he woke up. There was a lot to do at the Dancing Phoenix to make it perfect for Caelum’s birthday.
…
When everything was set and ready, Harry popped into her flat to see Caelum. He was in the lab, of course, and she stood in the door watching him.
He was immersed in his brewing, long hair pulled back by a ribbon and wearing an intense look of concentration on his face.
She often brewed with him, but it was a more rare occasion when she just watched.
It was so easy to get caught up in it, this vision of Caelum lost in his brewing.
He was just lowering the heat set below his cauldron when his beautiful blue eyes caught on her. They softened, that intense look falling away to a warm one. And she loved them both so much. Almost as much as she loved him.
She hadn’t told him as much yet, but one day.
Harry was going to make sure he knew just how much he meant to her.
It wasn’t romantic—though sometimes she second guessed that—it was simply the fact that he brought such fulfillment to her life. His presence brought light to her days and there was little she wouldn’t do to make sure she did the same for him.
Caelum cast a stasis spell on his cauldron then walked over to join her. “You’re back,” he said. She glanced at the old clock she’d installed in their lab. She’d been out all morning and several hours into the afternoon.
“I am,” she said, looking back at him. “You up to go out?”
“Where?” He replied. She could see him bite down a haughty remark.
“It’s a surprise,” she responded. “C’mon, change your clothes.” She leaned in and gave an overdramatic sniff. “Maybe shower too.”
He narrowed his eyes at her and this time didn’t bother to rein in the snark. “Bold words coming from you.”
Harry merely shrugged. His bite didn’t bother her. No, in fact she welcomed it, cherished it even.
“Go on,” she motioned him out of the lab. “We’re going to be late.”
Caelum paused right in front of the bathroom door. “What do you have planned?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she said and directed her magic to give him a light nudge.
He shook his head but shut the door behind him and soon enough she heard the sound of the shower start.
…
Forty minutes and three outfit changes later they finally left their flat.
“Now will you tell me where we’re going?” He asked as she took a left, leading him deeper into the alleys, a direction she had a hunch he hadn’t gone before.
“No,” she said simply. And that was how the walk to the Dancing Phoenix went.
…
She and Leo had thrown several ideas back and forth after she’d proposed this. (There was more than one occasion when she’d considered shelving the whole plan and possibly just ignoring that it was Caelum’s birthday. That felt wrong though.)
In the end, they went with something simple but not dissimilar to the party he’s planned and thrown for her when she passed her Potions Mastery. (Albeit also with a lot less people.)
She hoped he’d enjoy it, and it was late enough in the winter day that Kasten would be able to join without any additional considerations.
It was probably a selfish party in part. But in the months she’d been living with Caelum, even Harry had come to the conclusion that he needed more friends.
Contrary to the person she’d been when she concocted the whole ruse, she now knew you couldn’t simply make a fulfilling life out of potions and brewing. You need relationships outside of the one between a brewer, their cauldron and their ingredients.
She was well aware that even the man Caelum now was wouldn’t admit that he was lonely. But she knew.
…
Outside the inn, she turned to Caelum. “Here we are.”
She watched him suppress his first reaction (disdain) before the second (intrigue and mild confusion) grew across his face.
“And this is…?”
Stepping to the door and grabbing the handle, Harry said, “the Dancing Phoenix. Headquarters for the Court of the Rogue.” She pulled it open. “And the venue for your birthday party today.”
Caelum stood frozen but didn’t seem upset.
…
That was the other thing. Harry was ill inclined to ask Caelum about how his childhood at Dartmoor, but she suspected it had been lonely. Even if he had been a spoiled child—and sometimes she wondered if the lordling countenance he adopted was just a facade to protect himself—it couldn’t have been a warm childhood, not with his parents being who they were. If Harry had any interest in even being in Draco’s presence again, she might have gone to him for information about his cousin. But not even Caelum could make her willingly seek out her former friend.
…
“I didn’t know you knew,” he said, still not moving into the building.
Letting out a loud sigh, Harry let go of the door and grabbed his hand herself. “You’re my friend, Caelum. No matter how exasperating I might find you on occasion, I’m always looking for a chance to celebrate you and make you happy.”
He seemed so struck by that, like that concept was entirely foreign to him. (And that was exactly the sort of expression that made her think his whole attitude from before they became friends was a shield.)
“Now come inside and meet the nice people who also want to celebrate you,” she said and gently pulled on his hand.
With that reminder a pureblood mask, not an ugly or mean one though, dropped onto his face and he followed her inside.
…
Leo was the first person Harry saw, and she grinned at him. Caelum’s reaction, she noticed, was less enthused than her own but not exactly unfriendly. She would mark that as a win and so, she suspected, would Leo.
“Happy Birthday!” Leo greeted.
“Thank you,” Caelum said. He didn’t even grit his teeth.
Harry wouldn’t patronize him by saying how proud she was of him, but internally she felt it deeply.
Kasten walked up to them next, and Harry made the introduction. He’d been at the party Caelum had organized, but she wasn’t sure if they’d officially met yet.
Her closest Potions friends. Yes, she was very much hoping they would hit it off.
The potions the three of them might invent working together. Why wouldn’t she be excited about that?
She’d invited others there, but Leo and Kasten were the ones she most cared about Caelum interacting with.
Though, she also had plans for Caelum to meet Rispah and discuss teaching in the alleys. She’d brought it up to Leo previously, but he’d directed her to Rispah, citing it as more her realm of duties than his. Funny how she still didn’t totally know about their roles and duties all these years later.
That would change if she had her way with her plan to develop a more comprehensive brewing program in the alleys.
Perhaps even a full-blown homeschool cooperative. But that was more of a pipe dream than a daydream with a basis in reality.
Standing beside Leo, Harry grinned as she watched Kasten pull Caelum into a discussion—although perhaps argument might be more accurate—about essences and their uses in Potions.
Merlin did it send a thrill through her.
“Happy?” Leo whispered.
“Ecstatic.”
…
Later, after Harry had noticed Caelum’s pureblooded manners and attitude loosening, she brought Rispah over to him. She too, Harry supposed, he might have met when arranging her party (and really she should ask him how exactly he’d gathered all those people who meant so much to her for it), but it didn’t hurt to introduce them to each other again.
“Leo’s cousin, Rispah,” she said. The woman herself curtsied, bowing her head in a way that only drew more attention to her décolletage. It was a move Harry had witnessed numerous times, and she was curious to see the reaction it evoked in Caelum.
Not much in fact. He was polite mostly. A thought niggled at the back of her mind but didn’t quite surface.
“Caelum is almost as skilled a brewer as I am,” Harry said, and he shot a glare her way.
“That’s an untruth, and it’s rude to slander a man on his birthday.”
“Oh, really?” Harry arched an eyebrow. “Who is the youngest Potions Master in history again?” She didn’t bring it out often, but every once in a while it was fun to remind Caelum of.
“Master Snape,” Caelum responded promptly. “You’re a Potions Mistress.”
Harry rolled her eyes. “Prescriptive grammar at its finest. You know what I meant.”
Rispah was watching them in a way that made Harry slightly wary. She should’ve been used to it by now, but it still filled her with discomfort, the knowledge that people—people that she loved and trusted—saw her and Caelum out and about just living their lives and assumed it was romantic.
Flirting.
They might even be. But flirting didn’t have to mean anything. The literal dictionary definition in fact stated that it didn’t, that it was without seriously wanting a relationship with the person. (Maybe now she was the one being prescriptive about language even internally, but bloody hell she just wanted to live her life with Caelum in peace.)
Just because she and Caelum might have chemistry didn’t mean it was romantic.
But Harry didn’t want to have to come out to every single person she met.
And she shouldn’t have to. Her relationship with Caelum stood outside of her own romantic and sexual identities. In this society of it being “impolite to have a preference,” friendship would go practically nonexistent if hypothetical attraction precluded platonic relationships.
“Fine,” Caelum conceded and then spoke directly to Rispah. “I’m a brewer of considerable skill, and just marginally less capable than Harry here.”
Harry nodded her thanks and swallowed the sour taste in her mouth. “He should teach in the lower alleys,” she explained. “With two people we’ll be able to teach more classes and a greater variety too. Not to mention how it will improve the quality of the classes themselves.” She had more to say but Rispah cut her off.
“I think it’s a good idea.”
“Yeah?” Harry lit up. Teaching with Caelum. Just a few years ago it would have been unimaginable and now it was mere weeks, or even days, away from becoming a reality.
Rispah nodded. “I always like expanding the classes we’re able to offer the community.”
Harry turned to Caelum next. It was just on him then, whether he would agree, whether he might consider it beneath himself.
He didn’t even glance her way or pause before responding. “When can I start?”
…
The rest of the celebration was no less wonderful, with Harry feeling like she was floating by the end of it. It wasn’t about her though, so she was heartened to see that Caelum seemed to be in just as much of a good mood and making fast friends with the members of the Court gathered there.
They didn’t leave until nearly midnight, and the good mood persisted on their walk home.
“What did you think?” She chanced asking.
His hand sought out hers and squeezed tightly. “Thank you.”
Not an answer to her question, but she could probably count the number of times he’d told her thank you before on her own two hands so she would take it. “You’re so very welcome, Caelum.”
She looked up at him then, under the light of the stars and the moon, hoping he would be able to make out the twinkle in her eye. “Just know I have high expectations for my birthday. July thirty-first. Don’t forget it.”