Delectable Decisions

Hoo, Hoo

Caelum scowls miserably at the owl who just flew through his window, letter still sealed with the Lestrange crest and tied to its leg.

How can she not even open it?

He sighs irritably through his nose, startling the owl from its perch.  Caelum runs a soothing finger down the ruffled feathers, settling the animal, before offering a treat.  He’d not stupid, he knows why she won’t open any letters from him.  As far as she’s concerned he’s a bigoted pureblood who’s work for a dangerous extremist exposed the dangerous game she’d played for years, under the noses of some of the most powerful people in magical Britain.

He can’t even argue that Harry (and when had he begun to think of her by her first name?) was even fully wrong.  A part of him still recoiled from anything Muggle, and another part of him physically shuddered at the though of marrying a Mud—Muggleborn.  But he was trying, dammit!  He’d written letter after letter to her, attempting to explain why he’d done what he did.  That he didn’t know his mother requested he brew for a literal terrorist, that he’d just finally seen a chance to make her realize how useful potion is, how useful he is—

Oh.

On second thought, Caelum’s rather glad that Harry doesn’t appear to have opened any of the letters he’d previously sent.  Something tells him Harry doesn’t want his excuses.  He sighs and grabs a new piece of parchment and a quill.

Let’s try this again, shall we?

___

“Turn left.”  Caelum does, and stops in front of a building in the middle of a residential neighborhood.  It’s nice, at least for the lower alleys.  The paint clearly gets refreshed periodically and the flowers look as though they’ve been maintained long-term.  There’s a small vegetable garden, marked for communal use.  On the whole, it’s a charming place.  And utterly not what Caelum was expecting.

“We’re brewing here?”  His tone earns him a warning glare from Harry, and he tries to remind himself that he’s barely got a leg to stand on here.  He’s trying not to sound utterly rude, but truly, he’d have been less surprised if she’d brought him to a vampire’s den.  This place seemed utterly…normal.

“Well, I can’t exactly bring you to my parents’ place, now can I? And I am certainly not going to your place.”  There’s a bitter edge to the look she sends him, as though it was meant to be humorous but missed the mark.  She unlocks a side door, leading up to a set of stairs.  Caelum trails behind her, attempting to look at ease despite how awkward he feels.  She unlocks the door to the flat at the top of the stairs, and lets him in.

The apartment looks…odd, would probably be the most polite way to phrase it.  None of the furniture quite matches, and the general quality and age of the items makes the whole room look cheaply thrown together.   The layout and randomness of the mugs and cookware visible gives the place the air of an area which was arrange in very little time, with very little thought, and never touched again.

“Bunt cake?” Caelum turns to the sound of the voice, to see Harry looking at him, hilding a tupperware of cake.

“Pardon?”

“It’s about tea-time.  We can break and then brew.”

“Right.  Did you…bake that?” He probably sounds terribly rude, but he also feels a little faint from the shock of the whole situation.

“Yeah. Do you like English Breakfast? It’s all I have.”

“Sure. 2 sugars, no cream, please.”  Harry moves through the awkwardly laid-out space with ease, as though she does this on the regular.  Caelum gets the feeling there’s an obvious answer here, but he’s honestly still a little numb from seeing Harry looking so…normal.

She lays out two plates, two mugs of tea, and placed the Tupperware of bunt cake in the center.  She gestures for Caelum to sit.  He does. “Cheers,” He mumbles.

Caelum had forgotten, somewhere in the mad bustle of losing Harriet over brewing and then somehow getting her back, that she’d supposedly been living in the lower alleys this entire time, home schooling herself.  This flat lends some credence to that particular tale.

“Right then,” Harry says, settling into her own chair, “What’s this about your sudden change of heart then?”

“Er—” Caelum’s elocution teacher is rolling in his grave, “It’s all pretty much in the letter.”

“Yes,” Harry agrees, almost pleasantly, “But I’d rather hear it from you.  Get talking.”

So Caelum does.

___

Dear HarryHarriet Potter,

The first time you walked into our internship, I knew you for what you were immediately.  You were in robes, but I spotted a Muggle trouser cuff when you sat down, and your short hair so deliberately stood out against the hair I’d grown used to on pureblood women.  I knew instantly that you were not only a young girl, but likely a halfblood who disapproved of everything about the society where I grew up.

And then you introduced yourself, and I was determined to hate you.  And I did, for a while.

But you were always there, always polite, always helpful.  You bought me that meal in aroma alley.  And you looked at me like you understood how it felt to know nothing better than potions.

I did something unforgivable.  I did it for my mother.  I shouldn’t have done it.

Whether you can find it in yourself to forgive me or not, know that I am sorry.

I still don’t like muggle trousers, or food, or slang.  I still don’t like it when people try to tell me that my entire culture is backwards and wrong.  I still don’t fully know what I think about your blood status.

But, if you are still interested, I look forward to continuing our research together.  I recently made some interesting advancements.

Stay safe, Brat.

-Caelum

*Letter Sealed in plain wax, with no insignia*

___

One, two, three, One, two, three, One, two, three

The sun beats down on the back of Caelum’s neck as he carefully steps his way through Harry’s intricate footwork exercises.  He’s been moving for hours, and still has yet to cast a single spell.

“Remind me,” pant, “Why,” pant, “I’m doing this,” pant, “Again?”  Harry just send him an amused glance from where she is folding herself into impossible shapes on the ground by his feet.

“You’re the one participating in and incredibly dangerous and high-interest research project.  I would have thought you’d want to protect yourself?”

The worst part is that Caelum should already be able to protect himself.  Bellatrix put him through the ringer as a child, and he’s generally considered a good dueler.  But it’s easy to let physical fitness slide in the name of a potion.  He goes to speak, but the momentary distraction is too much, and he trips.  Spitting dirt out of his mouth, he flips onto his back to see Harry laughing, while Leo lurks distrustfully in the shadow of the kitchen door.

His presence there is a reminder—Harry may have given Caelum a second chance, but he is neither trusted, nor welcome.

It makes Caelum want to scream.  He knows there is research Harry won’t share with him, that he’s never truly alone with her, that he’s been fundamentally marked as unworthy.  He’s not quite sure what to make of it.  Caelum was raised to peer down his nose at others, not the other way around.

Harry’s finally made her way over to him, and offer Caelum a hand up.  Halfblood, whispers his brain, don’t touch.  Dangerous, unclean, your mother would be ashamed—

Caelum takes Harry’s hand.

___

They’ve been brewing in shifts for the past several days.

This particular brainchild of Harry’s is expected to take a week total to finish brewing.  They both know better than to walk away from a potentially unstable brew.  So here he is, crashing on Harry’s couch, getting his precious few hours of sleep before it’s time to get up and start brewing again.

Caelum’s not quite sure what wakes him up.  Leo’d been here when he fell asleep, talking to Harry softly enough that he couldn’t catch a single word the pair spoke.  Maybe there was a change in volume, or just a change in atmosphere, but he slowly drifts back into the world of the living.  And Caelum can hear voices.

“I just can’t understand why you’re trusting him with this.” Leo, of course.

“He’s proven himself multiple times.  He cares about the research Leo.”

“I don’t doubt that, lass.” Leo sounds resigned.

“Then what’s the problem?”

“I just wonder if he cares about the cause.  About people like you.  About you for that matter.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  Harry’s voice is defensive, hurt.

“You can’t pretend you don’t see the way he looks at you sometimes.  They way he looks at all the squibs, muggleborns, and halfbloods.” Caelum feels shame lance through him, white-hot and unavoidable.  So, he hadn’t been subtle after all. “He’s trying lass, I’ll give him that, but I’m just not convinced—"

“Sometimes I’m not convinced either Leo.”

“Then why…?”

“Because…Because right when I’m about to cut him loose, right when I’m about to say goodbye to him forever, right when I turn my back on him, I—” She cuts herself off, hesitating.

“You?”

“Right when I turn away, I look back at him, just for a moment.”

“And?”

“And every single time, he is looking back.” Leo is silent a moment.  Then,

“Oh.”  Harry lets out a small laugh.

“Yeah.  I figure, as long as he’s reaching out, I will keep reaching back.  And I know I don’t have to.  But I’ve lost a lot of friends recently.  I think I’m ready to fight for the few I still have.”

There’s no noise but the sounds of cauldrons bubbling and then Leo asks “Isn’t it about time to wake him up?”

“Let him sleep.  We have a long day ahead of us.”

___

“Our Lord needs you again, Caelum.”

He’s sitting at the dining room table, across from his mother and Lord Carrow.  Caelum’s been expecting this call for a while now.  After all, he did so well the first time, clearly he deserved a second chance in the eyes of their lord.

“Interesting, Mother, I thought we served Lord Riddle.”  His voice is cold, deadpan.

“We do, in a fashion.”  There’s a gleam in his mother’s eyes Caelum knows all to well—she’s found a new way to release her violent urges, her desire to cause destruction.  He remembers his father’s off-hand comment at the most recent gala—"The Blacks are all half-mad.”

“You’ve dedicated your life to Lord Riddle.”

“And look what he did! Promised to wed you to those lesser than you! To sacrifice the purity of my line.  I would have wed a sibling before a Mudblood, I’ll tell you that, and I’d expect the same from you! No,” here she breathes deeply, “Lord Riddle has lost sight of his goals.  My new Lord remembers.”

Caelum grimaces.  If he speaks now, he gets the impression he can never go back on his word.  Harry’s words come to mind; Caelum’s never had real friends before.  He thinks he might be willing to risk it all for the one he’s managed to make.

“No.”

“Pardon me?”

“He might be your lord, but he certainly isn’t mine.  And I would marry a half-blood, for the record.  I wouldn’t even need to be forced.”

Something goes dark behind his mother’s eyes.  Caelum braces for the storm.

___

“You look tired.”

He hates that she sounds concerned.  From where he’s slumped in his chair–and isn’t that funny? It’s his chair– he can make out her boots through the silken strands of his hair.

“We can talk about it you know.  If you want.  I can listen.”

She’s gotten closer.  Why does she always get closer?  If she’d stay away, he thinks he’d feel better.  Maybe a little bit more alive than this.  Maybe alone he could cry and sob and rail at the world.  Or maybe alone he could ignore it all just a little longer.  But she’s next to him, and in this odd liminal space between the source of all his problems and himself, Caelum really can’t even begin to determine how he wants to feel. 

“Or maybe not,” she’s babbling now, the way she only does when she feels unsettled, and uncertain where to step next.  She sometimes babbles to seem stupid, or to disarm those around her, present this odd façade of innocence and gullibility. But lately, since the time he’d almost successfully shaken her, since she’d willingly taken steps out of his life and closed the door in his face—lately she’s been babbling a lot more.  And he doesn’t think it’s to fool him.  Caelum’s not sure Harry even can fool him anymore.  “Maybe we can just pretend nothing’s wrong.  That you’re totally normal.  In fact, let’s do that! Let’s go eat, and you can tell me how much you hate the food and nothing will be wrong, besides your open disdain—”

He still isn’t talking.

“Or we can be quiet,” She says, taking another step towards him, and sitting on the floor beside his chair, “I never was that good at pretending anyway.”

And he snorts, and she breathes a sigh of relief, and maybe he’s going to be okay.

___

Lately, Caelum’s been struggling to make ends meet.  Being cut off from a family fortune very suddenly while still being apprenticed can really ruin one’s financial plans.  His days of fairy wine and fancy French restaurants are far behind him.

Sometimes he struggles with living in the alleys.  He hates the grime, the fashion, the general acceptance of pickpocketing and crime.  On his bad days, he’s not entirely comfortable with his downstairs neighbor, a muggleborn, or her ailing partner, a squib.  But whenever they host a house party, he’s invited.  And he always goes.  He figures it’s the small steps, that one day he’ll be able to converse with them without ever feeling like he needs to bite his tongue.

And on days when he’s struggling to feed himself, he can wander down to the Dancing Phoenix and sit with a random group of people, and eat a small cheap meal.  And regardless of who he’s dining with, Caelum never wants to be anywhere else.