Chapter One

"Kayla Longbottom, I am about to change your life."

Hugo Weasley had burst into Slug & Jiggers Apothecary a few moments earlier, making Kayla drop her beaker and blink behind her goggles.

"What's this, now?" She squeaked.

Hugo was drenched from the pouring rain and proceeded to splatter water all over Kayla as he stepped forward. "I am about to shift the stars in the universe in your normally-unlucky favour."

"What's this, now?" The commotion had attracted the attention of Kevin MacMillan, Kayla's co-worker, who had come out of the back room. He saw Hugo and gave him a smile and nod. "Hugo."

Hugo only glared at Kevin angrily, which confused Kayla. Kevin was her best friend's (and Hugo's cousin's) Lily Potter's boyfriend, and tended to get along with Hugo quite well. Instead, Hugo ignored him and turned back to Kayla.

"I found something that you need to see," he said urgently, coming forwards and grabbing onto Kayla's wrist. He dragged her out from behind the counter and ripped off the goggles, making her squeak again. "You need to come with me. Right now!"

"I'm working," Kayla told him, smoothing out her hair and setting the goggles aside. "Can't it wait until lunch in forty-five minutes –"

"Absolutely not!" Hugo cried out, looking affronted. He grabbed her by the shoulders and leaned down to stare straight into Kayla's eyes. She wondered if his back hurt doing this, he was so tall. "Do you remember last week, when we were talking?"

"We talk every day," she said wearily, staring a raindrop that was sliding down Hugo's nose.

"No, I mean that time at the Leaky Pub –"

"Again, every day." His nose had rather a lot of freckles. Had he always had those?

Hugo put his hand over her mouth. "Remember when you were telling me about your writing?" She nodded. "I found this thing you have to do."

Kayla pushed his hand away and peered at him. "Like a job?"

"Way better."

"You made me go to lunch early for this?"

Kayla and Hugo were standing in front to Rosa Lee's Teabag – Kayla's favourite café in Diagon Alley. The rain was still falling heavily around them, but at least Kayla had an umbrella. Hugo had dragged her to see a large white sign that had been posted in the window. In large gold letters, it stated:

SPRING POETRY SLAM OPEN MIC

Nationally Acclaimed Guest Poets Every Week

EVERY FRIDAY 6 P.M. SIGNUP

"Yes, this!" Hugo was looking at her strangely. "Weren't you saying how you were worried your writing would never be appreciated?"

"Yes, because I've never shown it to anyone. And," Kayla said, blushing but still glaring at her tall friend, "I never want to. I was just being dumb."

"Oh, that's just silly," Hugo told her, waving a hand at her. "This is going to change everything, Kayla. I can feel it."

She sighed. Hugo had it in his mind that she was somehow unhappy, but she really wasn't. She liked her job as a Magical Herbs Specialist at the Apothecary. The writing was just something she liked to do in the mornings before work, when the London rain was endlessly falling and she was enjoying her coffee. Her life was simple, and she liked it that way.

Hugo thought it was just a travesty, of course.

Kayla had dreams that slowly morphed into ambitions. She thought about the other plans she'd always been thinking about – growing new plants with different magical properties, publishing a book, maybe travelling to a few places outside of the country for the first time.

And to her credit, she had started growing a couple of tiny magical plants on her windowsill. She had a little savings building up in the jar on her bedside table. Things were fine, even if her dreams would take a while to get to.

It didn't mean her life needed change.

Kayla snatched her umbrella from him and started down the path, leaving him in the rain. "I'm going to grab lunch."

"Kayla!" Hugo caught up with her and grabbed the umbrella back. "Just think about it. I know you hate public speaking, but –"

"Drop it."

"Think about it."

"Fine," she grumbled. She snuck a glance at him, hating how he sounded so disappointed. If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was letting down a friend. Even if they were being ridiculous. "If you buy me lunch."

"I'm supposed to meet Al for lunch."

"I'm joining."

"Fine," he said, mockingly imitating her. "But don't mention last weekend's Quidditch match, okay? He's still bummed out."

Kayla rolled her eyes but proceeded to follow Hugo to The Black Rose, a pub on the other side of Diagon Alley. It was a homey sort of pub, wooden furnishings and brightly lit candles floating everywhere. It was tiny and a cozy, and Hugo and Kayla had to squeeze their way through throngs of wizards at the bar to get to the back tables, where Albus Potter, Hugo's older cousin, was sitting.

Al didn't look dishevelled from the rain at all; his hair was dry, though pointing in all directions as usual. He was reading The Daily Prophet and didn't look up when Hugo and Kayla sat down at the opposite side of the table. "Took you long enough."

"It was raining."

"Did it prevent you from walking the five steps over here?"

"I was busy changing Kayla's life, for Merlin's sake," Hugo replied to his cousin, and Kayla glared at him. Al looked up at this, noticing her there for the first time. "And then I owed her lunch."

"Sounds about right," Al said gloomily. "The Tutshell Tornados lost this weekend."

"You are the only one of us who still supports them."

"Scorpius does, too," Kayla supplied, glad they weren't going to talk about Hugo attempting to change her life. She'd only told Hugo about her writing because he was her best friend. And maybe she'd been a bit tipsy.

"Lancanshire won against the Windborne Wasps, so that's an easy win for the Tornados. But," Hugo said, suddenly sounding quite proud, "They'll have to defeat the Chudley Cannons, first."

"The Cannons already lost against the Holyhead Harpies," Al argued.

"Yes," Kayla piped up, interest picking up at her favourite team, "But the Cannons scored 250 points, so…"

"Did you hear?" Al interjected, looking at her. "The Harpies just beat Puddlemere United about thirty minutes ago."

"I'm not surprised," she said, though a smile was growing on her face. She turned to Hugo and stuck her tongue out at him. He immediately made a face; the Cannons hadn't gotten very far since he was eleven years old.

"Let's change the subject," Hugo said, and it was evident that he was the one not up for Quidditch talk. "Food?

Their orders came, but Kayla picked at her roast chicken, not feeling quite hungry yet as Hugo and Al prattled on about something that happened in the news. Kayla couldn't help thinking about the poetry slam. It couldn't hurt to attend, listen to other poets, could it? Wizarding poetry tended to be about the war, and Kayla could do with some fresh voices.

But she could never perform. Not a chance.

Suddenly, a tiny light brown scops owl swooped in dropped a folded piece of parchment into Kayla's plate. She recognized it immediately as Lily's owl; they regularly sent messages at lunch, nothing usually important. Lily worked at the Ministry of Magic in the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.

"Is that Lily?" Al asked, noticing the note. "Tell her that our Mum and Dad have invited us for dinner on Saturday night."

Hugo groaned immediately and ran his hand through his bright red hair. "We were supposed to see that show, remember? Ask to reschedule, Kayla."

Kayla ignored both of them and opened the note from Lily, which read:

'I'll be home late tonight. Kevin is taking me out to dinner! – Lily x'

"She's going out with Kevin tonight?" Hugo asked, peering over Kayla's shoulder. "Why?"

She looked at him curiously. "They've only been going out for six months. What did you think they would do?"

"But I saw…" Hugo glanced at Al. "You may want to close your ears for this, mate."

"What?" he said, startled. "No way. Spit it out."

Kayla was surprised, too. She, Hugo, Lily and Al regularly spent time together since they all worked in Diagon Alley. Rose and Scorpius would join as well when they could get away from St. Mungo's, since they were close to Al from school. Kayla had been a friend of the family since childhood, but the six of them had become rather inseparable in the past few years.

But Al and Lily were siblings, and Kayla soon realized that had something to do with it.

"Well…" Hugo began to whisper, leaning into the centre of the table. Kayla and Al followed suit. "I saw Kevin at the Leaky Cauldron the other day, after you lot left. A little sloshed. He came up to my table and started spouting nonsense about how he's too young to get married."

Al looked at him strangely. "Rose and Scorpius are engaged, and they're twenty-five…"

"Yeah, and he's twenty-six," Hugo added in, "and Lily's twenty-four. But they've only been dating six months, so I didn't have any idea what he was going on about. It's not as though Lily has mentioned marriage at all."

Lily hadn't mentioned it to the boys, but she'd sort of mentioned it to Kayla. Only just last week, Lily and Kayla were watching muggle telly (a guilty pleasure) in their flat when Lily started talking about how the characters shouldn't be married in a barn. She then proceeded to talk about her ideal destination wedding on a beach.

That didn't count, did it?

"So after Kevin's done droning on about that," Hugo said, "He spots this equally sloshed witch over by the bar. And I swear he nearly went for it, though I dragged him out and threatened to hex him until he would need new nostrils."

"Which hex were you going to use, exactly?" Kayla asked.

"That son of a bitch…" Al began to mumble curse words under his breath.

"It's fine," Hugo reassured him. "I told him he had to break up with Lily unless he wanted me to tell her the little tale. He looked really guilty and agreed. I think sober Kevin didn't actually want to cheat."

"So Kevin's breaking up with Lily tonight?" Kayla repeated, looking down at the note in her hand. Lily seemed pretty excited for this date – she was going to be in for a shock. "Maybe we should warn her or something… she really likes Kevin."

"Are you kidding?" Al sputtered. "Remember the last time I meddled in her love life? She did that bloody Bat Bogey hex and I had to go to St. Mungo's!"

"Yeah, I wouldn't do anything," Hugo told Kayla. "She'll just find out that we had something to do with it and direct her anger at us. Let her be angry at the bloke."

"But…" Kayla trailed off, as Hugo and Al had moved onto talking about the show they were supposed to see on that weekend. Kayla felt like she had to do something. She decided to scribble on the back of Lily's note to send back:

'See you later tonight – I'm baking cookies. – Kayla'

And boy, Lily would need them tonight.

Back at the shop, Kayla was trying very hard to focus on her work. She loved Herbology since her father introduced her to his various magical plants as a kid. When she graduated, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do with her skills, so her father referred her to the Slug and Jiggers Apothecary. She was a decent Potions student, so she became in charge of extracting ingredients from plants and sending it to the North Side Apothecary across Diagon Alley.

The North Side Apothecary and came into collect ingredients every week, and in turn, traded a few common potions and ingredients for the students. Slug and Jiggers encountered most of the student population and the North Side Apothecary dealt with the more serious potion makers.

Kayla normally was very content to complete her work for the day, but her stomach was tied in knots thinking about Lily. They'd been friends since childhood, and when they went to Hogwarts, they'd been separated: Lily in Gryffindor, Kayla in Hufflepuff. Luckily, Hugo had been sorted into Hufflepuff and kept a close tie between the both of them.

Lily and Kayla lived together now, in Kayla's parents' old flat above the Leaky Cauldron. Her father, a Herbology professor at Hogwarts, was barely home except for summer. Her mother decided to buy a flat closer to St. Mungo's when she became a healer ten years before. Kayla loved living with her best friend, and she felt almost like a sister to her.

And even though Kayla and Kevin were working in separate rooms that day, she couldn't help glaring at his back whenever he walked out into the shop from the back room. He hadn't noticed her glaring daggers… perhaps since she stopped as soon as he looked at her.

She was a bit of a wimp that way.

Still, Kayla would later blame the growing tangled knot in her stomach for doing what she'd said next. She was counting fire seeds when Kevin came up beside her to use the cutting board. When she finished counting, she turned to him and said it.

"You're going to break up with Lily?"

Kevin nearly cut his finger and dropped the knife. He shook his hand and shot Kayla a look. "You could've given me a warning."

"You said you wouldn't hurt her," she said, becoming more upset by the minute. Why did people always have to hurt her friends? "Back when you told me –"

"Kayla," he said impatiently, "this is avoiding hurt. We've only been going out for six months. It isn't working for me. I'm not waiting until thirteen years into marriage to up and quit it."

She could see he was serious. She'd barely known him at Hogwarts – he was a couple of years above her. Seven months ago, when Kevin first started working in the shop, she and Kevin dated for a couple of weeks. He'd soon met Lily after and become enamoured with her, and Kayla, not quite seeing a future with Kevin, gave them her blessing. She loved seeing Lily falling in love and so happy, and she made Kevin promise he wouldn't hurt her.

She didn't have any feelings left over, but it still stung a little. After all, he'd chosen her beautiful, spontaneous, lively best friend over her… and that had happened more than once in her life.

"Why isn't it working?" Kayla found herself asking. She felt as though she was intruding, but she had to know. "What went wrong?"

Kevin sighed, turning away from her. "I dunno. It seems she's really invested in the future. She was talking about meeting her parents… it's too soon."

"I… suppose." Kayla could actually understand, to his credit. And she hated him a little bit for that. "But I still think –"

"Kayla, I don't want to get married for at least five years," he interrupted, whirling back to her. "I want to travel. I might transfer to research or the ministry. But I'm going to take Lily out tonight, tell her all of this and be a gentleman like you asked me to. And then she can make her decision."

Kayla looked at him sceptically, but Kevin moved back to chopping his ingredients for the display and she could tell he didn't want to talk about it anymore. And as bad as Kayla felt for Lily, no matter how much she wanted to punch Kevin in the jaw, she knew she was better than that. And that he had an annoying little point.

So, clenching her fists tightly, she didn't say anything. She didn't do anything.

Maybe there was only so much meddling one could do into someone else's relationship. Perhaps they wouldn't break up after all, and Lily would understand.

After work, Kayla headed back towards the café. It had stopped raining as she stopped in front of it, reading the large gold writing again. And again. And again. She asked herself why she was re-reading the sign when she really didn't want to have any part in any of it, but there was a tugging in her heart and she read it again.

She read the sign at least ten times before she caught her reflection in the mirror. A familiar sight of her round face, limp brown hair, bangs way too long and covering her eyes as usual.

And something unfamiliar, staring back, as if it had grown in overnight: dissatisfaction.

When Lily came in later that night, she slammed the front door of the flat as hard as she could, and the picture frames shook. Kayla was frozen over a bowl of cookie dough as Lily strut up and put an arm around her.

"Kayla," Lily said, her voice carefully calm, "we are getting pissed tonight." There was anger in her eyes.

Kayla was terribly glad it wasn't directed at her.