Resigned to his fate, Ben made his way over to Number 7. Felix in his arms didn’t really look enthusiastic but when did cats ever? Besides, he could always just jump the garden wall and hop through Ben’s window in the evening.

Lunch had been a tense affair. Ben didn’t want to know how much of the six-pack had made its way into his mother’s stomach before the pizza was ready. He was glad to be out of the dingy little house. Even if it meant exposing his head to the sun again.

He quickly walked out of the little enclosure that was their front yard and closed the gate. Number 7 was just one house down. Leaning out their respective kitchen windows the neighbours could have just brushed their fingertips.

When he opened the gate to Number 7, he had to inevitably grin. Where their own front yard stood empty aside from the clothesline, some rusty flowerpot probably owned by his grandmother once and some other odds and ends, the front yard of Number 7 was overflowing with green. Even now, after half a year of absence the plants were shooting right up into the cloudless sky.

Every available ground space had been used efficiently. In some spots, the asphalt had even been broken up to make room for some herb patches. Flower bots, planting buckets and pails housed various specimens: some tall and with sweeping leaves, some small just curling their little yellow sprouts out of the earth, others sprawling out of their vessels like some walrus languishing at the sunny beach. A few of them had almost geometrical shapes where others didn’t even seem to follow the laws of gravity. And some plants, located purposefully in the remote corners, Ben was sure, appeared to be radiating curious lights.

Ben had always liked the garden since his younger self had strayed into it some eight years ago. The one in the back was bigger and even more impressive, of course. But he still liked the small one better. Maybe, bound by nondescript brick walls, it were exactly these stones that held so much more than the ones enclosing their own front yard that made the one at Number 7 magical to him.

“Well, you have grown.”

“Hello, sir,” smiled Ben as the door opened.

It was true. Where once Ben had to crane his neck impossibly to see the inhabitant of Number 7, they now stood almost eye-to-eye. And that was not counting the front steps. He watched Felix idly sniff some flowers that bizarrely changed from red to orange every few seconds. Must have been a trick of the light, Ben decided.

“Your plants have grown as well.”

Apparently, this didn’t deign a response, as the man only lifted his eyebrows.

“I’ve brought Felix.”

“That I can see,” he said with a slight smile.

“Are you gonna invite me in for tea, sir?”

Again with the eyebrows.

“Your mother didn’t make any?”

“Since when does my mother make tea?” Ben asked with mock confusedness.

“Exactly.”

He turned around and disappeared into the narrow hallway.

“Well, come on then, Benjamin.”

Ben skipped the few steps, toed off his shoes under the coat rack and followed Felix into the kitchen, who as if sensing that there would be a treat, had come in as well.

“Do you have to call me that?”

“What? Benjamin?”

“Ugh!”

“It is your name, is it not?”

“Well yeah, but only my teachers call me that.”

“It’s a perfectly acceptable name,” he said and put a steaming cup down in front of Ben.

“You had this ready!” Ben said grinning. “You have been waiting for me.”

“Maybe I just knew your mother would make you bring Felix here as soon as she saw me returning,” he said crouching on the tiles to fill a plate with some milk.

“Or perhaps I merely enjoy tea at this hour every day.”

“Keep your secrets then.”

Ben took a big slurp from the cup and sighed contentedly as the steaming mixture warmed him up from the inside and settled his pizza-clogged stomach. He didn’t even know he felt cold before the tea spread through him.

“How has your term been, Benjamin?”

“Ben,” he murmured.

“How has your term been, Ben?”

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

This time Ben could only imagine the eyebrows as the man was still kneeling on the kitchen floor ruffling the cat’s fur. Felix purred happily between licking up the milk.

Still, his expression was hearable enough.

“Just the usual,” Ben replied absentmindedly watching the two.

“Mmh. Have you not turned sixteen in February?”

“Yes, and you did send me a card, remember?”

“Indeed, I did.”

“Thanks sir.”

“Mmpf…”

There was some silence then as he straightened out his back and refilled Ben’s cup while sitting down at the table.

“Is not sixteen a somewhat significant age?”

“I suppose so.”

“You are allowed to enter apprenticeships now, are you not?” he asked conversationally

“Guess so.”

“And here I thought you would jump at the opportunity to shorten your days in school.”

“Why’d I jump at that, sir?”

“Well, I for one seem to remember you constantly complaining about all the academic work you had to undertake these last summers.”

Ben looked down and his eye strayed to Felix who, finished with the milk, was now weaving around the legs of the professor’s chair. The man reached down and scooped the feline up onto his lap. There the red cat rolled up and began licking his paws.

“My mum wants me to go into an apprenticeship after the summer,” he said blowing out some air.

“I can detect some underlying displeasure from your tone.”

Ben looked up. The professor was surveying him thoughtfully.

“Sorry sir, I’m not really up to talking. I didn’t want to be rude or something.”

“Or something,” he smirked, “you weren’t being rude.”

Silence settled on them again, but the professor was content to wait it out just as usual. They drank their tea, both watching the strange plants in the back garden rock slightly in the breeze, the tiniest precursor of an oncoming evening storm.

When there was no tea left, Ben pushed his stool back.

“Thanks for the tea, sir.”

“It was no trouble, Benjamin.”

They moved into the hall, Felix following on the professor’s heels. He wouldn’t come back this fast, thought Ben. The professor held open the door for him.

He was almost all the way down the steps and through the gate when he turned around again. Ben smiled.

“Welcome home, Mr. Snape.”