490 Haircut….

It was towards the end of June, when Rowan found herself roughly halfway finished with her alchemy formula portion of their assigned summer homework. Despite her continued bout of clumsiness, she'd vastly improved and as such was finally able to complete the assigned formula's. Unlike Severus who was specializing in alchemy potions, she was specializing in the side branch of Spagyric, (plant alchemy).

Dumbledore instead of having her pursue experimentation and potion making was having her read up on Herbology. There were in fact plant breeders among wizarding kind. However, unlike the plant breeders of the muggles of the future who were able to breed plants via genotypes and phenotypes, the wizarding kind were far behind them. Thankfully, the father of plant gene breeding, Gregor Mendel would begin his research and presentation in 1984.

However, since Rowan was already aware of the fact, she was wondering if magically there was a way to magically engineer a plant or to create one. With that purpose in mind, she began to work and recall everything she could about DNA manipulation and that of plant breeding or crossbreeding. She knew that after this year, once they finished working on journeyman level alchemy, the two of them would begin to be working on their mastery projects. It was best to get an idea early on which direction she wished to continue to purse Spargyric.

And thusly her time was spent in his manner until in early July, Rowan received a letter from Andrew Abbot.

"Dear Rowan,

I am presently living with my squib uncle, aunt, and cousins for the summer. I was wondering if you would like to stay for a week or two with us. I am going crazy!

Sincerely,

Your desperate friend,

Andrew Abbot

P.S. The address is 9 Mayfield Road, Cokeworth. PLEASE WRITE BACK!"

Chuckling, Rowan rises from her study desk and makes her way to her grandfather's study. Still holding the letter in hand, she opens the door and peeks inside to find her grandfather furrowing his brow as he read a letter. "Anything important?" she asked.

"Just a letter from a colleague of sorts," Reginald carefully replied, which was not a lie. He put the letter away to be reread later into one of his more secure drawers, before turning to ask, "Well?"

Rowan held out the letter to Reginald for him to take. "I was invited by Andrew Abbot, a Hufflepuff friend to stay over for a week or two. I thought I might accept since his uncle is a squib and lives in Cokeworth just like Lily. And I would very much like to enjoy a portion of my summer holidays for myself!"

"Before you pen a reply," Reginald said, "I'd like to make certain that the home is indeed safeguarded. If it is, you shall be permitted to spend two weeks at their home. I will personally write to said uncle to further inquire of the situation. But knowing the Abbot's, they'd have warded their sons' home for protection."

"Thank you, grandfather," Rowan offered him a brilliant smile that made Reginald lips twitch with warmth and in reply.

"No go on, I have matters to attend to," Reginald sincerely said as he shooed his granddaughter away with his hand. And he did have other important matters to see too. Ones that his grandchildren never need know about it.

Seeing his granddaughter's skeptical expression, Reginald rolls his eyes in exasperation and says, "I will write to this Mr. Abbot as soon as I am finished, Rowan. Now run along!"

"Yes, grandfather," Rowan cheekily murmured, before departing from the study with a satisfied expression. She had gotten what she wanted and happily had something to look forward to. With a skip in her step, she returned to her bedroom to write a letter of her own to Petunia. Jaws had come out during the month of June and she was excited to finally see it again.

It was a rather interesting subject to be frank; when she recalled a fair number of things of the future when it came to entertainment, science, and technological advances. But when it came time to remembering world events, she could not.

Take for example she knew that something terrible would occur in September of 2001, but she did not know where in the world said event would take place nor just what said tragic event would be or the exact date. But it must be fate or destiny's way of preventing her from changing the rest of the world's general timeline.

After Rowan finished sealing the letter shut, she crossed the hall and entered Severus's bedroom. Severus was presently scratching some notes in the margins of his potions book, a terrible habit of his. Glancing up, Severus grumbles, "Well, what do you want?"

"I'm just going to borrow Owny," Rowan replied as she woke the sleeping bird, who was napping in the corner.

Owny sleepily blinks his eyes and hoots at her as if to say, "It's much too early to be doing this."

"I know," Rowan murmured as she gently stroked his feathers and held out the letter for him to take.

With a resigned hoot, Owny sticks out his leg and clamps his claws around it. Opening Severus window, she moves aside as Owny lets out a loud hoot at seeing it was barely sundown. Fluttering his large powerful wings, Owny takes off into the orange sky and soon disappears into the distance.

Rowan enjoys the warm orange glow for a moment, before closing the window shut. Turning back, she says, "Well, how has it been going with Lily?"

"What about Lily?" Severus snapped as he gave her the stink eye.

Trying not to sigh, Rowan drily says, "Well, we'll be starting our fifth year come September and I thought after last year's Yule fiasco, you would finally invite her on a date or confess your feelings towards her."

Severus's cheeks turn splotchy red as he sputters, "I've gone on plenty of dates with Lily before!"

Resisting the urge to smack herself on the face, Rowan flatly counters, "You do realize that those counted as friendship outings, don't you? Those are not considered romantic dates in any sense of the word for Lily. And if Lily does not see you as anything more than a friend after all these years, Severus, then we have a very serious problem."

There is a pause until Rowan snickers, "Get that? A SEVERUS PROBLEM."

"Ha, ha, ha, very funny!" Severus rolled his eyes and snarled. Siblings, they always thought they were so very funny! Well, he most certainly was not laughing!