Always || Sebastian Sallow x Reader

Chapter 15

Your joints tingle as you walk into the room. A sculpture of Salazar Slytherin stands in the center, his beard represented by multiple snakes. A sigh of relief escapes your lips. Ominous appears by your side, grasping your shoulder for guidance.

"We made it," Sebastian marvels at his surroundings.

"We found Salazar Slytherin's Scriptorium!" he raises his arms up as though he's praising the gods.

Ominis groans and smashes his face into the back of your shoulder.

"I can't believe we made it," he rubs his eyes and begins to laugh lightly. The three of you begin to shake your heads in disbelief.

Once you've collected yourselves, you begin to walk around the room, Ominis trailing behind you as Sebastian runs around like a tall child, touching everything in sight. You walk up to the statue of Salazar Slytherin and look around the floor beneath him. A small black shape peeking behind the statue catches your eye. You ween Ominis off your shoulder, and he pulls out his wand.

You bend over and grasp the object, pulling it up to your face. You dust off the front cover, a serpent slithering is drawn across the top. The book flops over in your hands, the pages almost perfectly white.

"Sebastian, Ominous, there's a book here!" you call out.

Sebastian turns around and looks in your direction.

"You've found something?"

Ominis swings his arms back and forth at his sides and looks vaguely in your direction.

"Why don't you go ahead, I'm going to stay and wander around a little bit."

You smile as you begin to explore the rest of the scriptorium. Large wooden chairs and looms fill the space. Enchanted candles fly past our heads, while thick-bounded books shake on the book shelves. A thick layer of dust coats almost every surface in the room.

You stumble over a few kinks in the rugs, and your shoes get caught on almost every single cobblestone the floor has to offer. You glide your fingers over a few world globes, leaving thin streaks across them through the dust.

After a while, you end up in the same room as Sebastian. He's standing still, one hand raised to his chin in curiosity. A few peculiar tiki-looking statues stand in front of him. You loosen your grip on the book in your hand.

"What do you think?" you fill the silence, reaching the book out for him to hold. He takes it slowly, analyzing the covers.

"It looks like a spellbook of some kind. This is incredible. A Hogwarts founder's possession! What an honor," he shakes his head.

"I can't believe that Ominis never told me about his aunt and what she found..." he sighs, running his hand through his hair. He bites the inside of his cheek lightly.

You intertwine your fingers with your own, clasping your hands in front of you.

"What are you going to do with Slytherin's spellbook?" you ask.

He scoffs lightly, "What I do with every book, read it. Having parents as professors ingrained that habit early on." He smiles.

"But I can do that later, for now, I say we explore this room." He runs a gentle hand over your arm, causing your skin to tingle.

"It's truly breathtaking," you respond quietly as he pulls away, walking back toward the statues. You begin walking around the room again, slowly becoming uncomfortable. A low hissing rings in your ears. Startledly, you rub them, but the sound is gone as quick as it came.
"I've been getting an uneasy feeling about this place," you hear Ominis call out.