Invisible String - Sebastian Sallow

Chapter Fifty: Deal With the Devil

"I, for one, love the sound of that."

Sebastian looked over my shoulder as best he could through the stationary floating projection Marvolo had conjured. His face grew dark and afraid. He tried to hide his wince, but I caught it and I turned, frowning at the voice of Thorfinn Gaunt.

It was like staring at Ominis forty years into the future. He had the same moles, the same pale blonde hair, the same impossibly smooth skin. The biggest difference was while Ominis had unseeing milky white eyes, Thorfinn had grey orbs that seemed to bore into my soul.

I made to stand, to demand he get Sebastian out of Azkaban, but the hiss of two snakes sounded as they wound their way up my legs and tied themselves around my body and securing me to the ornate chair.

"No!" Sebastian shouted, his voice cracked. It wasn't hard to hear the pain in his throat. "Thorfinn, let her go!"

I had to close my eyes at the sound. I couldn't stand to hear him to scared and helpless. So desperate.

"It is simply a precaution," he said lazily as he walked towards me, the sound of his shoes clicking against the marble floor menacingly as he inched closer. My skin crawled. "You attacked me at the first off-set did you not? Can't risk the same with her."

"You deserved it."

"What do you want?" I demanded, cutting off Sebastian's irate voice. "What is this? Why send him to Azkaban if you wanted him here while we spoke?"

"So many questions," Thorfinn pondered as he looked at me. Grey eyes boring into green. "I think simply, I want you, Abigail Crane. Your power. With your power, I can finish the work that Salazar Slytherin himself started."

"What work?"

"Abbi, don't-"

Sebastian's voice was a magnet forcing me to look at him and once again feel the pang of guilt of not keeping him from Azkaban flooded me. I couldn't tear my gaze from him as Thorfinn spoke.

"Salazar Slytherin, the greatest of the wizards who founded Hogwarts, spoke of a time that a witch would have power that matched his own. Was equal to him, in all ways, except one." Thorfinn's oily voice came from behind me, his disgustingly warm breath on my ear as he said the last words. His hand reached around the chair and took my jaw in his grasp as he forced my head to him.

"Let me guess," I sneered at him. "This witch would be Muggleborn."

"Yes," he said if simply. Plainly, matter of factly, but I could sense the disgust lacing his tone. He was disgusted by my existence, I knew that. Ominis had ranted on and on about his fathers pure blood mania. "Such a shame, all the stress and unfair things that have been thrust upon you. A shame that a Mudblood such as yourself won't ever be able to have the things she wants in the world as it currently is."

"I don't have a place in your world," I hissed, trying to jerk my face from his hands.

"Oh but you do. You, Abigail, are special. Slytherin himself said that the witch who possessed his powers belonged in his world. Which in turn, means you belong in his world." At this, Thorfinn pushed my face so I was looking at Sebastian again.

Looking into his gaunt and waxy face. It hadn't even been a whole day and I could see the light leaving him. He couldn't stay there.

"You know, don't you, that deep down, you aren't worthy of him. You tried so hard to fit in, to appease him."

I flinched at his words, looking at Sebastian as Thorfinn pulled every last insecure thought, every fear, and every doubt from the recesses of my mind and voiced them. He was right, of course.

If I had truly belonged, I'd have gotten my owl at the age of eleven. If I truly belonged, I wouldn't have had to claw my way into everyone's lives and cling desperately to them. If Sebastian had wanted me, surely both times he'd come into my life it wouldn't have been as a result of the power I wielded.

"Abbi, love, don't listen to him! You never needed to appease me!"

"Oh but she did, Sebastian. She bent herself, her own will to yours over and over again." Sebastian flinched and his face contorted. The Dementors were close, I could see it in his eyes; the fear. Between them, and Thorfinn, today was sure to be the worst day of Sebastian's life.

I'd once again been the cause.

"But she needn't worry about that, not after she helps us. If we can purge the rest of the wizarding world of those unworthy of their magic, prove Slytherin's theory correct, she can exist peacefully, in this world."

"I- I don't-"

His low chuckle was dangerous. Calculated and unnerving, and yet...

"It's what you want, isn't it?" Thorfinn spoke slowly. "To belong here, in this world, with him."

"I want- Yes." I choked. Fear bubbled in my chest, my eyes filling with tears as I looked between Sebastian and Thorfinn. Sebastian was shaking his head, his eyes wide. "I just want my friends- I want him- to be safe. I- I'm supposed to keep them safe."

"I think we can help each-other then, don't you? I need someone who can wield Slytherin's magic, and you need someone to get him out of Azkaban. If you help me, I, in turn, will help you."

I didn't need the moment to think. He could get Sebastian from Azkaban. I could have him back, we wouldn't have to run away, to hide, and forever be hunted. He could truly be mine, and I could truly be his.

"What about Ominis? And Anne and Poppy?" I asked, refusing to look at Sebastian. I could feel his helpless tormented gaze fixed on my profile, feel him begging me to stop considering. I didn't know what he really wanted the magic for, but truthfully, I didn't care.

The only thing that mattered was Sebastian, and our friends.

"They're yours, to do with what you please. I've told you, I only wanted you."

My jaw clenched tight, I closed my eyes, fearing the look on Sebastian's face.

"Abbi, don't!"

I ignored him, focusing on his face, rather than his voice or words. He wouldn't want me to save him. He never wanted me to risk myself for him the way he did for me, I knew that. He never wanted me in harms way.

What he failed to realize, was that I would just as violently protect him, as he would me.

I turned back to Thorfinn Gaunt, a terrible and horrifying force of a man, and took a deep breath.

"Sebastian gets out. The others are safe. You get the magic you want. In that order."

"If we have a deal," Thorfinn said, dismissing one of the snakes tying me to the chair so I could use my free arm. He held his arm out to me, waiting for me to take his in mine. "Swear to it."

"Abbi, please, don't," Sebastian called again, his voice broken as I forced him to watch helplessly as I sealed my fate.

"You'll thank me later," I promised him as I reached up and clutched Thorfinn's forearm in mine, and sealed the Unbreakable Vow.