How to Make a Villain - [Sebastian Sallow x F!OC]

[nine]

And there it was. Sort of.

Tucked away at the end of the narrow dead-end road, the tavern's hand-painted sign was weathered well past the point of legibility. And yet, it was unmistakably a tavern, readable sign or not, for the scent of ale was overpowering even from where she stood. With a sigh of relief, she hurried toward it, wondering if Sebastian would be very annoyed with her for taking so long to meet him.

But she never made it that far.

She was only halfway down the street when a hand clamped roughly around her arm and yanked.

Hard.

For a bewildered moment, she thought it was only Sebastian pulling her away from some unseen danger as he'd done with the Thestral's. But then, Sebastian didn't stink of sweat and stale beer. Nor did he dig his fingers into her arm hard enough to bruise. No, this danger was not unseen but tall and strong with a stubbled chin and a toothless leering grin.

'Lost, sweetheart?' said the man whose grip was like an iron vice around her bicep.

Aurélie shook her head, too stunned to speak, but the man only laughed and pulled her closer, his putrid breath washing over her like waves of vomit.

'You sure about that? Pretty little thing like you heading to the Hogs Head?' His beady eyes ogled her face in a way that made her feel both very cold and far too hot at the same time. And then they widened, his awful bloodshot gaze falling to her chin.

'Hang on a minute,' he said, tilting her face to the sky with filthy, dirt-caked fingers. The sun was gone, she noted dimly. A flock of geese flew overhead; white specks in a grey sky. She tried to pull away. He squeezed her chin harder.

'Well, well, well,' he chuckled dryly, tracing a dirty finger along the three long scars beneath her jaw. 'I don't believe it. Three little scars just like they told me.' He tilted her face from side to side, appraising the marks like they were something valuable. Rare. Beautiful. 'It's a lucky day indeed when the little Keeper walks right into my hands. The brothers will be right pleased with me, they will.'

Several things happened at once.

A loud crack rent the air; the man yelped and stumbled back, wrenching his hand away as if she'd burned him; and then there was Sebastian, shoving her behind him, his grip on her wrist much less painful though no less jolting. His eyes were wide and his wand was out and he was saying something to her but there was a buzzing in her ears, a swarm of flies in her brain, and she couldn't hear him properly, couldn't think straight, couldn't, couldn't -

'Get the fuck away from her,' said Sebastian in a dangerously calm voice. 'Now.'

The man laughed; the sound was glass shattering on stone: sharp and pointy. 'Or what?' he sneered, baring his rotten teeth. His hand twitched for his robe pocket, evidently reaching for his wand, but Sebastian took a deliberate step forward, his own wand pointed squarely at the man's chest.

How funny that she should have noticed Sebastian's wand at a time like that, but she did. Dragonheart string, surely. What else could it be?

'I know spells that will make you wish for death,' Sebastian hissed, jaw clenched. His hand did not shake, his gaze did not waver; perfectly still, the way a snake is still before it strikes.

The Sallow's have got snake blood in their veins.

Aurélie tugged his sleeve. He ignored her.

'Big talk for a titchy little schoolboy,' sneered the man. But he was wrong: there was nothing titchy about Sebastian - not when his face was twisted into a mask of fury, not when he had his wand pointed threateningly at a man's chest. At that moment, Aurélie wasn't sure who was the more frightening of the two; the man who wanted to kill her, or the boy who wanted to kill for her.

She tugged at Sebastian's sleeve again, a little more urgently this time.

'Please,' she said faintly, barely able to hear her own voice over the incessant buzzing in her head. 'Let's just go.'

But Sebastian shook her off again, his focus solely on the threat before them, snake eyes boring into its prey. Hypnotic. He tightened his grip on his wand.

'Touch her again and I will kill you,' he seethed. 'Do you understand?'

The threat should have disturbed her, should have made her blood run cold and her feet take flight, for there was absolutely no mistaking the promise in his voice. But rather than cold terror, she felt - warm.

Tingly.

The magic in her blood hummed its approval, buzzing through her palms and her fingers and her veins.

Me, too! it said eagerly. Me too, me too, me too!

The man's expression soured as glanced between him, his red-rimmed eyes travelling first to Sebastian, fierce and unyielding, then to his wand, through which the threat of death was imminent, and then finally to Aurélie, cowering behind the lethal Slytherin, small and useless and scared.

He turned his head and spat.

'You can't hide behind your boyfriend forever, little Keeper,' he seethed, wiping the spittle from his chin. 'The brothers won't stop until they have you.'

And with that he was gone, disapparating with a crack like that of a snapping bone.

Sebastian was moving before Aurélie's brain could catch up to her body. She stumbled clumsily as he hauled her around a corner and down a narrow opening between two crooked buildings. When they were away from prying eyes, hidden deep in shadows, he rounded on her, opened and closed his mouth, then paced the narrow alleyway, fists clenched.

The space was damp and her palms were stinging.

Mud caked her shoes.

Water dripped from a broken drain pipe.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Finally, Sebastian turned to face her again.

'Did he - are you hurt?' he demanded, his hands still balled into tight fists at his sides.

'No,' Aurélie squeaked.

'Are you lying?'

'A-about what?'

Drip. Drip. Drip.

'Sebastian, I'm not hurt.'

He paced three steps away from her, then three steps back. 'What the fuck is a Keeper?' he demanded. 'Who are you?'