The room before me is circular and disorienting with multiple doors, and I hesitate to enter, as the floor looks as if it's covered in water. "Oh, it's just an illusion. Go right on in," Sebastian explains, noting my caution. In the center of the room, he explains, "we're in the department proper, here. Every door leads to one of the areas of research for the Department of Mysteries. I can show you everything, if you'd like. There's the Time Room, Space Chamber, Love Room, Hall of Prophecy, Brain Room and Death Chamber. That's...where I spend most of my time."
"Oh!" I say, bewildered. I'm honestly fairly overwhelmed given all the information he just shared. And I still feel like I'm coming off of the nervousness and forlorn dread I was feeling only moments ago. I'm surprised by how much the talk of the Killing Curse affected me, but I can't deny the pit in my stomach that is still simmering and preying on the dregs of my existential exhaustion that fuels my sleepless nights as of late.
"Um...do you have a personal favorite?" I ask with some playful flair, unable to process any decision-making abilities on my own at the moment. Sebastian smiles, walking towards me and sliding his arms around my waist. "The Love Room, of course. Used to drive me crazy to walk past it. Whole thing smells like you. Cinnamon...." He says as he kisses me on the head. "...and jasmine..." He says as he kisses me on the forehead. "...and marzipan for some unknown reason but I'm absolutely not complaining..." He says with a smile as he brushes his nose against mine. Then he makes me giggle as he inhales in a silly way as if he's sniffing the air all around me as he says, "but we'll save the best for last."
I'm glad for his humor. I feel relieved and more focused. "Then how about we visit the space room?" I ask with vigor, pulling back from him and holding his hands. "Sounds like my kind adventure!"
"It's the Space Chamber, darling," Sebastian teases as he guides me to a specific door that, to me, looks just like all the rest. He opens it, but holds me back from entering, saying, "I don't recommend going in just yet, unless you want to lose the rest of the afternoon to floating around in the abyss. Made that mistake once, myself. Very disorienting." The view, however, is spectacular. It looks like we're standing on the very ledge of the earth, itself. Before us is a massive, enthralling replica of the milky way and our solar system. Planets of gaseous, kaleidoscoping colors and countless shimmering stars and constellations glisten in orbit. Indeed, there appears to be no floor or ceiling to the room.
As Sebastian's arms wrap around my waist from behind, I say in a genuine way, "I'd gladly get lost with you in here," and I feel his chin rest on my shoulder as I add, "not a bad view, after all!"
He sighs contentedly as we spend a moment gazing at the sight of the sparkling eternities before us. His warm breath envelops my neck as he says, just above a whisper, "it's what I see every time you kiss me, love."
"Well fuck..." I say out loud as I think it and I can feel Sebastian's face burst into a smile before he turns towards me and brushes my hair from my neck in a tender way. Walking aphrodisiac that he is, he begins to leave trails of sweet kisses and passionate nibbles wherever his mouth can make contact, that makes my insides feel like the very galaxies we contemplate.
After a quiet moment on the Earth's edge, relishing the feeling of Sebastian helping himself to the skin of my neck, I begin to feel him walking us backwards from the doorway and I sigh. "I'd love to come back some time and float through space with you, Mister Sallow," I say as he pulls us away. "Who ever thought that would be a thing we could do together?"
Closing the door, he chuckles along with me and winks as he suggests, "now, the Brain Room is interesting. I haven't done any significant research there, just yet, but I do have a theory that we might find it useful," he says as he takes my hand and we walk through another door that Sebastian navigates us to. Once again, it looks exactly the same as the others to me.
"Muggle magic utilizes thought and intention, almost exclusively. And that's what this room is for – the research of thought. I'm certain there's a correlation. I just haven't taken the time yet to dig into it," he says as we enter a room that is large, spacious and sparse. Tanks of different sizes and full of various colors of liquid line the room. They are, unsurprisingly, full of brains. My morbid curiosity draws me close to the nearest tank. The water is a violet color and each of the brains are surrounded by an aura of soft, white-ish mist. As I get nearer, the mist seems to expand around each of the brains.
"You're not afraid." Sebastian states simply.
"No. Why would I be?" I ask, frankly, turning my attention towards him. He smiles and explains, "the brains are said to react to the thoughts of those around them, so I've heard. Personally, I've not had any negative encounters but I've heard stories of less disciplined minds who find the sight of them disturbing that have wreaked all sorts of havoc as a result."
"Well, I've seen my fair share of guts," I say with a shrug. "It doesn't bother me. I think it's...beautiful."
He smiles and tracks me as I walk lazily to the next tank of yellow-ish liquid. The brains appear to have sections of amber resin marbled throughout. "Are they human brains? Animal? Or conjurations of brains?" I ask Sebastian as the brains spin slowly upon my approach in the liquid.
"Not sure, to be honest..." he says as he takes my hand and my feet wander to the next tank of bright blue liquid. There seems to be a whisper coming from the top of this tank and the folds of the brains expand and contract gently, like the gills of a fish.
"Bash, what was the...shit what's the word..." I chuckle to myself, unable to think of it. I poke unceremoniously at his chest where his tattoo is in my stupor. "Your...the..." I stammer as words continue to fail me, and Sebastian's face alights with amusement in my struggle and soon we're both doubled-over in laughter at my expense. "Goddamn it, Bash! I can't think of the word! It's the energy things you told me about. All I can think of is the word 'chocolate.' Help meeee!" I beg, pulling in a desperate, silly way at his lapel and a look of realization dawns on his face.
"Chakras?" he asks with his eyebrows raised.
"YES! Thank you! The chakras! Don't these remind you of those? Don't they have a color? And an energy about them?" I ask, gesturing to the tanks around us and Sebastian's eyes go wide as he sees what I see – and more. He begins to laugh and pulls me by my face into a forceful, playful kiss, after which he looks into my eyes and says, "you bloody brilliant woman."
Excitedly, Sebastian dashes around the room from tank to tank, inspecting the vats more closely, and occasionally pausing to put his hands on the glass. He mutters words I can't quite hear and makes symbols with his hands in front of him, breathing deeply, and reverently tapping corresponding points of his body before his hands return to the vats. Though his eyes are closed, mine are not and it is a wonder to observe him as he is most definitely causing the brains in each tank to respond to whatever intention or power he's infusing through his hands and actions. It's like watching an intricate ballet of magic and energy.
"This is incredible, April, do you see?" Sebastian calls to me, and I'm thrilled to observe his boyish joy as he finally opens his eyes to witness the result of his actions. Each of the vats he's worked with are glowing brightly, humming with color and energy and the brains that dance within them are coordinated in their subtle, buoyant movements. "Merlin's beard, you were right!" he exclaims as he bounds towards me and picks me up in a twirling embrace. "There is something here, I know it. I...I need to think on it." He sets my feet down again and takes my hands, grinning wildly. His eyes dart back and forth between mine as he catches his excited breath. "Let's...I know...follow me!"
Sebastian leads me out of the Brain Room and straight towards a door that bowls me over with Sebastian's honey, bergamot scent as we approach it. And though my logic tells me we should stick to the plan, explore the rest and save the best for last, I feel a deep pull towards the Love Room that feels like the pull I feel towards Sebastian – the indefinable, binding profundity that has always linked us beyond explanation with a language entirely our own.
He bursts through the door and my senses tell me I'm in the Forbidden Forest with the way I'm overcome with the sensation of it on my skin and in my nose, and yet Sebastian's scent permeates, too, through it all – as if the complimentary scents of his Highland upbringing became part of the milieu of his very essence.
I assume Sebastian is also overcome with his own speeding-train of sensations because just as I begin to see clearly in spite of the fog of sensations that overwhelm my mind, my body aches with the feeling of my empty arms, lonely lips and the undeniable draw of his magnetism. But before I can extend my own arms towards him, Sebastian encompasses me in his as he growls, "Merlin's fucking beard." He collides with me, cupping my face in his hands and pulling my lips up to his that descend upon mine.
His blistering hunger is instant, his lust uninhibited, and his insistence irresistible. He backs me up against the wall, causing a delicate clanking of some kind, and my eyes only catch a flash of a pinkish, iridescent liquid in vials before my eyes focus on Sebastian and his ministrations. The concentrated strength of his body becomes flush against my whole form. His frame buzzes with a low vibration, his hands tremble at my throat, and he sighs "I can't resist you," into my ear before his teeth take to my neck like a hungry wolf. His tongue leaves fire in its wake against my skin while his hands roam the contours of my curves. I am blind with my thirst for him in every conceivable way as his raging wildfire threatens to overtake me completely.
"Bash.." I gasp on shallow breath, concerned with the implications of our timing, our location, but he doesn't relent. He channels a symphony of desire and need in the air between us from some realm far above, and his desire is entirely supported by the room's ambiance of our mutual, carnal attraction. Sebastian pleads into my ear in a dry rasp, "please let me..." and his open, panting mouth drags his teeth and trails gnawing kisses along my jaw as he pleads with me between pecks.
"The ghost of my desire for you has haunted me..."
Kiss.
"...for so long..."
Peck.
"...every whiff of jasmine..."
Nibble.
"...every taste of cinnamon..."
Kiss.
I feel his hands slide intentionally, one down to my hip and the other up to my breast, and he squeezes with a primal intention. His fingers shake in resistance to handling me too tightly as he presses his forehead eagerly against mine, aligning his lighted, urgent eyes with mine, and declares in hoarse breath, "but this is no ghost before me."
He presents my lips with an ardent, deep kiss that sends a creaking ache through my bones like the boards of an old ship that struggle to resist the tumult of the ocean that carries it. He says "please let me have you, my love," and the raw transparency of his voice laced with tender vulnerability and sheer need whips across my senses, stirring me to clarity like an icy gale and siphoning my Ancient Magic in a singular gulp from deep within my bones. I become entirely incapable of denying him anything at all.
"I'm yours," I remind him as I feel my magic threatening to break through already. "Take me."
Our hands engage in a nimble coordination of unbuckling, lifting, unfastening, and pulling-aside of various articles of clothing and he lifts me effortlessly, allowing my legs to wrap around his waist, comfortably supporting my weight with his striated forearms against the wall. The rhythm of our bodies becomes an immediate duet as he navigates between my legs that quiver in anticipation. I happen to notice – but quickly forget – the blue shimmer in my skin as he sinks his arousal inside me with a deep, low sigh that seems to relax every freckle on his face as significantly as his brows that momentarily reject their furrowing. He fills and stretches me deliciously, and from my open mouth that hovers against his, he draws a gasp from my throat that whispers, "I need you."
As Sebastian moves with a metered, intentional greed and fixes his eyes into mine, I see the green glint of possessive desire I have grown accustomed to dance amidst his feathered hues of brown. It sends a shiver through me. "Say it again," he demands with a knee-weakening smile of mischief and I gladly repeat, "I need you," as the low vibration reverberating in his chest begins to extend through his shoulders and into his arms. Each of his thrusts into me lifts me against the wall and courses simultaneous waves of pleasure through our bodies – a testament to our fated connection – that brings my magic to a flooding presence from my toes to my forehead and causes a trembling in his body that threatens to smash the floor if he doesn't direct it towards me soon.
Amidst the intoxicating haze of our ardor, his breathless whisper reaches my ear. "Surrender to me," and the green glow within his eyes intensifies. I can feel my magic flooding my senses, and I nod in blissful, yielding compliance. As his powerful storm of magic begins to surge like a tempest, the vials on the shelves next to us dance and clank together with his earthquake and I gasp amidst his thrusting, saying "channel your magic, love."
But he braces himself against the wall with a hand and my legs cling more tightly to his waist as he says, "not yet..." and throws his head back with a passionate moan, increasing his ravaging pace and intensity. His hand causes the wall behind me to shake and some of the vials from the nearby shelves fall to the floor, smashing open at our feet and I say again, "channel your magic into me, Bash," but he shakes his head with his eyes squeezed shut.
When he finally opens his gaze to me, I'm shocked by the vibrance of the green glow that has taken hold of his gaze. Vials continue to dance off the edge from the shelving around us, smashing on the floor while he smiles with delight as whatever feelings that are rising inside him feed his appetite. So, rather than wait to channel his magic outward with mine, I focus long enough to form my magic into a protego-like shield around us to insulate the room from any further damage he might cause, and I send a wave of Ancient Magic throughout and across us both to encourage him to release to me.
Driven by our shared hunger, fueled by the intensity of our connection, we both surrender to the passion that consumes us, embracing the sensation of our shared pleasure with a fervor only our love for one another could ignite. Gasping one another's names and digging fingers into one another's skin, I feel the warmth of his body paint the inside of mine as mine responds in kind, contracting around him and ushering our waves of shudders to an eventual calm.
As our foreheads rest together, neither of us moves much at all for long moments aside from stealing the occasional, yearning kiss or my releasing the barrier of Ancient Magic around us. We breathe and breathe and breathe until our hearts return back to earth and their respective paces back to normal.
His eyes glimmer towards mine as I slide my feet back to the floor and I debate asking him 'what the actual hell was that?' But, still in unison, we each sigh, Sebastian saying "holyfuckingshit," and me saying, "oh. my. god."
We both take a moment to tidy ourselves up with the help of our wands and a few select charms. And by the time things are tucked, buckled, and situated in place, I finally assess the damage of the rest of the room. There's nothing to speak of, aside from the vials that fell, and I'm confused to see the liquid on the floor from the broken vials is, in fact, black.
"What is it?" I ask.
"I thought it was Amortentia, but it must be something else," Sebastian says, swiping at the black liquid with his finger and smelling it. Without wasting any time, I pull out a small leather satchel from my skirt pocket on which I have a small extension charm, and pull out a new glass vial which I scoop into the liquid on the floor. Once it's filled, I cork it and return it all to my pocket, explaining that I'll ask Sharp to reverse-engineer it later before Sebastian can begin to tease me about being prepared with such items.
Sebastian utilizes his wand to clean up the glass and splattered potion, and once he's done, we stand and stare at one another for a not-insignificant moment of quiet. Our eyes connect and each of us holds our smirking lips at bay, and after a beat I finally smile and say, "so I take it this is the Love Room?"
We burst into laughter and Bash attempts to apologize for his voracity which I vehemently deny him the opportunity to do, assuring him it was mutually appreciated.
"At some point let's circle back to the fact that you didn't want to disperse your magic, though, yeah?" I say with a wink and a wry look and he nods, swiping his hand through his hair and agreeing, "yeah..."
Walking into the room, I'm in awe of how warm it is. The floor is a gorgeous stone tile of ivory and white sun-burst shapes. The cabinetry is dark and polished – the shelving is built-in and extends from the floor to the ceiling and displays hundreds, if not thousands of vials of various potions. Indeed, the majority of them seem to be a pinkish, swirling Amortentia which is also on display in a fountain at the center of the room that seems to produce, or at least house a large stash of it.
It's only now I realize...and I ask Sebastian if the same is true for him, "can you still smell it?"
He looks at me with wonder, pauses, and breathes. Shaking his head he says, "I can't. How strange. Can you?" and I admit I no longer smell the forest or him as we both approach the large fountain of potion to take more whiffs of it at a closer proximity. But to no avail.
How strange.
There are plenty of other nooks, crannies, instruments, and volumes of books in this room, but I fear if we don't get out soon, we'll lose ourselves to more clandestine activities. I say as much to Sebastian who, adorably, looks at me like I've just ruined Christmas morning. But I smile and implore him, "I really want to know what you do down here when you come and spend your mornings. Something tells me it's not the universe or brains or love potions that cause you to come back so depleted..."
He sighs and runs his hands through his hair, walking back towards me, sighing. "You're right, love. And we have real work to do, anyway. I'll show you where I've started." He takes my hand again – I love how automatically he does it, like his fingers don't know how to move forward without my equally-hungry fingers wrapped in them. "I warn you, it's not a fun place..." he says lowly as we walk back into the atrium and he shoves his shoulder against a door that opens to a dark, huge amphitheater-style room into which we descend. At the bottom, in the center round, is a large, ancient archway that seemed to have a curtain hanging within it. It reminds me of the arches of the Keeper's trials that would shimmer with magic within the confines of the stone.
The room is still, cold, and dark. Though we haven't seen a soul in the entirety of the Department of Mysteries so far, this room feels particularly empty somehow. "Is this...the Death Chamber?" I ask Sebastian and he clings to my hand fervently as he nods. "Yes. I've spent my mornings here. I figured if I was to overcome death, I'd come as close as I could to it."
His simple words wring my heart out like a spent rag that is suddenly threadbare with the realization of my love's lonely, tormented burden.
"I sit...right...here..." he says as he walks and stands front-and-center before the mysterious archway and I join him at his side. He looks at me with strained eyes as he asks with a shy smile, "can you hear it, too? Or am I just a bit mad?"
I run my thumb tenderly along his cheekbone before turning my attention to the archway that shimmers and swirls and laps with thin black and gray wisps, as if attempting to cover the over-exposed light of a window no one is supposed to look into. Stepping forward, I lean my head closer and I feel an undeniable pull towards it but Sebastian yanks me back. "Not too close!" he chides. "It's a veil to the land of the dead, April." But I smile at him, and assure him I only want to get close enough to listen.
Closing my eyes and holding his hand tightly, I explain in great detail what I hear. "I hear singing, Sebastian. A choir like the ones at my father's funeral. So many voices." The power of their voracious harmony brings a tear to my eye that escapes down my cheek as I hear more voices whispering. They elicit memories. Maybe they are memories. "They sound like...they sound like I remember them..." I say as I squint my eyes, shutting them as tightly as I can to deaden my other senses to be able to hear them. And leaning more closely, still, I can feel myself pulling against Sebastian's tightening grip.
"April..." he says softly as I focus my ears to try to invite more clarity from a whisper that feels like it could be my father...or Professor Fig...or both...but I'm shocked when a familiar grunting noise cracks to the front of the whispers and shoves me back like a slap to the face as the echo of a voice saying, "I'll make you pay for this", hisses in my ears or my memory or both. My body instantly reacts with a painful tension in every muscle as I recognize it as the voice of the goblin I killed in the forest and I gasp as if I'd just been punched. A searing pain yanks at my calf where the goblin pierced me with the shears and I crumple with the sensation of it.
Sebastian catches me before I land on the ground. He wraps me in his arms, asking urgently if I'm alright but I'm trembling like an animal that's just narrowly escaped a predator. The guilt and the shame I feel is as strong as the raw adrenaline, itself, that I can't think straight enough to answer anything but his original question. "Yes...I hear...I hear things. You're not mad." But as my breath evens out, and I am ever-compelled to break the discomfort of tension, I muster a half smile and joke, "...or maybe we're both mad," and Sebastian allows a smile to break, too.
"Did you recognize any of them?" he asks me, with interested eyes and I explain on dry, hollow breath, "it was more like a feeling that they might be someone I recognized, rather than being immediately identifiable." He nods to confirm that's been his experience, too.
"But the last one was the goblin. Hands down." I say, the feeling of it still latched into my skin.
"What goblin?"
"The goblin I killed in the forest. I heard his voice. My whole body remembered it."
"Is that...still weighing on you?" Sebastian asks with his deep, dark, concerned eyes.
I shake my head 'no.' A lie. And he knows it. His eyes track my face as he runs his fingers through my hair, tenderly pulling stray strands away as he says, "so...it's something you would just rather not discuss right now?"
I nod, dropping my eyes to the floor, unwilling to reveal the degree to which it has prevented me from sleeping this past week, like a constant dripping leak on exposed electrical wiring.
"Let's circle back to that too, then, love. But I won't leave it for long. That's the kind of rot you can't leave alone to fester..." he says as he takes my hand and begins to pull me away from the archway. But I resist. Something in me isn't ready to go. I plead, "don't we need to stay? Don't you need to show me what you've done?"
"There's nothing to show, April. I sit here for hours and meditate with the voices and wait for them to speak to me more clearly. They never do. And it's not like I can go through. I think this is a dead end," he says with a shrug. And though my legs walk with his, my eyes drift back to the archway that beckons to the sliver of my heart on which is written the dark story that I belong...in there.
I realize we're in the atrium of the Department of Mysteries once again, with little memory of having walked back here. But my senses seem to be waking up once more – no, surging within me – as I ask with my sudden burst of clarity, "so what else is down here? And what exactly did you want to work on together down here?"
Sebastian smiles as he opens another door and reaches for my hand, ushering me in. "Well, my darling, first and foremost I didn't want any secrets between us. That would have been enough for me to want to fight for your clearance. But I also figured that two minds are better than one – our minds, together, most of all," he says as we enter a massive room, likely as large as the Death Chamber though less of a cavern, and more like an office-style warehouse. Every one of the dozens of desks and every surface of the wall and ceiling is covered in ticking clocks. Sebastian leans his face down to me as he says, "this is the Time Room if you couldn't tell."
He confidently leads us down the side of the room that looks like a straight shot down the full length of it. There is a door at the far end. And there are a few other people here – the first I've seen in the entire department. The witches and wizards appear to be quite enthralled with various notepads, clocks, and cabinets. A couple are using instruments I've never seen to make adjustments to the small mechanisms they're working with, speaking to floating quills and notepads that seem to take notes at their command. They don't lift their eyes to look at Sebastian and I.
"At any rate, I've had a similar sense that Sharp and Thiago apparently seem to share. I believe everything happening around us is connected. It seems fated..." Sebastian says.
My mind immediately snaps to what Kai said about the story of Sebastian and I being written in the stars. I consider the serendipity of Ominis' and Thiago's connection, too, here and now, when there could have been so many other opportunities for them to meet. I think about how Thiago and I have been perfectly immersed in the kind of work that seems to be orbiting the Ministry and sending ripples into Sebastian's research, too. Plus there have been countless dominoes of events that have fallen since the faculty shifts began at Hogwarts.
Sebastian continues. "The more you and I interacted, the more our magic interacted, the more I saw our impact on one another? Well, it's exactly what Sharp said. Your magic is affected by and amplified by love, April," Sebastiain says, turning to me. He goes on, saying, "my magic is too. And not just love. That's another big question-mark in all this. My emotions interact with my magic in unusual ways. That's part of my work for the ministry – expanding our understanding of the impact of emotions on magic. Emotional mastery is a concept deeply rooted in Muggle magic that, interestingly, remains quite mysterious to the Ministry. But I figured we – you – should have all the tools at our disposal that we can. And there's a whole room here devoted to love...death...time...certainly we're bound to find answers here."
"So I'm here to be a lab rat!" I tease with a wide grin. "You just want me for my woo-y, love-y Ancient Magic."
Sebastian playfully rolls his eyes as we reach the door at the end of the room. He yanks it open and rests his back against the open panel while he holds a smile back from his lips. He eyes me with a squint. "Really? That's your takeaway? Do you really think I've brought you here for experiments or something?"
With a cheeky look, I nod, joking in a way that makes my words crispy through my teeth, "I always knew you only wanted me for my body." I close the distance between us, put my hands on his chest, and swipe the tip of my nose against his.
Sebastian snickers on his breath and his smirk deepens as his hands come to my waist. He whispers, "you are unbelievable...."
"Just promise me that whatever the Ministry or you need to do with me....you'll be gentle..." I flirt with a melodramatic air and Bash's breath hitches in his throat before he exhales slightly and says, hardly moving a muscle at all, "you know I'll be anything but."
Our lips are a hair apart, and my grin grows wider while I dip my eyes to his mouth but deny it the satisfaction of touching mine as I slip through the open door into the next room with a come-hither gaze.
"You are such an excruciating tease, I wonder if I shouldn't leave you all alone in the Hall of Prophecy to find out what happens if you try to touch any of these orbs that don't have your name on them. Can you resist, my curious Gryffindor?" Sebastian says with a degree of torment.
"What are they?" I say, as my eyes are instantly drawn to the endless shelves that extend to the ceiling – as high as a cathedral – and go so far down the long, narrow room I can't even see the end. I gasp to realize this is just one of many, many rows within the room that seems to disappear into the dark shadows of dim blue light in every direction.
"Prophecies," he says with a shrug. "I thought we might see if there's anything that pertains to us. I hadn't checked yet. Figured I'd wait until you were here and double our chances of having one with our name on it."
"Feels spooky in here," I say, lacing my fingers in his, holding for more than just guidance, now.
"You think so?" Sebastian asks in a guileless way. "I think there's something lovely about it. Peaceful. Futures waiting to be written..." he muses as we begin to walk. But with our first steps, I notice a shimmering light at my feet.
"Do you see that, Sebastian?" I ask, but his blank look tells me he does not. With each step, the swirling tendrils of silver magic seem to erupt from the floor and flow in a singular direction. I've seen this before. "There are traces of Ancient Magic here," I explain as I pick up my pace and follow where they lead.
Each of us eyes opposite sides of rows, scanning the hundreds of glass orbs and their waning, dusty labels, confident that we are gradually making our way to the present years as the traces of Ancient Magic guide us to our destination until the swirling stops and I notice a small orb, no bigger than the size of a lime. It's glowing a bright, vibrant blue...just like my magic.
It's situated towards the back of a shelf and, indeed, the prophecy has my name on the top of the label – A. Collins – but I can't make out any other information. And seeing as the Ancient Magic led me here, and it's swirling with the same, I'm sure in my bones it's meant for me.
"Do...do I just take it?" I ask Sebastian and he shrugs, saying, "I think so, as long as it has your name on it. Just don't move or touch the others."
"What happens if I touch the others?" I say with a furrowed brow.
"You'll be driven to instant madness," he says frankly.
"Fantastic."
"Quite."
"Okay..."
I sigh. "Here goes..." I say as I hold my breath and reach for the glowing blue orb with the most steady hand I can manage. The orb is thick with dust but still bright with the look of Ancient Magic. Whether it's real or an illusion, I'm not entirely sure.
Swiping at the label, I reveal what's written on it and my heart stops in my chest. As with all the others, it displays in an elegant penmanship the name of the person who's prophecy it is but I realize, now I couldn't see the full label before lifting it down.
A. Collins/Sallow
Circa 1890-1915
Percival Rackham
May 17, 1485
I am too stunned to do anything more. Too stunned to move. I stare at the text and the weight of all of the implications hit me. Not only does the marriage conversation seem to be butting its head into my life with remarkable insistence today, it bowls me over to think that Percival Rackham of Hogwarts' keepers had a prophecy about...me...over four hundred years ago.
"What is it, love?" Sebastian asks sweetly, clearly eager to know what holds me at bay.
I show him the label and wait, watching his reaction.
A look that can most accurately be described as Sebastian-Sallow-y spreads across his face. The brew of mischief, self-satisfaction, cockiness, and genuine happiness I love so dearly takes hold in his eyes as he attempts to semi-successfully hold a wide, unabashed grin at bay. He keeps his eyes quite intentionally on the label for a moment as he swallows and I can see his mind spinning. He opens his mouth as if he's going to say something, but doesn't. And then he does it again.
Finally, after biting his lips together for interminable seconds he looks up at me with a degree of mischief in his eyes that borders on catastrophe. He blinks and parts his lips. The bottom lids of his eyes pull up like two little suns rising over a horizon as he allows a smile to break into his lips. "So..." he starts hesitantly. "Maybe...we should ask Weasley to set asi—"
"–shut it down, Bash." I cut him off with directness, but the smirk in the corners of my mouth betray me and his face bursts in seeming slow-motion into an enthralling laugh of radiant joy.
Between catching his breath he pesters me, saying "this really isn't your day for discussing your uncomfortable feelings, is it?" and I feel my whole face go red as I incoherently stammer my denial. But he pulls me into him, taking my arms lovingly in his hands as mine rest on his waist. He looks into my eyes and conveys a type of comfort I had stupidly assumed only a pair of freshly-washed pajamas, a glass of wine, or a warm puppy could offer me.
"I assure you I will make this quick for your sake, darling," he begins in a pragmatic way. "I've already said in so many words that I would gladly spend the rest of my life with you, and well beyond. You know it. And I know you feel the same way." He smiles sweetly down at me as he runs his fingers through my hair, saying, "we belong together. We are together. So there are no time-lines or deadlines for us. No matter how lovely I find that prophecy's label to be," he says with a kind, squinted gaze to the orb before returning to my eyes, "I've been yours from the start. No paperwork will change that."
"I love you," I whisper.
"I love you, too," he practically hums in his resonant voice that buzzes in his chest and into my skin.
"Now, about this prophecy..." he says with a smirk, "shall we reveal it or are you nervous it will foretell of a wedding you don't wish to discuss?"
"Sebastian!!!" I playfully scold and he laughs, saying, "kidding! Kidding, I swear!"
And before he can get another poke in, I begin to explain, "Rackham was one of the Keepers, Bash. He..taught divination at Hogwarts. It would make sense he was a seer..." I think out loud, my mind racing to recall the fuzzy details of all of my interactions with him almost ten years ago, but Sebastian's eager look urges me forward.
"Well don't you want to know what it says?" he asks.
"I'm not sure I know the answer to that question..." I admit. "I mean...it could be anything. It could be a prophecy of my death, for all I know. And no, I don't think I want to know that."
"I guess you're right...but...it's not a guarantee, right? Whatever it says?"
"I guess I don't know much about prophecies. I've only really dealt with pensieves and memories and secret chambers..." I say with an ironic humor.
"Well. In that it was Rackham who prophesied it, and you're two of, what...three? People at Hogwarts who have ever had the gift of Ancient Magic? I think it's logical that it would have to do with that," he reasons. But he steps forward and takes my hands around the prophecy and presses his forehead to mine. "And I'm here. We'll face it together. Anything that comes, we'll face it together. You're my person, April. And I'm yours. Yeah?"
"Yeah," I say with a smile and eyes full of the confidence he inspires in me. And before I can second-guess it, I let the glass orb drop from my fingers and shatter on the ground. The voice of Percival Rackham brings goosebumps to my skin as I hear him recite:
The icy shroud will ignite them.
A sacrifice attempted spurs the sacrifice needed.
Two halves, severed, become whole.
Cursed be the blessing. Blessed is the curse.