Drip. Drip. Drip.
Sebastian was pacing again, squelching through the mud as he marched back and forth across the narrow space. Admittedly, there wasn't much room to pace between the confines of their hiding place, wedged as they were between the crooked houses of Hogsmeade's back streets, yet somehow Sebastian managed it with ease. Aurélie watched his progress as he took three steps one way then three steps back, muttering furiously under his breath.
All the while, that incessant drip, drip, dripping of water from the broken pipe kept up its maddening rhythm, mimicking the pulsing thrum of her magic.
Drip, drip, drip.
Pulse, pulse, pulse.
Aurélie grit her teeth.
'What the hell are you doing all the way down here, anyway?' demanded Sebastian, running a hand through his hair. 'What were you thinking? The Hog's Head? Really?'
His incessant back and forth was starting to make Aurélie dizzy, but he never slowed his pace. Where stress evidently spurred Sebastian into action, it only made Aurélie freeze up, every muscle locked tight to keep both her magic and her panic contained.
'I - I didn't know!' she said, wringing her tingly hands. 'I got lost!'
'Bloody fucking hell, Aurélie! Only you could manage to get lost in a village the size of a postage stamp!'
'You said to meet you at the tavern and I -'
'Yes, at the Three Broomsticks!' he exclaimed, throwing his arms out to his sides. 'Not the fucking Hog's Head!'
'I don't know what the Three Broomsticks is!' she shot back. 'You didn't tell me there are two bloody taverns in Hogsmeade!'
'It was right in front of you!' Sebastian's voice reverberated so loudly between the stone walls that Aurélie wondered if the inhabitants inside could hear their heated argument - and if they could, whether they'd even care.
'All you had to do was walk out of Gladrags and cross the fucking village square, but instead, you went gallivanting off by yourself to - '
'I was not gallivanting!'
'Then what? What were you doing? Looking for trouble?'
Aurélie bristled with indignation. 'I told you!' she spat, pointing a finger at his chest, 'I was lost!'
Sebastian groaned, running both hands through his hair until it stuck up in wild disarray. 'You're lucky I found you! Before that scum - before he -' He cut himself off with another groan, but his unspoken words were as loud as if he'd shouted those at her, too.
Before he killed you.
Drip, pulse. Drip, pulse.
Aurélie rubbed frantically at her forehead but stopped when the tingling in her hands made her head feel buzzy.
'Who was that, anyway?' Sebastian demanded, standing still long enough to gesture emphatically at the street behind her. 'That - that man?'
'I don't know!'
'You don't know?' he repeated, incredulous. 'Well, he certainly knew you! Little Keeper? The brothers? What the fuck is going on, Aurélie?'
Drip, pulse. Drip, pulse. Drip, pulse.
She tried to steady the erratic rhythm of her breath, but the combination of barely contained magic and looming panic attack was beginning to make her feel ill. She wasn't sure which would be worse: accidentally blasting a hole through the stone wall she was leaning against, or crying.
She squeezed her eyes closed. 'Just - just calm down, alright?'
Sebastian whirled around to face her. 'Calm down?' he shouted. 'Calm down? I just saved you from a fate I'm sure we're both trying very hard not to think about and you want me to calm down? No, you -' he jabbed a finger in her direction, making her jump, '- owe it to me to explain why a dark wizard was practically salivating over getting his filthy fucking hands on you!'
PULSE, PULSE, PULSE.
'Stop! Stop shouting at me!'
'I'm not shouting at you!'
If the situation weren't so dire, Aurélie might've laughed at the absurdity of it all; at how, in the space of a single afternoon, she'd been almost flattened by Thestral's, tracked down by the same people who'd presumably killed her parents, and subsequently rescued by a boy who may or may not have murdered his uncle. Death was stalking her, lurking around every dark corner with icy breath and long itching fingers.
Merlin, how had this day gotten so bad so quickly?
She slumped wearily against the damp stone wall.
'You're hurt,' Sebastian said, rushing toward her with his wand raised. 'I knew it, why didn't you tell me? I can help, I know Healing Arts, just tell me where it hurts and I'll -'
'No, no,' she interrupted, gently pushing his wand away before he accidentally blew her up in his haste. 'I'm not hurt, Sebastian, I'm just...'
Scared. Exhausted. About to blow up Hogsmeade with my needy, inexplicable magic.
Her fingers curled around the edge of his sleeve and held on. He was close enough now that she could just catch his scent beneath Hogsmeade's overlying stench of farm animals and stale beer; a faint hint of wood smoke and soap and something fresh that made Aurélie think of the outdoors; like swaying trees and sun-warmed grass.
'You just need to breathe,' he said, more gently now.
'No, you just need to breathe.'
Sebastian's lips twitched.
'Fair enough,' he said, clearly suppressing a smile. 'We'll breathe together, then. C'mon, three deep breaths. Ready?'
Filling her lungs would've been considerably easier had the buzzing of her magic not been squeezing the life from her lungs, but Sebastian's soft breath on her face made it somewhat easier to bear. He was pleasantly warm. Or perhaps it was only that she was very cold.
'Better?' he asked.
'Not really,' she replied with a weak smile.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Sebastian shuffled his feet in the mud. Aurélie held onto his sleeve. They moved a little closer in the process.
'Sorry,' he mumbled eventually, fiddling with his wand. 'I just...' He raised his eyes to meet hers. 'Aurélie, please tell me what's going on. If you're in danger, I can help.'
Help.
The word stirred an ache in her that was somehow more unsettling than anything that had transpired so far.
Nobody but Aurélie's parents - and, much later, the Auror's who handled their murder case - had ever known the truth about her gift; not her professors at Beauxbatons, nor extended family or her friends. Not even Celeste, her best friend since their very first day at Beauxbatons, had ever suspected that Aurélie was different.
Her parent's murders had been reported across the nation as a random killing, a senseless act of violence carried out by enemies of goodness and love and light: Dark Wizards who killed for fun.
All around her, those who had known them - and even those who hadn't - had lamented the untimely deaths of the well-liked Collins' couple. How could anybody harm the good-humoured Mr Collins, the skilled Herbologist who was kind to animals and spoke words of endearment to his plants? Or his elegant wife, whose beautiful face was succeeded only by her angelic voice, who believed that music was a gift to be enjoyed by all?
And why?
And why?
Aurélie knew why. The Auror's knew why. And now a select few of the Hogwarts staff were in on the secret, too - prewarned of her special condition lest trouble follow her to Scotland. But beyond that indifferent circle of strangers, there wasn't a single soul with whom she could share her heavy burden of truth.
On the awful night it had happened - after Aurélie herself had been narrowly rescued from a fate much worse than that of her parents' - Celeste had held her close and cried into her hair. 'Thank Merlin you weren't home, Aurélie. Thank Merlin you were spared.'
But Aurélie couldn't tell her that she shouldn't have been spared at all. That they - whoever they were - had come looking for her.
That it was her fault her parents were dead.
You have something we need, the tall cloaked figure had said, before crucio had made her blind and deaf to anything but soul-splitting pain.
Sensing her hesitation, Sebastian reached out and laid his hand on her shoulder. Warm. Very, very warm.
'Trust me,' he said simply.
But she already did.
-x-
It was one thing to trust another with the knowledge of her gift, but quite another to explain it.
'I'm... not normal,' she began, somewhat anticlimactically.
It was admirable that Sebastian fought so hard not to laugh, but despite the gravity of the situation, he simply couldn't stop the grin from spreading across his face.
'Yeah, I know, but what's that got to do with anything?'
How absurd that he should make her laugh at a time like this, but there it was: laughter, breathless and shaky and utterly ridiculous, but unmistakably there; squeezing itself into their narrow hiding place, worming in between the suffocating moments of fear and doubt, and, somehow, making its way into her heart.
'Oh, shut up,' she said, lightly shoving his arm.
And then she took a deep breath and began the arduous task of telling him - this strange boy she'd known less than a week - her deepest, darkest secret.
'I don't know what a Keeper is,' she said, all the laughter gone from her voice now. 'I've never heard the term before, but I'm assuming it's the name they've given me for... for what I am.'
Sebastian's expression remained impassive, but his eyes never once left hers. 'What do you mean, for what you are? Aren't you a witch?'
'Of course I'm a witch. But I'm also a - a -' She threw her hands up in exasperation. 'I told you, I'm not normal. What I can do goes far beyond the abilities of a regular witch.'
Sebastian slowly raised an eyebrow.
'And what is it that you can do, exactly?'
'I can wield ancient magic.'
'You - I - what?'
She told him all she knew; that the gift was passed on through her patrilineal lineage, that her great-grandmother had been the last to possess it, that her parents had encouraged her to suppress it, deeming it too dangerous, too powerful to control. By the time she was finished, she was rather out of breath.
'I come from a long line of them - these Wielders or Keepers or whatever it is they call us, but I'm the first who's possessed the ability in a very long time. At least, the first that I know of. There might be others, I don't know.'
Sebastian blinked at her several times. 'But a Keeper is for Quidditch,' he said thickly. Aurélie had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing again.
'It's got nothing to do with Quidditch,' she said, suppressing the mad urge to pinch him. 'I hardly think anyone would come after me because of my exceptional skills as a Quidditch Keeper.'
'You'd be surprised.'
She rolled her eyes before delving into thoughtful contemplation again, pondering how best to explain something that came as naturally to her as breathing.
Finally, her eyes settled on Sebastian's wand.
'You and I - and all of us - we use our wands to cast magic, right?' Sebastian nodded, his gaze trained so intensely on her face that it made her cheeks feel hot. 'But - um...' she cleared her throat. 'Well, our wands themselves aren't magic, are they? They're just conduits for power.'
She took a deep breath, teetering on the precipice of truth. And then she plunged.
'I don't need a wand to channel power. I can tap into the source directly - into the ether or - or - wherever it is magic lives. I am a conduit.'
Sebastian opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. 'I still don't understand.'
'My father used to call me a fountain, or - or a spring. I can tap into magic, draw it up from wherever it lives and... Well, use it.'
Sebastian's frown deepened.
'Watch,' she said, interrupting him before he could start banging on about Quidditch again. She cast a covert glance around them, making sure the coast was clear before raising her hand and plucking a long, silvery strand of magic from the air between them. Liquid metal, silvery water.
Sebastian's eyes widened. He leaned closer as she held it up for him, its light casting his face in sharp relief against the gloomy backdrop of the alleyway. She wondered if he could feel the charge in the air the way she could; that awful prickliness like hundreds of bugs crawling over her skin. She'd always hated that feeling.
'What is that?' Sebastian whispered, his eyes trained on the undulating ribbon of light in her fingers.
'Magic,' she said simply. 'In its purest form.'
Something flickered across Sebastian's face; a fleeting glimpse of some expression Aurélie couldn't quite place - a gleam in his eyes that didn't come from the swirling magic in her fingers but from somewhere within him.
Then he blinked and it was gone.
'I've never seen anything like it,' he said, awed. 'What can it do?'
'Anything I want it to.'
Her lack of experience using her magic didn't mar her ability to wield it. It was an inherent part of her, after all - an extension of her will. Even now as she conjured it into existence, the process was as effortless as blinking.
'Watch,' she said again, and Sebastian's bewildered gaze followed hers to where the broken drainpipe was still drip, drip, dripping away in the background.
Alright, she told the magic, off you go, then.
The thread of silver expanded, flared, and then shot away from her fingers, zipping toward the broken drain pipe with the enthusiasm of a newly freed caged animal. It wrapped around the pipe several times, shooting up and down and up again. For a blinding moment, the entire length of it glowed white-blue, blinding and brilliant. And then - nothing. The pipe was mended, the drip silenced, and the light gone.
'That dripping was driving me insane,' she said by way of explanation.
Sebastian gaped at her. 'You can control that?'
'Yes, but I don't like to if I can help it.' Though the tingling in her hands had finally stopped, there was an unsettling feeling growing in the pit of her stomach.
'Don't like to? Why not?'
'It's extremely volatile, and using it drains me, and it's - it's - dangerous.'
The clouds shifted and suddenly Sebastian's face was bathed in light.
'Dangerous?' he said incredulously. There was that look again, that gleam in his eyes that had little to do with the sudden onset of sunlight. He stepped forward again, closing the small space between them. 'Aurélie, you possess an incredible gift!'
'Incredible?' she scoffed. 'Oh, yes, how lucky I am to be blessed with such a wonderful ability!'
'Yes, you are!' he argued. 'Well, granted, fixing a drainpipe wasn't the most exciting display of magical prowess I've ever seen -' Aurélie rolled her eyes at this '- but if, like you say, it can do anything...'
She pushed off from the wall, forcing him back a few steps. 'You don't understand! This incredible gift-' she said, injecting the words with as much acidity as she could muster, '- is the reason my parents were murdered.'
Murdered.
My parents were murdered.
Those four awful words exploded into the air between them like they were visible, like the muggle fireworks her father had once taken her to see, whizzing and sparking and unable to be stopped once they'd been lit. She'd never said that terrible sentence aloud; the simple act of doing so tore a pain through her so intense she had to wrap her arms around her body to keep from breaking apart.
'Murdered?' Sebastian made a sudden movement as if to grab her but managed to stop himself at the last moment. 'They were murdered?' He gripped his wand with white knuckles, panic clear in his eyes. 'You mean that man was going to kill you? And you did nothing to defend yourself?'
'No, I... I imagine he - or whoever sent him - would've liked to keep me.'
'Keep you?'
'I'm a magical bloody spring, Sebastian! I'm no good to them dead!'
Sebastian paced five long, squelchy steps away then spun around to face her.
'But why your parents? Were they - ' he waved his hand in her general direction '- like you, too?'
'I told you, it was my great-grandmother who last possessed the ability! Do you even listen?'
'Of course I listen!' he said through gritted teeth. 'But that doesn't explain why they killed your parents!'
Aurélie groaned in frustration. She was not going to discuss this - not when she was ankles-deep in mud in some dingy back alley, and certainly not with him. Aurélie whirled on her heel, flicking up more muck as she made for the street beyond the alleyway. Sebastian overtook her easily.
'Tell me,' he said, blocking her path.
'Isn't it obvious?' she hissed. 'They came for me but I wasn't home! I was supposed to be there - I should have been there - but I went out last minute. If I'd just been at home when I was supposed to be, my parents...' Pain constricted her airway and she fell silent.
'But then they'd have taken you - these brothers, whoever they are.'
'Yes.'
'No,' he countered immediately, 'that's never going to happen.' He moved closer, his imposing height and anger crowding her against the wall.
'I'd rather they took me! If I could swap places with them, I -'
'Don't be ridiculous! What are you saying? That you wish you were - that - that you - '
'I'm just saying that it was me they were after, not them!'
He vigorously shook his head. 'If someone is after you, that's all the more reason to use your gift!'
'I don't want to use my gift! I want it to go away!'
'Don't be ridiculous!' he scoffed. 'You'd rather be hunted down, would you? Rather sit around and wait for the likes of that man -' he gestured angrily toward the street once more '- to come back and - and what? Torture you?'
'Of course not, but -'
'Come on, we have to go!'
Without warning, he grabbed her by the hand and dragged back toward the road. Though the quiet street beyond the alleyway was bright and warm again, Aurélie still felt cold.
'You should have told me!' he seethed, checking the coast was clear before slipping back out into the bright street. 'I wouldn't have let you go off on your own!'
'I just did tell you!' she snapped, wrenching her hand out of his grasp.
Sebastian didn't slow his pace. 'Do not go anywhere near the Hogs Head again, understand? And don't go walking about by yourself!'
'Ugh, you're annoying!'
'And you're infuriatingly stubborn!'
Aurélie didn't bother dignifying this with a response, but as they stomped back to Hogwarts in angry silence, she fumed the entire way: if either of them were stubborn, it certainly was not her.