Anne? Anne!
Though three years separated Sebastian from the worst night of his life, his sister's cries of pain pierced through the veil of time as clearly as if he were hearing them anew. Even now, as he stalked back to Hogwarts with a very irate redhead by his side, it was the echo of painful memories that he heard the loudest.
Anne, look at me! What happened? What did he do to you?
By the time they reached the castle, Sebastian knew he was beyond reason; that no amount of breathwork nor counting backwards from ten thousand was going to block out the resounding echoes of fury in his head.
I should have been there! Anne, I'm so sorry, I should have been there!
Sebastian briefly squeezed his eyes closed, fists clenched against the swell of pain that engulfed him as they stomped across the sloping lawn toward the castle.
Somewhere between Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, the sporadic sun had given up its futile battle for dominance over the encroaching cloud cover. Now, in place of bright golden light, there was only flat grey dullness; instead of warmth, only a permeating chill that settled in his bones.
And wasn't that just fucking typical.
When it came to warmth, Sebastian only ever got the fleeting sort.
Being a Sunday, the castle was a veritable hive of chaos of which he himself had once been an active member of, laughing with his friends, stuffing himself full of sweets, and causing mischief. He'd been normal back then - happy. Now though, it was a very unfortunate soul indeed who dared interrupt Sebastian by laughing while he was in the throes of misery. Those with the audacity (or the sheer stupidity) to so much as look in his direction were met with the blunt force of his foul mood, his expression alone fierce enough to send them cowering in his wake. He didn't need a wand to inflict fear into the hearts of his fellow students, and Merlin help him if he caught so much as a glimpse of Garreth Weasley's ugly fucking mug at a time like this.
At the junction between the upper and lower floors of the school, Aurélie turned for the staircase that separated snake from bird. But Sebastian had other ideas. He reached out, almost instinctively, and ensnared her slender wrist in a firm grasp.
'No,' he grunted, tugging her away from the stairs, 'come with me.'
Her answering barrage of angry French would've amused him had he not been on the brink of a meltdown.
'If you going to insult me,' he said through his teeth, 'at least do it in English.'
With a groan of indignation, Aurélie wrenched her arm from his grasp and glowered up at him, hands on her hips, her vivid red hair serving to accentuate her anger. Where was that strength when she'd been literally accosted by a psychopath? When her life was in danger? How did she have the gall to shout at him now but couldn't lift a fucking finger to save herself an hour ago?
Anger flared between them, charging the air with heat.
'I am not a rag doll!' she hissed in English, her French accent more pronounced than ever. 'If you want something from me, at least say please!'
Sebastian groaned, dislodging a chunk of dried mud from his hair as he ran his hands through the tangled mess. How he managed to end up with mud in his hair, he didn't have the foggiest, but if Aurélie's dishevelled appearance was a reflection of his own then they must've made quite a spectacle.
'Fine!' he seethed. 'Come with me, please. I need to show you something important.'
With very little grace, Aurélie allowed him to guide her through the crowd of students, whose carefree jubilance felt like a personal insult. Surely, they were being happy just to spite him, grating on his already frayed nerves for a laugh.
Though Sebastian knew plenty of secret nooks and hidey holes throughout the castle, there was only one place he deemed safe enough for a situation as dire as this. Ominis wasn't going to like it if he ever found out, but Ominis hadn't set foot in the Undercroft since Anne had died.
To hell with Ominis.
'You need a safe place,' he said, dodging around a group of giggling Hufflepuff girls. 'If people are after you, you need to know how to defend yourself.'
'But I don't —'
'Look out!'
Moving with surprising grace for someone so tall, Sebastian stepped in front of her in time to snatch something small and green from the air before it could collide with her face: an enchanted apple, of all bloody things, chased on by a rather flustered Ravenclaw boy. The apple's poorly transfigured wings flapped furiously in Sebastian's grasp as he brandished it in the boy's face, his patience wearing thin.
'This yours?' he snarled, feeling every bit the scary Slytherin the Hogwarts rumour mill pinned him as. The Ravenclaw shook his head and stumbled back, wide-eyed and trembling like a rabbit caught unawares by a snake.
'That's what I thought.' Sebastian pocketed the piss-poor example of transfiguration and stalked on, baring his teeth at the boys' frightened-looking friends as he passed.
Little footsteps hurried after him.
'Sebastian!'
'As I was saying...' He ignored the interruption. 'You need somewhere safe to go should anyone come after you again. Somewhere you can practise wielding that gift of yours in private.'
'What are you talking about? I don't want to practise wielding anything!'
Around a sharp corner and out of view, Sebastian stopped so abruptly that Aurélie almost slammed into him. He turned to face her, his expression so dangerous that she visibly swallowed back her protests.
'After what I just saved you from, what you want is irrelevant!'
'Oh, well that's very nice!' She glared with that same look of defiance she'd given him in Defence class, her chin raised and her little nose scrunched up. Had it really only been a week since she'd challenged him in Hecate's classroom? It felt like a lifetime had passed since that day.
'I'm not here to be nice!'
'Well, perhaps you'd be less miserable if you were!'
Sebastian scoffed, undeterred; he'd faced off with far worse than the wrath of a singularly tenacious girl before, ancient magic be damned. And besides, he wasn't miserable.
'Are all French girls as stubborn as you, or are you just an extra special exception?'
'Half French!'
'What's the bloody difference? Merlin, you're infuriating! Just listen to me, will you?' He shot a quick glance over her shoulder, wary of prying eyes and meddlesome ears. Or worse: the sightless yet alarmingly omniscient gaze of Ominis Gaunt.
'Whether you like it or not, somebody wants what you've got and they'll kill you to get it - or worse.' He held up a finger, silencing her protests once more. Had he not been so beyond humour, he might've found the sight of her struggling to stay quiet rather endearing.
'Don't let your parent's deaths be for nothing! You're powerful. Or - you will be with a bit of training.'
'Training?' she wailed. 'I don't want to train!'
'Don't be ridiculous!' He turned on his heel, heading for the concealed entrance to the room that had been his sanctuary since his first year at Hogwarts; the only real safe place he'd ever known.
'For a Ravenclaw, you're being incredibly dense!'
'Well, you're right on brand for a Slytherin!'
He ignored her, gesturing instead to an impressive grandfather clock tucked away in an overlooked corner of the Defence floor. The clock was broken to those who never bothered to pay attention, but something else entirely to those who did.
'Now, watch closely. To access the Undercroft, you need to touch here and here with your wand.'
'What the heck is an Undercroft?'
'Are you watching?'
'Yes, I'm watching!'
'Here — and here.' He repeated the demonstration, strategically touching his wand to the old clock until, with a soft click and a whoosh of cool musty air, the magically concealed door popped open.
Sebastian ushered her inside.
The Undercroft hadn't changed a whit in the seven-odd years since Ominis had shared its whereabouts with him and Anne, save for a single overstuffed sofa which Sebastian had poorly transfigured out of an old crate in his fifth year. The room had quickly become an escape for the three of them, a welcome refuge from homework and rules where they were free to be themselves, to play gobstones and skip curfew and practise restricted magic.
Discovered thanks to Ominis's direct connection to one of Hogwart's founders, nobody other than the three mischievous Slytherins had ever stumbled upon it.
And its secrecy was absolute.
Over the years, the trio had quite literally exploded things in its depths - a lot of things, Sebastian in particular - while above them, the school remained oblivious.
All this he explained to his new accomplice as the rickety old lift rattled into the pitch darkness below, trying to ignore how tightly she clutched his arm, or how warm her soft body felt against his side.
The enchanted braziers flared to life as the grille clattered closed behind them, casting the vast room in firelight and shadows. Aurélie released his arm with a little sigh of relief, but the sudden absence of her warmth left him feeling strangely lopsided.
The Undercroft was always much larger than Sebastian's memory allowed; the vaulted ceiling, held up by huge stone pillars, was so tall it was swallowed by shadows that not even the crackling flames could illuminate.
'Sit.' Sebastian gestured at his lumpy excuse for a sofa as they crossed the room.
'I'm not a dog,' griped Aurélie, but she sat anyway, wincing at the cloud of dust that puffed up around her.
Sebastian grimaced, realising too late that bringing the French girl to his filthy half-abandoned lair probably wasn't the best idea he'd ever had, and it was with some hesitation that he approached the collection of books he'd haphazardly stacked in a dark corner. Mercifully, the book he sought sat right on top, vibrating subtly as he wiped the dusty cover clean with his sleeve.
Most of the books he'd nicked from the Restricted Section over the years were rather vocal about being stolen - apparently, even books full of unimaginable evils were indignant about being left to rot in the Undercroft - but he was thankful this particular tome wasn't the type that moaned or shrieked. This one only hummed with a faint energy that was as familiar as it was unsettling.
'Read this,' said Sebastian, settling beside her on the sofa.
As curious as any good Ravenclaw, Aurélie took the book from his grasp.
Then she promptly dropped it.
'Ew!' she yelped, wiping her fingers over the musty cushions. 'What's wrong with it? It's all oily!'
Shit. That was the book made of human skin. He'd forgotten about that.
'Um, it's just... really old,' he mumbled, scooping it up before she copped a closer look.
Unbothered by oily human skin covers, he flipped through the nefarious book of horrors until he found what he was looking for.
Aurélie recoiled as he held it up, her nose wrinkled in disgust.
'What is it?' she asked, eyeing the pages like they might come to life and possess her soul. Which, to be fair, they probably would if they were able.
'Consequences.'
At that moment, the enchanted apple he'd pocketed earlier wiggled free and took to flapping lazily about their heads.
'This is what happens when you suppress your magic for too long,' Sebastian explained, swatting at the flying apple as it bonked the side of his head.
Though the ancient book was written entirely in Latin, the ghastly drawings needed no translation; human forms depicted in unsettling detail, their faces twisted in agony as they were transformed, contorted by the suppression of their own magic. No longer witches or wizards, but creatures of destruction.
'Obscurials,' he said simply.
Aurélie blinked at him.
'You know what an Obscurus is, don't you?' he asked.
'We don't all read Bedtime Stories for Slytherins like you do!'
He disguised his laugh with a very put-upon sigh.
'If magic is suppressed long enough, it becomes unstable, volatile,' he told her. 'The longer you deny its natural state - that is, its desire to be active - the more likely it is to turn on its wielder. Which means,' he impressed, 'explosions, destructive surges of magic. And worse -' his fingers traced over the particularly horrific drawing of a figure writhing in agony, halfway between a human and a swirling dark mass. 'It's parasitic. If left to fester long enough, it can consume you completely.'
Despite her prior reservations, Aurélie leaned closer, studying the page with an impassive expression. A long moment passed, then another, and then she said, 'Well, that's stupid.'
Sebastian blinked. 'Wh - it's not stupid, it's serious!'
She flew to her feet. 'No, it's stupid!'
He followed her. 'It's not!'
Merlin, and here he was thinking that Anne had been the most exasperating girl he'd ever met.
'What rubbish!' she snapped, suddenly sounding very French again. 'You can't seriously believe that nonsense! I'm not going to turn into some soulless creature of darkness just because I want to keep my magic under control! What kind of ridiculous concept is that? What sort of Dark-Arts-loving nutjob wrote this book, anyway?' - Sebastian tried really, really hard not to laugh at this - 'Why should I believe what's written in some crusty old book, anyway? You know what, just forget I told you anything about this whole stupid magic thing! I don't want to talk about this ever again! And don't you dare tell another living soul, Sebastian Sallow, or I swear -'
'Please,' he scoffed, 'who am I going to tell?'
'I don't know!' she burst out. 'All your girlfriends probably!'
Sebastian choked.
'Girlfriends?' he spluttered. 'What girlfriends? You think I have girlfriends? Plural?'
'I don't know!'
'I don't even have one girlfriend, let alone several!'
'Well, you seem...' she gestured at him, visibly flustered, 'popular!'
'I'm not popular!'
'Well, I don't know, do I? I don't know anything about you, but you know all these secrets about me and I don't even know if you-'
'-have a girlfriend?'
'No! I mean - that's not - I don't care if - that was just an example!'
The laugh he had suppressed for so long finally burst free, dissolving the tension in his posture.
'No, you're right, that's not fair, is it?' he chuckled, shaking his head. 'Fine, very well. Since I know your secret, it's only fair I tell you one of mine.'
Aurélie's eyes went wide.
'Oh, no, no, please don't, that's not what I meant.'
She backed away from him, her palms raised in supplication as if he were baring down on her with weapons rather than secrets. And perhaps he was; perhaps his secrets were dangerous.
'Please, Sebastian,' she implored. 'Please don't tell me, I don't want to know your secrets.'
Sebastian knew he should probably heed her pleas, spare her the responsibility of shouldering his pain, but the words were already burning the tip of his tongue with their desire to be spoken aloud, and Sebastian had never been good at holding back.
'Anne wasn't ill, she was cursed.'
'Urgh, merde!'
The back of Aurélie's knees hit the sofa. With a resigned groan, she slumped against the moth-eaten cushions with her face in her hands. Sebastian didn't understand the mournful string of French that came muffled through her fingers, but if he were to take a stab, he'd have translated her little Parisian lament as something close to bloody fucking hell.
Well, he thought grimly, the truth is out now. Might as well get on with it.
Aurélie didn't lift her head when he sat beside her again, though he supposed that was for the best; it was hard enough looking her in the eye from a distance let alone when she was mere inches from his face.
'It was my fault,' he began with a sigh. 'My uncle Solomon, he was an Auror for as long as I could remember, but shortly before my parents died, he quit - and rather abruptly, at that. I found out when I was older that he'd seen something or done something that had upset a group of notoriously vicious dark wizards, so he left the Ministry altogether. Moved to Feldcroft. Became a farmer. Wanted nothing to do with the life he'd left behind, the awful things he'd witnessed.'
Choosing to take her silence as a sign of encouragement rather than the plea for mercy it probably was, he continued, speaking to his shoes.
'Solomon and I - we didn't get along.' Bitterness tinged his words, and he wondered if she could feel the tension radiating from his body. 'Whenever I was home, we argued constantly; he didn't like that I was - well, me, and I didn't like that he was... him. But a few years ago, after a particularly heated fight, I stormed out. Left the house. Didn't come back for hours. I was too angry, and since it upset Anne whenever we argued, I stayed away until late into the night. Thought about not coming back, but...' he sighed, regretful.
'Eventually, I did, but... By then I was too late.'
The apple knocked feebly against the side of his head then fell to the floor with a thunk.
'What happened?'
'There was a trial approaching. That same group of dark wizards my uncle had upset were facing the Wizengamot for torturing a family of Muggles, and Solomon had been called to testify against them. Well, they didn't like that, did they? Couldn't have a well-respected ex-Auror standing against them in court. So they came to Feldcroft to send him a very clear message to keep his mouth shut.'
'They cursed Anne?'
He nodded solemnly.
'I should have been there,' he said, quieter than he'd intended.
'But what could you have done against Dark Wizards?"
'Back then? Nothing. But I would have made sure they'd cursed me and not her.'
'But then you'd be -'
'No, I wouldn't,' he said fiercely. One thing Sebastian knew for certain was that he never would've allowed himself to succumb to the curse that inflicted his sister; not with all the knowledge he'd armed himself with, not with the lengths he was willing to go to for a cure, and, most importantly, not so long as Anne needed him to survive.
'It would've been far easier to cure myself than to force a cure onto someone who didn't want it. Anne, she - she was resistant to exploring all her options. My uncle, too. They both believed there was no hope for her.'
'But you didn't share that belief?'
'There is always hope.' His jaw tightened, making his next words difficult to get out. 'If perhaps my uncle hadn't interfered, if Anne had just listened to me. But none of that matters; it's my fault she died.'
'Sebastian -'
He stood up abruptly, pain launching him back into action.
'I was supposed to protect her and I failed. I'm her brother!' His voice echoed throughout the cavernous room, bouncing back to him from the vaulted ceiling, the cold stone walls. Those walls had once echoed with laughs and lively conversation. Now, they were just a sounding board for his pain.
'It's not your fault someone evil decided to curse a child, Sebastian.'
'And it's not your fault they took your parents.'
She made a small noise of dissent, her hands clasped in her lap, fingers twisting the end of her sleeve. Her small frame was dwarfed by the oversized sofa cushions, her feet just barely scuffing the dirty floor, and for the first time since they'd met, Sebastian realised how very desolate she was; a little doll someone had set upon the sofa long ago and forgotten about.
He felt himself soften.
'Listen,' he said, his tone gentle as he settled next to her again, their shoulders touching. 'I'm sorry for getting angry at you earlier. I just - I tend to act first and think later. It's a habit I thought I'd grown out of, but... evidently not. I'll do better, alright?' He gazed across at her for a moment, but her eyes were hidden beneath long auburn lashes.
'Aurélie.' He leaned a little closer. 'You must learn to wield this power.'
She remained unconvinced, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
'I can't.'
'You can. Listen to me.' He shifted closer until their knees were touching. 'Anne had choices that she refused to consider. But you? You're different. You have options - you have power - and you're choosing wrong by denying that part of yourself.'
He gestured briefly at the book in his lap. Bedtime Stories for Slytherins, as she'd so aptly called it.
'This magic of yours is an inherent part of who you are. If you keep suppressing it, it will become a curse. And you'll be no better off than Anne was.'
And then you'll die. One way or another.