The tea had long since cooled in the time it had sat, untouched on the little table near her four-poster bed. Clara Elmore had not moved since the clink of porcelain against the wood had snapped her unfocused gaze up to the round-faced blonde who'd set it there. Grace's soft eyebrows had been pulled together in an expression she'd worn far too often around Clara over the past year. Worry. It made Clara's bones itch. Worry lived too close to pity, and she hated pity.
She'd seen pity too often since the events in the Repository, and each time tasted more bitter against her tongue.
So, she'd hardly acknowledged her roommate's presence as the blonde had carefully set the tea down, and muttered something Clara hadn't been paying attention to. Probably something about being around to talk if needed. Grace was kind and Clara was being rude. She couldn't find it in herself to do more than chew on the inside of her lip and Grace had gone without another word.
Still, she sat there, staring across the emerald bed hangings of the two other four poster beds and stubbornly refusing to move from the spot on her mattress; until one particularly uproarious cheer from the common room below reminded her the others would eventually be coming back to the dorm, and she desperately wanted to be in bed before then.
Her being 'asleep' meant no one asked how she was doing, and that was preferable to giving some vague well-rehearsed lie, or worse, attempting to coalesce the cacophony of rambling anxieties into something that resembled sentence structure.
The latches of her secondhand trunk clicked noisily, though, not as loudly as the creak of the hinges which were well in need of oil. Morning would bring the official start of Seventh-year classes, and sleep meant finally unpacking and tidying the trunk she'd been neglecting. Uniforms came first. Second hand, like her trunk. But repaired, washed, and pressed by the warm wrinkled hands of her grandmother; who had insisted on caring for Clara's uniforms when she couldn't afford the cost of new robes. If love could be stitched, Clara would swear she could find it woven into each of the places her grandmother had repaired the holes and worn edges.
The soft feel of cashmere met her fingers next, and almost without thinking, she brought the deep burgundy scarf up to her face and brushed it over her cheek. It had been an unexpected Christmas present from Ominis in 5th year and was one of the only items she possessed that hadn't been loaned or purchased secondhand.
Being blind, the blond had not known what 'burgundy' meant when the shopkeep had told him the color. Instead, as he told her, he'd selected it because he thought it felt nice and believed she might enjoy it.
"Besides-" He'd clipped, in that biting tone only Ominis could achieve. "-I can hardly think these days with the excessive chattering of your teeth. Perhaps this will make them stop."
His sarcastic irritation painted only a thin layer over the kindness of the gesture. A shield against the brief vulnerability the gift had shown her.
So, despite it being almost Gryffindorian by nature, she'd worn the scarf nearly every day that winter; much to Imelda's chagrin and Sebastian's amusement.
Below the carefully folded uniforms and scarf, the remaining disorganization of the trunk could have convinced her she'd spent far more than two years surrounded by the walls of the castle. Her grandmother would have been disappointed. Clara dug on. Pulling out heavy books, jars of dittany and mallowsweet, spare wiggenwelds, broken quills, scraps parchment, and a pouch of seeds Poppy had insisted were a favorite of jobberknolls before her fingernails scraped the threadbare material at the bottom and settled on a worn leather journal.
Clara opened it, almost without thinking. Allowing the pages to fall open to a sprig of baby's breath, pressed between pages speckled with ink; as though the journal itself had known the ghost of the boy who'd given it to her.
The ghost of a boy who'd loved so sweetly he'd stop to pick flowers for a girl, even amid the storm that had raged around them.
The boy who'd loved fiercely and unrelentingly, until the force of it tore him apart and bloodied green over their walls.
Three Sallow's had become two, and they all waited and feared the day two would become one.
In some ways, it already had.
Sebastian had disappeared without a trace; save for a single letter and a sprig of bluebells he'd left on the same table where the cold tea now took up residence. Clara had long since given up trying to figure out how he'd managed to access the girls' dormitories. 'Impossible' had only ever been a word to ignite his stubborn determination and Sebastian had a curious knack for finding his way into places he shouldn't be.
Almost of their own accord, her fingers fumbled the rough edges of the pages. Leafed through them, past the little jotted notes and inked sketches. Past the pages pressed with heather and hyacinth to where that single bluebell pressed its pigment against the parchment and the violet painted over cream.
Gratitude and everlasting love.
Her fingers brushed the places the pigments bled against the parchment, and not for the first time, Clara wondered if Sebastian had known the language of flowers.
Had it been a coincidence the first had been baby's breath?
Hope, new beginnings, and innocent love.
An image of messy brown curls and sun-kissed freckles tipped the edges of her memory. Tiny white flowers offered with a roguish smirk that had done little to distract from the way his gaze had darted too quickly between her eyes and the flowers held with trembling fingers.
Had it been a mere chance he'd offered heather before each of the brutal trials the Keepers had demanded of her?
Luck, protection, and admiration.
Could it have been happenstance he'd offered a hyacinth when she'd stubbornly refused to speak to him after his anger had exploded over her involvement with Lodgok?
Sorrow, regret, and forgiveness.
Somehow she didn't think so. Sebastian may have been a lot of things. Playful, charming, and confident? Yes. Wildly chaotic and infuriatingly stubborn? Definitely. Insatiably curious and much too intelligent for his own good? Absolutely. But naive? Naive, was never a trait she'd been able to attribute to the Slytherin.
Perhaps that was the reason she'd never read his letter.
It had been discarded in a fit of anger, to be lost to the bottom of her trunk, and conveniently covered by a scattering of miscellaneous items. Out of sight, and pushed to the edges of her mind where she'd refused to acknowledge the places where the corners of it dug into her thoughts.
Neither of them had ever fully acknowledged whatever had been between them. Sewn with intricate strands of sugar-spun glass, and left unspoken. As though to touch it would have been enough to shatter the delicate balance in which they'd found themselves. Instead, it had been said in the furtive glances during long hours in the library. In the leaning closer until their shoulders touched, and in the uneven crashing of her heart when neither of them moved away. It had been found tucked beneath their palms in the moments they'd spent seated amongst fields of heather; his fingers curled around hers and brushing absentmindedly along the back of her hand as she'd used the other to connect the freckles across his cheeks.
In a single stolen kiss, under starlight by the lake. The softest brush of his lips over hers, and the stars had found their home, scattered across her skin.
Perhaps things would have been different had the brunt of stopping Ranrock's rebellion not fallen on her shoulders. Or if Anne had not been dying.
But it had. And she was. So they weren't.
Clara's fingers traced the outline of the delicate violet-blue flowers once again. Why she'd not tossed the flower away with the letter was a mystery, even to her.
Or maybe it wasn't.
Gratitude and everlasting love.
She'd always walked a line between stubborn and impatient. In many instances, the two virtues fell on opposite sides of her problems and she often found herself in a battle of which would be the stronger. The letter had been no different, and her stubborn had won.
She'd refused to open it. To acknowledge whatever 'goodbye' he'd scrawled across the parchment. Refused the idea he'd said he loved her with violet petals and disappeared. That he might have written the same across the page and abandoned her. Stubborn had thrown the envelope into the corner of her trunk and denied its existence. Meanwhile, her heart had wrapped threads to the edges of her fingers and carefully pressed the bluebell between crisp pages where the violet may as well have been imprinted onto her skin.
She'd never said it to him. Flower or otherwise. Then again, she'd not left him either.
Stubborn could hide the letter and let her lose it amongst her belongings. Stubborn could hold her hand while she refused to acknowledge the possibility that he may never come back.
The crisp rectangle rested against the bottom. Beige framed by faded indigo. Still, she refused to touch it and her fingers scraped the bottom for any remaining items. A few gold coins, a crumpled potions essay she'd only half finished, the odd sock, and half a dozen hairpins until nothing else remained; save for the single four-sided polygon.
Stubborn may have masked her over the past year while the letter was hidden and out of sight, but impatience' eager fingers flitted against the place her stubborn lived and curled under its edges. Worked it away like peeling wallpaper, until shaking fingers finally grasped the beige and left the indigo unadorned.
Another series of shouts from the Slytherin common room startled against her ears and Clara flicked her wand to her bed hangings. They closed around her in an instant. Cocooned her away between walls of emerald.
The seal of the envelope broke far easier than she'd anticipated and trembling fingers pulled out two pieces of parchment. One, which was blank and impatiently discarded somewhere behind her. And another, spiderwebbed with the splattered ink of his usual messy scrawl.
Sebastian's handwriting could have been classified as its own method of code. Atrocious. Which she had always found amusing, given Anne's impeccable talent with calligraphy. It had been a point of pride when she'd finally learned to read it. Now, there could have been an N.E.W.T taught on the subject of deciphering Sebastian Sallow's handwriting and she'd have achieved an Outstanding without question.
Something was comforting in the familiarity of it, and trying to ignore the wavering of the page below her trembling fingers; Clara finally lowered her eyes to the letter she'd allowed to be lost to the bottom of her trunk and refused to read for over a year.
Ara,
I know you're angry.
It's okay. I would be angry at me too, and while I hope in time you can forgive me, I'll understand if you can't. I know leaving like this was selfish, but I couldn't stay here, and I knew if I saw you I wouldn't have the strength to go. Perhaps that makes me a coward too-another reason I'm not a Gryffindor.
The truth is, I need time. Time away from everything. Away from Scotland and Hogwarts. Time to gather my thoughts or maybe make sense of everything or......I don't know......
Just time, I guess.
Besides, a whole world exists, and Anne still needs a cure. I can't say if she'll ever forgive me. I don't even know if I deserve her forgiveness, or yours, but Anne deserves to live and I can't afford to limit my search to Britain or Hogwarts. There are at least seven other wizarding schools I've not even touched. Can you imagine what could be found in the mountains of Uagadou or at Mahoutokoro? Even the ancient Egyptian wizards had vast libraries and I've not ruled out muggle means of healing either.
There has to be something, somewhere.
She could almost hear his voice through the page. The exuberance with which it bubbled up in those moments his thoughts ran faster than his lips could form the words and the syllables tripped over one another in a furious bid for freedom.
I know you'd have wanted to come, and I'd be lying if I said I won't miss you terribly. But this is my burden to carry. The world has already asked too much of you Ara, and I've asked more than most.
It's time you get a chance to truly enjoy Hogwarts without threats looming over your head.
As you are likely already aware, I've established enchantments to render myself untraceable-
She was. She'd not sent the owls, but Ominis had. They had all returned days later, having been unable to locate the recipient, and Sebastian's whereabouts had remained unknown. Clara had never told the blond about the letter stubbornly tossed to the bottom of her trunk. And just as impatience had lost to stubborn, so had guilt, and the letter had remained locked away.
-but I've cast an alteration of the Protean charm on the blank page included with this letter.
( If I know you, you've immediately tossed that page away somewhere, and quite frankly, I'm very much counting on you not immediately setting fire to this whole letter as soon as you see it.)
If you write on that parchment, I'll see the message on the matching copy I've got with me, and I'll be able to write back to you.
As I've said, I need some time, but If you do choose to write, I promise I will write back to you, Ara.
I leave the rest in your hands, Love.
Yours, Always
- S
The letter dropped into Clara's lap with a little flutter, caught on the air, and wavered a moment before settling against the plush emerald of her bedspread. In another instant, she snatched the blank parchment from the spot it had settled in the corner and studied it furiously. As though she might find the workings of the magic woven within the fibers.
Though her stubborn desperately wanted to toss the letter away and refuse to respond, impatience's claws dug deep. Before she could stop to think of the ridiculousness of it, she'd found a quill and a bottle of ink and scooted the cold tea cup from the small table to make space for the blank page.
The tip of her quill hovered a long time over the parchment. Long enough drips of onyx slid down to contrast the beige. A steady drip, drip, drip as her mind vacillated between the myriad of things she'd wanted to say to him. Thoughts that had crowded her mind when she'd been too restless to sleep and she'd replayed all the things she'd have told him if he'd stayed.
If they'd had more time.
She settled for one word.
'Bastian?'
The ink hovered on the page. Glistened in the low candlelight and absorbed the muted tones of green that melted in through the window from the lake above.
The space below his name remained frustratingly blank.
Clara sighed and pressed her fingers into her eyes. He'd not said how long it would take him to respond and she resisted the urge to write. 'This is stupid. I'm writing to a blank parchment and expecting it to write back.'
She settled for muttering it under her breath, as though the paper might have ears.
Though, she thought. He should be grateful she had written his name and not some version of 'What the fuck were you thinking, Sallow?'
She decided she'd write that later.
Still, she stared at the blank space and drummed her fingers against the edge of the table. Caught in a stalemate, as stubborn and impatient battled furiously between scribbling another message, and locking the parchment back into her trunk for another year.
She almost didn't notice when the page shimmered. It wasn't much. Just a slight ripple of distorted light and in the place her ink had formed his name, new letters began to appear.
One by one.
In the familiar messy scrawl that embodied all of the chaos of its writer.
...
...
...
'Hello Sweetheart.'