Tag Game : What was your MC’s first interaction with their love interest?
Thank you so much for the tag, @libellule-ao3 🤗 Ominis and Evelyn’s first meaningful interaction feels like a lifetime ago with how much they’ve grown together like plants! Lol, see what I did there? 😂😉
*sheepishly scratching the back of my head*
Unfortunately, since I post Julianna and Ominis’s relationship timeline in my Book of Bains series out of chronological order, I have yet to write of their first meeting in great detail and I most certainly don’t have any fanart of it, either. However, I do reference the scene in chapter four of my second installment, I See You after they become a couple in seventh year. If not love, it was definitely like-at-first-sight, lol:
“When did you know, Lia?”
“Oh, Ominis!” I protested, a thick blush painting my face and neck.
“You want to boost my self-regard, yes? Then tell me what exactly I did to earn, as professor Ronen so eloquently put it, ‘the favor of the fair maiden’.”
“I want to hear it. Please, darling?” He dropped a kiss on my shoulder, and I was done for.
I stared at my fiddling hands in my lap as my mumbled my side of the story. “I…I’ve fancied you since the day we met.”
“Don’t you dare laugh!” I bristled at his incredulous tone.
“I’m not laughing, darling, I’m just shocked.”
I crossed my arms with a pout. “Well, it’s true. When I saw you standing there by the common room windows, bathed in this romantic blue glow from the lake, I…I thought you were the handsomest boy I’d ever seen.”
Ominis shyly buried his nose in my hair as I continued:
“When we started talking, I quickly realized you were blind, but…honestly…I must say I was a bit relieved at that discovery. I’d have died of mortification if you saw how shamelessly I was gaping at you.”
At the sound of his chuckle, I relaxed my body and leaned more into his embrace.
“Then when you mentioned how you weren’t proud of your family’s pure-blood obsessed lineage, I was…I was just in awe. Here you were, a direct descendant of the most notorious Hogwarts founder, and you openly rejected his philosophy. Not only that, but you chose to tell a complete stranger this fact, a stranger in Slytherin house no less. That was my first glimpse at your integrity and courage. I was quite taken after that…and it was most vexing! I hadn’t expected to be so keen on someone on my first day!”
*a little context here that I haven’t written about yet is that Julianna was torn about being sorted into Slytherin. She was already aware of the House’s reputation for producing more Dark Witches and Wizards compared to the others, as well as their generally inherited disdain for Muggles and Muggleborns. Yet, her beloved father was a Pureblood and a proud member of Slytherin who fell for her Muggleborn Ravenclaw mother and he showed nothing but the upmost respect and love to his in-laws. Ominis Gaunt rejecting his family’s prejudices was the first solid blow to Julianna’s worldview.*
Okay, for anyone still reading this now rambling post, I suppose the next best relevant moment of significance between Julianna and Ominis since their first meeting would be in my third installment Calming the Storm. It takes place immediately after the infamous Undercroft confrontation. Sebastian’s not the only one who gets an earful, so there’s an apology scene I feel we were robbed of in the game.
Anywho, I tag: @honeylavender100 @crowgaunt @lenorashore and anyone else who’d like to participate!
