Stay
TAG : Fluff | Word count : 1.1k
Warnings : Not proofread | English is not my first language, I just ran the grammar through free grammarly (I know, I'm sorry). Other than that, all of the sentences are my own.
Featuring : Ominis x f!mc. No mention of a name.
Ominis had stayed awake throughout the night. He was tossing around in his bed until an annoyed Sebastian cast a silencing charm around his four-poster bed. Not wanting to irritate his best friend any further, Ominis draped his velvet robe around his nightshirt and dragged his feet towards the common room, just like in the old days when he first arrived at Hogwarts and had so many sleepless nights. He would rest his worn-out body near the fireplace, facing the black lake window. The whooshing and sploshing white noise from the lake soothed him, the blind blonde often explained to Sebastian.
Something preoccupied his mind last night, be they Sebastian's constant nagging of the scriptorium, Aunt Noctua’s tragic death, or something else that Ominis could not pinpoint whenever he was thinking about her. In fact, he was unable to rest peacefully last night and that’s why it was so hard for him to keep his eyes open now and follow Professor Binns’ lecture in the History of Magic class. Usually, he would fall asleep anytime soon but the girl beside him made it infuriatingly hard for him to do his favourite activity - napping.
He was hyper-aware of her. Every fibre in his body, every atom, and every molecule acknowledged her presence. She always smelled like a mix of vanilla, mallowsweet, and some spice. Ominis never had spicy food before in his life, thanks to his so-called pure-blood upbringing. Recipes were passed down from generation to generation of house elves. “Our ancestors had this meal ever since the ninth century”, his father used to say. The truest of pure blood, the Gaunt never strayed away from their orthodox ways. He called bulls.
So Ominis never tried any muggle food. He had never tried kedgeree before in his lifetime although it was a craze among muggles. That was until Amit shared with them his mother’s homemade curry once upon a cheerful day around the astronomy table and he was hooked. It was bloody brilliant!
But she was different. She was raised in another country, where spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and chilli were not foreign to her. Once, she had tried to stuff his food with some chilli oil and regretted it immediately when Ominis turned out to be having a bad case of diarrhoea the next day. Ominis and chillies were now sworn enemy.
So while he saw chillies as utter torture, she poured that abomination on her every ‘bland dish of Hogwarts’. “I need something to warm me up in this cold weather”, she tried to reason once. Thereafter, he had associated spices with her. What a masochist, he thought.
So there she was, sitting beside him, her vanilla and spicy cinnamon smell occupying his senses. She’d been trying to follow Professor Binns’ class diligently, her quill scribing on her parchment. Then he felt it. A tug on his elbow and her voice, softly calling out to him.
“Omi.. hey,” her whisper low, drowned by Professor Binns’ ongoing lecture about goblin rebellion.
Ominis often voiced his annoyance whenever she called him that - ‘Omi’ although he gotta admit, it had a nice ring to it’. However, just like any stubborn, bull-headed Gryffindor, she never listened! So, he didn’t answer. Instead, he turned his head in her general direction, wordlessly telling her that she got his full attention.
“Why didn’t you sleep? Your eyebags have eyebags you know”, she asked, and he swore he could hear a hint of a smile in her voice.
“This goblin rebellion is so exhilarating that I dare not sleep, for I’m afraid Urg the Unclean may kill me while I was dreaming”, he whispered back without opening his eyes.
He could hear her giggle and then shuffle in her seat. A rustling of fabric, then her breath fawning his left cheek so slightly. “I’m not asking why you’re not sleeping right now,” she hesitated, “but why you did not sleep well last night?”
As if taken by surprise, Ominis jolted on his seat, knocking his quill out of his desk but he managed to catch it graciously before it dropped to the floor, all the while she saw him still in utter disbelief, eyes glued to his wand, lying dormant on his desk. How was his reflex this good?
“Did Sebastian tell you? He must have complained about my sleeping habit while he is the one who snores like a troll”, Ominis retorted in mockery, his eyes now were open and bore into her with almost perfect accuracy.
“No, he did not”, she swatted at him, “He didn’t have to tell me that you didn’t get enough sleep. I just know. Sixth sense, you know”, she made a gesture with her hands and fingers, trying to imitate the story of some fortune tellers and their crystal balls when she realised that he could not see her.
“Ha ha! Very funny,” Ominis chuckled, “I bet you tried to mock me with whatever this is” Ominis pointed and gestured at her.
“Friends, I think the Professor wants us to follow him”, Amit’s voice reverberated through the class, waking up some disgruntled students who then immediately followed him into the hall, and making Ominis stop their conversation.
“Omi? I think we need to go”, she looked at Ominis whose head still resting on his palm, his face serene. Who knew whatever was inside the beautiful head of his.
Slowly, he turned his attention to his desk, and for the untrained eyes, they would easily miss the slight pout on his lips. He reached up for his wand and it glowed red when he scanned his surroundings, trying to detect where she was standing. And that’s when her hands graze his. It was a soft, lingering touch. Delicate. She was delicate.
“I’m here”, she whispered, her fingers gently resting on his hand, “I know that you can sense me, but, it’s easier to show you where I am this way”, she grinned, “If.. If you don’t mind, that is. You know, … me, touching you”.
Ominis was about to answer her. Oh, he would not mind. In fact, he would love her to touch him, to have her hold his hand every single day. He would stop the time just to feel her touch. And he would love to touch her back, and smell her, and bury his nose in the crook of her neck inhaling her scent that’s mixed with spice and vanilla. Ominis longed to put his hand at the small of her back and to caress her cheeks, and her lips, and to . . .
“Omi? Are you still sleepy?” her innocent question dismissed his wild imagination, his sightless eyes trying to sense where she stood, his mouth agape, struggling to find a word to say. As if she knew that he wanted to enjoy her company juuust a little bit longer, she sat back down, closer to him this time than when the class started.
“Do you wish me to stay?”, her voice hitched with nerves, although as soft.
To her surprise, Ominis’ face glowed with delight.
“Yes, please…”, he whispered back as tenderly, “Stay”.
Ps : The f!mc in my picture is the first mc that I created. That was before I discovered mods created by some amazing content creator out there (I love this community). Honestly, I was in the middle of playing another game when I gave HL a try, and got myself hooked immediately.
Pps: I've been researching some Indian food that was quite popular during Victorian era, and it showed kedgeree. I'm sorry if it's not historically accurate. My personal favourite is papri chat. In fact, I just had it two days ago.
I wish everyone a joyful season. May happiness find you even in the darkest place.
Merry Christmas!
