He groaned again at the feeling of your pulse pounding under his fingertips, his voice gravelly and coated with arousal when he finally spoke. “What are you up to now, trouble?”
***
You'd been with Ominis for some time, and as much as you loved your intimate times together, you wondered what it would be like to be in his shoes for a change. Your darling husband is more than happy to help you satiate your curiosity.
Word count: 4.6k
Tags: p n v sex, bondage, blindfolds, light bdsm, light dom/sub undertones, pet names, praise kink, ownership kink, corruption kink (just a lil bit), possessive!ominis, cunnilingus, established relationship, body worship, romantic sex
You loved your husband more than anything in this world. You had been with Ominis since your sixth year of Hogwarts, and even now, ten years later, you were still as thick as thieves. He supported your desire to teach at the school, even though you would be gone for days at a time and away from his comforting arms, and in turn you supported him and his work as an inventor, no matter how much time he spent locked away in his office. Through it all, you were a team. It was a truly happy marriage, one you would be perfectly content in until your dying day.
That being said, there were some aspects of your life that had gotten a bit…stale. Being together for so long led to some challenges with keeping things interesting. In this particular instance, your more intimate times were starting to become lackluster. It was still lovely whenever you two got together, but you longed for your husband to do something surprising. Ever since your first night together it had been the same routine, and you were, quite frankly, bored.
Not that you’d ever tell him that. Godrick’s heart!
Being a professor had its perks, one of which being access to the restricted section of the library at any hour of the day. No student is going to question a professor as to why they are out at such an hour, it would be absolutely balmy. Not that you didn’t miss the chaos of sneaking down there with one particular Sallow twin, but it was certainly nice to not fear the appearance of Peeves around any and all corners. On the nights that you slept at the castle, you’d been reading up on some things in the restricted section, and had learned some interesting changes to try in the bedroom that would hopefully intrigue the blond. Rather shockingly, the “Intimate Literature” section was…extensive. There were things in some of those books that you would have never thought of, even in your most raunchy dreams.
One particular thing caught your attention, both for the possibilities it held but also for the fact that it had been something you thought about before: seeing in the way that Ominis sees. The Gaunt man’s blindness was never a hindrance to him, nor to you, but it definitely intrigued you. Around the house, he mainly saw through his enchanted wand, the location charm showing him shapes and outlines so he is able to get to and fro. But in the bedroom, Ominis preferred to use his hands, and sometimes his mouth, to find his way up and down your body. His favorite pastime was finding out what made you tick, what made you whine, what made you scream— always the tinkerer, always curious.
As much as you loved him touching you, you wanted to know what it felt like when you touched him; no sight to help him know from what direction you were coming from or what you were going to do to him. One simple finger running down his chest would send his heart aflutter under your palm— your legs brushing against his would make him breathe heavy like you had taken all the air from his lungs. He once described it to you as feeling everything the earth could possibly give you but so much more. It looked electric, and Merlin, you wanted to be shocked all over.
So, the only logical way for this to happen was for you to be blindfolded.
All you had to do was convince your husband, and you knew exactly how to do it.
The always busy blond was locked away in his office when you enacted your plan. You knocked gently on the door, waiting patiently for his word to enter. Upon his muffled, “come in” sauntered into the room, your steps precise and your hips swaying like a dancer. He sensed something different in your posture right away, his ears perking up slightly as he took in the soft cadence of your steps. Leaning back in his office chair and silently activating his location charm, he watched you stalk closer to his desk like a lioness on the prowl. You were the picture of innocence— a slight hop in your step and your arms folded behind your back like a schoolgirl, and in that moment Ominis wanted nothing more than to pin you over his lap and corrupt you for hours. A wayward smirk stretched across his face as he twirled his wand between his fingers, his free hand coming up from his arm rest when you got close enough and running across the skin of your thigh. The blond’s eyebrow twitched slightly at the feeling of the lace trim of your negligee, and his fingers tightened against your pillowy flesh, pushing the skirt upwards with intrigue until your hand stopped him in his tracks. You smirked deviously at the success of your plan so far before climbing into his lap, pressing all of your weight down on his already half-stiff member so he could feel just how hot and needy you were for him.
Ominis groaned lightly at the sudden warmth atop his hardening cock, his hands coming up to grasp at your hips and rock you slightly for that delicious friction he craved. Your breath stuttered in your chest at your bare, sensitive skin rubbing against the unforgiving roughness of his corduroy trousers and you quickly lost yourself in the moment. One of your hands made its way into his blond tresses, mussing up his perfectly styled quiff and pulling him closer for a searing kiss. He eagerly responded to your whims, surrendering under your burning lips and digging his fingertips into the silk that draped across your body. His left hand began exploring as you kissed, roaming up from the love handles at your hips and towards your neck, pausing briefly to paw at your breast and finding nothing underneath your new nightdress. He bit your lip roughly, pulling you back by your neck and greedily sucking in the oxygen that he forgoed to continue snogging you.
Even after years, his kisses still tasted like ambrosia to a mortal.
He groaned again at the feeling of your pulse pounding under his fingertips, his voice gravelly and coated with arousal when he finally spoke. “What are you up to now, trouble?”
You giggled lightly, a lilt of mischievousness hiding behind the sound of pseudo virtue that made Ominis’ heart skip in excitement. You pushed gently against his hand, signaling that you wanted to whisper your desires in his ear, and he pulled you towards his face again, loosening his grip enough for it to be just the right amount of malleable. Your hot breath fanned across the apples of his cheeks, sending a spark of desire down his spine. A part of him wanted to disregard whatever you wanted to tell him, wanted to throw you onto his desk and have his way with you. But, there was a stronger, more curious part of him that also wanted to know what you had in store.
You bit lightly at his earlobe, licking away the pain before murmuring against his pulse. “I want to try something new tonight, if it’s alright with you, darling.”
He growled at your fingernails wracking up and down his clothed arms, the bone just sharp enough to be felt but not enough to leave marks. He pulled your face back, staring into your eyes with an unnerving amount of contact that one with his disability would normally not be able to achieve. There was something tantalizing swirling in his irises, something dangerous, something devious, and you had to steel yourself to continue with your scheme and not drop to your knees and pleasure him then and there. His smile was lopsided and delicious looking when he replied.
“What do you have in mind, little dove?” He traced his finger up the outside of your thigh once more, running the pad of his thumb against the coarse lace. “What devilish thing is swirling in that gorgeous brain of yours?”
You let go of his arms, trusting Ominis to hold you still while you reached into your hair and undid the ribbon holding it up. The black silken cloth caught on the low lamplight of the office space and swallowed the glow like a deep pit of tar. Your hand was delicate as you grasped onto his wrist, lifting his hand from your thigh and raising it level with your chest, palm up towards the ceiling. You first ran the ribbon lightly along his hand, letting the ends tickle his skin just enough to catch his fancy before carefully laying it in his palm. His other hand released your throat finally, taking the other end of the ribbon between his fingers and pulling it until it was completely unraveled between your buzzing bodies. It was smooth in his palm, sensual, one would even say. He approximated that it was around the length of his arm, possibly the width of your wrist.
A look of confusion quickly took over the blond’s features, and you chuckled softly at how adorable he looked. You took the silk from him, leaning forward just enough to gently drape it over his unseeing eyes and whisper against his parted lips.
“I want to feel what you feel when I touch you.”
He gasped against your mouth, his arm snaking around your hip and pressing against your lower back, pulling you impossibly closer until your ravenous core was flush with his throbbing manhood. Ominis’ smile was all teeth when you pulled back again, the ribbon dragging against his skin in the most delectable way as you gazed into his eyes.
“Oh, you do, now?” He mused cheekily. “You want to know how I feel when you touch me?”
He took the silk from your hands, letting it run over your exposed collarbones. There was something impish in his smile, like a wolf in sheep's clothing— the cheshire cat would be jealous of its verisimilitude. He was always mischievous in nature while at school, but he had never really brought it under the sheets with you. Perhaps your proposition excited him in a way unfamiliar, you mused. Gently moving it over the backs of your shoulders, he looped it around the front and draped it across your chest like a loose fitting scarf. It was your turn to be perplexed when his hands began to wind around the ends of the satin ribbon, the question only being answered after a maddening pause. Using the silk for leverage, Ominis yanked you closer until your chests were pressed together, noses brushing and mouths inches from touching.
“You want to know how it feels to be blind— completely under the whim of your partner? You want to put your faith entirely in my hands, not knowing what I could possibly do to you next?” His voice lowered with arousal, taking on a gravely, almost growl-like cadence. “You want to surrender yourself to me?”
You sucked in a shaking breath at his insinuation, nodding minutely as your eyes fluttered closed. You were far past coherent sentences at that point. His mouth only inched closer with each word.
“Oh, my darling girl, your wish is my command.”
He stole your breath with his kiss, his skin feeling like pure sunlight under your fingertips. He stood from his seat with you in his arms, your legs quickly wrapping around his waist as he made his way towards your bedroom via the route he memorized long ago.
Your comforter is plush when you land, cushioning you as Ominis rests his body above yours. You pull him downwards by his collar, your hands only getting a small moment in his hair before he has you by the wrists, one of his hands roughly planting them above your head while the other explored your curves. Only a minute in his domain and you were already his prey. The blond leaned forwards slightly, his back arching so he could reach your supple, sensitive throat, before nipping and sucking at the webbing between your shoulder and neck. You keened softly, rolling your hips upwards to meet his gentle hip trusts. He let go of your wrists, trusting you to keep them there as he carded his hands down your sides, only stopping when he got to the teasing lace of your negligee’s trim. More and more kisses were pressed to the column of your throat as he smoothed the fabric up your body, revealing your bare, naked body underneath to the world. He groaned at the feeling of your baby-soft skin under his fingertips.
“Nothing underneath? Such a good girl for me.”
You felt Ominis reach into his back pocket for his wand, slowly bringing it forwards and above your heads. The point just barely touched the skin of your wrist when he lazily whispered the binding spell.
“Incarcerous.”
Cotton rope the color of the forest at night wrapped itself around your conjoined wrists, tightening just the right amount so that you couldn’t move but you weren’t in pain before winding around a bar on your headboard. A startled gasp fell from your lips at your sudden capture, your eyes filling with excitement and a little bit of fear at the predatory grin stretching across your husband's face. His hands trailed up your sides again, sending delightful shivers through all of your nerve endings on his journey to your eyes. His fingers paused at the tips of your ears, the ribbon brushing against where your hair was fanned across the bedspread.
Ominis smoothed his thumb across your cheekbone, softening his smile as he leaned down to press a kiss to the tip of your nose. His voice was little more than a breathy whisper against your eyelashes. “Are you sure about this, my love?”
You smiled at his care for you, pressing a soft kiss to the closest bit of skin you could reach before answering him, your voice flooded with love. “Yes, my dear. I want you to do whatever you want to me. Make me feel like you do.”
He groaned at your words, taking your consent to wrap the ribbon around your head, tying it in a simple knot at the back. The last thing you saw were his starlight-filled eyes before your world was bathed in darkness.
You were incredibly aware of your level of undress when Ominis moved his body away from yours, opening up your skin to the chill of the room without his body heat. You squirmed against the rope slightly, testing its strength before trying to train your ears to hear your husband moving around the room. Everything was eerily quiet— not even the sound of the grandfather clock in the hallway could be heard beyond the closed door. For a moment you feared the blond left you in the room, leaving you tied up against the bed so he could work in peace. Your heart began to pound harder in your chest with nerves.
All fear quickly fled from your body at the feeling of his fingertips running up the skin of your stomach, drawing a long gasp from your chest. It felt like his hand was touching every nerve in your body, igniting your veins in sinful fire as he crept up and up towards your heaving breasts. He started off slow, just moving his fingers up and down different parts of your body with just the barest touch until you were begging for more. This type of teasing was torturous for you, only just aware of where he was but never knowing if he was going to give you what you wanted.
You whined in the back of your throat, body vibrating with need as he grazed against your chest for a fifth time. “Please, Ominis!”
You were sure your heart would give out when his other hand wrapped itself around your left mound, squeezing the skin between his fingers before taking the right nub between his teeth and nipping. Ominis chuckled at the whine that spilled from your throat, his voice reverberating through your sternum and sending a lovely heat to your center. He let the rest of his weight fall on top of you, relishing in you feeling every bit of skin he had uncovered in your small moment of silence. He was completely bare for you, his hardness pressing against your thigh and pulsating with a delicious heat. You could feel him everywhere. His fingers brushed against the very fabric of your being, pulling you apart by your strings. His breath curled around your lungs, stealing the air frantically inhaled through your squeezing throat. His mouth licked at your brain, sending pulses of pleasure down to your core. You were in utter bliss under his careful, loving hands.
He laughed again at how pliable you were under him, murmuring against your stiff peak. “Where do you feel me right now, pet?”
You sighed shakily as his voice shot through you like a bullet. “Everywhere. I feel you absolutely everywhere.”
The blond took your nipple between his teeth again, flicking it with his tongue until your reacting whimper pittered off into the air. “That’s how I feel whenever I’m around you.”
Ominis began to kiss down your chest, pausing to mouth hotly at your hip bones and leave open mouthed kisses on your naval. “Your mere presence shifts the air around me— changes the trajectory of time itself in my mind. The world slows when you touch me, my darling. My name falling from your lips feels like one thousand tiny suns kissing my cheeks in devotion.”
He mumbled your name against your lower stomach, hopelessly inflamed by how you shivered at the word.
Unable to resist his carnal desires any longer, he dives into your sweet tasting center, first licking a long stripe from base to tip before lapping at you like he was starved and you were his only source of sustenance. You keened loudly for him as stars filled every space behind your blinded eyes.
There he is, you thought. There’s his tongue wrapped around my soul, stealing all my life force one flick at a time.
He moaned at your scent, fully slotting himself between your legs and encasing his head between your thighs. It felt like his tongue was a lightning bolt against your sensitive skin, shocking your clit with every stroke, every tap, every suck. You completely surrendered to his whim, clamping your thighs against his ears, fully intent on keeping him right where he was for the rest of time. It had never felt this good before, never felt this encompassing.
Ominis pressed his face deeper into you, taking the button at the top of your most private parts and sucking it into his mouth. You nearly screamed, your words jumbled as they launched themselves into the air.
“Fuck! Oh God, Ominis!”
His strong hands pulled your legs away from his head, his mouth unlatching from you like a leech as he paused to catch his breath.
“Oh, is it a ‘God’ you want, precious?”
His voice had never sounded breathier— never sounded so completely sinful.
The blond laughed, a barking thing that sent a tingle to your toes. “I do not care if every single God and Goddess across all of the world, all of mythology was fighting over you— you are mine.”
He bit harshly at the pillowy flesh of your inner thigh, indenting his teeth marks into you so everyone would know you were owned by him and him alone.
“But if you truly wish for something devout, something reverent, then let my hands be your chapel.” Ominis gently ran his fingernails along the skin of your waist, dragging them up and down until you were a shivering, wiggling mess. “And I will treat your screams, your whimpers, your pleas as my scripture.”
His unseeing eyes never left the direction of your heady, breathy pants as his middle finger slid deep inside of you, long and lithe and curling against the spot that made you believe religion was real. Moans of his name and swears that would make even the devil blush swam in the air around the pair of you, only being swallowed by the plush feather-down comforter under your writhing body. You plead with your husband for more, unsure what more entailed but all the more pressing your center against his awaiting mouth once again and grinding against his tongue. He quickly complied, pressing a second finger into your opening and thrusting in and out at a sped up pace. His lips latched back onto your needy clit and that was all it took for you to spill over into maddening nirvana.
Your hazy mind picked up on the feeling of your husband leaning up on his elbows, kissing his way back up your chest until he reached your gasping lips. He quickly stole them in a gentle but desperate kiss; you could taste yourself on his lips and it drove you even further into madness. His prickly, end of the day stubble rubbed against your cheek as he tucked his face into your neck, kissing up and down your shoulder and neck with urgency.
“You did so good for me, sweetheart. So, so perfect— just for me, so good just for me.” He was breathing even heavier than you against your pulse, hopelessly devoted to your pleasure, your happiness.
He kissed your pulse, his whispered voice filled with adoration.“Mon coeur.”
He kissed your nose this time. “Mon âme.”
Finally, he pressed delicate kisses to your eyelids, resting his forehead against yours. “Ma vie.”
My heart. My soul. My life.
Warmth filled your entire body, your heart squeezing around his words and committing this moment to memory. Never before had you felt so loved, so worshiped. It was iridescent, the way you could picture his love-struck smile glowing behind your eyes— completely and irrevocably arduous.
Still feeling his burning desire against your inner thigh, you rocked your hips against his, pleas beginning to spill from you once again, but this time with a need to please him.
“Please, Ominis. I love you so much. Take me. Use me. I’m yours, no one else's. I want to feel you inside of me.”
He bit your shoulder roughly, muffling his animalistic grunt before unlatching his jaws and leaning up on his knees. The blond spread your legs wider, lifting your hips slightly and wrapping your legs around his waist as he lined up with your entrance. You mewled at the feeling of his head rubbing against your opening, stretching you out slightly and giving you a taste for what was to come.
Ominis whimpered at the feeling of your soft heat against his cock, a little bit of his original domineering persona slipping away at how welcoming you felt for him. “I love you too, my dove.”
With no other words, the blond pressed his hips closer to yours, letting his length slide into your sweltering center bit by bit to not overwhelm you. You could feel every curve of his shaft, every vein along the underside without your sense of sight. Your touch was heightened to its full extent, and it was earth shattering how good this felt. You were simultaneously freezing and burning, living and dying. Your souls could have mingled together and entwined along your timelines with a burning pyre, thrusting you both into every lifetime possible to relive this moment over and over and it would never be enough for you. You both moaned in tandem when your hips became flushed once again, pelvis bones pressing into each other for a delectable friction.
Ominis paused to catch his breath, little tiny moans breaching his lips between each inhale and exhale. His fingers wrapped around your hips, grasping onto your natural handles there as he growled under his breath, just loud enough for you to hear with your slightly heightened sense of hearing.
“I am going to make you feel so full, so pleasured, that by the time your climax sends you into oblivion the only word that will be able to grace your lips will be my name.”
With that, he pulled out of you until only his tip was still inside and slammed into you, his hips harshly knocking against yours and his slit kissing your cervix. You wailed into the night as he continued to pound into you, chasing his own pleasure while still being perceptive of yours. In and out he went, the large prominent vein at the base of his lovely cock rubbing against the ridges inside of you in the most heavenly way. Your sounds sang together like an otherworldly chorus, your tones rising and falling in harmony as they floated delicately up towards the ceiling. Ominis’ hands continued to dig into your skin, his fingers surely leaving bruises on your hips that would last for days. You didn’t care in the slightest— all you could feel was bliss. If you thought earlier was pleasurable, this was pure, unfiltered ecstasy. The knot in your stomach tightened with each thrust of your husband's hips, each time taking him to the hilt and sending blinding whiteness behind your useless eyes.
The blond’s hips stuttered as his orgasm fast approached, yours not far behind as he could tell by how tightly you were squeezing him. He surged forwards towards your face, capturing your lips in a kiss that was more teeth than anything else as he rocked the entire bed with his velocity. The headboard banged harshly against the wall as he swallowed your moans and screams, only the sound of his name breaching through the jumbled nonsense. Ominis nosed at your jaw, groaning next to your ear as his thrusts got sloppier and less rhythmic.
“Come for me, my love— my life.”
The instinctual, innate love he had for you was what ultimately did you in, his words ricocheting you into the strongest rapture you had felt in some time. Your husband followed soon after, your name conjoining with his as you both tumbled into the sweet hereafter.
Your breaths tangled together as you both came down from your high. Ominis was the first to break the spell, pulling out of you gently before getting up and procuring a towel from your adjoining bathroom. He cleaned you like one would dust a prized possession, carefully and with reverence. You were like a precious jewel that he had to protect, something he could admire for years, centuries, millennia to come. Next were the bonds on your arms, which he undid with deft fingers. Your arms dropped to the bed in a grand thump, all of your muscles giving up from how hard you were thrashing. Ominis lifted you off the bed, his hands on your shoulders as he slotted himself behind you, letting your back rest against his chest as he finally undid the blindfold. Your eyes squinted at the sudden light of the room, fluttering closed for a moment longer as you relaxed back into your husband. The blond carefully took each of your wrists into his hands, bringing them up to his lips and kissing away the minute bruising. You swooned, perfectly content to stay in this moment until the very end of time— until the world died in a grand ball of fire, or with a tiny poof.
Ominis kissed the side of your temple, rubbing his cheek against yours like a cat. “Was that everything you hoped for, my dear?”
You raised your hand up to his face, softly cradling his cheek in your palm. Pure affection spilled from you both in waves.
Tags: Murder, Strangulation, Immolation, Dismemberment, Torture, Sadistic character, Blood, Gore, Stabbing, Infected wounds, implications of paternal abuse, Graphic depictions of wounds, Graphic depictions of violence, Mania, Delusions of grandeur, Spoilers for the final Keeper quest line, Ambiguous ending
Reader discretion is advised. You know what you're getting into at this point.
It was almost too simple how easily you unlocked the secret stone door standing between you and your loved ones. You expected traps, maybe another guard or two— one last trick up the universe's proverbial sleeve. Just one simple swish of the unlocking charm— a soft tap of the same pattern as before against the bricks— and there before you were two cells, each one holding a piece of your broken, bleeding heart.
Sebastian saw you first, the lack of light making it difficult for him to fully grasp the truth before him. You watched his face twist unnaturally in a flurry of emotions. Sorrow. Fear. Fury. Confusion. Hope. Joy.
When his eyes locked on yours, questions burning in those deep pools of cinnamon, the sun seemed to awaken from its nightly slumber and all you saw was pure, blazing life.
You ran to him, knees hitting the dirty ground below roughly and lodging stones under your skin. The air was putrid, sickness and death coating everything in a thick paste— your lungs heaved in your chest and your head spun, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care about anything other than the boy in front of you. All the anger you felt before flitted away like dandelion fronds in the summer breeze. Your hands were on his face. His forehead was touching yours. His fingers were clutching your arms. Tears streamed from both of your eyes like an April downpour. Nothing mattered, and yet, somehow, absolutely everything did.
Your world had ended not long ago, but here it was again, reborn, babies-breath fresh, and bursting with color that even the gods would hesitate to name.
Sebastian pulled away first, not bothering to wipe away the tears and snot pouring down his face lest he release you and the whole universe under his fingers disappear. His eyes raked across your face, drinking in your visage under the burning braziers like it was an oasis in the desert and he was but a simple man in need of a drink. Your smile softened as you poured everything you wanted to say to him into your glassy eyes.
I love you.
I missed you.
I love you.
I’m so happy to see you.
I love you.
I did this all for you.
I love you.
Never leave again.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Worry knitted in his brows and you started to reach your hand to his temple, desperate to rub his stress away so you could continue to bask in your conjoined relief. His hand quickly caught your own, eyes never moving from your countenance.
At long last, he spoke. “Who did this to you?”
Hurt bled through his words, and it was your turn to be confused. You were unscathed— you knew you were— so what did he mean?
He looked more concerned at your confusion. “Button, who hurt you?” He implored, rolling his hand on your arm up to your face and swiping at it with his thumb. He held the finger up for you to see. Blood coated it in a second skin, etching itself into his fingerprint like a tattoo.
You shook your head, realization clicking on in your mind like a torch sparking to life. “Seb, I’m alright. I promise.”
He shook his head again, searching you more intensely with his eyes for any cut or bruise you could be hiding. “No, you aren’t! You’re covered in blood!”
His rambles of worry for you and revenge against those who could have possibly marred your perfect skin faded into the background as your evil deeds spilled across your brain matter like red wine on carpet. It was now your turn to fret. Fear gripped you as the words you were searching for dangled on the tip of your tongue, your teeth clenched like the iron bars holding you from the brunette's arms. Telling him whose blood it was meant telling him about the carnage that lay just beyond reach, all of it by your hand. No dark curses used, just the pure monstrosity of your actions. You feared his reaction— his rejection. He would surely turn and run once he realized the devil you’ve become all in the name of love. Love shouldn’t make you into a monster— this demon in holy yellow and gold. How could he ever see you the same? How could you ever see yourself the same?
Shaking yourself free from the fright clinging to your heart, you prepared to rip off the proverbial bandage. Once you left the room, your sins would be on full display, anyway.
“—please just tell me what’s wrong! Where are you hurt, my love? Let me help you, I want to help—”
“Sebastian!” You snap, cutting off his words mid ramble, hands grabbing at his face and forcing his eyes back to yours. “I am not hurt.”
He sputtered, “B-but the blood—”
“It’s not my blood.”
Your words blanketed the room, silencing every sound, audible or not, and leaving nothing but the ring of your voice in your ears. Your head turned away from him unconsciously, shame clouding everything else in your heart as the freckled boy fell still. He took in your words like molasses, it all getting muddled in his tired mind. Panic clutched at your chest again the longer the deadly quiet stretched on.
You feel him pull your hands from his face and it was like everything in your tiny world was crumbling all over again. Your soul called to any god that could hear, begging them to open up the earth and swallow you whole. You wanted to die again and again and again— anything as long as it eased your pain.
You almost thought your death wish came true until his hand— so gentle, why so gentle?— caressed your chin and took hold, moving your trembling face back to his.
Disbelief sparkled in his amber eyes and the tiniest smile graced his lips. The darkness fell away once again and all you could see was his light.
“All that noise outside,” Sebastian whispered, an amalgamation of awe and incredulity blended in his tone, “That was you?”
You nodded feebly, eyes downcast. You saw him shake his head out of the corner of your eye, and his fingers tugged you closer.
“You killed them all?”
You nodded again, voice soft and a little weak. “I had to save you.”
He just sat there quietly for a moment, drinking you in with all he had left. You furrowed your brows in confusion, eyes swimming with pure bewilderment. Was he not scared of you?
“Are you not afraid of me?” You whispered, uneasy.
He looked at you, puzzled. “Afraid of you?”
“I’m covered in blood that’s not mine,” you said, voice hushed but mind nearly hysterical with your own frantic feelings. “I killed everyone in my path. I laughed as they breathed their last breath and I enjoyed it, Sebastian. That is not normal. I am not normal.”
You shook your head as much as you could in his grasp. “How are you not scared of me? I’m scared of myself.”
He truly smiled then, relief palpable and nothing but love pouring from his honey-toned eyes. “Scary? Merlin,” Sebastian sighed softly, tucking a piece of blood soaked hair away from your crimson face, “You’re divine.”
He released your chin, raising both of his hands to cradle your red stained cheeks. His skin was clammy against the heat burning under your skin.
“I wish I could have seen it,” he whispered, voice refusing to raise even a decibel higher in fear of breaking the calm quiet, but still filled with so much reverence that it made you feel dizzy. “I always knew you were powerful, but you must have been a sight to behold. All that ancient magic thrumming in your veins…”
Your eyes flicked from his gaze to his mouth, drinking in his words like firewhiskey on a December night. With each softly spoken sentence, each one uttered like a prayer, your faces moved closer.
“My angel of death. My savior.”
You were never religious, even with all of the recent prayers you’ve been sending up to the skies. But there, in that dingy prison chamber, metal bars pressing just as harshly against the bones in your face and shoulders as Sebastian’s lips were pressed against yours, you could understand why people worshiped the saints.
“This is all quite twee,” came a familiar, sardonic voice at your back. “I am also here, if you were wondering.”
Ominis.
Sending the quickest apologetic look that had ever crossed your face to the brunette, only to get a breathy chuckle in response, you all but crawled across the room to the other cage, reaching your hands through the bars until your slippery palms found purchase on lovely, precious tweed. Ominis lost all of his sass just as speedily as it came, the most blissful smile stretching across his face as he felt your familiar magic pulsing under your talented hands. His own limbs reached through the bars, sliding his palms up your trembling shoulders until he was able to curl his fingers into your hair. A soft, breathy laugh bubbled up from his throat, relief palpable in his blessed blue eyes.
“It’s really you,” he whispered, his voice awash with disbelief as a small stream of tears poured down his face.
You gently wiped them away with your thumb, relishing in the feeling of him leaning his cheek into your waiting hand, before taking your other and using it to move one of his from your tresses, pressing a delicate kiss against his palm before placing it against your smiling face.
“Happy to see me, dear?” You cooed, emotions swirling like a tremulous tornado in your gut, but only the sweet sound of happiness breaching your tone.
Ominis’ laughter was like church bells after Sunday mass. The blond brought both of your hands to his face, pressing kiss after kiss after kiss to your fingers, knuckles, palms, wrists— anything he could reach. Pure, unfiltered joy sang from his weary soul for the first time since crossing the bridge to Hogsmeade after what felt like years locked away in his cage. More tears fell from his eyes and it was all you could do not to kiss away each and every one of them. No reunion had ever felt so good, so cathartic as this one. Every sentiment you felt towards Sebastian was shown the same amount to Ominis, just in different ways this time around. Your relieved words came in the form of lingering happy memories pushed into his mind, your skin tingling as you felt his own reach out to you as he bathed in your mental, childish glee with his gift of legilimency. You freely allowed him to search through your mind, showing him the moment you discovered them missing all the way until your reunion with Sebastian, sparing him no gory detail in your journey of never ending devotion. His mindseye filled with your feelings— from your encompassing despair to your ravenous anger— and he drank it all in with everything he had. You were a marvel of astronomical proportions. A divine power of war and carnage. By all means he should buckle under the weight of your fortitude, but in that moment all he could do was bask in your glowing pyre of unfettered triumph. Even the blond could not deny that it didn’t feel glorious to see one of the men that worked with that foul vixen brought to his knees.
Ominis could feel the blood coveting your form soaking under his skin, but he couldn’t care less, for what was love if it was not messy?
You killed for them.
Not for the sake of murder, of superiority and pain like his family, but instead as an act of protection.
Little you. Kind, loving, loyal you.
Who else could say something like that?
His heart sang in tandem with yours, two magnetic souls finally connected once again after mere days of being apart. Even still, days without him, days without you, felt eternal.
“Oh, come here,” he almost growled, pulling your face impossibly closer until your lips crashed into his at a velocity that made your head spin.
His kiss tasted like lingering fudge and sugar, copper blood hiding just beyond the sweetness. It was exactly what you needed.
You had pictured your first kisses with your boys many times before, but never like this. Never in a ghastly prison surrounded by the scent of blood and corpses, each one feld by your own hands. Even then, you couldn’t deny that it was still, somehow, perfect all the same.
Ominis pulled away first, tongue licking away what remained of you on his lips before sending you the sweetest smile that had ever graced his statuesque face. You couldn’t make heads or tails where his blush started and the red crimson of the blood from your soiled hands ended on his deadly cheekbones, and nothing had ever been more beautiful. For a moment you forgot about the stains on your palms and thought he himself had cut you on his sharp features. What a lovely reason to bleed.
“I know I should be incredibly cross with you for a number of reasons, but in all honesty I cannot give a single damn right now.”
“You should be cross with me,” you whispered against his lips, body trembling. “My hands are covered in unfathomable amounts of blood. Much more than Sebastian’s last year. I have killed so many over these years that I no longer remember the number. I sleep peacefully at night even with their lives on my conscience. I am no better than your family, Ominis, and I’m sure you know this by now. You should hate me, yet here I am, offering you only these soiled hands for you to hold.”
He silenced your worries with another kiss. “Yes, your hands are dirtied in immeasurable amounts of blood,” he said softly, gripping your hands tighter and pulling them against his chest. “But, they’re your hands. How could I ask for anything more?”
You could hear Sebastian’s hearty laugh behind you, the sounds of his happiness soon sending you into giggles of your own. Reaching into your coat pocket, you carefully extracted both of the wands living there before passing the one as black as night to the softly grinning blond, tears pooling in his cerulean eyes again as he was finally able to see. The red beacon glowing softly in his hands had never felt more like home.
You quickly shucked the second wand to the other fallen wizard, standing on shaky but resolute legs and unlocking the first set of bars that held you from truly embracing the ones you would do anything for. Your reddened hand reached towards the blond before you, a relieved smile on your face as you prepared to leave this place as fast as possible— to hell with the other two poachers hiding in the shadows; they could choke for all you cared. Ominis reached for you like a sunflower to the sun, fingers just grazing yours before his face crumpled into a grimace of pain, his hand immediately falling to his leg and grasping at his thigh. You quickly reached for him, hands splayed in worry as you fumbled in your mind about whether you should touch him or not. His eyes met yours again as he winced, whispering dejectedly.
“I don’t think I can get up.”
It was then that you realized the heavy smell of copper wasn’t just coming from you, it was also from them.
Your eyes scanned him frantically, taking in everything that you had been so blind to under your rose colored glasses. Bruises criss-crossed the entirety of his person until he was more purple and red than skin tone, marring him from his temple to his nimble fingers. Under his eyelids were pools of deep black rings, making his eyes look lifeless and dead like a starless sky. He had cuts across his face— one jagged and pressed right under his eyelid, long enough to graze against the edges of the one over the bridge of his nose, and one across his blue tinged cheek that was nearing the point of scarring, the skin sickly and puckered in a way that made your stomach twist uncomfortably. The fingers on the hand wrapped around his leg looked vaguely wrong, like they had been broken and mended poorly— each one ever so slightly bent at the joint until you could trace a slight zig-zag between the bones. You leveled Ominis with a steely gaze, imploring him to move the appendage hiding the wound that was obviously troubling him the most. He met your stare with fervor, unseeing eyes begging with his entire soul, whispering don’t. Don’t make us. Don’t look at it. You refused to back down, chin raised and glare burning. With a heavy sigh he shifted his gaze away from yours before finally letting the hand fall away, shame twisting his beautiful face. The sight made your blood boil. Crimson bled through his corduroy pants, staining the once pretty grey hue a disgusting shade of rusty brown. Between the thinly sliced remnants of the fabric was a long, straight cut, bruises coloring it with spattlers of plum. It was morbidly perfect— not one bit of skin with frayed edges between the chasm each side bracketed. Your teeth unconsciously gritted together as you saw pink muscle underneath.
His face twisted again at your sharp intake of breath. “She healed it a little, but it still hurts.”
Your hands shook as you watched him reach towards his face, gently taking hold of his neck and cradling it, indirectly pressing his fingers in the same spots that held the print of a palm and five digits, each one dark enough to make out the swirls of fingerprints under the coloring.
Your world bled red.
That b i t c h.
Taking a deep breath to appease the logical side of your brain telling you tend to their injuries first before hunting down the tramp that dared touch what was yours, you calmly reached into the pocket of your pants and pulled two bottles of wiggenweld potion from the neverending black hole of your extender charm, carefully placing them next to the boy’s shaking form and pressing a soft kiss to his matted hair.
Waiting until the blond gingerly brought the first vial to his mouth, hand still clutched softly around his neck for protection, you turned on the balls of your feet and stalked towards the brunette hiding from you in the shadows. His eyes once filled with an overflowing river of love now shuddered with fright— not of what you would do to him, never that, but of the rage pouring from you like all-fire. Your fingers sparked with angry iridescent purple lightning, burning across the stone walls around you until there was nothing left but the soft shade of orange from the braziers and the all encompassing ferocity of your magic.
Sebastian stood on shaky legs, arm wrapped protectively around his stomach as he watched you wearily. You plastered a fake smile across your lips, but the corners shook with strain as you raised your hand and beckoned him closer. He reluctantly moved near, feet shuffling against the dirt floor with each dragging step. Cresting the threshold of dark into the light, you first see the sickly green tone of his skin. His normally tan complexion has drained from his body and been replaced with an ill shade of white, nearing the point of translucency under his eyes and along his joints. His hair was slicked back and standing at odd ends, one side darker than the other, likely from the head wound against his temple. Blood bloomed along his body from top to bottom, starting from the brown splotch along his collar to the dried stain decorating the middle of his calf, each one placed precisely where the middle of a large bone would be— humerus, ulna, radius, femur, tibia, fibula. His lips were cracked and bleeding to the point that you couldn’t tell if it was from an injury, self inflicted or otherwise, or the illness sweeping through him. The brunette squared his shoulders under your scrutinizing gaze, irises now festering with an ire that you had only seen on him once before: the night in the catacombs. Do your worst, those eyes said. I did what I had to do.
Oh you stupid, self sacrificing, idiot boy.
Why do I love you so?
You silently unlocked his prison, dropping two more potions to the floor at his feet before pivoting towards the looming darkness at the end of the hall, eyes focused on the shadows like they held the secrets you so desperately sought.
“I’m going to fucking kill her,” you snarled into the blackness.
An equally irate quip came from your right, voice now less tense thanks to the wiggenweld chasing away Sebastian’s infection. “Not if I do it first.”
“We could always take turns,” mused Ominis.
“Why don’t you all line up so I can kill you one at a time? How’s that sound?”
From out of the dark stepped a woman, eyes the color of the sea and hair black as pitch. She stood poised, regal, body relaxed but teeming with a confidence many would kill for. She was silent for a moment, sizing you up in your bloody, red glory.
The way her smile stretched across her face told you that she liked what she saw.
“Hello, brother killer.”
A shocked bark of a laugh fell from your lips before you could stop it, an incredulous grin turning your mouth as your teeth glowed in the lamplight. The woman’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance.
“That’s it?” You laughed. “All of this because I killed your stupid brother?”
You carefully took in her features, trying to find anything familiar in the amalgamation of genetics. You notice her nose first, its slope dipping downwards in a slight curve, then the color of her eyes. You could almost see sparks of green spells crackle around her pupils— dark magic making itself home around the pure black of her pupil. The timbre of her voice danced through your mind— how the tone rose and dipped with the three words she spoke. Her dialect was familiar. Why was she familiar?
Lightning struck, and your smile stretched wider.
“Oh,” you teased. “I see the family resemblance now. You’re only missing his idiotic top hat.”
She took a step closer, heeled boot swishing against the ground as she crossed her legs, wand dangling from her hand. “I should kill you for that. You know it’s unkind to speak ill of the dead.”
“Kill me?” You snorted condescendingly, ignoring the rest of her statement. Unkind? You scoffed. Victor Rookwood didn’t deserve an ounce of your kindness. “And I thought your brother was dumb. That seems to be a family pattern, no?” Your smile twitched, wand swishing at your side. “I wonder if you’re as flammable as he is.”
She matched your smirk willingly, eyes flicking over your shoulder briefly. “Me? Flammable? No. But, why don’t you see if my friend is?”
You didn’t have time to react before an arm wrapped around you from behind, burly muscle slotting itself under your chin and squeezing against your windpipe. Your arms raised involuntarily, hands splayed in the air in surrender, eyes refusing to leave the witch’s, and wand dangling between your fingers. The air broke around the sound of your Slytherin’s raising their weapons at the new threat.
“Boys,” you barked. “Wands down.”
Sebastian made an incredulous noise from your side. “Wands down?”
“Wands. Down.”
“But—”
“Wands,” you growled. “Down.” They reluctantly lowered their arms.
Your hands sparked to life, electricity dancing on your skin. “They’re mine.”
Hands coated in lightning fell against callused flesh, your nails digging into the man’s skin and dragging the current down into his veins. He screamed in pain, body stumbling back against the closed door you once came through and free hand clutching at his burning limb. You rounded on him, eyes alight with the same fire as before, brighter than ever and refusing to be doused again. He shrank back at your stare, fear shedding from his shaking form as your wand slowly leveled with his chest. The lackey's feet slid under him as the blood seeping under the door spread wider, the maddening sound of drip, drip, drip breaking through his panting breaths on each off beat. His skin paled, eyes wide in the socket as he processed what that meant for the third poacher.
Oops, you thought, grin splitting your face.
“Leona, ‘elp me—” He whimpered.
“Descendio.”
The man slammed into the ground, sending the crimson blood at his feet into the air like dead rain. His body bounced from the force, spine snapping in half.
Your arm arched upwards, wand swirling around your head as flames ate at the air around you, the heat more of a comfort than a source of pain.
“Igne Serpentis!”
From your wand grew a funnel of blazing fire, wisps circling each other like a hurricane until it formed one long cylinder. Swirls of red, orange, white, and blue twitched along its spine, giving the illusion of scales rising and falling as it flexed its body. From its front grew the head of a snake— large, imposing, and fangs barred at the crumbled form of a man before it. The flames slithered into the air, back brushing against the crude stone ceiling and arching downwards over the poachers body, its maw unhinging and a hiss like water crashing against a bonfire echoing from its nonexistent lungs. Like a strike of lightning against a stormy sky, the great serpentine blaze reared its head back and swallowed the man whole, encasing his body in an inferno of your own creation.
His wails permeated the space around you, voice ricocheting off the walls like a bullet in the chamber as he struggled. The cotton of his tattered clothes only acted as kindling, spreading farther and farther up his pudgy body until he was nothing more than a human-shaped bonfire against the dirt floor. The smell of charred meat reached your nose and reminded you of a Christmas roast. He squirmed against the mud-caked, bloody floor, limbs twisting at unnatural angles and joints snapping under the constricting pressure like twigs as the rotundant man fought the call of death growing closer by the second. The man’s screams decreased in volume gradually until they were nothing more than choked groans, each one getting caught in the cold breeze flowing through the dilapidated stone walls and floating away like ash against a night sky. You released the spell then, watching his sizzling body curl into itself at the waist and fall to the ground, hot, boiling ichor mixing with the cold blood puddle below. His final, mediocre croaks died in his mouth before his head reached the floor.
“Seemed pretty flammable to me,” you muttered, stepping away from the pool of bubbling fat and gore reaching towards the soles of your shoes.
Your thumb wiped the bit of blood that splashed onto your cheek as you turned, wand still smoking with residual magic but your smile indomitable on your face as you licked the appendage clean.
“What’s the matter, Leona?” You said, tone sickly sweet.
She had moved closer while you were dispatching her partner, intent to kill while your back was turned just like her coward of a brother, leaving the boys to aim their wands at her in retaliation. The black haired witch froze like a startled thestral, limbs taut and feet poised to run in the opposite direction. You tisked at the sight.
“I thought you were going to kill me?” You grinned in her direction, casting your eyes to Sebastian and nodding to him. He lowered his weapon again, Ominis following suit— a silent acknowledgement of your festering ire.
Sorry boys, this cunt was yours.
You took a step closer, relishing in how she shook as she frantically moved her eyes around the room, desperately searching for help that wasn’t coming. Her irises lingered on her charred comrade as the puddle of his thick red blood oozed more and more down the hall, liquid just barely grazing your heels with each step forward. Her throat visibly bobbed as she swallowed.
“Child’s play,” she scoffed, voice trembling against her will. “Basic spells and cheap tricks. You’re not as strong as you think you are.”
You chuckled, unblinking eyes drinking in her obvious fear like a noxiously sweet wine. Your smile shrinks slightly, lips curling and eyebrows canting downwards in contemptuous pity.
“I was strong enough for your brother— strong enough for him to try and weasel his way into a partnership, at least.”
The Rookwood sister snarled, lips twisting like a cornered animal. Waves crashed against the shore in her tumultuous eyes. You could see the moment when fear gave way to anger as it snapped into place with startling clarity.
“How dare you!” She hissed. “Victor was a revolutionary! He was going to usher us into a new wizard order and you snuffed him out like he was nothing but garbage! He would never work with you of all people.”
You raised an eyebrow, smile stretching until it reached the point of bombasity. Leona bristled under your stare, anger festering just under the surface as you dragged her closer to the precipice of her madness. She was cracking, digging herself deeper and deeper into her frenzied outrage, and you wanted to see the earth's core. No words needed to be said— she knew what your look meant.
“You’re lying!” She shouted, hands grabbing at the roots of her hair and pulling. “He’d never choose you! You? Over me? His own sister?”
You laughed at her pain, moving closer to her at a snail's pace, steps delicate but sure footed. “Oh, he certainly did. He wanted to take over everything with me as his right hand— told me so himself. Even considered throwing away his qualms about working with children for me. What was his saying, again?” Your eyes never left hers, head tilted to the side and wand tapping on your chin. A look of excitement danced over your face as you pretended to remember.
“Oh, yes!” You said. “Children should be seen and not heard.”
Your voice was teeming with sarcasm, pitch canting upwards and words nasally as you mocked the fallen Rookwood sibling. You continued to move closer, steps sure and precise as you watched her slowly unravel more and more under your scrutiny. Her nostrils flared with rage, breaths heaving from her chest at your smug expression. She looked positively furious.
Good. You thought. Fight back. Make this worthy of my time.
An observation sparked to life in your brain, and your eyes gleamed with malicious delight. “Say, you don’t look much older than us, Leona. Maybe twenty?” You were nearly nose to nose now, barely a hair's width apart. “You would’ve been Victor’s younger sister, right?”
You stopped then, pleased with yourself for how ruffled the black haired woman looked. Fear and rage played tag in her eyes, each emotion shifting back and forth feverishly as you stood against her. Her breathing was erratic in her chest, sternum heaving up and down as you pushed her closer to snapping like a rubber band stretched too thin. Each of her panting breaths stirred the hair framing your face, moving dried blood and gore with each exhale. Her nose scrunched as the disgusting smell of the carnage that bathed you from head to toe, a gag trapped in her pristine, alabaster throat. Your coy smirk turned saccharine.
“It makes one think,” you cooed. “Where did he hear a phrase like that?”
Malice iced over in Leona’s green eyes. “Don’t—”
You cut her off, teeth glowing in the lamplight and looking sharper— more ravenous— each bone sharpened to a point. “Daddy wasn’t very kind to you, was he?” You asked, smile shifting into a taunting pout. “He didn’t want a weak little girl— a shameful, rotting branch on the family tree.”
“Stop it,” she snarled.
One last push.
You leaned in more, head turned to the side and breath fanning against her ear as you whispered the next words just for her to hear. “How long after you were born did it take for Victor to become just. Like. Him?”
The sound of skin against skin filled the air before you could register what truly happened. Leona stood before you, hand poised in the air, palm a stinging, angry red. Flecks of dried blood shed from you like snakes skin as you raised your own, gently cradling your stinging cheek. You looked at her in shock for a moment, brain slow to catch up with the circumstances because of the lunacy swirling inside, before everything clicked into place. Your smile turned hungry as you stared at her, a pleased hum slithering from your lips as you licked the blood from your teeth.
Finally.
The black haired vixen shrieked behind her bared teeth, reaching out with a clawed hand and wrapping itself around your neck, dropping her wand and dragging you closer until you were nose to nose again.
“Stop fucking smiling, you freak!” She spat, spittle landing on your cheeks.
Shuffling came from behind as Ominis and Sebastian moved to your defense, wands raised in warning to the woman who dared touch a hair on your head. You lowered a hand, palm facing backwards towards your partners and fingers splayed in a clear message: stay.
Your other hand took hold of the woman’s shirt collar, pulling her body closer into your orbit. She stumbled under your strength, eyes widening in horror as she finally realized that she couldn’t intimidate you.
“You want my magic so bad? Let me let you in on a little secret, Leona.” You croaked, feeling nothing but contempt, and maybe a little pity if you dug deep enough, towards the woman choking the air from your lungs. “I’m not the first ancient magic user. There were five before me— one being your ancestral grandfather, actually.” You paused for a moment, letting that tidbit of information sink into the poachers brain. “We have a special power, you see— extracting pain from another's soul is risky business. And the power we can get from it? Hah!”
Your laugh rebounded off of the stone walls, drawing a small flinch from the raven haired woman. “Of course, this was all a secret. Secrets, secrets, secrets. That’s what we trade in. ‘The Keepers of Secrets’ — meaningless drivel. My own ancestor found out what the other four were willing to do to keep their sordid little secret. I guess using an unforgivable is alright if a reverential professor is holding the wand.”
The woman’s grip had loosened as you spoke, the power hungry gleam in her eyes imploring you to continue your tale.
“How quickly the strong can fall. The Keepers,” you spit out, rolling your eyes at the name. “Sealed away all the pain she collected in a flimsy little cage and threw her body into the oubliette with it, burying their dirty shame deep deep under their darling school until some foolish witch or wizard stumbled upon it in the future.”
“Your brother found it,” you sneered. “That’s why he wanted my partnership. And, that’s why he had to die.”
Your hand moved to her wrist, clasping it in a vice grip, halting her movements to pull away. “I went down there, and I destroyed that feeble little prison. I took all that pain— thousands of years of sorrow and anguish and rage— and I swallowed it whole.”
You wrenched her hand from your neck, holding it aloft in the air as she stared at you, fear clouding her eyes and her body shaking with desire to escape from your clutches.
“Your pious brother believed himself to be a god so strongly that he neglected to see the real thing standing before him; yet another trait that seems to run in the family.” Wind whipped through the room from an unknown source, blanketing everything in a deadly chill and stripping the space of light. Your eyes glowed red under the cover of darkness. “I am going to take your pitiful little soul, and I am going to devour it, Leona Rookwood.”
Leona’s frightened face warped and twisted as you apparated outside into the cool night air, hand still grasping her wrist in a vice grip. The nature barricading you on all sides had lost its calming comfort. Replacing the smell of wet marsh and petrichor was nothing but the heady metallic scent of blood and the smoky essence of charred earth. The breeze carried the frightened shivers of the last remaining leaves decorating the tall oak trees. Even the sky above seemed to know what was to come— the clouds beginning to cover the trembling glass shards of moonbeams until there was naught but a small sliver of light.
You dropped the woman’s arm, watching with a barely concealed glee as she stumbled back a few steps and fell to the damp ground. Leona’s eyes were wild— feral— like a rabid beast fearful of water as she stared into the darkness, pupils dilated and locked on your carmine glare. Her fear— the fear that she instilled in your beloved Slytherins— made your heart race with a delight so palpable that if in a calm state of mind you would question its presence. In your schadenfreude, though, all you could see were images of her bloated and bloody corpse as she rotted under the blistering morning sun.
Faint wisps of pale blue magic swirled in the air around your head, creating their own soft glow tinged with red and black. Your pain magic danced in the wind, whispering words of murderous intent into your ears— calling your name and leading you into the sweet release of revenge. With a grin and a flick of your hand you sent them away, watching them dissolve into the air like breath on a cold morning. Your eyes locked to Leona’s once again, and the whispers in your ears fell silent.
“Run,” you purred.
Off like a light, the wretched woman bolted into the trees.
You stood still, listening contently to the hiss of the trees as the woman bounded through the thicket, giving her a few seconds of a head start before your form ignites into a small blue balefire of movement. You quickly trailed behind her, easily catching up until you were nearly nipping at her heels. Your disembodied laughter cloaked the forest, echoing in the air as your prey fought to move faster.
“How does it feel, Leona?” You laughed. “How does the hunter like being hunted?”
The wand in your hand crackled as you fired basic casts at her back, purposefully letting them miss her by a hair's width and listening to them sizzle and slam into the trees beyond like errant fireworks. Leona’s panting breaths ricocheted off of the greenwood, filling the spaces between your magic and laughter— the upbeat to your downbeat. Revenge’s deadly symphony.
With little warning, the poacher took a sharp right, rocketing around a particularly thick tree before skidding into the battle-worn clearing once again, her feet thudding against the ground with each pounding step. She continued to serpentine her movements in a desperate attempt to lose your tail. Each time you quickly picked up on her path, nipping at her heels like a hound to a fox. Tears began to pool in Leona’s eyes as she flinched at the harshness of your laugh in the silent forest. The sparks of your spells felt sharp on her skin, each one burning the hair of her arms as she pumped them harder for more momentum. No matter what, she couldn’t shake you.
Finally, you cornered her in a small copse on the other side of the bothies clearing. The tree branches above formed a canopy against the blackened sky, leaving only the smallest bit of light for your prey to see. The woman pressed her body against the tall stone wall at her back, shrinking into herself as your steely look held her in place. In the glow of the moon you looked like a ghost, blood dried on your skin in streaks like the waves of her regrets pooling in the crevices of stones along the shore. You could see her shake with fear— taste her stale fright in the air— and it was sweeter than candy.
Once again your ancient magic swirled around you, crackling in the frigid autumn chill and illuminating the tiny clearing in a luminary purple. Inside your chest you could feel Isadora’s pain magic pulse in time with your heart, each thump of the resolute organ ramping up its power until it was a constant voice hissing in your ears.
Let us out. Let us kill.
Leona’s pleas spilled from her lips like water on a grease fire, each one begging you to spare her life. You couldn’t help but scoff. Mercy wasn’t an option anymore.
“Incendio,” you spoke, pointing your wand at the dying grass at your feet until a circle of flame engulfed your forms like a portal to the underworld. The woman before you shrieked as the fire licked at her heels, feet dancing away from the heat as tears began to pour down her pallid face.
Standing resolute in the center of the flames, you leered at the blubbering poacher, once mighty, now reduced to nothing but a weeping child. At that moment she truly didn’t look much older than you were— a young adult caught in the snare of her legacy. Leona trembled like a leaf at the start of winter, just barely hanging on to its tree branch.
“I should make this pain last, just as you did to them,” you hissed, voice pitching downwards under the weight of your rage and smile finally falling from your face. You ignored the burn in your cheeks. “Your death would taste so sweet on my tongue.”
The black haired woman shivered at the look in your eyes, knees threatening to buckle as the fire around reflected in the red pools of your irises. In the light of the flames, the black of your pupils swallowed nearly all color, shimmering like a warped mirror.
Pathetic, the voice in your mind hissed. Not worth your time anymore.
“At one point I looked forward to this,” you whinged. “Merlin, I’m so fucking tired. I don’t even care anymore, I just want this done. You are nothing— just some pathetic idiot searching for power and revenge. An old, tired story. You don’t deserve a moment more of my anger.”
With a heavy sigh, the weight of the last three days beginning to finally lift itself off of your shoulders, you raised your wand and leveled it to her heaving chest.
“Any last words?”
Leona struggled to her full height, form still shuddering in the firelight, voice cracking with fear and lingering malice.
“You think you’re so much better than me,” she croaked. “So much more worthy. You’re no different than the worst of us. They’ll see that soon enough.”
Your eyes were filled with resignation as you met hers. “I never said I was.”
Raising your non-dominant hand parallel with your wand, you began to summon a current of electricity from deep within your soul, pouring all of your pain and anger into the strike. The heat inside of you burned molten white in your chest as it made its way down your arms towards your twitching fingertips.
Her body slammed into yours before the flames could raise any higher.
You landed on the grass roughly, body pressed into the ground under her weight. Arms flailed around like an intricate knot as you fought to gain control again, ancient magic dying under your skin as if sensing your sudden defeat. Your teeth gnashed as her arm pressed against your windpipe, snarls slipping from between your clenched jaw like a caged animal, her other hand swatting your wand away before gripping the handle of her hidden dagger and raising it to strike you through the eye socket. You could hear Sebastian and Ominis call out for you from across the field as your vision began to blur under the pressure on your neck. Her knee pressed harshly against your abdomen, forcing a wheeze from your red stained lips.
“Any last words?” She mocked, a manic smile stretching the skin of her face unnaturally as revenge burned behind her eyes like a field aflame.
With a wild scream, she reared her hand back and plunged it down. Without a second thought, your hand came up to protect your face, palm flat to the sky. The blade sliced through your skin with a clean strike, skin parting easily against the steel until it breached the other side, tendons and muscle making a sickly squelch as you slid your hand to the hilt, pushing back her blow and biting your lip in a desperate attempt to stifle your shout of pain. Leona growled atop you, arm finally releasing your throat as she struggled to hold down your other hand as it fought to strike her between the ribs. With her momentum now shifted, you pushed up with your hips, knocking her off center, and twisted your body until it was now you staring into her wild eyes from above. With an easy move of your wrist, you swiftly yanked the knife from her blood-covered fingers, pulling your palm out in the process, and gripped the hilt with all the strength you could muster. Leona’s teeth fought to bite at you much like you did earlier, spittle flying from her gnashing jowls. Your other hand gripped at the roots of her hair, pulling her face towards yours before slamming it down against the dense forest floor. Your blood dripped from the palm of your hand onto her dazed face, eyes blinking in an attempt to stay conscious. The blaze around you roared into the sky as magic crackled against your skin.
Make her bleed, yelled the voice hiding behind your eyes. Its tone had shifted into what was now an amalgamation of Isadora’s voice and something else. If you focused hard enough, you could almost make out your own.
An inhuman scream wrenched itself from your jaw as the knife plunged downwards for a second time that night, this time striking its intended target. Leona’s breath heaved from between her red-tinted teeth as you stabbed it into her chest, your tired arms forcing the blade out with a wet sound for only a moment before digging it back into her bleeding skin. Hot ichor bloomed across her chest and pooled in her collar bones as her lungs stuttered beneath your trembling legs, pinning her to the ground. Weak whimpers filled the air, conjoining with the roar of flames and the heavy breaths wrenched from your chest. All at once, her struggle ceased, but your hand was long from finished. Up and down came the blade, your eyes never leaving the sight of the chasm you were creating at the center of her stagnant body. Her still-warm blood splattered across your face, getting in your snarling teeth and staining your form for the upteenth time that night. The sticky feeling didn’t bother you anymore. Red flooded your vision as all else around you faded into nothingness. Just you, the blade, and a body.
Again, the voices cried. Again again again again againagainagainagainagainagain—
Two pairs of arms ripped you from the still body, one tan hand twisting your arm until you released the dagger, watching it fall to its side and dye the dead grass crimson. Pants heaved from your chest as you struggled against the arms still holding you, snarling like a feral beast and twisting like an animal stuck in a snare. The pale arms trembled around you, holding strong with every ounce of strength they could muster before moving their face towards your ear, soft hushing and a timid, shaking voice finally reaching you under the layers of panic and rage.
Ominis sighed as you finally seemed to relax, head falling against your shoulder as he tucked you closer to his body, arms trapping yours against your chest and thighs bracketing your kneeling legs. He stroked your hair placatingly, like one would a particularly wrathful cat, pressing feverish kisses to your scorching skin as you slowly came back to yourself.
Hesitantly, Sebastian kneeled next to you, cradling a piece of fabric torn from his shirt and holding a hand out to you, silently gesturing to your skewered flesh. You relented, letting him bandage your wound to the best of his ability before he finally allowed you to pull him closer. You let your forehead fall against his chest, feeling him wrap his arms around you and the blond still trying to curb your murderous thoughts.
Through the gaps in their arms, your eyes finally fell to the woman resting inches from you, body still positioned the same it had been before you were pulled away moments ago. Her skin was already beginning to adopt a waxy hue as pallor mortis began to set in, blood quickly leaving her from the numerous stab wounds decorating her chest. Red trickled from the corners of her mouth, lips still pursed in a silent scream. Her black hair glowed in the dying firelight like fresh oil, waves of onyx pooling against the brown earth, but even that seemed to dull. Naught but the age of twenty, with so much life still awaiting her, now snuffed out like a candle. A Rookwood without her power— Leona, meaning “lioness,” now forever a part of her hunting ground.
All of it, your doing.
Guilt began to claw its way up your throat, muscles tightening against the words whispered from your twitching lips. “I took her death from you. I’m sorry. It wasn’t mine to take.”
The brunette hugging you close scoffed, the softest hint of a laugh catching on the tail end of the sound. “None of that now. As long as she’s gone, I don’t have any particular qualms with how it happened.”
Ominis sighed, tugging you closer and moving his head to Sebastian’s shoulder. “Glad we agree on that front.”
You felt the freckled boy rest his head atop the blond’s, hearing more than seeing his smirk when he spoke next. “You’ll just owe us, I think. Dreadfully poor manners from you, dear.”
Laughter unceremoniously ripped from your lungs, a harsh and barking thing still twinged with madness, but showing signs of finally clearing itself of the delirium plaguing you. After a moment of relishing in the bliss of being in their arms again, you slowly detangled yourself until you were three separate beings again. Sebastian’s brown eyes glittered with mirth as you met his stare. You fought not to think about the fact that they likely hadn’t looked this lively since he was taken.
“Well, you know I’m good on my word,” you teased, sliding your gaze to the slowly cooling body nearby.
Slowly, painstakingly, the three of you stood together, spare hands and arms lending help when needed until you were stable enough to move. You circled an arm around Ominis’ waist, guiding his own around your shoulders as you did the same to Sebastian, feeling the heated skin from them both against the nape of your neck as you prepared to take your first steps to freedom together.
“Let’s get you both home,” you smiled, lips curling into the first sincere one you’ve made in days.
“Gladly,” acquiesced the blond, waiting for your go-ahead before putting his weight on his bad leg and taking a hesitant step towards the unknown.
Behind you, deadly silent as if listening to your retreating footsteps, Leona Rookwood’s cloudy, ocean eyes stared unblinkingly at the stars above.
The days that followed were anything but easy. Teachers needed to be alerted, wounds needed to be healed, but nevertheless, nothing could tamper the relief oozing from you in waves. Finally, your boy’s were back in your arms.
Nightmares clawed at the three of you for months on end, filled with images of blood splattered stone and deadly goblin silver, and not planning on leaving anytime soon, but such was to be expected after the last few days you had.
The teachers no longer looked at you the same, gazes once piercing and heavy under the weight of their pity now a mix of respect and thinly veiled fear, but it was a small price to pay for the lives of your great loves.
These days would never leave you. Nothing would change that— some things just can’t be talked through or erased. Much like how the remnants of torture would never leave the physical body. There would always be pain, sorrow, and a healthy dose of distrust clouding your shattered psyche, but at least you wouldn’t be by yourself this time.
Your Slytherin’s would always be by your side, forever changed, but comfortable in the fact that they weren’t in that tiny prison anymore, stewing solo and lonely in their trauma.
Together. Beginning to heal. And never, never, alone again.
AN:
Well, we finally did it friends. Only took me two(ish) years to finish. Hope the ending was what you were hoping for :)
I am still writing, that much is a given, but good lord does it take me a long time now. I really hope the dialogue isn't too weird or unnatural. This whole story has been a cluster-fuck of trying new things and playing around with characterization. I wish HL 2 was gonna continue with these guys, but alas, it's not in the cards. Whatever, we can have our fucked up plot-lines in fanfiction, still.
***
Alternate title for this chapter would be "what the fuck is the color of ancient magic again?"
(Ominis Gaunt x F!Gorgon!Reader)
Fluff? World building? Set up? Who knows tbh. It's a story.
Summary:
Ominis could hear her pulse quicken as she stilled. Everything else in the cramped space fell away, leaving just the two slytherin’s, each one with their own morose history that has been broadcasted for all the world to hear. Two peas in a pod— two sides to the same coin— two scales on the same snake.
***
Why was everyone so interested in the new girl? Ominis Gaunt was about to find out.
Word count: 3.8k
AN: because I wanted to write a story about Ominis and a Gorgon falling in love
Ominis was sure he was going mad. In fact, he was positive— some point between the end of his fourth year and the beginning of his fifth, he had gone absolutely batty. That was the only logical conclusion to the fact that he was hearing voices at all hours of the day.
It started the day the new fifth year won in a duel against his best friend, Sebastian. The Defense Against the Dark Arts class was moving at the same pace it always did: introduction to the new spell, practice on a small object, practice on a larger, vaguely person shaped object, and then finally a duel between each pair of students to prove their mastery. This day, though, took a different turn than what the young blond was expecting. Ever since starting at Hogwarts, Sebastian Sallow was Ominis’ dueling partner; there was never any question about it. It became such a habit that no one dared approach the pair once Professor Hecat announced the beginnings of the school sanctioned battles— you would never see one Slytherin without the other. So, when Hecat decided to pair the new fifth year with his best friend, well, it could be seen quite plainly that Ominis was not happy about the matter.
As the duelists took their positions across from each other, the blond haired boy leaned against the nearest wall, a distinct look of annoyance turning down the corners of his lips and narrowing his eyebrows into a straight line. Most people would consider the look on his face a pout— not that anyone would ever dare at mentioning this to the boy. Ominis Gaunt did not pout, and he certainly did not scoff under his breath at the sound of his friend joking around with the new girl. What a preposterous idea. He wasn’t jealous, don’t be absurd.
Though, it was nice hearing Sebastian get knocked down a peg by someone who had never held a wand in her life up until that point.
Once the class was over, all Ominis wanted to do was slump himself into the Undercroft and take a well deserved nap. His head was pounding, and the near constant whispers of his classmates about the new girl were driving him up the wall. He couldn’t help but make snarky remarks in his head, quietly laughing to himself at the ridiculous questions his classmates were mumbling.
“Why do you think she wears that head scarf? I wonder what’s under there.”
Hair, probably.
“Did you hear her accent? Where do you think she’s from? Certainly not around here!”
Ten points to Ravenclaw for stating the obvious.
“Did you see how she was looking at Sallow? She just got here and already thinks she can take the most attractive boy in our year. The nerve!”
Sebastian has the emotional range of a teaspoon, but best of luck!
“How could you even tell where she was looking? I couldn’t see a thing through those glasses of hers! Why is she wearing shaders inside?”
Bold style choice, but alright. Not that he could really judge, of course.
“Do you think she’s blind like Gaunt? Great, another person I have to make sure I don’t trip over.”
That statement got his attention. Could she be blind like him? He didn’t hear any echolocation charm on her wand, nor did he sense a seeing eye animal or a cane around her. A very small part of him warmed slightly at the idea that he wasn’t alone in his struggles anymore. He craned his head more to the side, trying to catch more of the gossip as everyone began to file out of the classroom.
“No, she can’t be blind. It looks like she can get around just fine on her own— no charm blinking on her wand or anything. Still quite weird, though.”
Ominis’ shoulders sank minutely at the news, the warmth in his chest freezing over once again. He sighed to himself before pushing away from the wall, deciding to just let his body carry him to the Undercroft on autopilot while he stewed in his thoughts. Sebastian was off talking to the new girl, so he would likely not be joining him until well after his next round of Crossed Wands later that day. Normally he would join the boy, cheering him on from the sidelines with the rest of his fawning fangirl club, and he was about to turn in the direction of the clock tower when the brunette’s voice broke through the haze.
“Suppose I could interest you in some unsanctioned fun?”
Well, if his new best friend was going to be there, then he wouldn’t miss Ominis’ presence all that much.
Just as the blond had resigned himself to an afternoon of solitude, another voice came through the crowded musings of his classmates.
“Gods, I’m starving.”
A completely mundane statement, one that had likely been uttered by half of the class as they left, but something about the voice drew him in. It was low in tone, like they were trying to hide their voice instead of projecting it to their friends, and had a slight hiss to it just under the words like the person was speaking through a mouthful of fangs. Ominis paused in his steps just outside the doorway, his ear turned towards the classroom as he tried to find the voice again. All he found was silence and the tiny ticks of professor Hecat’s dark magic detectors.
Shaking his head, he leaned away from the door and made his way down the stairs, his mind puzzling through what just happened. He must have been imagining it, he thought to himself. The voice hardly sounded human, let alone familiar. Must have just been a trick of his mind, he had slept terribly the night before so it was logical he was just tired. Rounding the corner towards his secret alcove, Ominis stepped through the clockwork door to the Undercroft and began to climb down the winding staircase, hopeful that a bit more sleep would do him good.
Fortunately, he had a lovely nap on the chaise lounge he conjured. Rather unfortunately though, the voice persisted. Morning, noon, and night he heard that incessant hissing tone in his ears, each day getting louder and more bold with what it was saying. First it was small things, things that most people would think to themselves throughout a normal day.
“Where’s the bathroom in this place?”
“My head itches.”
“What I would give to take a nap right about now.”
Normal things. But then, the statements started to get a bit…odd.
“There’s something under my scale!”
“He was rude, I want to bite him.”
“I can hear a mouse somewhere. Can I eat it? Please?”
While Ominis was tired of hearing the random, grating voice slither through his ears at a constant rate, he was happy to report that he no longer thought he was going mad. The voice belonged to a snake— that much he was sure of. But, where was the snake? Did it know he could hear it? How was it somehow always in his vicinity?
That was the question that was currently keeping him up at night.
Everything culminated one faithful day when he next had Defense Against the Dark Arts. Today was lecture, and much like the rest of his classmates, he bemoaned having to sit and listen to professor Hecat go on and on about some unknown entity or creature that he could never encounter for the rest of his days. It wasn’t that she wasn’t a good teacher, far from it! But, much like any professor in the castle, she was not immune to the dreaded monotonous lecture voice.
Upon entering the classroom, the first thing Ominis heard was Hecat’s voice speaking in hushed tones to someone. He would never admit it outloud, but the boy was dreadfully nosy. Honing his ears in the direction of the whispering, he caught on to her tone first— caring, soft, gentle, words that normally wouldn’t be found within one hundred feet of the professor— then the tail end of her words.
“—if you are uncomfortable with today’s lesson, please know that you can leave at any time.”
An equally soft voice replied in turn, a hint of uncomfort lacing their words. “Thank you, professor. I appreciate the sentiment, but I will be fine. It is not the first time I have been a part of such a lecture.”
Ominis stilled in his seat, the hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention when he recognized the voice. It was the new girl again. Merlin, it seemed she had everyone wrapped around her little finger, even the formidable Dinah Hecat!
It wasn’t that he had a problem with the new fifth year, in fact she had been quite nice to him when they met in the common room, it was just that all the rumors surrounding her made her sound a bit big for her britches. First she beat Sebastian in a duel, something no one has done since he started going to Crossed Wands and honing his talent, then she invites him to Hogsmeade with her and suddenly a troll is hellbent on clobbering up the street? Not to mention all the other things Ominis had heard about: taking out Ashwinder camps in her spare time? Flying all over the sodding Scottish Highlands and getting into all kinds of trouble against the Ranrok Loyalists? Sneaking into the restricted section with Sebastian and earning him another bloody detention, because what, she batted her eyelashes at him and he folded like a cheap suit? Who was this girl, and why did trouble follow at her heels like a pack of hellhounds? No, Ominis didn’t have a problem with her, he was suspicious of her, and the fact that the voice started soon after she got here certainly didn’t help.
The blond sat back in his seat, arms crossed across his chest and a befuddled look clouding his expression as the professor took her spot at the front of the room, tapping her wand on the rickety old chalkboard and writing out the subject of the lecture for today.
“Today, class, we will be discussing Gorgons, another creature traditionally deemed mythological but in fact walks among us magic folk unseen. Though, they very rarely make the journey across the sea to our backyard.”
Ominis’ eyebrows narrowed more in confusion as he thought about Hecat’s words to the new girl. Why would she be uncomfortable with this lesson? What secret was she hiding that was related to Gorgons of all things? He tuned back into the lesson, hoping to answer some of his questions.
Professor Hecat paced around the room as she talked, taking strides up and down the lengths of desks and weaving through her collections of artifacts from her time as an Unspeakable.
“Gorgons, or ‘gorgos,’ meaning ‘fierce, terrible and grim’ in Greek, are inherently female creatures with snakes for hair and the ability to turn anyone who meets their gaze into stone. Many of you are likely familiar with the myth of Medusa, the only mortal Gorgon that was callously slayed by the Greecian hero, Perseus. But, there are two other Gorgons known in history: Stheno, the mighty or strong, and Euryale, the Far Springer.”
The room was bathed in silence as Hecat paused in her speech, giving the class time to take notes on the creatures. Ominis sat still, his mind awash with possibilities for why the new girl would need to be excused from this lesson. Her accent was Greek, that was for sure. Could she have a history with Gorgons? That wouldn’t make sense, though. Many students have had run-ins with the creatures discussed in DADA, but they were never offered to skip that lesson. So, why was the new girl so special?
A sharp, insistent sound shook the blond from his thought spiral, causing him to wince at the volume suddenly ricochetting in his ears. A terrible hiss filled the room, slithering throughout the encompassing space and echoing off the tall, vaulted cathedral ceiling. It was haunting, eerie, constant, like the creak of the floor in an abandoned house or a busted pipe in the middle of the night when you’re the only one home. A shiver ran up Ominis’ spine at the sound, trying desperately to block it out while also listening to those around him to see if they heard it too. He heard no whisperings, but with a quick flick of his wand, sparking the wood to life, he could see the silhouette of his classmates looking around like they were trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. Ominis relaxed slightly, relieved that he wasn’t the only one hearing the incessant hissing.
His relaxed posture only lasted for a moment as a voice suddenly cut through all the noise, low and dangerous like a rattlesnake's tail in the tall grass. It was similar to the snake he had been hearing, but different somehow— richer, more human sounding. Ominis’ heart stilled in his chest when he recognized the cadence, knowing it intimately from all the times he spoke it while living at home. Parseltongue.
“Be quiet. Everything is fine, no one is going to hurt us.”
At once, the hissing stopped, shrouding the room in a blanket of silence once again. Dread began to curl its way around Ominis’ chest at the understanding of what that meant— what that could mean for the future of Hogwarts in general.
Someone in the room was a parselmouth like him, and he would bet all of his galleons on it being the new girl.
But, what did she mean by “no one is going to hurt us?” Who was “us?”
The professor continued her lecture, drowning the never ending list of questions permeating in his mind that seemed to grow longer by the second.
“Gorgons are the children of Phorcys, a primordial sea god, and Ceto, a sea goddess, who happen to be brother and sister.”
A snicker came from the back of the classroom, followed by the voice of none other than Andrew Larson, the class’ resident moonmind. “Purebloods know all about that!”
Hecat leveled him with a glare, not an ounce of amusement present in her tone as she spoke. “Must you make that joke whenever we talk about Greek history? I dare say it wasn’t funny the first handful of times you’ve said it, Mister Larson.”
Ominis could almost see the embarrassment on Larson’s face when he stuttered his reply. “Um, n-no, professor. I j-just meant—”
“We all know what you meant.” She silenced him quickly, her smirk present in her voice. “Now, back to what I was saying. Phorcys and Ceto had a large family together, including the Graeae, the trio of elderly sisters that share an eye, Echidna, a being of half-human, half-snake, Ladon, a fearsome dragon who was tasked with guarding the golden apples of the Hesperides, and Scylla, a woman with dog-headed loins. Because of Ceto’s reputation for giving birth to terrors, each larger and more colorful than the last, she became known as the “mother of sea-monsters.” Ominis could feel Hecat’s eyes linger on him for a moment, her speech stilling slightly as she took in his deeply puzzled expression. “Of course, among those children were also the Gorgons.”
The aging professor continued, her steps ebbing and flowing around the classroom like a steady stream. “According to myth, Medusa did not begin life as a Gorgon. She was Ceto’s only mortal born child— human as any other babe. Some even say she may have been of magical nature, like all of you in this very room.”
The blond slytherin heard Hecat’s steps falter for a moment, the soft swish of her hand running along a desk off to his right. He craned his ears in the direction, his wand picking up the movement as he tried to discern the student that the former Unspeakable was paying special attention to. The silhouette of a girl filled his mindseye, her form slumping down slightly in her desk as she tugged lightly on the scarf wrapped around her head. Ominis’ frown stretched deeper across his face at the realization that the professor was checking on the new girl, again. What was so special about her? Why was everyone so enraptured by her presence? She didn’t seem all that remarkable when in the school building at least. She was just mysterious. He was mysterious at first, but the fascination with him soon dwindled as his peers realized he was the same as everyone else.
So, the slytherin pondered, why was she still the talk of the halls?
Why was Hecat teaching this lesson?
Why was it important for a group of pubescent teenagers to know about something that existed across the ocean from them?
Ominis had more questions than answers, and each one confounded him more and more by the second.
“Medusa was a devout follower of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, handicraft, and war. One night, while praying to her goddess, she captured the attention of Athena’s brother, Poseidon. He appeared to her, intent on taking what he believed should be ‘his.’” Hecat paused, her stony gaze sweeping across the classroom as if challenging anyone to so much as breathe too loud. “He took her there, in the temple, leaving her on the floor as she sobbed and prayed to her goddess for forgiveness.”
Ominis could cut the tension coating the air of the room like a thick, viscous fog with a knife. No one dared make a sound, enraptured by the words of their wise mentor.
“Some myths say that Athena took pity on the girl and transformed her into something that no man could ever gaze on again. Some say she punished her for leading a man into her sacred temple and letting him defile it. No one knows the true story except those who were there, and the old gods have long since left our realm for their own paradise on Olympus.”
The apprehension screaming in every magical mind surrounding the dearly loved, and feared, elder was palpable in the tiny class space.
“Now, some of you may be wondering why I teach this lesson.” As if reading his mind, Ominis felt Hecat level him with a stare that burned hotter than even the most blistering fire poker. “The answer, of course, is that no one knows what happened to the child of Medusa and Poseidon.”
The young Gaunt felt all the air get sucked from his lungs as if a dementor escaped from Azkaban just to find him specifically. A child of a god and a witch? It was unheard of— it was disastrous. Their magic would be unstoppable; nothing in their world would ever match the power of a child brimming with that much otherworldly energy. Whether they used their powers for good or evil, or even some mix of the two, they would be legendary all the same. At that moment, a thought came to Ominis. Would they also be part Gorgon? If Medusa was transformed while with child, who's to say that the babe would not share the same affliction.
As suddenly as a strike of lightning, or a downpour in April, Ominis Gaunt answered the question that had been on his mind since the start of term.
The new girl was a Gorgon.
How had he not realized before? The snakes that were always around when she was— how her head and eyes were always covered— how no one knew where she hailed from and had no hint other than the fact that her accent was vaguely Greecian? It was right in front of his blind eyes from the beginning; he was just too much of a jealous fool to see it.
Just then the bell chimed across the campus, signaling the impending class change. Professor Hecat’s voice broke through the bustle of his peers standing and gathering their things in preparation for their trek to their next lesson.
“We will continue our discussion on mythos and magic next week. Please remember to study for the upcoming OWLs! They are written and practical, so be sure to practice the physical spells as well as memorize the theory!”
Ominis scrambled to gather his things, determined to catch the new girl before she disappeared into the crowd. Dodging around a loitering Sebastian— the brunette’s hand raised as if gearing to make some idiotic, yet somehow still brilliant, point— he all but sprinted into the congested hallway. His wand waved in front of him as he scanned each person he passed, his ears tuned to any noise that sounded vaguely serpentine in the hopes that her reptilian tresses would sound out as they always did this close to lunch time. Alas, they were as silent as a dead rodent in a viper pit.
Just then, the young boy caught sight of the girl, her silhouette moving ferociously among the masses as if she would rather be anywhere but there. Underneath all his confusion, morbid curiosity, and pulsating anger at how she has been endangering, and possibly enchanting, his best friend, Ominis felt a pang of pity. He didn’t blame her one bit for wanting to leave as quickly as possible— not at all. He knew all too well how it felt to have all eyes burning through his skin at every turn, even if no one else seemed to figure out her secret other than him. He couldn’t let her escape, though; he needed answers, he needed closure. Halting in his tracks, he racked his mind for what he could do to get her attention. She wouldn’t hear him call her name in the ruckus around them, nor could he keep up with her brusk pace. There was really only one option to choose, and as much as he hated to do it, snakes had an incredible sense of hearing, or rather, in their case, an excellent sense for vibrations.
His voice flowed from his lips in a strong hiss, the air seeming to break just for the words to slither their way to their target like a bush adder in a pile of leaves. “I know what you are.”
Ominis could hear her pulse quicken as she stilled. Everything else in the cramped space fell away, leaving just the two slytherin’s, each one with their own morose history that has been broadcasted for all the world to hear. Two peas in a pod— two sides to the same coin— two scales on the same snake.
Her “pets” were startlingly silent as her hung head raised from its slumped position against her chest, her sigh heaving her shoulders into proper posture— a constrictor poised to strangle.
The boy felt her words before he heard them— the air stilling around him like a world born anew.
The five times you helped Ominis, and the one time he helped you.
Word count: 2.9k
AN: This is so stupid, lol
Part 1: 'Water' You Doing?
September, 4th year
“Bollocks!”
You had just been leaving the main greenhouse after asking Professor Garlick a question about your chinese chomping cabbages when a curse came from your left. It was common to find you in that spot as of late, especially with the freshness of the autumn air nipping at the skin of your nose and cheeks. It was a beautiful day by all possible accounts in your book— the sun was softly burning down through the teal painted glass above your head and the leaves were just beginning to twinge the slightest shade of orange. The soft breeze that spun around the tiny outdoor space was a secret comfort to you, and you often spent time there reading under one of the many flowering trees that lined the pavement. As you strolled to your favorite spot under the giant tree at the center of the courtyard, you pondered over what the professor said about your precious foliage— deep in thought about the concerning brown spots decorating the leaves of your tiny, but ferocious, cabbage. You nearly lept out of your skin at the sound of the loud swear coming from the other side of the space, your heart picking up exponentially as you whipped your head in the direction of the voice, trying to see who the person was. By all accounts, it looked like you were alone among the plants, until the ripple of the pond just behind the buildings caught your eye.
Creeping carefully down the stairs and around the bend of the largest green emporium, you scan your eyes around the circled fish pond under the large weeping willow. You almost didn’t see them at first with how their clothing blended in with the grass, but at the farthest corner from you was a student— a boy, you realized, not much older than you from what you could tell. The green and silver adorning his house robe glittered in the leaf shaped sunbeams, making the silken hem look like scales on a garden snake. He was carefully leaning towards the waters edge, his blond hair catching the reflection from the water below and making it look like the shifting glass of the painted murals in the Defence Against the Dark Arts hallway— your mind brought forth a particular comparison between the large sea serpent tryptic and the way the soft sage green of the water melded with his flaxen locks. You edged closer to the boy, moving around the bend as quietly as you could as to not disturb him. Seeing him more clearly now, you noticed that his fingers were gripping tightly to the edge of the pool, his knuckles turning a, somehow paler, shade of his skin tone with anxious strength— one wrong move and he would be drenched and spitting out algae. He seemed to be mumbling to himself, the hiss of curses spilling from his clenched teeth as he desperately searched for something under the surface, whipping his head to and fro like he couldn’t see through the murky depths. You decided to make yourself known, letting your last few steps ring out in the space as you cleared your throat.
“Are you alright?” You asked the stressed stranger. “Do you need some help?”
He startled at the sound of your voice, his body jumping slightly and his head tipping precariously closer to the watery surface, before taking a deep breath through his nose and replying.
“No, thank you. I am quite capable of handling this myself.” His voice was clipped, irritation prevalent in each word.
You paused in your steps, confused at the hostility of the strange boy. You were just trying to help him, what was his issue? Your brows twitched in curiosity, hesitantly making your way closer again as you reached out a hand.
“Are you sure? You’ve been out here for some time—”
His icy tone cut you off. “Thank you for the astute observation. Now if you wouldn’t mind leaving me alone, I would greatly appreciate it.”
Your hand retreated, shoulders straightening at being chastised like a petulant child. Why was he being so rude? You were just trying to help. It wasn’t like you insulted him.
You cleared your throat again, your words choking against the embarrassment lodged in your throat. “My apologies— I meant no offense. I’ll leave you to it.”
Your feet swished against the ground as you turned to take your leave, proverbial tail tucked between your legs from the verbal onslaught by the blond Slytherin, when a sigh stopped you. The boy adjusted his stance, leaning up to kneel on the ground and run a hand over his face and through his hair, dislodging the swoop tucking the strands into their neat style. From him came another sigh, heavy and full of regret, before turning his cheek in your direction to speak to you more directly.
“No, don’t go, it’s me who should apologize. I shouldn’t take my anger out on you— you’re just being nice. A trait that this school seems to be lacking sometimes.”
His hand was outstretched towards you, like you had originally done to him, his fingers twitching and hesitant like he meant to grab onto yours before you could disappear. You moved closer again as he hung his head, his chin nearly touching his chest. The tiniest bit of color could be caught on his alabaster cheek.
He let his hand fall again, his fingers curling into a tense fist at his side. “I’m not one to normally accept help from others, but in this instance I could use some assistance if the offer is still available.”
You stopped next to him, keeping a respectful distance between you both. Seeing your approach, he raised to his feet, turning towards where you were.
“What do you mean you ‘normally don’t accept help’— oh.” You raised your eyes from the ground, “meeting” his gaze for the first time. That being said, there wasn’t really any gaze to be met. He was blind.
“Yes,” he sighed. “Oh.”
You balked, shame pressing heavily against your shoulders. “Oh— oh my. I am so very sorry—“
“It’s fine.” He cut you off again, his sightless eyes shifting to the floor as his hand came up to rub at the back of his neck. “I appreciate your kindness nonetheless.”
You took a shuddered breath, fighting to calm your heartbeat down to an acceptable tempo as you took in the boy once again. His eyebrows were squared across the tops of his eyelids, eyes still focused on the ground and his jaw clenched.
He looked quite constipated, actually.
He probably often had people asking him if he needed assistance around the castle. No wonder he was so snippy, he was embarrassed. Just from the little bit you had gathered from him, it was very apparent that he preferred to be independent. Not that you could blame him, of course. You couldn’t imagine what it would be like trying to navigate the world without your sight. If you were honest with yourself, you were quite impressed with the boy in front of you, even if you didn’t know him all that well.
It was his turn to clear his throat, dragging you out of your thought spiral.
You schooled your face into a gentle smile, letting your tone soften naturally. “It’s no trouble. What can I do?”
He seemed taken aback that you still wanted to help him, his posture relaxing slightly but his shoulders stiff as boards and his face now twisted into an expression of aloofness— pleased with your response but still wary of your intentions. All it would take from you would be a little push against his back and he would be, quite literally, swimming with the fishes. Your heart ached a little thinking about the fact that he had to worry about that from your peers.
The blond pointed towards the spot he was leaning over a moment ago, his white eyes darting around in his skull as if refusing to meet yours. His other hand fiddled with the end of his robe sleeve.
“My wand seems to have rolled into the pond. I—” he coughed, “I can’t see without it.”
Your response was instantaneous, your helpful nature taking over and banishing your previous trepidation. “Oh! I can help you find it, if you’d like?”
He exhaled the breath you didn’t realize he was holding, letting his guard down a little bit more at the genuine eagerness you had to help him in his time of need. You quickly made your way to where he was pointing, edging around his body to keep a safe distance, before kneeling in a similar manner as he once was. You peered into the swampy surface, eyes scanning for anything out of the ordinary through the thick greenery and streaking colors of the koi fish swimming below. The boy sat with you, peering into the water himself as if trying to sense the location of his wand. After a moment, your shoulders slumped, unable to find his magic instrument. He noticed the change in your posture right away, forcing his own shoulders to shift towards the ground and his eyes to close, the crease in his eyebrow returning as he thought through his other options.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t see anything—” A gasp cut off your sentence, your eyes wide and a smile stretching across your face as your eyes looked under the surface again. The boy flinched at your sound, leaning closer to you and his eyebrows shooting towards his hairline in surprise.
“What? Do you see it?”
“Yes!” You cheered, your toothy grin bleeding through the solitary word.
There, just under a large patch of clover, was a softly glowing red light— a beacon calling for its lost owner.
You quickly shucked your house robe from your shoulders, throwing it in the direction of a dittany bush before hastily rolling up your sleeves and shoving your hand into the pond, causing tiny ripples to split the top into multiple little waves. The boy jumped back to avoid being splashed, nearly losing his footing against the wet concrete.
With a sound of triumph, you wrenched the wand free from the algae it was tangled around and back towards its anxious owner. Using the corner of your shirt, you carefully dried it off to the best of your ability before turning back towards your damsel in distress.
At first you were shocked by how close he had gotten in the mere moments you had been on the ground, but then as your eyes tracked up his face more, your breath stilled in your chest. Your mother had told you once that it was quite rude to stare at people you didn't know, but Merlin, his eyes. You had never seen eyes like that before. Wrapped around his pupils was a deep phthalo turquoise— the color of the north sea after a terrible storm. The hue seemed to bleed into the center, skipping over where his pupil should be and instead leaving a swirling pool of a lightly toned peat-bog, much like the pond you had just been elbow deep in a mere moment ago. Cutting through the oceanic depths were little zigzags of cornflower— like streaks of lightning on a summer night. They had to be some of the most beautiful things you had ever seen.
“—Hello? Are you alright?”
It was only when you heard his voice that you realized just how long you had been transfixed by his opalescent eyes. Your cheeks heated to an uncomfortable degree as you hastily looked away, desperately trying to ignore the look of concern turning down the corners of his lips.
“Yes, I’m alright.” You couldn’t seem to clear the lump that lodged itself just under your jaw. “Here’s your wand.”
You held out your prize to him, tapping it against his knuckles so he could locate it and not letting go until it was securely in his hand. You both stood from your hunched position, dusting the grass from the knees of your trousers and gathering the things you had discarded in your rush to help. Now facing each other, the air became tense with anxious energy— neither of you knowing who should break the silence first and walk away. You fiddled with your fingers for a moment, your teeth worrying at your bottom lip as you looked around at the plants growing by the waters edge.
The boy’s voice took on a questioning lilt when he broke through the awkward silence. “Thank you for helping me, I appreciate it immensely. But, I must ask, why didn’t you just use Accio to summon it? Do you not have your wand with you?”
You didn’t think your cheeks could get any more pink. Shite, why didn’t you think of that?
A nervous laugh bubbled out of your mouth. “I honestly forgot that spell existed. This is all still a little new to me.”
The boy balked, his words leaving his mouth before he fully thought them through. “Oh! Are you a muggleborn?” He seemed to instantly regret asking, his eyes squinting shut and his face twisting into that constipated look again. You thought the rosy tint stretching across his cheeks and the tip of his nose was lovely. “My apologies, that was…insensitive of me to ask. I’ll just leave you to—”
“Wait!” You said, suddenly very intent on keeping this not-so-prickly-anymore boy talking. “It’s alright. No offense taken, I promise.”
He stopped mid turn, listening to what you have to say.
“I suppose you could say I’m a muggleborn, even though I never knew that was a term until I came here, of course.” You laughed lightly, hoping to clear away the stiffness that seeped into his body once again. “Been here for four years and this all still confuses me to no end.”
He faced you again, a small smile turning the corners of his mouth. “I would imagine so. I’ve grown up around magic and a lot of it is still a mystery to me.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, a nervous tick he seemed to have. “So, you’re a fourth year as well?”
You smiled bigger, pleased to see that he was just as awkward as you were when it came to idle chit chat with strangers.
“Yes! I think I remember seeing you at the sorting. It’s all a bit of a blur, really.”
A wry smirk tweaked his lips. “I think I remember you as well. You were wearing a ribbon in your hair, correct?”
Your eyebrows furrowed. “No, that must have been someone—” You watched as his smile became more wolf-ish as his words registered. You chuckled lightly, your eyes falling shut and missing how his own softened the tiniest amount at the sound of your joy. He thought your laughter was like the twinkle of wind-chimes.
With your smile never leaving your face, you stepped closer to the friendly Slytherin, extending your hand towards him in a friendly greeting, giving him your name finally. He smiled bigger, a genuine thing that made you feel warm as he took your hand in his.
“My name is Ominis. Ominis Gaunt. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
A loud voice from your right startled you both out of the happy bubble you had created. “There you are, Ominis! I’ve been looking all over for you! What are you doing— oh, who’s this?”
The sudden volume of the stranger made you both jump, causing your feet to skid against the wet tile decorating the fish pond, knocking your balance off kilter. Ominis, to his credit, tried to keep you from tumbling into the water, his hand tightening against yours and his feet shuffling for stability. Unfortunately, his efforts were in vain.
You vaguely registered a head of curly brown hair and freckled cheeks as your head was submerged, your clasped hands taking the blond down with you.
You breached the surface seconds apart, your clothes now soaked and sticking uncomfortably to your body. Looking to your new friend, you couldn’t help the laugh that fell from your lips at the sight of a sizable lily-pad draped against his dripping hair. Your joy must have been infectious, because it didn’t take long for the blond to begin laughing as well.
A hand appeared in front of you, the heavily freckled arm connected to the, now very bashful, stranger that sent you tumbling. He reached to pull you out, waiting for you to accept his help before easing you out of the pond and doing the same to his friend. He smiled sheepishly at you once you were back on dry land, grabbing your discarded robe off the ground and draping it around your shoulders.
“Sorry about that.” He apologized, before holding out his hand to you again. “I’m Sebastian Sallow. I hope I didn’t dampen your opinion of me after startling you like that.”
You shook your head, still smiling at the ridiculous situation you had found yourself in on what was originally a relatively normal day, and introduced yourself to the blushing brunette, watching as he took off his own robe and pulled it around the shoulders of your newest friend.
Turning back to Ominis, chuffed that he seemed to be enjoying this as much as you were, you sighed happily.
“Well Ominis,” you simpered. “This seems like the start to a beautiful friendship.”
(Platonic!Ominis Gaunt and the Sallow's HURT/COMFORT)
Solomon Sallow POV
Summary:
Stability he could do. Stability was something Solomon was comfortable with. He could be the support beam to Ominis’ crumbling walls. And when they woke, his niece and nephew could help pick up the pieces and put them back in their correct places. They could do this. Together.
***
The game dialogue hints at the fact that Ominis left his family home before the events of the main story. This is how I feel it would go.
Title from the song "Sedated" by Hozier.
AN: Little different from what I usually do. Hope you like it! This one's for my Solomon lovers.
The small town of Feldcroft was not one that people traveled to often, if they knew about it at all. It was not a popular destination for tourists to the area, and very few took notice of the communities there. Some would even say that the people of the town fit into the same cookie-cutter shape of everything else. That is, of course, if they didn’t pay attention to the finer details. Feldcroft, quaint, lively, but quiet all the same, stood against the rolling hills of the Scottish countryside. Each unique cottage breathed life into the fields— within, their walls were resolutely upright, bricks meeting neatly with the roughly tumbled cement below, and doors were sensibly shut against the calling winter chill beyond their sanded wood finish. Yes, it was a simple town, and the people there liked it that way, thank you very much.
It was not a particularly special night in the tiny village when it was startled awake by a rapid knocking on the Sallow cottage door. The moon was high in the sky by this time, only the soft sound of handmade bone-chimes and settling snow singing in harmony could be heard outside of the incessant pounding— it would be a long time before the sun even considered breaching over the horizon. Solomon Sallow was the first to rise, a light sleeper by trade and with a plethora of enemies to match that could be at his door this very moment. With his wand tucked securely in the sleeve of his night clothes, he quietly made his way towards the home entrance, pondering what he would find on the other side of the wooden barrier. His work as an Auror made him fear the worst in almost all occasions, and this situation was unfortunately not a new one in his years and travels. The common folk of the wizarding world would be surprised by how many dark witches and wizards would knock first before storming into a building, hoping to catch the homeowner off guard and lower their walls for a friend. Whom else would be knocking with such vigor than someone with ill intent? Not a friend of the family— not at this time of night.
As silent as he could possibly move he crept closer to the door, his steps timid as he tried to avoid the squeaky boards under foot that he never got around to fixing, lest he wake his niece and nephew sleeping in the adjoining room. They were still so young, just barely into their third year of Hogwarts. If something terrible was beyond the foundation of their house, he needed them safe, not on the front lines with him, no matter how much they would fight to be beside him. Solomon had only recently taken them in after the deaths of their mother and father— his brother and sister-in-law— and even now he could see remnants of their knowledge and fiery personalities in the young children. The youngest of the two, only born mere minutes after his sister, was the worst of the bunch. Sebastian was headstrong, resilient, and downright pugnacious at times. Smart as a whip, and can crack just as hard. Solomon saw a lot of his brother in the boy, not just in his unruly brown hair or how his hazel eyes glimmered with delight whenever he read about some knowledge he was not originally privy to, and if he was to be honest it scared him at times. That fire, that bullheadedness was what did his brother in in the end— he didn’t want to see the youngest fall prey to the same fate.
As for the daughter, the eldest of the two siblings, Anne was not that different from the boy. She was less confrontational than him, but had just as much spark. Where Sebastian thrived in knowledge, she thrived in action. There was never a day where Solomon didn’t see her running up and down the Hamlet, practicing every and all spells she had learned so far at the school just north of their house, performing little tasks for her neighbors like delivering things or wrangling escaped farm animals, or just rolling around in the dirt after a heavy rain because she simply could. If Sebastian was his father, Anne was most definitely her mother— he was the scholar, and she was the experimenter.
Sebastian wanted to understand why something ticked; Anne wanted to see what would happen if she set it on fire.
Even still, with her proclivity for offensive spells and her desire to run rampant, free of all binds holding her down once her schooling is over, Anne was the more reasonable, the more docile of the pair. The boy could fly off the handle at a moment's notice, while the girl would be there to hear all sides and weigh everything out like the god Osiris, the feather of truth on one side of the scale and your heart on the other.
Solomon believed she would make a great Auror one day, if she wanted it.
The eldest Sallow stood before the door, his shadow no doubt peaking through the stained glass windows atop the low archway and hopefully intimidating whomever was on the other side. Still the knocking persisted, growing more frantic as the seconds ticked on. He sighed silently to himself, squaring his shoulders like his father always taught him to do before a fight and shrugging on his house coat, bracing himself for the cold winter air just beyond the range of the homely hearth burning away just beside their tiny kitchen. It was now or never, he mused to himself, as he cast one last glance over his shoulder, checking that there were no newly minted teenagers behind him before reaching his hand towards the door handle, his wand firmly grasped in his other.
Just as his fingers just grazed the cool metal, the pounds stopped, bathing the room in silence once more. Solomon stood befuddled, his shoulders once again slumping as gravity took hold of his sleepy limbs. Could they have given up trying to get his attention? He didn’t think it took him that long to get to the door— it was a tiny cottage afterall. Still inquisitive, he forgoed just shrugging it off as a harmless winter prank and instead leaned closer to the door, pressing his ear against the wood and straining his hearing to identify anything on his land. The wind howled outside, rustling whatever remaining leaves clung to the trees lining the town and shaking the freshly fallen snow from their branches. It was sure to storm again soon, the air still smelled heavy with the scent of cold and incoming onding. He could hear some remaining jobberknolls flying south before the breaking of dawn, preparing their long flight as the yule tidings began across Scotland. Everything natural, he reasoned. Nothing out of the ordinary. But, as he was about to lean away from the door, content with crawling back into his warm bed and sleeping the night away, something else caught his attention. Just beyond the natural was a small slosh at his steps, like someone was toeing at the ground with the tip of their boot and digging into the icy path leading to the door. They were light in weight, that much was for sure, barely enough for their shoes to make a crunching sound as they paced.
Steeling himself again, Solomon creaked open the door and peered out through the crack, casting his eyes to and fro in search for their late night visitor. Upon not seeing anyone at first, he opened the door more, pulling it until it was inches from the inner wall and wide open to the world. His eyes were hard as he glared into the night, his wand hand raised and prepared for anything while his other pulled his house coat tighter across his body.
His voice was strong and resolute as he called out, careful to keep his volume low so as to not wake anyone. “Who goes there? Show yourself!”
There was a moment of stillness before a tiny voice piped up from his feet, barely auditory over the banshee-ish wind. “Mister Sallow?”
Solomon shot his gaze downwards, his eyes hardened and prepared to fight as he took in the form sitting on his steps. Curled around themselves was a young boy, his blond hair as pale as the stars above and skin littered with constellations of birthmarks. He had to be the same age as the twins, maybe even a bit younger if the eldest Sallow took into account how skinny he was. Once his sleep-muddled brain caught up with his eyes, Solomon realized he recognized the boy as the young Ominis Gaunt, a close friend of the children. He was shivering harshly, the cold seemingly seeping into his bird-like bones and chilling him to the core.
The boy’s home life was no secret, even if the Sallow man wasn’t a retired Auror he would still recognize the last name. The Gaunt’s were known for their dark magic and pureblood status, their descendents going all the way back to the Hogwarts founder, Salazar Slytherin. Solomon had seen the family's cruelty first hand before, and because of this tried to forbid his brother’s children from talking to their new friend. That was, of course, until he met the boy. Ominis was small for his age, and definitely wise beyond his years. Not one ounce of dark magic could be found in his veins, and he detested the very idea of following in his family's footsteps. Not only that, he was exceedingly kind, something rarely seen from such high society families, especially to those that lived in the “slums,” so to speak, like Solomon and the children did. The boy helped around the house where he could, pointing out things with his location charm that even a sighted person could not find. He talked to Solomon about his work, and was often found playing games with the twins in their garden during summer break. If the boy was here, on his doorstep, that means something terrible had happened in the Gaunt manor. The ex-Auror startled quickly upon the realization, hastily ushering the trembling boy into the house before he froze to death.
Now safely under his roof, the Sallow man took in the lithe child, his eyes moving across his figure as he analyzed the state he was in. Wrapped around his neck and lower face was a thin scarf, likely grabbed quickly as it was distinctly not weather appropriate. No winter cloak sat over his shoulders, just a thin housecoat hung loosely around him— more for propriety than functionality. Underneath was a sage green sleep shirt, some of the buttons in their proper place and others, particularly the ones near his collar, hanging on my the tiniest bit of string— like someone took him by the throat and shook him until they popped loose. Covering his legs was a matching pair of sleep pants, the knees dirtied from the muddy sludge outside— his left knee visible through a small tear in the fabric. Solomon could see some crimson blood decorating the edges of the slice. The boy’s slippered feet shuffled anxiously against the hardwood floor, the skin of his bare heels tinged slightly blue from the near freezing temperatures outside.
It was clear that the young Gaunt boy had not planned on fleeing that night.
Ominis had his wand clutched in his hand like a lifeline, his head downcast but still shooting from left to right, his ears straining to hear anything that could be deemed a threat. Every creak of the floor sent a jolt up his spine like he was being continuously struck by lightning. He was wound as tight as a spring, constantly on edge and ready to flee at the drop of a pin.
What was most concerning, though, was that the smallest bit of bruising was peeking out from underneath his scarf. Just along the collar of his shirt, once likely covered by the cloth but shifted after his dash to the door, was a distinct ring of purple spots, so deep and dreadful that if Solomon looked close enough he could probably see the swirls of each individual fingerprint. The ex-Auror was sure that if he pried the fabric off of the child he would find a similar bruise in the shape of a palm wrapped around his tiny throat. No doubt his father was the culprit— Erebus Gaunt was not one to be trifled with, even if you were his kin.
While one could argue it was part of the job, Solomon was not very keen on consoling fearful children. Sure he had encountered a few during his days as an Auror, but he was not proud to say that he primarily just shooed them away towards the nearest person that seemed equipped for the task. It’s not that he didn’t like children, he tolerated his niece and nephew after all, but he just didn’t know how to act around them, especially when they were processing some big emotions.
Hesitantly, he kneeled in front of the trembling blond boy, trying in vain to get a good look at his face— if there was bruising around his neck, there was sure to be some wounds that he needed to tend to above his jaw. Solomon awkwardly raised his hands from his sides, moving them slightly towards the boy’s shoulders in what he hoped was a comforting touch, only for Ominis to take a shaking step backwards, a whimper unconsciously weeping through his clenched teeth. The man’s hands stilled in the air in shock, his heart cracking at the fear that seeped from the boy like a murky fog.
Trying a different approach, the eldest Sallow held his hands upwards in a placating manner, still within touching distance but far enough away to show he meant no harm. His voice broke through the encompassing silence of the cottage, the tone low, hushed, and, he hoped, calming.
“Ominis, you’re safe now. Nothing is going to hurt you here.” He sighed at the apparent trepidation that took over the young blond’s face, more anxiety than annoyance in the puff of air. Solomon tried again, schooling the shake from his voice, “I would like to take a look at your face and neck, is that alright?”
The boy sighed to himself, a deep and foreboding thing that seemed to shake him to his very core— like the weight of the world was on his shoulders and it was only now safe for him to put it down and rest— and nodded, stepping closer to the elder man and more into the light of the dimly burning braziers. Solomon was gentle with his hands, more gentle than he had ever been in his life, when he touched the young Slytherin’s chin, tilting it upwards and revealing the damage done to his face by the people he had once considered his family.
Solomon felt his soul crack when Ominis’ visage came into the light. Under the tufts of blond that fluttered across his temple were his ghostly blue eyes, both rimmed with red from his tears and the skin colored a dismal purple— whether from lack of good sleep or a slap to the face, he wasn’t sure. They sunk deep into his skin like they were permanently a part of his features. Across his left cheek, still plump with a bit of baby fat from his young— much too young— age was a long jagged scar, blood pooling at the surface and streaking down his face, just shy of dripping onto his once starched collar. The man thought of the onyx ring that adorned the ring finger of the Gaunt patriarch and had to swallow down his bubbling rage. Cradling the young boy’s face like one would cradle a fragile family heirloom, he carefully pushed Ominis’ bangs to the side, only to still when the boy winced. At the upper corner of his head, right where his hairline began, was a thin line of bruising. Solomon sucked in a breath as he peered closer, mapping out the injury to himself to see how well he can possibly heal it. There was a distinct diamond shape at one end, the dark plum and incarnadine colors blending together into a deeper, more concerning shade of maroon. Small curls, like scrapings of widdled wood or peeled fruit, could be seen in a pattern across the rest. The man felt anger spin into a burning knot just under his ribs when he realized what that could mean. A table. They slammed their son, their own flesh and blood and bone, into a table hard enough to leave indents. Finally, Solomon’s eyes flicked downwards towards the young Slytherin’s neck. His earlier suspicions were correct. The soft, pliable skin decorating the limb that kept his head afloat was covered in deep, angry fingerprints. Large ones. If he wanted to, he could put his own hand over the bruising and it would likely be a near perfect match— palm to palm, fingerprint to fingerprint.
Underneath all the physical pain, though, there was something deeper. A glimmer in the young boy’s eyes. A tremble in his fingers. A stutter in his breath. Ominis’ hands shook at his sides, the tiniest of twitches sweeping through his small frame as if ants were crawling underneath his skin— biting at his fragile bone marrow. Through his years as an Auror, Solomon Sallow was well versed in the after effects of particular spells. This one, he was all too familiar with, and his rage knew no bounds at the thought of it being used against such a small soul. Such a gentle soul. Such an undeserving soul.
The cruciatus curse.
The eldest Sallow’s eyes softened with pity, a deep frown turning down the corners of his lips as a soft sigh puffed out of his chest. There would be time to wreak havoc upon the heads of the people who did this to this young boy in the morning. Now, though, he was needed here. His hands trailed down the sides of Ominis’ face, smoothing his hair behind his ears before taking him by the shoulders and gently pulling the boy into an embrace.
How heartbreaking it was, how quickly the boy clinged to him. Even after growing in a den of snakes, he sought kindness first.
Solomon’s left hand raised into the boy’s soft hair, combing his fingers through the knots with his fingers as he leaned his chin against the top of his head. His voice whispered through the silent cabin, the words awash with sympathy and care.
“Oh, my boy…”
That was all it took for the dam to break. The youngest Gaunt child wrapped his shaking arms around the man holding him even tighter than before, his jaw clenched so tight that the creak of his teeth was near audible, his eyes shut as tight as the shutters lining the windowed walls, and openly sobbed for the first time since arriving. Solomon held Ominis as tight as he dared, feeling the young boy’s fingers dig into the fabric at his back as he clawed onto the first solid thing he could find. He quietly shushed him, the hand still in his hair softly carding through the silken strands and his other soothing up and down his back. Never had he been the one to comfort others, but this felt right. This felt like what he needed to do.
All he could do was hold the small, trembling boy with every ounce of care he had in his body. No words needed to be said— no curses towards the loathsome family of his hiding behind their tall metal fences and mile-high blood wards— no words of sympathy whispered against heaving necks and snow soaked pajamas. Now, there was just kindness and silence. Everything else would fall together in time.
Solomon held Ominis until the early hours of the morning, only taking note of the time change from the clouded colors of his little stained glass decorations streaming through the beige living room and catching on the soft blond head wrapped in his arms— like the sun against the melting snow just beyond his door. Through it all, his hand did not falter once in its path up and down the young boy’s back. The ex-Auror’s heart did not once change its ever-present rhythm against the sobbing child’s cheek. He held the Slytherin’s tiny world together for him, because the eldest Sallow knew that in that moment the youngest Gaunt could not hold it himself.
Stability he could do. Stability was something he was comfortable with. He could be the support beam to Ominis’ crumbling walls. And when they woke, his niece and nephew could help pick up the pieces and put them back in their correct places. They could do this. Together.
So when the boy finally fell asleep in his arms, exhausted from the journey to his tiny cottage and from crying until he had no more tears to shed for his uprooted life, Solomon did not hesitate to scoop him up and carefully tuck him into the armchair in the corner of the room, the family tartan blanket wrapped around his frail shoulders and the fire roaring in the handmade hearth. He did not question when he leaned down to press a chaste kiss to his alabaster temple, for it was as natural as protecting one's own. Because Ominis was his. Not by blood, not by name, but by choice.
And as he would with any of his family, he silently, secretly, cared. He watched. He listened. He loved.
Solomon’s voice did not stutter as he whispered a soft “Goodnight, my son,” against the blond’s temple.
And he pretended that his heart did not warm when he heard a hushed, almost inaudible hum of “Goodnight, father,” be spoken in return.
