Chapter Text
You trailed your hand along the stone, cold wall of the common room entrance. It had been a long day, to put it lightly. Your legs ached from running everywhere, checking behind every loose corner for spare coins, or examining every empty classroom for a hopeless sense of direction.
The worst of it all, you had to imagine, had been trying to find out the secrets of Hogwarts. Professor Fig had encouraged you to get a lay of the land at Hogwarts before venturing out into the county, but with reckless ambition, you had chosen to do both. There were so many goddamn puzzles around that you felt your eyes were beginning to bleed. You imagined if you cast Revelio one more time, you damn well thought you might go mad. So grudgingly, one by one, you began to slink down the spiral stairs into the Slytherin common room, dreaming about the cushy bed waiting for you at the bottom.
Since your last time entering at this hour, you had gained much more familiarity with the castle and the way things worked around you. You understood that this time, no one would be in the common space at this hour and you could quietly slip into the bed in your dorm to get at least a couple of hours of sleep. Merlin forbid, not too much, as you still had potions in the morning. Professor Sharp was, of course, the type of man to start a class before the sun had even began to shine.
You continued down the stairs, closing your eyes as a silent yawn escaped your mouth, thinking to yourself that maybe you really should be getting more sleep after all. Approaching the bottom of the stairs, the thoughts were knocked from your head much as wind escaped your lungs. You had tripped over something at the bottom of the stairs and gone tumbling on.
The object in which you had crashed groaned and you blinked back in disbelief. Ominis Gaunt sat crouched on the stone floor, a look of what you read as anger flashed in his eyes and he turned to face you. You did not know Ominis well. In fact, you had only met him once on your first day, though your friend, Sebastian talked about him quite often. Still, it was obvious to see he was not happy for the intrusion.
"Dear, Merlin!" He cursed, his tone full of venom. "What is there?!"
You hadn't thought of it till now, but if anyone were to find you slinking around in the dark past curfew it would be him. Not just because of your luck and the awful fact that you assumed he despised you, but because of his heightened hearing. He must've known for sure that that was you trudging down those stairs.
You weren't sure what it was about Ominis, but whenever you were around him, you seemed to be on your worst behavior. In a sense, he brought out the child in you. A form of you with more energy and humor. Yet also a form of you that had you stumbling down staircases and losing points to Slytherin on your 2nd day. (Who would have known you couldn't practice leviosa on that girl's gobstones? You surely thought they wouldn't just keep rising into the stratosphere! But the look on her face had been just the slightest bit funny. At least Sebastian had thought so before he had been reprimanded as well.) Of course, at this moment, you really hadn't been trying to pull a prank on him. You truly tried your best to be silent slithered to your bed, but being graceful had never really been your strong suit.
Though what about his wand? You wondered. That surely would have alerted him of your arrival. You had seen him clearly identify any student based solely upon one red vibration of it before.
"Don't you know it's rude to sneak up on a blind man? Reveal yourself!" He continued, disrupting you from your thoughts. His voice, as it often was when dealing with you and your little accidents, was bitter yet still proper. It had a posh ring to it as if each word he said was worth more than the coins you had been scrounging around to buy some new attire in Hogsmeade. You realized you still hadn't responded.
"I'm so sorry!" You murmured, picking yourself up off the floor and crawling over to his undignified frame. His hands and knees met the ground elegantly, yet he looked like he could topple over at any second.
Why is Merlin's beard was Ominis Gaunt crawling around the floor in the common room? You thought it might be fun to make a joke, but for once, best decided it was not.
"Oh." He said. His face turned away from yours with disgust. He quickly got off of his hands and settled into a more dominant-looking kneeling position. His arms crossed over his body as if annoyed that you were even still in the room with him. "Of course, it's you."
Outch!
"I really am sorry, Ominis," You said. "Please, let me help you up." Though you enjoyed a good laugh once in a while, you still considered yourself to be a good person. Ominis was insulting you just the slightest, but you imagined the rude interruption for an obviously already confused (and crawling?) Ominis had teetered him over the edge of maintaining good manners.
You reached out to grab his hand as a sign of truce, but he made no move to reach into it. Or away for that matter. Oh yes, he can't even see that.
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure, I really had no intent-"
"I'm surely fine." He hissed.
"Right." You began dusting yourself off as you stood. You felt bad leaving him on the ground like that, but you decided that some things just don't want to be helped. You imagined even if you had tried to help him up, something in the cosmos would have compelled you to mess up. Perhaps a comically large banana peel would have appeared by your feet and tripped the both of you. You cringed at the thought.
"May I ask..." You regretted the words almost as soon as they left your mouth, "What are you doing on the floor anyways, Ominis?" You didn't bother to add the fact it was most likely 2 or 3 AM. Clearly, he seemed to have enough on his plate already.
He looked annoyed at your question, as if you had violated an unspoken agreement to pretend the interaction hadn't happened and for both of you to return to your dorm rooms silently. "I've lost my wand."
It was not what you were expecting, though, you supposed looking back at the situation now it made a lot of sense. "Do you need any help?" you offered.
It looked as if a moment passed in which he pondered saying yes to you. But the moment was quick and you really couldn't tell. His curt response of "No." was a satisfying enough end to your conversation. "But thank you." He added, slightly less acidic. Ominis was a polite boy, or rather a formal one. Regardless of the sentiment, you formed a smile into the abyss of his grey eyes and turned on your heel to exit the room.
"Goodni-"
"Actually, do you think you-"
There was an awkward pause. Both of you speaking at the same time. You weren't exactly sure what he said, so you let the pause draw out as you waited for him to repeat himself. When it was clear he did not plan on it, you spoke again,
"What was it you were-"
"No, you're right, goodnight-"
You had interrupted each other again. Two times in a row now. You walked over to him and collected your robe on either side of your legs as you began to crouch. Tired and infringing on crabby territory, you huffed as you sat down.
"Good heavens, silly boy. Let's find your wand." You huffed, laughing slightly that you had had the tired nerve to call him that. The great Ominis Gaunt, the descendant of Salazar Slytherin himself. You did not look over at Ominis to see his reaction, but he did not protest, continuing to feel around on the cold floor as he searched for his wand.
You checked in all the places he could not reach his hand into, casting Lumos to peek under chairs and larger pieces of furniture. The both of you continued on for nearly an hour. Occasionally, you looked back at Ominis to find him on all fours, muttering and frustrated as his hands glided against the stones. You often let out silent giggles at the sight of him all worked up like this, trying to keep a mental picture to remind yourself of the next time you embarrassed yourself in front of him.
Eventually, you found yourselves working in the same space again. There were only a few other locations in which you hadn't searched and your eyes were drooping with every passing minute. He had not given you much direction on where it was he lost it, and you weren't sure whether it was because he didn't trust you with the information, if he was embarrassed, or because he simply did not wish to engage with you more than he already had. Perhaps, maybe, it was all three. Still, it felt nice to be helpful to someone. You thought it rather exciting to be up this late working together with him anyways.
Much to your dismay, however, the wand was nowhere to be found. Ominis fell back on his tailbone slowly, pulling his legs closer to his chest and closing his eyes as he rested his head against the wall behind him as if it weighed a dozen pounds. He looked rather handsome like this and you couldn't help but stare. You wished now that maybe you would have grazed your hands over his as you searched the floor. But they had never been close enough for you to touch and maybe that was an infringement on his privacy, granted he couldn't even see where you were. Still, you stared at his hands, outstretched and balanced by two elbows resting against two knees. They were beautifully smooth looking. Long, pale, slender fingers with perfectly manicured pink nails. He had dark blue veins which branched out underneath an almost translucent layer of skin leading up to his bony wrist. The rest of his arm disappeared, disappointedly, into his dark robe.
"Thank you for your help, y/n." He said quietly, eyes still closed. Had his lips always been so pink? The few times you found yourself in his company you were usually so preoccupied with staying out of trouble that you had never been able to take the time to notice. "How rude of me that I never even asked where you were coming from so late. You must be very tired."
You were. Dear, Merlin, you were tired.
"It is really no worry. I'm often up late," You curled into a similar position on the floor, though unfortunately further away from him than you'd hoped. Something about seeing this raw side of him intrigued you. You felt pulled to him, wishing to draw out every syllable so you could stay longer. "I truly am sorry we were not able to find your wand."
"It is no bother. I will wake Sebastian in the morning, perhaps he will have better luck." He placed a hand on the back of the wall to steady himself as he began to rise. He was wobbly as he reached the top, but held on tight to his anchor. "Now, we must be going to bed. We have potions early in the morning.''
You were surprised he remembered you would be in class with him. You figured it was because of how often you made a fool of yourself, it would be hard, after all, not to notice that. Regardless of your self-pity, found yourself crawling back up the wall as well, your body excited by the thought of sleep at last.
"Will you be fine getting back to your room, Ominis?" You asked, looking at his swaying form, white knuckles pressed into his grasp on the wall.
"Yes. I will be fine, thank you. Goodnight." He spoke curtly, beginning to walk towards the boy's dorm while holding against the sides of the walls. He looked uneasy. After a few more steps, he tripped over the rug that the two of you had looked under and now evidently, not properly returned to shape. He nearly went flying spiraling to the floor, grabbing onto the wall behind him in a quick panic. Seeing Ominis trip two times tonight would have been too lucky, you supposed.
You didn't think his wand had so much to do with his balance, more his sense of direction. But here he was, stumbling about and obviously very distraught.
"Alright." You huffed, walking over to him quickly, scared he would fall and hurt himself now that he had to cross the room without a wall to hold onto. "You really do not know how to ask for help, do you?" You laughed a bit, biting your lip and interlocking your arm with his. He turned in surprise, staring straight through you.
"Really, I'm fine." He said, shaking himself off but not disjointing your limbs. "You act as if I haven't been blind my whole life. I am not a child." His voice seemed to command you to let go but his words did not. He took another step without your guidance and stumbled. Grudgingly, he tightened his hold on your arm in response.
You could not deny you felt a bit of delight holding him so close to your own body. He felt warm against you and as he applied more pressure to your stance, you felt his side press up against yours. You wanted to intake a sharp breath to ensure you really had all the air left in your lungs. You wanted to maybe even put a head on his shoulder if you were feeling a bit cheeky. That part of him looked quite sturdy at least. But you reeled yourself back in. The last thing you needed was to embarrass yourself again and you were clearly quite tired. Ominis's disdain for you was quite obvious anyways and you figured you'd better not push your luck.
As the two began to walk towards the stairs, you spotted something glowing red out of the corner of your eye. Tucked behind a vase in the deepest crevasse of the room was his wand, pulsing as it searched for its owner. You could not help but feel your heart drop as you eyed the object. You wondered if Ominis had found the object as well as he had grown silent. More silent than usual anyways.
You wanted to go run to it, bring it back to him, and send him off to bed. Maybe the two of you would even get a chance to say goodnight. Yet, as tired as you were, as much as you craved your beloved bed, you dreaded the absence of him next to you. You were Slytyirin, weren't you? you were allowed to be a little evil? Selfishly, you closed your eyes, ignoring the object, and turned back to your path.
As you rotated your head, Ominis's citrus-smelling college filled your nose as if rewarding you for your decision. You promised yourself to retrieve it as soon as you dropped him off and return it early in the morning. Maybe it was all just another excuse to see him.
If Ominis had also spotted the wand, he made no note of showing it. Rather, he continued at your pace, reaching the stairs down to your dorm. You began to climb down them, paying extra attention to holding Ominis upright as he jolted to a stop, stretching out his free arm in front of you which you bumped into like a bull.
"Ack!" You noised breathlessly, losing your footing and almost tumbling down. "What's wrong?"
"The stairs will not let you go further than this." He said.
Ah yes, you remembered the charm now to prevent the intermingling of witches and wizards in gendered floors. You thought about just returning his wand now, though you were sad to have to say goodbye to him so soon. Even if you had been together for an hour. Instead, surprising you, Ominis said,
"Cast the spell, Permintria and it should let us both through."
"How do you know that?" You said quickly, his grasp on you feeling a bit dirtier than before.
"Sebastian." Ominis said just as quickly. You cast the spell with your own wand and planted your foot firmly on the next step. Ominis was shaky as he descended the stairs.
You decided it would be pretty unpleasant to fall down these stairs, not to mention embarrassing and loud, granted you were now breaking the rules by even existing in this tunnel. So slowly, you slid your hand down Ominis' arm as not to surprise him, settling in his open palm. At first, it felt as if he would not respond. Maybe you would have to creep your hand back to where it was and pretend it never happened, how embarrassing would that be? Perhaps you had overstepped his boundaries.
Thankfully, however, Ominis enclosed his fingers around yours and you continued down the stairs. His hands were just as soft as you had imagined and he held your hand with a firm grasp. You could feel heat settling in your face and you exchanged a quick side glance at Ominis whose cheeks were just as rosy. You felt ungodly satisfied for making the boy flustered.
"Third door on the left." He said curtly after a cough. His voice so calm you wondered if you had made up his blush in the dark. Once you finally reached the door you rotated in order to let him through. He did not let go of your hand as he held the railing leading to the door, feeling familiar with his surroundings. His hand still enclosed in yours felt out of place now. An action that only lovers would have been doing, standing still, especially in this location. You wondered if he was possibly thinking about your hand as much as you were thinking of his.
"Will you be alright getting in?" You asked finally, knowing that the breaking of your silence would lead to the absence of his touch.
"Yes, this should be fine. Thank you." He let go of your hand, slowly. By Merlin's beard, so very, very slowly. You felt awkward now. Neither one of you turning to leave. You grieved for the absence of his warmth but also craved the delicious pajamas awaiting you in your wardrobe. Finally, he began to climb the stairs into his dorm, much steadier than in the common room. You wondered if he had always been this slow.
"Are you sure you don't need your new female accompaniment to help you into bed?" You chuckled nervously. Oh, Merlin! What on this great green earth had just possessed you to say that? And why with that inflection? You sounded like a cheesy salesman up late in a pub. You sounded like Sebastian! You began spiraling, stammering to cover up. "As a friend of course! Like, as in I don't want you to trip getting into bed. And we never did find your wand, so perhaps-"
"I'm quite fine." His face was most certainly red now, illuminated by the wall light outside their door. "I believe my female accompaniment is in desperate need of some sleep." His lips turned up uncomfortably a bit as he said it before settling into a confused, thin line. He maybe hated you before, but now, most likely it was a pure abhorrence. Still, you could not deny you had had some fun.
"Goodnight, Ominis."
"Goodnight, y/n."
You exited the tunnel, hearing his door open and close signaling he was in his room and officially Sebastian's burden. Upon returning to the common room, you immediately ran to his wand tucked into the corner and stashed it in your robe. You continued to your own room, excited by the idea of bringing it to him in the morning.
__________
Ominis
Sebastian had convinced him to start taking this daily potion with him every morning. A man in Hogsmeade had promised Sebastian it would grow one's muscles without them even having to work out, so naturally, Sebastian had bought the entire case. When he returned it to the room, however, he had begun having second thoughts. First off, it was nearly all of his spending money, and secondly, the effects of potions such as Gareth Weasley's made him hesitant to try random concoctions on a whim. This is where Ominis came in. Somehow in Sebastian's master manipulation, he had agreed to sell half to Ominis and the two boys would try it together for a few weeks as an experiment.
Ominis had no real desire to grow muscle mass, though he thought it might be helpful to be strong. There were some people he no doubt wanted to be able to out-strength, but the majority of his power came from his wand. Still, he had the most difficult time saying no to his best friend so the two had started that afternoon.
The only thing Ominis had noticed so far was his incessant need to pee. All the time. This did not stop in the middle of the night he discovered and so at 1 in the morning, he found himself crawling out of bed, throwing on his robe, and trekking through the hallways of the common room. He had begun thinking about his classes and homework when he swiftly tripped over a loose object on the ground and went stumbling through the room. His contempt for the lone apple on the floor soon dissipated as he realized he had lost his wand in the commotion. Thus beginning his search.
He had not made much progress when again, his already sore body was kicked in the stomach and he heard a person thud to the floor. Ominis wondered how bad he must've needed to pee to not even hear someone descend down the stairs, so already frustrated and in desperate need of a wee he snapped in response.
To his surprise, he was greeted with your soft voice instead. Merlin. He thought. The night could really not get any worse. He couldn't stand being around you. You were cheery and laughed and seemed to attract people into conversations. Most notably, Sebastian. He was unaware of why but could not stand the sounds of you two together, laughing or bickering in the classroom. When he was around you he could find himself unable to think about anything but you and it annoyed him. Just the other day he had been reprimanded in the courtyard for just sharing your presence as you cast away a first-year's gobstones. He imagined they were still rising to the cosmos as they spoke.
Now here you were, no doubt staring at him on the floor like a house elf, in a complete moment of weakness. He quickly straightened up, trying to appear more in control of the situation by placing his hands on his hips. He did not always intend to be so cold towards you, but it came easily, trying to push away whatever feelings he had about you into a deep ball of hatred that was much easier for him to understand. Despite this, you were kind. Kind enough that his teeth felt like they would rot and he should drown himself in the fountain behind him. Perhaps he even envied your ability to balance the curse that was being a Slytherin with whatever goodness you carried proudly in your heart. You had helped him search, through the middle of the night for his wand. Even though he treated you like lint. Even though you must have been tired yourself. And despite this, you had not even complained once. His need to pee dissipated and was instead replaced with mourning. He had taken a great fall, but had the wand really gone that far?
Getting to his feet he wanted to usher you off quickly, giving you a half-assed form of an apology for his temper earlier and beginning to feel like his father. But more than ever, desired to bundle himself underneath his covers and pretend you did not exist. You on the other hand did not seem so keen on that idea. Maybe it was another way to torment him. He really did feel fine at first, walking back to his dorm himself, until he hit the rug and began to falter. His stumbling made him cringe as he could only imagine how helpless he must've looked to you.
All of that went out the window when you grabbed him. Your touch was soft and light. Your body warm and firm. Though most of all though your hair smelt strong of caramel and flowers as if you had raided the gates of Heaven and enclosed it into a small bottle of perfume to mist over yourself every morning. He had been around girls before. Working closely on potions with Anne, and group projects in class, he was sure he had bumped shoulders with one of them, perhaps trying to grab something at the same time as them. But as you held him up, he wondered if he had ever even been touched by another human in his life. It certainly never felt like this. He could not stop thinking about you now. As if maybe you had even put some sort of spell on yours. He breathed slowly to get in as much of your scent as possible, moving slowly to feel your body against his for as long as he could draw out the moment. At some point, you realized you had grown silent too and he began to feel guilty. He must have been making you uncomfortable. You were only trying to help him to his room and thus he reminded himself to be curter.
He felt himself playing into his helplessness a bit. Ominis was not born yesterday, he was perfectly capable of making it back to his dorm without his wand. However, he found it much more enjoyable to linger around you and that delicious smell wafting around you. Yes. He was staying for the smell, he told himself, not at all for the girl.
As you approached the stairs down he could feel your attempt to descend. The air was always a bit thicker in this part of the common room as if the water was heavier with the particles of water stuck in them from the nearby streams. Instinctively, he raised his arm to protect you from falling and felt your crash into it. He was reminded of how innocent you were. You had only been here a couple of days, you did not know the rules of this school, and certainly, you had not tried to enter a boy's dorm. The thought that included Sebastian's room as well made him hide a smile.
"Cast the spell, Permintria and it should let us both through." He said, quickly forgetting the fact it even seemed suspicious that he knew that.
"How do you know that?" You led on.
Ominis thought about letting out a long-winded explanation about him and Sebastian working with Anne in late nights, especially ones in which the twins had had too much butterbeer. He thought he could also explain how Sebastian had searched high and low in the restricted section for it after discovering he surely had a knack for girls. Ominis was often kicked out of his room quite often so that Sebastian could court his new flavor of the week. Instead, he settled for a response that covered both.
"Sebastian."
He could tell Sebastian fancied you, and like every other girl who interacted with him, you most definitely fancied Sebastian as well. Of course, that must've meant you were pretty. Sebastian always fancied the pretty ones the most and he has spent an eon talking about you at dinner. He was jolted from his thoughts as felt your soft hand slide down his arm. The breath was missing from his lungs and all he could concentrate on was the feeling of you. It took him a moment to understand what you wanted. To really hold his hand? His? Surely it was just to help him down the stairs.
When the two of you reached his room he did not want to say goodbye. Very few times in life had he ever felt this warm, this content. Though he thought it was best to end the moment y he mucked things up and you were to realize you were wasting time you could have been sleeping. He could not figure you out, however. Your comment at the end of your conversation, whether a poorly timed joke or not, was just further confusion about his ability to read you. You sure seemed awfully awkward afterward. Putting you out of your misery he reluctantly sent you to bed, refusing to turn around until he had heard you make your way out of the tunnel. He returned to his bed, covers still thrown about from when he had originally tried to leave. Merlin. That's right, he still needed to pee!
"Ominis?" Sebastian called from his bed. "What are you doing in the middle of the room?"