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Despite what others in his year may say, Sebastian is rather academically-inclined, thank you very much. He's never been one to pass up an intriguing book or two (especially if it's from the restricted section), but no tome could hold a candle to the rush he feels from trying out a new spell for the very first time. The snap of his wand through the air as it matches the energy of the perfect incantation is intoxicating.
He and his Gryffindor decided to sneak out to practice new spells right after dinner. They’d found a prime spot in the form of the jobberknoll den overlooking the castle. His eyes drift to her, crimson robes sloped gently over her shoulders as she leafs through a book he borrowed from the restricted section. He focuses back on the task at hand. He draws his wand down, flicks his wrist in a flourish toward his target, and feels the familiar pull of magic sing through his body and rush out through his wand arm. "Impedimenta!"
The spell connects cleanly, striking the tallest bough of the willow tree before him. White light spreads from the center of the branch and hums through the rest of the tree as its movements stop almost instantly. He smiles and admires his handiwork. A few jobberknolls peek out from the newly-petrified branches and lock their beady eyes on him just before taking off with indignant twitters.
"That ought to come in handy the next time we run into one of your poacher friends," he calls to her. To his left Sebastian hears rustling as she places a leaf between the pages of her book and places it on a moss-covered stump.
“Useful indeed. Not bad,” she comments idly. Sebastian narrows his eyes at her and finds what he’s looking for. Almost imperceptible, the upturn at the corner of her lip lets him know that she’s baiting him. He doesn’t even think before taking it.
“Is that all?” he drawls. She turns to face him fully, and wow. His lips decide that now is the perfect time to pull his faux wounded expression into an utterly besotted grin. He might actually be embarrassed at the level of effortless (and agonizingly to her, unknown) control she has over him if he weren’t so busy trying to quell the blush that seems to hum through the very core of him. The moonlight shines against her onyx hair. Most of it has fallen out of the loose bun she’d wrangled it into with a ribbon and is framing her face like gentle vines about a wreath. She looks ethereal, silhouetted against the moonbeams and the glow of the castle behind them.
She strides toward him, stopping just short of where he stands and looks up at him through fluttering lashes. “I’m sorry,” she says in a syrupy tone that lights a match somewhere deep within him. “Did you want me to say, ‘Oh, Sebastian! My hero! I may rest easy know that I’m in your strong, capable hands!’” she simpers. Though she jabs at him, there is only an easy warmth where the biting sarcasm should’ve been. She’s still gazing up at him when she crinkles her nose and smiles. He’s sure he’d readied a line from his well-crafted arsenal of witty comebacks. He could feel the words on his tongue, drawn back like a bow waiting to fire, but he smiles back down at her and all that tumbles from his lips is a breathless, “Yeah.”
She bursts out laughing at his change in demeanor. It’s a tinkling, melodic thing. There’s no pattern to it, but it’s as though the notes fall at perfect intervals, just so, to create another beautiful harmony each time she pauses for breath. She punches his arm in jest, more of a pat than anything else, and looks back to the castle.
“It’s gotten rather late. Should we be heading back soon?” she asks. Perhaps it’s just his hopeful imagination, but she sounds as reluctant to pose the question as he is to answer it. He likes spending time with her. Just the two of them. But then he sees her stifle a yawn and decides he’d rather like to see her get a full night’s rest for once. Heaven knows she needs it, what with the fate of the school seemingly falling onto her shoulders.
“I suppose so,” he responds. “Wouldn’t want to risk missing curfew.” She rolls her eyes playfully and he sees a grin grace her lips as she gathers her things. He’s so intent on committing her silhouette to memory that he doesn’t notice there’s someone behind him until the tip of a wand presses into his neck. She glances up from her stack of books and freezes. In the same instant the books thud into the dirt she’s already whipped out her wand and fallen into a defensive stance.
“Get away from him,” she snarls. Her voice is low and her gaze is lethal and Sebastian thinks, hysterically, that he likes this look on her. A familiar voice, self-assured and absolutely grating on his nerves, sounds behind him just as its owner presses the wand closer to his pulse point.
“I’ll say this only once: toss your wand to me or your sweetheart here stops breathing,” he spits. Victor Rookwood,the sleazy bastard, doesn’t even have the decency to sound terrified in front of, arguably, the most dangerous witch on this side of the country. He holds her gaze.
“Run! Just get out of he-” he doesn’t get to finish. Rookwood drives a knee into his back so hard he falls to the ground. He feels his cheek scrape against a stone as he goes down, but before he can push himself up Rookwood has a fist in his hair and is pulling him to his knees. The wand tip is shoved painfully into the side of his neck in warning. He wipes a drop of blood beaded at his lip from where it had split on impact and meets her gaze. Without another word she turns a hateful gaze to Rookwood and tosses her wand a few feet to the left of him.
“Good girl,” he purrs. Sebastian feels embers burn in his veins at Rookwood’s sultry tone and resists the urge to grab his wand and snap it in half. He freezes when he feels another presence behind him accompanied by a distinctly human hiss. The presence stoops down and sniffs, nose mere inches from the cut on Sebastian’s cheek. His Gryffindor moves as if to rip the thing away from him, but Rookwood stops them.
“Patience now, Theo. Save it for her,” he tuts. She tenses, but remains where she stands. Theo straightens himself to his full height rather reluctantly and Sebastian sees the moonlight glint off of a pair of red-stained fangs.
“You’re a vampire,” she breathes. Her voice is breathier. Not out of fear for herself, but for him, he realizes as she fixes Sebastian with a mixture of terror and relief.
“Yes, stating the obvious. Quite like a Gryffindor,” Rookwood snaps. He sees a familiar blue glow swirl about her hands and knows that she wouldn’t need a wand to destroy both of the men behind him. She seems to pull the ancient magic from the very ground beneath her as the air hums and crackles. Sebastian has just enough time to wonder why the vampire looks the furthest thing from afraid when Theo is suddenly right behind her. One sickly pale hand fists in her hair and yanks her head back, exposing her throat. The other curls possessively around her front, locking her in place and Sebastian sees red.
“Let her go!” he spits, throwing all his strength into trying to thrash out of Rookwood’s grip. A fist punches the air from his lungs and he sputters. Between gasps he can hear her thrashing in the vampire’s grip. The bastard holding him in place tuts.
“You’re hardly in a position to be making demands, Mr. Sallow,” he chides. He looks to his Gryffindor. Her chest is heaving with anger and exertion. Rookwood continues speaking, his voice laced with venom.
“Theo here has a very…rare gift,” he chooses his words carefully. “That ancient magic of yours could very well turn the tide in this little rebellion. Theo’s gift allows him to extract it from you. I promise it won’t hurt a bit,” he lilts. He sees her swallows and dips her head. She meets his eyes and she gives him a reassuring smile, soft and sweet. Her demeanor shifts instantly as she steels herself, glares defiantly at Rookwood, and please, god, no-
“Do what you will. Let. Him. Go. And I’ll cooperate. I’ll do anything you want,” she grits out. He can only watch, chest heaving as he pulls in breath after ragged breath, as she bows her head in defeat. Theo’s fingers trail her exposed collarbone as he sweeps her hair behind her ear and Sebastian’s throat closes in unbridled rage. His voice is not his own when he thunders, “Don’t touch her!”
“Oh, you will cooperate. And you,” he hisses as he tightens his grip in Sebastian’s hair, “You’re going to watch.”
Her face twists in rage as Theo sniffs her neck, but she doesn’t fight it.
“Oh, and I did mean it when I said this wouldn’t hurt a bit,” he mentions, seemingly as an aside. “It’ll hurt a lot.”
As the words leave Rookwood’s lips Theo seems to find what he’s looking for. Sebastian’s world narrows down to the point where his fangs pierce her skin. There’s not a rustle from the tree he jinxed a lifetime ago so he can hear them sheath into her flesh with perfect, horrible clarity. She doesn’t scream as Theo buries his head in her neck and sucks. The only sound she makes is terrified gasp and a strangled cry as he sucks the life from her veins.
“Stop-please, please! Leave her alone!” he begs. He’s desperate, hysteric. He’d do anything in his power and beyond to take her place. Rookwood only laughs, and laughs, and laughs. He’s hyperventilating as he watches Theo drink the life from her. After every pull Theo takes a soft blue light pulses through her and fades as quickly as it came. He wants to look away. There are a million shrill voices screaming in his head and they’re all telling him to look away! but he can’t. Because she’s looking at him, really looking at him, as though she can see right into his heart and acknowledges a truth that even he can’t bring himself to admit, and smiles at him. His heart, every fiber of it belonging to her - always her - shreds itself to pieces as he realizes she’s trying to be brave for him. Damn Gryffindors. Damn their bravery, and their courage, and damn her for stealing his heart. For being beautiful and selfless, and damn the universe for gifting her with ancient magic only for it to be ripped right from her soul.
Her gaze is growing heavier. The intervals between the blue pulses of light are dragging, and even in the miniscule light she looks pale. She’s already completely limp in Theo’s arms, but it’s the sight of her eyelids falling shut that wrenches a strangled scream from his throat. He doesn’t know how long it’s been going on but his panicked mind wonders if there’s even any blood left in her at all. He tears out of Rookwood’s grip with inhuman strength, wrenches the wand from his hand, and casts the loudest confringo to ever singe the highlands. In quick succession Rookwood rolls away from the flames and apparates himself and Theo away. There’s a loud crack and then - silence. Just a grave, damning silence.
He scrambles to his feet and trips to where she lay, dropping to his knees and turning her on her back. She’s still. Too still.
“Oh god, god no…” he trails off as he gathers her into his arms. He presses two shaking fingers to her pulse point and feels nothing. A choked shout spills from his lips. His arm is propping her up and her head tilts back, exposing the too-pale expanse of her throat. He calls her name again, and again, and again. Her features are slack and her lips are tinged blue. Why are they blue? They’re pink. Always so wonderfully pink…he wonders hysterically. He gathers her in his arms, holds her close to his chest and bows his head.
“Please don’t do this,” he begs. He pleads to her, to the universe, to anyone who will listen. “Please don’t leave,” he sobs. Tears streak down his face, but he doesn’t feel them. He’s so numb with grief that he nearly misses the faint huff of air that graces his cheek. He stills immediately, and when he feels another breath ghost his cheek he feels a giddy flash of hope ignite in his chest. He brushes the hair from her face and holds her head in his hands. Every muscle in his body is taught with anticipation. He gently cradles her and lets his forehead fall against hers.
“Come back to me…” he sobs.
The universe holds its breath - and then answers in the form of a weak, but wonderfully alive, little cough from the girl in his arms. He pulls back and watches, in shock, as she fills her lungs with a gasp. Her brows furrow, her eyelids flutter, and in the second before she opens her eyes Sebastian’s world blazes back into existence with agonizing clarity. Her eyes drift in and out of focus before finally settling on him, and with her first breath whispers, “...Sebastian.”
A sob wracks his body and he allows his head to fall back toward hers. He holds her in his arms like she’s the most precious, fragile thing in the world, and presses a desperate kiss to her lips. If he could only cast a nonverbal spell once in his lifetime, it would be for this. He would imbue this single kiss with all of the things he’s been too afraid to say: I love you. I’m completely and irrevocably yours. I’d give anything and everything to make sure the world never harms you again.
“...Sebastian,” she murmurs against his lips, an urgent edge to her tone that says she has something more to say. He retreats to listen. Impossibly, she’s smiling. She’s looking right into his heart as though he hung the stars in the sky.
“...My hero,” she laughs. He presses another kiss to her forehead and laughs softly with her. She was going to be okay. And Sebastian decided that as long as he had breath in his lungs, nothing would ever harm her again.