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Sebastian’s patience had never been something to brag about, and the fact that you had snuck off with that stupidly charming idiot only wore his patience all the thinner. His eye twitched at the thought of you and Garreth off on some dangerous adventure that you wouldn’t even disclose to him the most minute detail. Not where nor when you planned to get back, for you were too stubborn in your friendship with someone who shouldn’t be trusted. Sebastian’s worried pacing around the common room had become a cacophony of stomping across the floor, and some first years scrambled to go commune elsewhere to avoid the wrath of the furious Sallow boy. Eventually, Ominis had enough of his brooding.
“Sebastian, you are causing a scene. She can take care of herself. You must trust that she can make her own choices and have good judgment,” said Ominis, always the level-headed wisdom, a perfect clash to Sebastian’s emotional fury. Usually, that would be enough to encourage Sebastian to self-reflect and calm down, but not when the object of his worry was you. It almost frightened him how important you had become to him in such a short amount of time, but you had asked him if he was in, and he was all in.
“What if she gets injured and he just abandons her?” Sebastian shot back, a snarl curling on his lips as he imagined you unconscious, abandoned, and alone. That idiotic joke could never man-up enough to defend you, not that you needed it. You were a firecracker with strength beyond comprehension, but his rendezvous with you in the Restricted Section told him even the strongest still need a good partner to back them up. A partner that was everything that the weasel was not.
“If she trusts him, then I will trust her,” Ominis smoothly replies, returning to his novel. His fingers moved lazily across the braille, and Sebastian wanted to throttle him. He couldn’t understand how Ominis could be so calm while you danced with Garreth to the tune of death’s serenade. The mental image of you dancing with him made Sebastian let out a particular annoyed huff, resuming his stomping with renewed vigor.
Sebastian tried to cool down, distracting himself with homework, books, and research. Not even researching possible remedies for Anne’s curse could keep his mind from you long enough to bring him a semblance of peace. His mind kept flitting across nonexistent images of you hurt, dying, or dead. You were part of his group now, and vipers were supposed to stick together. He couldn’t let you go, knowing that at some point, in another time, he had let you slip through his fingers.
He buried his face in his hands, muffling his annoyed and hopeless groan. Ominis’s fingers stilled on the page, and he slipped a sleek bookmark between the pages before wordlessly patting the space next to him on the green sofa. Sebastian plopped down beside him, his body sinking into the sofa as he leaned his head over the back. Ominis carded his fingers soothingly through Sebastian’s hair, just as Anne would do when Sebastian was otherwise inconsolable. His fingers gently scratching at his scalp had Sebastian letting out a watery sigh, his throat closing up as tears began to well in his eyes.
“I’m just so worried she’ll get hurt. What if I- we never see her again? Or what if she comes back and she’s cursed like Anne?” His emotions poured out of him as tears quickly began to race down his cheeks. It was finally out in the open. He couldn’t bear the thought of you, the strongest girl he’d ever known next to Anne, in the same state as his twin. He couldn’t live with himself if he failed to protect you, too. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs and shout to the heavens how he’d suffered enough already. After losing his parents and watching Anne wither and decay into a shell of her former self, could you, at the very least, be spared from a similar fate?
“She would never go anywhere dangerous enough to end up in a situation where she could die without telling us. She has said that she trusts us, and we have to trust that she is telling us the truth.” Ominis’s light touch brushed the tear tracks from Sebastian’s freckled skin, before squeezing his hand in a series of pulses.
“What is that? Morse code or something?”
“No, but the very same friend you’re worried about told me it means reassurance. I suppose I’ve just gotten in the habit of communicating like this.” Ominis’s cheeks flared up in a bright blush, and he retracted his hand from Sebastian’s as he shuffled away slightly. However, Sebastian only closed the distance between them once again, placing his hand on Ominis’s own.
“I think that’s really cool. Could you show me another one she taught you?”
Ominis showed Sebastian all the different messages that the two of you had established, though Sebastian could only retain a few of them and tended to mix them up in a way that had Ominis doubling over in laughter. It didn’t help that Sebastian also tried to implement new ones that meant phrases that would make sailors blush. When the two caught their breath after long, heaving laughter, Sebastian squeezed one more new series of pulses on Ominis’s hand.
“What does that mean?” Ominis chuckled, prepared for the worst joke of his life. A grin spread across his lips and his cheeks flushed rosy in amusement, the aftermath of their laughing fit still evident on his countenance.
“It means thank you for being my best friend.” Any laughter that was bubbling up in Ominis’s throat subsided as he returned the series of pulses to Sebastian.
“Thank you for being mine.”
Sebastian and Ominis sat in their bubble of calm for a while, chit-chatting about anything and everything that came to mind before thoughts of you began to creep in again. He stiffened as he whipped around, searching for a clock to check the time. You had been gone for a long time, far too long to have done your little excursion without any hiccups. You should have been back hours ago; nothing could take this long unless Weasley got you into some unnecessary trouble.
Sebastian’s face twisted into a menacing scowl as his fury returned tenfold. Ominis noticed the calm atmosphere being forced out by the thick tension of Sebastian’s mental debate. Moments of silence passed, and it seemed as if a side had finally won in Sebastian’s mind as he jumped off the sofa and began to gather his belongings.
“What are you doing?” Ominis hesitantly questioned, worried that he knew what the answer would be.
“I’m going to look for her, I can’t sit around while she might need me!” Even through his panicked energy, Ominis picked up on the slight wobble in Sebastian’s voice. The need to be there for you had grown immensely in Sebastian, and both he and Ominis knew that staying put would be an impossible task for him. Even so, Ominis tried once again to bring some sense into Sebastian.
“Wait. You are going to get yourself expelled! I’m sure she–”
“No, Ominis. It’s been way too long – I’m going to go find her.” He had made up his mind, and if you hadn’t turned the corner right then, he would’ve turned the entire castle upside down looking for you. The relief as he saw you hobble into the common room left as quickly as it came when he saw the flash of red on your robes. He quite literally saw red, his worry for you spewing out angry words as he erupted once again. He was too volatile to be reasoned with, and you kept throwing worry after worry his way. Your return with Gryffindor-colored robes, acid-melted skin, and a goblin-forged knife pushed him beyond the limit. His anger melted into defeat, and he suddenly found the smudge on the floor a much more interesting subject than your pleading gaze.
He left you in the boy’s restroom with tears in your eyes, and he had to blink back his own as he trudged up to his bedroom. His worries had only proven to be right as he unceremoniously threw himself onto his bed. He curled up into a ball, feeling very small at the fact that you would thrust yourself into danger without even telling him. Your bravery and loyalty to your friends only rivalled Anne’s own and thinking about his sister reminded him of how helpless he truly was. He couldn’t stop you from going down a dangerous path, but that didn’t mean he had to sit on the sidelines. After all, no one other than you had ever beaten him in a duel. Didn’t that count for something?
Sebastian didn’t remember falling asleep, but he regretted using his tears to lull him as he awoke with blood-shot eyes and a significantly puffier face. If Ominis noticed a change in his demeanor, he thankfully didn’t point it out. Sebastian already hated the mess that you made him into over your excursion with Weasley, the last thing he needed was to be forced to admit it out loud. Ominis did give him a few squeezes on the arm before Sebastian left the dorm.
“That one means that I’m here for you. I talked with her last night, and she recognizes her foolishness in putting herself in danger like that,” Ominis said, his tone soft and placating. He wanted to smooth over all the rough bumps and edges that had formed last night, but Sebastian brushed off his attempts.
“I just need some time to think. I can’t face her, not yet.” Sebastian knew it was a lame excuse, but it was as close to the truth as he could get with his confused and jumbled thoughts. He looked around and spied some books sitting on his nightstand that he could return instead of having to bump into you with your eyes full of repentance and apologies on your lips. “I need to return some books anyway. I’ll see you later.”
Sebastian squeezed Ominis’s hand in the same pattern he made up the night before, and Ominis understood. He knew Sebastian better than he knew himself, and Sebastian would have to cool off eventually.
Once dinnertime had rolled around, Sebastian had briefly considered taking up as much of the bench as possible. He pictured your hurt expression at the lack of a reserved space for you and promptly shifted over to his usual spot, leaving a little more room than necessary. He couldn’t bear the hurt on your face, and yet he couldn’t stop himself from trying to get under your skin the same way you had done to him. His eyes shifted downward as you entered, aiming his fury and disappointment at the baked potato on his plate. No one commented when he stabbed it with more force than necessary as you began to chat with the others.
He noticed the moments of silence when your gaze would linger on him, and the hot, bubbling anger only rose further up his throat. The time away from you had only allowed Sebastian to stew in his anger, like a timebomb that had begun to tick as soon as you sat beside him.
It was no coincidence that he exploded at the sight of the shit-eating grin Weasley wore as he pranced up to you. He couldn’t control himself, shouting at that idiot who led you head-first into danger and failed to protect you. You kept trying to protect Weasley from him, and nothing made Sebastian angrier. You should not be friends with a guy like that, especially when you have all the friends you would ever need already. In the back of his mind, Sebastian knew the irrationality behind telling you who you could and could not be friends with, but a much larger portion of him reasoned that you just didn’t know any better. You were a muggle-raised new fifth year who trusted too easily and loved too fiercely. It wasn’t your fault he corrupted your naivety to think that Slytherins like you could be friends with Gryffindors like him.
When he voiced his anger at you, even Ominis, who had followed him on his rampage toward Weasley, voiced his disapproval at Sebastian’s attitude. Sebastian’s eyes widened in shock as you snapped back at him, stepping away before he could say a word. He called your name, only to watch you walk faster back to the dorm. His breath caught in his throat as he processed what he had said, and how he dug a knife into your heart far deeper than you had cut into his.
“I didn’t mean to say that. I mean, I meant it, but I didn’t mean to hurt her. At least, not like this,” Sebastian whispered, talking more to himself than to Ominis.
“You are just about the densest troll-boogers-for-brains I have ever met. What did you think you were going to achieve by insinuating that she would do that?” he shouted at Sebastian, parking one hand on his hip like a mother scolding her child for breaking her favorite vase. Sebastian cringed away, hugging himself tightly in shame.
“I just wanted her to understand how she hurt me-”
“By making sure you hurt her twice as badly?” Ominis interrupted, his hands twitching as he tried to convince himself not to murder his best friend. “Two wrongs do not make a right. She hurt you and apologized. There is no reason for you to have said the nasty things you did to her. You can either grow a pair and find a way to redeem yourself, or you can expect some very judging glares coming from everyone else for the rest of the school year.”
Sebastian left Ominis in the corridor, and he was miserable. Yelling at you had not soothed the anger in his heart, but rather turned that anger into regret. The once bubbling emotions now twisted inside of him, swirling around his gut as he turned in for an early night. He racked his brain for way to make you consider forgiving him, but despair clutched at his heart when his mind drew a blank.
The next day didn’t fare much better as the lack of your presence was unhelpfully noted in Sebastian’s mind. You didn’t show up for breakfast or lunch, and Sebastian was slightly grateful that he hadn’t had to face you. He wasn’t ready to see the hurt in your eyes just yet. He didn’t think he would ever be truly ready to face the mess he had made, but he would fix it, somehow.
You passed him on the way to dinner, and the swirling in his gut had sharpened drastically. He felt his heart start beating faster and his hands sweating, but he would at least attempt to make amends. He called your name, and you brushed past him, looking just as defeated as you did the night before. Sebastian didn’t call for your name again, and internally he knew that he would need to do something more than a half-assed apology he made up on the spot. If he wanted to earn your forgiveness, his hands were going to have to get a little dirty.
He woke up before the break of dawn the next morning, and quickly threw on some old, warm clothes for his mission. He had picked up that you were still looking for that moss-ball by your disheveled and disappointed look last night, and he was going to find you one. You couldn’t refuse his apology if he got you that extremely rare and desired object. He worried his lip as a little voice told him that you would never forgive him, no matter the lengths he went to redeem himself in your eyes.
Pushing those thoughts aside, he hopped on his broom anyway, racing deep into the Forbidden Forest. He landed in a small clearing and immediately began to look at the floor, half hoping that it would be sitting right there so he could crawl back into his warm bed. The cold and wet Sunday morning sent a shiver up his spine, and if he wasn’t as stubborn as a mule, he might’ve just given up before he even started. Sebastian gritted his teeth and pictured the hurt on your face, garnering resolve from the depths of his heart. He wanted to see your smile wider than your frown had been deep when he spat such awful words at you. Giving up on this – on you – was not going to be an option for him.
He spent hours crouched low to the ground, feeling the dirt for the elusive moss-ball. Each time his fingers would be scratched by brambles, or his coat got caught on burrs, he swore loudly but only became more determined to find it. At one point, he found himself on his knees near the outskirts of a village, eliciting hushed whispers and pointed stares from the villagers.
“Are you alright?” Sebastian looked up and saw a man standing over him, crates full of potion ingredients in his arms. He set them down to get a closer look to see if Sebastian was injured.
“Uh, yes- I’m fine. Just looking for something.” Sebastian evaded his gaze, continuing his search in that area for the moss-ball. The man crouched down beside him, looking at the dirt intently.
“Well, if you’re looking for dirt, I think you’ve found it,” he let out a chuckle at his own joke, but quickly coughed when Sebastian didn’t seem to find it as humorous as he did, “What’re you looking for?” Sebastian sat back on his heels to rest for a minute as he looked up at the man.
“I’m looking for a dumbass moss-ball because I fucked up and the only way she’s ever going to forgive me is if I get this super rare thing that apparently no one knows how to find!” Sebastian huffed, not caring that he’s using some choice words at a complete stranger. The man laughed as he sat down beside Sebastian, which only made Sebastian’s frown deepen. “It’s not funny. This is a very serious matter, actually.”
“I’m sure it feels that way,” he chuckled, looking up at the dreary sky, “You remind me of when I was your age. I once forgot the anniversary of this girl I was sweet on, and she wouldn’t talk to me for a week! She was so mad, and I felt like my life was over.” He wistfully smiled at the memory and Sebastian pursed his lips in thought.
“What happened to you and the girl?” The man’s eyes glinted mischievously as he showed Sebastian his left hand, a golden band adorning his ring finger.
“I managed to trick her into being my wife. She is certainly a firecracker, but I don’t think I could live without her,” he admitted, and Sebastian nodded in understanding. You were similar in that regard, full of passion and charm that seemed to astound him every time. The man stood and offered a hand to Sebastian, which he was about to decline before the man said, “C’mon, kid. Let’s get you a snack and I can tell you where I usually get my moss-balls. If you’re lucky, there might be one or two lying around.”
“You know where one is?” Sebastian shouted, unable to contain his glee, as he immediately hopped up. The man laughed, and roughly patted him on the back.
“You’re a riot, kid. My wife is going to love you.” The man picked up the crates and began to carry them toward his home, which was right within eyesight. Sebastian blushed a little when he realized that he probably looked silly foraging in what must be this man’s backyard. The man hadn’t yelled him off his property, though, and a wave of gratitude flushed through him.
Stepping into a small cottage, Sebastian was hit with the aromas of scones and biscuits, fresh out of the oven. The man dropped the crates off near the entryway before greeting his wife with a chaste kiss and introducing his guest.
“This boy has a girl he’s sweet on and he’s trying to win back her favor.” Sebastian’s eyes widened and he quickly shook his head in disagreement.
“I’m not sweet on her, she’s just a friend,” he amended, politely smiling as the couple shared knowing looks.
“Oh, bless your heart, you poor thing. Why would you go through all this trouble to find a moss-ball for a girl you don’t fancy?” The wife questioned, her smile genuine, not patronizing.
“She really needs it and I really need to make it up to her. I can’t stand the fact that she won’t even look me in the eyes without having the expression of a kicked puppy,” he rambled, thinking about your eyes and how they used to light up when you saw him. He remembered how they shined when he first bumped into you, and how your hug had felt like coming home. He remembered your selfless acts and kind words, and how your hand fit like the missing puzzle piece into his. He would never admit that he was sweet on you, but he knew that what you were was more than just a friend. He wanted his friends, but he needed you.
The man and his wife looked at each other again, and if Sebastian hadn’t known better, he would have thought they were telepathic in the way they seemed to have conversations in mere glances. The wife began to put together a little pouch of treats as the man grabbed a piece of parchment and started to sketch a map on it. Sebastian peered over his shoulder as he drew landmarks and arrows to a few different locations that he normally went hunting for moss-balls. The man explained that he was likely not to find any, but if Sebastian was determined to try, these would be the places to check.
“Thank you for your kindness, how can I repay you?” Sebastian asked, a small pouch of treats in one hand and the folded map tucked safely in his pocket. The couple declined any offered monetary payments, and simply told him that kindness doesn’t need to be repaid. Sebastian mulled over this as he thanked them again, looking into his pouch of delectables. If these strangers could show such kindness to him, then how much more should he do for you? With renewed determination and a full belly, he continued his search.
Sebastian’s determination grew into worry as the sun sank lower in the sky and he continued to scratch off places on his map with no luck. When he reached the last place that the man had told him, he silently begged that this would be it. The temperatures were steadily dropping, and he had long ago lost feeling in his fingers. He blew into his hands and rubbed them together before casting Lumos to inspect the ground closely. He peered in every nook and cranny, and flopped down in defeat as he came up with nothing once again. He lay down on the ground, uncaring about the dirt or trying to be clean. His clothes had already started to stain brown in some spots with caked-on dirt, there was no point in worrying over cleanliness now.
He watched the sun reach the horizon and begin to dip below it before he heard the small scuttle of an insect near his head. He turned over, ready to kill it for being a pest while he was trying to mope, and audibly gasped. It was a beetle, rolling a moss-ball right toward him. He froze, his hands twitching to either grab the moss-ball or the container, or both at the same time, before he finally scooped up his little miracle and dug out the tiny jar that he had gotten from the greenhouse the night before. He tucked it away securely as he ran a filthy hand through his equally filthy hair.
He stood and swore cheerfully at the sky; he couldn’t believe his luck. He had done it. After a grueling day of searching, he finally found one and could offer it as an olive branch to smooth out the tension between you and him.
And for the first time in a few days, when he thought of you, he smiled.