Archive of Our Own

You had received an invitation to the Ministry Charity Bachelor Auction three months ago and had decided immediately not to go.

And yet here you were, sitting in one of the chairs and trying not to spill wine on your dress. Ordinarily, this wasn’t the sort of event you would be at, but Sebastian Sallow was nothing if not persistent.

“Save me,” he’d groaned, flopping onto your couch the second he’d Flooed into your flat.

You’d smiled and bit back a laugh. “From what, exactly?”

“They’re short a bachelor,” came his reply, muffled by the cushions. “For the auction.”

“And you want me to save you how, exactly?”

He lifted his head from the cushions to give you the grin that had made you melt since you were fifteen. “Bid on me,” he said. “If I have to spend the evening with someone, it might as well be someone whose company I actually enjoy.”

You rolled your eyes, but your heart was pounding from the casual tone in his voice. “Fine,” you had replied. “But I’m not going over twenty Galleons.”

When Sebastian was introduced, with the kind of insufferable introduction you knew he’d written for himself — “He enjoys debating magical ethics, his work as a cursebreaker, and recreational dueling” — the bidding raised quickly. Five Galleons, then ten — you raised your paddle.

“Fifteen.”

He grinned, clearly smug from the attention. There was a pause, and then a woman a few seats away glanced at you, then raised her paddle.

“Twenty-five.”

You caught a flicker of panic in Sebastian’s eyes and raised your paddle. 

“Forty,” you called, stunning the room into silence.

The gavel came down. “Sold!” called the auctioneer. “To the lovely lady in the front.”

Only then did the impulsiveness of your decision register — that was rent, that was groceries, that was money from your Gringotts vault that you were saving for a better place someday. Merlin, you were going to kill Sebastian Sallow.

When he found you after, waiting with your arms crossed, he grimaced. “So is now a good time to tell you that part of the reason I wanted you to bid on me is because I haven’t actually planned a date?”

You just raised your eyebrows. “I spent forty Galleons on you,” you said. “Either pay me back or take me out — it’s up to you.”

He grinned and ran a hand through his hair. “Saturday at seven work for you?”

“I’ll see you then.”

Sebastian showed up at your flat at six forty-five with a bouquet of slightly wilted dittany flowers and a nervous smile. 

“You clean up nicely,” he said, and Merlin, between the look on his face and the outfit he was wearing (a button-up with a vest and a slightly wonky tie — he’d never learned how to tie them properly, and you’d always mocked him for it in school), you were fucked.

“So do you,” you replied, pretending to be normal and not even more in love with him than ever as you put the dittany in a vase. “Where are we going?”

He grinned. “You’ll see.”

You ended up going to a little restaurant on one of the streets that branched off of Diagon Alley. The food was good, the wine was too fancy for you to appreciate it, but the company — that was the best part.

You reminisced about school — about how Ominis had yelled at you when you first met, about how you’d always kicked Sebastian’s arse in Crossed Wands, about the time you’d hexed Duncan Hobhouse for calling Constance Dagworth a certain unrepeatable word. 

“I fancied you something fierce then,” he said lightly, like he hadn’t just shattered your entire worldview.

You laughed it off, pretended like this didn’t change everything. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. Since you beat me in that duel in Defense Against the Dark Arts,” he said firmly. “I remember thinking I was going to marry you.”

You felt your cheeks heat, your heart pounding because what the fuck. You’d been in love with him for the last decade, and you could have been with him in school — could still be with him if you worked well together.

“I would’ve noticed if that was the case,” you replied as he took a sip of wine, “seeing as I fancied you too.”

He choked on his wine, coughing. “You’re kidding,” he said. “When?”

“Since that stupid line about a proper Hogwarts welcome,” you told him.

“Until when?”

You weighed your options, then decided fuck it. “Who says I stopped?”

Sebastian looked stunned, and you considered fully taking it back, laughing and saying you were just joking, like you hadn’t dumped every single person you’d ever courted just because they weren’t him. Like you hadn’t spent a decade pining after him. Like you hadn’t spent a full day crying when he’d told you he was seeing someone and hadn’t resisted the urge to cheer when he’d told you they’d broken things off.

“I love you,” he said, and now it was your turn to be stunned. 

It wasn’t like you’d never said I love you before. Sebastian was well aware that you loved him, and you knew he loved you, but this wasn’t the same platonic meaning — he was saying I love you like he was in love with you. 

The second he realized what he’d said, he closed his mouth, then opened it again. “Fuck, sorry. I shouldn’t have — I didn’t mean, well, I did, but, um — ” he cut himself off and ran a hand through his hair. 

“You’re joking,” you said.

“No, unfortunately,” he replied, laughing weakly. “But I can be if it means saving this friendship.”

You looked at him — really looked at him — then. His gaze darted away from yours, his face guarded, though you knew him well enough to know that he was terrified of what you were going to say.

It had never been one-sided.

“Seb,” you said, and his eyes met yours, slightly glassy, like he was worried you were going to break off your friendship with him entirely. “I love you too.”

He looked like you’d just punched him in the stomach. “You do?” he asked. “In the in love way, not just the friendship-love way — ”

“ — Yeah,” you admitted. “I dumped Eric Northcott in sixth year because he wasn’t you.”

Sebastian’s jaw hung open. “I thought it was because he kept telling all your secrets to the entirety of Gryffindor.”

“He only did that after I dumped him,” you said. “It made for a good excuse.”

He let out another laugh, short and incredulous and slightly disbelieving, a nervous smile creeping onto his face — you knew the feeling, the shock that this was happening when you’d been dreaming of it for ten years now. “All this time?”

“All this time,” you confirmed.

“Merlin,” he said. “I should’ve listened to Ominis. He always said you felt it too.”

“Don’t tell him,” you teased. “His ego will never recover.”

You finished eating while talking and going over your shared history, piecing the misunderstandings together — why you’d ended things with Andrew Larson the second he started talking about marriage (he wasn’t Sebastian), why Sebastian had bothered dating Priscilla Wakefield (she looked like you, slightly), why you’d both been too scared to say it for all these years (you were both cowards).

He paid for dinner, despite your protests (“You spent forty Galleons on this — consider it a first step in paying you back”), and you walked back to your flat, fingers brushing and then interlocking. When you stopped outside of your door, you looked at him, finally noticing the way he looked at you — like you’d hung the stars in the sky, like you were a creature from his dreams.

“Can I…” he started, his gaze darting to your lips.

You didn’t let him finish before you kissed him. It wasn’t perfect by any account — you were both grinning and laughing, and your teeth clinked more than once — but it was Sebastian, and that made it better than anything.

You drew back just long enough to unlock the door and pull him inside by his wonky tie.

* * *

The next morning, you woke before he did, taking your time to admire him in the morning light — the freckles across his shoulders, his lashes (unfairly long) fanned across his cheeks, his hair sticking up in a million different directions.

You kissed his shoulder, then tugged on your dressing gown and headed to the kitchen to make breakfast. You weren’t entirely sure what the protocol was when you’d finally confessed your feelings for your best friend of a decade, but breakfast seemed like a good first step.

You scrambled eggs and toasted bread and even got out the fancy jar of strawberry jam that you’d been saving for a special occasion, because if this wasn’t special, then what was? As you set the two plates at the table, you heard the creak of the floorboards, and turned, smiling, to see Sebastian, his shirt half-buttoned and trousers rumpled, his hair even messier than it was when you’d left him in bed.

“I made breakfast,” you said, stepping towards him.

The look on his face made your stomach drop into your feet — hesitant, unsure, wary — all things you didn’t want to see on the face of the man who had told you he loved you with such tenderness last night. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” he said quietly.

You tried not to let yourself jump to assumptions — you knew he wasn’t a morning person, so maybe he was just taking a moment to wake up fully —

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted coffee or tea, so I made both,” you said too enthusiastically, forcing a smile. “Food’s on the table, you can help yourself.”

“Thanks,” he replied, not smiling, not meeting your eyes.

He thought this was a mistake.

You took a step back and blinked hard, trying not to let yourself cry in front of him. Ten years of pining, ten years of loving him and suffering in silence, all washed down the drain because of the stupid, silly hope that he might feel the same when it was just drunken curiosity — at most — on his part.

You were out of his system now, and this was it.

“I — need a minute,” you got out, brushing past him and heading for the bedroom, closing the door behind you.

The sheets on the bed were still rumpled — his coat was still on the floor from the night before. You were going to have to move; you couldn’t live here after this, couldn’t live next to the ghosts of last night when it was just a one-time thing.

You pressed the heels of your hands to your eyes, trying to stop the tears — it didn’t work. You hadn’t cried like this before — not when Sebastian started seeing Priscilla Wakefield or when he told you he was meeting Sacharissa Tugwood’s family. It was worse this time, because now that you’d had him, you knew what you were going to have to live without.

There was a knock at the bedroom door, and you wiped your eyes, attempting to compose yourself. 

“Is my coat in there?” Sebastian asked through the door. “I was just about to head out.”

“Yeah,” you said, hating the way your voice shook as you picked it up and opened the door to hand it to him. You didn’t meet his eyes as he took it from your hands. “Here.”

He didn’t put on the coat, just stared at you — when you finally looked up at him, his expression was stricken. “You’ve been crying.”

“I’m fine,” you lied, which would have been a lot more convincing if your eyes weren’t puffy and your voice didn’t crack on the second word. “You can go.”

Please go, you thought, because you could feel another wave of tears rising, and you really didn’t want to have to listen to him say that he loved you, just not in the same way you loved him.

He didn’t go, but his face crumpled when the tears finally fell down your cheeks. “No, no, no, don’t cry, don’t — fuck.” He stepped forward, ran a hand through his hair, and dropped the coat so he could pull you into his arms. “Don’t cry, I didn’t mean to — ”

“ — You don’t have to make me feel better,” you said, stepping back so he wouldn’t have to comfort you through the inevitable rejection. “I get it. It was a mistake for you. It’s fine, really.”

“What?” he asked. “Why would you think that?”

“You said all of three words to me when I told you I made breakfast!” you pointed out. “You didn’t even look at me!”

“Because I thought you thought it was a mistake,” he said, the words tumbling out like he couldn’t stop them. “You were standing there, looking incredible, and you’d made breakfast, and I realized that if you had to let me down, you would want to let me down easy, so I was trying to brace myself so I wouldn’t turn into a fucking wreck.”

Your head was spinning, your thoughts taking a while to catch up. “You thought I was letting you down easy?”

“I don’t know!” he said, defensive now. “I’ve been in love with you since I was fifteen, and you’ve always been so lovely to me, and I thought you were going to give me my tea and then tell me that it was just a one-time thing but you still want to be friends, and I knew I was going to need to wallow in bed for at least a week if that was the case.”

“I love you,” you told him, “but you’re such an idiot, Sebastian Sallow.”

He relaxed, his shoulders slumping. “I am, aren’t I?”

Two weeks later, he’d moved in. There was no long conversation, no sitting down and talking — it was just the inevitable continuation of what had been between you for ten years.

It started with you clearing a drawer for him — he spent enough nights at your flat that he needed one — but eventually, he stopped leaving, and you stopped expecting him to. His clothes expanded from one drawer to three to the entire dresser. He bought another bookshelf because yours didn’t have enough space, according to him. His handwriting started joining yours on the grocery list. 

It may have seemed fast — it was, by a lot of standards — but it didn’t feel that way. You’d known him — loved him — for a decade, and this was just the final pieces falling into place, gravity finally pulling you the rest of the way together. He kissed you goodbye every morning before heading off to Gringotts, and you arrived home from your work at the Ministry every night to find him waiting for you, dinner already made.

The day he proposed could have easily been the worst day of your life.

You arrived home late from work — you’d been playing catch-up on case reports lately — and Sebastian wasn’t home, which was the first sign that you had to worry.

Then, the Patronus arrived. It was a dog, and when it opened its mouth, you didn’t recognize the voice that came out. 

“You were marked as Sebastian Sallow’s emergency contact,” said the voice. “He’s currently at St. Mungo’s after sustaining curse damage and a cave-in. He’s asking for you.”

You Apparated there so quickly you wouldn’t have been surprised if you Splinched yourself. When you reached his room, you almost cried — his hair was matted with blood, and his torso was bandaged. When he saw you, he grinned, eyes hazy from the potions they’d given him.

“Hi, love,” he said.

You wanted to hug him, but you weren’t sure what that would do to his injuries, so instead, you grabbed his hand, squeezing gently. “You scared me.”

“Sorry,” he mumbled. “Ceiling collapsed. Hurts.”

“You almost died,” you whispered, your throat tightening at the thought.

His fingers curled around yours, and he looked at you, solemn. “Did we get married yet?”

You blinked at him. “What?”

“Don’t wanna die without marrying you,” he continued. “The ring’s under the socks I never wear. Top drawer. Got it ages ago. Was gonna do it properly, but then the roof exploded.”

Your vision blurred. “Are you proposing to me right now?”

“Maybe. Yes,” he said too loudly, voice heavy from the potions. “Love you. Marry me.”

“Yes,” you said. “I’ll marry you, you absolute idiot.”

He grinned, victorious, then passed out.

You returned to the flat a little while later to change out of your work outfit and get some clothes for Sebastian — true to his word, the ring was at the back of his sock drawer. It was a little too big, but you put it on anyway.

When you returned to St. Mungo’s the next day, he was awake and far more lucid.

“How do you feel?” you asked.

“Like a troll sat on me,” he mumbled, wincing as he sat up — you adjusted the pillows behind him, and he froze when he saw the ring on your finger. “What’s that?”

“My engagement ring,” you said. “It was below the socks, like you said.”

He gave you a strange look. “I didn’t propose yet.”

“Yes, you did,” you replied. “Yesterday. You said you didn’t want to die without marrying me, and you told me where the ring was. Then you passed out.”

Sebastian groaned. “I can’t believe I don’t remember getting engaged,” he said. “I had a whole plan! It wasn’t supposed to happen like this!”

“Yeah?”

He nodded, sulking. “I was going to take you back to Hogwarts so I could do it in the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. I didn’t want to do it while I was high on potions and concussed!”

You squeezed his hand. “You really don’t remember?”

“I remember the ceiling falling and asking for you and a bunch of floating bottles,” he said. “But no, I don’t remember proposing.”

“I said yes,” you told him, and he softened. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you confirmed. “But we can pretend you haven’t proposed yet if you want to go through with your plan.”

He grinned. “I like the sound of that.”

A week later, he did exactly as he said he would — you went back to Hogwarts together, and he dropped to one knee in the middle of the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. You said yes (again), and meant it with your whole heart.

When you told Ominis, he sighed and said finally, though you caught his eyes going glassy — he dabbed at them with a handkerchief before you could see.

It wasn’t a long engagement — you’d waited far too long already. The night before your wedding, you sat on the sofa with Sebastian, leaning against his shoulder. 

“I’m so glad that bachelor dropped out of the auction,” he murmured.

You glanced up at him. “Do you think we would still be here if it weren’t for that?”

Sebastian thought for a moment. “I think we would have gotten here either way,” he said. “I just hate to think of how much more time we would have wasted. It took us ten years already.”

“Speak for yourself,” you replied. “I paid forty Galleons for this.”