Work Text:
Sebastian stepped into the corridor, the book clutched in his hand, and flinched as the passage behind them vanished in a flash. The wall sealed itself shut, as though it had never existed. After the oppressive darkness of the Scriptorium, the torchlit hallway felt almost too bright, too ordinary.
“Should we look at the book right away?” the new student asked eagerly. They seemed nearly untouched by what had just happened, eyes alight with that spark of curiosity Sebastian usually admired, and often shared. But now, he hesitated.
He glanced toward Ominis, who stood a few paces away, staring blankly ahead. It wasn’t unusual for Ominis to spiral into some form of existential fury whenever Sebastian did something reckless — which happened, on average, two or three times a week — but there was something different about him now. Something in his posture that made Sebastian’s chest tighten.
“I think I’ll wait,” Sebastian said instead, turning to the new student. “That was a rather… gruesome experience. Maybe we should rest before we start examining the book.”
Their friend looked disappointed but nodded. “All right. Maybe we can meet before breakfast tomorrow?”
Sebastian still thought it was far too soon, but he nodded anyway. “Sure. We’ll see.”
“Okay.” They seemed reluctant to leave, but Sebastian offered a polite, encouraging smile, and at last they turned and began to walk away.
“See you then.”
“See you,” Sebastian echoed. The moment they disappeared around the corner, he turned toward Ominis, about to ask if he was all right.
Except Ominis wasn’t there.
Sebastian blinked. Far down the corridor, in the opposite direction, he caught sight of Ominis’s figure.
“What — hey! Ominis! Wait!” he called, hurrying after him. Ominis didn’t stop, not that it surprised him. He had made it very clear how much he hated this entire mission from the start.
As Sebastian drew closer, he noticed how uneven Ominis’s movements were: his steps jerky, his breathing quick and ragged. Then he saw that Ominis didn’t even have his wand out. He was walking completely blind.
“Ominis! Hold on!” Sebastian jogged to catch up, which wasn’t too difficult; Ominis was half stumbling over the cracks in the stone floor, bumping against the jutting columns as he went.
When Sebastian finally came alongside him, the uneasy knot in his stomach twisted tighter. Ominis’s eyes had always been … well, sightless, but now, there was no life in them at all. The faint spark that usually flickered there, whether anger at Sebastian’s antics, exasperated fondness, or mischievous defiance, was gone.
“Hey,” Sebastian said, stepping in front of him and halting his stride with a hand on his shoulder. Ominis froze and flinched back as if the touch had burned him. His breathing quickened.
“Ominis,” Sebastian said. “Look at me. Or, well, listen to me.”
A blind joke usually earned him an eye roll and a sharp retort, but this time Ominis didn’t even blink. His expression was turned inward, distant, as though he wasn’t really in the castle at all.
“Ominis.” Sebastian wedged the heavy book under one arm and cupped Ominis’s face in both hands.
“I know that was awful, but it’s over now. Do you hear me? We made it out. We’re fine.”
Ominis didn’t respond. His shoulders kept rising and falling in quick, uneven bursts, each breath faster than the last.
“Hey.” Sebastian’s unease deepened, creeping up his spine. Ominis never shut down like this. When things went bad, he usually lashed out. Sharp words, anger, motion. Not silence. “Ominis, it’s okay. The Cruciatus didn’t hurt me. It was horrible, but it’s done. I’m fine.”
It was as if those words flipped a switch. Ominis dropped to his knees in the middle of the corridor, and Sebastian sank with him, instinctively reaching out. The book slipped from his grasp and thudded to the floor as he tried to steady Ominis, who buried his face in his hands and tore free of Sebastian’s hold.
“No, no… I’m sorry,” Ominis whispered, shaking his head violently. “I swear I tried. I didn’t want to—”
“Ominis?” Sebastian’s stomach churned. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m the one who dragged you into this. You didn’t do anything wrong—”
But Ominis went on as if he hadn’t heard him.
“I don’t want to do it. Please, just let me go, please—” His breathing came in broken, hitching gasps.
Sebastian had seen panic attacks before; classmates fainting at the sight of blood after a Quidditch accident, or trembling after some frightening spell gone wrong. But he’d never Ominis like this. His friend was always so composed, so fiercely in control. When he broke, it was in anger, not terror. Sebastian had no idea how to reach him now. “Ominis, it’s okay,” he tried again softly. “You’re safe now…”
Ominis only shook his head and clamped his hands over his ears. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to…”
Sebastian’s blood turned to ice.
Ominis wasn’t talking about the Scriptorium anymore. He wasn’t even here.
“I don’t want to, please don’t make me do it again,” Ominis whimpered, curling in on himself, trembling so hard that his voice shook with every breath. He kept his hands pressed tight to his ears, trying to block out something only he could hear.
Sebastian wanted to pull him close, to hold him until it passed, but he hesitated, afraid that any touch might make it worse. If he was right — and every awful instinct told him he was — Ominis was reliving something from long ago.
Years before, Ominis had told him about his family’s cruelty: how his parents had taught him the Cruciatus Curse when he was still a child. How they’d forced him and his brother to practice it on helpless Muggles. His brother had taken to it with delight, casting the curse like it was a sport. Ominis hadn’t. He’d refused, until his parents used the curse on him instead, as a punishment for his defiance. In the end, he’d given in, and cast himself on the Muggles..
“Ominis,” Sebastian whispered, heart pounding as he watched his friend tremble. “It’s me. You’re safe, I promise. You’re here, in Hogwarts. You’re not there anymore.”
No response. Ominis’s breath came fast and shallow, his whole body still locked in some invisible battle. Sebastian’s throat ached with helplessness.
“Please,” he tried again, softer now, voice cracking a little. “Please come back to me, love.”
Ominis’s head jerked slightly, as though catching a sound through the fog. His breathing hitched once, then again, and finally began to slow. His hands loosened where they had clamped over his ears, falling weakly into his lap.
“That’s it,” Sebastian murmured, moving carefully, as though any sudden motion might shatter the fragile calm beginning to return. “You’re all right. Just breathe. In… and out.”
He inched closer, guiding Ominis down until they sat side by side with their backs against the cold stone wall. Ominis didn’t resist; he seemed dazed, blinking unevenly, his face pale and damp with tears. Sebastian hesitated only a second before slipping an arm around his shoulders, tentative at first, then firmer when Ominis didn’t pull away.
The silence stretched between them, broken only by the unsteady sound of Ominis’s breathing gradually evening out, one shaky inhale at a time. His eyes were unfocused, glassy, staring at nothing. But the worst of it seemed to be passing.
Sebastian swallowed hard, guilt clawing at his chest. How had he not seen it? How could he have been so narrow-minded? The moment they discovered Noctua Gaunt’s body on the floor, he should have looked to Ominis. He knew how much Ominis had loved his aunt, the one relative who had treated not only Muggles, but Ominis himself, as a human being. Finding her corpse, and realizing she had likely suffered a slow, gruesome death alone in the Scriptorium, was traumatic enough. Coupled with reliving the Cruciatus Curse, even if it hadn’t been cast on him directly, was a goddamn recipe for horrific flashbacks.
Sebastian looked down at his own hands. He could still remember the Cruciatus: the white-hot agony that had torn through him when the spell hit. He’d been braced for it, prepared, and it had only lasted a few seconds. Four, maybe five at most. And yet, in that brief eternity, he’d wanted to die. He’d begged for it in his mind, just to make the pain stop.
And Ominis… Ominis had been a child. Seven, maybe eight. Forced to endure that same curse, over and over, because he refused to harm anyone else. And when he couldn’t take it anymore, when the pain became too much, they’d made him use it himself. On innocent people. As a sport.
They sat there for a long while as Ominis’ breathing evened out. The torches along the corridor flickered, casting faint, unsteady shadows across the stone. Sebastian was grateful for the late hour which meant it was late enough for the corridor to be empty of students, but early enough so the prefects hadn’t started their rounds.
At last, he said softly, “It wasn’t your fault.”
Ominis didn’t respond, but his breathing had evened out fully. His head tilted just slightly, that small, instinctive gesture of his when he was listening. The familiar sight of it made something unclench in Sebastian’s chest. He tried not to show how relieved he felt.
“Those Muggles,” he went on quietly. “You were a child, Ominis. You had no choice. You tried to protect them, but there was no one there to protect you. No one can blame you for doing what you had to do to survive.”
Ominis didn’t answer for a long time. His breathing wavered, and for a panicked moment, Sebastian worried that he’d triggered another panic attack. Then Ominis whispered, voice raw, “To cast the curse successfully, you have to mean it. You know that, Sebastian.”
Sebastian’s stomach twisted. He wanted to shake him, to tear that idea right out of him, because it wasn’t his. It was something his family had carved into him. “And why did you want to cast the curse, Ominis?” he asked, forcing his voice calm. “Was it because you enjoyed it? Because you liked watching people suffer? Or was it because you wanted it to end, because you wanted to survive?”
Ominis didn’t reply, and the silence pressed at the edges of Sebastian’s nerves. So he pushed on.
“Yes, you have to want to cast it,” he said, voice rough but steadying as he spoke. “But the reason behind that want, it’s everything. Your family casts the Cruciatus because they enjoy the pain it causes. They want to see suffering. But you…” Sebastian’s throat tightened. “You wanted it to be over. You wanted to protect yourself. That’s not evil, Ominis. That’s human.”
He took a slow breath, his arm tightening slightly around Ominis’s shoulders. “And the fact that you still feel guilty about it, it’s proof that you’re nothing like them. You care. You’ve always cared. That makes all the difference.”
Ominis was quiet for so long that Sebastian began to worry he’d said too much. Then, at last, Ominis murmured, “And what about you, Sebastian?”
Sebastian blinked, taken aback.
“What about me?”
“Would you want to cast the curse?”
The bluntness of the question caught him off guard. “Er, no,” he said slowly. “Not if there was any other way. Not if I could escape it.”
For the first time, Ominis turned his head toward him. His eyes were rimmed red, lashes still damp with tears, but the steel-grey focus in them had returned.
“What if it were only you and me down there?” he asked quietly. “What if our friend couldn’t master the curse, leaving just us? Would you cast it on me then, or on them? Would you force me to cast it again?”
Sebastian’s pulse stumbled. “Ominis, we don’t need to go there—”
“Yes, we do.” Ominis’s voice grew firmer. “Because one day, we might find ourselves in a situation like that again, where we have to make that kind of choice. And I’m tired of you pretending nothing can touch you, or that your actions won’t have consequences.”
He hesitated, like he wasn’t sure he wanted to say the next part out loud.
“And I’m tired of following after you and getting caught in the crossfire.”
The words landed like a punch.
“I—” Sebastian started , voice defensive, “I thought I could handle it! I thought if something went wrong, I’d fix it. I thought—”
“You thought,” Ominis interrupted quietly, “but you never thought about me. Or anyone else. You think surviving is enough. That it protects everyone else. It doesn’t.”
Sebastian opened his mouth, ready to argue even more, but nothing came. Ominis was, as always, infuriatingly correct. Every reckless plan, every desperate chase for answers, every line he’d crossed, it had all pulled Ominis with him. Not because Ominis believed in the cause, but because he believed in him.
Sebastian looked down at his hands, suddenly unable to meet Ominis’s sightless gaze. The guilt that had been simmering in his chest all night settled like lead in his stomach. “You’re right,” he said at last, the words low and uneven. “I never stopped to think about who I was dragging down with me. I was just thinking of how it could affect or benefit me. That was really selfish of me.”
Ominis didn’t say anything.
Sebastian swallowed hard. “You’ve always tried to keep me out of trouble. And I — I took advantage of that. I told myself you’d follow me anywhere, and I let that make me careless. I didn’t think about what it was costing you.”
Sebastian turned toward him, speaking more firmly this time, though his voice shook. “I’m sorry, Ominis. I really am. I shouldn’t have dragged you into the Scriptorium. Or any of it. You didn’t deserve that.”
For a long time, Ominis didn’t move. Then, finally, he let out a slow, thoughtful exhale. “You say that now,” he said. “But next week, when our little friend has found something new that’s dangerous, or forbidden, or ‘interesting’, will you remember this? Or will I have to pull you out of the fire all over again?” He didn’t say it cruelly, just matter-of-factly, and that made it even worse.
Sebastian winced. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’ll try. I swear I’ll try. I don’t want to keep hurting you, Ominis. And I’m sorry I didn’t realise it sooner.” He reached for Ominis’s hands, clasped tightly in his lap. For a brief, breathless moment, it seemed Ominis might pull away, but he didn’t. Instead, he let Sebastian take his hands and lace their fingers together.
“Alright,” Ominis murmured, resting his head lightly against Sebastian’s shoulder. “I’ll trust you. For now.”
It stung a little, that last part, but Sebastian knew he’d earned it.
They sat in silence, even as the hardness and coldness from the floor made Sebastian’s bum ache and his thighs freeze. He felt reluctant to move, to break the tranquility of the moment. Instead, he looked at the long, slender fingers in his grasp; the neat cuticles, the slightly crooked left ring finger. These hands had once held a wand that had cast the Cruciatus curse. And if these hands could still be so soft, so warm and tender, why wouldn’t Sebastian also be able to turn his path around?
He had fucked up, rather royally so. He almost lost Ominis in the process, not only in terms of their friendships, but also Ominis as a person. What if Sebastian had skipped away with the book and their friend, leaving Ominis alone with the panic attack? He shuddered at the mere thought of what could have happened.
“I know I haven’t given you a reason to trust me on this,” he whispered, “but I’ll always choose you, Ominis. Not the dark arts. Not our new friend. You.”
Ominis hesitated, and Sebastian knew the silent question that was on the tip of his tongue: “Not even Anne?” But Ominis seemed to realise this was a pointless question, that would only start another directionless fight. Instead, he smiled a little and squeezed their joined hands.
“I’ll always choose you, too.”