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When Ominis was a child, he’d always assumed that Defence Against the Dark Arts would be his favourite class.
He was quite disappointed to learn that he hated it.
Half of the class consisted of learning about the Dark Arts - a subject Ominis was already intimately familiar with and had no real desire to explore any further. The other half involved learning to defend oneself against Dark Magic - which, as it unfortunately turned out, Ominis was rather dreadful at. Still, he muddled through it year after year, never quite sure whether he was earning his passing grades or only getting by on his family’s name.
Professor Hecat enjoyed subjecting her class to any number of dark beings as part of her curriculum, having a particular predilection towards boggarts. She claimed that the creatures were uniquely useful for strengthening the fortitude of her students, preparing them as they ventured out into the real world to face not boggarts themselves, but their own deepest fears.
Personally, Ominis suspected she was simply a bit of a sadist.
To her credit, though, her students did all grow extremely familiar with their fears early on - both their own and those of their classmates:
Anne’s boggart would present as an Inferius which she could defeat by dressing it in silly clothes.
(Ominis was never able to appreciate the joke.)
Ominis’ boggart would present as a disembodied tortured scream. Only he recognized it as the shriek of the muggle he had cast Crucio on all those years ago. He personally felt he’d grown rather calloused to the memory over time, so he wasn’t sure why he had such trouble banishing the wretched creature more often than not.
Sebastian’s boggart would alternately present as either a professor scolding him for breaking various rules or - when he was feeling particularly stressed - as Professor Black snapping his wand and expelling him outright. Professor Hecat would inevitably comment that Sebastian ought to learn something from the experience and begin paying the rules more heed, to which Sebastian would then quip that boggarts never actually frightened him at all because they were unable to manifest anything he truly feared.
(When pressed, Sebastian told Ominis that his actual deepest fear was being denied access to any sort of knowledge. Ominis never quite believed him, although he admitted Sebastian’s behavior supported his claim well enough.)
It dismayed Ominis when everything changed in their fifth year.
Anne’s absence was palpable - an unspoken grief that hung over the remaining two like a dark cloud. Sebastian, though, did his level best to act as if nothing had changed in front of the others, and Ominis - for lack of a better idea - followed suit.
They had middling success at best.
One of the earliest symptoms of their failing efforts manifested when they were faced with their first boggart of the year. Ominis had better luck with his charm than usual, and so was feeling rather cheery when Sebastian went to cast his. That made the whiplash all the worse when he realized just what Sebastian’s boggart had transformed into this time.
A ripple of murmurs spread amongst the class as the students stared at Anne’s skeletal corpse lying on the ground.
It took Sebastian only a second to recover. “Riddikulus!” he shouted with an increasingly familiar rage.
Ominis held his breath, waiting for the result, and - yes. Sebastian succeeded. The boggart - Anne - began laughing from her spot on the floor. “Fooled you! You thought I was dead!”
(It was easy, Sebastian told Ominis after, because he knew Anne wasn’t really going to die. They were going to save her, of course.)
And so the year went. Their relationship deteriorated in fits and bursts as they struggled to adapt to their new reality - Ominis to accept it and Sebastian to defy it. Every time Ominis thought that they were finally on the mend he’d discover another lie, another secret, another way in which Sebastian was pulling away. The longer it went on the more difficult it became to maintain the illusion that his best friend wasn’t utterly spiralling. Ominis struggled endlessly with how to handle it, allowing himself to be dragged into ever-deeper trouble in a desperate attempt to cling onto what was left of their relationship.
Fallout was inevitable.
Ominis failed to appreciate just how deeply their trial in the scriptorium had affected him until he was faced with a boggart in Defence Against the Dark Arts yet again.
He braced himself for a familiar scream that didn’t come. Instead, what he heard was a low, throaty chuckle.
Sebastian?
That was all he had time to think before-
“Crucio!”
Ominis froze, wand falling out of his hand as every muscle seized. Then he collapsed, convulsing as the pain hit. It was just as unbearable as he remembered, as if every piece of him was being torn apart from the inside out. His world narrowed into that single pinpoint, an infinite moment in which everything that he was was burnt away, leaving room for nothing but agony and the all-consuming desire to end it. Anything, I’ll do anything, please, please, please-
It was over as abruptly as it had begun.
There was a blissful moment in which Ominis was nothing - a hollowed out husk devoid of thoughts, feelings, hopes, fears. Then reality broke through. A wave of humiliation washed over him as he belatedly processed the sound of his own screams echoing in his ears and the current dead silence of his entire class as they presumably stared down at him lying there on the ground.
He scrambled to his feet unsteadily, still gasping for breath and hunched over from lingering pain and doing everything in his power to pretend that he wasn’t.
“Gaunt,” Professor Hecat said tightly. “Hospital Wing. Now.”
Ominis opened his mouth and very nearly vomited. He shut it again and nodded instead.
Sebastian chose that moment to swoop in. “I’ll take him!”
“Hm. Very well. Do stay out of trouble this time, you two.”
“Yes, ma’am! Come on, Ominis.”
Ominis cringed at the hand on his back, nerves still on fire. Sebastian dropped his hand quickly, allowing him to simply follow his footsteps. Sebastian stopped just outside of the classroom, allowing Ominis a moment to get his bearings.
“Where’s my wand?” Ominis rasped.
“Here,” Sebastian said, placing it in his hand - careful not to touch him again. “Are you alright?”
Ominis wondered whether he was imagining the faint hint of guilt in his tone. “I’m fine,” he lied, struggling to stand fully upright.
“Do you want a Wiggenweld?”
Ominis hesitated. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”
He drank the potion Sebastian handed him. It helped far more than anticipated.
“We don’t have to go to the healing wing if you don’t want,” Sebastian said. “If you’re feeling better, that is.”
Ominis struggled to parse his own thoughts. “We ought to go. Best not to get into any more trouble.”
“Right,” Sebastian sighed.
They walked in thick silence toward the healing wing.
Sebastian, of course, couldn’t tolerate the silence for long. “So. That was my voice, wasn’t it?”
It wasn’t a question.
“I’m really not in the mood to discuss this with you, Sebastian.”
“Of course.” Then, as if he couldn’t help himself, he added, “It’s only, I’m rather upset, if that is the case.”
“Over what?” Ominis asked, head fogged. “Oh, I see. There’s no need to fret. It was only the one word, I’m sure no one else recognized your voice. Professor Hecat certainly didn’t, else she wouldn’t have sent you with me. Your secret is safe.”
“That isn’t what I meant!” Sebastian said, sounding hurt. “I meant… Well, I’m your greatest fear now?”
Ominis groaned. “Please, don’t start.”
“I don’t understand! You know I would never use that Curse on you. Don’t you?”
“You would have, though,” Ominis mumbled, surprising himself.
“What? No, I-”
“Yes. You would have.” It wasn’t something Ominis had truly considered before, but now that Sebastian brought it up… “If it had been just the two of us trapped in that scriptorium, you absolutely would have cast the Curse on me.”
“Well that’s- That isn’t fair at all!” Sebastian said, rattled. “I- Yes. I suppose I would have used it to save your life. Although, only if you had continued to refuse to cast it on me instead. That was my preference, if you’ll recall.”
“I do recall. And I wouldn’t have been able to.”
“Oh, of course not. You would rather see me literally die than get off your high horse, wouldn’t you?”
“Get off my-? No. That isn’t what I’m saying at all. I’m saying that I wouldn’t have been able to cast that Curse on you, Sebastian. I wouldn’t have meant it enough.”
Sebastian faltered.
“I have cast it before, as you well know. I have also failed to cast it. I know what is required for the Curse to work,” Ominis whispered. “You succeeded on your first attempt. That isn’t something to be proud of.”
“I only did it to save all of our lives! It isn’t as if I wanted to cause pain.”
“So you keep reminding me.”
“It’s true! Is this truly what you think of me, Ominis? You know me better than that. I only did what was necessary, for the greater good. Surely you must understand that.”
Ominis said nothing, unable to speak around the sudden lump in his throat, and loathing himself for it.
“Are you really saying you would have rather died in there?” Sebastian demanded.
“Of course not!” Ominous spat. “And rest assured: Had you any patience at all, I’m sure I would have been able to work myself up into casting the Curse again soon enough, being trapped in there with you.”
The taunt fell flat, words tasting like ash on his tongue. There was too much truth in them, he feared.
“I wish you would have! Genuinely, I do, Ominis. I wish you had cast that Curse on me. I am not proud of how any of it happened.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. We’re in agreement, then. And we never should have found ourselves in that scenario in the first place, so I see no reason to discuss it any further now.”
“Yes. Exactly. It’s my fault that we ended up there, and I accept full responsibility for that. That’s why I wouldn’t have blamed you for casting the Curse on me. I certainly wouldn’t be seeing you as my boggart if you had.”
“Would you please let that go? You know I have no more control over my boggart than you do yours.”
“And yet I’ve never had such trouble with mine,” Sebastian muttered as they reached the Hospital Wing. He held the door open. “I can’t imagine what this is going to do to your reputation.”
“You needn’t come in with me,” Ominis said, brushing past him. “Thank you for the escort.”
“Oh. I…” Sebastian lingered. “Are- Are you truly afraid of me now, Ominis?”
“What? Of course not,” Ominis said, more to get him to leave than out of any particular self-reflection.
“Good. Because I know I’ve been… difficult, as of late. But you’re still my best friend. You know that, don’t you?”
It felt like a lie. Everything Sebastian said sounded insincere nowadays.
“I know,” Ominis said anyway. “And you’re mine. That’s why I worry about you, Sebastian.”
“You’re worried about me?” Sebastian laughed. “You needn’t be. But I understand your concerns. I’m sorry about all of this, Ominis.”
“So you’ll truly stop? You’ll leave that spellbook alone?”
“We’ve already discussed this. Please, forget about the spellbook. I’m sorry I took you into that scriptorium. I’ll never do anything like it again, I swear.”
Ominis sighed, trying his best to believe him. “I’m sorry, too. I know you did what was necessary. I hope you know I bear no ill will over it. And I shan’t let my boggart get the best of me again. All is well.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it!” Sebastian said with audible relief. “Feel better soon. And after all of this is over - after Anne is cured - the three of us ought to sneak into Professor Hecat’s classroom and set her boggarts loose. Then we’ll never have to deal with our fears again!”
Ominis huffed a laugh. “That sounds like a plan. I’ll look forward to it, Sebastian.”