Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ominis had always believed that time was supposed to mend things. Bruises faded, wounds scabbed over, and grief—eventually—grew quieter. It had been six months. Half a year since Anne had left Feldcroft for good, since Sebastian had stood in that miserable catacomb with blood on his hands and conviction in his voice.

Half a year since Ominis had last spoken to him.

He told himself it was a matter of principle. That there had to be a line—some line—between love and loyalty and right and wrong. Sebastian had crossed it, and Ominis had stood on the other side, trembling with disbelief, fury, and heartbreak.

And yet.

His wand trembled now when he thought of him. Not with fear, but with something more dangerous. Longing. Loss. A betrayal that still hadn’t scabbed over.

The common room had emptied long ago. The fireplace crackled in polite conversation with the dark. Ominis sat in his usual chair, fingers curled over the armrest, eyes unseeing but wide open. He could feel the empty space beside him—where Sebastian would sit, legs spread arrogantly, a book open but forgotten in his lap as he went on about goblin rebellions or some half-cocked idea to sneak into the Restricted Section. Again.

The memories didn’t haunt Ominis. That would be easier. Hauntings came with closure. No, what he lived with now was the echo of things unfinished. Words left unsaid. Affection left unacknowledged. The cruel, sharp edge of it all was that he missed Sebastian more than he could stand.

But he also hated him for what he had done.

And worse—he hated himself for not stopping him.

When Professor Fig had died, something had broken in all of them. Sebastian, most of all. The ancient magic, the keepers, the weight of secrets—it had gnawed at them from within. But it wasn’t the magic that made Sebastian cast the Killing Curse.

It was the belief that he was right.

Ominis clenched his fists. What if I had just been louder? Firmer? Told him it was madness before he spiraled?

He’d tried. Merlin, he had tried. But trying wasn’t the same as saving someone.

And now, all he had left were silence and regret. And the feeling—persistent and unwanted—that Sebastian’s absence had carved a hole in him too deep to ignore.

Chapter Text

Sebastian found the greenhouse strangely comforting these days. Nobody ever looked for him there anymore. Not even Professor Garlick, who’d grown used to his solitary tending of the flutterby bushes and sneezewort. He wasn’t really supposed to be here—not after everything—but he still was.

He couldn’t leave Hogwarts. Not really.

Feldcroft felt too empty. The house, too silent. The chair where Anne used to sit? Unbearable. And when she’d written to say she was going to check herself in at St Mungo's permanently, and no, she wasn't open to visitors just yet, something had fractured again in his chest. So he had stayed, hovering around the edges of the castle like a ghost.

Which, perhaps, was fitting.

Sebastian was good at pretending. Always had been. He smiled at the professors when they passed. He nodded politely at the new first-years who looked at him with whispered curiosity. And when he walked through the Undercroft now, alone, he made sure his footsteps were soft—like he didn’t deserve to be heard.

Because the truth was: he didn’t know how to fix what he’d broken.

Ominis hadn’t spoken to him since that night. Not a word. Not even a glance. Even during their final exams, when they had sat two tables apart in the Transfiguration classroom, Ominis hadn’t so much as flinched when Professor Weasley had said Sebastian’s name.

The silence had been louder than a shout.

Sebastian regretted it all.

Anne. The catacomb. Solomon.

He regretted every step that had led to his uncle’s death—and more than anything, he regretted how proud he’d felt in the moment. How certain he’d been that he was right. That conviction was the worst of it. Because now, when he replayed the moment—the green light, the thud of Solomon’s body, Ominis’s horrified voice—it made him sick.

He still dreamed of it sometimes. And Ominis’s voice always came first.

“What have you done?”

And yet, the dream version was merciful. It never walked away from him.

The real Ominis had. And Sebastian couldn’t blame him.

But he missed him.

Gods, he missed him.

He missed the way Ominis would argue with him over everything just to prove a point. The soft way he cast Lumos, like even light should be gentle. The sound of his voice in the Undercroft when it was just the two of them, low and warm, even when he was angry.

Sebastian didn’t know how to go back. Maybe there was no going back.

But every time he walked past the drawn curtains around Ominis’ bed, he paused a little. He didn’t even know why. There was a time when he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the curtains aside and climb onto the bed, flopping down next to a disgruntled Ominis, with a stack of books or homework. Now, the drawn curtain spoke of a silence Sebastian didn’t dare to break.

It wasn’t as if he knew what he would have said anyways.

Maybe there wasn’t anything to be said at all.

Chapter Text

Clara had taken to hovering around the Defense Against the Dark Arts Tower lately. Ominis knew this because he always knew when she was around. Not because of her laugh or the distinct weight of her presence, but because she smelled faintly of citrus and burnt ash—something between a potion spill and a memory.

He hated that he knew that.

She passed him again today, offering a polite, meaningless hello. As if they hadn’t once stood shoulder to shoulder, the three of them, united in secrecy and stolen magic.

As if she hadn’t helped Sebastian lie.

Ominis didn’t reply. He rarely did anymore.

If she noticed, she didn’t show it.

In truth, Clara had never paid much mind to him unless he stood in her way. And he had—once. Just once, when it might have mattered. When Sebastian had gone too far, when the artifact was whispering promises in the dark, when Anne had begged and begged and—

The image struck like a lash: Sebastian cradling his wand like a relic, Clara watching him with something like awe and horror. And Ominis, shouting. Powerless.

He remembered her silence most of all. That was what burned. Not just her complicity—but her belief that Sebastian had needed to do it. That maybe, in some horrible, twisting way, she understood him better than Ominis ever had.

She still talks to him, he thought bitterly. I can hear it in her voice when someone mentions his name. Pity. Fondness. Something more, probably.

Ominis hated the way that made his chest tighten.

He told himself it didn’t matter. And yet.

He stayed behind after Professor Hecat’s advanced duel class that afternoon. The corridor had mostly cleared out, save for a familiar pair of footsteps behind him. Hesitant. Slower than usual.

He knew them instantly.

Sebastian.

Ominis didn't move. Didn't turn. He merely stood there, arms crossed, jaw tight, pretending to be engrossed in his notes.

Professor Hecat's voice came before Sebastian’s. "Gaunt, that was an excellent use of Expelliarmus in your last round. You adjusted your stance well."

"Thank you, Professor," Ominis said quietly, lips pressed in a thin line.

She turned to Sebastian next. "And Sallow—your Protego was clean. You two would make a formidable pair if you'd just speak to one another again."

Her words hung like fog.

Sebastian gave a short, awkward chuckle. “That might be wishful thinking, Professor.”

Ominis wanted to vanish.

But the final blow came a moment later when Professor Hecat gestured between them. "Regardless, I need someone to assist with tutoring the younger years in spell precision. I’d prefer someone with discipline and reliability. Ominis, would you—"

“I’m happy to help,” Sebastian cut in..

For the first time in six months, Ominis turned slightly, just enough to face him, though his gaze remained fixed past Sebastian’s shoulder.

He forced his voice to stay even. “I believe Professor Hecat was speaking to me.”

The quiet that followed felt serrated.

Sebastian’s voice was subdued. “Of course. Sorry. Didn’t mean to… interfere.”

Ominis exhaled slowly. “You didn’t. You rarely mean to.”

The moment was small. Barely a conversation. But it left the air between them sharp and charged. And when Sebastian turned to leave, Ominis didn’t watch him go.

But he listened.

And he hated how his chest ached afterward.

Chapter Text

Sebastian wasn’t sure if Ominis’s words were meant to wound. But they did.

You didn’t. You rarely mean to.

It was fair. Too fair.

He had wanted to offer something—anything—but six months of silence had built a wall between them far thicker than apology could breach. What could he even say? I’m sorry I killed my uncle? I’m sorry I left you behind? No. Those words wouldn’t come close.

He left the corridor with Hecat’s stare still on his back and the quiet disapproval in Ominis’s voice echoing behind his ribs like a curse that wouldn’t lift.

Outside, the air was cold. Summer was trying to take hold, but Hogwarts still clung to the last gasps of spring: heavy winds, cloudy skies, damp corners. Fitting, really.

He ran into Clara near the courtyard steps.

She offered him a crooked smile and a parcel of pumpkin bread from the kitchens. “You look like you could use this.”

He took it wordlessly.

Clara was kind. She always had been—fiery when needed, stubborn as hell, but kind. And back then, when things began to unravel, she hadn’t turned away. Even when she should have.

Even when he’d begged her to help him find the final piece. Even when he’d looked her in the eye and said, Anne’s life is worth this risk.

She hadn’t agreed. But she hadn’t stopped him, either.

Sometimes Sebastian wondered what would’ve happened if she had. If she had taken Ominis’ side in their endless arguments. If she, too, had begged Sebastian to stop, to think a second time, and not just charge headfirst fueled by his feelings.

If she had never shown up to Hogwarts in the first place.

Or maybe Sebastian would have ended up here anyways. He wasn’t foolish enough to blame his actions on someone else. 

She stepped closer now, brows knit. “Did something happen?”

He shook his head. “No. Just… saw Ominis.”

Her expression shifted subtly. Sympathy flickered there. Not quite pity, not quite warmth. Just... familiarity.

“Did you talk?” she asked gently.

Sebastian gave a short laugh, bitter and low. “If you can call that talking.”

She didn’t press.

But that night, alone in the Undercroft— still his, somehow, even though it felt like it had died with the friendship—Sebastian sat with Clara’s untouched bread on the table beside him, and Ominis’s voice still burned in his ears.

You rarely mean to.

He pulled out the old photograph. The one from their fourth year. The three of them in the Great Hall, Ominis’s chin tilted like he was already tired of them both, Anne laughing with her hair in her face, Sebastian caught mid-smirk.

That version of them was gone.

The single light he had lit flickered and died, leaving him in darkness.

Chapter Text

Sebastian didn’t snore anymore.

It was stupid that Ominis noticed. It was even more pathetic that he missed it. That familiar, irritating rasp that had once been the bane of his sleep—how Sebastian would flop onto his back like a sack of laundry, mouth open, breathing loud enough to wake the dead.

Now? Nothing.

The other night, Ominis lay awake for hours, listening. Not out of curiosity, he told himself. Just the usual insomnia. But the bed across the room had remained empty until nearly dawn, the sheets untouched, the air cold. No creak of the frame. No sighs. No murmured dreams.

Just silence.

By the time Ominis heard the door groan open—soft, like someone trying not to be heard—he had already memorized the absence.

Sebastian returned just before breakfast again. His footfalls were slow, measured. No cocky swagger, no sarcastic muttering, no melodramatic commentary about the quality of Slytherin bed mattresses. He walked like someone being careful not to exist too loudly.

He thought Ominis was asleep.

Ominis let him think it.

But under the covers, he clenched his fists.

Sebastian never went to breakfast, not really. He sat there sometimes. Picked at toast. Stared at his plate like it owed him something. Once, he left before the owls even arrived.

And it wasn’t just the food.

Sebastian didn’t react anymore.

Not to Poppy’s daily ramblings about hippogriff migrations. Not to Imelda’s casual threats of hexing the Hufflepuffs. Not even to Garreth Weasley’s exploding cauldron incident in Potions, when half the room ducked behind desks. A year ago, Sebastian would have made some smart remark, dodged a flying beaker with flair, and winked like he was the protagonist of some bloody drama.

Now? He just blinked once and kept stirring his wolfsbane draft like nothing had happened.

It was… wrong.

It was Sebastian, but hollowed. Like someone had siphoned out the noise, the fight, the mess.

Ominis hated it.

He hated himself for hating it.

Because it meant he still cared. Still watched. Still noticed. Still lay awake every night listening for footsteps. Still tracked Sebastian’s movements like a bloody sentry in a war no one else acknowledged.

Let him burn, Ominis told himself. Let him collapse under the weight of everything he’s done. He earned it.

But then why did it hurt like this? Why did it feel like he was the one with sleepless nights? He was the one with something crumbling inside his ribs?

Because it wasn’t just guilt, or grief, or the taste of betrayal on his tongue. It was Sebastian. It was always Sebastian. And no matter how far he spiraled, Ominis’s soul still curled toward him like a match searching for flame. He told himself it was because Sebastian had been his once. His problem. His responsibility. His friend.

His everything.

And now? Now Sebastian was little more than a ghost that refused to fade. A shell in a uniform. A body that returned to the dormitory hours before sunrise with ash under his fingernails and a hollowed-out silence where a soul used to live.

Ominis sat alone in the common room that night, the firelight stuttering across his face, his wand limp in his hand. When the door opened behind him around four a.m., he didn’t need to turn to know it was Sebastian. He waited for footsteps, for a voice.

Nothing.

Just the faintest pause, like Sebastian had realized Ominis was still awake, standing there like a statue carved out of judgment.

Then: retreating footsteps. The whisper of a bedroom door closing.

Ominis didn’t move.

Chapter Text

Sebastian flew to Feldcroft under cover of night.

Not often—just when it became unbearable. When Hogwarts felt too tight, too suffocating, and the echo of Ominis’s voice in the back of his mind wouldn't stop repeating that damned line.

You rarely mean to.

Sneaking out of their dorm was a piece of cake. He wasn’t stupid enough to believe Ominis didn’t hear him — even if his hearing hadn't been sharpened by his blindness, Ominis had always had a sixth sense for when Sebastian was looking for trouble. Before, when he’d caught Sebastian slipping out of bed in the dead of night, Ominis had cornered him. They’d had countless of hushed arguments at the edge of Sebastian’s bed, with Ominis frowning in his silk pajama, telling Sebastian to go back to sleep. Sebastian had always insisted, rolled his eyes, pleaded for Ominis to join him. Sometimes he had. Sometimes he had gone back to bed.

This time, everytime the floor creaked under his soft footsteps, Ominis’ curtains remained shut. As if telling Sebastian: Go. Go fuck up something new this time. I’m not stopping you anymore.

The broom ride was muscle memory by now. It was always cold above the valley, and always quiet when he landed. No light in the windows. No warm laughter drifting through the cracks. Just the wind, the soft creak of old wood, and his footsteps on the gravel path that used to lead to everything.

He hadn’t moved anything. Couldn’t bring himself to.

The cottage stood exactly as Anne had left it. Her bed made. Her books still on the shelves. The worn-out scarf she used to wear in winter still hanging by the door.

And the silence—Merlin, the silence —was worse than any curse.

He stepped into the sitting room and didn’t need Lumos to see it all. The table where Anne beat him at Exploding Snap again and again until he invented rules mid-game just to have a chance. Her laughter had echoed in that room like a spell. It lived in the walls. He still heard it sometimes if he stood still long enough.

He sat at the table now, fingers brushing the wood where she'd carved a crooked little star when she was eight. Said it would bring them luck.

They hadn’t had much luck after all.

Sebastian stood and walked through the house like he was trespassing. Like something might accuse him of not belonging anymore. And maybe it was right.

The bedroom at the end of the hall was untouched. Two narrow beds, side by side.

He stared at them longer than he meant to.

One had stayed his, the other had been Ominis’s. Just for that summer. That golden, too-short summer before fifth year, when Ominis had finally agreed not to return to the Gaunt manor. When he'd stayed with them, unsure, guarded, and somehow themselves in a way they never were at Hogwarts.

They’d spent their days playing new versions of Exploding Snap with Anne, testing Solomon’s patience with their laughter and bicker. Sebastian and Ominis had taken long walks around the nearby forest, Sebastian with the hem of his trousers rolled up, Ominis with the top buttons of his shirt unbuttoned. Sunlight had made Ominis’ already blond hair even paler, almost silver-white, and Sebastian had teased him for it, comparing him to a Veela. Ominis had rolled his eyes and said something biting about Veelas and their need to find a mate. Sebastian had been quiet after that.

They’d invented stories as they walked through the dwindling paths of the forest, Sebastian narrating and pointing out things from the world around them, Ominis offering dry commentary and insisting on sad endings. Sebastian had been affronted each time, insisting on rewriting the story to have a happy ending. Once, he had found a white, small, flower and tucked it behind Ominis’ ear. He had turned a brilliant shade of red, but didn’t remove it.

Ominis had taken the bed near the window. He liked the breeze, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Liked the sound of crickets and the way the sunlight spilled through the curtains in the morning. Sebastian had watched him sleep once. Just once. And that had been the beginning of the end.

He hadn’t even realized it then. Not really.

Only when they sat on the bench by the river weeks later, the sun warm on their shoulders, Anne off at the market, and Ominis had leaned back with his eyes closed, face tilted toward the light—only then had it hit Sebastian like a goddamn Bludger.

Oh. It’s you.

It had terrified him.

And now, there was no one left to be afraid of it.

This story didn’t have a happy ending. 

Maybe Ominis predicted that.

Sebastian sat on that same bench now, dusk curling around the sky like a bruise, the river low and quiet beside him. The seat was rough beneath him, worn smooth from years of use. He remembered how Ominis used to trace the grain of the wood with careful fingers, like he could read it the way he read Braille.

Sebastian wondered if Ominis remembered this place at all.

Probably tries not to.

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

He missed Anne.

He missed Ominis.

He missed himself —the version of him who hadn’t ruined everything he touched.

Sebastian didn’t cry. He didn’t do that anymore. It felt like there was nothing left in him to shed.

But he sat there until the sky turned completely black, until the wind picked up and the cold slipped under his robes, until his body remembered it had limits even if his heart didn’t.

And then, with hands like stone, he mounted his broom again and left the hollow behind.

Chapter Text

He didn’t mean to notice at first.

The late-night absences had become routine. Sebastian slipping out like a shadow, always after curfew, always returning just before dawn. But tonight, there was something different in the air—a silence that pulled tighter than usual. Something brittle.

Ominis lay awake in bed long after midnight, unmoving. Listening. But the dormitory was still. Too still.  Sebastian was already gone.

He shouldn’t have cared.

Truly, he shouldn’t have.

But when another hour passed and the ache in his chest grew too loud to ignore, Ominis threw off his blankets and got to his feet. Not to confront him. Of course not. He just needed to know.

He needed to be sure Sebastian wasn’t—

He pulled his robe over his shoulders, quiet as a breath, and slipped out.

The Astronomy Tower was his first guess. It used to be Sebastian’s favorite place to hide—usually with a stolen bottle of something spicy and a mouth full of arguments about the stars. But now it was empty. No footsteps. No echo of a cloak. Just wind.

The Undercroft was next.

Ominis lingered at the stone wall a long time before whispering the password. He stepped into the cold, familiar dark and half-hoped to hear a rustle, a clearing throat, a "Thought I heard you coming."

Nothing.

Just stillness.

The Quidditch pitch was almost laughable—Sebastian had never been too interested in sport—but Ominis checked it anyway. Just to be thorough.

Still nothing.

He wandered the castle’s outer edges for another hour, wand tip lit low, ears straining, the silence pressing in on him like water.

And somewhere between the boathouse and the courtyard, panic bloomed in his throat like a living thing.

Sebastian wasn’t here.

Wasn’t anywhere .

He stopped walking.

What if something had happened?

No, Sebastian was reckless, but not stupid. And he wasn’t the type to disappear without—

Except he was . Now. This version of him. This stranger.

Ominis hated how the fear twisted under his ribs. Not because he didn’t want to care. But because he did . And he didn’t know how to stop .

He returned to the dormitory just before sunrise, cold and angry at himself. The sheets were freezing. His body shivered. His hands ached.  He told himself he was being ridiculous.

He told himself it wasn’t his responsibility anymore.

He told himself Sebastian could walk straight into the lake and drown and it wouldn’t be his fault .

And still—

Still.

When the door creaked open an hour later and soft footsteps tiptoed in across the floor, Ominis's breath caught. 

He didn’t move. Didn’t say a word.

He just listened.

Sebastian moved quietly—more out of habit than shame, Ominis assumed. The sound of him peeling off his cloak. The faint rustle of clothing. The soft sigh as he dropped onto the mattress with the weight of someone carrying far too much.

Ominis could smell earth on him. Wind. Something damp and distant, like river water.

Feldcroft.

He didn’t know it for certain, but gods, he knew.

He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from asking why .

Why now? Why again?

Why leave without saying a word?

But he stayed silent, face turned toward the drawn curtains, eyes open but unseeing.

Sebastian shifted once. Settled.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t explain.

And Ominis lay there pretending to sleep—nails digging into his palms, heart thudding too fast—as the sky outside turned pale.

Chapter Text

There was a familiar comfort in Anne’s handwriting, even when it came soaked in grief.

Ominis ran his fingers lightly over the parchment, the magic in it still faintly warm, almost humming with her voice. Her penmanship was elegant and fluid — too much so, sometimes. The ink blurred where she’d pressed too hard in places, as if she wasn’t writing so much as spilling.

Ominis,

I’m sorry I didn’t write back sooner. The potions are taking longer to work now, and I tire more easily. But it’s nothing I can’t handle. I’ve handled worse. You know that better than anyone.

Sebastian keeps sending me letters. I haven’t replied yet. It’s not that I try to be cruel, I just don’t have anything to say to him. Or I have too much to say, and it doesn’t fit in a letter. Perhaps you can relate to that feeling. He means well, I know. Or he meant well. Before everything.

Sometimes I wonder if he’d listen to you. If there’s still someone in there who would listen to anyone.

Do you ever miss the undercroft? I do. Or maybe I miss who we all were when we spent time there. Before all this talk of relics and curses and fixing things that can’t be fixed.

Write me back, if you can. Tell me something mundane. I’m tired of every letter being about pain.

That very afternoon, just after lunch — while classmates chattered about Hogsmeade trips and Quidditch standings, Ominis sat in the common room, wand gently guiding his quill.

Anne,

The lake thawed early this year. There were ducklings on the shore yesterday, and some fifth year nearly fell in trying to pet one. I pretended not to hear the splash, but I definitely laughed.

I do miss the undercroft. It was safe. Quiet. We were reckless and hopeful there. I miss you more than I’ll say. 

Sebastian … There’s not much to say. Or, as you so perfectly put it, there is too much. Where should we start? I don’t know. And that’s perhaps why it’s wise to not begin at all.

Stay warm. Keep writing. We need these letters, don’t we?

Yours,
O.

He sent it immediately, tying it carefully to the owl’s leg with an unnecessary tightness, as if willing it to arrive faster could keep something bad from happening.

It felt like a ritual now — this quiet correspondence. They never wrote about the truly unbearable things. Not directly. But the silences between lines said enough.

Ominis placed the reply on his nightstand and extinguished the light with a flick of his wand.

Chapter Text

The corridor was quieter than it should’ve been at this hour. Most students were still in the Great Hall, dragging out breakfast with lazy chatter and clinking cutlery. Ominis had taken the long way from the library, preferring the quiet. The solitude.

He should’ve known better.

The voice came from just behind him, laced with smirking cruelty. “Well, well. If it isn’t the Gaunt Ghost himself.”

Ominis froze. His jaw clenched. He knew that voice.

Graham Avery.

One of the Slytherins who’d always found amusement in others’ discomfort. Especially those who couldn’t see the hex coming.

Ominis turned slowly, spine straight and expression bored. “Don’t you have a mirror to insult somewhere?”

Graham chuckled. “Still sharp-tongued, I see. Tell me, where’s your guard dog? Did Sallow finally get tired of playing nursemaid to a blind brat?”

Ominis stiffened before he could stop himself. His wand twitched in his hand, but he didn’t raise it.

Graham took a step closer. “Come on, Gaunt. Without your little dark prince, what exactly are you going to do? Flinch at me threateningly?”

“Piss off.”

The voice didn’t belong to Ominis.

It came from behind them—quiet, deadpan, and utterly exhausted.

Ominis didn’t have to turn to recognize it. He felt it in his spine.

Graham faltered. “Well, if it isn’t Sallow himself. Come to reclaim your post?”

Sebastian didn’t bite. He just walked past Ominis—didn’t look at him, didn’t say his name—and stopped just shy of Graham’s shoulder.

“I said, piss off,” he repeated, voice devoid of heat. Not furious. Not explosive. Just... tired.

And somehow more threatening for it.

Graham, perhaps unnerved by the lack of theatrics, sneered but took the hint. “Still following the Gaunt around like a lost Kneazle, even after he turned on you,” he muttered, and stalked off.

Silence returned to the corridor.

Sebastian didn’t move. He stared down the hallway, hands deep in his coat pockets, his posture hunched and worn. A shadow of the boy who once would’ve hexed someone without thinking. Then, without a word, without so much as a glance toward Ominis, he turned and left.

No venom. No apology. No acknowledgment.

Just absence, all over again.

Ominis stood there, his jaw tight, breath shallow. Anger boiled low in his stomach. Not at Graham, but at Sebastian.

Who did he think he was, still stepping in like that? Still protecting Ominis like he had any right? Like he hadn’t shattered their friendship like glass, hadn’t left Ominis to pick up the pieces in the dark?

And yet—his stomach churned with something else, too. That awful, traitorous flicker of something like longing. Or confusion. Or grief. Or—

He gritted his teeth, turned on his heel, and stormed after him.

The Undercroft was cold. Sebastian had come here to hide, not for nostalgia. The silence used to be comforting. Now it just echoed. He sat on one of the stone steps, arms limp over his knees, eyes unfocused. He didn’t even flinch when he heard the stone door slide open behind him.

“I’m not finished with you,” Ominis said, voice sharp as flint.

Sebastian didn’t turn. “Should’ve figured you’d follow me.”

Ominis’ wand cast a glow over the dim room. In other settings, the red glow was soft, casting a comforting and warm shade over the room. Now it flickered menacingly, illuminating Ominis’ furious expression. “What the hell was that?”

Sebastian gave a small, humorless shrug. “Wasn’t going to let him talk to you like that.”

“You don’t get to play protector,” Ominis snapped. “Not anymore.”

“I didn’t—”

“Don’t interrupt me.”

Sebastian looked up then, startled by the heat in Ominis’ voice. It wasn’t often he heard him lose control. But now—

“You’ve spent months acting like I don’t exist,” Ominis said. His voice shook—not with weakness, but rage. “Like we didn’t matter. Like everything we were, everything we survived together, was just—discardable. And yet there you are, acting like it’s still your job to chase off schoolyard bullies?”

Sebastian closed his mouth.

“Where were you when Anne was dying?” Ominis demanded, pacing now, steps sharp. “Where were you when I was begging you not to do this to yourself? When you were skulking around in the Dark Arts like a bloody feral dog? Out there looking for answers you were never going to find? You left me. You left her. You left all of us.”

“I know,” Sebastian said quietly.

Ominis laughed bitterly. “Of course you do. But what do you care ? You show up, say ‘piss off’ to a third-year like that’s going to fix anything. And then you walk away. Again.”

“I wasn’t trying to fix anything,” Sebastian said, not rising, not matching the volume. “I just didn’t want them to talk about you like that.”

“You don’t get to care anymore!”

That shout echoed. Loud and sudden. The walls rang with it.

Sebastian did flinch at that.

“I don’t want your scraps of guilt, Sebastian. I want—” Ominis’s voice cracked. “I wanted my friend back.”

That stopped even Ominis. He inhaled hard, trying to reel it in.

Sebastian lowered his head again. “I don’t know how to be him anymore.”

“Well, you should’ve thought about that before you turned into someone I don’t recognize,” Ominis said. “You went into the Dark arts, knowing what it would do to me. You lied, you—you broke us.”

“I know,” Sebastian whispered.

Ominis hated how small his voice sounded. Hated how it made something inside him ache.

There was silence between them again. The dust stirred in the Undercroft. The torchlight flickered. 

Then Ominis turned to leave. He was almost at the exit when Sebastian spoke. He didn’t turn to look at him, just spoke with his eyes fixed on the wall.

“I’d spend the rest of my life repairing what I broke between us, if I could. And if there’s a life after this, I’d spend that one, too, trying to redeem myself. But I know there isn’t, and no amount of time in this life will be enough to repay you for what I did. But that doesn’t mean I won't try. I won't passively stand by and watch someone mock you."

Ominis’ hands trembled, his wandlight jittering across the walls in uneven bursts. Sebastian didn’t need to see his face to picture it: the tight line of his jaw, the rigid set of his shoulders.

“I never stopped missing you,” Sebastian added. “Even when I hated myself. Especially then.”

For a second, Ominis turned his head, as if he were going to reply. But no words came out, and he looked away again, so quickly Sebastian almost believed he had imagined it from the start.

Then he walked out, letting the door slam behind him.

Chapter Text

The air in Defense Against the Dark Arts was wrong.

Tense. Suffocating. The kind of quiet that didn’t belong in a room full of adolescents—especially not before a duel demonstration. But there it was, an unnatural stillness broken only by the whispers. Not giddy ones. Not the usual gossip or petty scandal. Something lower, heavier.

Ominis’s fingers twitched on the edge of his desk.

He couldn't hear Sebastian's voice. Not anywhere.

That wasn’t unusual anymore. But today, it felt different.

The whispers grew louder near the back of the room. He turned his head slightly, catching the tail end of a hushed exchange between two Ravenclaw girls. One of them said “Sallow” and the other gasped.

Ominis stood so fast his chair scraped backward.

He strode over in seconds, wand in hand before he even realized it. It hovered near the nearest student’s wrist, casual but sharp.

“Say it again,” he said quietly.

The girl blanched. “I—I didn’t mean—”

“Say it again.”

The boy next to her cleared his throat nervously. “I heard that the Sallow twin—Anne—passed away yesterday.”

Just like that.

Passed away.

Like she was a painting taken off the wall.

Ominis’s mouth went dry. Cold swept over him, his fingers slackening until his wand nearly dropped from his grip.

Anne was dead.

Anne.

He turned on his heel and bolted from the classroom before he could hear another word.

The dormitory was half-lit with afternoon sun when he burst in. The other boys weren’t there.

Ominis thundered over to where Sebastian’s bed was, not caring about finesse as he skidded to a halt before it. His wand didn’t like it when he moved too fast, as it didn’t have time to pick up on his surroundings. This time, he didn’t need echolocation to know that the bed was empty. Sebastian’s trunk was open. The bed unmade.

Not messy— ripped apart.

Robes missing. Broom gone.

Ominis ran a hand over the bedsheets like touching them might summon the answer..

Sebastian was gone.

Really gone, this time.

And for the first time in months, Ominis felt the kind of fear that pushed aside anger. That stripped everything else away.

The kind that meant something was wrong.

He spun and nearly collided with Clara in the corridor. She had clearly been looking for him. Her eyes were wide, her mouth already forming his name.

“Ominis, I heard—”

“If you hadn't come here,” he snapped, voice sharp as a curse, “none of this would’ve happened.”

She froze, wounded and blinking fast. “What—what are you talking about?”

“You encouraged him. Every stupid decision. Every dangerous idea. You fed it.” His voice trembled, not with rage—but panic. “You were his audience while the rest of us begged him to stop.”

“That’s not fair,” Clara whispered, and for a flicker of a second, her voice filled with something like guilt.

But Ominis was already pushing past her, fury and dread crashing against his ribs. It didn’t matter what was fair anymore. Sebastian was gone .

No amount of time in this life will be enough to repay you for what I did.

Ominis prayed they would have more time than this.

Chapter Text

Anne was dead.

They told him with soft voices, careful hands. A letter. A bloody letter handed to him at breakfast, tucked between his toast and a copy of the Daily Prophet.

He didn’t read it at first. Didn’t need to.

The wax seal was enough. The crest. Ink smudged.

By the time he reached the bottom of the page, his hands were shaking.

A quiet illness, they said. It had returned.

The healers tried.

She was at peace.

Peace.

They had no fucking idea.

He flew to Feldcroft in a blur of sky and noise and wind that ripped tears from his eyes before grief ever could. The door was still slightly open from the last time he’d stormed through it. The cottage was colder than he remembered.

It hadn’t been all too long since his last nightly visit, but everything felt different. Because this time, there was no hope left. The cottage would never hear Anne’s laughter again, would never be filled with her presence and her jokes and the smell of her homemade honeycakes.

He screamed.

Screamed until his throat bled. Until he was hoarse and folded on the floor, face buried in the crook of his arm. In his bag, he had brought a robe Anne once had sewn him, made of old trousers and a kitchen towel. He pulled it out, pressed it to his nose, hoping there would be a lingering remain of her perfume. All he could smell was dust and his own cologne. 

Curling up with the robe clutched in his chest, he willed his breathing to calm down.

He lay there for who knew how long, Anne’s absence louder than any silence he’d ever known.

She had been the best of him. And now she was gone.

Which meant there was nothing left.

Eventually, rage came.

The kind of rage that didn’t think—just moved.

An itch in his fingertips. A restlessness in his legs. That kind of jittery energy he’d felt every time he dabbled with the Dark arts.

There’d been a goblin camp not far from the cliffside, one he and Clara had cleared weeks ago. Rumor said some had returned. Regrouped.

Good.

He wanted them to be there.

He needed them to be there.

When he arrived, they didn’t have time to draw their weapons before the first spell was already tearing one of them apart. Each curse he cast was an act of vengeance.

Incendio.

His parents’ death.

Bombarda.

The social security witch, who had talked to him and Anne like they were stupid, explaining that “it would be easier if you were separated, because no one wants to take in a pair of twins and double the burden, but you’re lucky your Uncle Solomon has agreed to parent you. It will be like a family holiday” 

Glacius.

That Charms essay that had teetered on the border between Acceptable and Poor, but Professor Ronen had ultimately failed it, claiming Sebastian’s lack of focus in class made it too inconsistent to pass.

Descendo.

That time Solomon grounded him for hexing a third-year, not caring to listen when Sebastian tried to explain that the student had muttered something distasteful about Ominis’ heritage and his disability.

Expelliarmus.

That night Anne got cursed.

Confringo.

Every time Solomon would scowl with disapproval and dismiss him and his attempts to save Anne.

Crucio.

The sound of Solomon’s body hitting the ground in the catacomb, the air stale with rotten Inferi corpses.

Avada Kedavra.

That last, earth-shattering fight with Ominis after the events in the catacombs, before they’d stopped speaking altogether.

And suddenly, the camp was empty. The night was once again dark, no longer lit up by spells and curses. Panting, Sebastian reached to correct his robe, and his fingers came away wet. Startled, he realized he was bleeding. Badly. His side was torn open, something hot running down his ribs. One leg was useless. His head swam.

He dropped to his knees. Tried to lift his wand, murmur the healing spell. His lips felt numb, his tongue didn’t cooperate. The sky spun above him. His hands went numb, but he could still feel the dew in the grass, wetting his back as he keeled over and stared up into the night sky.

And he thought— maybe this is fine.

Maybe this was what was supposed to happen. Because Anne was gone. And Ominis wasn’t coming. And Clara… she was just the ghost of all his worst decisions. Darkness swam on the edge of his vision, intermingling with the midnight blue night sky.

Was this was dying felt like?

He wondered if Solomon had had time to think. Time to understand. Or if he’d just seen the green light, and then it all turned black for him.

It served Sebastian right, that he would bleed out slowly, wide awake, in the middle of nowhere. He found a strange sort of comfort in that.

The only thing he regretted, as the blackness erased the glimmer of the stars above him, was that he would never speak to Ominis again.

Chapter Text

He didn’t stop to think.

The moment he was sure Sebastian was gone—not just missing, not just sulking somewhere in the castle—Ominis found the nearest Floo Flame and demanded Feldcroft.

The world spun around him with ash and dust, and when he stumbled out onto the hearthstone, it was like stepping directly into a memory.

The cottage felt abandoned. And not the kind of quiet that happens when people step out for the day—no. This was a place that had stopped breathing. The air hung thick with stillness, and Ominis reached for the nearest surface, palm pressed flat to the wall. Dust. Cold.

He moved slowly, wand raised, whispering soft Revelio every few steps.

Nothing.

But the space reeked of Sebastian. His magic. His grief.

And Ominis hated that he could feel it—like it had seeped into the walls. The floor. The grain of the table where Anne used to sit. He reached out and touched a shallow groove on the tabletop. Someone had slammed something there recently—a bottle? A wand? The wood was still faintly splintered.

His hand curled into a fist.

“Where did you go, you idiot…”

A gust of wind whispered through the cracked cottage window, and that was when he remembered it. An offhand comment, weeks ago, barely worth anything at the time.

"There’s a goblin camp up the hill—Clara and I cleared it once. Wouldn’t mind giving them another scare, if they dared come back."

Ominis turned on his heel and headed out the door.

The path up the hill was overgrown, littered with frostbitten weeds and broken sticks. Ominis followed the tug of his wand, letting it guide his steps as he repeated the spell over and over.

Revelio.

At first, nothing.

Then—dozens of pings. Human-sized, but not human. Still. Cold. Gone.

He stepped into what smelled like the remnants of a battlefield. He heard the buzz of flies, the faint scent of blood, iron, scorched leather. His foot nudged something—a goblin arm, lifeless.

"Merlin’s name," Ominis muttered, swallowing bile.

He nearly turned back. Nearly convinced himself Sebastian wasn’t here. That he’d done something reckless, yes, but not this. But one more step—and his wand flared. One form. Small. Human. Still. Not moving.

“No.”

Ominis stumbled forward, nearly tripping over a torn satchel, and then his knee struck something solid and warm and wrong. He dropped to the ground.

“Sebastian—?”

There was no answer.

He fumbled his wand lower and found a shoulder, sticky with blood. Skin burning hot beneath it. The breath Ominis had been holding escaped in a gasp, ragged and full of panic. He pressed his fingers to Sebastian’s throat.

There. A pulse. Barely.

“Sebastian,” he whispered, voice cracking, “you idiot, what did you do—”

There was no time to think. No time to break down. He whispered Mobilicorpus, and Sebastian’s limp form lifted slowly from the dirt, legs dragging behind like a broken marionette. Ominis’s hand shook as he guided him back through the field of corpses. He didn’t look down.

Back at the cottage, everything blurred.

He laid Sebastian down on Anne’s old bed—the thought nearly undid him—then rushed to the cupboard, sweeping jars and linens aside with trembling hands. Found bandages. A half-used healing potion. Some alcohol, in case he needed to sanitize the wound.

He knelt beside the bed and worked in silence. Bandaged the torn flesh at Sebastian’s ribs. Cleaned the blood from his temple. Held a cloth to the long gash on his leg and whispered Vulnera Sanentur through gritted teeth. At first, it seemed as if it wouldn’t stop. The blood just kept flowing, and Ominis felt desperation trickling inside him for each time the healing charms seemed to just bound off of Sebastian's feverish skin.

Then.

The bleeding slowed.

The rise and fall of Sebastian’s chest evened out, just barely.

Ominis sat back, wiped his sweaty forehead.

And then…

Then there was nothing to do but wait.

Ominis sat in the chair beside the bed with his head in his hands.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t move.

He just listened to the soft, fragile sound of Sebastian still being alive.

There was class tomorrow.

The sun would rise, and classes would start, and Ominis couldn’t care less.

He could retake an exam. Rewrite an essay. Do detention over and over.

But Sebastian was only once.

So Ominis sat by the kitchen table, where he could hear and sense Sebastian with the tip of his wand, with a cold mug of Anne’s old tea.

And he thought.

He thought about that summer— their summer. The one he’d let himself believe was safe. When Anne’s laughter filled the halls and Sebastian had shared a bed beside him, warm, present, teasing and soft.

He remembered the way Sebastian sometimes touched his wrist when they walked side by side. How their hands would brush and neither of them would mention it. Not once.

That time Sebastian had tucked a flower behind his ear, the gesture so intimate and soft that Ominis’ face felt ablaze.

He remembered the night he first knew.

The ache in his chest hadn’t stopped since.

He had missed him. Gods, he had missed him long before this.

Before Anne.

Before Clara.

Before the grief turned Sebastian to stone and made him a stranger.

He thought of the night Sebastian disappeared from the castle, and how Ominis had lied awake all night, frozen with a terror he couldn’t name.

And now—seeing him like this, half-dead on a blood-soaked bed—

He was afraid of how much he still felt. Of how much he would always feel.

The thought of losing Sebastian for real was a weight pressing on his ribs, stealing every breath. There would have been no anger left. No gloating, no I told you so.

Just the end of something he hadn’t been ready to name.

He stared in Sebastian’s direction, hand brushing the edge of the bed.

“Come back,” he whispered.

And for the first time in a long time, Ominis Gaunt prayed.

Chapter Text

Everything hurt.

Not in a sharp, present way — but like he was wrapped in too many layers of himself, smothering under the weight of memory and pain. He couldn’t tell where his body ended or the dark began. He drifted. Sinking and floating at once.

Somewhere, in that endless blackness, there was a voice.

Low. Familiar. Calm, even when frayed around the edges.

Ominis.

Sebastian might have smiled if his lips had worked. Instead, a weak throb of something ghosted across his chest. Is this death? he wondered, faintly amused by the thought. Typical that it sounds like him.

He drifted again.

Next time, it was light — not much, but enough to register behind his eyelids.

And the shape of him was there. Not a dream this time. Sebastian saw the silhouette, head tilted down, back tense even in stillness.

Ominis. Sitting at his bedside.

He looks older, Sebastian thought, dazed. Tired.

He wanted to say something. Anything. To apologize. To weep. To tell him he had no right to look so real when Sebastian was half-sure he’d already died. But the words wouldn’t form.

I’m sorry, Ominis.

He meant to say it.

Instead, he fell back into darkness.

He was too close to the surface now. The world was louder. Sharper. Pain bloomed again, vicious and hot, crawling up his side like fire licking bone. He flinched.

A hand — cool, careful — touched his shoulder. Sebastian didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t want to break the spell.

Ominis whispered something, but it was just sound, not meaning. He recognized the shape of it all the same. A voice he’d missed. A voice he didn’t think he deserved to hear again.

Am I in hell? Sebastian wondered vaguely. Because I never believed in heaven.

But if this was punishment — if seeing Ominis again and not being able to touch him, speak to him, plead with him — then he’d earned it. Every second of it.

He dipped under again.

Memories tangled into the silence. The relic. Anne’s screams. Solomon falling. The cold weight of what he’d done. And then… Ominis, always Ominis — not just the look of him, or the voice, but the things unsaid between them.

There had never been time.

Now there was only too much of it, and nowhere left to go.

Don’t let me wake up to nothing again, he thought desperately, clinging to the vague warmth beside him. Please. Please still be there.

Waking hurt.

It was the kind of pain that came from being alive when you weren’t supposed to be. Not a clean sort of pain—something jagged. Something feral. His body felt heavy. Too warm. Like he’d been submerged in something thick and cloying.

And everything ached.

His mouth was dry when he managed to croak, “Anne—”

A shadow shifted nearby.

Then a voice. Tired. Bitter.

“Still not her.”

Sebastian blinked slowly.

Ominis.

He was sitting in the chair beside the bed, sounding like he’d aged a decade.

So it hadn’t been a dream.

Sebastian turned his head slightly and winced—his ribs screamed in protest.

“You shouldn’t have saved me.”

There was a pause. And then Ominis let out a short, humorless laugh that sounded like it might curdle into a scream.

“It’s not up to you to always decide who lives and who dies.”

That stung. But Sebastian supposed he deserved it. He closed his eyes. “I know.”

Ominis’ footsteps resumed. He was pacing again. Sebastian shifted, slowly, trying to sit up. A fresh bolt of pain knifed through his side. He bit back a groan. Ominis heard it anyway. 

“Don’t move too much. You’re still bleeding. Merlin knows why I bothered.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“You didn’t have to,” Ominis snapped, rounding on him. “You disappeared, Sebastian. I thought—I thought —” He broke off and turned away again.

Sebastian swallowed. His throat felt like it was lined with ash. “You thought I’d done it. Finished what I started.”

Ominis didn’t answer. The silence stretched.

Sebastian stared at the ceiling. The cracks in the beams. The dust in the sunlight.

“I don’t even remember falling,” he said finally. “One second I was still casting, the next I just… stopped. I didn’t care.”

“You didn’t care about dying?” Ominis asked, flatly.

Sebastian exhaled slowly. “I didn’t care about living.”

Another pause. Then:

“That’s a lie.”

He turned his head again. Ominis was still standing with his back to him, fists clenched at his sides.

“You cared,” Ominis continued, voice low and shaking. “You cared so much you let it destroy you. Anne. Solomon. Me.”

Sebastian shut his eyes. “I know.”

“You don’t. You don’t. Because if you did —you wouldn’t have done this. You wouldn’t have run off and tried to martyr yourself in a goblin camp like some kind of tragic hero from one of those awful novels you used to mock.”

That almost made Sebastian smile. Almost. Instead, he rasped, “Is that what I am now? Tragic?”

“No. You’re still just you.” Ominis’s voice cracked. “Still the same bloody, brilliant, selfish bastard who ruins everything he touches.”

Sebastian winced. That one did land.

“You’re not wrong,” he said quietly. “About any of it.”

Ominis didn’t answer.

So Sebastian kept talking. Because now that the dam had broken, it felt like everything inside him was spilling out.

“I miss her every second. And I don’t know what to do with that, Ominis. I—I see her in everything. In this house. In dreams. In you, sometimes. She was the best part of me, and I couldn’t save her. And the truth is—I don’t think I ever could’ve.”

The words hung there like smoke. Ominis turned toward him slowly, arms crossed tight across his chest.

“I know,” he said at last. “I knew you couldn’t save her. And I hated watching you pretend you could.”

Sebastian opened his mouth—but Ominis wasn’t finished. “And I hated her for being the reason you started slipping away. And I hated Clara for taking you further from me. And worst of all—” His voice broke. “I hated you for letting go of me so easily.”

Sebastian looked away.

“I didn’t—”

“You did.” Ominis’s voice was barely a whisper now. “You kept making empty promises that you would stop with the Dark arts. Then you disappeared — with Clara, nonetheless — and when you returned, you had murdered your uncle. And then you left me to deal with the wreckage. You didn’t ask me to follow you. You didn’t even look back.”

Sebastian felt the shame settle into his skin like rot. He gripped the edge of the mattress, knuckles white.

“I couldn’t face you,” he admitted. “I didn’t think I deserved to.”

“You didn’t,” Ominis said coldly. The words hurt—but they were deserved. He let them sit. Let them burn. And still… there was something else beneath it. Something too brittle to name.

Sebastian looked up at him. “Why did you come?”

Ominis faltered. For the first time, he didn’t have an answer ready.

Sebastian pressed, softly this time: “If I didn’t deserve it. If I ruined everything. Why did you come?”

Ominis ran a hand through his hair. Turned away again. “Because I couldn’t bear not knowing.”

Sebastian watched him. “If I was alive?”

“If you were dead,” Ominis corrected, voice tight. “Because that night, back at school, when you were gone and I didn’t know where—you don’t know what that felt like. To think you might’ve already vanished from the world and I hadn’t said a single word to stop you.”

The ache in Sebastian’s chest swelled until it was nearly unbearable.

“I wanted to say something then,” he whispered. “But I didn’t know how.”

“I did,” Ominis said bitterly. “I just didn’t think it would matter.”

And then silence fell again—but this time, it wasn’t cutting. Just… tired. Heavy with everything that had passed between them. Ominis let out a breath. “The thing I hate most is that I still—”. He stopped. Swallowed.

Sebastian sat forward slightly, ignoring the way his ribs screamed again. “Still what?”

Ominis shook his head. “Still care. Despite everything.”

Sebastian blinked, his voice hoarse. “Me too.”

A pause.

Then, quieter:

“Even now?”

Sebastian nodded slowly, even if Ominis couldn't see it. “Especially now.”

And for a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Only the sound of wind brushing past the old cottage windows. Only two people who’d broken everything they had, trying to figure out if there was enough left to rebuild.

Chapter Text

Returning to Hogwarts was the strangest part.

They didn’t talk about it—there was no dramatic exchange, no resolution, no pact. Just a shared understanding that they couldn’t linger in Feldcroft, not with the walls whispering Anne’s name and Solomon’s ghost still clinging to the floorboards.

Now, back in the castle, everything felt too big. Too loud. Too unchanged.

Students bustled through corridors, professors gave lectures as if nothing had happened, as if Anne Sallow hadn’t died gasping in her sleep.

Ominis hated them for it.

He hated their laughter. Their indifference.

He hated Sebastian.

He hated how relieved he was to hear Sebastian’s voice again. Even now—slow, hoarse, worn thin with pain— it was still him.

He hated the way Sebastian winced every time he stood too fast or shifted wrong in his seat.

And he hated how quickly he noticed.

He hovered.

He didn’t mean to—but he did.

Staying behind in their dorm to make sure Sebastian could carry his books to class. Keeping a hand lightly on his elbow when the crowd jostled too close. Always waiting at the end of the corridor, never walking beside him, never speaking unless spoken to, but always there.

It made him feel pathetic.

But he didn’t stop.

Sebastian didn’t seem to mind, either. He never thanked him. Never acknowledged it. But he didn’t flinch away when Ominis steadied him. Didn’t scoff when Ominis pulled him aside to remind him to take his damn potion already.

Sometimes he smiled, just barely, and those tiny, near-invisible smiles made Ominis feel like a boy again, young and foolish and just so in love with his best friend he couldn’t breathe.

But he never said anything. Because forgiveness wasn’t earned yet. Trust didn’t come back with a single conversation. Affection—whatever had once been lingering beneath the surface—was still bruised and buried.

But… maybe not dead.

Maybe just bruised. Broken, but not beyond repair.

He shouldn’t have waited.

That’s what Sebastian told himself as he leaned against the corridor wall outside Charms, trying to look nonchalant. It was the kind of thing he would’ve done without a second thought two years ago — before things fell apart.

But now? It felt stupid. Reckless. Presumptuous. Ominis didn’t owe him anything. Certainly not his company. Not after everything.

Still, Sebastian waited.

Each second stretched long and taut, nerves pulling tighter the longer the door stayed closed. His hand twitched at his side, then clenched into a fist. He could leave now, say he had just been resting. Play it off as coincidence. Spare himself the potential sting of being ignored.

Then, finally, the door creaked open. Footsteps—light, familiar—tapped into the corridor. Sebastian stood up straighter.

Ominis paused when he reached him. The hesitation was obvious — not a full stop, but a shift in pace. Subtle, but enough to make Sebastian’s pulse stutter.

“You’re late,” Sebastian offered, voice breezy.

Ominis’ response came just as lightly. “Didn’t realise we’d reverted to meeting between classes again.”

Something in Sebastian’s chest twisted.

He wanted to say: I miss you.

He said instead, “Thought maybe you wouldn’t mind. Just this once.”

There was a heartbeat where he thought Ominis would walk on.

But he didn’t.

Sebastian couldn’t help the quiet breath he let out when Ominis fell into step beside him.

They didn’t speak at first. The silence was delicate, like the hush after a thunderstorm—fragile, unsure if the skies were done breaking open.

Sebastian clung to the silence anyway, because walking beside Ominis like this — not at odds, not strangers, not shouting or crying or haunted by ghosts — was more than he thought he deserved.

But old habits were hard to shake.

“Did you hear about Peeves spelling ‘warty toad’ across Sharp’s robes yesterday?” he asked, casually.

He hoped it wasn’t too much.

To his amazement, Ominis gave a soft, genuine snort. “Serves him right. He’s had it out for my pronunciation since second year.”

The sound — the laugh, real and unguarded — hit Sebastian like a blow to the chest.

He blinked, startled. Gods, I missed that.

“You’re laughing,” he said quietly, half to himself.

“I’m not,” Ominis lied, the hint of a smile still there, and Sebastian almost laughed in return, not because it was funny, but because it felt like the sun finally cracked through a ceiling of storm clouds.

They reached the entrance to the Great Hall. Ominis stopped. Sebastian did too.

He didn’t rush ahead. Didn’t move until Ominis raised a tentative hand and brushed it against his sleeve.

Sebastian stilled at the contact—soft and brief—but his whole body felt like it was on fire.

He didn’t pull away.

As they walked into the hall together, side by side, Sebastian let himself imagine—just briefly—that this might become something again. That the fragile bridge between them might hold. That maybe, despite everything, Ominis was still choosing him.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. But inside, a fragile, aching kind of hope sparked again in his chest.

Maybe we’ll be okay.

Late one evening, Ominis heard him laughing. A real laugh. Quiet, surprised, rusty with disuse—but unmistakably Sebastian. He was sitting in the common room, talking with Garreth and Amit. Something about a potion gone wrong and a cauldron fire. And Sebastian laughed.

Not the devil-may-care cackle he used to use as a weapon.

Not the hollow bark he’d used after Solomon’s death.

But a genuine sound, full of something Ominis hadn’t heard in a long, long time:

Life.

He didn’t join them. Just stood behind one of the pillars, listening. Trying to ignore the way his chest twisted.

Sebastian was healing. And part of Ominis hated how much it hurt to witness it from the outside . But another part—a quieter, older part—was relieved . Grateful. Because it meant he hadn’t saved Sebastian for nothing. That maybe… maybe that boy from the summer in Feldcroft—the one who loved books and terrible jokes and played Exploding Snap until dawn—was still in there.

And maybe, just maybe, Ominis hadn’t lost everything.

Chapter Text

The funeral was small.

Anne had never liked large crowds. Even before the curse. Especially after.

It was held on a cold, clear morning in Feldcroft. Winter clung stubbornly to the air despite the sun. The wind passed softly through the bare trees like breath held too long, and everything felt too still, as if the world itself was trying not to intrude.

Sebastian stood at the front, rigid. Pale. The dark lines under his eyes hadn’t faded in weeks,  but he didn’t wince every time he sat up or stretched his arm above his head. Ominis stood a step behind him, not quite next to him, not quite apart.

The priest—a soft-spoken woman from the village—spoke a few simple words. Of peace, and rest, and release. The casket was small. Anne had always seemed too small, even before her illness. It felt wrong to see her like this. Smaller still.

When it was over, and the attending students and old Hogwarts professors had trickled away, Ominis stood silently beside Sebastian at the grave.

Neither of them said anything.

Until, slowly, cautiously, Ominis reached out.

He didn’t grab Sebastian’s hand. He simply opened his palm between them, fingers slightly curled. An offering, not an assumption.

Sebastian didn’t look. But after a moment, he shifted. And let their hands meet, fingers tangling gently, like they remembered how.

His grip trembled. But he held on.

Ominis squeezed, just once. No words.

There weren’t any that would fit anyway.

Later, they walked slowly back to the cottage in silence. Sebastian’s eyes stayed on the path. Ominis stayed half a step behind him, just in case he faltered.

When they reached the front door, Sebastian paused. He didn’t open it.

His voice was hoarse, almost inaudible. “She deserved more time.”

Ominis nodded. “She did.”

Chapter Text

It was happening again.

That… pull.

The way Sebastian’s voice still curled into his chest like a warm breeze. The way his smile—less sharp now, more tentative—made Ominis’s stomach twist with something too old to be innocent.

They were talking again. Cautiously. Lightly. But something burned underneath each exchange—words carefully chosen, silences thick with everything unsaid. They weren’t back to before. They couldn’t be.

But every time Sebastian waited for him after class…

Every time his jokes made Ominis snort despite himself…

Every time Ominis found himself listening for his footsteps in the common room…

It felt like a thread had been retied. Still frayed. Still thin. But there.

It terrified him.

Because he remembered that summer. The heat of Feldcroft, the creak of floorboards under bare feet, the way Sebastian’s hand had brushed his when passing a quill, and how Ominis had burned from that single touch for days.

He’d loved him. Or something dangerously close.

And now that feeling—the one he’d sworn off after the Undercroft, after Solomon, after Anne’s final breath—was creeping back in.

He hadn’t asked for it. But it was there.

And worst of all… he could feel it in Sebastian, too.

In the way Sebastian sometimes fell quiet mid-conversation, gaze lingering too long. In the pause before he said Ominis’s name. In the soft guilt threaded between each word, like he was afraid of being forgiven.

And still, neither of them said anything.

Because it was too much. Too soon. And far too fragile.

He’d told himself it was over. That what he felt—what he used to feel—was long buried beneath grief and guilt. But every time Ominis walked beside him, lips twitching at some half-clever quip…

Every time Ominis leaned a little closer to hear him better, and Sebastian caught the scent of sandalwood and parchment…

Every time their hands brushed and Ominis didn’t pull away…

It all came rushing back.

The summer nights in Feldcroft. The few times they shared a bed because Anne had a friend visiting and she let her take Ominis’ bed. The mornings they woke shoulder-to-shoulder, too close to be innocent, too careful to make it real.

And now, the feeling had returned.

Thinner. More delicate. But impossible to ignore.

He was trying to be different. To deserve Ominis again. No more dark magic. No more chasing ghosts. And still, he couldn’t help the ache every time Ominis smiled without thinking. He wanted to reach for him. Just once .

But he wouldn’t risk it.

It happened in the corridor outside the Charms classroom.

They were just walking, talking—something stupid about Garreth nearly poisoning himself again—when a voice piped up behind them.

“I’m surprised the Gaunt boy can find his way to class without someone holding his leash.”

Ominis didn’t flinch, just sighed inwardly. He’d grown up surrounded by worse.

He merely stopped, tilted his head slightly, and said in that cool, unaffected drawl, “You’ll have to be more specific. There are quite a few Gaunts. Most of them far worse than I am.”

The boy—sixth-year, Slytherin, annoyingly nasal—snorted. “Suppose it doesn’t matter. Can’t be much of a wizard if you can’t even see. Though I guess being blind is the least of your curses, isn’t it?”

Ominis opened his mouth to respond, but the sharp crack of Sebastian’s boots against stone cut him off. The silence that followed was instant and absolute. Sebastian had stepped between them, his back to Ominis, his voice low and frozen solid.

“Say that again.”

The boy blinked. “W-what?”

Sebastian’s wand was out. Held low. His hand shook—just slightly.

Not from fear. From rage.

That kind of reaction Ominis would have expected that time Graham Avery insulted him, when he and Sebastian still weren’t speaking.

“I said,” Sebastian murmured, “say it again. And this time, look me in the eyes while you do it.”

The boy stammered something unintelligible. Sebastian took a step forward.

And Ominis felt it. The way the air shifted. The thrum of power just beneath the surface —hungry, dark, waiting to be called. He remembered that feeling. From the day in the Scriptorium. From the way Sebastian’s voice sounded right before he cast it.

Crucio.

It was on the tip of Sebastian’s tongue. Ominis knew it.

But then—

Sebastian inhaled. A deep, shaking breath.

He lowered his wand.

His voice was deathly calm. “Get out of my sight. And if I ever hear you speak about him again, you won’t be able to speak at all.”

The boy fled.

Sebastian stood there, motionless, chest rising and falling.

Ominis didn’t say a word. Just grabbed Sebastian’s hand, snapping him out of his stupor, and led him away.

They didn’t speak as they walked. But inside Ominis, a strange feeling was slithering around in his stomach. Because Sebastian had changed. Not all at once. Not completely. But that moment—the hesitation, the choice to step back from the edge— that was what Ominis had needed to see.

Hope didn’t have to be loud.

Chapter Text

He heard her before she spoke.

That ever-cheerful lilt, the soft clip of her boots, the smile he could feel coming.

Clara.

Ominis kept his expression impassive, chin tilted slightly as she approached them outside the Great Hall. Sebastian had just said something—he’d forgotten what—because suddenly Clara was there, and her voice was syrupy with excitement.

“I’ve been meaning to catch you both,” she said, addressing them with a brightness that made Ominis’s shoulders go rigid. “It’s so lovely to see the two of you together again. Like old times.”

You weren’t part of the old times, Ominis thought coldly, but said nothing.

Sebastian shifted beside him.

“I mean,” she continued, a soft, wistful little laugh escaping, “he looks better. You do, Sebastian. Really. Alive again.”

“Thanks,” Sebastian said, quiet but polite.

“And I was thinking,” she went on, “we could go for a butterbeer sometime? Just us. Like before. I know you’ve been through a lot, and I really think some fun might do you good.”

Ominis didn’t speak, but his jaw tensed. Because the words weren’t meant for him. And they landed like splinters in his ribs.

He remembered the weeks after Anne's curse worsened. The reckless missions, the forbidden spells. The lies and corridors soaked in regret. Clara had been there for all of it —cheering Sebastian on, hands on her hips, eyes alight with excitement. Thrilled by the darkness she never had to live through.

And Sebastian had let her in.

Sebastian had smiled at her. Laughed with her. Let her stand where Ominis had once stood. So when Sebastian didn’t immediately say no—Ominis felt the ache in his chest settle into dread.

But then—Sebastian exhaled.

“No,” Sebastian said, gently. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Clara faltered. “Oh. Well—why not? It doesn’t have to be anything—”

“I know.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “But I don’t think your influence was good for me. Back then.”

She stammered. “I—I was just trying to help. You were so determined to save Anne and—”

“I know,” Sebastian said again, voice like stone polished smooth. “And I am thankful for your trust in me, and for having my back. But I didn’t see things clearly back then — or rather, I just saw what I wanted to see. And  I’m not that person anymore.”

His voice softened.

“I need to be around the people who were there for me when everything fell apart. The ones who didn’t just chase after a thrill.”

Clara’s breath caught. He didn’t name anyone. But Ominis felt like the floor had disappeared beneath him. He barely registered Clara sputtering something, her tone wounded, before Sebastian turned to him, one hand catching his sleeve with unconscious familiarity.

“Let’s go.”

And Ominis let himself be led away.

He didn’t think about it.

His hand lingered at Ominis’s wrist, warm and steady. He should’ve let go the moment they turned the corner, but he didn’t.

Maybe he couldn’t.

Maybe he didn’t want to.

Ominis didn’t pull away.

They stopped halfway down the corridor, silence buzzing between them.

“I shouldn’t have said all that in front of you,” Sebastian said, finally. “It was a bit dramatic.”

“No,” Ominis said quickly, too quickly. “It was—good. You were… honest.”

He hesitated.

And then added, with a little too much force, “And right.”

Sebastian blinked at him. “You think so?”

“I think she made it easier for you to forget consequences. That she encouraged you when someone should’ve stopped you.” Ominis paused, then muttered, “And she fancied you.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “Jealous, Gaunt?”

He regretted the joke instantly—until Ominis gave a stiff, awkward little laugh, too dry to be genuine.

“Hardly,” he said. “You’d have been insufferable.”

Sebastian smiled. “I think I already was.”

They stood there for a moment, the atmosphere thickening.

Then Ominis, perhaps trying to lighten it, offered, “Still, I’d pay to see you on a date at the Three Broomsticks. Sputtering over your butterbeer while Clara tries to kiss you.”

Sebastian didn’t laugh. He looked at him. Really looked.

And said, quiet and sincere, “It’s not her I want to go to Hogsmeade with.”

Ominis froze. The world narrowed to the space between them.

Sebastian opened his mouth, then closed it again. Something raw flickered in his eyes. Hope. Fear. Regret. And something else.

But neither of them said it. Not yet.

Sebastian finally let go of Ominis’s sleeve.

“Come on,” he said softly, turning away. “You still owe me help with that Potions essay. Unless you want me to blow up another cauldron.”

Ominis didn’t move for a long moment.

Then followed.

And though the words had never been spoken, something had.

And they both knew it.

Chapter Text

Feldcroft was quieter than he remembered.

The cottage creaked under the weight of memory, every floorboard groaning with a ghost. Ominis hadn’t said much since they arrived, and Sebastian didn’t blame him. Even he could barely speak.

It had taken him three weeks to work up the nerve to ask Ominis to come.

But now that they were here—he didn’t regret it.

They’d spent the morning clearing out the shattered dishes in the kitchen, Sebastian pausing every now and then when a particular object caught him in the throat—a chipped cup of Anne’s, Solomon’s old pipe, the crooked photograph of the three of them taken years ago.

And then, when the sun was beginning its descent and casting long, golden shadows across the valley, they walked out.

Back to the river.

To the bench.

To that place.

Sebastian stopped just before it. He didn’t sit.

Ominis stood beside him, silent, his expression unreadable.

Sebastian stared out over the shimmering water. “This is where it all started, for me.”

A pause.

Ominis shifted. “What… started?”

Sebastian smiled faintly, but didn’t look at him. “Everything, I think. The first time I felt… something more. For you.”

He heard the sharp inhale, soft and unintentional. Then—

“Oh.”

It hung there, uncertain and vulnerable.

Sebastian exhaled. “You have asked what I’m doing after graduation,” he said, gently changing the subject. He didn’t want to frighten Ominis away, not when they’d come so far. “Truth is… I didn’t think I’d live past seventh year.”

Ominis let out a quiet breath. “Neither did I,” he admitted. “But I’ve been thinking. Curse breaking. Healing. Maybe both. I want to do something that— helps , for once.”

Sebastian smiled, just a little.

“But I don’t know anymore,” Ominis continued, quieter. “Because… I don’t want to go somewhere you aren’t.”

Sebastian turned to look at him. Ominis was frowning, like he wished he hadn’t said it.

“I’m not saying you have to follow me,” he added hastily. “I just… I don’t want to leave you behind again.”

“For the record,” Sebastian said, swallowing thickly, “you weren’t the one who left me behind.” 

He stared into the river, his eyes fixed on a jagged rock jutting up from the riverbed, forcing the water to rage around it. 

“And … I wouldn’t want to be anywhere where you aren’t. I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life. It’s a mess. I have so many things I should do, and think through, and process, I don’t even know where to start. But I do know … I want to do it next to you.”

Ominis looked at him sharply, lips parting like he wanted to speak, to object—to say something. But no words came.

Sebastian stepped a little closer. “You’re not coercing me, Ominis. You never could. Everything good that’s left in me—you brought it out. I’d follow you anywhere. I want to.” His voice dropped. “I didn’t think I had anything left. No future. Nothing to live for. But then you dragged me back from the edge, and I started thinking about things again. Dreaming again.”

Ominis swallowed. He looked fragile in the sunlight—translucent around the edges, like he was being held together by sheer will.

“You mean that?”

Sebastian nodded. “Every word.”

The wind rustled through the grass. Ominis turned his face to the sound. He looked like he was fighting something. And then, softly, almost imperceptibly, he smiled.

“Good,” he murmured. “Because I don’t want to be without you, either.”

Sebastian’s heart cracked a little at the edges.

He reached out—gently, carefully—and brushed his fingers against Ominis’s. When Ominis didn’t pull away, he laced their hands together. They stood like that for a long while. Neither spoke. The river moved quietly below them, the bench behind standing witness to what they both knew had always been there.

Finally, Sebastian leaned in.

Their lips met softly—barely a whisper of a kiss. A promise. A beginning.

When they parted, Sebastian let his forehead rest against Ominis’s.

“Still scared?” he asked.

Ominis nodded, but he was smiling.

“Yes,” he whispered. “But this time… not of you.”

Chapter Text

The first time Sebastian slipped into his bed after lights out again, Ominis didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. He just lifted the covers and made space, heart thudding so loudly he was sure Sebastian could hear it too. The mattress dipped. Warmth bloomed between them. And when Sebastian’s fingers found his under the blanket—tentative at first, as if asking permission—Ominis curled his hand around them and didn’t let go.

No one said anything the next morning, though their dorm mates were definitely awake when Sebastian left the bed at dawn, shirt rumpled and expression unrepentantly smug.

After that, it wasn’t exactly a secret.

They didn’t broadcast it, didn’t make dramatic announcements in the common room, but they also didn’t bother to hide. They held hands on the way to breakfast. Sat closer than strictly necessary in class. Whispered things during lectures that made Ominis turn pink and Sebastian grin like he’d won the House Cup.

And people talked, of course.

Whispers trailed behind them in the corridors. Some snide. Some surprised. Some jealous.

Clara stopped trying to talk to them altogether.

Ominis tried to feel guilty about that, once. He didn’t manage.

Instead, he just leaned closer into Sebastian’s side as they browsed job listings together in the library, their knees bumping beneath the table. Sebastian read them aloud with exaggerated voices—“Curse-breaking in Cairo, darling, very chic,”—and Ominis pretended to be annoyed, but couldn’t stop smiling.

“I’ve always liked the idea of a flat in Hogsmeade,” Sebastian said one day over lunch, flipping through the classifieds in The Daily Prophet. “Close to the castle. Fresh air. Far enough from London that my entire family wouldn’t immediately descend on us if they ever came back from the dead.”

Ominis snorted. “Charming.”

Sebastian shrugged, grinning. “You could work at the hospital wing. I could do private tutoring for dunderheads like Garreth.”

“He’d probably blow up your cauldron again.”

“Occupational hazard. Worth it.”

And there, at the Slytherin table of all places—because someone (Sebastian) had gotten distracted over some bread crumbs lingering on Ominis’ lips —Sebastian leaned over and kissed him.

Right on the mouth.

Right in front of half the bloody Great Hall.

Ominis had frozen.

Sebastian had pulled back slowly, watching him carefully.

“Too much?” he asked, eyes alight with something that was almost daring and almost hopeful.

Ominis shook his head.

“No,” he said, voice warm. “Just… not used to it.”

“Want me to stop?”

Ominis considered. Then smirked.

“Not in the slightest.”

And Sebastian beamed.

It was surreal, in a way, how easy it became.

After everything they'd been through—death, silence, loss, madness—it should’ve been harder to fall into this rhythm.

But it wasn’t.

Ominis still glared at anyone who dared approach him before his first cup of tea. Still corrected Sebastian’s grammar with dry precision. Still muttered “absolutely not” every time Sebastian suggested skipping class to snog in a broom closet.

But now, Sebastian knew Ominis’s hand would always find his under the table. He knew Ominis would wait for him outside every lesson. He knew, if he had a nightmare—and they still came sometimes—he could whisper Ominis’s name, and the mattress would shift as he climbed into Sebastian’s bed without a word.

They shared everything now: books, meals, dreams, futures.

It didn’t fix everything. The ghosts were still there. Feldcroft still ached. Anne’s absence was a wound that would never fully close.

But it wasn’t hopeless anymore.

One night, as they lay tangled together in Ominis’s bed—Ominis’s breath warm against his throat—Sebastian murmured, “You know what I miss?”

Ominis hummed. “Mm?”

“That summer. Before everything went to hell.”

Ominis’s hand curled tighter around his.

“Me too.”

Sebastian turned, pressed a kiss to his temple.

“But I like this even more.”

Ominis didn’t answer.

But the way he leaned into him—the way his hand stayed clenched in Sebastian’s even long after sleep took him—said everything.

Chapter Text

Seventh year, June

The Undercroft hadn’t changed.

Not really.

It was still cool, quiet, the air thick with echoes of past secrets and whispered spells. Candles flickered gently against the stone walls, casting dancing shadows on the arching ceiling. It smelled faintly of dust and old magic. Comforting. Familiar.

Sebastian let his fingers drift over one of the benches as they walked in. “Feels smaller than I remember.”

Ominis followed at a slower pace, his hand trailing the edge of the wall like it was something sacred. “We were smaller then.”

Sebastian glanced back at him with a crooked smile. “Speak for yourself. I was always devastatingly charming and tall.”

“You tripped into the tapestry entrance every other week.”

Sebastian barked a quiet laugh and dropped down onto their old bench. “Gods, I missed this.”

Ominis sat beside him, close enough for their shoulders to touch. “We’re not gone yet.”

“Tomorrow we are.”

There was a beat of silence.

Not heavy. Just full.

Sebastian looked out across the empty space, memories crowding the corners. The duels. The laughter. The fights. The breaking. The rebuilding.

“Did you ever think we’d make it here?” he asked softly.

“No,” Ominis admitted. “Not the way we are now.”

Sebastian inhaled. “Me neither.”

Another pause. Then, after a moment too long:

“I’m sorry.”

Ominis turned toward him.

Sebastian’s gaze stayed fixed ahead, but his voice was steady, sincere. “For everything. For dragging you into the catacombs. For hurting you. For not listening. For making you watch me spiral. For putting you second. For—”

“Sebastian.”

He stopped.

Ominis reached across the bench and slipped his hand into Sebastian’s. Their fingers laced easily, instinctively.

“I forgave you a long time ago,” Ominis said, quiet and sure. “You don’t need to ask again.”

Sebastian looked down at their joined hands, blinking against the sudden sting in his eyes. He exhaled a laugh. “You’re too good to me.”

“Obviously.”

They sat in silence again, just the soft crackle of candlelight and the comforting hum of their presence beside each other.

“I’ll miss this place,” Sebastian admitted after a while. “Not everything about it. But this.”

“The Undercroft?” Ominis asked.

“You. Here. Us. When it was all simpler.”

Ominis smiled. “It was never simple, Sebastian.”

“Okay, fine,” he said, leaning into him a little. “But it was ours.”

“It still is.”

Sebastian turned toward him. “Do you think we’ll come back?”

Ominis shook his head. “No. We’ll have better things. A flat in Hogsmeade. A life that isn’t shadowed by curses and ghosts.”

Sebastian watched him a moment longer, then whispered, “Yeah. A good life.”

They sat there a while longer, in no rush. The Undercroft hummed with old memories and quiet goodbyes.

Finally, when the candles began to burn low, Sebastian rose and offered his hand.

“Ready?”

Ominis stood and took it without hesitation. “Let’s go.”

And hand in hand, they left the Undercroft behind.

For the last time.

Chapter Text

The flat in Hogsmeade was small, cluttered, and usually smelled faintly of mint tea and burned parchment.

Ominis had wanted to live in London at first—closer to the larger hospitals, the bustling Healer network—but Sebastian hated the city, and more importantly, hated the crowds . So they'd settled on a compromise: Hogsmeade. Close enough to the hospital wing at Hogwarts for Ominis to commute, close enough to curse sites in the Highlands for Sebastian to disappear on assignments without too much travel.

Close enough to Feldcroft.

Their real sanctuary.

Today was a Thursday.

There were dishes in the sink, rain streaking down the window, and a pair of muddy boots sitting exactly where Ominis had tripped on them that morning.

“For the last time, Sebastian—can you please move your bloody boots?”

Sebastian’s head poked out from the bedroom. His hair was a disaster, wand behind his ear, parchment stuck to his robes.

“I was going to! Got distracted.”

Ominis raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Was the distraction a stray thought? Or did your own irresponsibility finally surprise you?”

Sebastian grinned and leaned in the doorway. “You wound me.”

“Not nearly enough,” Ominis muttered, flicking his wand toward the boots. They skidded to the corner. “I could’ve broken my leg.”

“You’re a Healer.”

“I’m a blind Healer.”

“Point stands.”

There was a pause. Then Ominis sighed and said, “You also forgot the milk.”

Sebastian winced. “...Again?”

“Yes.”

“Damn it. I even wrote it down this time.”

“You wrote it on the back of your sock, Sebastian.”

“It was clean!”

“Was it?”

Sebastian didn’t answer, which Ominis took as a quiet admission of guilt.

Still, later that evening, when Sebastian returned from a late shift with two pints of milk and Ominis’s favorite biscuits, Ominis simply accepted them and curled up next to him on the sofa without saying a word.

They still had the cottage in Feldcroft.

It had taken months—years, really—to be able to go back without crumbling.

But eventually, they had gone back.

They’d built a small summer house next to the original one. Something light, and new, and theirs . The old cottage had been transformed into a greenhouse. The kitchen held rows of potted herbs and bright summer plants; the living room bore Anne’s favorite flowers, Solomon’s old books turned into decorative planters. Their photos sat by the hearth, charmed to glow when the sun hit the windows just right.

It was a memorial now. A garden for ghosts. And it had grown into something peaceful.

Sebastian still went inside sometimes, staying there for hours. Ominis never followed him. Not that he was particularly unwelcome either. But he’d learned that Sebastian needed that space. Those hours to grieve, and reminisce, and just be . And whenever he reemerged, Ominis had a fresh cup of tea and a crackling fire in the hearth waiting for him. Sometimes, when they sat on the couch, Sebastian staring into the flames, Ominis closing his eyes and letting the heat warm his face, they would talk. About Anne. About the Dark arts. About the fear, the hopelessness, the despair, they’d both felt.

Sometimes, they didn’t talk at all.

And sometimes, they just snogged.

On their five year anniversary, Sebastian told Ominis to pack for a weekend trip. No details.

“You’re not taking me on another dragon stakeout, are you?” Ominis deadpanned as he folded his scarf.

Sebastian just kissed his cheek and said, “You’ll like this one.”

They arrived late, just before sunset, and dropped their bags at the summer house.

“I thought we could eat first,” Sebastian said, trying to sound casual. “Then go for a walk.”

Ominis hesitated, then nodded. “Alright.”

It wasn’t until they passed through the greenhouse, fingers brushing against familiar stone and soil, and reached the river that Ominis realized where they were going. He froze when the bench came into range of his wand’s detection.

Sebastian looked over. “Still remember it?”

Ominis laughed softly. “As if I could forget.”

He ran his hand over the back of the bench, worn and weathered and still very much the same. The sound of the water was slower now, more peaceful in early summer. The smell of the river grass hit him like an old lullaby.

Sebastian stepped behind him. His voice was quieter now.

“This is where I first realized I loved you.”

Ominis turned, breath catching.

“And this is where I knew I had to ask you.”

Ominis’s wand dropped slightly.

Sebastian took his hand, gently, carefully, and then knelt.

Knelt.

Ominis didn’t even realize he’d gone completely still until Sebastian squeezed his hand and began to speak.

“I thought I’d lost everything, Ominis. My sister, my home, myself. But somehow—even when I pushed you away—you stayed. Even when I didn’t deserve it. You made me believe in a future I never thought I’d live long enough to have. You’re the reason I get up every morning and remember what peace feels like.”

Ominis blinked rapidly.

Sebastian continued, voice roughening, “You’ve been my best friend. My anchor. My bloody conscience. You are my home. And I want to build the rest of my life with you.”

He reached into his robes and pulled out a ring—not flashy, not gold, just a simple silver band with a softly glowing rune etched into it. He pressed it into Ominis’ hand, and his fingers curled automatically around it.

It was warm.

Sebastian looked up, eyes wide and aching.

“Ominis Gaunt… will you marry me?”

For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of the river.

Then Ominis laughed— choked on a laugh, more like a sob—and dropped down beside him, knees hitting the earth.

“You absolute idiot,” he whispered, tears streaking his cheeks. “Of course I will.”

Sebastian’s exhale was ragged with relief. He pulled Ominis into a fierce kiss that tasted like tears and hope and something long overdue. When they finally pulled apart, still tangled on the ground beside the river, Ominis touched the ring again. The rune pulsed faintly beneath his fingers.

“You made this?” he asked.

Sebastian nodded. “It’s for protection. You’ll never take it off, so I figured I’d enchant it myself.”

Ominis smiled. “That’s very sentimental of you. I hope you didn’t accidentally curse it.”

“If so, you’re lucky your fiancé has just the right profession, should that be a problem.”

“My fiancé, huh?" Ominis' face threatened to split his face in half. "I bet you’re just happy about the fancy title. You’ve always complained that ‘boyfriend’ made you feel like you were still in fifth grade.”

Sebastian laughed.

“Still want to marry me?”

“More than anything.”

They sat on that bench long after the sun had set.

Chapter Text

"Sebastian, no."

Ominis sat on the sofa with a list of enchanted parchment hovering in front of him, wand at the ready and expression tight with horror.

Sebastian, barefoot and balancing a cup of tea on a stack of books, looked up. “What?”

“No. I may be blind, but I refuse to let Garreth Weasley choose our colour theme. He wanted a—let me read this—‘whimsical marriage of peacock blue and venomous green.’”

Sebastian blinked. “That doesn’t sound terrible —”

“That sounds like what happens when a Diricawl eats a Skiving Snackbox and explodes.”

Sebastian opened his mouth.

“No,” Ominis said again, deadly calm. “We are not doing it. I am not walking down the aisle into what sounds like a Slytherin-themed fever dream. I will not be both blind and in a colour catastrophe.”

Sebastian held up his hands in mock surrender. “Alright. Soothing neutrals with bronze accents?”

“I’d marry you in burlap before I let Garreth get near our decor.”

A pause.

“…You’d marry me in burlap?”

“Don’t test me.”

The morning of the wedding dawned warm and quiet. The greenhouse in Feldcroft had never looked more alive. Light filtered through the glass roof and played off Anne’s photograph—she smiled eternally in the sun, soft and proud and forever seventeen.

Dozens of white blooms lined the path to the bench.

Yes, that bench.

It had been cleaned, polished, and dressed in fresh ivy, positioned behind a makeshift altar by the river where it had all begun.

Rows of wooden chairs sat scattered beneath the trees, filled slowly by guests filtering in.

Poppy Sweeting cried the second she saw Ominis and didn’t stop. She came alone, hugged them both, and gave them each a woven charm for "health, luck, and stable bowels."

Imelda Reyes showed up in black robes, a firewhisky bottle, and brought her broom as a plus-one. She parked it next to her seat and said if the ceremony dragged, she was flying off with the cake.

Garreth promised on his life not to touch the punch bowl.

Then promptly touched the punch bowl.

Clara came, too. For a moment, Ominis felt that familiar cold knot of tension in his chest, but then she smiled—soft, honest—and whispered to him, “You were always the one. I’m just glad you both finally figured it out.”

Surprisingly, it helped.

Sebastian stood in dark formal robes, deep midnight blue with faint gold trim, hair tamed just enough to look intentional. A small silver lily pinned to his lapel—a nod to Anne.

Ominis wore white, of course—pristine, sleek robes with an embroidered silver lining that shimmered in the sun. His wand glowed faintly in his fingers.

When he walked toward Sebastian, guided by Poppy with gentle steadiness, the entire crowd fell silent.

Except Imelda, who muttered, “He looks like a bloody Veela. If Sebastian doesn’t cry, I will.”

He did cry. So did Ominis.

The officiant—a kindly old wizard who smelled of lemon drops and ancient magic—stood between them by the bench.

He cleared his throat. “We are gathered here today, to witness the union of Sebastian Sallow and Ominis Gaunt. Who have chosen to marry by the river where their story began.”

Ominis reached for Sebastian’s hands, steady despite the tears.

Sebastian’s voice trembled only slightly. “When I was eleven, I saw a boy with silver blond hair and a glowing wand sitting alone at a table. I introduced myself to him, mostly aiming to ask why his wand was constantly pulsating, and if he wanted to play Exploding Snap with me and my sister.” His voice broke a little at the mention of Anne, but he continued. “Little did I know that boy would grow up to be my lifelong partner.”

Everyone aww:ed. Sebastian didn’t even look at the audience.

“I’ve known grief, loss, and rage that I thought would eat me alive. I’ve had days where I thought I would end it all, but I didn’t even have enough energy to do that. But loving you, Ominis… loving you brought me back. You are my future, my anchor, and the light I thought I didn’t deserve. I vow to never let go of you again. No matter what.”

Ominis inhaled shakily. “You have driven me to madness, Sallow. But you also taught me what loyalty really means. You broke my heart, then taught me how to trust again. You’ve shown me that people really can change. That mistakes can be forgiven. Trust can be regained. I vow to never stop choosing you, every day, in every life.”

The officiant beamed. “By the river, with magic and memory bearing witness, I now pronounce you—”

Sebastian didn’t wait.

He dipped Ominis—dramatically, passionately—and kissed him senseless.

The crowd roared.

The garden glowed with lanterns and enchantments. Guests danced beneath the stars. Garreth was banned from the drinks table and still found champagne. Clara chatted politely with Imelda, who eventually asked her to dance out of sheer boredom.

Ominis and Sebastian stood beneath the archway near the greenhouse.

“You did it,” Ominis said softly, brushing dirt from Sebastian’s shoulder. “You made it.”

Sebastian wrapped an arm around him. “We both did.”

“Do you think Anne would be proud?”

Sebastian looked at the river, then at her portrait, which had been moved to stand next to the alarmingly tall wedding cake.

“She already is.”

Ominis rested his head on Sebastian’s shoulder. They watched the water pass by—the same river that had seen their beginning, their undoing, and now their becoming.

The ghosts watched too, Ominis was sure of it.

He didn’t mind.

Not anymore.

Chapter Text

The moment Sebastian stepped onto the white sand of Half-Moon Cay, he spread his arms wide and yelled, “We’re married, Ominis! The ocean is our witness!”

Behind him, Ominis stood under the shade of a sun-charmed parasol, robes trailing over golden sand, face deadpan. “Yes. Excellent. Inform the ocean. Maybe it can help you unpack.”

The cabana behind them was stunning: soft linen drapes, magically cooled air, a hammock that rocked itself lazily in the breeze, and a bed big enough to swallow a Hungarian Horntail. It came with its own live-in house-elf, Nixie, who already adored Ominis and barely tolerated Sebastian.

“You will wear sunscreen, Mister Sallow,” Nixie barked, slathering his nose with a glowing charm. “You are pasty. Husband Gaunt will not enjoy a burnt tomato for a spouse.”

“I’m not—oh, come on!”

Ominis smiled innocently. “She’s not wrong.”

Ominis sat beneath a conjured canopy, sipping something tropical and suspiciously glowing. Sebastian returned from the ocean, dripping wet, holding something in his hand.

“Look!” Sebastian grinned. “I found a seashell shaped like a hippogriff!”

“You could be holding a dead crab for all I know.”

Sebastian grinned wider. “You’re lucky I think that’s hot.”

“Your standards are low and I’m gorgeous. You’re very confused.”

They napped in the hammock that afternoon, Sebastian curled around Ominis with his nose buried in his hair, one leg draped over both of Ominis’. Ominis murmured, “You’re heavy.”

“I’m snuggling.”

“You’re trapping. I’ll die like this.”

“You’ll die loved.”

“…Ugh. Fine.”

The local magical village had one rule: Do Not Touch The Golden Frog Statue.

Sebastian, of course, touched it.

Instantly, a shrieking noise echoed around the village, followed by dozens of golden frogs hopping after them, belching confetti and singing old Celestina Warbeck songs at full volume.

Ominis ran blindly through the cobbled streets, wand guiding him as he hissed, “You are a curse breaker. Why do you keep cursing us?”

“I thought it was a blessing frog!”

“Does this feel like a blessing?!”

Back at the cabana, Nixie scolded them both into silence and made them eat lemon cake until the frogs stopped serenading them from the window.

That evening, they took a boat out onto the glowing lagoon, surrounded by glittering fish and floating lily-pads that whispered songs if you leaned too close.

Sebastian held Ominis’ hand, kissed his knuckles. “You know I dreamed about this?”

Ominis raised a brow. “The boat? The confetti frogs?”

“No. You and me. At peace. Laughing.”

Ominis squeezed his hand. “I used to dream of something like this too. Then I stopped. Until you made me believe in it again.”

They kissed under starlight, surrounded by the soft glow of the water and the lazy drift of enchanted petals on the breeze.

Then something beneath the boat bubbled ominously.

Sebastian froze. “Uh. Ominis.”

“…Is this about to become a tentacle situation?”

“I really hope not.”

They capsized five minutes later, shrieking and laughing, and kissing again as Nixie dragged them back to shore by their ears.

On their last morning, Sebastian lay in bed with Ominis curled into his chest, both reluctant to get up.

“You’re thinking about that confetti frog, aren’t you?” Ominis mumbled sleepily.

“No.”

A beat.

“…Yes.”

Ominis chuckled, face pressed into his shoulder. “We can’t take it home.”

“Even if it sings lullabies?”

“No.”

A pause.

“I already snuck it into our suitcase.”

“Oy—!”

Back in their flat in Hogsmeade, Ominis hung his beach hat by the door, now charmed to always find shade. Sebastian, with a ridiculous tan line, flopped on the couch and sighed. “Best week ever.”

Ominis sat beside him, kicked his feet up.

“…I’d marry you again.”

Sebastian grinned. “You better. I think the frog wants to officiate next time.”

Somewhere from inside the suitcase, a croak was heard, followed by the faintest notes of Celestina’s “A Cauldron Full of Hot, Strong Love.”

Ominis groaned.

“Merlin help me. I married a disaster.”

“And I married you.”

“Exactly.”

They kissed, as the frog began a new verse in the background.

Chapter Text

Feldcroft, many years later

The summer wind rustled through the old birch trees lining the riverbank. Birds sang low in the golden afternoon. Somewhere beyond the hills, the remnants of the last snow had long since melted, feeding the stream that lapped peacefully at the shore.

Two old men sat on a bench, worn smooth by time and memory. The same bench where, once, hearts had broken and healed and hoped.

Ominis sat straight, his silver hair neatly combed back, though a few strands stubbornly swayed in the breeze. His cane leaned gently against the side of the bench. One hand held a cup of tea—charmed to remain warm, always—while the other was cradled in Sebastian’s.

Sebastian, a touch more weathered, with deep lines etched around his mouth and eyes, stared quietly at their interlaced fingers. His thumb brushed along Ominis’ knuckles, over scars and calluses long familiar.

“I’ve been thinking,” Sebastian murmured, voice hoarse with age but warm.

Ominis tilted his head. “Merlin help us.”

Sebastian chuckled, low and fond. “We’ve sat on this bench in nearly every version of ourselves.” He looked out at the water. “As reckless boys. As grieving young men. As husbands. And now…”

“As old fools who can’t walk a kilometer without needing a nap,” Ominis supplied.

Sebastian grinned. “Exactly.” He squeezed Ominis’ hand. “And every time we sat here… I thought I loved you as much as I could. I was always wrong.”

Ominis was quiet a long moment. The wind caught in the leaves above them, whistling low like a lullaby.

Finally, Ominis turned his head slightly, as if looking at Sebastian. “You’ve always been impossible, Sebastian. Reckless. Loud. Infuriating.”

“I’m aware,” Sebastian said, amused.

“And the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Ominis exhaled, soft and slow, like it had taken a lifetime to say. “If I could do it all again, knowing everything, I’d still choose you. Every time.”

The river murmured its agreement.

They sat in silence for a while, hands still joined, tea cooling on the bench beside them.

When the sun finally dipped toward the horizon and gold turned to amber, Sebastian leaned his head gently onto Ominis’ shoulder.

“You think we’ve got another few years in us?”

Ominis smiled. “Maybe one or two.”

And they stayed like that, surrounded by birdsong, the ghost of old laughter echoing through the trees, and the love they had fought like hell to earn—settled, at last, in the quiet peace of forever.